Small Business Blog Marketing: Pajama Market

Pajama Market week in review: May 4-May 10, 2008

2008-05-10T16:17:03-04:00

This was a much more fun week than last week. I managed to fix the layout for Pajama Market by re-coding the style sheet and had the chance to write some pretty fun posts.

I started out the week with some suggestions on writing posts that strike very deep, spiritual aspects of blogging.

5 blog posts to write before you die

Then I moved on to a "Help Wanted" advertisement. Although I'm not hiring, I wanted to illustrate what the job of "blogger" entails.

Wanted: Blogger for full time position

The next post went back to the basics. It's been a while since I wrote a piece of good solid blogging advice.

10 Business blog guidelines

Finally, I finished the week off with a quick review of a web site that is making moves in the social media world. Dot Dash Create has signed up more than 100,000 blogs in its short beta life, and darned if I know what it does.

Dot Dash Create, another social media question mark

Have a great weekend everyone!

Dot Dash Create, another social media question mark

2008-05-08T12:06:14-04:00

I woke up this morning and found out "dotdashcreate" was following me on Twitter (you should follow me on Twitter here). With a name like that, I was wondering if the Cylons had finally found Earth, so I went to "its" website to see what it was all about.

I've spent about 15 minutes on its website as well as searching for it through Google Blog Search, and darned if I know what it is. It's pretty new. They don't even have a favicon yet. But, they do have 101,594 blogs signed up already.

Isn't this usually the way with new social media sites? I find that I don't know what the site does until I actually sign up and just start participating. For some reason, web 2.0 sites are awful at describing themselves.

The home page says,

Create your spot and join a fast developing blog promotion platform.

What does that mean? How are they promoting blogs? The home page has a list of blogs in their network, and there is a 'Browse' page with more blogs broken into very general categories. Not exactly how I would like to find new web sites.

On their 'About' page, they say,

dotdashcreate transforms the way you communicate your blog to a wider audience online

Again, it doesn't say how. In fact, there's no clue what is going on here. I'm so confused.

My solution, I signed up! Hey, it's free. However, the site is still in "beta" and there are some definite glitches with the sign up process. For example, every time I tried to add my photo to my profile, it told me I needed to login again and then said my user name was not active.

Bastards.

So to sum up my review, I don't know what it's for, I don't know how it will help, you can add your blog for free without registering, but you can register and add it for free too, after you register, you may be kicked out for no reason, and the site may say your user name is not active.

For the most part, it was a waste of 30 minutes this morning.

[Photo: Cylon Centurion (17 March 2007) (12) by ckroberts61 on Flickr, used with permission under Creative Commons Copyright.]

10 Business Blog Guidelines

2008-05-07T14:02:24-04:00

1) Spelling
Use your blog platform's spell check. Even better, use the automatic spell check included with Firefox. To enable, choose Tools > Options > Advanced > General tab > check the check box for 'Check my spelling as I type.' Firefox automatically underlines misspelled words with a red dotted line just like typing in a fancy shmancy word processor.

2) Grammar
Equally important to spelling, grammar is a little more difficult to wrangle. Word processors like MS Word include a grammar check, but who wants to write their blog posts in Word and then copy and paste them into your blog program?

Instead, write conversationally, the way you would talk. Then, before you publish your blog post, save a copy as a draft and view the draft in the Opera browser. Use the 'speak' function in Opera to read the blog post back to you. This will usually expose any large grammatical errors, much better than simply rereading your post.

3) Write an effective headline
The vast majority of your readers on a given day will view your blog post in an RSS reader, or through a social media outlet like StumbleUpon, Digg, or Delicious. They are sifting through dozens or even hundreds of stories and deciding which ones to read based on your headline. Your headline must succinctly reveal what your story is about in a way that attracts readers to click on it. I've written more about headlines here.

4) Use a photo at the very top of your story
After headlines, photos are the main reason a person might begin to read your post. You should have a photo at the very top of your post because it will appear directly below the headline when viewed in an RSS reader. This one-two punch gives you the maximum chance to have someone click on your story. I've written more about photos here.

