*This is a guest post from Steve Mellor, a writer who shares his insights into an effective process for bloggers*

If you’ve been following Lucy’s advice, you should already have your blog online. I’m sure it was as much of an achievement for you as my first site was for me. Now you are tasked with the job of filling it each day. Lets face it, we all have too much to do already. How do you fill your blog?

Before You Begin

There are a few things that you should know before you start blogging. It’s the basic stuff I tell business people who want a website.

1. You have 8 seconds to grab your reader or they will leave your site.
2. People don’t care about your company, they just want to solve their problem.

The interesting thing about these two sentences is that acting on the second will negate the first. If you create a blog post that is not focused on your company, but rather what your company can do for your customer, then your readers attention will automatically be grabbed.

With that in mind, lets get to…

Writing it Down

Writing is actually three activities:

• Research
• Writing
• Editing

It is a common mistake to try and do all three of these activities at once. The human brain likes time to process information so the best thing you can do is split the activities over three days.

Day One

This is where you research our article and, for ten minutes only, search google for articles related to your topic. You want to look for the ‘How To’ guides and ’3 Steps to’, that sort of thing, because those will directly address the problems your customers are facing. Pick one as a topic and make notes about each of the articles. Give it a quick read through when you’re done and then put it away.

Day Two

Today you will be writing. Don’t look at the notes from day one because your brain has already precessed your research and it can now recall the important bits of information from yesterday.

Take a stop watch, sit at your computer and write, solidly, for 10 minutes. Then stop.

This is a process known as Freewriting and it is tremendously powerful. It doesn’t matter what you write or how bad it is, give yourself permission to write badly. If you can’t think of something to write, write gibberish instead. What are doing is slowly training your brain for the process of writing and, eventually, the words will just flow. Even at the start of this process, you’ll be amazed at how much you can write down in ten minutes and at how good it is.

It sometimes helps to clear your mind before a freewriting session but don’t be tempted to look at your notes. Your brain already knows the relevant information. From a neurological point of view, you are allowing the creative side of your brain free reign to talk about the topic, whilst tuning out the editing part of your brain that would usually stop you from writing.

So effective is this process that even someone who is not a natural writer (I don’t believe in natural writers but that’s a different topic) can do it with ease. We are, after all, social animals and ones that communicate naturally from an early age. That’s what we’re tapping in to here.

Day Three

This is the editing phase. Take what you wrote yesterday and correct the problems. Check spelling and grammar, go back over the notes you took and make sure you’ve left noting out. Remember, your blog need only be a few hundred words each day but you will end up writing much more with the freewriting system. Your article is finished when the errors are corrected.

Putting it all together

Finally, run these processes together. Each article takes three days to write but there is nothing wrong with writing three articles at once. Start off by writing, move on to editing. You’re not editing the work you’ve just written but rather the work you did the previous day. It is important to give your brain a day between each step. Then, do ten minutes research for the following day’s article and you’re done.

Thanks for reading ;-)

About the Author

Steve started writing in his early teens, at first tackling music and soon moving on to comedy, which he also performed. It wasn’t long until he started writing for other people and soon became a contributor to several shows on radio as well as a published writer. During this time, he completed a degree in Multimedia and started working as a professional web designer, balancing his professional life between writing and web design.

He now works full time in web design as well as running a podcast for aspiring writers at http://writersroom.podbean.com.

*header image courtesy: http://www.flickr.com/photos/klytemestra/101561441/

Perhaps the biggest news this week in the online world is that Seth Godin announced he is giving up on traditional book publishing and is going all-digital. Seth has the following and the leverage to make this an exciting development for digital publishing. This could be a big step in mainstreaming electronic publishing and changing the consumption of “books.” He has published 12 bestsellers in the traditional manner, so it’s possible he will be the reason some consumers start buying digital products.

Google announced their Google Voice service, which allows you to place calls to other Gmail users, right from your inbox, for next to nothing – free domestic calls and 2cents per minute for many international locations. Sounds like a cool feature, although PC World suggests it’s more about convenience rather than a game-changer, and definitely not a Skype killer.

In other Google news, their Realtime search feature now has its own homepage at google.com/realtime
Realtime results are pulled from sources like Twitter and Facebook status updates. These results were previously only accessible by clicking on the “Updates” link on the left of the Google search results page, or for ‘trending’ topics they are integrated into the main search results. So it’s not a major breakthrough, but will perhaps raise the profile of realtime search a little more. They’ve also added a couple more features such as integration with Google Alerts, and access to the full conversation that an update may be part of.  ReadWriteWeb has a nice summary of the good and the bad of this announcement.

