Professional Blog Service

10 Blog Writing Lessons Learned from Authors, part 1

Erik Deckers — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 12:00:00 +0000

I have a few favorite authors that I turn to again and again. Authors whose books I kept when I got rid of 600 other books over a two week period. And while most of my bibliophile friends 1) can’t imagine doing that, and 2) are wondering why I didn’t call them first, I’ve enjoyed being free of most of my old and unread books.

But I’ve kept these authors’ books because I learned something from them. A lot of these writers, and one singer, have imparted lessons to me, either through their writings or their interviews. So here are 10 lessons I have learned from 9 of my most favoritest authors (and 1 singer).

1) Pictures speak volumes — Kurt Vonnegut, Breakfast of Champions. Anyone who ever read Breakfast of Champions will remember the crude, childish drawings he included in his story, including a couple of drawings of people’s anatomy. I’m not suggesting you use these particular drawings, but rather, use pictures and videos to support your point and make your post more interesting to readers. Load your photos into Flickr or Picasa, or use Creative Commons or stock photos, and use them to add a little variety to your posts.

2) String together a series of ledes – Hunter S. Thompson. This is why Hunter S. Thompson was such a powerful writer. In journalism school, students are taught to write one lede (lead, if you must), and then supporting information, and the content gets less important and less interesting the further you go. But Thompson would just string together a bunch of ledes, one after the other — bam, bam, bam!! — and pummel you with them. Then he would calm down a bit before hitting you again with another series of body blows. That’s why he was so exciting to read. That, and all the crazy drug references.

3) Write short sentences — Ernest Hemingway, Big Two-Hearted River. I use this sample a lot in my writing presentations.

Nick was hungry. He did not believe he had ever been hungrier. He opened and emptied a can of pork and beans and a can of spaghetti into the frying pan. “I’ve got a right to eat this kind of stuff, if I’m willing to carry it,” Nick said. His voice sounded strange in the darkening woods. He did not speak again.

I checked this out once on the Flesch-Kincaid reading level, and it came back as a 3rd grade level block of text. Newspapers are written at about a 6th grade reading level, and your blogs should be too. Not because your readers are dumb, but because they have come to expect it. They want short, simple, and easy to understand.

4) Write long, flowing, descriptive sentences — Roger Angell, baseball writer for The New Yorker. Yes, this contradicts my previous point. I’ve been reading Roger Angell for about two years now, and he is quickly becoming one of my favorite writers. His descriptions of baseball games are magical. I can feel like I’m there in the park with him, in 1965, watching a Mets game, or in 1969, watching the Detroit Tigers. His writing flows smoothly, like an expensive new pen on creamy writing paper. There are times your writing will need to be more like Angell’s and less like Hemingway’s.

5) Use metaphors —Tom Waits — Putnam County, Nighthawks at the Diner. I talked before about how Tom Waits uses metaphors to create very powerful writing. His song, Putnam County is rife with metaphors and a couple similes. Take a look at what he says about the morning dawn.

And the impending squint of first light
And it lurked behind a weepin’ marquee in downtown Putnam
Yeah, and it’d be pullin’ up any minute now
Just like a bastard amber Velveeta yellow cab on a rainy corner
And be blowin’ its horn in every window in town

My point is that you should sprinkle metaphors into your writing to create the drama, vivid imagery, and power that will make your writing stand out from everyone else’s.

We’ll cover the 2nd half of this list tomorrow.

About the Author: Erik Deckers
Erik is the VP of Creative Services for Professional Blog Service. He has been blogging since 1998, and has been a published writer for more than 22 years. He is a newspaper humor columnist, appearing in 10 papers around Indiana. He has also written numerous business articles, radio theater plays, and stage plays. Erik helped write Twitter Marketing for Dummies, and is currently working on Branding Yourself: How to use social media to invent or reinvent yourself, which will be released in December 2010 by Que Publishing. He is writing a third book on social media and networking. Erik frequently speaks about blogging and social media.

Really? We’re STILL Talking About Ghost Blogging?

Erik Deckers — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 12:00:13 +0000

What is it with these social media purists and ghost blogging? What exactly do they not understand?

Ghost blogging is a service that is provided by ghost writers. We transcribe interviews from our clients, get their approval for what we’ve written, and we post it to their blogs.

This is no more inauthentic than hiring a social media agency to run your social media campaign, or an ad agency to create your TV commercials. It’s no more inauthentic than private labeling/white labeling a product made by someone else — food companies do it all the time, and no one complains.

My friend, Doug Karr, recently wrote a post about Avinash Kaushik’s rather misinformed statement about “ghost blogging being the antithesis of everything social.”

Doug said:

It’s always interesting when someone with as much authority as Avinash throws out a rule like this. Not only do I disagree with Avinash, I know many, many companies who would disagree as well. Ghostblogging is not the antithesis of everything social… inauthenticity, dishonesty, and insincerity are the antithesis of everything social.

As a professional ghost blogger, I’m sick to death of people who paint ghost bloggers as some sort of moral leper, the used car salesmen of the social media industry. (Oops. There, now you’ve made me offend used car salesmen. Happy now?) These social media purists decry ghost blogging as being less than honest because CEOs of large corporations and small businesses don’t spend 1 – 2 hours a day crafting a single blog post.

