Blogging for Dummies 2nd Edition Blog

A Few Questions About Blogging

2008-07-09T19:35:41-08:00

A couple of weeks ago, a podcast called The Art of the Business dropped us an e-mail and asked if we would like to chat about blogging on their podcast. I sent them a copy of Blogging For Dummies to review and they read the entire thing in less than a week. They also sent us some pre-podcast questions and I thought I share my responses.

What use could a blog be to my artistic practice?

In terms of an artistic practice, the most use a blog can provide is the ability to get noticed. Anyone who has run a blog for more than a few months can tell you that blogs are hit by search engines more often than static web sites. Blogs have more relevant content and, since they are updated regularly, engines come back more often to catalog the new postings. There are also tools within most blog software that allow you submit your new posts automatically to search companies. Over time your site will appear more often in search results over a site that hasn’t changed very much.

What are some basic elements I should include in my blog?

To me, the most basic elements for a blog are:

Comments
Archives
Search
Responding to your audience.

Comments are the reason blogs exist. The ability for people to respond to you on your web site is very powerful and can start discussions that can become new and interesting blog posts or new blogs. Having accessible archives is critical if you want people to find older posts. A general search to allow people to search your site. And, most important, responding to comments. This may not be an “element” from a technoloy perspective, but the human behind the blog should always respond to those who take the time to comment on the site.

How often should I post on my blog?

If you’re serious about the success of a blog, you should blog once a day. If you have more than one writer, you should blog a few times a day. This way, you will always provide content for your readers to check out and keep them coming back. But don’t forget that any content you’re posting is of a certain level of quality. Don’t just post things about your pets, breakfast, or what you did last night. If you’re an artist, your product is who you are an an artist. Talk about the artistic portion of your day. What kinds of things are you doing to build your art. Your blog can be only as successful as you are at being creative in starting and maintaining conversations.

What are some ways to drive traffic to my blog?

There are a lot of ways to drive traffic to a blog but, I think there are really two powerful ways that drive the most traffic: awesome content and being active in the blogging community. When I talk about “awesome content” what I really mean is relevant content. If the blog is a personal blog, make sure you’re talking about yourself. Share your interests and be honest with the audience you build around your site. People will come for the honesty and stay for the cool stuff that you’re doing. If the blog is about your business, make sure it stays that way. Chat about business and anything related to the business you’re conducting. As for being active in the blogging community, you’ll want to make sure that you’re reading blogs and leaving comments on what you read. Meet up with blog writers in your area and find those with similar interests as yourselves. If your blog is about business make sure that you are reading blogs in the same industry as your company. It is a great way to make connections and keep up on what is going on with your competitors, partners, and other similar industries.

Do you have some recommendations for artist’s blogs?

I think the most important aspect of being an artist is showing people what it is that you do. If you’re a painter, you may want to consider something similar to a photo blog. A lot of photographers post a weekly or daily photo on their blog. It may be a good way to post examples of painting that one does. If the artist is an actor, perhaps a video blog would work better. Examples of famous scenes or example of past work and adding video posts to your blog. Musicians would want to post audio. There are many ways to express your art online - doing what you are comfortable with is the best way to go.

What other things do you think we should cover when we do the podcast? Any topics we should make sure to touch on? Drop your ideas in the comments and we’ll make sure to chat a bit about them. We’re still working out the details about when to do the interview but when it is “in the can” we’ll post a link.

]]>

Dove reaches out to bloggers with chocolate

2008-06-05T18:18:00-08:00

Business and Blogs, Cool Stuff I have only one problem with the recent blogger outreach marketing campaign put together by Matchstick for Dove, and that is the idea that the boxload of chocolate they sent you is supposed to be shared with your friends and family. This chocolate is really good. My instinct, frankly, is to hoard it all for myself.

Nonetheless, I did go ahead and share it, and the results were pretty unanimous. Most of my friends and family really liked it, from the packaging to the flavor. Dove has always been one of my favorite chocolates, infinitely superior to most of the chocolate available in grocery stores (which is where I usually gave in and bought chocolate, frankly). So when a friend forwarded me a link to a blogger outreach program that promised me FREE chocolate in exchange for being contacted a few times by Dove/Matchstick, I was thrilled. The program, which I was also interested in—there is a whole chapter on how to market successfully in the blogosphere in my book “Buzz Marketing with Blogs for Dummies” --did everything right. There was no requirement to blog about the chocolate, although clearly the folks running the campaign hoped the bloggers who got chocolate would do so. In fact, the information sheet that came with the chocolate urged the participating bloggers to “let your friends know how and why Matchstick has made you a part of this program and what your involvement is.So high marks to the chocolate, and high marks to Matchstick.

