Successful Blog

The Mic is On: Friends, Fans, and Mostly Trolls

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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.

Be On the Watch for Internet Trolls!

We meet our first friends growing up. Sometimes we find we have a fan. It’s a shock when we bump into a troll. They’ve been around since the Three Billy Goats Gruff tried to cross the bridge. You can find them in the World of Warcraft on Twitter, and in the comment box of your own blog.

Here’s a link about them and a guide to handling the problem. It’s only a few paragraphs, but it will get you in the mood because tonight it’s about trolls:

  • trolls we once dated
  • troll dolls & trolls in fairy tales
  • trolls who interrupt Internet conversations
  • ahem . . .

And, we’ll talk about whatever comes up, (because we always get off topic, anyway.)

rainbow_troll_from_sxc.hu

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 to share —

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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What is Tuesday Open Comment Night?

Open Mic 7pm Chgo Time: Friends, Fans, and Mostly Trolls

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Join Us Tonight

Trolls Belong in Fairy Tales

We meet our first friends growing up. Sometime when we do something well we find we have a fan. It’s a shock when we bump into a troll. They’ve been around since the Three Billy Goats Gruff tried to cross the bridge. They’re also cute little dolls with fuzzy hair. You can find them in the World of Warcraft on Twitter, and in the comment box of your own blog.

Here’s a link about them and a guide to handling the problem. It’s only a few paragraphs, but it will get you in the mood because tonight it’s about trolls: trolls we once dated, troll dolls & trolls in fairy tales, and trolls interrupt Internet conversations

ahem . . .
And, we’ll talk about whatever comes up, (because we always get off topic, anyway.)

Oh, and bring example links to share!

The rules are simple — be nice.

Do be nice. 🙂

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related article
What is Tuesday Open Comment Night?

Social Media: Great Marketing Is . . .

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Tuesday Open Comments Night, The Virtual Conference, and The Blog-to Show

The Living Web

This weekend we had an event that some folks have been calling a success and a few have written me to say what a great marketing idea was. Other things I do have been called masterful marketing too. None of them started out as such.

We all know that promoting an event or a blog looks easier than it is to do. Word of Mouth only works when folks want to talk. I learned that the same way everyone does by inventing great marketing ideas that didn’t take off.

I quit trying to market. Here’s what I recommend instead:

  • Get to know people who stick around and who pass on the word when something cool is going on.
  • Find ways to invest more in the folks who invest more in you and your blog.
  • Make a stage where your readers can connect and show everyone what they know.
  • Celebrate all of the above with as much creativity, fun, and dignity as you can think up!

Open Comment Night started because, on a Tuesday afternoon, I thought it would be fun if we all could just talk. The Virtual Conference for SOBCon07 was invented as a way to include folks who couldn’t come to the first SOBCon. The 25-Words project was a way to share the experience of how limiting our words can change how we think. The Blog-to Show happened because folks said they needed a way to talk about their blogs.

All of those got called “great marketing.” If that’s so then,

Great marketing is connecting and celebrating readers and customers.

Let’s talk about how to help readers and customers connect with each other.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

Sheila Scarborough – The SOBCon Update

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Good day folks! Our next update on what the SOBCon attendees are up since the conference this past May is from Sheila Scarborough. She is getting a lot done with newcomers to the world of Web 2.0:

Sheila ScarboroughHere’s what I’ve started doing (with Connie and some others) since I was inspired by SOBCon08:

We want to reach people who are new to social media/Web 2.0 – they understand that they need to understand it, but they “don’t have time” to understand it! With the Every Dot Connects consortium of communications experts, Sheila Scarborough is teaching a series of entry-level, practical Web 2.0 Tools workshops in the Austin and San Antonio area. We cover the basics of using LinkedIn and Twitter, we talk about Creative Commons on Flickr, we demonstrate shooting video with a Flip camera and uploading it to YouTube, and we are planning a big one-day workshop on blogging.

Lessons learned so far, for others who may wish to parlay their social media knowledge into similar workshops, is that it is easy to be so comfortable with the technology that you forget that your students are not (I confused one student by using the term “widget,” which was new to her.) In the classic teaching conundrum, it is hard to not overshoot some students while simultaneously boring others. We use a brief survey when students register on Eventbrite, to find out what they already know, and then work very hard to calibrate our presentations. Other lessons:

  • Learning about LinkedIn is more popular than we thought – it’s seen as the most useful, professional Web 2.0 app.
  • People CAN be convinced that Twitter is worth trying if you can explain exactly why you follow certain people and give specific examples of how it’s helped your business or personal life
  • Teaching RSS is harder than we thought – there are so many readers available, people often don’t use the orange RSS button on their blogs and there isn’t nearly as much standardization of this feature as you’d think. Our students love Guy Kawasaki’s Alltop, which we present as an alternative to RSS.
  • Many people have never heard of Creative Commons and excited to know that you CAN find good free photography for blogs and other online content, if you follow some simple CC rules on Flickr
  • Students are amazed at the ease of the Flip camera, and the quality of the videos.

Fellow SOBCon-ers are welcome to contact either Sheila [sheila at sheilascarborough dot com]or Connie Reece for more details about how we set up and run these workshops.

Thanks!

Sheila

Pushing the Web and WordPress, What I Found, AND What’s Next!