“Oh, but if you were serious about it, you’d make the time,” they lilt, wagging their fingers at the slacker CEOs who whine that they’re “tired” after a 14 hour day. “Because social media is all about the conversation and community and the inherent good in other people.”

No it isn’t. Social media in the business world is all about making money. Businesses can’t pay their workers with conversations. You don’t appease shareholders with community. And their vendors don’t want to hear about all the good you’re finding in other people when they ask why you’re 60 days overdue.

If we followed the social media purists’ logic to its logical conclusion, we would not be allowed to use these other ghost-type services:

Businesses would have to produce their own ads, commercials, and graphics in-house. They could not hire an outside agency to do it. Or if they did, there would be a big disclaimer on it saying it was produced by that agency.
Software companies could not outsource their programming to freelance coders. They should do it all themselves.
Celebrities should not hire ghost writers to help with their books. They should be allowed to suck on their own.
Politicians would not be allowed to use ghost writers to write their speeches. They would have to mumble and fumble their way through every speech, no matter who they were. Or if they used a ghostwriter, they would have to interrupt their speech every 10 minutes with, “This speech was written by my ghost writer, Jeff Shesol.”

Ghost blogging is the last bastion of any kind of ghosting, where some purist thinks that we shouldn’t be allowed to do it because it’s “inauthentic.”

Do you know what’s inauthentic? Inauthentic is following fewer than 100 people while 25,000 people follow you on Twitter. f you’re in “the conversation” business, don’t you think you should have a conversation? Otherwise, you’re just holding a one-way broadcast with 25,000 people, and are showing that you’re not willing to listen to anyone else. That’s not authentic in the least bit.

Whether the purists like it or not, ghost blogging is going to only get more popular. As companies want to enter the social media marketing realm and realize they can’t, because they just laid off their best writers, they will look for other ways to gain that competitive edge. If they’re going to outsource their web design, their ad creation, and their strategy, why shouldn’t they outsource their writing too?

There are freelance writers in all other parts of business — marketing copy, TV scripts, radio scripts, ad copy, web copy, annual reports, press releases, white papers, grant proposals — so why is blog writing so different from all those other forms of ghost writing?

It isn’t. If you hire someone to write something for you, and you don’t stick their name on it, they’re a ghost writer. I don’t care if it’s marketing, advertising, or grants. They’re a ghost writer. No one is complaining about their inauthenticity or their non-transparency.

So the purists need to get off their high horse, learn how the world works, and accept the fact that ghost writers are skilled writers who are paid to provide a service for other people. And we’re going to be here for a while.

The Social Media 40 OVER 40 List

Erik Deckers — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 12:00:31 +0000

A few weeks ago, I decided I’d had it with all the “40 Under 40″ lists, and wondered just what was so wrong with being 40+. As if the 40-somethings and 50-somethings somehow deserved an asterisk next to our accomplishments.

So I sent out the call for nominations for my Social Media 40 OVER 40 list. I sent word out via Twitter and Facebook that I wanted nominations of anyone who was doing some awesome stuff in social media, but was born anytime before August 1970. And they came in. We received 60 nominations, and came up with another 20 or so names ourselves. We pared the list down to 60, then 50, and then 40.

This isn’t a list of people whose names you hear over and over. Some of those people are here, like Chris Brogan, who turned 40 in April (welcome to the club, Chris). You may have never heard of others, like Laverne Bentle Blasdel. And many others are people who are mini-celebs in their own communities, like John Dalton, who is building the blogging community in Northwest Indiana.

There may even be some obvious, huge names missing, but that’s because we didn’t know how old people are. And hey, if you don’t respond to tweets asking if you’re old enough to make the list, we’re not chasing you down. Maybe next year. (Also, if your name is on the list, but you’re actually not over 40, you need to take better care of yourself. You look like hell.) We also didn’t include our own names, even though we were both nominated. It just didn’t seem appropriate, but thank you to those who thought that highly of us.

These names are in alphabetical order, rather than order of importance, coolness, or relevance. It’s really hard to decide who’s best, second best, and so on.

So here is the inaugural Social Media 40 OVER 40.

1. Jay Baer
@JayBaer
Bloomington, IN by way of Flagstaff, AZ
I first met Jay at Blog Indiana where we stood in line for tacos. The next day, we shot a quick video about how to eat a hamburger at MacNiven’s, an Indianapolis Scottish restaurant. Our whole interaction seems to be based on food, so I’m looking forward to pizza one day. Jay is a social media consultant who works with major corporations and PR firms. He has founded five companies, has worked in digital marketing for 15 years, and just finished up his new book, The Now Revolution, which will be out in February.

2. Chris Baggott
@ChrisBaggott
Indianapolis, IN
Chris co-founded ExactTarget, an email marketing SaaS, which allowed businesses to personalize their connection with their consumers. ExactTarget saw the value in 1:1 marketing before 1:1 marketing was en vogue. Chris founded Compendium Blogware as a social content publishing platform that allows businesses to publish blog content that helps them rank high on the search engines, as well as push the content out to organic landing pages and social media sites like Twitter and Facebook. He’s also the co-author of Email Marketing by the Numbers, with Ali Sales.

3. Lorraine Ball
@RoundPeg
Indianapolis, IN
Lorraine is the president of RoundPeg, a PR and marketing agency that specializes in small businesses. She is also the person responsible for unleashing Kyle Lacy on the business world, when he worked for her as an intern. She is a former president of Rainmakers, a business networking organization, a highly sought after public speaker, and is a social media rockstar.

