Shaun Low

Making it easy for readers of your content to share that content with others is one of the ways that you can make your blog or RSS feed ever more useful to those readers.

Plus it benefits you, the content creator, as your content gets wider visibility.

For quite a while, I’ve been using FeedBurner’s FeedFlare service which adds a number of links to my blog posts and RSS feeds, like this:

That was ok, I thought, although it seemed kinda flaky at times on blog posts. Sometimes the links would disappear for no reason I could ever figure out.

There’s also the often-lengthy row of pretty icons approach quite a few sites take, like this:

I’ve always found that approach distracting. Too much bling, it seems to me. Plus I never knew what half the icons meant.

So I’ve resisted doing anything other than the feed flares which, as text links only and in the same typeface as the content, didn’t distract that much from that content.

Yet I’ve sometimes thought that maybe the links I have weren’t the links people would find useful. Or, rather, weren’t enough of those links.

But I didn’t want the bling approach.

I’ve found what I think is the most useful solution in the form of ShareThis, a WordPress plugin developed by Alex King that adds this unobtrusive little graphic and link at the foot of each blog post:

So if you want to let someone else know about something you’re reading, clicking on the link gives you this little popup:

Then you can choose which part of the social web (nice phrase) you want to share the content with.

If you click on the ‘Send’ tab, you get a form where you can enter email info to send via that means, or by SMS or instant message.

Very flexible.

If you use a platform other than WordPress, such as Blogger or TypePad, there are also plugins for those.

The first thing I noticed with Share This was that of all the social web elements available to include in the choices you offer, there’s a now-glaring omission - Twitter isn’t one of the choices.

I often use the Twit This! browser bookmarklet; with one click, it’s very useful to flag up to your Twitter community something you’re reading right at that moment. The easier it is to do that, the more likely you will.

There is a Twit This! plugin for WordPress that adds a ‘Twit This’ link at the foot of each post. I don’t like it, frankly: too much in-your-face. Plus it defeats the objective of why I’ve added Share This.

Maybe ShareThis can include that somehow, or something like it.

There’s more to ShareThis than purely a link with a pretty popup, though. Stats, for instance. Details on the website.

I like ShareThis and I hope you find it useful. Do tell me if you don’t. Or if you do.

Comments

About the author:
Neville Hobson is the author of the popular NevilleHobson.com blog which focuses on business communication and technology.

Neville is a UK-based communicator, blogger and podcaster. He helps companies use effective communication to achieve their business goals. Visit Neville Hobson’s blog: NevilleHobson.com.

One question that I encounter occasionally from neophyte bloggers is about one of the most powerful methods of building content and also (shhhh) one of the best ways to build up some very high quality inbound links for your weblog: interviews.

Now I’m not talking about bringing your camera crew and lining up some local production team to help the “location shoot” look great (though if you’re at that level you doubtless already know what I’m talking about) but more the humble interviews built around either email or phone-based question and answer sessions.

Standard approach is to identify a half-dozen or so celebrities or highly visible people in your market and ask them directly if you can interview them. Generally, this is a good place to slip in an ego stroke or two, like “I’ve been talking about your new book for a year now, it’s so great” or “really appreciate your insight on the current bond market” or “I’m really interested on how you gained your sharp perspective on politics”. Think of it as grease on the wheels, perhaps.

Why approach more than one? Because some folk will just ignore your request or reject it, sometimes because they want to be paid and other times because they’re either buffeted by these sort of queries or just uninterested in you and your project. No worries, lots of other people say ‘yes’ so you should have success!

As part of your invitation to be interviewed, I encourage you to highlight that you’ll do the production work (formatting the final document, editing the audio, whatever) and that you’re then happy to make that available for their own promotional purposes. This gives them a further incentive and since there’s no cost other than time, if you flub it up horribly, they can always skip referencing it on their own site / newsletter.

Making participation easy and efficient is a definite win and will increase the chance of you succeeding in your fledgling interview efforts.

I prefer email interviews, personally, because I’m a text guy so I’ll tell you that my secret here is to ask if I can interview them, then send them a list of 10-12 questions and highlight “if you don’t like these questions, edit them, skip ones that aren’t interesting and add new ones if you’d like”. This lets them help move the interview towards areas they want to highlight and I can always mail back “one more question” if they are skipping an area that I think is of particular importance. More importantly, since I’m not seeking a Pulitzer for investigative reporting, it lets them retain some control of the interview too.

For a phone-based audio interview you can use the same general approach by emailing questions in advance of the call. This also lets you ensure that your interview goes well because your subject has had a chance to prep and perhaps pull together some notes. You can do the same: have your homework in front of you so instead of saying “you have a big company” you can say “Your company sold $35.3 million worth of widgets last year…” or similar and sound smart. And that’s undoubtedly a good thing.