5) Clear RSS feed link
Most of your return visitors will be visitors through their RSS reader. Make sure the link to your RSS feed is clearly visible. Don't throw up any obstacles to get in the way of letting your readers subscribe. A link to the feed at the bottom of every post is great too.

6) Humor
There are a few business blogs that might get away without humor. If you are an attorney or doctor, you can probably be all serious and people will still read your blog. For the rest of you, show us your sense of humor. My favorite business blog, El Bloggo Torcido, is a great example of someone acting like a complete nut in the blogoshpere, and getting tons of readers as a result.

7) Search
Readers must be able to search your blog. The nature of blogs means that the blog will sometimes have hundreds and even thousands of pages read. About half the people on the internet ignore a web site's navigation system and rely exclusively on the search box. If you don't have a search box, they leave. Read my article on adding a Google-powered search box to your blog.

8) Keep your blog fresh
Write at least 2-3 posts a week to make sure Google understands that you are a mover and a shaker, and also to keep RSS readers from automatically unsubscribing from your site due to idleness.

9) Allow comments and trackbacks
One of the most useful parts of a blog is the ability to have an ongoing conversation with your readers through your comments and trackbacks. This is one of the easiest, no-cost methods to get customer feedback you will ever utilize.

10) Please add the 10th guideline in the comments below.

[Photo: Teaching Math or Something by foundphotoslj on Flickr, used with permission under Creative Commons Copyright.]

Wanted: Blogger for full time position

2008-05-06T16:34:43-04:00

Lets get this straight. I'm not offering a job (I can hear the thousands of back buttons being clicked now).

But if you are a company that does not yet have a blogger on staff (or maybe you've given the job to an already overloaded marketing peon), then you'd better put this ad in your local paper (or on problogger.net) soon:

WANTED: Blogger for full time position
Our super-duper company wishes to hire a person in the position of "blogger." Until yesterday, we didn't really know what this meant, but we did some research on the internets and realized we are really missing the boat here.

Writing
What we're looking for is someone who is good at writing. You might have a degree in English or communications or something, but the really important thing is that you can write. This includes spelling and grammar. We don't really care how educated you are as long as what you write doesn't make us cringe every time you use the word 'your' when you mean the word 'you're.'

Photography
Next, you should know how to take a photo. We've heard that photos really add value to a blog. Many people are much more likely to read a post if it begins with an attractive blog photo.

For this reason, you need to get out from behind a desk and explore our company. Look for interesting things to take pictures of. People are great subjects for photos because it shows we have real people working here with real names.

Reporter
You should have good interviewing skills. Perhaps you were once a beat reporter, or you've always dreamed of being one. You need to call people up, send them emails, and most importantly, walk into their office and interview them. We're not looking for news-breaking hard-hitting interviews. We want human interest stories. The kind that make readers really feel good about our company.

Editor
You will invite prominent experts in our industry to write reports and articles for the blog. You will be in charge of assigning them subjects to write about and editing their final drafts before they go live.

Engineer
You need to understand our products completely. You will be writing about how to use them, why our readers need them, how they can't live without them, and why ours are better than anyone else's.

Teacher
While you gain product knowledge, we want you to use what you've learned to create tutorials for our customers. The blog will be a tremendous resource for those who have purchased our products because you will be able to take a customer question from email and write up a tutorial that answers their question, and potentially the same question hundreds of others will have, all in the same day.

Spokesperson
Although you won't be the "official" PR spokesperson for the company, you will be expected to respond to company problems, scandals, or news items in a professional and timely manner through the blog. We recognize that our readers want honest information ASAP and you are one of the quickest direct links to the company.

For this reason, you will have uncommon access to key members in our upper management, especially the CEO, so that you can quickly respond to public relations situations.