4. Christopher Barger
@Cbarger
Detroit, MI
Chris is the social media director for General Motors, and keeps a blog about his thoughts, philosophies and experiences in the social web on Tumblr.

5. Laverne Bentle Blasdel
Lawrenceburg, IN
Not everyone who makes this list has to be a social media powerhouse. They just have to do something notable. So when Laverne was nominated by Carey Driscoll, I thought she deserved to make it. Laverne is 88 years old, lives with her sister in a retirement home, and apparently totally rocks Facebook keeping up with her friends and family.

6. Chris Brogan
@ChrisBrogan
Boston, MA
Chris is the undisputed leader in the social media world. He’s a Fortune 500 social media consultant, the owner of New Media Labs, co-author of Trust Agents, author of Social Media 101, co-founder of PodCamp. You knew he was going to make the list, of course, but he just barely made the nomination cutoff by four months.

7. Bob Burchfield
@AroundIndy
Indianapolis, IN
Through a daily combination of Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Ning, FriendFeed, Foursquare, Twubs, podcasting, Blogger, WordPress, Animoto, and other social media apps, site traffic on the Bob’s main website has increased exponentially, compared to pre-social media days. What’s impressive is that Bob does a lot of his web programming by hand. While others are satisfied to download plugins and apps, Bob builds his own. The net result is that if you do searches for things to do around Indianapolis, it’s Bob’s website that appears first, beating out the “professional” websites whose jobs it is to promote Indianapolis and Indiana tourism. Very impressive.

8. Shawn Carter
@JayZ or @s_c_, his personal account
New York City
I couldn’t resist. Shawn Carter is better known as Jay-Z, a force in musical entertainment. He’s got 3.7 million fans on Facebook and 236,000 followers on Twitter. He may not be a social media pro, like most of the people on the list, but he’s embraced social media, and is using it to its fullest to promote his music and his brand, so he’s the only entertainer to make the list.

9. Jon Costas
@JonCostas
Valparaiso, IN
He’s the mayor of Valparaiso, Indiana, and he handles his own Twitter account. He doesn’t pass it off to an intern, doesn’t post the occasional tweet about a public appearance. He has actual Twitter conversations with other people. If that isn’t the coolest thing, I don’t know what is.

10. Pat Coyle
@Sports20
Indianapolis
Pat is the owner of Sports 2.0, a sports marketing agency in Indianapolis, and the founder of MyColts.net. But his biggest claim to fame is the creation of Smaller Indiana, a Ning-based social network for people who live and work in Indiana, whether they’re entrepreneurs, artists, creative professionals, blue collar types, corporate types, or even students. The network has grown to 9,000 members since December 2007, and has been a source of news, information, trends, and has hosted several events where thought leaders and community members can come together to discuss whatever issue is at hand.

11. Steve Dalton
@DaltonsBriefs
Valparaiso, IN
Steve is a blogger in Northwest Indiana who works for Green Pointe Homes, a Northwest Indiana home builder. He’s also a strong blogging evangelist in his local blogging community, and spends a lot of time trying to get new bloggers to write about what’s happening in the local online community. He also gets to teach university classes from time to time.

12. Kevin Dugan
@PRBlog
Cincinnati, OH
Chuck Gose spoke so highly of Kevin in his nomination, it’s just easier to let Chuck say it:

Kevin is social media in Cincinnati. In fact, he runs Cincinnati Social Media. The guy is a master at taking various topics that are on people’s minds and splashing them with his own professional experience. As part of Cincinnati Social Media, he’s the founder of Cincinnati Social Media Breakfast. His blogs, Strategic Public Relations and The Bad Pitch Blog, have been singled out for awards, including a 2007 Award of Commendation from the Public Relations Society of America. Both blogs are ranked by Advertising Age magazine’s Power 150 — a ranking of the top marketing blogs in the world. And he’s been recognized personally as well. Aside from the accolades and professional work, Kevin is one of the good guys. Always willing to teach and help others learn about digital technology and content.

13. Paul Dunay
@PaulDunay
New York City
Paul Dunay is the global managing director of services and social marketing for Avaya, a global enterprise communications company. He is also the author of three Dummies books: Facebook Marketing for Dummies, Social Media and the Contact Center for Dummies, and Facebook Advertising for Dummies. He was also named to BtoB Magazine’s “Top 25 B2B Marketer of the Year” in 2009.

14. Dana Freeman
@MissMagpiefgs
Vermont
Dana is a parenting and travel blogger for FindandGoSeek.net, focusing on one very specific niche, northern Vermont. She writes about weekend events, after-school activities, camps, festivals, story times and so many more things for parents with families to do in the Green Mountain State.

15. Tanya Goodin
@TanyaGoodin
London, England
Tanya is one of only two people on this list outside the United States (#16, Sharon Hayes, is from Montreal). She is the CEO of Tamar.com, one of the first agencies in the UK to talk about social media almost 3 years ago. Tanya was named one of Revolution Magazine’s Top Tweeters in 2009, was a finalist in the Blackberry Outstanding Women in Technology in 2008, and a London regional finalist for the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year in 2007.

