Successful Blog

SOB Business Cafe 01-22-10

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SB Cafe

Welcome to the SOB Cafe

We offer the best in thinking — articles, books, podcasts, and videos about business online written by the Successful and Outstanding Bloggers of Successful Blog. Click on the titles to enjoy each selection.

The Specials this Week are

Chrisg
Steven Aitchison has a strong blog. Most people would regard his site as a success (in fact he claims it as the “biggest personal development blog in the UK) … So why would he ask for a blog critique when he is doing so many things right? With stats like these, Steven could be giving advice rather than asking for it.

Steve Woodrufff
It’s a none-too-fancy restaurant that has been serving mouth-watering chicken, biscuits, and jam since, oh, the days of the Pony Express. Loveless Cafe.

Starbucker
Sometimes a leader needs to think like a plumber.

Yep, a plumber.

How so? Think about pressure for a minute. A plumber deals with pressure all the time – in their case, water pressure.

Seth’s blog
Find a calling. Then deliver

Barry J Moltz
Now that jet lag has subsided, I can now reflect on what I learned on my three week vacation with my family to China, Hong Kong and Thailand.

1. You can stop and the world will go on…and that’s okay…

Deaf Mom’s World
Have you ever been caught in a conversation where you weren’t sure what was going on yet you nodded along, laughed along or excused yourself to head to the bathroom?

Related ala carte selections include

A New Player?
This is fun.

Sit back. Enjoy your read. Nachos and drinks will be right over. Stay as long as you like. No tips required. Comments appreciated.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

I’m a proud affiliate of

SOB Business Cafe 01-15-10

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SB Cafe

Welcome to the SOB Cafe

We offer the best in thinking — articles, books, podcasts, and videos about business online written by the Successful and Outstanding Bloggers of Successful Blog. Click on the titles to enjoy each selection.

The Specials this Week are

Remarkable Communicaton
The problem with putting so much you into your business is that there’s a finite amount of you.

in over your head
I don’t know about you, but I was pretty stupid when I was younger. I really believed that I should only do what I feel like at the moment, not what I really cared about in general. I wasted several years of my life as a result of it– sucks right?

Altitude Branding
When you think of social media roles, chances are you think of a community manager or the oh-so-generic “social media manager”, which is usually some function of the marketing department managing strictly social media programs. But there are loads of other potential roles that can integrate or represent social media alongside other business areas.

Diva Marketing
Candy button As I began building the deck (I often like to mix slides with conversation. People learn differently and PowerPoint offers a visual media.) candy dots ran through my mind. I thought it would be fun to include an image of candy dots to help illustrate the strategy trail.

Jonathan Fields, Awake at the Wheel
The questions lobbed across the table…

What impact do you want to have? And, on whom?

I sat, for a moment, like a dear in headlights.

Seth’s Blog
The first stand is run by two kids. They use Countrytime lemonade, paper cups and a bridge table. It’s a decent lemonade stand, one in the long tradition of standard lemonade stands.

Related ala carte selections include

Ian M Rountree
Stabbed myself with a screwdriver at work the other day. Hurt like hell. It’s better now – well, getting better anyway, that’s what a week of antibiotic cream is for. …

Yes. It stung. Yes. My hand is totally useless for now. Why do I say this taught me a few lessons?

Sit back. Enjoy your read. Nachos and drinks will be right over. Stay as long as you like. No tips required. Comments appreciated.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

I’m a proud affiliate of

SOB Business Cafe 01-08-10

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SB Cafe

Welcome to the SOB Cafe

We offer the best in thinking — articles, books, podcasts, and videos about business online written by the Successful and Outstanding Bloggers of Successful Blog. Click on the titles to enjoy each selection.

The Specials this Week are

Pick the Brain
No one actually wants to encounter failure in their life. That’s because when you look at the isolated incident, it means that you haven’t found success. However, with the right attitude, you can use your failure in order to get yourself to success in an accelerated fashion.


