Successful Blog

Thanks to Week 171 SOBs

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Successful and Outstanding Bloggers

Let me introduce the bloggers
who have earned this official badge of achievement,

and the right to call themselves
Successful Blog SOBs.

I invite them to take a badge home to display on their blogs.

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They take the conversation to their readers,
contribute great ideas, challenge us, make us better, and make our businesses stronger.

I thank all of our SOBs for thinking what we say is worth passing on.
Good conversation shared can only improve the blogging community.

Should anyone question this SOB button’s validity, send him or her to me. Thie award carries a “Liz said so” guarantee, is endorsed by Kings of the Hemispheres, Martin and Michael, and is backed by my brothers, Angelo and Pasquale.

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Want to become an SOB?

If you’re an SO-Wanna-B, you can see the whole list of SOBs and learn how to be one by visiting the SOB Hall of Fame– A-Z Directory . Click the link or visit the What IS an SOB?! page in the sidebar.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

SOB Business Cafe 01-30-09

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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

Brian Gardner Media explores real life action on the Internet.
Haven’t you ever seen that video clip, where the guy drops his camera at the zoo, and panics, because he just spent a lot of money on it? So he climbs over the fence and just when he thinks his life is bad enough, he realizes that he just entered the lion’s den?

Duct Tape Marketing explores tools we may have forgotten.
Having lots of channels and lots of ways for folks to receive relevant, education based content is a must.

While social media and other web based marketing tools are getting most of today’s hype, email marketing to a list of willing recipients is still a very powerful way to market.

Beth’s Blog explores insights of online experiences.
Last year at this time, I was in Austin, TX doing a keynote workshop for Legal ervices Corporation on the ROI of Nonprofit Technology. I interviewed technology practitioners from the poverty law community about how they approach ROI and significant technology systems investments like client databases, document assembly systems, or video conference systems.

CC Seed explores a finding a new place in time.
The empty aisles I found while visiting Binghamton, NY should not have surprised me, but they did.

Related ala carte selections include

PerkettPRsuasion explores do-it-yourself work of the wrong kind.

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

REACHING OUT – EDUCATION & COMMUNITY

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Are you sharing what you’ve learned ? All forms of educational institutions attempt to create community. From grade school through to post secondary education, communities are created through classrooms, activities and sports. Many educational institutions have websites where school information and directories are located. I found two examples of social media being used to foster community and take it one step further. The interesting thing about this is that both individuals are documenting and sharing the process of using social media to strengthen community. 

Rachel Reuben is the Director of Web Communication and Strategic Projects at State University of New York at New Paltz. Rachel launched an online community for students based upon a cafe like context. She created a Ning group and invited potential students to join. Although not a new endeavor, other universities have done the same thing, Rachel is  documenting and sharing the process with her community so more can learn from the experience.

Diane Collier, a PHD student at UBC started a community to encourage dialogue about the readings in advance of discussion in class. Instead of emailing everyone it was a simpler forum. The students could also respond quickly, easily and in simple terms. “The idea was partly to take away the voice of the prof too so that students engage in freer way.We also encouraged students to add personal and professional stuff. videos, pics…Also, it’s ongoing. We didn’t shut it down after the course so students could continue to talk as they move into teaching.” When she gives lectures to future teachers about methods she uses this example to demonstrate the power of community through social media. 

Sharing valuable information about using social media to foster community growth and increase ROI is what sets these two examples apart.

 

Kathryn @northernchick

Photo credit:FJ Gaylor

Above the Fold: Everything in Order

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What a Few Tweaks Can Do

ABOVE THE FOLD

I met Carole Hicks on Twitter. Then she asked a question via email and, before I replied, I made her an offer. I said I have this feature called, Above the Fold, I’d like to bring back to my blog. Would you be game for consultation? She was most agreeable. Thus starts the saga of tweaking her blog with the fabulous title —

Everything in Order [dot] com
But the fabulous title was outshouted by some noisy color …

So we got to work together. Here’s how the Above the Fold Tweak Process works

  1. I make a “before” screenshot.
  2. We talk through some changes for readability.
  3. The blogger makes the changes. (In this case, Carole took notes for her developer.)
  4. We talk while the tweaks are in process. (She passed them on.)
  5. I take an “after” screenshot and share the results in a post.

Tweaking Everything in Order

The blog: Everything n Order . com
Everything in Order, creative problem-solving…beautiful ideas.
URL: : http://www.everythingnorder.com
Blogger: Carole Hicks

Before

This is EverythingnOrder.com before we started.