16. Sharon Hayes
@SharonHayes
Montreal, Canada
Typically, I don’t pay attention to people with more than 20,000 followers. A lot of times, that can be finagled through some clever auto-follow bots and software trickery. The clue, however, is to look at the number of lists the person is on. Sharon Hayes is a consultant with 76,000 followers, is following 69,000 people, and is on 3,819 lists. In other words, 5% of her followers put her on a list of some sort. (Chris Brogan is has a 9.5% list-to-follower ratio.) So, something tells me she knows what she’s doing, and adds value to her followers. She is a business development expert who has created and developed over a dozen companies providing business to business services. Since the mid 1990′s, she has been focused in the areas of email marketing, community development, branding/domain name services and social media. (Update: Sharon is NOT a life coach or Twitter trainer, as I had originally reported. She corrected me, and I’m correcting it here.)

17. Thomas Ho
@DrThomasHo
Orlando, FL
One of two Ph.Ds on the list (the other is Werner Vogels, #37), Thomas Ho was a Social Media and IT instructor at IUPUI, and now works for Wycliffe Bible Translations. Thomas was the one who got me started in Twitter. For weeks, I couldn’t understand the point of it, until he explained it to me. Now I can’t function without it. He constantly tries new technologies and tools, and shares his knowledge with other social media folks, providing meta-social media knowledge to our entire industry.

18. Bevery Jackson
@BevJack
Los Angeles, CA
marketing dept for Recording Academy
Beverly is part of the marketing department for The Recording Academy. As part of her responsibilities, she has lead The GRAMMY Award show’s social media efforts. To her credit, the telecast and events around it have pre- and post event blog coverage, live twitter streams and earlier this year, a Social Media Rock Star conference.

19. Douglas Karr
@DouglasKarr
Indianapolis, IN
Doug is one of the smartest people in social media today, and should be in the top 5 on this list, easy. He’s the owner of DK New Media, a co-creator of Compendium’s blogging software, co-author of Corporate Blogging for Dummies, and owner of the Marketing Tech Blog, a leading marketing technology, uh, blog.

20. Chris Kieff
@ckieff
New York City
Chris is a long time social media evangelist and socializer, and actually got his job at Ripple6 by announcing that he was looking for a social media job on Twitter. He writes extensively about how businesses can improve their use of social media. He also has a new Twitter contest application, Real Time Contest, in beta. He is also a speaker, social media educator/trainer, and a consultant.

21. Cliff Kinard
@cliffkinard
Austin, TX
One of the new “intrapreneurs” at IBM, Cliff was digital…when digital wasn’t cool or profitable. Today, Cliff is helping reinvent the IBM System x Server team’s social media and internet marketing approach to engaging customers in the x86, Intel and AMD server hardware market.

22. Charlene Li
@CharleneLi
San Francisco, CA
Charlene has done some amazing stuff in her career. She is the co-author of “Groundswell,” author of “Open Leadership,” and the founder of Altimeter Group, a strategy firm that helps clients use new technologies. She was named one of the 12 most creative minds of 2008 by Fast Company, and one of the most influential women in technology 2009. And now she’s on this list, so she’s got that going for her.

23. Jesse Luna
@JesseLuna
Santa Paula, CA
Jesse helped roll social media into his former company as Web Marketing Communications Manager. These efforts included the creation of a company-wide blogging infrastructure, training a dozen over-40 co-workers on the art of blogging, and helping architect the design. Jesse was also an adjunct professor at Cal State Channel Islands for over a year, teaching web design and blogging as part of a Management of Information Systems course.

24. Tom Martin
@TomMartin
New Orleans
Tom Martin is a marketing and social media whirlwind. In fact, while I was compiling this list, I saw that Tom had left for Brazil on the last day of August to speak about social media. Brazil? Are you kidding me? I can’t even get invited to Brazil, Indiana, and he’s going to a whole other hemisphere. Tom is the president of Zehnder Communications, which helps clients “combine traditional, digital and social media marketing strategies.” He also created Converse Digital, a new social media monitoring service that’s still in the startup phase.

25. Greg Matthews
@ChiMoose
Austin, TX
Formerly the director of consumer innovation and social media at Humana, Greg is now the Social Media Director at WCG, a global communications firm, handling social media and social networking for some pretty high profile clients. His experience is notable because he was able to get Humana, an insurance company — an industry not known for embracing change, to adopt social media The fact that he is a big hitter at a big ball team is enough to get him on this list; getting an insurance giant to adopt social media is enough to get him a sainthood.

26. Becky McKray
@BeckyMcCray
Alva, OK
Becky really knows her stuff when it comes to social media, said Karen Putz (#29). “When she isn’t in the field talking to cows in her rural town (population, a few handful of people, the cows outnumber ‘em) she’s on Twitter, engaging in conversation and linking to people and events from all over. She’s the owner of a liquor store– but she doesn’t touch a drop of the products she sells. She’s a sought-after speaker on the topic of social media, so that ought to tell you something.”

27. Mitch Mitchell
@Mitch_M
Liverpool, NY
Mitch Mitchell is not Jimi Hendrix’s old drummer (because that guy’s dead). No, our Mitch hails from Liverpool, New York (so he’s no Beatle either), has been blogging since 2005 and talking and writing about social media since 2008. Klout.com says Mitch is one of the most influential people in his area on Twitter. Also that he totally rocked it on “Fire.”