Finally, when you are done, spend the time and effort to clean things up, edit for coherence, spelling and grammar (as appropriate), clean up audio passages to chop out the ums and ahs, the interruption from the cellphone call at minute 13, etc. Then send a copy of it to the interview subject simultaneous to publishing it, with your gracious thanks for their participation.

For bonus points, you can also ask them if they have any colleagues who would enjoy being interviewed, and if so, whether they could perhaps send out a quick introduction for you. That can open doors that you might otherwise never even know are there.

Finally finally, a quick example: my interview with Spain Dad, which came out of us connecting and me being surprised at the level of personal information he published on his blog. I think it’s an interesting interview. Do you?

Comments

About the author:
Dave Taylor has been involved with the Internet since 1980 and is
internationally known as an expert on both business and technology issues.
Holder of an MSEd and MBA, author of twenty books and founder of four
startups, he also runs a strategic marketing company and consults with firms
seeking the best approach to working with weblogs and social networks. Dave
is an award-winning speaker and frequent guest on radio and podcast
programs.

AskDaveTaylor.com
http://www.intuitive.com/blog/

What do you do when it’s your scheduled day to blog and the writing won’t come? Do the tumbleweeds reign when you’re low on blogging ideas? How about when you have a busy week ahead of you, but you still want to post? You might do like I recently did and take a week or so off. You wouldn’t have to though, if you developed a blogging bank account.

The idea for this post came to me several months ago. I held back on writing it, because I hadn’t yet taken my own advice. Sunday night Skellie posted her #1 tip for creating better content, which is essentially the same idea and reminded me I needed to listen to my own advice. This post is just as much for me as it is for you.

A Story about Framing Pictures

About 10 years ago I worked in a custom picture framing shop. You know the place where you take a print you want framed and you ask for some help choosing mattes and frames. Then you have the shop cut the materials and put it all together for you. I was one of the people helping you with all those things. It was one of the most enjoyable jobs I’ve ever had, but that’s not the point of this story.

A few months into the job several employees had moved on and the responsibility of making sure the day’s schedule of frames were built and ready for customers came to rest on my shoulders. At the time we scheduled 8 frames a day to build and on the Monday I took charge we were working on Tuesday’s frames. We had yet to hire more people and me with my 4+ months of experience had been at the job longer than the minimal staff left.

For awhile I knew I wasn’t going to get much help keeping up with the schedule and the first week or two I worked with a nervous energy. Nervous that I’d fall behind and energetic because I had no other choice. I did manage to keep up and after a few weeks started to get ahead.

We scheduled frames two weeks out. If you came in today with an order it would be two weeks before we’d call to have you pick up the finished product. The previous person in my position had maintained the frame building so we were always working on the next day’s frames. That system could fall apart easily with one busy day and I set out to change it.

Two Monday’s after I started I was building Wednesday’s frames. The following Monday I was working on Thursday’s frames. A couple months later and we were two weeks ahead. In fact if the materials were cut and ready for assembly they were likely built within the hour.

Being so far ahead accomplished a lot. For one I knew I could skip building frames for two weeks and we’d still have happy customers. Sometimes the frames wouldn’t fit together as well as you’d like. Warped wood was usually the culprit and the only solution was new material. Being so far ahead in the schedule meant we’d find out we needed to reorder the materials well in advance. Our work as a shop became better because we had the time to give more attention to that work.

I increased the schedule to 9 frames a day and got a raise. I increased it to 10 a day and got another raise. 11 and another raise. If someone came in with a rush job it was easy to get it done and the owner was certainly happy with the extra 50% price tag on the “rush” labor. We became a highly efficient shop putting out high quality work. The shop owner made more money, the shop’s employees made more money, and the customers were happy in large part because we had two weeks of flexibility in our schedule.

So what does this have to do with blogging? Read on.

What is a Blogging Account?

Substitute blog posts for picture frames and change the metaphor in the above story and you have an account at your blog bank. Instead of writing posts the same day you’re planning on publishing get ahead of schedule so you have some in store.

Imagine when you write a post you don’t publish it. You deposit it in your bank account for later use. When it’s your scheduled day to publish you don’t write a new post, but rather stop by the bank and withdraw a post for publishing. As long as you can maintain your account you’ll always have something to publish.

You build up your account by writing more than you need. Just as I managed to get ahead of the framing schedule by building nine and ten frames a day instead of the scheduled eight you’d write an extra post or two a week beyond what you expect to publish. If you’re publishing three posts a week write four and deposit the extra one in your blog account. In three weeks you’ll have a week’s worth of posts in your account.

There’s no reason why you can’t build up several months worth of posts if you keep at it.