Three Tweaks that We Agreed Upon

In this series, we’ll concentrate only three important tweaks for each blog that is featured. On Carole’s blog, those three tweaks were these.

  1. The backgrounds were overpowering — the coral wrap and the coral type were too vibrant and vibrating.
  2. The sidebar needed focus and less text / and disappeared on the post page. (Sorry I missed the sidebar in the screen shot.)
  3. A search box and ways to subscribe were missing.

Carole and I discussed how the true black background played into the bright shade of the coral outer wrap to make it almost vibrate. I suggested another shade of color with a touch more black in the coral and a black background that was a little more charcoal. blink test, the feed button wins. We decided that it would be a much stronger presentation if the title got that first attention. Folks would remember where they were and where they wanted to return.

We talked about the tag cloud and other sidebar information. I mentioned that the large tags seemed to be saying that’s all or mostly all she talked about — was that the first impression she wanted to be giving? Carole decided that might not be her whole story.

When choosing text the type size needs to match the line length. If they don’t match, the eye has trouble doing the “return sweep” to the next line correctly. As often happens, the line was too long for the size of the type in the body text. We shortened the main body copy block and increased the type size.

We talked about reasons that a search box and subscription options were important.

We made other changes. Can you see them?

For the results, turn the page now. [Read more…]

What Is Social Networking?

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The LANGUAGE of SOCIAL MEDIA

Words have a deep effect on
how we interpret and interact with the world.
The words we use and how we define them
reveal our interests, concerns, and values.
This series explores the words of social media.

social networking and a social network

Most literally, social networking would be meeting and making connections and relationships — both business and social — online and offline. In the lexicon of social media, social networking involves establishing an online presence and connecting regularly with other people and businesses who have done the same. Connections are made through hyperlinks and references embedded in personal profiles, comment text, audio comments, podcasts, videos.

Social networking sites provide efficient ways for individuals (and individual businesses) to find and connect with friends and colleagues, to establish new relationships and deepen them, and to introduce friends and colleagues to each other. Many social networking sites also offer platforms for discussion of topics that a community or network finds mutually interesting or beneficial.

In the most concise terms, a social network is a group of like-minded individuals connected by a common interest.

@rubybluesox: “we know ‘enough’ about each other that we could ‘hang out’ in person and be friends … but in a ‘linguistic’ way… so it requires a certain depth that most ‘marketers’ aren’t used to”
@thomasclifford: “What is social networking? A means to validate our search for meaning.”
@brendansmith: @pixelfan for me everything i do in social networking is business, for fun, family and friends, I use the phone or meet face to face
@pm_41: @mashable Why would I hire people to tweet for me? The whole idea of social-networking is to express YOURSELF in front of the world.
@brunsvold: I sometimes get the feeling that social networking is like high school. The only way to survive is to pretend to be too cooler than everyone

For more information see:
Social Network
Social Networking in Plain English
Social-networking sites work to turn users into profits
I Saw The Future Of Social Networking The Other Day
Leadership, the Internet and the ‘Tribes’ of the World

SEE ALSO:
What Is Social Media?

Got more to add? C’mon let’s talk.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

The Mic is On: It's About T-Shirts, Cards, and Bumper Stickers

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It’s Like Open Mic Only Different

The Mic Is On

Here’s how it works.

It’s like any rambling conversation. Don’t try to read it all. Jump in whenever you get here. Just go to the end and start talking. EVERYONE is WELCOME.
The rules are simple — be nice.

There are always first timers and new things to talk about. It’s sort of half “Cheers” part “Friends” and part video game. You don’t know how much fun it is until you try it.

and Other Witty Remarkables

We’ve all seen them. The classic remarks that say what we’d really like to say, the ones that describe us so well we wear them or give them to our friends, and the ones that mystify and confound us, but get us talking just the same. C’mon share a few.

  • This t-shirt has been read more than your blog
  • Please pass, I left early
  • Visualize Grilled Cheese
  • How can I miss you if you won’t go away?
Fred Babb T-shirt "Don't Drink and Draw."
Fred Babb T-shirt Don't Drink and Draw.

And, whatever else comes up, including THE EVER POPULAR, Basil the code-writing donkey . . . and flamenco dancing (because we always get off topic, anyway.)

Oh, and bring example links.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
image: Fred Babb t-shirt
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