Last month, I started a series on why business blogs are a valuable part of any online marketing and content plan. Because I’m still hit with many blank stares when I speak and consult on blogging, I decided to answer the simple question: “Why Blog?”

Reason #3 to blog? Share-ability! A blog’s built-in buttons, widgets and doohickeys are more than just cute. They make it easy for your readers to share your content with their friends or colleagues. By including these tools, you empower your readers to become your greatest content champions!

Why is sharing so important?

After the hours (or perhaps days) you spend researching and creating a blog post, you have two choices:

1. Hit “Publish” and hope that others see it
2. Hit “Publish” and notify your network of followers, friends and fans who care about your content!

The difference between the “share-ability” of blog posts and typical website pages is the ease of adding the proper tools to make sharing simple. With a self-hosted WordPress.org blog, you can install and activate the latest sharing tools in a matter of minutes. Once those tools are in place, you’re handing over an instant megaphone to each and every one of your readers.

But remember, effective blogging and social networking is not all about the tools…it’s about the content that’s being shared on those tools! Content is still king. The tools simply act as the town crier or a slew of carrier pigeons!

Top Plugins/Tools for Sharing

1) TweetMeme

If you’re a frequent blog reader, you’ve seen this one before, no doubt! Tweetmeme not only allows readers to instantly share your content with their Tweeps, it boasts how many people have chosen to do so. TweetMeme also aggregates all Tweets, categorizes them and creates many magical statistics about the Twittersphere.
Time to install: less than 2 minutes.

2) Sexy Bookmarks

Even with its silly name, this social bookmarking tool has outrun all other WordPress plugins. Why? Not only is is flexible, it’s cute as can be! The little buttons pop up when rolled over. Seems trivial, but what can I say — sexy sells!
Time to install: less than 5 minutes.

3) ShareThis & AddThis

These two widgets were the original sharing trailblazers. They still run strong today!
Time to install: less than 5 minutes.

4) DisQus

Just when we thought blog sharing tools had reached their peak—along comes DisQus! Instead of sharing your content, DisQus goes one step further and allows your readers to share their comments that they leave on your blog with their networks on Facebook and Twitter!  DisQus also allows them to rank whether they “like” others’ comments. I’ve tested this tool now for several months and have been impressed time and time again with its power, flexibility and usefullness! It’s also incredibly helpful for blog owners’ management of comments.
Time to install: less than 15 minutes.

Are you an active blogger? What sharing tools are your favorites?

Other posts in this series:

• Reason #1: Content is King
• Reason #2: Google Karma Points

Remember that killer blog post idea you had a while back? Still sitting on it? Are you in love with the concept but beating yourself up about not finishing (or starting) the piece? Perhaps you shouldn’t be so hard on yourself.

Last week, one of my contacts tweeted an article by Robert Biswas-Diener on CNN.com called: Are you a procrastinator or incubator? The piece outlines the clear difference between putting things on the “back burner” and what we all know as classic procrastination. Turns out that subconsciously processing important ideas while doing other things can actually be considered a strength—often leading to superior quality of work.

What’s the difference between a procrastinator and an incubator?

Biswas-Diener defines them clearly:

“Procrastinators may have a habit of putting off important work. They may not ever get to projects or they leave projects half-finished. Importantly, when they do complete projects, the quality might be mediocre as a result of their lack of engagement or inability to work well under pressure.”

“Incubators have a clear sense of deadlines, confidence that the work will be complete on time, certainty that the work would be of superior quality and the ability to subconsciously process important ideas while doing other—often recreational—activities. Incubators tend to be bright, creative people with an amazing gift to work hard under pressure. As such, they can be very dependable in work situations that require last-minute changes or tight deadlines.”

Which one are you?

Most quality bloggers are creative “idea people,” or thought leaders. They’re also quite disciplined. They update their blog regularly and are driven by passion and deadlines. Sounds like a solid bunch of incubators to me!

I shared the CNN article with my blogging network and got a slew of responses. This “incubator” label was extremely validating and liberating. Surprisingly, most of my friends also said that they were a combination of incubator-procrastinator. Indeed, I find that I switch between the two, as well. As I look at the past week, I see a clear pattern: I incubate ideas and concepts. I procrastinate mundane tasks. Where were you, Mr. Biswas-Diener, when I was a copywriter tortured by the balance of deadlines and creativity?!