Punctuality Rules


It’s so easy to tell writers that words are tools and it’s good to have as many in the toolbox as possible. Mixing and matching words to form the perfect sentence, after all, is what writers DO.

But what if your vocabulary is actually getting in your way?

CKs Blog
As we wrap up this year and gear-up for the next, I’ve compiled this nifty slideshow featuring 20 helpful B2B social media posts, presentations and series to help B2B marketers start the new year off ready to integrate social media into their marketing mix in a way that helps them transition their marketing (and their mindsets!) to the Web 2.0 environment and works to increase their rates of success within it.

Communication Overtones
It has always been hard to get people to do what you want them to do.

In fact, if you try to get me to do something, chances are I won’t. It is one of my fatal flaws. I am stubborn like that, but I am willing to bet that a lot of you are, too.

Midcourse Correction
Traditional conferences versus social conferences. Which will you plan this year?

Not sure about the “Social Conference?” Read this post on “Screw Your Event Resolutions. Do You Conference Social?”

Related ala carte selections include

Itty Biz
OK. I realize you’re backlogged on your reading. And I realize that you’re going to be so sick of the G word that your brain is going to bleed. And I realize that all you really want to do is forget the holiday season ever happened and hurry up and get to February already.

How to Make Unstupid Goals

Sit back. Enjoy your read. Nachos and drinks will be right over. Stay as long as you like. No tips required. Comments appreciated.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

I’m a proud affiliate of

A 12-Step Strategy to Fit Your Blog into the Social Web

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How Does a Blog Fit into All of This?

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Once upon a blogosphere, people on the web connected and talked through text, audio, and video, linking from blog to blog. That linking made a community of people who were related by content and conversations on those same blogs.

Then about 4 years ago, the blogosphere got interested in social media tools. Microblogs and social networks were new ways to reach out, connect, and talk. The blogosphere was evolving …

  1. As the blogosphere grew up, some members stood out. They were fluent, proficient, had abilities as practitioners and teachers. Their subscriber lists grew faster. Their voices were heard first and sounded louder. People started looking up to them. Smaller groups formed around what they said.
  2. As the blogosphere grew out, some members built new tools, new sites, and new communities. The businesses offered new things to do, new places to meet, to ways to interact. People looked out for others who even more like themselves. We had new choices. The larger community split off into more like-minded groups.

The effect has been that the community has diversified into smaller groups and spread out. The conversation is bigger, but it’s no longer concentrated on our blogs. The new sites and communities, the speed, mobility, and breadth of the tools attracted even more people to the check out this social web community.

Some of these folks found that they could be a part without having a blog.

Millions of people are spending their time on the social sites. They will out their many profiles with a to Facebook or LinkedIn. The commitment is lower and requires less editing.

How does a blog fit into all of this?
Having a blog was a having a home in that community — a place people could visit, get to know you, engage with you and your ideas.

It still does.

In fact, a blog is even more foundational. Have you noticed how noisy the Internet is? When people visit our blogs they can come in from the huge noise of the larger conversation stream. A blog can offer a respite. They get room to breathe and a chance to share a larger thought. But it’s time to step back, think strategically, and adapt to how people act now. Habits have changed.

According to PostRank study from 2007 to 2009 which followed 1000 of the most engaging feeds, they found:

  • 30% more people are engaging in the social web
  • less than 50% of that engagement is happening on blogs … it’s moved to social sites.
  • trackbacks linking blogs have dropped from 19% to 3%
  • Twitter, Friendfeed, and Facebook and other social sites have gone up from less than 1% to over 29%
  • Blog posts have a longer life-span. In 2007, 98% of the engagement occurred in the first HOUR. In 2009, only 36% of the engagement takes place in the first DAY.

Unless you’ve just started blogging, you’ve probably noticed some of that — fewer visitors than last year, how the conversation has moved away from the comment box to the social sites. But you might have missed how quickly more people are coming or that our post are lasting longer and reaching farther.

That calls for a serious new strategy as the Blogosphere evolves into the Social Web.