The Benefits of a Blog Account?

There are a number of benefits to having a supply of posts written in advance and having a positive cash flow of blog posts.

* Time off - If you have posts written for the next two weeks you can take those weeks off and still keep your blog running. We all have weeks when we run out of ideas or have too many other things that need to get done. Having an account filled with posts means your blog continues as usual.

* Better posts - Since you’re not writing the post you’ll be publishing today you can work on it over a few days. You can then deposit it and withdraw it a few days later to work on it again. The extra time will give you more opportunities to edit and make your posts better.
* Increased posting schedule If you’re able to continuously write four posts a week you might decide to start publishing four posts a week. You’ll be in the habit of writing more and may find yourself able to write five posts a week while still growing your account.

* Less pressure to write - If you’re not writing the post you’re publishing today there’s less pressure on you to get it done and less pressure to get it right on the first draft. Regardless of what some like to believe, most of us do not do our best work under pressure. Knowing you’ll have time to change your words makes them easier to get out.

* Withdraw posts for guest blogging - You’ve no doubt seen guest blogging recommended as a way to attract new readers or promote your brand. You’ve no doubt immediately wondered where you’d find the time to write a guest post when you’re having trouble keeping up with your own blog. If you’re maintaining an account of posts you’ll always have one ready for any guest posting opportunity.

* Time posts better - Timing has a lot to do with how much attention a post will attract. A story that’s popular today becomes overdone and tiresome tomorrow. The good news is many stories come back around and gain popularity at a later date. Today’s tired story is under served six months from now. The next time the story breaks you might have a post ready to catch the wave of interest.

Diversify your Assets

Taking the financial analogy a little further you’ll want to diversify what’s in your account. The same way a variety of stocks in different industries makes your entire portfolio stronger a variety of post topics will make your blog account stronger.

Consider the last two benefits above.

There may be many different blogs that will allow you to guest post that are related to your topic, but each might call for a different post. Given the topics I usually write about I could possibly guest post for a blog about blogging, or one about search engines, or one about marketing, or one about social media. Some posts appropriate for one blog could easily be made appropriate for another or tweaked a little so they were. A post such as how to build your brand through social media might be equally at home on a blog about business and marketing as well as one on social media. Not all posts will work across blogs so well. If you have a diverse blogging account you’ll have a post available for any opportunity.

You generally can’t control the stories that are going to become popular in the future. At any given time one of hundreds of ideas can start to spread. If all the posts in your blog account are on the same topic you’ll have to wait for that topic to become popular again. If you have posts in your account on a variety of topics it’s much more likely you’ll have one ready when the next popular idea arrives.

I mentioned at the start I haven’t been listening to my own advice. If I had this blog wouldn’t have been as empty as it’s been the last couple of weeks. While I may not have taken my own advice on building a blog account, I’m 100% convinced the idea is a good one and if we both start building accounts today our blogs will significantly improve. This post is in the “do as I say” category and not the “do as I do” category. At least not yet.

Hopefully I can revisit this post in a couple months with a case study of blog banking success. I hope you’ll be able to do the same.

Comments

About the author:
Steven Bradley is a web designer and search engine optimization
specialist. Known to many in the webmaster/seo community by the username
vangogh, he is the author of TheVanBlog, which focuses on how to build
and optimize websites and market them online.

Dear Rich,

–Confounded in Camden

Dear Confounded,

I’m guessing that you use a word processor like Microsoft Word to craft your post, then copy and paste your post into the Typepad new post fields.

Unfortunately, this isn’t a good match. Word carries so much meta-information that dictates font, spacing, kerning, leading, color and more, and unfortunately, the TypePad fields are so “smart”, they hold onto that meta-information. (The same is true with WordPress and most other blogging platforms.)

If you want to copy and paste your Word documents into your blog, here’s the steps you’ll need to take:

1. Write your post in Word.

2. Select all and copy all.

3. Paste into Notepad (on Windows) or TextWrangler on the Mac (free TextWrangler download here.)

4. Select all AGAIN and copy all AGAIN.

5. Paste into blog.

6. Add back any formatting you may have lost, such as bold, italics, bulleted lists, etc.

This process will strip out all of the meta-information, laundering your post and giving it the consistency that you so dearly want.

This is also a good idea because if you ever change the design of your blog, you can easily update the look and feel of all your posts…UNLESS there’s meta-information in your post that is overriding the style sheets your designer is using.

Of course, there’s a simpler method to keep your posts clean that I use:

1. Type directly into TypePad or Wordpress.

Comments

About the author:
Rich Brooks is president of flyte new media, a Web site design and Internet marketing company in Portland, Maine. Flyte works with small businesses to build professional Web sites that often include e-commerce, Flash and content management systems. They promote their clients’ sites through search engine optimization, e-mail marketing, business blogs and podcasts, and viral marketing.