The “Dove Pleasure Kit” arrived with about 18 small packets of chocolate, each containing four pieces. I believe the person who interviewed me for the program called these “purse packs” and these were the easiest to give away to friends. There were also four full bars of chocolate, and three packages containing individually wrapped pieces. For good measure, the kit also contained a Dove journal (for your scintillating thoughts on chocolate, perhaps), a “foot pampering” kit, a wine glass, and the whole thing was packed in a tote bag. Just as the sayings on the inside of the individual chocolate pieces are, the whole kit/program was target to a female audience. I had never previously considered exfoliating my feet while drinking wine and eating chocolate, but anything for science, right? You can see photos of the entire kit here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/supersusie/tags/dove/

There were four kinds of chocolate in the kit: Milk, Dark, Dusk, and 71% Cocoa. My favorite, by far, was the new flavor, “Dusk” which is a mix of milk and dark chocolate. The overall flavor is deeper than milk chocolate, less cloying sweet, but without any of the dryness or even bitterness that dark chocolate has. Oddly enough, although I usually prefer dark chocolate to milk chocolate, I liked Dove’s milk chocolate better than the dark. Perhaps just on the edge of being too sweet, it was better “in the mouth” that the dark chocolate, which didn’t melt as nicely and seemed a tad waxy. My least favorite was the 71% Cocoa, though this didn’t surprise me—I haven’t liked much of the cocoa bars I’ve tried, regardless of brand.

So, my thanks to Dove for the chocolate. I highly recommend it!

]]>

How much should you share online?

2008-05-22T23:58:00-08:00

In it, Gould says:

The will to blog is a complicated thing, somewhere between inspiration and compulsion. It can feel almost like a biological impulse. You see something, or an idea occurs to you, and you have to share it with the Internet as soon as possible.

I’m often asked about privacy concerns when it comes to blogging. Many people describe privacy concerns as a generational thing and generalize broadly to say that younger people are happy putting up pictures of themselves and those in their lives on Facebook, or posting their thoughts about sex, relationships, and jobs in their personal blogs; older people aren’t. It really isn’t that simple, however, and like Gould has done, sometimes you may find out what your own comfort limits are only by crossing them.

For me, the guideline is this: I will put online—in any online space, regardless of password protection or site membership requirements—information I would feel comfortable sharing with a friendly stranger I speak to on the street. Would I be willing to show someone like that the photos I had taken for publicity purposes? Of course, and I’m also happy for that person to get a glimpse into my interest in knitting, travels, and life via the photos I share on Flickr. Am I OK with sharing my professional background and experience online? Yep, and I do that on LinkedIn. How about Facebook? That social networking site has spaces for me to tell people about my interests, relationship status, and the books I’m reading, and yes, I’m happy for pretty much anyone to have access to that stuff. By most standards I’m pretty open. What I don’t share online—anywhere online—are the private details of my life. The things I might share with one or two close friends in conversation, or that I might perhaps only tell my husband. (That sounds reasonable, doesn’t it? Well, lots of people share everything.) I don’t blog about my friends much at all, their trips, travails, employers, and so on—even if that information seems innocuous, it isn’t my information to share. I don’t blog about my health, I rarely blog about my politics, and I never, on any site, use information that could be used for identity theft, like my date of birth, government identification numbers, and so on. For 10 years, this wavy line in the sand has worked for me, at least so far as I know.

So I’m curious, where do you draw the line? And why do you draw it where you do?

IZEAFest Conference in September: Educate and Connect Bloggers & Advertisers

2008-04-25T18:16:00-08:00

Events and Conferences Looking for a September tech conference (why is it most tech conferences are in the spring, anyway?)? Consider IZEAFest, September 11-13, 2008. It takes place in Orlando, Florida and promises to let you:

Connect with other social marketers and content creators
Meet innovative and creative internet personalities
Learn how to become a well-rounded blogger

I’ll be personally helping to fulfill those promises by speaking on the topic of Improving Your Content, which I’m really excited about. It’s going to be a fun event. And folks, it so reasonable! Register right now for $50.00, and after May 14 for just $65. You really can afford this one.