Podcaster
In addition to writing articles, you will also provide interviews, tutorials, or industry news in MP3 audio format at least once a week. Readers appreciate different media to learn about our company and products. You will also be in charge of coordinating the release of our podcasts with iTunes and other music services.

Video Producer
In addition to podcasts, you will also be expected to create short videos. This is very important as video is absolutely exploding on the internet and may account for tens of thousands of viewers seeing our product that never would have known we existed.

While we don't expect the videos to be of the highest production quality, we do expect them to be entertaining, educational, and effective in promoting our brand. You will become an expert in creating the videos and distributing them to all the big video sites through a web site such as tubemogul.

Salesperson
You will be in charge of creating an opt-in email list through a company like AWeber. With this list, you will create a newsletter for the specific purpose of converting our readers into buyers. AWeber has a proven program of tutorials to help you meet this goal, but it will be up to you to write and execute the actual sales material.

Social Media Wizard
In addition to the blog, you will open and maintain accounts for the company on Facebook, MySpace, StumbleUpon, Digg, Flickr, YouTube, Twitter, and any other network that becomes hot.

You will make contacts through these networks in order to market our products, spread the company name, and attract highly qualified candidates to our office.

Search Engine Optimizer
You must be able to harness Social Media tools to produce outstanding search engine rank. We are not looking to "game" the search engines, but rather to leverage social media to create a real value that the search engines recognize and reward.

Frequent Flyer
Although you should be able to do 90% of your job in our office...and even in your home, we will expect you to travel to some major events in our industry so you can write about them just like a news reporter. If readers visit our blog to get news about a conference, that's a tremendous advantage over the companies that do not. We may ask you to provide daily podcasts or videos of these conferences or meetings.

In addition to conferences in our industry, we would expect you to attend a few conferences on blogging and/or social media throughout the year. While we are confident you will stay abreast of all the latest trends, you will gain even more authority with our readers by attending and blogging about these events.

Please reply immediately so that we can get out of the 90s.

PS: if it will save your company the time of placing this ad in a newspaper, I am available for this position. -Brian

PPS: I'm sure I missed some skill sets. If you think of any extra skills a blogger needs, please add them in the comments.

[Photo: Not the only photographer by cstrom on Flickr, used with permission under Creative Commons Copyright.]

5 blog posts to write before you die

2008-05-05T12:35:25-04:00

So you're cruising through life, carefree, sipping a Coke, and then I slam this title on your screen. Sorry to break it to you, but you're going to die.

I know you spend most of your time denying this fact. You've got your new red convertible, you've added ten friends on MySpace in the past week, and you get all the jokes about Smallville. But someday, you're going to drop like a rock and your soul is going to pass its time somewhere else.

Before that happens, think about your blog, and how completely unsatisfying it would be if you hadn't written these 5 world-changing posts:

1) "I wish I were somewhere else"
This is the post where you confess that for the moment, you are sick of blogging, your eyes are cracking because you haven't blinked in the last ten minutes, and if you have to deal with one more tag, you'll gag...one more stumble, you'll crumble...one more digg, you'll wig...one more feed, you'll bleed...and one more tweet, you'll jump off a bridge.

I'm not saying you always feel like this. I'm just saying that the one time you do, write about it. It will be totally off-topic and entirely entertaining.

2) "3 things about [your company name] I would only tell you if I was drunk"
It helps to write this one after a bottle of Charles Shaw Chardonnay ($3, Trader Joe's), regardless of what Jeff Stai thinks about it.

3) "What I would do with $100 million"
You've won the lottery. After taxes, you are left with $100 million. What now?

Blow it on houses and cars? Travel to outer space? Pay off 1/10,000th of the national debt?

According to Napoleon Hill's Think and Grow Rich, clergyman Dr. Frank W. Gunsaulus once gave a sermon one Sunday titled, "What I Would Do If I Had A Million Dollars." At the end of the sermon, Phillip D. Armour approached him and handed him a check for the full amount. With the money, Gunsaulus founded the Illinois Institute of Technology.

