Coffee Shop Bloggers

HubSpot Shares Some Social Media Tips - Five Easy Steps

noreply@blogger.com (Capability Mom) — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 16:25:00 +0000

I do love HubSpot because they are so very nice about sharing information. Sure, they hope you will sign up for their services but they are not close to the vest and not helpful. They are doing this right. I have attended a few of their webinars - also very good information.
Thank you, HubSpot!

How to Monitor Your Social Media Presence in 5 Easy Steps

Monitoring your social media presence is incredibly important - but many business owners and marketers are concerned it will take too much time.
You don't need a whole team devoted to social media monitoring - with some tools and these free tips, even one single person can keep an eye on your social media presence. Cover these 5 steps over a cup of coffee and you'll build social media into a healthy daily inbound marketing routine!
1) Check Twitter for chatter about your company ( 2 minutes ): Use tools like TweetDeck or Twitter Search to monitor conversations about your company in real-time.
2) Scan Google Alerts ( 1.5 minutes ): Check Google Alerts for your company name, products, executives or brand terms. To set this up, enter your search terms in a Google Alert and select to receive updates as they happen or once daily. Now, when people blog about your products, an alert will be sent to your inbox. You can read the articles and respond right away!
3) Check Facebook stats ( 1 minute ): Visit your Company Page's Faacebook Insights. This can be found under the page's main photo if you are an admin for your page. Scan your active users and interaction stats. Check out your wall posts or new discussions if you have them enabled for your page.
4) Answer Industry-related LinkedIn questions ( 3 minutes ): Search for questions on LinkedIn that you or members of your company can answer. You can set up an RSS feed for specific question categories to go to your Google Reader as well. When you find a relevant question, respond and include a link to your website or a relevant blog post that might be helpful to your audience.
5) Use Google Reader to check Flickr, Digg and others ( 2.5 minutes ): Also set up RSS feeds for searches on your company name and industry terms in other social media sites. Similar to monitoring LinkedIn and Twitter, your Reader will serve as a great place to centralize your other searches too!
Want to monitor, engage, and measure your social media presence all with one tool? HubSpot's inbound marketing software makes this easy. Our Inbound Marketing Specialists can show you a demonstration of the tools with some of your very own brand and industry keywords.

How To Find Out How Much Your Blog is Worth

noreply@blogger.com (CoffeeShopBloggers) — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 14:20:00 +0000

I found this link on Mom Blog Magazine. It's a site provides web analysis of your blog including social media, SEO, web, and traffic analysis. Additionally, the site tells you how much your site can earn in advertising revenue.

Get your blog’s analysis at http://www.sitetrail.com/analysis

It's a good starting point for seeing how much your blog is worth and how much you can charge for ads!

The Ultimate Cheat Sheet for Mastering LinkedIn (From HubSpot)

noreply@blogger.com (CoffeeShopBloggers) — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 14:17:00 +0000

20 Hidden LinkedIn Tricks

1. Claim your vanity URL. Make your profile look more professional and easier to share by claiming your LinkedIn vanity URL. Instead of a URL with a million confusing numbers at the end, it will look nice and clean like this: http://www.linkedin.com/in/pamelavaughan. Do so by going here and clicking "customize your public profile URL" down on the right-hand side.

2. Make your blog/website links sexier. Instead of using the default "My Website"-type anchor text links in your LinkedIn profile, you can change the anchor text to make those links more appealing to people who view your profile. So if you want to increase clicks on the website links you can display on your profile, change the link's anchor text to something more attention-grabbing than the standard options LinkedIn provides. For example, if you want to include a link to your blog, rather than choosing LinkedIn's standard "Blog" anchor text, customize it to include keywords that indicate what your blog is about, like "Internet Marketing Blog." Each profile can display up to 3 website links like this, and they can be customized by editing your profile, clicking edit on your website links, and selecting "Other" in the drop-down menu to customize the anchor text.

3. Search engine optimize your profile. You can also optimize your profile to get found by people searching LinkedIn for key terms with which you want to be associated. Add these keywords to various sections of your profile such as your headline or summary.

4. Take advantage of "Saved Searches." LinkedIn allows users to create up to 3 saved searches. After conducting a search, clicking the “Save This Search” option allows you to save a search and easily run it again later. You can also choose to receive weekly or monthly reminders via email once new members in the network match your saved search criteria. Just click on the “Saved Searches” tab on the Advanced Search options page and select one of your saved searches to run again.

5. Track company buzz. Company Buzz is a helpful application that allows you to track what people are saying about your company and related topics on Twitter. Just install the application and customize your topics to view tweets, trends, and top keywords.

6. Use applications. Speaking of Company Buzz, have you looked through the other applications available to you on LinkedIn? Browse the Application Directory, and consider adding the SlideShare application or linking your blog to showcase your presentations and blog articles on your profile. The Events application is also a great way to see what events your connections are attending and find other popular industry events to attend.

7. Use OpenLink to send messages to people to whom you're not connected. LinkedIn only allows you to send messages to people with which you share a first degree connection, but did you know some people let you send them messages anyway, even if you're not connected? The ability to be part of the OpenLink network is only available to premium account holders, but it allows them to be available for messaging by any other LinkedIn member if they choose to be. OpenLink members will appear with an icon that looks like a small ring of dots next to their name in search results and on their profile.

8. Check in on "Network Updates." Found on your LinkedIn homepage, Network Updates are kind of like your Facebook news feed. Check these periodically for a quick snapshot of what your connections are up to and sharing.

9. Be identifiable. Find out who's checking out your profile by allowing others to see who you are if you view theirs. When you click the information under "Who's Viewed My Profile" on your profile page, you'll be able to view users who have looked at your profile, stats on your profile's number of views, and its appearances in search recently. To change this, go into your settings and click "See what others see when you've viewed their profile."

10. Export connections. Want to transfer your LinkedIn connections to another contact management system? LinkedIn enables you to easily export your connections. Just click on "Contacts," "My Connections," and then scroll down and click "Export Connections." You have the option of either exporting as a .CSV or .VCF file.

11. Easily find email contacts on LinkedIn. Speaking of connections, the LinkedIn Companion for Firefox is a great plugin that helps you identify the LinkedIn profiles of people who are emailing you. It also enables you to easily access other LinkedIn features via your browser.

12. Leverage the power of LinkedIn Groups. Did you know that if you're a member of the same group as another user, you can bypass the need to be a first degree connection in order to message them? In addition, group members are also able to view the profiles of other members of the same group without being connected. Join more groups to enable more messaging and profile viewership capabilities.

13. Take advantage of advanced search options. LinkedIn's Advanced Search feature provides a much richer search experience. For example, say you want to find out if you're connected to anyone that works at a specific company. Type the company name in the company field in Advanced Search, then sort the results by "Relationship" to see if you have any first or second degree connections to any employees.

14. Link your Twitter account to LinkedIn. Share your LinkedIn status updates on Twitter, and vice versa. Learn how to connect your Twitter account here.

15. Quickly turn your LinkedIn profile into a resume. LinkedIn enables you to turn your profile into a resume-friendly format in seconds with its Resume Builder tool. Just choose a resume template, edit it, and export it as a PDF that you can print, email, and share.

16. Add a video to your Company Page. Make your business' Company Page more interactive by adding video. To do so, visit your Company Page as a page admin, click your Products tab and, under the "Admin Tools" drop-down menu, click "Add a product or service." This enables you to create a new entry that features your video (or you can add a video to any existing product/service pages you've set up previously). Currently, LinkedIn only supports videos that have been uploaded to YouTube.

17. Rearrange your profile. LinkedIn enables users to reorder the sections of their profile in any way they prefer. When in edit mode on your profile, simply hover your mouse over the title of each section. Your mouse will turn into a four-arrowed icon, at which point you can click then drag and drop to another position on your profile.

18. Extend the life of your questions. After a period of time, the opportunity closes for users to answer questions that are posed in the Answers feature of LinkedIn. To extend the life of the questions you ask and enable more time for users to provide answers, click on the "My Q&A" tab within Answers, click on the question you'd like to revive, and click "re-open this question to answers," which will open it up again for 7 more days.

19. Share questions or your answers to others' questions. Besides the ability to ask questions, LinkedIn Answers also offers a great opportunity for users to share their expertise and thought leadership as well as link to content they've created that helps to answer others' questions. Have you provided a helpful answer to another's question lately? When you're on the question's page, click "Share This" beneath the question. You then have the option to share the question via LinkedIn message with up to 200 of your connections, bookmark it on Delicious, or grab the permalink to share in other ways.

20. Use LinkedIn Today to keep track of industry news. LinkedIn Today is an awesome feature that provides you with the most popular stories that are shared on LinkedIn. Use it to stay on top of news occurring about marketing, the internet, computer software, etc. You can also sign up for email summary notifications of LinkedIn Today news.

Photo Credit: Steven Depolo

5 Easy Ways to Boost SEO (From Social Media Today)

noreply@blogger.com (CoffeeShopBloggers) — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 04:14:00 +0000

Finding the keys to search engine optimization (SEO) can seem as difficult as decoding the Enigma machine. Businesses today clamor to solve the riddle, figure out the formula, and rise to the top of that first page on Google, Yahoo, and Bing.

A high ranking in search results for relevant keywords secures more than online real estate, it secures profits, because many consumers and businesses use search engines as the first step in a purchasing decision. Informous sees this in action every day: our industry specific search engine has already generated scores of qualified leads for our listed companies, most beginning with links from search engines.

Our business deals with packaging and plastics companies, but in many industries, search rank for relevant keywords can be the difference between leads going to your company—or to your competitors. Leads can come from broad terms such as “cartoning machinery,” as well as very specific ones such as “vertical insert injection molding machines,” so search engine optimization is a great first step to increasing sales.

Excelling at SEO involves a lot of time and expertise, but there are some relatively easy ways to begin to improve your results. A lot of what Informous does to improve search rankings for our listed companies is proprietary, but we’re sharing a few secrets today to get you started.

Below are some initial ways to get better SEO results:

1. A little keyword research makes a big difference. Keyword research can be as simple as a team brainstorm, or as complex as using custom, proprietary tools. When you think about keywords, don’t just think about your company name—think about your products, and how people would try to find them. For example, if you sell labeling equipment, think about keywords like “buying labeling equipment” or “labeling equipment [insert your geographic region].”

If you want to go beyond a brainstorm, but don’t want to break the bank, Google Adwords and KeywordSpy are great resources. Google Adwords‘ free “keyword tool” displays both the search volume and competition for keywords. KeywordSpy shows the keywords that are working for your competitors—some KeywordSpy tools are free, others are not.

Once you’ve identified the keywords you want to target, you should use them throughout your SEO efforts. Optimizing your site with the right keywords will drive more qualified traffic, and get your business more leads.

2. Change up your titles. Make sure that every page on your site has a different title that showcases the relevant keywords for that page. This sounds simple, but it’s often forgotten. Not only are titles highly important in search algorithms, they are the first thing that people see when they look at a page of search results. Changing the title of each page can give a website a huge boost in search engine rankings.

By title, we mean the text that goes on top of your browser, not the title on the page itself. Illustrated below:

3. Make sure you have the right metadata. The titles mentioned above are one kind of metadata, but meta-descriptions and keywords are also important. Many web designers will not include meta-descriptions and keywords in their code. These descriptions and keywords aren’t visible to your visitors, but provide important clues for search engines as to what information is contained on the page. Meta descriptions are especially important, because they usually appear on search engines, right below the title (see below picture). Those descriptions are your first chance to grab the attention of a potential client or customer.

4. Link building. Search engines determine their rankings partly by relevance of content, and partly by how many other sites link to your site. Whether links are on a site like Informous, on social media properties, or in a comment on a blog, links back to your website will help your search engine rankings. Also make sure that your website is linking to itself. Wikipedia does so well in search rankings party because it is chock full of internal links.

5. Grade your website. Use the fantastic free tools available to help you analyze your website.Woorank.com gives some great SEO advice, as does HubSpot’s Website Grader. These tools analyze almost every aspect of SEO on your website.

Though SEO is a highly complex and constantly changing field, the basics, such as the five outlined above, remain keystones of success. Without a solid foundation, advanced SEO strategy has nothing to stand on.

If you are a packaging or plastics company, and you want to let Informous do some heavy lifting for your SEO efforts, you can get a free listing today, or invest in one of our upgrade packages. Other industries--look out for our future plans!

And last of all, we want to hear from you. What SEO tactics have worked for your company?

Post originally appeared on the Informous Blog.

How to Really Build Traffic to Your Blog

noreply@blogger.com (CoffeeShopBloggers) — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 04:09:00 +0000

My first blog has been up for just one and a half years and while my traffic has hit 1200 page views a day on occasion. I know that it's not close to the 35,000 unique visitors that FashionToast gets, but I can tell you that I worked like a maniac to build my meager 1000 page views. Emphasis on the maniac because my blog group had to do an intervention to make me focus on editorial themes and quality over quantity. My newest blog is taking the same traffic trajectory but the difference is that I am posting only three times a week which is much less than I've ever dared do on my parenting blog.

So, here's my two cents:

With 3.5 million mommy blogs, you have to focus on a niche with consistent editorial themes. I as your infrequent reader should be able to rattle of an elevator blurb on what you care about if you are doing this correctly.

Branding is important. Does your blog title reflect your niche? How about your tagline? And did you make sure your meta description is your updated tagline? Did you map your URL to get rid of the "WordPress/Blogspot/LiveJournal?" Please do,

Now that you have a niche, tell me what to expect with an editorial calendar and regular unique features. You can deviate, god knows I do, but the reader who found you through Google wants more content of similar ilk.