Check out the IZEAFest Web site.

]]>

Ways Businesses Screw Up With Blog

2008-04-23T19:26:00-08:00

Actually, come to think of it, I suppose it’s a great article for those who have chosen NOT to get involved, in order to be able to explain their decision—not that I think any reasonably sized company can afford to ignore blogs today.

Here’s just one of the examples Rob features:

Playing coy: Outright dishonesty isn’t the only thing that can trip you up. Wal-Marting Across America was a blog by a middle-aged couple driving their RV across the U.S., camping overnight in Wal-Mart parking lots and telling stories about the wonderful people they met - a remarkable number of whom had glowing things to say about Wal-Mart. None of this was untrue; the couple was genuine, the RV was an RV, and nobody’s disputing the stories people were telling. But what the blog didn’t mention - anywhere - is that the whole thing was paid for by Wal-Mart itself: from airfares to the RV itself. The blog was outed, the story hit the mainstream media, and both Wal-Mart and their PR firm, Edelman, were left looking very much like they’d tried to pull something sleazy.

My quick rule of thumb: disclose everything, even if you don’t think it’s important, and if you ever used the phrase “we’ll just make them think...” when describing what you’re doing—don’t.

Knit Yourself a Keyboard Cover

2008-04-18T02:20:01-08:00

Blogging Tools, Cool Stuff

Check out these cool “body technology interfaces” from Sternlab! Well, perhaps “cool” is really the wrong adjective. I’ll go with the catch-all “interesting.” Be sure to scroll down the page for some really funny photos on this site.

If you’ve read Blogging for Dummies, 2nd Edition, you may have noticed that there are too many screen shot examples from knitting blogs to be coincidence. In fact, I love to knit, and one of the ways I tried to make things fun during the writing of this book was to find knitting blogs to use in the book. And there a lot of them out there—the knitting community has embraced blogging as a way of sharing experience, patterns, and tips, not to mention connecting with each other. And now we have these hilarious examples of how knitting and blogging can be united into one passion: knitted keyboard covers are just the start. A little silly, sure, but what a fun idea.

Although my hands do get cold typing all day…

Photo by bekathwia

]]>

Blogging Survey Puts GenX Age Group Out Front

2008-04-03T14:51:00-08:00

Blogging Tools, Blogosphere, Events and Conferences Session 1 at BlogHer Business in New York this morning (man, an 8:30 start is rough when your body tells you it is really 5:30) is “The State of the Social Media World.” Elisa, Jory and Lisa of BlogHer kicked things off and then ran through a new survey of the blogosphere. Here are my big takeaways:

* 36 million women are in the blogosphere as readers or commenters
* 15 million women are publishing blogs
* the third most common reason for a blogger to stop publishing a blog (after lack of interest or time) is dissatisifaction with blogging tools
* although the media tells us that only young people are logging in significant numbers, it’s actually GenX (21 to 47, I think) that are really most active with blogs
* there are a lot of more men at this BlogHer event than the last one I went to

They’ve promised to post the survey presentation today, so when I know where you can get more information, I’ll update this post.

Hey, and if you’re here, leave me a comment so I know to look for you!

UPDATE: Here’s the link to the presentation PDF of the survey data.

]]>

Watch Out Employers Your Employees Talk About You

2008-03-27T22:24:01-08:00

So, what exactly happened? Here is the situation in a nutshell:

Blogger X works at Company Y.
Blogger X had a blog on Blogger.com and didn’t tell anyone who he was or whom he worked for.
Blogger X, being a knowledgeable person, wrote about the industry he worked in but not about his employer.
Over time, the blogger writes about other companies on their blog. During this time he writes something about Company Z.
A year goes by and, poof, Blogger X tells everyone who he is.
Company Z, who has been reading the blog and have been unhappy about the content, rejoices as they now know who is writing the blog.
Company Z then sues Blogger X’s employer.