As bloggers, we can certainly learn to recognize our own tendencies and nurture or manage them accordingly. Here are some ideas…

Embrace Your Inner Incubator

If you now recognize your own incubator tendencies, find ways to facilitate—not force—the process.

1. Build in incubation time - Allow your mind to wander and float. Watch some movies. Rock out to your favorite new tunes. Give yourself permission to process and simmer, knowing full-well that you’ve got a deadline to meet. Others may see this as procrastination. But you know the real story.
2. Create an incubation trail – Draft your initial thoughts on a concept or post. Walk away. As you develop “aha” content ideas and phrases, add them to your draft. To keep yourself tracking, be sure to visit your drafts regularly. Personally, this step is essential for me when it’s time to write, as my memory can’t always keep up with the incubation!
3. Abandon outdated thoughts - Part of incubation is refining ideas and concepts. When you revisit your notes from step 2, give yourself permission to throw out thoughts from two days or even two weeks ago. After all, the further you get down the incubation process, the better. Trust your instincts. Don’t let old notes clutter your progress.
4. Be ready when incubation is complete! – Sometimes incubation time is short. Sometimes it takes years. Recognize that when you’re ready to “hatch” your idea, you’ll likely be unstoppable and will be on a writing or creation rampage.

Manage Procrastination

You may be an incubator, but you likely still have blogging tasks that bring out your procrastination tendencies. For me, I tend to put off statistical research, image searches and tasks with steep technical learning curves. My only advice here: recognize the tasks you simply don’t enjoy, set a deadline, and stick to it.

As a blogger, do you find that you have incubator and procrastinator tendencies? How do you manage them both?

Does your website need a serious tune up? Watch four web consultants in action and walk away with a plethora of ideas! The AMA Website Wellness event this Tuesday will be chock-full of recommendations, action items and real-time advice.

Months back, AMA Tampa Bay asked local companies to submit sites for review. Our panel then narrowed the list down to five sites from several business categories. We’ve since analyzed the sites and are rarin’ to go with our recommendations on content, branding, graphics, SEO, social media, and usability. Come see what you can apply to your web presence!

The Panel:

• Mike Westafer – Roger West Creative & Code
• Bernie Borges – Find and Convert
• John Babb – Idimension
• Deana Goldasich – Well Planned Web

AMA Website Wellness
March 2, 2010 – Register Now

Registration: 5:30pm-6:00pm
Program: 6:00pm-8:00pm

The Quorum Hotel
700 North Westshore Blvd.
Tampa, FL 33609
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The definition of social media ROI is changing daily, as we learn about new benefits and the new behavior of social media audiences and followers.

Are you struggling to explain the potential of social media to your company’s management team? Keep up the good fight. Their buy-in and support are critical to social media success within your organization.

I keep this video bookmarked for those times when I need a “Social Media ROI Smackdown.” It tells today’s social media story so wonderfully! Thank you Erik Qualman and Socialnomics for this awesome video!

Last week, we began our “Why Blog?” Series with Reason #1 – Content is King. Today, we look at how blogging helps in the quest to be blessed by Google.

Call it what you will: Karma, juju, brownie points or just “appeasing the Google gods.” The bottom line is that we all want our businesses to be found easily on Google.

Two Sides of Search Engine Visibility

One way to gain visibility in Google is to pay for ads using a pay-per-click system (PPC). The other way is to optimize your site so it appears in Google’s unpaid search results—also known as Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Both PPC and SEO will deliver traffic. Paid ads bring instant traffic and cost money. Search Engine Optimization builds traffic gradually and costs time.

In a nutshell, the biggest benefits of SEO are:

• Trust - online consumers typically pay closer attention to Google’s organic (unpaid) search results. Some claim it’s simply a matter of trust. You can “buy my eyes” with ads or “earn my attention” with relevant information.
• Longevity - building traffic over time through optimized content gains you traffic that lives long after you’ve pushed the “publish” button. With paid search results, your visibility is only as good as your budget each day.