A picture speaks a thousand words. Include at least one image or video and don't forget to put in alt text behind the image. That's good for SEO. (I know that I don't do this much on this blog but it is my third one and we treat it like an ignored stepchild).

Check your blog load speed time. Tools for that include Pingdom and Website Speed Test. Google punishes blogs with slow load times and so do readers.

Give readers many different options to follow your blog? An RSS feed does not work for everyone. Do you offer the feed via email? You can do this free using Feedburner. Pimping instructions here. Are there links to Twitter and Facebook? And also from Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn back to your blog? Don't make it difficult for me to get your content. Networked Blogs through Facebook is another must have. And my pet peeve? Is your Twitter handle different from your blog name and/or Facebook page? Why? That makes me crazy!

An investment in a professional blog template is a small price to pay for displaying more content. Some come built in with great SEO. I am fond of Woo Themes.

Is there a search box for your blog on your blog? How can I find older posts without the capability? It's a widget you add that you most likely have.

Are your posts either very useful or very entertaining? Will I learn something from each one? The longer it takes you to create your post, the higher value added it likely is.

Are your posts evergreen? You'll want to post at least once a week on something that has appeal long after you've posted. That is a huge way to build traffic that works for me.

Are you filling out post summaries and an inordinate number of tags? I don't know Google's super secret search algorithms but I think it can't hurt. Synonyms of key words are also good.

Are you leaving comments--at least five a day? What? Why not? It really works you know.

Your social media presence will directly correlate to your blog traffic. Get more Twitter followers. Join relevant online communities. Discipline yourself to do a little of this every day. The tortoise does win the race after all.

Work your pr contacts in real life. Nothing drives traffic than mentions or features elsewhere. Karma counts. Be nice and use your good manners when communicating online.

At the end of the day focus on great content. Quality will always matter more than quantity.

It's fine to repurpose great content you find. Check their copyright policy (I'm not one to talk), just excerpt a paragraph or so, link back and give credit where it is due. If you say really nice things about the author of the content, chances are you won't get a wrist slap.

Combining ideas from several sources is another way to use great content but make it your own.

I think it all boils down to three words: quality, consistency, and techy (blog speed, SEO, etc.)

My parting words are that growing your traffic is a lot like losing weight. Sometimes you work really hard and the needle doesn't budge but if you keep at it and change your daily habits bit by bit, the change is enormous over a long period of time.

Feedburner Subscription Box: Making It Smaller

noreply@blogger.com (CoffeeShopBloggers) — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 16:47:00 +0000

If you use FeedBurner for email subscriptions to your blog (and why not? It works really well and it's free!), you might not like how the FeedBurner standard subscription box is huge because it takes up valuable real estate on your sidebar.

I read a bunch of posts on how to pimp it, and to make things easier, I am just giving you the code for the modifications that I've made. Be sure to save your FEED ID number before you start to customize. Alternately, you can get it from your FeedBurner account.

My Old Feedburner Email Subscription Box was much wider and has a FeedBurner message at the bottom:

FREE UPDATES!

My New FeedBurner Email Subscription Box is more narrow:

FREE UPDATES!

Step 1: Cut and paste your feedburner code into a safe place.
Step 2: If you like my form, cut and paste the code below.

I can't figure out a way to put up the code so that it can be cut and pasted. I know there is a way, but I just don't know it. Leave a comment and I'll email the code to you, I guess. I also got the code from the links below which is easy to cut/paste but you'll have to make all the changes yourself.

Step 3: Put in your Feed ID.
Step 4: Save and close

This post is by PragmaticMom. Who knew what she could manipulate HTML code?! Not really, but she can fake it when necessary.

p.s. Useful Posts on Topic:

How to Customize Your Feedburner Email Subscription Form, Part I
How to Customize The Feedburner Subscription Email Form for Your Blog

Creating a Cache Folder for HyperCache

noreply@blogger.com (CoffeeShopBloggers) — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 13:58:00 +0000

I have spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to speed up the load time on my blog. One way is to use a good cache plugin. I tried several (W3-Total Cache and WP Super Cache) and ended up with HyperCache after a long round of help desk support calls to the manager at my old hosting company.

When the Hyper Cache plugin updated, I got a red error message which is very stressful. It said:

Hyper Cache was not able to create the folder "cache" in its installation dir. Create it by hand and make it writable.

Here's the Idiot Proof way of fixing it if your web host help desk support can not do it for you. Note that Go Daddy was useless but StableHost fixed it for me!

1) Go to Go Daddy and log in (always easier than it sounds)
2) Go to My Account
3) Under the left hand side bar, go to HOSTING under MY PRODUCTS
4) Select your domain name and hit LAUNCH
5) Go to FTP File Manager. It's a large button on the upper left hand side.
6) The plugins folder is under wp-content
7) Open the plugins in folder
8) Find the HyperCache folder
8) Now hit button on the top left hand of the screen called CREATE NEW DIRECTORY
9) Call this directory: cache
10) Now hit Permissions button
11) You are about to do something called giving 777 permission which is fancy talk for read/write/execute
11) Check the boxes below so that Read, Write and Execute are all checked.

Web user permissions

Read

Write

Execute(Directory)

Owner permissions

Read

Write

Execute(Directory)

12) Log into your wordpress blog.

13) Go to Hypercache plugin and hit SETTINGS

14) This will ask you to clear your cache. You say yes and the annoying red error sign will go away. Phew!

That was fun, huh? Congratulate yourself on your newfound tech geek skills and enjoy the rest of your day!

p.s. This is a great post by WP Garage if you are also trying to get your blog to load faster. Just be cautious with the WordPress Clean Options Plugin. I used this and wiped out some of my posts such that they were in my Wordpress files but they loaded as blank pages. It took hours and hours of time to fix this issue and was NOT fun!

How to Captivate New Readers in 5 Seconds or Less (from Copyblogger)

noreply@blogger.com (CoffeeShopBloggers) — Tue, 24 May 2011 19:51:00 +0000

Have you ever been told you can’t judge a book by its cover?

Well, that traditional wisdom isn’t true.

Not only can you make accurate judgements about something from one glance, you almost certainly do it hundreds of times every day without even being aware of it.

It’s not just books we judge based on first impressions. Blogs and other websites are in the firing line as well.

While we all like to think we’re open-minded, every one of us constantly makes instant judgments and decisions. We judge everything from books and businesses to people based on our first impressions.

And it’s only getting worse. The more fragmented our attention gets, the faster we make those snap decisions.

So how’s your site stacking up? Do those critical first few seconds draw new visitors in … or send them running for the door?

Why are first impressions important?

If you’ve ever picked a new magazine off the shelf, it’s because there was something you liked about the cover.

If you’ve ever visited a blog and left five seconds later without reading a word, you used your powers of instant judgment there, too.

Maybe we shouldn’t judge books by their covers, or people by their clothes, or businesses by their websites, or blogs by their design. But we do.

We’re hard-wired to make quick decisions.

Cave men survived on their ability to make fast judgments. Can I eat it? Can it eat me?

You can’t spend long weighing up your options when you’ve got three hungry kids waiting back in the cave, a flimsy spear in your hand, and a woolly mammoth bearing down on you.

Why readers rely on first impressions

Fortunately we’ve moved on past the whole mammoth thing, but we still rely on first impressions to work out what’s important, what’s useful, what’s trustworthy … and what’s not.

We’re constantly bombarded with advertisements, beeping cell phones, animated buttons, and pop-up windows. First impressions help us sort the cool from the crud.

And once that first impression has been made and you’ve decided if someone is an expert or amateur, or if their blog is worth reading or not, it’s hard to change your mind.

First impressions not only count. They last.

What does it take to make a good first impression?

Because you don’t know where people will first meet you online, you need to be consistent. Make sure you look your best everywhere you have an online presence.

Your pictures and profiles don’t all need to be identical, but they should at least convey the same values and image.

Similarly, the content on your blog should make one coherent great impression, whether the reader lands on your latest post or a classic from your archives.

Here’s a five-point checklist to help you create a winning first impression and convert more visitors into loyal readers.

1. Check all your online profiles

That means Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and anywhere else you have an online presence (including your About page).

You never know which page of your site people will see first, and you never know how they’ll first connect with you online.

Successful blogs tend to constantly evolve and change, so your online profiles need to reflect that.

Be clear about the kind of content you offer. They’re web readers, not mind readers. Clear, concise language and benefit-rich headlines help readers know instantly if they’re in the right place.

2. Look at your site with fresh eyes

Imagine you’ve never visited your site before and don’t know what it’s about. What first impression do those new visitors get? Is that the impression you want to leave?

If not it might be time to update your blog design and copy.

Make sure the design is polished and professional. Think about your branding, including the images, colors, and language that will most appeal to your target audience.

If your site looks boring, amateurish, or cheap, that’s how you’ll be perceived.

3. Use your email signature

Your email signature is prime real estate. Consider using a tool like Wisestamp to add a photo of yourself, a special offer, and a link to your latest blog post to all your email.

A text email signature can be powerful too, if you use it to tell people what makes you unique. Keep it fresh and meaningful, don’t just share that quote you liked back in 2007.

4. Have another look at your profile picture

In most cases, you should use a photo of yourself, particularly in social media. People want to interact with other people, not logos.

A professional photo is worth paying for, but if you don’t have the time or budget, make sure your profile picture is clear, visible, and cheerful.

Do you prefer to hang out with and work with happy people? Then make sure your photo makes you look friendly and open. If in doubt, ask a friend for their honest opinion.

Resist the temptation to use photos where you look cool or sexy … you may come across as bored or grumpy instead.

Play it safe and put on a winning smile like Copyblogger, Problogger, Sonia Simone and me. So even if you’re feeling grumpy, stressed, or worried, you look like the kind of confident, friendly person your customers want to work with.

5. Make sure your site can be scanned

New web visitors don’t have time to read much in the five seconds it takes them to decide if they want to know more or not. They want to scan your site, so make it easy for them.

New blog visitors have three main questions:

What’s this blog about?
Who writes it?
What do I get out of reading it?

A tagline is a quick way to let people find out what your blog is about in less than a second.

A photo of you or will let them know who writes it.

Useful topics, compelling images, and irresistible headlines will let people know why they should read it.

Most sites become cluttered over time. You start off with simple, clean design, then add a few links, a couple of widgets, some banner ads … and suddenly your sleek design has become a confusing mess.

Remember most people will only spend five seconds looking at your site before deciding whether to keep reading or look elsewhere.

They say you only get once chance to create a first impression.

What are you going to do to make it count?

About the Author: Annabel Candy writes about successful blogging for small business owners and writers. If you’d like to learn more about what it really takes to be a successful blogger, subscribe now to get three chapters of her book Successful Blogging in 12 Simple Steps free. Or if you need time out from work, check out her personal writing.

5 Ways to Quickly Write High-Quality Content (from Copyblogger)

noreply@blogger.com (CoffeeShopBloggers) — Thu, 19 May 2011 14:45:00 +0000

Every blogger wants to write supremely useful and insightful content.

The question is — how do I pull that off consistently without my blog eating up every waking hour of my day?

And if you write for other sites in addition to writing for yourself, there’s even more pressure to keep the quality up. Whether you’re getting paid in cash or traffic, you can bet your host blogs are counting on you for great posts — every time.

They can write crappy posts on their own, thank you.

There was a time when I was on deadline to deliver nearly 60 blog posts per month — mostly for paying clients — so I learned how to do it efficiently.

I didn’t really have a choice, unless I wanted to give up sleep and raising of my children.

Thankfully, there are a few simple, universal habits that will help you do your best writing in less time.

Here are my five tips for becoming a creatively prolific content producer:

1. Always keep a stack of good ideas up your sleeve

Nothing wastes a writer’s time more than sitting down to write and not knowing what you want to say.

If a deadline is looming, you’re just stuck in that chair until inspiration strikes. This is a major time-waster. That pressure to deliver a great post idea — right now — also inhibits creativity for many writers.

Prevent this problem by scanning many and varied sources for ideas.

Keep a running list of possible content topics — I keep track of mine with the free WordPress Editorial Calendar plugin.

I also keep newsletters and possible headline sources in an email folder together. With my raw idea material organized, it doesn’t usually take more than a half-hour to scan through everything and add enough ideas to my list to hold me for weeks.

By contrast, trolling for ideas one at a time can easily consume countless hours.

Planning ahead with an editorial calendar also helps you consider the whole month’s blogging needs instead of just thinking about your next post. This shift in mindset helps ensure any special events, holidays, or other “time pegs” are on your radar and don’t get missed.

Thinking ahead can help you see how your posts’ topics relate to each other, which can spotlight gaps that additional posts could fill. Presto! New post ideas.

You might also spin related posts into a content series. Grouping topics helps the writing flow faster. If some breaking news crops up you want to write on, you can always move another post idea forward.

Now that’s far preferable to finding yourself with no idea for tomorrow’s post, and little beads of sweat forming on your furrowed brow.

2. Blog in batches

Blogs involve a certain amount of technical grunt work.

You may need to find photos, upload them, enter a photo credit, write your alternate and title tags. And of course you definitely need to write a great headline.

It’ll save a lot of time to sit and do a whole slew of these basic tasks at once.

Now that you’re planning ahead, you could find and upload the next five photos you need all in a batch, instead of hunting them down one by one. Get all those photos installed on their posts, even if you’re not writing those entries today.

Then, when it’s time to write, you’ll feel like your post is already half done. Taming the administrivia frees you up to get into a better flow with your writing, instead of stopping with each post to search for the right image or tinker with the headline.