The point is that it would really suck if that could happen to you, but you never told anyone what you would do if you had the money. Notice I increased the amount from a million. Does anyone even get excited about one million dollars anymore?

Your readers will love this because it will show how imaginative you are, or possibly how full of BS you are (cure cancer? yeah right).

4) "Me and my brother/sister/best friend"
This post is simply a photo. It tells the world, "I have a family," "I have a best friend," "I'm just like you," and hopefully, "I'm a dork."

5) "Probate? What do you mean probate?"

OK...this is totally selfish on my part. But before you die, I would like you to write a post that tells a joke. The punchline of the joke should be, "Probate? What do you mean probate?"

I don't care if you already know a joke with this punchline or if you have to make it up. And don't worry about your readership being annoyed that you are off-topic. How often do you step aside and tell a joke? Everyone loves jokes.

You see, years ago my best friend (see photo above) was waiting for an elevator in New York when the doors opened and a man said these words. The half dozen people in the elevator broke into raucous laughter and then went home, happy and satisfied.

But my best friend was left with the troubling puzzle of what joke could possibly be this hysterical while having that as a punchline. Many years have passed, and though my friend and his friends have searched for the joke, it has never been known to us.

Please help put my friend out of his misery.

[Photos: Brrrrrr! by Ack Ook, Earthly Paradise. by skyseeker, NBP Gold by covilha, used with permission under Creative Commons Copyright, and Bryan and me, by me.]

Pajama Market week in review: April 27-May3, 2008

2008-05-03T12:35:47-04:00

It's Saturday. This is what happened this week:

I started off by finishing the "Blog Tools Week" entries that I started last week. I guess technically it was "Blog Tools 9 Days."

On Monday, I wrote about AWeber's autoresponder service that allows you to collect readers' names and email addresses and start an emailing newsletter that complies with CAN-SPAM federal laws.

AWeber: the ultimate pursuasion tool

On Tuesday, I used a photo from Flickr that may turn out to be my favorite photo on this blog (British policeman wearing a tutu). It's more than appropriate considering that the post was about how to use Flickr photos for your blog legally.

Flickr: spicing your posts up with other people's photos (legally)

Then all hell broke loose.

While working on the design of Pajama Market, I deleted a tiny portion of my style sheet that controls what the layout of the blog looks like. The problem being that the "tiny" portion included 2/3 of the style sheet that was selected, but hidden from view, in Typepad's editing screen.

So I deleted 2/3 of my style sheet and my design was obliterated. I had two choices (after a lot of swearing and broken furniture).

1) I could reconstruct the style sheet. That would probably take about 3-4 hours. Or

2) I could submit a support ticket to Typepad and just ask them to replace my current style sheet with a backup copy from the day before, or even the week before.

Long story short, I went with option #2 and regretted it.

Where is Typepad Support?
Typepad customer support nonexistent
How long will it take Typepad to respond to my trouble ticket? I actually had a clock running from the time I submitted the ticket displayed on this post.
Typepad support is worst in the industry

The fun part was noticing that Six Apart, the company that owns Typepad, accounted for a half dozen rapid hits to Pajama Market late yesterday afternoon (my stats show "Six Apart" as the ISP of six of my visitors). Are you finally listening Typepad?

Lets hope next week is less adventurous on the technical side, and more fun on the writing side. I'd really prefer writing useful and funny posts rather than rants. Cheers!

Typepad support is worst in the industry

2008-05-02T13:20:54-04:00

When it comes to dealing with a technical issue on a web site, Typepad ranks dead last for all of the dozen or so services I've used in the past ten years.

It appears that Typepad is over-charging their customers and providing no service. A major problem with my blog was finally addressed 39 hours and 14 minutes after I contacted support. By "addressed," what I mean is that Typepad finally got back to me and told me they couldn't help.

What takes longer than an hour?
I have had many technical issues with web sites in the past, ranging from design, to login problems, to complex database issues. I don't recall any of those problems taking more than an hour to resolve except for when my gmail was hacked. In that case I was dealing with a company that was known for being difficult to get hold of and gmail isn't exactly their main product.