A 12-Step Strategy to Fit Your Blog into the Social Web

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Your blog numbers might be down, but the engagement in what you do and think could be growing exponentially. The bloggers and blogs that do well offer outstanding and meaningful content that is in tune with where folks engage naturally and easy to read and share with their friends.

Here are 12 Steps to consider to refit your blog to the Social Web.

  1. Mark your place … Find the tools you need to measure where your blog is today. Some include: Google Analytics, Woopra, Quantcast.com, Alexa.com, Technorati.com PostRankAnalytics,and Compete.com Identify and track information so that you have a historical marker.
  2. Do Reconnaissance … Use the tools and study conditions to find where your main audience spends their time. Look beyond Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Find the niches. Learn their habits. Starter tools include: Google Alerts, Search.twitter.com, addictomatic.com, and topsy.com Internet’s Largest Twitter Tools Resource List.
  3. Watch, Listen, and Make Alliances … Be constantly aware of what other people are doing. Ask for help. Turn great conversations into content. Invite savvy bloggers to write guest posts on topics they know more about.
  4. Clarify Your Identity / Message … Who are you and what do you talk about? In this fast-paced trust economy, people want to instantly who you are. Design and content need to say who you are. Does your design look like everyone else’s? Content is the main context of your web identity. It establishes your authority and your expertise. Google loves new content to index. People love new ideas.
  5. Define a Consistent Workable Plan … Identify 4-8 key niche topics you’ll write about and 4-8 types of blog posts you favor. You might make a blank monthly grid with the types across the top and the topics down the side. Even a loose plan — one that allows you to respond to new ideas and unexpected events in your area of expertise — will make the blogging work more predictable to you and more accessible to your readers.
  6. Use Best Practices … Save time by brainstorming several ideas first and later writing several drafts at one time. Then, you’ll have “almost ready” blog posts captured when you need them. Link out, cite, and promote others at least 6 times more than you promote your own work. Understand when sharing your work is passing on value and when it’s being a pain.
  7. Test Constantly … When and where will you publish? How often? Which days? Which time of day works for your audience? Should it be more or less than one a day?
  8. Mind the Details … Write outstanding headlines over outstanding content. Take more time than ever before making sure your ideas are sound and attractive. Target them to your niche. Loyal fans will see, read, and share.
  9. Network and Connect … Plan time at social sites and commenting on other blogs. Divide that time between people who do what you do and your ideal customers. Start conversations online and off. Be interested and interesting. Look for reasons to offer a hand.
  10. Innovate New Forms … Try a “Twitter trackback.” When you reply to a reader’s comment, take the link back to him or her. A quick tweet saying, @ReaderX I answered your great comment [link] promotes the reader as well as your reply.
  11. Feed the Content Community … Write content and answer questions wherever your readers are. Engage people where they are. Don’t hide all of your ideas and expertise on your blog. As Google starts indexing more social sites, this can only work better and better.
  12. Invite People Home … Constantly add resources and repackage content to readers to explore your archives again. When it’s appropriate, invite people back to see other things you’ve written or to make sure they don’t miss something they’ve said they need.

Having a blog is even more important now that the blogosphere is evolving into the Social Web. Blogs still offer the place where we can “go deep,” expressing thoughts with clarity and conviction, where we can talk and engage under our own terms of service. A power strategy can leverage your blog to grow your web presence, your business, and your brand.

What other strategies are you using to fit your blog into the Social Web?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

Buy the ebook. Learn the art of online conversation.

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SOB Business Cafe 12-18-09

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SB Cafe

Welcome to the SOB Cafe

We offer the best in thinking — articles, books, podcasts, and videos about business online written by the Successful and Outstanding Bloggers of Successful Blog. Click on the titles to enjoy each selection.

The Specials this Week are

MuMBRELLA
And as Saatchi & Saatchi has demonstrated, it now goes without saying that you actually need to understand social media before you start. You can’t start learning on the client’s time.

Altitude Branding
Information hoarders are an endangered species. It’s not enough to know something anymore, because the internet knows it, too. If you don’t share it, someone, somewhere, will. Your value to a company is no longer your tribal knowledge, because knowledge is currency now, and it’s traded on a massive free market.