While you’re thinking in batches, consider writing several posts in a sitting.

Once you’re writing in the style of your blog or your client’s blog, keep rolling with that tone and knock out several entries.

This is far more efficient than writing each post in a separate sitting, and trying to recapture that groove the next day or even a week later.

3. Know your chronobiology

Every human being has a different natural rhythm to their creative life.

Some of us reliably do our best writing before breakfast, while others would find it difficult to write a coherent sentence until after noon.

Scientists call this chronobiology — your natural, internal biological clock.

Simply put, you’re hard-wired to be more naturally creative at certain times of day, and you’re less brilliant at other times.

Whenever possible, don’t fight your biology. Don’t try to write in your least productive time periods. It’ll take you longer to do the same amount of work, and the results probably won’t be as good.

Instead, try to organize your life so that your peak creative time is free of trivial tasks, phone appointments, or twitter.

Then, write like mad.

4. Write ahead

One of the biggest threats to producing quality content is time pressure.

If you’re writing content the same day you need it to go up, you sacrifice one of the most powerful tools for improving your writing: The chance to read it again tomorrow before you click “send.”

Essentially, if you’re writing and immediately posting, you’re posting a first draft. Also known as a rough draft.

This is not your best work.

Instead of writing frantically and having to post right away, back up all your deadlines by at least 48 hours. Now you’ve got time to dash off a first draft today, leave it alone, and revisit it tomorrow.

That fresh perspective will help you spot the weak areas and buff them up (or cut them) quickly, where you could torment yourself all day trying to squeeze out the draft in one go.

5. Keep it simple

Too often, writers let blog posts ramble on too long, or wander off onto multiple trails and tangents.

Good blog posts are concise and stick to a single topic.

Posts that follow one train of thought also take less time to write. Over-thinking it can waste hours, and you’ll end up pruning out the miscellaneous observations in the end anyway.

Got more ideas on a topic? Split them up and create a series. Don’t try to cram it all into one post.

Be on guard against side issues that will end up as deadwood anyway, and send them over to your idea list instead.

Mix a little advance planning with tightly focused topics, and you’ll crank out better content in less time.

Maybe you’ll even get to catch a nap.

How about you? What’s your favorite tip for kicking your writing efficiency into high gear? Let us know about it in the comments.

About the Author: Carol Tice plans ahead to create useful, insightful posts for her blog, Make a Living Writing, which offers practical help for hungry writers. Her next free teleclass is 20 Tips to Rock Your Query Letter.

Social Media and Moms: What They Do and Buy (From Center for Media Research)

noreply@blogger.com (CoffeeShopBloggers) — Thu, 19 May 2011 14:15:00 +0000

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Modern Mom More Than "... A Regular Woman"

According to a recent Nielsen Company study, 34% of American households are home to kids under 18, and modern moms wear many hats and play many roles. These moms are 19% more likely than the general population to engage in social networking, and even more likely to become a fan or follow a brand (31% more likely), become a fan or follow a celebrity (24% more likely) and comment on others postings (27% more likely). Moms account for one-fourth of all video streams occurring on social networks, and are also more likely to post their own content:

37% more likely to post photos
25% more likely to link articles/videos
33% more likely to give status updates

Using the Internet for personal communication is also very high among mothers, with moms 37% more likely to send/receive invites online, 17% more likely to use instant messaging and 14% more likely to make/receive voice calls online.
Moms make up more than one-fifth of online video viewers and spent an average of 258 minutes viewing online video in March 2011. Compared to the overall usage in the US, Moms spent 25% more time, about 52 minutes longer on average, viewing online video from Home PCs.
Moms can be hard to reach, says the report. In broadcast primetime, ad recall levels are 8% lower among moms 25-54 than non-moms of the same age and the general population.
The study found that the ads that resonate most with moms are often family- and convenience-oriented with relatable characters/situations, sentimental tonality and good natured humor. A heavy focus on products/services tends to reduce ad effectiveness among moms. For moms, the 30-second sitcom (or drama) might just snag her much-divided attention.
Though households with kids under 18 make up a third of U.S. households, they are responsible for half of all purchases of cereal, juice, fresh meat and prepared food (dry mixes). Moms also overindex for shopping for groceries online.
However, when it comes to general shopping online, they are on par with other online adults.
Moms are more likely to shop for media items:

Books (11% more likely than the adult online population)
Magazines (20%)
Digital music (15%)
Video games (7%).

On the flipside, they are 53% less likely to do investment shopping.
For the 2010-2011 season, reality TV programs have been the big winners among women ages 25-54 in broadcast primetime. In fact, the top four broadcast programs women ages 25-54 watched were reality TV as were half of the top 20 shows watched by this audience.
For more information about the Nielsen study, please visit here.

Why I subscribe to ProBlogger -

noreply@blogger.com (Capability Mom) — Sat, 14 May 2011 18:13:00 +0000

Because I read great articles like this one. Commenting on other blogs - I know why I do it (although sometimes I don't put it very high up on my to do list) and glad to see this article on the reasons for commenting, besides being part of an online community which is the main reason, yes?
Problogger

This guest post is by Joe of Web Programming 360.

VERY Comprehensive Post on Twitter Marketing from Copyblogger

noreply@blogger.com (CoffeeShopBloggers) — Mon, 09 May 2011 18:19:00 +0000

I’ve probably approached Twitter marketing in fifty different ways.
And in an attempt to find the best way to go forward with my own marketing efforts on Twitter, I recently realized that I’d collected a fairly valuable list of killer resources along the way.
Would you like to know how to start marketing your business on Twitter?
How about more advanced approaches to getting more retweets, more followers, and more prospects for your business?
If there are secrets and special formulas that can magically unlock the power of social media out there, I don’t know them.
What I do know, is exactly what the experts are doing — day in and day out.
And now, you will too …

What is Twitter?

Twitter in Plain English
Entertaining and easy to follow, this video from Lee and Sachi LeFever of Common Craft show ways of understanding how Twitter works and fits into your daily workflow and lifestyle.
48 Ways to Explain Twitter to Skeptics
David Meerman Scott confronts the inevitable questions from the Twitter skeptics. His family asked him to explain Twitter, grilling him on Christmas. Instead of explaining himself, he tweeted the question and posted his replies.

Setting up your Twitter account

The Beginner’s Guide to Twitter
Michael Hyatt shares a tutorial on how to set up Twitter for your cell phone. He also goes over some basics on how to tweet with third-party tools.
Newbie’s Guide to Twitter
Rafe Needleman shares a step-by-step process of getting started on Twitter. His steps include basics like the initial account set up, getting started on your mobile phone, following and joining friends and even mindset ideas for new Twitter users.
Twitter and Personal Branding: The BIG Mistake I See People Make Every Single Day
David Meerman Scott shares secrets you can use to setup your Twitter profile with your personal brand.
Why You Need a Kick Ass Twitter Background
Marian Schembari shares a few profiles on Twitter and why they represent their brands so well.
It’s OK to Have Multiple Twitter Accounts
In fact, it’s necessary if you have multiple departments in your business. Christian Collard explains how he uses multiple accounts for his business to target followers and build relationships.

New twitter users start here

Social Media Workflows Part 1: Awareness and Capture
Setting goals before jumping on Twitter will get you farther than any other strategy. Chris Brogan discusses how you’re going to use Twitter for your company and how to put a plan in place.
How to Start On Twitter Without Looking Like a Newbie
Marian Schembari created a new Twitter account for sharing her experiences in her new town of Auckland, New Zealand. Instead of throwing any old thing up there and opening the doors for people to interact with her on that account, she walks through what she did before inviting followers.
7 Tips for New Twitter Users
Shel Israel’s evergreen post has some of the best tips for approaching Twitter when you’re a newbie.
Use Twitter for Your Business the Right Way
Aira Bongco’s tips give you a solid basic approach to Twitter. Also, find the one way you can use Twitter to set your business apart.
How to Twitter
Wall Street Journal’s Julia Angwin shares her first few Twitter experiences before she got the hang of it and gained followers. She writes about how to use Twitter’s greatest strength to your advantage.
Moving from Social Media Tactics To Your Social Business Plan
Instead of floundering on social media networks, being tossed from wave to wave, David Armano shares foundation-building steps. When your company is ready to tap social media, David’s post will help you find secure footing.
Twitter Experiment Results — Swapping Person To Brand
Adam Singer makes a case for creating content that is community focused. Find out why creating great content drives traffic from social media networks to your “hub.”

What’s up with the whole #hashtag thing?

The Twitter Hash Tag: What Is It and How Do You Use It?
Tech for Luddites gives a great clarification on what a hashtag is, and how to create one.

Twitter vocabulary

The Ultimate Glossary: 101 Social Media Marketing Terms Explained
Every definition and term you needed to know around social media in one place. How convenient is that?
Can Social Media Buzz-Words Kill Your Profits?
J.P. Micek shares his impressions about buzzwords in new media marketing. In this article, he gives you a different way of looking at the mindset for using social media to gain the most from words likeauthenticity and transparency.
Ten Things You Must Know Before Using Twitter
Ten must-know terms and tools.
25 Social Media Buzzwords … Explained
Jim Tobin put together the top social media buzzwords with thorough definitions so you won’t be in the dark when someone says “social graph” or “mash-ups.”

Why you need to be on Twitter

12 Reasons to Start Twittering
Start with the 12 reasons to start Twittering. Michael Hyatt’s insights are spot on.
How Twitter Will Change the Way We Live
Robyn Twomey of Time Magazine discusses Twitter and conversation. The fact that a conversation in your head can lead to real-life conversations and connections is changing the world. This post brings up questions surrounding the standards of interacting with others — instead of staying in your head or continuing a one-way conversation plan.
Social Media Marketing: 2011 Trends Report
Is Twitter just “too six months ago” for you? Michael Brenner goes over the 2011 Trends Report with his own thoughts about what’s coming next in social media.
5 Reasons I use Twitter – (and you should too)
Jeff Delp, a K-12 administrator, says using Twitter can help you as a personal learning tool in five areas of communication. Using Twitter can improve your current work style and future learning.
Do You Tweet? 3 Reasons Why You Should
This one’s a favorite of mine because Sprike tells you straight up that you shouldn’t expect to land deals or millions of dollars in the first three minutes of being on Twitter. Instead, Sprike shares with you: 1) who you should try to get to follow you, and 2) exactly why.
7 Surprising Statistics About Twitter in America
Jay Baer, co-author of The NOW Revolution, shares the side of Twitter you don’t know, according to an Edison Research Survey. Although this is a 2010 blog post, it still has relevance as to why Twitter is a significant player in social media and still growing like crazy.
35 Ways Social Media Can Make Your Life Easier
Alli from BlogWorld shares how Twitter makes it convenient for you to find valuable, real-time information. Besides using it for business, you’ll get insights into thirty-five other uses for Twitter, making it perfect for the pursuit of #winning.
The Future of Community
Chris Brogan gives an excellent point about the ever-changing nature of web-based community. He shares the evolution of community online, and why Twitter is necessary.
How a Few Tweets Led to a 370% Increase In My Traffic
Tom Meitner shares his Twitter experience with Chris Brogan on Problogger. He says anything is possible if you take action.
Twitter User Statistics Show Stunning Growth
Catharine Smith from The Huffington Post illustrates how much Twitter has grown over the past five years since its launch.
The Ten Ways Twitter Will Permanently Change American Business
Douglas McIntyre from 24/7 Wall Street wrote this evergreen post about how Twitter is evolving into a major marketing tool in ten different areas of media and marketing.

Big companies are doing it …

Coca-Cola VP Talks About the Keys to Social Media Success
Cynthia Boris interviewed Wendy Clark about Coca-Cola’s strategy with Twitter. The tips from this post at Marketing Pilgrim are incredible.
40 of the Best Twitter Brands and the People Behind Them
Jennifer Van Grove interviewed forty major brands on Twitter for Mashable. She came up with the best reasons to be on Twitter and how to create your company’s strategy based on these interviews.

The government is doing it too …

Cornyn: Lawmakers Having to Conquer Fear of Social Media
Michael O’Brien of The Hill’s Twitter Room reports about how Sen. John Cornyn uses social media. In this post, find out the number one reason using Twitter will help your business efforts.
Barack Obama on Twitter
He follows back, or so I’ve heard. I haven’t seen him accept my follow yet

What you need to know

An Insider’s Guide to Social Media Etiquette
Chris Brogan has plenty of etiquette tips for keeping the conversation going, disclosure, promotion, content production, and sharing.
Twitter Etiquette For Agencies/Freelancers
Tony Bloomberg from Diva Marketing Blog shares more than just a few tips for etiquette and Twitter behavior.
The Most Important Twitter Rule of 2011
Diana Adams says down with the “dictatorship mentality” on Twitter. Discover the reigning Twitter rule for 2011 that trumps everything else.
Twitter, Facebook, Groupon, and Social Media – What Online Advertisers Need to Know
Hollis Thomases delivers the real deal on social media. She goes over the cold, hard facts based on research and reports so you don’t have to.
The Easy Button
Tom Webster of Brand Savant shares the “easy button” of the Internet.

What the heck is a retweet and how do I do it?