Typepad's "great" service
But Typepad tells you how great their service is, and their main product is hosting of blogs.

From Typepad's 'About' page:

We’re here to help. Here at TypePad, we’re passionate about customer service. We provide customer support 7 days a week, 365 days a year. We want you to get the answers you need, and we’ve developed a huge Knowledge Base and a responsive online help system to make sure that happens.

They pretend to appreciate me
Pajama Market has been featured as a Typepad Featured Blog. They have also interviewed me in their Typepad Featured Interviews. Finally, Typepad uses my quotes on their testimonials page, one of only 14 quotes they use. So it's not like they don't know I exist.

Fix it or let me know you can't ASAP
My problem was very simple. I had screwed up a file (my style sheet) and I asked them to replace it with the version from yesterday, or a week ago (every web host I know of has daily, or at least weekly backups of all the web sites they are managing).

I was a little concerned when I found that the only way to contact support was through their trouble ticket form. No phone, no IM. When a day had passed and I hadn't heard anything, I attempted to contact them through their sales department. That left me even more frustrated. Read about it in yesterday's post.

Then I was even more concerned when I found there was no way to prioritize how bad my problem was. With other web hosts I've used, you get options like 'minor problem,' 'major problem' and 'web site crashed.' With no way to prioritize, it left me wondering if my "major problem" was going to be handled after thousands of stupid questions that support gets every day. Apparently it was. What if my blog was completely down, not working?

Simple fix not possible at Typepad
The response I received today was that they couldn't do what I was asking. If you are so inclined, you may read their response here. They couldn't do this simple thing that any other web host in the country could have done for me in five minutes. And it took them a day and a half to say so. What crap!

What am I paying premium prices for?
So the question remains, WTF am I paying for? $15 a month is a lot of money for a web site. If they can't do a simple thing like restore a broken page, I'm not sure what the value of the service is...especially if it takes them 37 hours to tell you.

WordPress is free, and if you host it at a company like GoDaddy, it will cost you under $7 a month, and that's with any domain name you want. You don't have to have a stupid one like pajamamarket.typepad.com (I pay extra to have a "regular" looking web site address).

My follow-up trouble ticket
Finally, I sent a second trouble ticket to the support desk this morning, wondering if anyone was working there? They responded in 35 minutes (one minute after responding to my other trouble ticket). Their response? Upgrade to the "Premium Package" at $30/month and service would be guaranteed within six hours.

So I can pay twice as much for my web site, and still not get service equal to GoDaddy's at less than $7 month. That makes sense. Here is that email:

On May 2, 2008 11:37:44 AM, you (Brian) said:

Hello? It's been 39 hours since I submitted ticket #801568. I haven't heard anything. Is there any support at Typepad???

On May 2, 2008 12:12:27 PM, TypePad Customer Support said:

Hi Brian,

We receive a large number of support requests each day and respond to them in the order they come in. If you require priority support, we'd suggest upgrading to Premium. Users at the Premium level have a guaranteed response time of six hours.

There are more details about the different levels here:

http://www.typepad.com/pricing/

If you'd like to upgrade to Premium, you can do so via Control Panel > Account Info > Upgrade/Downgrade Account.

We hope this helps. Please let us know if you have any other questions or concerns.

Thanks,
Zalary

They get a customer who is very frustrated and not getting any action so they try to up-sell them. Great customer service Typepad.

[Photo: #151 27-11-2007 by worak on Flickr, used with permission under Creative Commons Copyright.]

How long will it take Typepad to respond to my trouble ticket?

2008-05-01T15:59:14-04:00

[UPDATE...5:09 PM. Here's a screenshot of my support ticket items.]

Typepad customer support nonexistent

2008-05-01T14:08:02-04:00

Typepad has still not responded to my trouble ticket. It has officially been 16 hours and 2 minutes since I placed the request.