Has Google dropped Yelp reviews from their Places listings (those are the local map results you get typically when you search for a local business)? Techcrunch believes so. Catch up on the drama.

Digg launched their new re-design this week which, according to VentureBeat gives a more personalized experience and “makes it easier to find new sources to follow and connect to friends via Facebook, Google and Twitter accounts.” I barely use Digg at the moment, but if you regularly use it, I’m interested to know how you like the new design and if it means you will be using it differently in any way now.

Finally, a couple of awesome and stream-enhancing Tweeters to follow this week:

@Alizasherman

@Suzannevara

This week I’ve seen several examples of ‘rule-breaking’ in marketing and social media. Minimalist business writer Everett Bogue has decided to turn off commenting on his popular Far Beyond The Stars blog. John Boitnott writes about how the New York Times breaks every ‘rule’ of Facebook Page management practice but has 700k+ ‘fans’. To top it off,  Seth Godin announced that he’ll no longer be publishing traditional books.

I’m sure there will be, perhaps already has been, backlash and copycats in equal parts.

But what these folks are demonstrating to me is the luxury that success provides. And success can really be defined as having developed an audience that transcends the platform – audience meaning real, product-buying, idea-sharing people – not just numbers of passive ’followers’.

In trying to develop that elusive audience we tend to follow certain best practices in use of our blogs, social media etc, because these things help expand our platform and reach. What Bogue, Godin and the NY Times are finding is that when you have established your audience, you are free to connect and communicate with them in whichever ways you choose – the “rules” don’t really apply any more.

Does that mean that you (or I) should turn off your comments? Not unless you are truly using your blog only to publish thoughts and not looking for feedback. Should you use your Facebook Page as nothing more than an RSS feed? Probably not unless you want the Page to languish. Of course, you don’t have to use these specific tools – but you DO have to be doing something that is creating a viable audience for you.

It doesn’t mean that traditional book publishing is now bad– it just doesn’t serve Seth’s purpose any more. He’s maxed out that platform for what he was using it for – spreading his ideas. Blog commenting is not a thing of the past – it’s just not serving Everett’s purpose of running a minimalist business. These guys are just demonstrating how you use the tools you use to serve your purpose, you don’t use them at the expense of your purpose.

The ability to bend rules grows in proportion to your audience size, or perhaps more accurately, in proportion to the commitment of your audience to you or your business. So for you and I, keep on developing your audience in any and all ways that serve your purpose and that allow your ideas, products and contributions to shine.

What do you think? Are there “rules” you can break and still be successful in developing your businesses? What, if anything will you change, or what rules would you break when you have the luxury of whatever success means to you?

*header image courtesy: http://www.flickr.com/photos/b-love/2848259567/

Facebook dominated the social media/online marketing news this week with their launch of Facebook Places – a location-based service along the lines of FourSquare which allows you to “check in” via Facebook to various places you go. While there was much fanfare, the rollout seems to be quite slow as far as people actually being able to access and use it. As with everything Facebook does, it comes with privacy implications. The default setting is that other people can check you into Places. Visit your settings to change that. Here are the instructions.

This hilarious tweet via @anildash sums up Facebook’s cavalier attitude toward all of our privacy:

If your business has a physical location, here’s how to use Facebook Places for your business

In more Facebook news, AllFacebook reports that Facebook is now the third most popular U.S. video site , behind YouTube and Yahoo. Although this shouldn’t be surprising given their gargantuan audience, I was slightly surprised only because I personally don’t see that many people heavily using the feature. Most of the video I encounter on Facebook comes from YouTube.

The other big news for the week is that Groupon’s star continues to rise with its biggest coup yet  – a nationwide deal with GAP which at the end of the day brought in over $11 million!!!

And just for fun…..Looking for some new Twitter people to follow?  For great entertainment follow these hilarious and smart women: @daniellelaporte and @communicatrix

Here’s a very simple model for thinking about three main social media channels: your blog, Facebook and Twitter.  I should say that this model applies in particular to solopreneurs and small businesses who are still developing their following and trying to use social media to do so. In this model the starting point is simply looking at who the audience is, since that helps determine tone, content and strategy.