How to Get More Retweet Action on Twitter
The magic on Twitter happens in the retweets. David Cantone will get you started with several simple but important strategies.
How to Increase Your Retweets, Twitter Followers & Klout
Kristi Hines gives you a few easy steps to getting more retweets now. You want more retweets, right?
How to Get Retweeted
Getting retweeted is one of the ultimate goals for marketers using Twitter. Guy Kawasaki’s plan for ultimate retweet domination is on the other side of this link.
5 Steps to Going Viral on Twitter
Dan Zarrella analyzes the specific language and techniques that create more retweets for your Twitter content.
7 Ways to Thank Someone for a Retweet
Angie Schottmuller shares a simple way to thank those followers who retweet your stuff. This goes beyond the basic, “Thanks for the RT!” and to thanking your followers the right way.

The Twitter mindset

1,000 True Fans
The mindset behind any sustainable business. You can gain popularity, coolness and style, but without 1,000 true fans on your side, all the rest fades. BONUS: We all want an audience, here’s how you can learn to earn yours.
The Four Stages of “Getting” Twitter — Infographic
See, everyone goes through these stages. Cool infographic from The Chris Voss Show.
The Six Twitter Types
Guy Kawasaki posted on the American Express Open Forum about the different types of people that use Twitter and which ones are the most effective. Check out which one resembles you and what each of them do. I’m a Mensch, by the way. If you were wondering.
New Media as Community Theater — All the World’s a Stage
I loved this post by Ann Handley because she explains how new media gives everyone a platform for getting their message out.
An Open Letter to the Social Business Industry
I love Amber Naslund’s message on Brass Tack Thinking. She shares how even though social media is a collective entity, there’s several approaches people take towards it. Not all are the same, but all are part of the same purpose.
My Recommendation About Your Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn
Tim Berry shares the one recommendation every business needs to know about using social media. You don’t have to take it, but it could be a deciding factor for whether you close a sale or not.

How to get Twitter followers

Looking for Mr. Goodtweet: How to Pick Up Followers on Twitter
Guy Kawasaki’s post offers insights on getting more Twitter followers. He uses these strategies himself.
Who You Gonna Follow Now?
Guy Kawasaki shares three sources that will help you decide who to follow.
Writing Killer Content in 140 Characters or Less
Killer content on your blog can get people to stick around. Twitter only has 140 characters. How do you create killer content in 140 characters? Marly shares a complete list on crafting a message in 140 characters or less.
Why 150 Followers is All You Really Need
Do the number of followers really matter? Find out the number one reason why it doesn’t matteraccording to Srinivas Rao and get tips on building your base to 150 in just a few steps.
10 Reasons Why I Follow You on Twitter
Brittany Rubinstein shares why she and a million other people on Twitter might follow you.
How To: Expand Your Twitter Tribe
Seth Godin wrote the book on tribes for businesses. In this post, your business gains a list of ways to expand your reach on Twitter from Aaron Lee.

Brand management on Twitter

The Evolution of Brands on Twitter
Jeremiah Owyang shows you exactly how to get up and running on social media.
Twitter, Customer Service, and Good Brand Management
So many marketing gurus are predicting social media as the future. Valerie Maltoni shares a list of tools and ways to monitor your brand and respond to conversation in a matter of minutes. By doing this, you increase web presence and provide excellent customer service.

Lean, mean Twitter marketing strategies

62 Ways to Use Twitter for Business
If you think you know everything about Twitter, I challenge you to read this post by Meryl Evans. Even the most die hard Twitter users will find at least one action step in this list to use immediately.
How to Use Twitter as a Twool
Cut through monkey talk running around in your head about Twitter. Go read Guy Kawasaki’s post and get clear on a Twitter strategy you can put in place now. It’s a few years old, but still applies.
TweetWhen: The Science of Timing
Dan Zarella shares three years of research and a free tool that’ll show you exactly when to tweet. Watch his webinar to see customized graphs for getting the most retweets.
10 Ways Brands Can Target Moms by Fusing Online Advertising and Social Media
Hollis Thomases put together a list for businesses to get over the wondering of what to do on Twitter and other social media platforms. Print her list and go do it.
The Only Twitter List a Business User Needs
Mario Sundar shares how to use Twitter and LinkedIn together to maximize and keep track of contacts for your business.
4 Ways Companies Use Twitter for Business
Want to see a new media marketing strategy that big companies use? Here are four from Sarah Perez.
Are Twitter Chats Part of Your Social Media Strategy?
Angela Maiers talks about using Twitter chats to grow your business. Don’t know what a Twitter chat is or how to find one? Angela has your back.
Opportunity for Better B2B Marketing with Social Media & SEO
Lee Odden makes a strong case for B2B marketing using social search and SEO. He backs it up with statistics and the right way to implement a plan.
Stop Trying to Engage Your Audience
Gahlord Dewald shares an extremely useful tip after helping a fellow entrepreneur. Find out the one thing to look for when scanning Twitter feeds.
Social Media, Generosity and the Hockey Stick
Find out how karma can come back to your business through the eyes of Jeff Gibbard. One question will determine whether you’re spinning your wheels in social media, or investing in the future.
How To (Successfully) Break The First Rule of Social Media
Just like grammar, copywriters break the rules (and have fun doing it). So find out the number one rule that will skyrocket your social media experience and send raving fans flocking to you.

Prospecting on Twitter

How to Use Twitter for Sales Prospecting
Use this post as your prospecting tool and mindset helper in one. Short and sweet, it has real value for getting to prospecting on Twitter right away.
Actively Prospecting with Twitter
Geared toward real estate professionals, the Rainmaker Masters Circle blog shares the benefits you’ll receive from prospecting on Twitter and the value you’ll add to potential clients’s lives by providing a needed solution.
Two-Minute Social Media Tips: Local Prospecting with Twitter
(Video) Troy Janisch from Social Meteor shares some quick and easy tips for prospecting locally. Since it’s predicted that all businesses are going to get left behind if they aren’t active in social media, check out these tips to see what you can do right now.

Craft eye-catching Twitter headlines

The Art of Writing Great Twitter Headlines
Brian Clark gives you a must-read recipe for writing headlines that get clicks and retweets.

Managing Twitter

Manage Multiple Accounts Without Medication
If you have quite a few social media accounts to keep up with, Erika Napoletano gives you the full disclosure on how to manage it all.
Top Ten Social Media Tools for Daily Use
Mari Smith shares her faves for making social media manageable across multiple platforms. Besides Twitter, Mari’s website features plenty of posts on Facebook as well.
50 Ideas on Using Twitter for Business
Chris Brogan’s ways to use Twitter for business. It’s a printable list of fifty of the sharpest ways to use Twitter today. If you’re stumped on getting started, read through this list and get to it.
Why There’s Nothing Wrong with Social Media Automation
Twitter purists beware! Danny Brown gives excellent reasons why it’s perfectly fine to use automation tools for Twitter. I mean, geez, you can’t grow eight arms so why not automate where you can? With Danny’s tips, you’re set..
4 Ways to Track Tweets
Patrick Garmoe shares the best tools to track your tweets. Since tracking your online presence is necessary, find out the exact tools you need to do it well.
3 Steps to a Productive Life on Twitter as a Blogger Using Buffer
You may have already seen Leo Widrich or spoke to him on Twitter about Buffer App. Here’s a behind the scenes glance at what it does and how it can help your business.
Top 5 Twitter app alternatives for iPhone
Of course where would we be without Twitter for iPhone. Actually I’m still stuck in the stone age and don’t have a smart phone yet, but for all of you who do, these apps can help you manage Twitter on the go.
How Much Time Does Twittering Really Take?
Do you have to spend 14 hours a day working Twitter like Gary Vaynerchuk? Could you tweet and be effective on Twitter for 20 minutes a day? Find out from Michael Hyatt.
A Review of Triberr and the Spin Sucks Analytics
Gini Dietrich shares why Spin Sucks uses Triberr and how it will help your business with social media. You’ve got to see her hard fact analytics over a two-month span, amazing.

Twitter security

How To Setup HTTPS Better Security on Your Twitter Account
Chris Voss shares how a hacker got into the Twitter accounts of several people in the same coffee shop. He also shares how you can ensure this doesn’t happen to you while tweeting when out and about.

Twitter social proof

What Your Twitter Numbers Say About You, part 1
Marian tells it like it is regarding your Twitter stats. You can get more followers or let people find you, but if you read her post, you’ll find out why she recommends going out and getting more.
What Your Twitter Numbers Say About You, part 2
Marian shares her strategy for managing Twitter through Hootsuite. She makes it look easy!
How do you increase social influence? Don’t think about the score
Not into self-promotion? Brian Solis gives you tangible advice on building a community the human way.
Measuring Social Business Success
Want to know the return on investment (ROI) for social media? Well, Erin Traudt has a few insights on social media gains and social business costs.

Avoid being an annoying twit

Ten Things You Need to Stop Tweeting About
The Oatmeal shares his hilariously true views about what you need to stop tweeting. Don’t say you haven’t done at least one of these if you’re on Twitter. Remember, we can all look up your tweets
The Twitter Test
Mitch Joel cracks me up in this post. Find out how your tweets stack up by taking his Twitter Test.
Don’t Be That Guy
Are you that guy? Shannon Paul can help.
12 Twitter Mistakes You Should Avoid
We all make mistakes. If you can admit them, you’re on your way to improvement. John Paul Aguiar will teach you to avoid some of the biggest Twitter mistakes around.
8 Reasons for Brand Failure on Social Media (Twitter)
Admit it, you’ve wondered … is your brand failing like a whale on Twitter? Charles Mburugu can help you find them and avoid them.
How to Avoid Twitter Cluelessness
Did you see the movie Clueless? Don’t roll with other clueless homies. Get your head on right with these 11 tips from Guy Kawasaki so you can take some action.
Train Wreck! The 3 Types of Self-Destructive Corporate Tweets
Ooh ouch. A few big companies do have some twits at the controls. Check out the tweets Jay Baer listed in this post and what each company did to reconcile with their followers.

Don’t stop there

Twitter Guide Book – How To, Tips and Instructions
Mashable’s HUGE Twitter Guide Book covers the basics as well as more advanced topics. There are also some video tutorials in there.
I Love Marketing – Episode 013: The one with Tim Ferriss
I can’t help it. I love Tim Ferriss. Get into his mindset for Twitter and other social media campaigns through this podcast.
Social Media Cheat Sheet 2011
Drew McLellan put together this great social media cheat sheet. Someone had to create it, right?
Top 20 Twitip Twitter Tips of All Time!
Get all the best Twitips from Lara Kulpa in a single post. If you need action steps to get your business started on Twitter, read, print and follow.
3 Ways to Use Twitter Favorites
It seems many Twitter users don’t understand what favorites on Twitter are or represent. Get the scoop from Ryan Barton so you can use them to your follower’s benefit.
Thanks to my guest blogging coach, Jon Morrow, who kept me on the straight and narrow while working on this post.
Now that you have the knowledge, get out there and market your business on Twitter!
Oh, and please add your best Twitter marketing tips and links in the comments …
About the Author: Gabrielle Conde engineers Mission: Engage -– a company helping businesses grow through content development, article writing, and copywriting.

Applying Journalistic Practice to Content Development (from Media Post Publications)

noreply@blogger.com (CoffeeShopBloggers) — Tue, 03 May 2011 11:32:00 +0000

by Derek Gordon , Monday, May 2, 2011

There is a lot that machines and algorithms can do for us -- the list goes on and on. But one problem the legions of talented engineers at work in Silicon Valley haven't solved is the constant, pressing need for well-written content.

As fellow Search Insider Janet Driscoll Miller recently pointed out, Google's updated algorithm is now focused not just on keywords, links and visits, but whether or not the content is altogether "good": whether it's really relevant to a search query and ultimately useful to an audience. In other words, simply having a keyword strategy isn't enough. Those keywords must be packed inside content that is original, and purposefully written by people with some subject-matter expertise and a vested interest in the goal of informing, educating or entertaining a particular audience.

From Web site copy to blog posts, press releases to white papers, SEO and social strategies depend on good content strategy, and good content strategy relies on good writing. The people who know this better than anyone are journalists. Without realizing it, they invented the concept of what we now refer to as the keyword -- and their practice formed the basis for how the search engines crawl, index and present information (i.e., headlines, subheads and ledes.)

So what can journalism teach us about good content development? As it turns out: everything.

The Headline is All

Headlines always include the key point of a story, and the best often reflect a rising or sustained meme (a.k.a. keywords) that audiences are actively following. And you'll notice that headlines are rarely complete sentences; this is a remnant from print, where column inches are at a premium, but today enable us to quickly convey only the most essential details in just a few eye-catching words. While headlines should include your most important keywords or phrases, they must be written honestly and relevantly, naturally referring to the content they promote. Finally, well-written headlines should not only have some heat, they should also include the sizzle. They must catch the reader's attention. Good headline writing takes a lot of practice, so spend time studying headlines at the best news reporting organization and then get to work on your own.

Always Use the Inverted Pyramid

Journalism 101 teaches students the best way to organize information is to put the most important stuff at the top and the increasingly less important stuff farther down in the story. This organizational tactic is called the inverted pyramid. It was originally developed because journalists of yore (that is, the print kind) never knew how many column inches a story might ultimately get because editors routinely cut them to fit the available space. Today, this practice addresses the short attention spans of audiences, many of whom only read the first or second paragraph of something before clicking away.

Don't Bury the Lede

It's not a misspelling: journalists use "lede" instead of "lead" to distinguish how they leverage the leading part of a story to grab a reader's attention from other meanings associated with "lead." And the number-one rule about the lede? Don't bury it. Everything you write should have a point; you're either breaking a piece of news or advancing a thesis, and you should never, never bury that information. It should be right up front, and written in such a way that it immediately engages readers' attention and pulls them further into the story.