28. Kathi Moore
@MediaKath and @IndianaMuseum
Indianapolis, IN
Kathi was nominated by her daughter, but made the list because of her own accomplishments. Kathi has been blogging on her own since 2005 at kathi.wordpress.com. She also launched the Indiana State Museum into the social media world with a new website, blog, Facebook, Twitter, 4Square, and YouTube, greatly enhancing the museum’s meager state-run marketing budget. Alison said Kathi is “way over 40,” but said we have to do the math. (Yeah, she said “way” over.)

29. Karen Putz
@DeafMom
Chicago, IL
Karen says she has no impressive social media accomplishments to speak of, but I disagree. She is a blogger for people with disabilities, and a Chicago Tribune Local writer. While this may not launch her into the stratosphere of social media, she’s working hard, and giving value to people in her communities, both locally and people with disabilities. Rock on, Karen.

30. Allan Schoenberg
@allanschoenberg
Chicago, IL
What impressed me about Allan was not that he’s a PR exec who focuses on social media and brand management. It’s that he was able to be a PR and social media guy at a large financial institution. Having worked in places that are just as buttoned down as the financial industry, I was duly impressed. Allan is the director of corporate communication at CME Group, a derivatives marketplace in Chicago.

31. Robert Scoble
@scobleizer
Robert Scoble made headlines in the early days of video blogging by giving us an inside look at Microsoft. Now he’s a technology news and opinion source, shoots videos by the electronic ton, and is the first name anyone thinks of when they think of video blogging.

32. Mari Smith
@MariSmith
San Diego, California
The first time I ever saw Mari Smith’s Twitter account in late 2009, my first thought was, “she can’t be that great. She barely has 1,000 followers.” Then I realized her main focus was Facebook marketing, which I soon learned she was kicking ass on. Then I checked her Twitter follower count for this article: 73,750. Shows you what I know. Mari is considered the pre-eminent Facebook marketing expert, and is now the host of Social Media Examiner TV.

33. Mike Stelzner
@Mike_Stelzner
San Diego, CA
Founder and executive of SocialMediaExaminer.com, one of the leading blogs on social media. Stelzner recruited writers like Mari Smith (#32 — she also nominated Mike), Chris Garrett, and Jason Falls (who missed making this year’s list by three years). Now, SME has more than 30 social media experts who regularly contribute to our site.

34. Liz Strauss
@lizstrauss
Chicago, IL
Founder of SOBCon (Successful and Outstanding Bloggers), the national conference that was started because of a single blog post asking people to start a conversation in the comments. section. Liz’s website explains it this way: “In 2008, (SOBCon) became the “Cirque du Soleil” of conferences in a new format that included interactive mastermind teams. Liz selects the content; the content decides the presenters, and after each presentation, the audience immediately applies what they heard by discussions in mastermind teams. The new model is a once a year think-tank of intentional serendipity. SOBCon gives participants a real-time, real-space chance to make a difference to business and the world. ”

35. Penelope Trunk
@penelopetrunk
Darlington, WI
If we were doing this in order of coolness and accomplishments, Penelope would be in the top five. She’s the author of Brazen Careerist, and owner of the social network by the same name. I was actually surprised to hear that Penelope was over 40. Given her niche — career advice for Generation Y — I figured she was just a few years older than her subjects. But my editor at Pearson said, “no, she’s close to your age,” which made me feel like less of a loser. That’s because Penelope, a former professional beach volleyball player, is the founder of three startups, including BrazenCareerist.com, a social network for Generation Y. Her career column also appears in 200 newspapers.

36. Jim Turner
@Genuine
Firestone, CO
Jim started One By One Media back in 2004, and is a professional blogger and social media consultant, working with Fortune 500 companies and small startups. He also created SocialMediaSphere.tv, a UStream TV broadcast about social media, and BloggersForHire, a professional blogging agency. Best of all, he totally rocks that Captain America uniform in his Twitter avatar, although maybe not as muscly as the original.

37. Werner Vogels
@Werner
Seattle, WA
Dr. Werner Vogels is the CTO and VP of Amazon.com, and only one of two Ph.Ds on the list. He writes a blog, All Things Distributed, to discuss general technology, as well as some science, cloud computing, and things going on at Amazon. But what’s really cool is his Werner.ly blog, which bridges the gap between Twitter and his regular blog. A lot of his interests are about music, and one of his recent posts was an “I can’t believe you listen to this shit’ top 10 list of bands he likes.

38. Dave Woodson
@DaveWoodson
Michigan City, IN
Dave is well-known in real estate circles, helping organize Indiana’s RE BarCamps, a social media conference for Realtors, mortgage brokers, and people in the real estate business. A lot of Realtors have embraced social media and blogging, and Dave has helped make that happen, at least for Indiana. Dave started in social media three years ago to build his first mortgage business, and turned that into a consulting and speaking business, and has helped him create a strong personal brand in the real estate and mortgage business both in his region and on the national level.

39. Susan Britton Whitcomb
@SusanWhitcomb
Fresno, CA
Susan is the co-author of The Twitter Job Search Guide, and SIX other books. She is also a speaker and coach. She uses Twitter extensively to send out job search advice, whether it’s résumé tips, using social networking to find jobs, or advancing your career. Sarah, who nominated Susan, said “you may not have the time or resources to work with a professional career coach, but in following Susan you can still get the guidance needed to give yourself an edge in the job market.”