Sounds a bit weird, yes? From a personal blogger’s perspective, it may be. I think it is a mild wake up call for bloggers but a large wake up call for employers. In the book, we talk about how a lot of companies like Microsoft, Dell, and Sun Micro Systems have great blogging communities. But each of them have guidelines around how bloggers should act and behave on line. Some go so far as to tell their employees how they should act even on social networking web sites. (Don’t get me started on that rule....) The article on CNet, has a few summaries of what larger companies are doing with guidelines for bloggers. Here are a few from that article.

Dell

Dell’s stance is perhaps the most similar to--and predates--Cisco’s. Bob Pearson, the computer maker’s vice president of communities and conversations, said the company prides itself on being one of the first companies to release a “clear transparency policy.”

That “online communication policy,” released in November 2006, sets standards for employees when they’re acting as “a delegate of the company.”

Specifically, they’re expected to disclose their association with Dell whenever they do any sort of blogging, social networking, Wikipedia entry-editing, or other online activities related to or on behalf of the company. If the subject matter crosses over into hobbies or people’s personal lives, “there would be no rationale for us to get involved in that,” Pearson said in a phone interview Tuesday.

Sun

Sun Microsystems, which hosts blogs from CEO Jonathan Schwartz and some 4,000 other employees, has had a blogging policy in place since 2004. It broadly prohibits discussing a wealth of “non-public” information, including financial data, code, personal information about other individuals, all manner of confidential information, and “work-related legal proceedings or controversies.”

Google

Google similarly recommends, but does not require, such disclosures, said spokeswoman Sunny Gettinger. (Google said it has an internal “communications” policy but doesn’t make it public, although its general employee code of conduct is.)

Yahoo

Yahoo is arguably even gentler, but its policy has “been successful in providing employees with guidance on blogging practices with respect to the company,” said spokeswoman Nicki Dugan. Its guidelines, issued in 2005 (PDF), decree two main rules: don’t reveal proprietary information, and be cautious about posting exaggerations, obscenities, or other characterizations that could invite litigation.

So, you bloggers out there, the best thing you should do when you start blogging is to check out what your employer says about it. Maybe, you should offer to pen a blog for your employer if they don’t have one? Who knows where that could lead!

Blogging Tip for the Day: Photograph Your Desk

2008-03-26T00:28:00-08:00

Blogging Tips Some bloggers—maybe you?—do hit dry spells where coming up with one more blog post just seems impossible. Maybe not even desirable.

And sometimes, just sometimes, you need something quick and easy to get yourself back in the game. Enter the desk photograph.

Long used by experienced bloggers who are casting about for something, anything to blog about, the desk photograph has two major things going for it. First, it’s a photo. Every blog reader likes a good photo. (And photos take up a nice chunk of space on the page, too.) Second, it lets people get a glimpse of part of your life that they won’t otherwise have access to. Use a desk photograph to give people the proverbial 1000 words, without writing a word.

The photo in this blog post is from a post on Peter Flaschner’s blog Almost Cool. He doesn’t say whether he was stuck for a blog topic, but we know better.

]]>

Etienne Teo Talks about Passion, Finding Time to Blog, and Comments on Blogging For Dummies

2008-03-20T22:12:00-08:00

I passed by Borders which is one of the biggest bookstore here in Singapore and that is beside coffeebean but then again i thought i might find a few more new arrivals as they have a wide range of books and the section i normally browse through would be under “business management"and “self-improvements”. blogging for dummiesThese were the two categories that i want to improve in terms of self learning. As i was glancing along the shelf, i came across a book on “Blogging for Dummies” and i thought to myself for a second, “how on earth will anyone purchase such a book that could be easily Googled for online.” I flipped the book around and the price tag on this book printed $26.99 bucks after i do a conversion in currency, i mean you could get this book at $19 over at amazon if you love to keep a full collection on dummies, there is no need to purchase it here and why are there so many on this shelf, i can’t understand, will they sell?

What happened next changed my perception entirely and got me pondering why that happens, A lady walked past and grabbed the book which i have just described as basic stuff which i am sure it will be left on this shelf forever and there she started browsing through the contents and told a glance on the front cover “Blogging for Dummies” and left with a smile to the counter and purchasing the book at $26.99, i guess i was wrong after i rewinded the process and analysis what could have triggered the lady to purchase the book?

If you don’t know about Etienne, I have stumbled across his web site here and there when I have been looking for some new tips and advice about turning words into profit. Go check him out he has a lot of great advice.