Use Vivid, Active Prose and Edit, Edit, Edit

Journalists are simple people. They avoid jargon. They compose simple sentences using standard subject-verb-object construction. They're highly suspicious of snake-oil salesmen -- or, as we call them today, MBAs. Journalists seek to uncover the truth of any matter and to present facts in a straightforward, unsentimental way. At the same time, they also look to use vivid prose to describe situations so readers can see it in their own mind's eye.

Most important, journalists edit, edit, edit, avoiding superfluous words and phrases. And they are constitutionally allergic to anything that looks self-serving (except when covering politics). Adopt these instincts and your own content will be more accessible, more comprehensible and more engaging.

As usual, there isn't enough space to list all the rules journalists use to produce interesting, engaging and useful content, but these high-level and basic rules should serve you well. Please leave your own journalistic advice and tricks in the comments section below. Next week in my content strategy series: what broadcast news can teach us about creating good video content.

40 Questions You Need to Ask Every Copywriting Client (from Copyblogger)

noreply@blogger.com (CoffeeShopBloggers) — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 01:16:00 +0000

You’ve connected with a prospective client and you’re at your first meeting!

It’s an exciting time in the life of any freelance marketer or copywriter.

Unfortunately, this is also the moment when the seeds of disaster are often sown.

Instead of having a detailed discussion about the project at this initial meet, hungry copywriters often slump into desperation mode. At the first mention of a payment of any size at all, you’re sticking out your sweaty hand ready to shake on any deal you can get.

Remorse sets in later, when you figure out the project requires ten times the workload you imagined.

If you accepted a flat project fee — always preferable to naming an hourly rate — you realize you’re earning less on an hourly basis than you’d get working the counter at McDonald’s.

Avoid this unpleasant scenario by learning all you can before you agree to take a project. There is a lot to know to really nail down what a copywriting assignment will entail.

Here is my list of 40 questions to ask a prospective copywriting client:

1. Can you please define your project? You might imagine a company that’s called in a copywriter has an idea what they want. Much of the time, you would be wrong. They’re hoping you can help them figure out whether their best new piece of content would be a white paper, a revised landing page, or eight blog posts a month. If they can’t figure it out even with your help, try to find a small initial project they’re willing to greenlight to get things moving.

2. When will you be ready to get started? If the answer is “next fall,” you know this is just a meet-and-greet. This client isn’t ready to assign anything, so politely wrap it up as fast as you can and ask if you can stay in touch.

3. When do you need this project completed? Between question two and this one, you learn the timeframe — how long you’ll have to do the work from start to finish. This is one of the most important metrics I use in setting my bid. If the timeframe is short, remember rush work should always pay a premium rate.

4. Is there a hard deadline by which materials must be delivered? For instance, if what you’re writing is to be handed out at an upcoming trade show, there won’t be any wiggle room.

5. Have you worked with freelance copywriters before? Pray the answer is yes. Training a client who’s new to the whole process will be time-consuming.

6. What is your budget for this project? Try to get the client to name a figure, or at least a range. Getting them to speak first on price will help you avoid radically over- or underbidding. If they won’t bite, mention a broad range and say, “I’ll be able to deliver a more precise project quote once I know more about your needs.”

7. Who will be my editor? This is the person you’ll spend the most time interacting with, so try to meet them and get a sense of whether you’re compatible.

8. How many people at your company will be involved in this project? Many executives or departments on board can mean an ugly scenario in which your work is reviewed by multiple managers or department teams. This is usually the enemy of good copy, and can make consensus on a final version hard to achieve.

9. If multiple executives or teams are involved, who has final approval? Push to define where the buck stops. Otherwise, it may stop with no one, or you may find yourself enmeshed in a power struggle may between several executives who each think the project is theirs.

10. Will I be interviewing people outside the company? If so, find out whether the company will provide contacts or you’ll be expected to dig them up yourself.

11. Who will come up with the topic(s)? A corporate blogging project where you need to generate a dozen ideas a month takes far longer, and should cost more, than one where you’ll be handed a monthly topic list.

12. May I see your existing marketing materials? One of the best ways to cut the time you spend on a copywriting project is to read existing materials to learn what their marketing team likes.

13. Oh — you hate your current marketing materials? If current materials are loathed, it’s even more important to get a look at it. Ask managers what’s not working for them, so you can avoid putting more of the same in your copy. Also, identifying crappy existing copy opens the door to negotiating additional project work.

14. Will what I’m going to write be used with your existing materials? If your brochure is going to have one of their existing fliers tucked inside, you’ll want to know that from the start.

15. Who, specifically, is the target audience for what I will write? If the company doesn’t know, beware.

16. How much can you tell me about this audience? Extract every detail you can, down to what brand of coffee their customers drink. The more developed your picture of customers, the easier it will be to ‘talk’ to them in your copy.

17. What are the most important problems facing this audience? If the company is fuzzy on this point, talk to sales staff about what they hear from customers, or arrange to spend a day going out on sales calls.

18. Have you done any market research on your customers? If there’s a study sitting around, get it in your hands.

19. How, specifically, does your product or service help solve their problems? The answer to this question may deliver an instant outline of the points you need to cover.

20. Can you provide me with five descriptive words that define the values you’d like me to convey about your company? This little exercise is invaluable to get prospects to crystallize their corporate values so you can clearly communicate them in the copy.

21. Who are your major competitors, and how is your company different? This is your chance to learn that essential element your copy will need to highlight — the client’s unique selling proposition.

22. How will this material be distributed? Online content has a distinctly different format than print, so find out if links need coding.

23. Are you looking for a graphic designer on this project? If so, stand out by offering to tap your rolodex, and possibly also score a project-management fee.

24. Do you have any multimedia needs for this project? In today’s interactive age, you may need to integrate QR codes, video, slideshows or other interactivity into what you write. Understand all the moving parts up front. If you have experience with these tools, you should think about raising your fees.

25. May I show you some of my writing samples? Bring a portfolio or tap your website as a way to stand out in the client’s mind compared with other writers.

26. What is your preferred method of communication? If the answer is IM or Skype, be wary. Customers with a fondness for IM may want to message you instantly — around the clock.

27. What is your expectation of my availability? This is another way of teasing out whether 24/7 communication is expected. If you cherish your weekends off, make that clear and set your boundaries now.

28. Are you looking to lock down my time exclusively? Some clients want you to drop everything and work only for them until their project is completed. You may or may not be able to clear those decks. This question can also bring up whether the client might put you on an ongoing retainer if they like this first project.

29. If my piece will be published online, may I get a credit that’s a live link to my writer site?This is especially relevant if you’re blogging or writing articles for a company. Those bylines can be a great source of new referrals, so it’s worth asking.

30. Does this project require a nondisclosure agreement? Get clarity about what’s top secret, so you don’t screw up and blab something confidential.

31. Will I be allowed to use this piece as a sample in my portfolio? If you’re ghostwriting for team members and the company wants that fact kept confidential, it costs you a sample — so the assignment should pay a premium.

32. Are there any restrictions on who else I can work for in your industry? Especially beware of any noncompete clauses that extend beyond the term of your project.

33. What is your payment method? PayPal is increasingly common — but that service charges a fee that can be nearly 3 percent. If a company can pay through PayPal, in my view, they can pay via direct bank transfer at no cost to me.

34. How soon can you get me a 50% up-front payment to get started? Maybe you could accept 30 percent if you really love the project, but don’t start work without an up-front payment.

35. Let’s review the payment terms for the rest of my fee. Don’t leave this one vague, or the client may pay you six months after you finish work … or never. Right here is where a lot of cash-flow headaches are born. Ask for net 30 days from when work is turned in, or better yet, net 15.

36. My fee usually includes two rounds of rewrites. Does that work for you? I know many copywriters who stick to this rule, and any additional desired edits are extra. I personally take an “I work until you’re thrilled” approach. But it’s worth considering how to structure your contract, especially if you’re smelling a “gang edit” scenario.

37. Let’s determine the time limit for this project. Sometimes, a first draft gets turned in and then you never hear from the client again. In this scenario, your final payment will never trigger unless you’ve built a cutoff date into your contract, at which point all work is considered finished and your check is due.

38. When do you need my bid? If the project is complex or some questions remain unanswered at the end of the first meet, put off bidding until later. Go home and think it through, wait for the rest of the facts to trickle in, and then give your quote.

39. Are you meeting with multiple writers? This company might be thrilled to find you and ready to hire — or they might be emailing a list of the first 50 writers they saw on a Google search. If it’s a cattle call, you may want to put less energy into trying to land the business.

40. If you’re considering turning me down based on price, could you let me know so I can consider rebidding? If you’re worried about whether you’ve bid too high and you really want this client, this question could keep you in the running.

What are the questions you consider crucial for your clients? Do you have a varying version of one of mine? Leave them in the comments below and let’s talk!

About the Author: Carol Tice shares tips to help writers earn more at her Make a Living Writingblog, recently named one of the Top 10 Blogs for Writers. Grab her free report, 40 Ways to Market Your Writing.

Advertising To Women/Moms -- A Brief History (from Engage:Moms, Media Post Publications)

noreply@blogger.com (CoffeeShopBloggers) — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 08:09:00 +0000

By Mary Kay Modaffari

With March being Women's History Month, sharing a retrospective on how advertising to women has evolved through the years seemed appropriate. I think it's safe to say that the launch of Ladies Home Journal in 1883 by Cyrus H.K. Curtis, with his wife Louisa as editor, was a major milestone in the practice of creating advertising specifically targeting women.

Advertising in general has changed dramatically through the years as new vehicles have been introduced and marketers continuously search for innovative ways to engage their target consumers. But, when it comes to advertising to women, especially during the past 50 years, we'll just say, "You've come a long way, baby."

A Brief History

As women have made enormous strides in education and career achievements, their buying power has skyrocketed and what they want from the brand they purchase has changed dramatically. In the 1950s and 1960s, when only 35% of women were in the workforce and a common aspiration among young women was to get married and raise a family, ads concentrated on painting the picture of the happy homemaker (think June Cleaver). Messaging focused on how the advertiser's products and services could help her keep a nicer house or get her family's clothes cleaner or prepare a better meal.

But, as the women's liberation movement took hold in the early 1970s and more women started to pursue careers, we started to see sexier, more confident women on television and in advertising. Remember how Mary Tyler Moore went from Laura Petrie to Mary Richards in less than a decade? Younger Baby Boomers and Gen Xers may remember from their childhoods the Charlie girl or the superwoman portrayed in the classic 1980 Enjolie fragrance commercial with the cheesy jingle, "Cause I'm a Woman." You may even recall the campaign tagline, "The 8-hour perfume for the 24-hour woman." Women wanted to do it all and do it all well. Clair Huxtable, for example, was a wife, mother and high-powered attorney with no sign of a housekeeper.

Then, Gen Xers started running out of steam in the late 1990s and early 2000s from trying to keep up with it all and, after Gen Yers and Millennials watched their mothers struggle to keep it altogether with demanding careers and families, women started to rebel. They lost interest in achieving the mythical Supermom status. While we still feel a great responsibility to take care of our families, we don't obsess over whipping up the perfect meal after a long day at the office. Even women who drop out of the workforce to stay home with their children are embracing the idea of being more laid back, relatable moms. Think Deborah Barrone, or better yet, Patricia Heaton's current character, Frankie Heck on "The Middle."

You don't have to look far today to find campaigns portraying more laid-back moms with less-than-perfect families. The popular Toyota Swagger Wagon campaign is a highly entertaining parody taking on the impossible-to-achieve notion of the perfect parent. And, I personally like the Windows 7 "To the Cloud" spot featuring a woman using modern technology to get the perfect family photo that ends with the line, "Windows gives me the family nature never could."

Marketing to Women Today

Based on work we're doing with our own clients, here are some things to remember when marketing to women (specifically "Moms") today:

Women want us to acknowledge that they are more than just moms. They want us to recognize that they have a sense of identity beyond their domestic roles and interests outside their homes, including careers, friends, clubs and other activities.
Even as the role has changed through the years, one thing has remained constant: Women with children still handle the bulk of household and childcare responsibilities, whether or not they are working full-time, staying at home or something in between.
Today's women have accepted the notion of life being a series of trade-offs. They know they can't be good at everything all of the time, so they do the best they can in each situation. They want brands that make it easy for them to delegate.
Making family connections is still most important to women. Help them find ways to spend more time with their families, and you'll get their attention.

Now that the percentage of females enrolled in college has overtaken the number of male college students, I'm curious to see how the role of females -- and how we market to them -- changes in the next few decades. But, back to our retrospective, there's one fact that I can't help but share -- Woodbury Soap was the first advertiser to use sex appeal to sell a product in ads that ran in Ladies Home Journal in 1911 with the tagline, "The skin you love to touch." So, I guess some things really don't ever change.

Why Women Rule the Internet (from TechCrunch)

noreply@blogger.com (CoffeeShopBloggers) — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 22:10:00 +0000

Aileen Lee

Mar 20, 2011

Editor’s note: This guest post is written byAileen Lee, Partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. Aileen focuses on investing in early stage consumer internet ventures and previously worked at Gap, Odwalla, The Northface and Morgan Stanley. She was also founding CEO of KP-backed RMG Networks. Full disclosure: some of the companies mentioned below are KP-backed companies. You can read more about Aileen atKPCB.com and follow her on twitter at@aileenlee.

It feels like we’re in a Golden Age of the web, led by consumer internet services and e-commerce. Just consider these stats: Facebook—over 600 million users. Twitter—25 billion tweets last year. Tumblr—1 billion page views a week. Zynga—100 million users on Cityville in just 6 weeks. We’re witnessing a generation of consumer web companies growing at an unprecedented rate in terms of both user adoption and revenue.