40. Steve Woodruff
@swoodruff
New Jersey
Steve is a pharmaceutical marketer, but is also a creator of Opportunity Networks, a networking group, dedicated to “opening up doors of opportunity for personal and professional advancement.”

3 Reasons and 6 Steps To Keep Your Microsites

Erik Deckers — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 12:00:56 +0000

Sean X Cummings, the director of marketing for Ask.com, made a rather bold, but completely wrong*, argument in his recent post “3 Reasons To Ditch Your Microsites.” Cummings said that companies should ditch their microsites because they are “advanced brochureware” and a sure sign that a marketing agency “does not get it.”

(*It’s entirely possible Sean and I are using the same word for two very different things. I’ve been calling one-page sites on unique URLs “microsites.” The following is based on my usage of this term.)

Actually, microsites serve a very important purpose to web marketers. Here are the three reasons you need to keep them:

1) Microsites boost search engine optimization.
2) Microsites improve your SEO.
3) Microsites make your SEO better than your competitor’s.

Microsites are not for marketing, not for branding, not to participating in the conversation. Once you build them, you don’t do a single thing with them.

The proper way to use a microsite

Let’s say you own a carpet cleaning service in Kalamazoo, Michigan. You also serve other areas, like Grand Rapids, Holland, and Battle Creek. You’ve already checked, and CarpetCleaning.com is already taken, but you own Cleanest-Michigan-Carpets.com (mostly because you listened to your brother-in-law, and he’s an idiot).

But you also know that:

Yellow Pages usage is going down, while search engine usage is going up.
Rather than pull out the phone book, people would rather Google something.
Local search engine optimization wins local search (and carpet cleaning is definitely a local business).
Search engines love keywords in a domain name.

Here’s how to use microsites properly:

1) Buy domains for KalamazooCarpetCleaning.com, GrandRapidsCarpetCleaning.com, etc. This tells the search engines that your sites are about carpet cleaning in Kalamazoo, Grand Rapids, Holland, and Battle Creek, and nothing else. Those are also your keywords for each site, and you will use those 3 – 4 words, in order, without exception (i.e. not “Carpet cleaning in Kalamazoo”).

2) Optimize the bejeezus out of each microsite.

Put the keywords at the start of the page title: e.g. “Holland Carpet Cleaning for Residential and Commercial Jobs” and “Kalamazoo Carpet Cleaning by John Smith.”
Put the keywords in the first 4 words of the body copy. This may be awkward, but it needs to be done.
Have no more than 2% keyword density (2 keywords or phrases per 100 words). SEO experts are still debating this, but 2% is a safe number.
Include photos of you cleaning carpets, and use the keywords in the alt tags. “This is John, working hard for a Battle Creek carpet cleaning customer.”
Use only the keywords in hyperlinks that lead back to your main site. “Find more information about Grand Rapids Carpet Cleaning on our website.” Don’t use any other words in those links. Put 2 -3 links back to your site.

3) Install a WordPress.org site on each page. Not because you need WordPress’ amazing functionality, but because it’s free, and create one front page. You can add more if you want, but you need at least one page. (You could expand each site later by writing blog posts about your keywords — see #2 — but that’s pretty involved. Save this as a last resort for when your idiot brother-in-law opens his own carpet cleaning business.)

4) Make it look pretty. A man is sitting in his living room wearing nothing but his underwear and a hat. A friend stops by to visit, and asks about the man’s outfit. “I’m in my underwear, because no one ever comes to visit me,” says the man. “Then why are you wearing the hat?” asks the friend. “Oh, because someone might come,” says the man. Put a hat on the site — download a free template — because someone might visit it.

5) Write strong, persuasive copy: If people come to visit, you need to give them a reason to click through to your main website. Don’t put up crappy copy just to game the search engines. Create well-written copy that explains what you do, how well you do it, and includes a call to action. Make significant changes to the text for all four sites, so they’re not identical or even nearly identical.

6) All links must point back to your main site: They should not point to any other site anywhere on the Internet. Ever. With one exception. Create links to the other sites under a small section that says “we also offer carpet cleaning services in other Michigan cities.” Then use the exact keywords and link to each of the other sites. These backlinks between the microsites and to your main site will boost your search engine ranking.

Here’s what will happen (more or less): The search engine spiders will visit each site and say “Hmm, this site appears to be about Kalamazoo Carpet Cleaning. Let’s make sure.” It will do a quick check, and confirm — based on your domain name, title tag, first 4 words, keyword density, and alt tags — that, “by God, this IS a site about Kalamazoo Carpet Cleaning! And it has everything we like, so it must be important. Let’s see where these links go.”

The spiders will follow the links back to your main site (hence, the name “backlinks”), and conclude, “if those really well-done sites point back to this site, and this site does carpet cleaning in all these cities, then this carpet cleaning site must be really important!”

Then, when people do a quick search for carpet cleaning in one of those cities, your main site will come up first.

That is how you properly use a microsite. No brochureware, no moving the brand, none of that marketing crap, just pure SEO goodness with trackable, measurable results. If your marketing agency ever suggests it for anything other than SEO, tell them Sean X Cummings would like a word with them.