The simplest version:

Your blog is for attracting a new audience, and providing value to your existing audience.

Facebook is for communicating with people you know, or at least have ‘weak ties’ with, i.e people that are already in your network.

Twitter is for actively finding and connecting with people outside of your current network.

The longer version:

Blog

1)   Your blog is your platform to pull in brand new eyeballs as well as provide help and value to your regular readers.

2)   Your blog is your opportunity to show your expertise and knowledge of your business and industry, create resources for your customers/readers and create a homebase for your online visibility.

3)   If people like what they find they are likely to use Twitter or Facebook to connect with you further.

4) There can be some 2-way interaction via commenting, but even if not, the 1-way output of information is the norm for a blog, more than any other social media outlet.

Facebook

1)   Most likely, people who join your Facebook Page have come from your personal Facebook network (it benefits you to build up your personal profile before launching a Facebook Page) or have found you via your blog. So the key is to foster the feeling of familiarity and get to know people a little better.

2)   A more casual tone than your blog works well; question-asking and discussion-starting are also great on a Facebook Page. 2-way communication is key – community, trust and credibility-building rather than soapboxing.

3)   Some self-promotion is appropriate, particularly if you can offer discounts and incentives, or news that lends to your credibility. But focus on providing engaging content and don’t just duplicate what’s on your blog.

4)   Since someone has to be a friend of your personal profile before you can actively send them an invite to your page, it’s a laborious process to reach brand new people (without purchasing Ads). So I recommend Facebook for fostering the connections you already have – increased engagement on your Page can lead to organic growth through exposure in your Fans’ newsfeeds.

Twitter

1)   Twitter is the place to initiate and develop brand new relationships. Strangers are just friends you haven’t Tweeted with yet!

2)   Unlike Facebook, you can easily find and interact with people you have no connection to, through use of the @ function. You don’t have to wait for people to passively find you, you can see what people are talking about and join in when you have something of value to add. It’s also great for staying in touch with new acquaintances you have made elsewhere.

3)   A good content strategy would be a mix of content curation (sharing links, valuable resources etc), conversation, opinions, insights and personality.

4)   Talk more about others than you do about yourself. Share your blog posts and news but keep blatant self-promotion to a minimum. Twitter should be the least self-focused of all social media.

5)   Twitter is great for paying it forward and sharing the love – sharing links to others’ blog content, Re-Tweeting people and contributing to the social proof of others.

Is this model useful? How do you make sense of these social media channels?

Header image courtesy: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pixelgraphix/2504474533/

Just to keep you in the loop, here are some of the top stories in the social media and online marketing world from the past week:

Facebook announces changes to Pages

Come August 23rd, Facebook’s long-talked about about changes to Pages will take effect. Any custom boxes on your Facebook Page (business pages, not personal profile) will disappear unless you move the content into a custom tab, which are becoming narrower.

It’s still a little unclear to me exactly what will be left in the left sidebar of your Page when boxes are gone, and how, if at all, you’ll be able to add custom info to the main page. I’m sure Facebook’s ‘wisdom’ will be revealed in time.

Hootsuite goes freemium
Hootsuite pulled the rug from under many of its users this week when it announced its set of paid plans. Yes, they still have a free plan but it’s very limited. Paid plans run from $5/month all the way up to the rather comical $1499/month (stop laughing, they’re actually being serious!) for their Enterprise edition.

Rapportive for Gmail
If you use Gmail, Rapportive is a very cool new add-on which displays information about all your contacts, culled from their social networks, right inside your inbox. Stalker-ish? Possibly, but still very cool and useful to further connect with people on various social networks.

“Rapportive shows you everything about your contacts right inside your inbox.You can immediately see what people look like, where they’re based, and what they do. You can establish rapport by mentioning shared interests. You can grow your network by connecting on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and more. And you can record thoughts for later by leaving notes.Imagine relationship management built into your email. For free.”

Twitter creates their own official tweet button
This isn’t all too revolutionary considering that there are currently a plethora of ways to add a “tweet this” style button to your website, but Twitter has decided to come out with their own.  There are already lots of WordPress plugins that support it.