But here’s a little secret that’s gone unnoticed by most. It’s women. Female users are the unsung heroines behind the most engaging, fastest growing, and most valuable consumer internet and e-commerce companies. Especially when it comes to social and shopping, women rule the Internet.

Consider some more data. Comscore, Nielsen, MediaMetrix and Quantcast studies all show women are the driving force of the most important net trend of the decade, the social web.Comscore says women are the majority of users of social networking sites and spend 30% more time on these sites than men; mobile social network usage is 55% female according toNielsen.

In e-commerce, female purchasing power is also pretty clear. Sites like Zappos (>$1 billion in revenue last year), Groupon ($760m last year), Gilt Groupe ($500m projected revenue this year), Etsy (over $300m in GMV last year), and Diapers ($300m estimated revenue last year) are all driven by a majority of female customers. According to Gilt Groupe, women are 70% of the customer base and they drive 74% of revenue. And 77% of Groupon’s customers are female according to their site.

Women even shop more on Chegg, which offers textbook rentals on college campuses across the country. Males and females attend college at an almost even rate. Renting would seem an equal opportunity money saver, plus it’s better for the planet. But according to Chegg, females are 65% of renters. Why? Renting requires a little more advanced planning. Chegg’s research shows women are more inclined to plan ahead than men. And, they seem to care more about saving money, and are more likely to be influenced by a friend’s recommendation.

It’s no accident Amazon.com launched a program called “Amazon Mom” last year, or that they bought both Zappos and Quidsi (parent company of Diapers.com, BeautyBar.com and Soap.com) for almost $1.8 billion in total. According to the US Census Bureau, women oversee over 80% of consumer spending, or about $5 trillion dollars annually. Women control the purse strings when it comes to disposable income. That’s long been the case.

But what’s different now is that there is an exciting new crop of e-commerce companies building real revenue and real community, really fast, by purposefully harnessing the power of female consumers. One Kings Lane, Plum District, Stella & Dot, Rent the Runway,Modcloth, BirchBox, Shoedazzle, Zazzle, Callaway Digital Arts, and Shopkick are just a few examples of companies leveraging “girl power.” The majority of these companies were also founded by women, which is also an exciting trend.

And take a look at four of the new “horsemen” of the consumer web—Facebook, Zynga,Groupon and Twitter. This may surprise you, the majority of all four properties’ users are female. Make that “horsewomen”.

Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook, has talked about how women are not only the majority of its users, but drive 62% of activity in terms of messages, updates and comments, and 71% of the daily fan activity. Women have 8% more Facebook friends on average than men, and spend more time on the site. According to an early Facebook team member, women played a key role in the early days by adopting three core activities—posting to walls, adding photos and joining groups—at a much higher rate than males. If females had not adopted in the early days, I wonder if Facebook would be what it is today. (Why do you think all the guys showed up?)

How about gaming, seemingly a bastion of men in their man caves? The titan of social gaming,Zynga, says 60% of players are female. And a survey by PopCap shows females are the majority of social and casual game players. In fact, they note the average social gamer is likely a 43-year-old woman.

And more women use Twitter, which has a reputation for being a techie insider’s (i.e., male) product. Women follow more people, tweet more, and have more followers on average than men, according to bloggers Dan Zarella and Darmesh Shaw’s analyses.

Brian Solis’s analysis shows females are the majority of visitors on the following sites, which he calls “matriarchys”: Twitter, Facebook, Deli.ci.ous, Docstoc, Flickr, Myspace, Ning, Upcoming.org, uStream, Classmates.com, Bebo and Yelp. The one “patriarchy” site he notes, where males > females: Digg.

Yes, women also rock sites like Opentable and Yelp. According to Yelp, while half of their traffic is male, the majority of contributors and ecommerce purchasers are female. And according to OpenTable, the majority of bookings are overwhelmingly made by females. Why? Likely because women drive most decisions about where to go and where to eat.

Perhaps none of this is surprising. Women are thought to be more social, more interested in relationships and connections, better at multi-tasking. There is also anthropological research to back this up. Dave Morin of Path introduced me to Dunbar’s Number, proposed by the anthropologist Robin Dunbar. The number is the theoretical limit of how many people with whom one can maintain stable relationships (thought to be 150). But Dunbar’s most recent research shows there are different numbers for women than men—that women are able to maintain quantitatively more relationships within every ring of closeness than men. Knowing that is an important factor if you want to build and stoke social network effects. More female users will likely help your company grow faster.

So, if you’re at a consumer web company, how can this insight help you. Would you like to lower your cost of customer acquisition? Or grow revenue faster? Take a look at your product, your marketing, your customer base. Maybe you would benefit from having a larger base of female customers. If so, what would you change to make your product/service more attractive to female customers? Do you do enough product and user interface testing with female users? Have you figured out how to truly unleash the shopping and social power of women?

You could also take a look at your team. Do you have women in key positions? If you’re planning on targeting female customers, I can’t imagine why you wouldn’t want to have great women on your team.

If you are already targeting female customers, have great women working in your company, and are seeing strong commerce and social network effects, congratulations. You are likely trying to figure out how to handle hypergrowth right now. Plus your office probably smells pretty good.

Women are the routers and amplifiers of the social web. And they are the rocket fuel of ecommerce. The ongoing debate about women in tech has been missing a key insight. If you figure out how to harness the power of female customers, you can rock the world.

Harnessing the Power of the Mom Blogger (from NYTimes

noreply@blogger.com (CoffeeShopBloggers) — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 13:38:00 +0000

By PRADNYA JOSHI

Published: March 14, 2011

Whether it’s building brand awareness or promoting television shows, advertising industry experts say that they are finding that the mother blogger niche is active, loyal and deeply involved with spreading its messages. And, the wealth of demographic information available about online users allows for better directed campaigns, marketers say.THE latest advice on child-rearing, baby products and prenatal yogastretches is not being found in conversations over the picket fence but rather in Twitter messages, blog rolls and on Facebook walls. To that end, marketers have been increasingly harnessing the power of mothers online to reach their intended audiences for products.

The mother bloggers can become “ambassadors of brands,” said Sarah Hofstetter, senior vice president for emerging media and brand strategy at 360i, a digital agency owned by Dentsu, the Japanese advertising agency. “These mom bloggers have tremendous personality and tremendous opinions.”

The analysis firm eMarketer estimated that in 2010, there were more than 3.9 million women with children who were bloggers. In a recent report, eMarketer said that mothers were more likely to visit blogs than users in general, particularly to seek advice on parenting issues, and that the popularity of social media like Twitter and Facebook was helping to drive traffic to their postings.

“Advertisers are extremely interested in integrating ‘social’ into their advertising campaigns, and for certain brands, it can work really well,” said Megan Calhoun, a mother of two and founder of SocialMoms, a 30,000-member community of mother bloggers, which previously was called Twitter Moms.

But as many marketers have discovered, harnessing mothers who blog for their campaigns is not as simple as asking them to encourage their followers to “buy this product.” After trial and error, marketers have realized that the public can react negatively to overt marketing messages in many social media settings.

In addition, the Federal Trade Commission has now imposed full-disclosure conditions on marketers online. As a result, advertisers are finding that subtle approaches work better on campaigns.

“It’s not just about pushing a brand out there, but to get a two-way conversation going,” said Thomas Donovan, interactive manager with Haworth Media.

Haworth, an independent agency, last September conducted a brand-awareness campaign for Mrs. Meyer’s Clean Day products, owned by a subsidiary of S. C. Johnson & Son. It worked with Mrs. Meyer’s, which makes environmentally friendly cleaning products that are sold in stores like Target, to increase the brand’s visibility among consumers. The agency devoted 52 percent of its initial introduction budget to online media, and a big part involved the SocialMoms network.

On behalf of Mrs. Meyer’s, the site, under its previous name Twitter Moms, put out a call for submissions to its network, asking bloggers for their best ideas for a “cleaner, greener home.”

The bloggers didn’t need to mention a single Mrs. Meyer’s product in their posts or messages. In fact, many of the ideas that were part of the campaign were age-old conventional remedies.

One blogger advised readers to use baking soda to clean pet stains on carpets, while the mother who runs the Canning With Kids blog sent a message suggesting that readers “decorate with plants that clean the air.” The bloggers’ Twitter messages all carried the #mrsmeyers hashtag, which allowed the company to track what messages were going where.

“People were re-tweeting things that they found useful; green tips are points of passion for people,” said Jim Calhoun, creative director at SocialMoms and Ms. Calhoun’s husband.

The 53 bloggers in the network who were selected to participate in the campaign were given $50 Target gift cards. They in turn had an average of 1,762 Twitter followers, many of whom forwarded messages to others.

The one-month campaign resulted in 7.68 million Twitter views as well as millions more through blog rolls and display ads, Mr. Calhoun said.

Other campaigns involving the SocialMoms network recently included promotions for the juice Simply Orange, inviting mother bloggers to talk about “simple changes” they want to make in their lives.

A current campaign on the site is for the Hershey Company, which started a promotionsoliciting blog posts of 400 words or more on “ways you share happiness with those around you” as part of a tie-in for a new product called Hershey’s Drops.

“We are huge believers in paying moms for writing a thoughtful blog post on a topic of discussion,” Megan Calhoun said, adding that the SocialMoms network required participants to follow the F.T.C. disclosure rules.

Even as many campaigns have found that Twitter is a great word-of-mouth strategy,other avenues of social media like Facebook are becoming more important, Ms. Calhoun said. Also, video blogs, display ads and online surveys are all integral parts of promotions on the sites.

“Brands are really mixed on Twitter,” Ms. Calhoun said, partly because of the 140-character limit on posts. “Facebook is much safer for brands because it gives them a lot of control,” she said.

Ultimately, marketers are hoping that by getting consumers via social media, they will engage their audience and tailor their messages.

“You can get rich information back,” Mr. Calhoun said.

How to use open loops in your copy: An example (From CopyBlogger)

noreply@blogger.com (CoffeeShopBloggers) — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 00:44:00 +0000

Open Loops for creating excitement in a blog post. Good stuff! Read on for details...

To see how an open loop can create credibility, entice curiosity, and stimulate the need to know more, take a look at this example.

This radio ad was written for a diamond seller named Woody Justice by the Wizard of Ads himself, Roy H. Williams:

Antwerp, Belgium, is no longer the diamond capital of the world.

Thirty-four hours on an airplane. One way. Thirty. Four. Hours. That’s how long it took me to get to where eighty percent of the worlds diamonds are now being cut. After 34 hours I looked bad. I smelled bad. I wanted to go to sleep. But then I saw the diamonds.
Unbelievable. They told me I was the first retailer from North America ever to be in that office. Only the biggest wholesalers are allowed through those doors. Fortunately, I had one of ‘em with me, a lifelong friend who was doing me a favor.
Now pay attention, because what I’m about to say is really important: As of this moment, Justice Jewelers has the lowest diamond prices in America, and I’m including all the online diamond sellers in that statement.
Now you and I both know that talk is cheap. So put it to the test. Go online. Find your best deal. Not only will Justice Jewelers give you a better diamond, we’ll give you a better price, as well.
I’m Woody Justice, and I’m working really, really hard to be your jeweler. Thirty-four hours of hard travel, one way. I think you’ll be glad I did it.

The ad starts off by setting up an open loop: if Antwerp is no longer the diamond cutting capital of the world, which city is the new one?

But we’re not told which city; we’re only strung along with the hint that it takes a 34-hour plane trip to get there. Must be an exotic place, right? The listener’s curiosity starts to itch. He wants to know where this mysterious place might be.

Then we’re told that to be allowed into this inner sanctum of diamond buyers –- a place out of reach to every other retailer in America — is to have access to prices lower than the competition can match. How much lower remains an open question, and so another loop is opened in the mind of the listener.

Finally, the ad closes by circling back to the 34-hour trip without ever closing (i.e., “paying off”) either the “how much lower” or the “which city was it” loops.

Now the itch to find out “where’d you fly to, Woody?” or to see just how great the prices are — well, those are the obvious parts of the ad, the ones everyone recognizes on a first listen.

But the added credibility achieved through set-up and payoff is really where this ad shines.

If Woody had just come out and claimed lower prices through access to some un-named, super-exclusive source of cut diamonds, we’d give him the old “Yeah, sure.”

But we’re not told that straight out, are we? No. Because that claim has to be set up.

So we’re told how difficult it is to get to this new diamond cutting capital of the world (it takes a 34-hour plane trip). And how many diamonds are cut there. And who normally does make that long, arduous trip (only the biggest diamond wholesalers).

Only after we’ve mentally put ourselves into that room –- after we’ve had the moment set up for us –- do we then get the claim of lower prices.

And at that point, we listeners may not quite swallow the claim whole, but we’re intrigued enough to put it to the test. We have enough faith to at least investigate Woody’s claim by coming into the store, if only to ask him where that 34-hour flight took him.

How open loops apply to content marketing

 
By now, you might be thinking that headlines are actually a form of open loop copywriting. Manyheadlines hook the reader by starting an intriguing thought — and implicitly promising to close the loop in the article or post itself.

This Copyblogger post, What a Drunk Swiss Guy Can Teach You About Handling Criticism, is a perfect example of that technique. It starts with a surprising headline and sets up an interesting story, then uses the payoff for that story to make a point.

And a more serious post used a headline as an open loop to lead into a post that told a striking story about one of our writers: Why James Chartrand Wears Women’s Underpants.