Photo credit: Auntie P (Flickr)

No, It’s NOT Okay To Edit Spam Comments

Erik Deckers — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 14:45:04 +0000

Last week, I asked the question whether it was ethical to edit spam comments to get rid of the URL that is being used to generate some SEO juice for the spammers, but leave the semi-spammy comment in place.

Now THAT'S a lot of Spam

I expected some vigorous debate and discussion with people on both sides of the argument. But with a couple of exceptions, everyone said, “No, this is not okay!”

(Before I go on, let me say, we got some wonderful feedback and comments, so I want to thank everyone who took the time to read the post and respond.)

I was actually surprised by the near unanimous stance everyone took. I figured it would be more of an even split on the issue, with a large number of people saying they thought it was okay to beat the spammers by using their own energies against them, sort of a blogging jiu jitsu. But, nearly everyone was of the opinion that we, as real bloggers, should be above this, and should not resort to the same practices as the spammers.

Fellow blogger Brian Shelton summed it up best.

Erik, I think deleting them is the best option. Editing them just so you can keep a “semi-generic praise-ish” comment doesn’t seem right. Is it that important to receive praise, especially if it is not “legitimate” anyway. I think the ethical debate rests more in the decision to keep known spam comments – minus the links – just to make it look like people like your blog.

That was the majority opinion, and made the most sense. And it seemed to cover most types of blog comments, although Daniel Clark of GeekDadsWeekly.com made an interesting point:

It’s interesting that not a single person here, most notably the ones who say they will strip any and all links left in their blog’s comments, has opted out of including *their* link in *these* comments.

(Touché, Daniel.)

The Other Side of the Debate: Editing for Spelling & Punctuation

However, one person, an ethics blogger, said on his blog that he did not think it was inappropriate to edit typos and grammar errors in another person’s comment. But I disagree. That’s a line I won’t cross. It’s not up to me to fix someone’s spelling, punctuation, or grammar errors. They’re their errors, not mine, and they should not be fixed because I have to have everything perfect.

A post and its comments are a historical record, to show what people were thinking and saying at that time. If they make a mistake, it’s not my place to adjust the historical record because I have a weird fixation on spelling and grammar.

(And no, I don’t think spammers deserve to be a part of the historical record.)

That’s why most bloggers will fix an error in information by ~~striking out~~ the error and writing the correct information next to it. They will also put an Update: note at the bottom of the post, so people can see that the information has been updated and corrected. (Note: this doesn’t extend to typos and misspellings. I think we can fix those without telling everyone “I fixed a typo.”)

Photo credit: Freezelight (Flickr)

Is It Ethical to Edit Spam Comments?

Erik Deckers — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 12:00:24 +0000

Spammers are getting more and more sophisticated in their methods. Thanks to Akismet on WordPress and Blogger’s new spam filters, the days of gibberish-filled comments with 50 links to different spam sites are over. So the spammers have had to get creative and try to slip one over on us bloggers.

These days, the common technique is to leave some flattering yet generic comment like “Hey, this is a great post. I bookmarked it, and I’m going to tell all my friends. You rock!”The spammer has also included the URL to the site they’re pimping in the hopes that this seemingly innocuous comment will slip through our radar. What they really hope is that the search engines will follow the URL to their site, and they get a little “Google juice” out of it.

This is a common SEO technique, so I understand the reason for it. But it’s really kind of slimy, especially because some new bloggers don’t catch on right away, and they’ll publish these comments, and will sometimes even respond to them.

The latest technique is to actually read the blog post, leave a semi-generic message about that particular topic, again with the URL, in the hopes that this will get through.

“Hey, this is a great post about ghost blogging and I bookmarked it so I can come back again later. I’m going to tell all my friends about it. You rock!”

Here’s my ethical dilemma: Can I, as the blog owner, delete their URL, and then publish the comment? I’m “defanging the serpent,” as it were, and not allowing the spammer to get what they want, but I still get the benefit of a semi-generic praise-ish, if falsely made, comment.

The Pro of Editing Comments

I can argue that many of these spammers are only trying to deceive people into buying their stuff (usually porn, pills, or counterfeit watches), and as such, are not very moral people. I’m not doing any more harm by editing these comments than I am by deleting them. I’m removing the offending URL, and blocking their attempts to direct people to their nefarious websites.

The Con of Editing Comments

This could be a slippery slope. If I edit a spam comment today, what’s to stop me from editing a regular comment for spelling and grammatical errors tomorrow? And then deleting a negative comment the next day? From there, it’s a short step to editing a negative comment into a positive one.

The Question: Can I Edit Spam Comments?

So, my question is, assuming I don’t slide down the slippery slope, can I remove the URLs and publish the comments? If I promise not to cross that line, and never, ever edit a real comment for any reason whatsoever, can I tweak the spam comments and remove the one thing that makes them spam.

What do you think? Do you edit or just delete? Is it dangerous to edit these spammy comments, or perfectly acceptable?

Photo credit: Cookipediachef (Flickr)

My Favorite Moment from BlogIndiana 2010 Is Not What You Think

Erik Deckers — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 12:00:37 +0000

My favorite moment from BlogIndiana 2010 is not what you think? You might think it was the talk I gave on Saturday. But it wasn—okay, that was pretty awesome. It’s always an honor to speak there.

