Successful Blog

Mini-Session 9: Branding and Blogging

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Guest Speaker: Mike Wagner

1. Blogging is a free sample of your brand.

2. Your creativity and unique point of view must be evident in your blog.

3. Everyone’s blog contains implicit and sometimes explicit invitations that
become your brand’s promise.

4. Empathy is what makes blogs useful, without it your blog brand is
useless.

5. Blogs are for the “pro-am” spirit of our times; do you have a “pro-am”
brand?

Thank you, Mike!
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Visit Mike’s blog, Own Your Own Brand, to catch a regular update on how to keep your brand on the right path. –ME “Liz” Strauss
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Let’s open the Q&A . . .

I’ll go first. Mike, what is the key to owning your own brand?

During the Virtual Conference today, you can take $100 off registration to SOBCon 07.

Mini-Session 8: Blogging Beyond the Blogosphere

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Guest Speaker: Wendy Piersall

We build our traffic and subscriber base primarily from other bloggers – but in doing so, are we unwittingly excluding non-bloggers from our sites?

We started our blogs to reach others with the value we can add to their lives. But we may not reach our goal if we stay too focused on each other in the world of blogs.

What can we do to ensure the welcome mat is out for all of our site visitors, not just our blogging pals? And how can we add value beyond the Blogosphere?

Thank you, Wendy!
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Wendy blogs for eMoms and eDads on the life of work-at-home parent. You can find Wendy at eMoms at Home. –ME “Liz” Strauss
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Let’s open the Q&A . . .

I’ll go first. Wendy, what can a blogger do to attrack non-blogging readers?

During the Virtual Conference today, you can take $100 off registration to SOBCon 07.

Mini-Session 7: Music and Moods

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Guest Speaker: Ellen Weber, PhD

Ever rolled out of bed like a Mack truck hit you – only to find a particular tune on the car radio suddenly unzipped new colors into your day? Both sleep and music can make or break a workday in ways that might surprise you. More surprising yet is the fact that you can juggle these two to serve you better.

So while music and sleep may shift your moods from calm to calamity you can shift them back, by music you play and by sleep patterns that avoid alarms while in the REM or deeper rapid eye movement stages. What music do you listen to and how do you awaken on an ordinary work day?

Thank you, Ellen!
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Visit Ellen’s Blog, Brain Based Business, where she provides daily tips for business leaders on how our brains affect what we do. –ME “Liz” Strauss
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Let’s open the Q&A . . .

I’ll go first. Ellen, so what music is music to blog by?

 

During the Virtual Conference today, you can take $100 off registration to SOBCon 07.

Mini-Session 6: Blogging Blunders

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Guest Speaker: Chris Garrett

Liz left a comment on my blog about bloggers who talk down to their readers. It got me thinking (as Liz’s comments do). I don’t think it was aimed at me but at the same time don’t want people to think I believe I have all the answers.

I firmly believe we are all learning, and should make every effort to. We all have experiences to share. Experience is gained through doing things wrong as much as getting things right. Sometimes I think we learn more from goofs than successes. I expect we have all made some mistakes that others could avoid.

The biggest blunder I have made quite a few times is switching blog URLs. My sites have broken links through switching domains, changing hosts or changing software platform Whatever the cause the end result was breaking the paths people were using to find me. In the early days it meant broken bookmarks and links. More recently having to start over with zero feed readers. You should always make the effort to keep consistant URLs. If necessary redirect the old to the new.

Another major mistake was at the launch of performancing. I posted too much too fast. Readers couldn’t keep up with it and I burned out. At times I was posting four long posts a day. Our readers would have been just as happy with one day, perhaps more so. Yes when you launch a blog it is important to have a good archive of posts but this was overkill.

My most recent mistake was going off on a self-righteous rant. It’s not my style. I can’t even do it very well. There are very few occasions where I regret posting, even fewer where I go back and change a post once it has gone out to feed, but this one didn’t sit well with me at all so I edited it. My lesson here was to never post angry.