Articles and posts use this technique when they open with a dramatic scene or image, backtrack or diverge to another point, and finally circle around at the end to close the loop.

When you open a loop, when you set up an intriguing situation and leave the reader wanting to know more, you create momentum that carries the reader through the page. But as you might imagine, you can’t just open loops — you need to close them (to provide a payoff) as well.

Skilfully created set-ups and payoffs can create emotional power through narrative misdirection and symbols — giving you some of the satisfaction you get from watching a well-plotted action movie.

How, specifically, do you build that emotional power? Well actually, you’ll have to wait for part two to find out. Read the sequel to this post next week and find out.

About the Author: Jeff Sexton is a partner in the Wizard of Ads consulting firm, a well-known online copywriter and optimization expert, as well as a faculty member at Wizard Academy, where he co-teaches Writing for the Radio and the Internet. You can find him online atwww.jeffsextonwrites.com.

Promoted Tweets: New Twitter Business Model,

noreply@blogger.com (CoffeeShopBloggers) — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 16:19:00 +0000

Promoted Tweets Pleasing Moms?
By Maryanne Conlin Wednesday, March 9, 2011 from Media Post Publications

Along with a number of brands, I am participating in the Twitter Promoted Tweets beta test with one of my clients. We're reaching out to moms in a whole new way and learning as we go along, as we always do, from savvy moms.

Promoted Tweets, in case you haven't heard, is Twitter's answer to "how do we make money on this thing," a common tech start-up question. For the marketer, Promoted Tweets is, to some extent, "how do we do this thing?" You see, Promoted Tweets is perhaps the first online advertising platform that really requires a brand to have a very thorough understanding of how to be social.

Unlike Facebook or banner ads, Promoted Tweets are not ads. They are tweets that you develop in your own timeline that Twitter then pushes out to moms who are prospective followers based on keywords you select. So, while it is readily apparent that tweets in the program are "promoted" by a brand, as they are clearly marked, and targeted by specific keywords that Twitter moms easily catch onto, the rules of effective social media still apply: no hard sell.

Promoted tweets are about engagement. Rather than selling impressions, Twitter is selling engagement-retweets, clicks and replies. Your ability to engage directly impacts the number of retweets and mentions and so the ultimate number of impressions you generate. Your destiny is in the hands of your best social media copywriter ... the one that writes the best tweets.

Since often that copywriter is the social media specialist who handles your day-to-day interactions on Facebook, Twitter and any other social media platforms in which your brand participates, his or her ability to speak to your core audience already determines your success as a brand in social media. But Promoted Tweets draws on his or her ability to connect withpotential customers. A wildly popular tweet with your core audience of brand advocates may not resonate quite so well with moms you are introducing to your brand.

So developing effective tweets takes some trial and error. Social media moms are savvy and may appreciate the introduction to new brands in a whimsical, humorous, informative or just engaging way. On the other hand, they may also feel that promoted tweets are intrusive ... which is, of course, our major fear as marketers.

But this isn't the 1990s. Social media users know that in order for their beloved platform to continue to exist, they need to find some way to make money and most seem to accept this. But here, more than for any other social media venture with which I have been involved, gathering feedback is crucial. While I am of course carefully monitoring my level of engagement( for which Twitter handily provides analytics), I'm also trolling the blogs, searching Twitter streams and collecting data that allow us to see just what moms think about Promoted Tweets in general and ours and other brands' tweets specifically.

As tempting as it is to think we know all there is to know about marketing to moms via social media, it's an ever-changing world. This beta test of Promoted Tweets is just one more reminder that sometimes we just think we do.

Small Business Rushes to Social Marketing From Center for Media Research

noreply@blogger.com (CoffeeShopBloggers) — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 16:18:00 +0000

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

MerchantCircle, the largest online network of local business owners in the nation, today shared results of its quarterly Merchant Confidence Index survey of over 8,500 small and local business owners across the U.S. The data reveals that local merchants, who have very limited time and money for marketing, are gravitating towards simple, low-cost online marketing methods such as Facebook and other social media, as well as towards tried-and-true methods such as search and email marketing. The research also demonstrates that while new marketing services such as mobile marketing and group buying are generating significant buzz in the media, local merchants have yet to tap these unproven marketing methods.

Darren Waddell, Vice President of marketing at MerchantCircle, says "Online marketing continues to be a challenge for most local businesses... merchants are working with very small budgets and almost no marketing resources...the marketing methods... gaining the most traction are... ones that offer merchants simplicity, low costs and immediate results."
More than half of local merchants are spending less than $2,500 a year on marketing, and 60% have no plans to raise their budgets this year. As many merchants struggle to manage their existing programs, 37% say lack of time and resources is the top online marketing challenge to take advantage of new, unproven services.

With huge consumer adoption, ease-of-use and low barrier to entry, Facebook continues to be a popular way for merchants to market their business, with 70% using the social network for marketing, up from 50% one year ago. 37% rate Facebook as one of their most effective tools, almost tied with Google search (40%) as one of their top three most effective marketing methods. 40% of local merchants say they use the twitter the microblogging platform to build awareness and community around their products and services.

Tried-and-true online methods trump new, unproven approaches. Three of the top marketing methods for local businesses, social, search and email, are cited as being the most effective, with 36% putting social networking in the top three, 40% citing search and 36% choosing email marketing.

Less than 15% of merchants report doing any sort of mobile marketing or advertising, and more than half have no plans to do so in the coming months. Lack of understanding remains a huge barrier to adoption, with 74% of merchants state that they don't have a good idea of how to reach consumers via mobile marketing.

Only 11% of local merchants have offered a "daily deal" using a service like Groupon or LivingSocial, with an additional 20% planning to do so in the coming months. Results of group buying have also been mixed and may be hindering growth, with 55% of people who have run a daily deal campaign said they would not do so again.

Over the course of 2010, use of print advertising dropped by 33% (from 40%), use of print Yellow Pages declined 18% (from 45%), and use of direct mail decreased 26% (from 39%).

Many of these methods, though, continue to deliver results for local merchants. 24% say that coupons or direct mail are still one of their top three most effective marketing tactics, 23% say print Yellow Pages are a top three tactic, and 20% put print newspaper ads in the top three as well.

Concluding that there is no letup in effort to increase new tactics within small businesses, the report says that 51% of local merchants get at least one online marketing sales call a week, with 10% getting called almost on a daily basis, often with a direct sales force making cold calls.

Almost concurrent to this report, BIA/Kelsey launched Social Local Media (SLM), an advisory service dedicated to cover the growing and dynamic social media ecosystem. SLM was created to address the rapidly developing social segment of what the firm estimates will be a $23 billion digital advertising market in 2011.

Confirmation of the significance of social platforms for local media and advertising comes from the latest wave of BIA/Kelsey's Local Commerce Monitor. LCM reveals intense use of social media by SMBs, as 48% of respondents said they are using Facebook for advertising or promoting their business. Among those surveyed, 40% said they have a Facebook page specifically for their business. Additional findings indicate that among respondents, 25% use other social networks, 22% use a blog and 19% use Twitter to promote their business.

Neal Polachek, president, BIA/Kelsey, observes that "... social local media, as a marketing, customer-care and content agent, has crossed the mainstream threshold... "

For more about the MerchantCircle study, please visit here, and to view charts and graphs from the BIA/Kelsey study, go here.

Oh, What a Difference a Year Makes:The Cast of CoffeeShopBloggers

noreply@blogger.com (CoffeeShopBloggers) — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 13:34:00 +0000

It is shocking to me that it's been a full year of blogging for our little group, the CoffeeShopBloggers, and I wanted to give you an update on how blogging has affected our lives. A year ago, the economy was in the tank and we all had time on our hand. Our paying gigs were slow and we had time on our hands which we were not used to.

We were in various stages of blogging. I had launched mine as a work-in-progress (still is) but had no audience. DesignTrackMind was about to launch hers and her husband, GreenCollarEconomy, is an SEO/SEM expert. Capability:Mom was curious about blogging but had to be coerced into starting, and iCommunicate had a blog up a while back but had no idea how to find it.

Our various states of blog dishevelment lead to the birth of the CoffeeShopBloggers group which we formed, met weekly, and shared everything from tips on getting more traffic to setting up carpools to leaning on each other for support. We laughed (a lot!) and we cried (usually when our blogs blew up and we thought all was lost).

And we learned a lot! It was just like drinking out of a fire hose and thank you to everyone who helped along the way: Sherpa Report, GreenCollarEconomy, TweetDeckTutor, and others. We collectively spent several days on help desk at various companies talking to nice, helpful folks including BlueHost, GoDaddy!, SoloStream, and Wordpress.com. Thank you to all of you too!

So, where are we now?

Our poster child for success is DesignTrackMind who was the Interior Designer for the Auburndale project of This Old House. Out of the zazillions of Interior Designers (all with pretty websites), they chose her. Why? Her blog!!! THEY LOVED HER BLOG! Now that the 16 episodes have aired, she's totally slammed with work. Her most colorful story of how blogging has changed her world is this: she recently got a call from a new client who moved from Barcelona, Spain to her neck of the woods to help with her new house. And how did she know about her? She and all her friends had been reading her blog during the last year in Barcelona. When she found out she was moving outside of Boston, she and all her friends screamed, "YOU CAN WORK WITH DESIGNTRACKMIND FOR YOUR NEW HOUSE!!!" And that probably made the move more palatable!

Capability:Mom started her blog under duress. DesignTrackMind and I freely admit that we badgered her into jumping off the cliff with us. And now? ... birth of a really funny writer. Who also gets paid gigs to write! And has found her voice. And is ready for more. She also turns out to be a secret tech geek and supplies us all with new widgets and techy tools for SEO and other stuff. Turns out she's learned so much about social media marketing that she consults on the side!

iCommunicate is a MarCom consultant. She is now so busy with clients that we barely see her anymore. But that is great the goal of her blog was to enhance her business and it worked.

As for me, PragmaticMom, I wanted to see if this could evolve into a small business -- it is, but ever so slowly -- and I wanted to understand Social Media Marketing. I get it now: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, WordPress, Blogger, and creating a community (the social part of Social Media Marketing). And yet this is the tip of the iceberg because there is so much more to learn. It's been so much fun to meet both with my blogging group to group learn and to meet like minded people in the blogosphere and on Twitter. Here's a little sampling of my blogging experience:

If you type in "Best Education Mom Blog Boston" in Google, I once came up first. I still seem to come up on the first page of search results. Crazy, huh?
I met many wonderful people through blogging. The ones I want to bow down to and say unworthy include Newbery winner Sharon Creech and Blue's Clue's founder Angela Santomero.
I've learned how to track and fix my blog load speed, sell merchandise through Amazon, and add html code to my blog, This for a person who is has NO TECHNICAL SKILLS whatsoever.
I've come to appreciate structure in my blog by adhering to an editorial calendar. And I stick to my calendar at least some of the time!

Capability:Mom and I have tried to document our learning along the way such that if you see our blogs and wonder what it took to get here, there is a road map for you to follow. We hope that you have learned from our mistakes so that you won't be crying while on help desk with the nice folks at BlueHost when your blog transfer from Wordpress.com to Wordpress.org because you want advertising that pays $ did not go smoothly. Been there, done that and that is best avoided.

Thanks for reading our group blog and please let us know what you need help with. We are all in this together (to quote my kids' favorite movie). But isn't that what blogging is all about?!

It's Not Free (From Erica Napoletano at RedHead Writing)

noreply@blogger.com (CoffeeShopBloggers) — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 13:42:00 +0000

As a blogger, isn't this what you hear all day? I do. And I don't always have a consistent policy or strategy other than, "For all the time I spend on my blog, I really should be making more money from it." Erica Napoletano nails this and gives us all a little slap (as she is wont to do).

Pragmatic Mom

----------------------

I want to pick your brain.

Could I buy you coffee?

Would you guest post for me?

May I guest post for you?

We’d like to get your opinion on…

What do you use for…

Would you teach me how to… ?

The past several days, I’ve been reminded of an important question we all face each day in our business lives: what do we give away and what costs money? Chris Brogan covered it last year in The Audacity of Free and Gabriella Sannino broached it again in a post today about social media ROI. Today, I’m going to try to break down this pervasive question into one simple thought: strategy.

Why Do We Give Things Away For Free?

I’ll dispell the myth now: 90% of the time, it isn’t out of the goodness in our hearts filled with unicorns and rainbows. It’s because we’re looking to add people to The Funnel. Now, The Funnel varies depending on your business. Perhaps you want email addresses for a mailing list. More RSS subscribers. More Twitter followers or Facebook Fans. But the bottom line of it is we are all selling something and it’s pretty shitty to hate us for it.

Giving things away gets people’s attention and it might get them in your circle, but you’d better have a strategy behind what you’re going to do with them once you get them there. And I’m exhausted with the begging and bitching. Stop asking people who work for a living (just like you) to give you something for nothing. We’re all giving something away. Me? I give away copies of books. iPod Touches. VISA gift cards. Seats to PAID webinars I’m teaching. Why do I do this? As a thank you. To get some new eyes on my site. But I know WHY I’m doing it. If you’re giving something away for free, here four hard truths you better own – we’re all hookers and hookers don’t rent fishnet stockings.

People will complain that what you’re giving away isn’t enough.
- Appropriate Response: Shut up. It’s free.
If you run a contest, people will complain about not winning.
- Appropriate Response: Ummm…call Publisher’s Clearing House. If they give in, I’ll give in.
If you’re looking for something for free, you’re going to get a lot of 36,000 foot view information mixed with some 5,000 foot view gems. If you want ground level insight, that shit costs money.
If you give something away for free, you need to compel people to return to your site/you/your business. It’s not a hit and run technique. It’s relationship building. Free was just what got them in the door.