Do you know what gym regulars call the surge of people who show up in January as part of a New Year’s resolution?

Tourists.

The same could be true with the influx of businesses that join the blogosphere each and every day. The great majority of them start with good intentions, but then fall flat.

The problem with an abandoned blog is that it usually sticks around, available through a search engine query or a forgotten link. Later, a prospect finds it and wonders why your blog was neglected and may question whether your company finishes what it starts.

Atlas2In this month’s award-winning flyte log* I’ve put together a “workout regimen” for your blog that includes the time you should expect to put into your blog on a regular basis. This regimen will add muscle to your blog and keep it from getting sand kicked in its face.

So, if you’ve got a new blog, or have been neglecting your current blog, be sure to check out Jumpstart Your Blog: A Business Blogging Workout Regimen.

* (award pending)

Comments

About the author:
Rich Brooks is president of flyte new media, a Web site design and Internet marketing company in Portland, Maine. Flyte works with small businesses to build professional Web sites that often include e-commerce, Flash and content management systems. They promote their clients’ sites through search engine optimization, e-mail marketing, business blogs and podcasts, and viral marketing.

A couple of days ago, someone forwarded me a request from a journalist writing a piece for a national UK paper about social networking.

The journalist’s questions were a little unclear:

I need ‘ten top tips’ for social networking, what to do (as opposed to what not to do). i.e., things to encourage comments and feedback on your postings - sentence length etc…

Mainly because of the ‘ie,’ I read that request as more to do with blogs - social media applications rather than social network services. Might have been different had it been an ‘eg.‘

Still, many social networks include a blogging capability - places where you and others can write content.

As the original request was to a mailing list, no doubt the journalist was swamped with all sorts of suggestions, many perhaps helpful.

In any event, I added my £0.01 worth by email with the following ten tips for encouraging blog comments:

1. Write your post with your points well constructed and clearly presented so that the reader understands what you’re saying. May seem obvious but I see so many blog posts where none of that is clear at all.

2. If getting comments is one of the goals you have for your blog (which is not every blogger’s goal), write your posts in a way that encourages readers to want to leave comments. The simple approach is often enough - ask a question.

3. Make it easy for readers to actually make a comment. Ensure you have a blog design that is pleasing to the eye and each post has a clearly-identifiable area for writing comments and any instructions you have are easy to understand and follow. A good idea is to have a terms of use statement for your blog that includes a clear commenting policy, if you have one. My terms of use do.

4. Provide some basic formatting functionality to make it easy for a commenter to best express him or herself such as buttons you can click to add attributes to your comment, eg, bold, italic, etc.

5. Let commenters leave links to content elsewhere on the web. Although it’s often an issue with spammers who typically spray your blog with crap containing loads of links, you should be able to allow some linking especially if you have safeguards in place, eg, Akismet.

6. Related to numbers 4 and 5, strike a balance between ease of use for your readers and security of your site.Recognize that many people are put off by too many hurdles. The big one is having to log in or register on a site before you can comment. Another is a complicated captcha, either the captcha itself or the procedure you have to follow. Yet another is comment moderation where typically comments by first-time commenters go into a moderation queue (that happens on this blog) for approval by you. Be timely with this - approve comments so they appear on your blog quickly, certainly within 24 hours.

7. If you see people beginning to comment on a post you’ve written, join in the embryonic conversation as well. Add your own comments, not only to provide your additional viewpoint but also to show you want to actively engage with your readers. It’s the equivalent of a conversation. And it’s one way community starts building.

8. Recognize that commenting on a post in your blog can happen elsewhere, eg, on other people’s blogs. If you want to be able to connect all that commentary together, make sure your blogs accepts incoming trackbacks or pingbacks.

9. Many people who leave comments on blogs want to know when others leave comments. So offer an RSS feed for comments as well as the feed you’d offer for posts. That way, everyone can keep up with developing conversations. and thus encourages people to leave more comments.

10. Get known outside your own blog.Visit other blogs. Read other posts. Contribute to discussions by leaving comments on other blogs. People (and Google search) notice such things. This can be good as people get to know you a little and so may keep an eye on your blog more than they otherwise would and, thus, may be more inclined to comment on your points of view.

I could have gone on with at least another ten tips but the journalist asked only for ten.

What would you have written as ten tips?

Comments

About the author:
Neville Hobson is the author of the popular NevilleHobson.com blog which focuses on business communication and technology.

Neville is a UK-based communicator, blogger and podcaster. He helps companies use effective communication to achieve their business goals. Visit Neville Hobson’s blog: NevilleHobson.com.