What blogging blunders have you made? Share your “shame” in the comments …

Thank you, Chris!
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Visit Chris’ Blog Chrisg.com where he keeps us all thinking straight on the ideas of new media –Me “Liz” Strauss
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Let’s open the Q&A . . .

I’ll go first, my second week at Successful Blog, I asked a programmer with limited SEO to help me do a simple series on search engines. I had no idea what I was talking about, and didn’t realize that his ways were no longer current. I learned a lot about SEO, negative feedback, keeping cool under fire, and why you should stick to what you know.

Who’s next?

During the Virtual Conference today, you can take $100 off registration to SOBCon 07.

Mini-Session 5: Maximizing the Effectiveness of Videoblogging

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Guest Speaker: Rodney Rumford

Video Blogging: How to maximize the effectiveness of a video blog can present some real challenges. It is too bad that most bloggers don’t leverage the power of video in a more efficient and effective manner.

Here are a few questions to ponder:

  • 1. Why even create a video blog?
  • 2. Should I use a video delivery service such as YouTube?
  • 3. Do i want my video blog to ba a “Real Video Podcast Channel” so it
    can be on iTunes?
  • 4. How can I leverage my video blog and make it spread everywhere and allow people to put the entire video blog into their blog?
  • 5. Would it be cool if other video viewers could connect and form a
    community around my video blog?
  • 6. How can i make my video blog more viral?
  • 7. What makes a “good” video engaging?

Feel free to ask any questions or add your thoughts and
comments to the conversation on this hot topic.

Thank you, Rodney!
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Check out Rodney’s soon to be released product Video Sticky where you can connect with other like-minded video viewers and blog readers. –Me “Liz” Strauss
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Let’s open the Q&A . . .

I’ll go first, Rodney, what are the advantages of using video on a business blog?

During the Virtual Conference today, you can take $100 off registration to SOBCon 07.

Mini-Session 4: (Why) Navigation is Important to You and Your Readers

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Joe Hauckes

Liz has invited me to be a “speaker” at this Virtual Version of SOBCon07. I’m not really sure why she picked me, but I was more than happy to accept. So, whether you are able to attend the Conference in 3D in May or in 2D Now, Everyone is Welcome to join in Today at the SOBCon07 Virtual Version.

(Why) Navigation is Important to You and Your Readers

What’s the most annoying thing you encounter when you are looking for something specific? Let’s say you already found a Blog that looks promising as a place to get some answers to some questions you may have. You see the original article you landed on, but you have more questions.

You go through “Archives”. You hit the “Previous post” and “Next post” links in search of some specific information but you can’t seem to find what you are looking for. You know it should be there somewhere (and it very well could be) but you just can’t seem to find it.

What do you do next? You go somewhere else to find what you need.

That’s where NAVIGATION comes in…

When someone visits your Blog, especially for the first time, you need to give them a way to find other things that could be of interest to them. You want to draw them deeper into your site. In order to do that you should give them access to the places they can find what they are looking for by providing things like Series You Have Written, some of your Most Popular Posts and Posts related to the subject of the post they landed on.

Show them your Recent Posts so they can get a better idea of the overal Theme and Subject Matter of your Blog. Provide a Category List covering the various topics you have covered previously.

Put links to the Most Recent Comments and any Special Projects you have running at the time. Invite visitors to join in, let them know you want them to be part of your community. The more Intra-links you provide the deeper new readers might dig to find information and possibly become Loyal Readers and Friends.

The only way I can achive my objective to help out others working at home is to makeit easy for them to READ what I’ve WRITTEN. And this can Best be accomplished by providing really Good NAVIGATION to other posts on My Blog.

What are your thoughts about NAVIGATION? Can you think of other reasons NAVIGATION is important to you? Your Readers?

Thank you, Joe!
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Visit Joe’s Blog Working at Home on the Internet where his main objective is to help others through my experiences in Working at Home by writing helpful articles. .–ME “Liz” Strauss
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Let’s open the Q&A . . .

I’ll go first, Joe, what’s your biggest frustration when navigating blogs?

During the Virtual Conference today, you can take $100 off registration to SOBCon 07.