I did a quick check of other popular hosts:
GoDaddy: 24/7 phone or email support
Rackspace: 24/7 phone or email support
SiteGround: Resolves 95% of all critical issues in less than 15 minutes...damn!

If this blog were hosted with one of those companies with a different blog platform...say Wordpress...my problem would have been long fixed.

Since there is no way to directly converse with the support staff (I submitted a 'support ticket' last night...that's one-way conversation only and I'm beginning to feel like I was talking to a wall), I contacted a salesperson at Typepad just now via instant message chat.

My hope was that they might relay to the support desk that I was...annoyed. Read the rest of this story if you'd like to see how that chat went (hint: I don't think I'm their favorite person right now).

Chat InformationPlease wait for a site operator to respond.

Chat InformationYou are now chatting with 'Kymberlie'

Kymberlie: Hi there. Are you having a problem registering for a TypePad account?

you: No, I'm having a problem reaching someone in support.

Kymberlie: At this time, our live support is set up only to handle TypePad registration issues.

Since you have a TypePad support question, please log in at typepad.com and click to your Control Panel > Help tab. There, open the New Ticket link to submit your support request. Your account information and history is available then to help with resolution, and support questions are handled in the TypePad help system.

you: I've done that

you: No one is responding!!!

you: 15 1/2 hours now!!

you: Ticket: 801568

Kymberlie: If you've opened a help ticket, someone will respond to you as soon as possible.

you: Why am I paying $15/month to wait 15 hours for support???

Kymberlie: If you require priority support, we'd suggest upgrading to Premium. Users at the Premium level have a guaranteed response time of six hours.

Kymberlie: There are more details about the different levels here:

Kymberlie: http://www.typepad.com/pricing/

Kymberlie: If you'd like to upgrade to Premium, you can do so via Control Panel > Account Info > Upgrade/Downgrade Account.

you: Wow! So I can twiddle my thumbs wondering when support will help me, or I can spend TWICE AS MUCH as I'm paying now to get some communication going?

you: That sucks.

Kymberlie: I understand your frustration, but at this time, support is handled through the ticket queue. Someone will assist you as soon as possible.

you: 15+ hours is not very soon and I'm very unhappy.

you: Especially since I don't even know if support can assist me.

Kymberlie: Support should be able to assist you with your issue. Please have patience and someone will help you as soon as they can.

you: It says right on the Typepad pricing page that ALL customers "enjoy professional service and support". http://www.typepad.com/pricing/

you: I wouldn't call 15+ hours in the dark very professional.

Kymberlie: Yes, and they you do, but we receive a large number of support requests each day and respond to them in the order they come in.

you: Would you say the service I'm getting on this issue is 'professional?'

Kymberlie: We appreciate your feedback, but if you have any further questions, you can open a new Help Ticket within your account. Since you do not have a registration question, I am going to end this chat.

you: :(

Kymberlie: Thank you for chatting. Good-bye.

Chat InformationChat session has been terminated by the site operator.

PS: If you're reading this after the issue was fixed, check out how awful the site looked here.

[Photo: Kids #43 by Jekkyl on Flickr, used wit permission under Creative Commons Copyright.]

Where is Typepad support?

2008-05-01T11:42:40-04:00

So...as you can see, I've messed up the layout of my blog pretty horrendously. This is what happens when you play with the style sheet and accidentally delete half of it without having a backup copy lying around.

Rather than try to reconstruct the many many parts that I deleted, I contacted Typepad last night through their support ticket service and asked them to replace my style sheet with the one that was being used on Tuesday.

I'm a little concerned though. That was about 13 1/2 hours ago and I haven't heard a peep from them. For most web hosts that I've dealt with, this wouldn't be too much of a problem. Usually, a web host will back up all the files on a server every few nights.

But I haven't heard anything one way or another. What exactly am I paying $15/month for?

Enjoy this "new" format while it's here. Limited time only (I hope).

[Top Photo: YELL AT YOU! by katiebate on Flickr, used with permission under Creative Commons Copyright.]