Grow Map
Most of your market is trying to find you by searching somewhere – whether that is on a search engine, blog search, on their favorite Social Networking sites, using search tools like FeelTipTop or in Local Search Directories.

Small Biz Survival
We’re 15 days from 2010. It’s time to give your small business a jump start. That means planning, record keeping, and goal setting. I have four suggestions for you.

Adam King Studio
If you’re a professional interior designer or architect, you no doubt are aware of helping your client express themselves with the overall design of their home. In essence you’re providing an expression of your client’s values, beliefs, and principles. Hopefully, you’re also working with the rare customer who is employing you to design around their passion as well.

Related ala carte selections include

One Mann’s Opinion
Seth Godin is one of the most creative minds we have in this world.
He is not curing disease or changing the trajectory of war, he
makes us think and create.

Sit back. Enjoy your read. Nachos and drinks will be right over. Stay as long as you like. No tips required. Comments appreciated.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

I’m a proud affiliate of

SOB Business Cafe 12-04-09

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SB Cafe

Welcome to the SOB Cafe

We offer the best in thinking — articles, books, podcasts, and videos about business online written by the Successful and Outstanding Bloggers of Successful Blog. Click on the titles to enjoy each selection.

The Specials this Week are

Abundance Highway
Like many people whose parent came out of the Great Depression, I was bought up very abundantly, but with a sense of caution,

“we can’t afford that” ” Money doesn’t grow on trees”

and other such limiting beliefs

Catskill Cottage Seed
That being said, the most interesting social media plays I’ve been involved in had noting to do with pre-existing relationships. They were spontaneous and unpredictable.

chrisg
Are you afraid of what people will think of you?

I bet you have skills, knowledge, experience or time that you could share with others, that you could offer to people to help them, but something is holding you back.

The Fluent Self
Me: It’s like I don’t want to put it out in the world yet. I love it. It’s beautiful. And there is something there that is just… not ready.

CK’s Blog
… it’s imperative that those of us who have been working and participating in social media for years take a BIG step back and remember that this space is still brand new to most B2B companies… and change takes time (and comes with objections aplenty). That’s just the nature of change.

siliconANGLE
We spent a lot of time talking about the FTC blogger guidelines when they were proposed and approved over the last several months. The new rules, in case you missed the news, went into effect a few days ago, with more or less a whimper.

Related ala carte selections include A SPECIAL OFFER!

Get to be a Super Genius!!
I’ve been invited as a guest to be part of Word of Mouth Supergenius Seminar on December 16th!! 12 How-To Classes, 12 Case Studies, 6 Authors Word of Mouth Supergenius!

Here’s the important thing: IT’S NOT ABOUT SOCIAL MEDIA.

Social media is an incredible tool. But social media is not word of mouth marketing. It’s a tool we can use for the online portion of word of mouth. But it’s not even the main tool there. I would argue that more recommendations go by plain old-fashioned email than all the social networks combined. …

The point of word of mouth isn’t ecommerce; it isn’t to count clicks and CPAs.

The point of word of mouth is to be a brand worth talking about. To be a company that people are proud to tell their friends about. It’s to replace paid marketing with personal connections. To replace cash with love. To be fantastic.

And that’s what this conference is all about: A revival of TRUE WOM. A home for the simple idea that HAPPY CUSTOMERS ARE YOUR BEST ADVERTISERS.

True WOM is a movement.

It’s a movement that makes things better. It teaches companies to treat people better. It shows us that customer happiness is what it’s all about – for all these warm and fuzzy reasons… and because companies that are nice to people make more money.

You can attend too for a discount price of only $144 — that’s almost 1/2 price!! — if you use the code VIPSUCCESSFULBLOG. The discount goes all to you. I just get the pleasure of passing it on. Check it out here!

Sit back. Enjoy your read. Nachos and drinks will be right over. Stay as long as you like. No tips required. Comments appreciated.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

I’m a proud affiliate of