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Something New Means Something New to Learn

blog-to 50

It started two years ago, with a tiny idea that had a respectable turnout. Many folks I met at that first Blog-to Show are folks I still see. When we’d been talking about Creative Networking, it seemed natural to brush off the old idea and try it again.

I forgot that things on the web grow exponentially.
And where there’s big growth, there’s bound be big learning.

You’ll find the entire showcase here and a debrief below.

What I’d Hoped and What I Found

The longer I work with social media, the more value the tools as a way offer people a way to connect around something they care about. When you offer what’s fun and useful, the connections naturally follow. I’d hoped that the idea of showcasing our blogs would offer that.

The Blog-to show proved that out more than I expected.

  • More people submitted blogs.
  • More people cleaned up their blogs for visitors.
  • More people visited the show.
  • It also took more time and was more fun than I expected.
  • More people said “thank you” thank I would have dreamed.

Even reading the submissions made me feel more connected to the folks who participated this weekend. The comments and conversations speak to the generosity of those who came.

People pointed out the best of the blog their viewing. Many testimonials cropped up. We were discussing great blogging. Can’t miss the sense of community and participation.

Taken and Missed Opportunities

Some 30 entries arrived in the first few two hours after I announced the Blog-to Show. From then forward, submissions rolled in faster than I could process them. At one point on Friday, entries arrived a rate of one per minute. When I got home from my Friday meetings, I had a pile over 100 deep, While I worked on that pile, 100 more came in.

Doing so many at once, I saw the varied levels of investment people put into this opportunity to offer this “mini-blog” resume. How well the submission was formatted and finished seemed to show how seriously the blogger thinks about his or her blog and the community that would gather.

  • The submission request had five distinct parts chosen to give value to all show visitors. Over 30% of the submissions had missing information.
  • Some submissions offered straight sales copy. In the overall picture, those submissions stood out in a way that might not have helped them.
  • Some folks don’t do brief. Those who wrote a novel — when the request was a sentence — might have been reflecting their blog writing. I found myself thinking that with so many to choose from I might choose based on the quantity as well as the quality of what submitters wrote
  • Some folks didn’t use the requested subject line which meant their email ended up in the wrong place in my email filters.

From a marketing viewpoint, these are all things I’ll remember when I enter the next such submission myself. People remember when you make their life harder and when you make their life a breeze.

What the Technology Did that Surprised Me

I planned the event for Saturday, because traffic is lower the issue of damage if something went awry. Problems occurred with my XML-Sitemap plug-in, the server timings, and published posts that didn’t show up on the front page.

The mystery of the disappearance of posts 163-201 was found later on my dashboard. Though the timestamps clearly showed them published in sequence, somehow they were in reality rescheduled to post at 3 hours, 4 hours, and 5 hours after the rest were done. Great WordPress minds are researching what happened there.

I also stretched the limits of my clipboard to copy and paste — it became a resource suck. Apologies to those who’s links got pasted incorrectly in the process. As far as I know all are well now. Thanks to all who were generous in calling such things to my attention. That’s what community is about.

If you’re wondering, after all were compiled and formatted, it took about 2.5 hours to copy in and timestamp the individual entries.

How It Will Look Next Time — Get Ready!

Enough of you who participated this time (and some folks who just missed getting in) have asked about if there will be a next one. It seems that the opportunity to make something even better won’t let me leave the idea. So, I’m already planning. Here’s where I am so far. Feel free to add ideas in the comments.

The January 2009 Blog-to Show

Dates of the show: January 31 and February 1, 2009
Submissions due no later than: January 15, 2009

Here’s what I think the application will include.
Write up the following information — each part separate by a line space.
Here’s a filled out example.

Bloggers Name(s):

Blog Title:

Blog URL link in the full http:// form:

Blog Tagline (no more than 10 words):

One or two sentences about what makes your blog worth visiting.

A brief paragraph of blogging advice or a short bloggy quote that shows a little personality.

Must enter in only one of these categories
go cart (newbie blogger — less than 6 months)
street car (theme-based design)
formula 1 (custom theme or high mod)

Every entry also must include a .jpeg thumbnail of your front page, no larger than 150px wide or a pix of the blogger.

Any entry without all of the pieces will be returned unsubmitted.

I’m telling you now so that you’ll have time to get ready . . . and I’ll have time to get some more exciting reasons to participate lined up for you.

And maybe next time, it will be something a little more creative . . .

What do you think? What did you see that I didn’t?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

Social Promotion and a Japanese Maple

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When We’re Fully Expressed . . .

relationships button

The hardest part of any event used to be meeting many new people in a short time. Setting a great first impression in seconds was more than I could get my social skills around. I’d either get too big or too small. I’d never be just right.

Part of my problem was that I put too much value on social promotion. I could never quite meet strangers as simply who I am.

A wise, highly successful friend never seemed to have a problem like mine. So I took to watching him instead. Almost immediately I realized the difference was in the way he looked at himself and what he does.

My friend thinks of what he’s accomplished simply as things he has done and things he does. To him, his work is nothing more than that. As a result, no matter who asks him about it, his answers sounds as if he’s explaining his a day to a curious friend. He doesn’t weigh how what he’s saying might reflect upon another person’s idea of him.

Japanese_maple_by_Liz_Strauss

When we fully accept what we’re good at, we don’t mind talking about what we do. We’re not waiting for others to value it. We don’t get shy standing in the light.

Does that make sense to you?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!