Sometimes Free Costs You

I occasionally guest post on outlets like Copyblogger. Why? Aside from having been a long-time reader, they have kickass site traffic. I can get new readers and reach thousands of people who aren’t on Redhead Writing’s radar in a single post. And I do it for free. That’s my trade off. It costs me time an intellectual property.It’s an opportunity cost I’m willing to bear. And I’ll keep doing it as long as they’ll have me because not only are Brian and Sonia pretty kickass human beings, I can justify the expense.

But free can cost you.

There are those coffee meetings. The “pick your brain” sessions. The new client courting processes. I have new rules for anyone who wants to buy me a cup of coffee that I don’t already know. I’ll find the time to met with anyone if you tell me in advance (1) what your agenda is for our meeting and (2) why I’m the one you want to discuss it with. I think that’s common courtesy. And I have a certain approach I take with new clients as well.

We’ve all walked away from coffee meetings thinking, “Holy balls – that’s an hour of my life I can’t get back.” We’ve all been three months into a prospect only to realize we’ve just spent about $2,500 on earning business we haven’t closed yet. Both are bullshit.

It’s up to you to put the hammer down on free things that cost you. Just like there’s no crying in baseball (except opening day always leaves me a little weepy). People who want to pick your brain are asking for something for free. You have to be in control of what you’re willing to give as well as have the cajones to explain to people:

It’s awesome that you see me as a credible resource. That’s why I offer consulting services. This is my business and if we’re going to proceed, it’s probably smart for us to get a scope of the project put in place so we can hold one another accountable.
While you think you’re buying me coffee, a $5 chai isn’t proper (repeated) compensation for my time.

Your clients aren’t in business for free. Neither are you.

Strategy: It’s What’s For Breakfast

It should actually be every meal of your business day. Sit down today and consider what you’re giving away for free, why and what it’s REALLY costing you. If you’re on the hunt for free, understand that it’s going to be a lot of general mixed with few specifics and in order to get more, you have to pay. There’s nothing wrong with running a business and earning a living and the people who want you to give away more are much more concerned about their bottom line than yours.

Twitter and How to Use It Correctly...from Antonia Harler

noreply@blogger.com (CoffeeShopBloggers) — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 20:23:00 +0000

OMFG – another GUEST POST? Yes, Preeeeeeeeeeecccccious, it’s true. Today, we have the bubbly and slightly snarky Antonia Harler. Antonia holds a degree in Management, Communications & IT and works as a social media strategist at Paratus Communications. For more information about Antonia, visit her blog, follow her on Twitter or join her on the SocialGlitz Facebook Fan Page.

I started a new job a few weeks ago, which is completely irrelevant in context of this post, except it’s not. It made me realize something. I no longer have time for BS on Twitter. But sadly, Twitter seems to be turning into a mad circus full of creepy clowns that shamelessly self promote, are not afraid to spam you with useless links or simply tweet for the sake of tweeting. And let’s not forget about those, who think it’s unnecessary to read the content they are tweeting.

I know I’m not alone with this feeling. I see a lot of Tweets every day complaining about the uselessness of some users, which begs the question whether or not it’s our fault for following them or if “they” just forget that they are dealing with actual people.

Don’t get me wrong. I *love* Twitter and the opportunities it has presented to me. But this kind of BS made me miss all the good stuff that’s floating around in the Twitterverse. And I refuse to miss it. That’s why, much unlike myself, I started to organize and plan. Scary, right? But it’s made such a difference.

And today, our amazing redhead, allowed me to share. (Holy sweet Jesus on a cracker!!) Anyway, here are some nifty tips and tricks to filter through the noise and kick the creepy Twitter clowns in the butt.

Twitter clients! I’ve been in love with Tweetdeck from the start but there are many others. Hootsuite & Seesmic to name just two of the most popular. Whichever you decide to choose, you’ll be in heaven. The options they present to you are almost infinite, which brings me to my second point:

Lists, lists, lists! I refused to use them for a long time. If you are unconvinced, take it from me, they are magic. By organizing the people you follow and putting them into lists you cut out 75 % of the noise. MAGIC. All of a sudden you don’t miss the good stuff anymore and even if you do, you can scroll down without having to read hundreds of useless Tweets. (Sidenote: Start using lists soon after joining Twitter. It will save you a ton of work in the longrun.)
Re-evaluate and curate your stream! Now this, my lovelies, is an ongoing process. As much as I wish it wasn’t, it is. By unfollowing people that add no value to your stream, and instead adding people that do, you avoid a lot of frustration.
Use #hashtags! Twitter hashtags are popular for Twitter chats, conferences and events but they are also a great way to organize yourself. If you and your followers agree to append a certain hashtag to Tweets about a particular topic, it becomes easier to find said topic in search and it’s also more likely for the topic to appear in Twitter’s trending topics.
Don’t Auto Follow! There’s a great big myth floating around that says that the more followers you have the more influential you are. For some that may even be true but for the most part I think differently. The number of followers you have is irrelevant as long as your audience is there to listen to *you*. Be picky about who you follow. Quality over quantity.
If all of the above doesn’t help, consider using a tool such as Proxlet. It’s a tool I’ve secretly been dreaming about. It let’s you block apps, filter Twitter tags and mute users (without unfollowing them) for a day, a week, or.. gasp.. forever! A puppy just got wings! And to top it all off, it doesn’t only work on the web but also with Desktop and mobile clients. Brilliant!

By following those steps, I’ve transformed my Twitter experience and actually managed to make the most of it while working full time. Do you think I’ve missed something? Then PLEASE, share it in the comment section. And if you have a question, then post that too. If I don’t know the answer, I’m pretty sure Erika will. And in case Erika doesn’t.. gasp gasp.. I’m pretty sure someone else in this lovely community will.

***

FYI, Antonia & Social Glitz are the authors of the immensely helpful Ultimate List of Free Social Media Tools. You owe it to yourself to stop by and have a read.

How to Talk to a SEO Copywriter (complete with urban slang) by Erica Napoletano (Redhead Writing)

noreply@blogger.com (CoffeeShopBloggers) — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 22:39:00 +0000

Erica Napoletano is a hoot and her blog, Redhead Writer, usually is ranting and raving on her own life but in this post, she talks about her SEO copywriting consulting practice. As bloggers, maybe we don't really focus on maximizing our SEO words and this may not be necessary if we write consistently and authentically on the same topics. But, if you want to write for companies who are doing this mostly for their Google rank, then this is the "ad agency" strategy. It's like anything in marketing: fancy jargon and matrix to do something that is pretty straight forward. Impress your friends (and clients) with this fancy stuff. Or just enjoy and thank the heavens that your blog is your own labor of love and you don't have to worry about this stuff (and we'll post on the some of the best SEO plugins for Wordpress to help you achieve your SEO goals later -- we're still trying them out).

Pragmatic Mom, http://PragmaticMom.com , Education Matters. My blog is a mash up covering education, parenting and children's literature.

Without using this matrix (or even worrying about key words), my blog comes up #2 and #3 in Google if you type in "Mom Blog" and "education." I come up #1 if you type in "Mom Blog," "Education" and "Boston." Case in point that you don't really have to screw with this matrix stuff if you are writing consistently on the same topics and with authenticity. Google your blog and see how you do just for fun!

Given that a significant portion of my company’s project work is SEO copywriting, I thought it was high time I give you an inside scoop on how to talk to us. SEO copywriters may seem an alien breed to some, but we’re the geeks who are the perfect mix of literary and mathematical (yes, MATH) prowess that help get your online project found.
Found by whom? Well, people who can spend money with you, silly.
Most of our clients haven’t worked with an SEO copywriter before, and this means we go through an education phase. Today, you get to see what that looks like! I know, you’re excited (pom poms for everyone). I hope you enjoy the tour and that you see what Redhead Writing thinks it takes to deliver a successful SEO copywriting project.

Step One: Gather Up Yo Schiz (translation: bring something to the table)

Wanting to “spruce-up” your website copy isn’t enough of a reason to talk to an SEO copywriter. Here are the things we need when you come to talk to us about your project:
Site Architecture: This is either a flow chart, spreadsheet or bulletpointed list showing the Parent Pages and Subpages in your website. You can also think of this as your navigation.

Why do SEO copywriters need this? Because we need to understand how many pages we’ll be writing copy for, which pages need to be optimized (as not all do) and…uh…because we can’t really wrap our heads around a project unless we see what it’s going to look like.
Keyword Research & Keyword Matrix: Oy vey and pass the Mylanta. No, this isn’t a movie starring Keanu Reeves and unless you’re an SEO specialist, this really isn’t something you want to jack with running and building yourself.
About Keyword Research: Quite simply, the results that you and I can get from Google’s Keyword Tool are okay. But what they don’t give you is a true picture of competition and popularity for each of the keywords you may consider targeting. A little green bar in the keyword tool shows Competition. Per Google, “The Competition column gives you a sense of how many advertisers are bidding for a particular keyword. This data can help you determine how competitive the ad placement is.” If you’re not going an Adwords campaign, I hope you see how useless that information is for web copy. Let a pro give you a report so you can make better decisions. And if you think it’s not worth the couple hundred bucks, see you on page 8 of the search results.

WTF is a Keyword Matrix? It’s a map of your site made with words. (Fancy!) I’ve included a sample below. These can only be created (wait for it) after you’ve done your keyword research!

Why do SEO copywriters need a keyword matrix? Because we need to know which words to target on each page we’re writing and how the pages of your website need to talk to one another (in words). An internal linking strategy is a factor in search engine rankings for your website, so when we write, good SEO copywriters include a solid internal linking strategy for their clients.
Step One Redux: You’ve come to the table with your site architecture, keyword research and keyword matrix. An SEO copywriter can now get a complete picture of your project. For clients who come to us with only a site architecture, Redhead Writing also provides keyword research and matrix-building services. We added this in June of last year as it was more common than not that clients didn’t have this essential piece of the SEO copywriting puzzle.

Step Two: Gettin’ All Up in Yo Bidness (translation: discovery session)

Any SEO copywriter worth their salt will hold a discovery call with a new client. This is your chance to find out if the SEO copywriter you have in your sights has any bloody idea what they’re talking about.
But let’s go back for a minute: it’s my steadfast opinion that if you’re bidding out an SEO copywriting project and the company in question hasn’t asked you for the things in step one, run screaming. I simply can’t fathom how they can produce effective copy without those three things. Redhead Writing will not take SEO copywriting projects without seeing the research a keyword matrix was built on unless it comes from one of our referring SEO firms. Why? Because we don’t write for giggles. We write to produce results for our clients.
What should you expect from a discovery call? This is your opportunity to tell your SEO copywriter about your business. Your clients. Your industry vernacular. The tone you want to convey throughout your website. We’re geeks of just the right sort that, when you find the good ones in our herd, we’ll make your site visitors fall in love and stay on the page, digging deeper into your website and driving them to the desired action.
What should you be able to give your SEO copywriter on this call? Well, here’s what we ask OUR clients: for each page of your website, what are the THREE most desirable actions you’d like a site visitor to take? Those can be things from calling you, filling out a form, downloading something, making a purchase decision or clicking through to another page. But if you don’t know what you want your site visitors to do when they land, an SEO copywriter isn’t going to be able to create copy to produce the desired results.
Step Two Redux: Your discovery call is your chance to have home court advantage. Download on your SEO copywriter everything they need to have a solid grasp on the look, feel and tone of your project and company. Understand where you want site visitors to go on your site…what you want them to do. Finally, ask about time to first draft and the revisions process, what’s included in the project fee, etc.
***
These are the two most important steps to your SEO copywriting project’s success. Do your home work and help your copywriter understand your company and we’ll take it from there! We find it simple to quote a per-page rate that includes one rough and two rounds of revisions, with a change fee if the keywords change or a page is requested to be modified with more than 30% new content. And please – if you have questions, ask away. We won’t do your project for free, but we’ll help you ask better questions that will make your project, website and company an even greater online success!

ProBlogger Explains Google Reading Level

noreply@blogger.com (Capability Mom) — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 13:05:00 +0000

by Capability: Mom
Problogger is a terrific resource that I read to help me figure out what the heck I am doing with my blog. Here they explain how to use a new Google feature called Google Reading Level and how to measure your own blog's reading level. Basically, you want to be accessible - See how we did below then go to Google Advanced Search and type in your blog (scroll down for reading level) and you are good to go!

Results by reading level for coffee shop bloggers:

Basic	56%
Intermediate	39%
Advanced	3%

Results by reading level for capability mom blog:

Basic	37%
Intermediate	58%
Advanced	3%

Results by reading level for pragmatic mom blog:

Basic	36%
Intermediate	59%
Advanced	3%

From Problogger:

Use Google Reading Level to Improve Your Blog Message
This guest post is by Rhys Wynne of the Winwar Media Blog.

Last month, Google launched its new Google Reading Level feature. What this does is algorithmically work out the reading level of the search results, to help users more easily decide which search results to click on.

How is it worked out?

Like everything with Google, I’m not entirely sure how Reading Level is calculated. I do know that teachers were paid to grade web pages, and an algorithm was worked out using that data.

Read the full post from Problogger here.

I am off to try an app, review a book, write an article, assess a volunteer opportunity, walk the dog, write a post about CoCoCozy, head to the store for storm provisions and make dinner for a friend. What does your day look like?