No, my favorite moment was when a few of us snuck out to lunch, and John Uhri (of the Sketch Notes) I introduced Jason Falls and Jay Baer to MacNiven’s, a Scottish restaurant in downtown Indianapolis.

MacNiven’s makes a pretty decent hamburger, but what’s unusual about it is that it’s 1/4 pound of beef, smashed to 8″ around. You have to fold it up to eat it. I explained it to Jay, and then Jay — having never practiced before, mind you — showed the rest of the world how to eat it. Now that is a quick study.

What Does Google Caffeine Mean for Bloggers?

Paul Lorinczi — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 12:00:00 +0000

Like a refreshing jolt to the system, Google released Google Caffeine back in June of 2010. Apart from its cool name, its purpose is to help find and index fresh content. This is a big change from Google “unleaded,” which sometimes seemed more concerned with just finding content. And making SEO consultants crazy by always changing their algorithms.

The primary motivation is to help users to we can get the most current content that is relevant.

Google said in their recent blog post about Google Caffeine

So why did we build a new search indexing system? Content on the web is blossoming. It’s growing not just in size and numbers but with the advent of video, images, news and real-time updates, the average webpage is richer and more complex. In addition, people’s expectations for search are higher than they used to be. Searchers want to find the latest relevant content and publishers expect to be found the instant they publish.

For several years now, Google has been preaching the virtues of Fresh Hot Content. They have been talking about “recency” and “frequency” as their two biggest buzzwords when it came to search. That’s why blogging has become so important in recent years (and why Pro Blog Service exists at all).

It appears that Google Caffeine was developed specifically to track the freshest, hottest content, to deliver to their users. Does your website contain content from two years ago? Or are you developing new content on a regular basis to engage your prospects in conversation?

If not, you need to consider rethinking your content strategies. It’s no longer enough to just to optimize a page, create a bunch of backlinks, and then leave everything alone. Google wants new stuff, fresh stuff. Otherwise, they believe you’re not committed to providing the best content to their users. And they’ll spit you out like 6-hour coffee.

Google Caffeine is redefining the definition of fresh hot content to mean, what have you done today?

Photo credit: Andreas Solberg (Flickr)

About the Author: Paul Lorinczi
Paul Lorinczi is the President of Professional Blog Service. The goal of the company is the help clients use Blogging and Social Media to expand their business online through planning, execution, and measurement.

Philadelphia Violates Bloggers’ First Amendment Rights with Blogger Tax

Erik Deckers — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 16:26:19 +0000

Bloggers everywhere are in revolt over Philadelphia’s “blog tax” controversy. Philadelphia is requiring all bloggers to pay a $50 per year (or $300 lifetime) license fee.

Needless to say, bloggers have more than a little bit to say about this.

Regardless of whether their blogs make money, they are required to pay this tax — the city would like you to call it a “licensing fee” because tax sounds so. . . tax-y — all because a few bloggers made money from ads.

“There’s often a blurry line when someone’s passion becomes their profession,” said Doug Oliver, a spokesman for the Mayor’s office, entirely missing the point of people who try to find their life’s purpose and make a living at doing what they love.

Their argument is that any business that has profit making potential, whether it’s through ads or any other means, must pay the ~~tax~~ licensing fee, even if you only made $3 from your blog.

At the very least, this is a nuisance and one that will be done away with once Philadelphia realizes how stupid it is. A step above that, it’s a First Amendment violation, and it’s going to take someone like the EFF or ACLU to step in and fight this. And worst, Philadelphia is only going to contribute to the brain drain of their city as smart bloggers leave the city in search of a less taxing locale. (Note to Philadelphia bloggers: come to Indianapolis. We’d be happy to have you.)

Other cities have tried requiring licensing fees for organized protesters and those were defeated in the courts under First Amendment grounds, so hopefully Philadelphia will be soundly spanked and other cities will learn the folly of trying to levy a tax against people who barely make any money doing what they do for their passion.

While one could argue that it’s “only” 50 bucks a year, or $4.17 per month, it’s the principle of the thing. Most bloggers spend hours a week on their hobby, often already paying for domain name registration, site hosting, templates. They buy blogging books and attend blogging conferences. They already pay to pursue their hobby, and now Philadelphia wants to get their grubby little fingers into everyone else’s pie.

What’s next for Mayor Michael Nutter’s office? What passion can they suck the life out of with another ~~tax~~ licensing fee? Maybe artists or athletes or people who grow their own vegetables?

What do you think? Is Philadelphia being unfair, or should they charge a licensing fee to bloggers? What’s the upside? What’s the downside? What’s to keep all of Philadelphia’s bloggers from moving out to the suburbs (or Indianapolis) and thumbing their noses at their hometown?

John Uhri’s Sketch Notes From My Blog Indiana 2010 Presentation

Erik Deckers — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 12:00:31 +0000

I always love it when John Uhri (@y0mbo) comes to my talks at a conference, because he always creates awesome sketch notes for me. It’s actually very flattering and a great ego boost, so I wanted to show his notes off here.

John says these sketch notes actually help him understand the presentation better than just taking notes, because it forces him to understand it enough to be able to come up with an image or visual cue about what it is. (Last year, he included a sketch of Peter Griffin because I made a reference to the It’s In My Raccoon Wounds” line from a Family Guy episode.)

Here are all of John’s sketch notes form Blog Indiana 2010.