Header image courtesy: http://www.flickr.com/photos/myklroventine/2537309848/

Yesterday, my go-to Twitter application, Hootsuite, decided to go ‘freemium.’ Without getting into the pros and cons, I’ll just say that while they are still offering a free service, it is very limited compared to the rich features I’ve been enjoying for a long time. This has created quite a backlash amongst their users, with accusations of bait & switch. If you’re interested in seeing some of the sentiment – just search on Twitter for ‘Hootsuite’ and you’ll see the range of reactions.

The bigger lesson here is to start thinking about how this applies to customer service, and how it could apply to your own business when you have to change the model or create revenue streams, and even to bloggers who want to monetize their sites.

Some thoughts sparked by this whole debacle:

1) No matter what business you are in, if you willingly provide a service to people for free, those people are still your customers and deserve to be treated as such – not as second-class citizens.

2) If you build a business model on the information, feedback and support you got from a free user base – don’t take that for granted. Instead think about how you can continue to support them. Just saying ‘well you got the services for free for a long time and now it’s time to pay’ – is not acceptable. Can you ‘grandfather’ them in to your new service rather than alienate them, or somehow reward your loyal users?

3) The line between a profitable business model and treating your customers like commodities is thin. In Hootsuite’s case, I understand providing a limited free service, but wanting to hijack people’s Twitter streams with ads – that’s a disrespectful step too far and devalues the whole point of using the service. Remember that ‘users’, ‘readers’  or whichever term you use, are actually people – not just numbers. [update - Hootsuite's site is unclear on whether the ads will be broadcast as updates to your followers, or if they will be integrated into the layout of Hootsuite, but not broadcast ]

4) The moment you make people feel disempowered, cheated or excluded, you’ve lost them.

5) Are you OK with sacrificing the good will of a chunk of people for the purpose of your monetization strategy? Scaling a business can be difficult – Hootsuite has to make money and to do that they have made the decision to sacrifice the good will of some people.  You can’t please everyone all the time and in your business you may have to make tough decisions about which people you want to continue to please and acknowledge that some will be upset. What could you do to minimize the growing pains?

6) Hootsuite are charging for the features that made it unique and awesome in the first place– now the free service is no better, and in some ways worse than a lot of other free apps. How can you monetize your business without diluting the unique thing that made it appealing in the first place? If you trade in your unique-ness then you’re giving people an open invite to look elsewhere.

What has been your experience with a service that has gone ‘freemium’? And what can you apply to your own business to continue to foster loyalty and good will amongst your customers?

*header image courtesy: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jemsweb/19612191/

If you’ve got your WordPress site up and running, the fun is just beginning! This webinar will help you  make sure your site is an effective marketing platform for your business. Do you have all the right plugins and features in place to capture email addresses and encourage social sharing? How do you know who’s visiting and where traffic is coming from?
Learn how to get all the business features you need on your WordPress site. We’ll be covering the following and more:

• What makes a good small business website or blog?
• How to backup your site
• How to integrate email marketing
• How to connect your content to your social networks
• How to track web traffic with Google Analytics
• Developing a ‘voice’ for your blog
• Using images on your blog
• RSS and subscription options
• Enhanced commenting
• Add social bookmarking and sharing features

Skill level – Beginners
There will be time for Q&A
Feel free to email me with your requests for specific questions to be covered during the webinar:
lucy @ webtrainingwheels.com

Is there still hope without a blog?

I would say ‘yes’. After all, a blog only works if you actually post to it and actively promote it. It’s no silver bullet and it does take time and commitment, and honestly, it’s not for everybody.

One of the main benefits to having a blog is that with well-written and targeted content it can attract search engine traffic quite easily. This is the main benefit you will miss out on by not having a typical, text-based blog. But search engines are not the only source of traffic. So while there are many benefits to having a blog, let’s consider some alternatives.

1) Re-think what a ‘blog’ means

The typical idea of a blog is a text-based site that you update at least once per week and ideally more frequently, with posts of several hundred words. But here are some variations on what a blog can be:

• Video Blogs – If writing is not your thing, perhaps you would be more comfortable on camera posting short clips on topics related to your business or art? iJustine is perhaps one of the better-known examples of popular video bloggers. Video is great for those with something to say, but who don’t enjoy writing.

• Podcasts- Not everyone likes to be in front of the camera, but an audio-only format can be more comfortable. Podcasts can be short or long-form, could feature only you, or discussions with a ‘guest’, and are very easy to produce with minimal equipment required.