The Lowdown on Optimization

So, how can you achieve Search Engine Optimization that wins you points in Google’s eyes? There are at least a thousand books and websites dedicated to that topic. However, they all generally say the same thing.

• Publish content. Lots of it.
• Include keywords that your customers are using in their Google searches. Use these keywords in your headlines, body copy, links and meta tags.
• Make sure your content is relevant to your site, business and visitor.

Enter the Incredible Edible Blog

It’s no coincidence that well-built and maintained blogs are loved by Google. Blogs empower you to:

1. Create content in an instant. As mentioned in part 1 of this series, blogging allows for an instant flow of content. You’re only as limited as your creativity and commitment. Forget technology getting in your way. Once the blog’s “shell” is in place, you can be a content machine and begin building Google Karma points! The more regularly you build relevant content, the more committed you appear to Google…and your visitors!
2. Flaunt your keywords. Using a blog’s built-in content manager, you can include keywords easily in each page’s title and body copy area. But blogging also makes it easy to categorize and tag content with keywords. Most blogging platforms make this process simple with dedicated areas on the blog entry pages.
3. Keep it clean. Google favors sites with minimal code, quick-loading pages and clear navigation. By nature of how they’re built, blogs basically “roll out the red carpet” for Google. In fact, it’s not unusual for bloggers to receive Google Alerts within hours of publishing—stating that Google has indexed yet another page on their site/blog.

This is the second post in our regular series about the benefits of blogging.

Other posts in this series:

• Reason #1: Content is King
• Reason #3: Share-ability

Up next: Why Blog? – Reason #3: Share-ability

Social Fresh brought a sunny lineup of social media players to Tampa today. The conference, geared specifically towards marketers, was the first of its kind in recent years. I enjoyed immersing myself in the company of “friends” — over 200 attendees who geek out, study and ride this speeding bullet called social media every day. Participants came from as far as Ottawa, Canada. Sadly, we didn’t have warmer weather for them. They assured me they were quite pleased with the 50 degree temps!

As with every worthwhile seminar or social media event, I like to share the quick summaries and takeaways that hit me the hardest. There was far more to take in today than I can possibly blog about, so I’m choosing one session with specific highlights.

“Word of Mouth Advertising,” presented by Spike Jones of Brains on Fire, answered the question that is on every traditional marketer’s mind: Why social media?

Answer: Because Word of Mouth (WOM) is far more powerful than traditional advertising. Spike then shared some stats from Yankelovich and the Edelman Trust Barometer.

Note: Check your pulse if these stats don’t cause at least one eyebrow to rise.

• The average ROI on traditional advertising these days is less than 4%.
• 76% of people think that companies lie in advertising.
• 77% Percent of people trust companies less than they did a year ago.
• People’s trust that businesses will “do the right thing” has dropped from 58% to 38%.

Bad news for traditional marketers. Good news for companies who have started to engage in social media, participate in the online discussion and begin conversing with fans rather than talking “at” them.

Spike shared a dozen compelling ways that social media “movements” differ dramatically from traditional marketing campaigns. In fact, the term “campaign” become somewhat of a dirty word when the morning was over. I could easily write a blog post about each comparison but won’t steal Spike’s thunder. Do yourself a favor and catch Spike Jones at your next Social Fresh conference. It was well worth the cost of admission!

The bottom line of all these stats and figures:

• Advertising = Awareness
• Word of Mouth (WOM) = Credibility

Social Media is the online form of Word of Mouth advertising. Don’t get bogged down in tactics (Twitter vs. Facebook vs. blah…blah…blah). Talk to your customers face to face. Find out what they want and where they are. The tactics will follow.

You’re Going to Lose Control. Be Ready.

In social media, you have to be willing and ready to lose control of the “conversation.” In fact, you should even expect and hope for it. Spike shared a fantastic example of the Fiskars movement, a self-titled community of “Fiskateers.” The movement, managed by Brains on Fire, grew exponentially once given a voice and outlet. These Fiskateers don’t talk about how great Fiskars scissors are. Instead, they talk about what they do and create with Fiskars—scrapbooking.