• Photo Blogs – Or more generally, image-based blogs. Obviously this lends itself to those creative types who would rather let their work speak for them. A beautiful photo, illustration or design concept with a short comment could be a blog post. This is a great way to showcase your work, get feedback on developing concepts and maintain an easy-to-update web presence.

• Short-form blogs – A blog doesn’t have to be filled with lengthy articles to demonstrate your expertise and thought leadership -  that works very well for some people and industries, but not everyone. You could post brief thoughts, insights, and remarks on your passion or industry. Matt Mullenweg from WordPress regularly posts short quotes and thoughts on his blog

While these forms of blogging will not get you as much search engine traffic as a traditional blog, they are still a way for you to have a personal, regularly updated, low maintenance online presence, and a place where others can see what you are about and connect with you.

OK, so after considering these options, if you still don’t want to have any sort of blog, what are the other alternatives?

2) There are still other ways to drive traffic to your site

You will still need some kind of web presence – a website with clear information about your business/product/service and the ability to collect email addresses – at the minimum. But even without a blog attached to it you still can generate traffic and create interest in your business. Here’s just a few ways you can go about it:

• Social media – Twitter, Facebook and other niche social networks for your industry can give you a platform to connect with people by focusing on what you are passionate and knowledgeable about. Short, casual updates are the norm so it’s low maintenance. Your profile will contain information and a link to your website, so the more you get involved, the more people will see and click on your website link.

• PPC (Pay Per Click) – If you have a budget, even a small one, you can buy sponsored ads on search engine results pages to drive traffic to your site. A PPC campaign should not be entered into without a little research, otherwise you’ll waste your money, but it can be a cost-effective solution. You can set a daily spending limit to make the cost more manageable.

• Email marketing – It takes some work to develop an opt-in email list, but writing one piece of content per month may sound much more manageable than multiple blog posts per week. Email is a very effective way to promote yourself and connect with your audience. More direct sales pitches are also tolerated and expected more with email marketing than on social media, for example. By providing useful content and a well-crafted call-to-action, you can generate sales directly through email marketing.

• Blog commenting – Just because you don’t blog, doesn’t mean you can’t benefit from those who do. Leaving thoughtful, insightful and positive comments on blogs that are relevant to your audience is a great way to drive traffic to your site. Most blogs allow you to include your url, usually linked with your name, so that if you leave valuable comments, people will be encouraged to find out more about you and click on your link.

Blog or no blog, there is no answer to generating traffic that doesn’t involve some work – that’s the bottom line. Whichever method(s) you use, blogging included, there is no short cut to developing an interested audience. But the internet offers a plethora of ways to express yourself, so find the medium that suits you the best and start there. With consistent efforts you will see results.

*image header courtesy: http://www.flickr.com/photos/busyprinting/4227080733/

I hate to call people out, but, you know,  a huge national company should really know better.

I signed up with Firestone to receive their email coupons (I’m way overdue for an oil change…..).
This is how their conformation email appeared in my inbox:

Well, actually it was in my junk mail folder. Fortunately I’m smart enough to check there ;)
But, yes folks “DO-NOT-REPLY” in all caps is really how they set up their “from” email address and “Confirm Sign Up” is really their subject line. If I hadn’t checked my email right away, and had seen this a few hours or a day later, I may well have not remembered that I signed up, or would have simply discounted this message along with the many other spam emails I receive every day since there was nothing about it that signified legitimacy.

So don’t do this! Learn from Firestone’s mistakes:

1)   Your ‘from’ address should display the name of your company so that it is instantly recognizable when scanning.

2)   Any number of subject lines would have been better than this one. Remind your subscriber what it is they signed up for especially since those first emails may well end up in the Junk folder and you need to make it clear that your message was solicited by them.  So perhaps “Firestone Discount Coupons – Confirm Sign Up” would be better in this case.

I’m guessing that just by making these simple changes, Firestone can increase the confirmation rate of their emails greatly.

The other example I found useful was from Bath & Body Works. I decided to unsubscribe because I was receiving too many emails and barely read them. So when I clicked unsubscribe the page I was taken to contained the following message:

I thought this was actually quite brilliant. It was as if they read my mind. Offering me lower volume options meant that I decided to stay subscribed, but at a more manageable frequency. A very smart way to utilize the unsubscribe function.

What can you do to improve the details of your email marketing campaigns and optimize them for success?

**header image courtesy: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ntr23/4642465883/