Your Customer Knows More About Your Product Than You Do

With any movement, give your customers a “voice” and create the experience WITH them. Once you hand over that movement, it will start to evolve. It will take on a life of its own. Sound scary? Nope. It’s awesome. Customers will become your best form of advertising. They’re not salespeople, mind you. Never give them sales sheets or consider them part of your sales team. They are your WOM advocates. Let them be themselves and love your brand or product as part of a movement—not as part of a campaign.

Over the past three years, the “Fiskateers” has become a self-policing, self-governing group that are treated as “rock stars” by Fiskars and by each other. Sound weird? It’s not. Think of the hobby, pastime or cause that you’re crazy passionate about. Chances are you’d become part of that movement if it found you, honored you and treated you like the rock star that you are.

Change How You Think of Customers

The point at which I had to hold myself back from cheering and kissing Spike’s feet was when he challenged marketers to shed the old school marketing lingo when creating social media movements. People are not “targets” to be “captured.” This is not war. Don’t try to “get” your customers to do something. Treat them like humans. Treat them like friends. Sound too warm and fuzzy for your marketing brain? Welcome to the social media age. It’s no longer about convincing or manipulating your customer. It’s about embracing their likes, dislikes, pet peaves and passions.

Any business that has tried to optimize its website or beef up its visibility online has heard the phrase over and over… “Content is King.”

If Content is King, a Blog is the King’s Most Loyal Servant.

A well-built blog:

• Publishes your content at a moment’s notice. In fact, a blog makes it so easy to publish content online that the only thing stopping you…is you! Gone are the days of blaming technology or your web developer for your stagnant content. A blog moves at the pace of your brilliance, your ideas and your ingenuity. Blogs literally scoff at the old days—where site updates were burdensome and not worth the pain.
• Alerts the world of your latest news. Each time you add new content, your blog syndicates your news through a powerful automated tool called RSS: Really Simple Syndication. RSS allows others to “watch” your content in a reading tool of their choice, such as Google Reader. Rather than check over and over for new content, readers can use RSS to be notified when you post something new. More about RSS in Plain English
• Shines up your keywords for Google. With every post, every subhead and every paragraph, a blog builds a little red carpet for your keywords to strut their stuff. A technical word to the wise: blogs built on the Wordpress.org platform are best for keyword optimization. When you’re ready to “go pro” with your business blog, be sure your developer knows his stuff.
• Showcases whatever format you bring. The more diverse your content, the better. Whether you’ve got videos, audio, images, photographs or podcasts, a blog makes it easy to showcase all your content in a snap. Uploading is a cinch. Descriptions are a breeze. Usability is a piece o’ cake.

This is the first post in our regular series about the benefits of blogging.

Other posts in this series:

• Reason #2: Google Karma Points
• Reason #3: Share-ability

If Your Website Could Use a Checkup, Now’s Your Chance!

AMA Tampa Bay is sponsoring another killer Digital Media event—where local companies can submit their websites for review by some of the Bay Area’s top online experts. Consultation will include specific recommendations on creative, content, social media, conversion techniques and SEO.

If your site is chosen for review, you’ll get free consulting at the event to be held March 2 at 5:30pm. If you choose not to submit your site, come learn some tips and advice you can apply to your own online presence!

Among the Panelists:

• Mike Westafer – Roger West Creative & Code
• John Babb – Idimension
• Bernie Borges – Find and Convert
• Deana Goldasich – Well Planned Web

Submit your site for review today!

I finally gave in and purchased my tickets to Social Fresh coming up next week (Monday, Feb. 8). Don’t have a ticket yet!? You’re in luck. I have a coupon code!

Save $120 with coupon code: tampa120

It looks like a jam-packed day. Expect some blog updates!

Social Fresh – Tampa

Many new bloggers or prospective bloggers think that embedding video into a blog post is hard. Nonsense! If you’re producing your own video, certainly the production and editing may be involved. But, if you’ve got a clip already on YouTube that you’re eager to share, it’s a piece o’ cake. Find that clip, cut and paste, and you’re done!

Note: This instructional video pertains to uploading to blogs built on the WordPress.org platform–(not to be confused with WordPress.com). We use this platform for all of our clients, as it is the most robust and easy-to-use blogging platform available today!