It's all about the calendar

My Six Blogging Lessons

I’m switching it up on my blog again, going forward, but my brief explosive experiment with blogging three times per week was truly educational. Here’s what I learned.

1. A Blogging Schedule Kept Me Consistent

My blogging regimen involved three posts per week, on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Saturdays. This was a jump up from about once a week on a random day when I had the time and inspiration.

Knowing I had to meet a deadline put the fire in my breeches! I knew I had to get material together and find the time to shape it into something worthwhile. It was incredibly motivating. There is nothing like a deadline to keep you on track.

2. Choosing Themes Kept Me Focused

Themes are a great way to focus your blogging regimen. My schedule involved three themes: “How To Tuesdays,” “Weird Wednesdays” and “Success Story Saturdays.”

The Tuesday posts were all instructional posts about social media, content marketing and press release tips. Wednesdays were all about strange but effective marketing methodologies. Saturdays were stories about businesses that had achieved success and what others could learn from them.

To make sure I had content, I put together a survey on Survey Monkey that would give people a tool for sharing tips or writing a guest blog. I love this tool, and will continue using it.

3. An Active Blog Takes a Consistent Social Media Effort

This was not a surprise. It was simply a reality check.  Committing to a blogging regimen involves more than finding an hour or two to write. It involves all the information gathering up front and then a considerable follow-up effort to make sure your post doesn’t just sit there unnoticed.

The real lesson was that I don’t always have the time available to do the kind of promotion I would like to do.

And by promotion, I mean interacting on blogs and social media platforms. By far, the most effective promotion method I’ve found is to leave comments on other people’s blogs, retweet other people’s content, and share their posts on Google Plus. This inspires them to reciprocate and helps build a strong community. I’ve gotten to know some amazing people this way.

4. Posts About Innovative Marketing Were the Most Fun

I had a blast writing about weird marketing methods. Some of it was “tongue in cheek.” In fact my most successful post in this series, hands down, was the one called “Why Are These Bloggers So Weird?” I wrote about some of my blogger friends and their “weird” but effective technique of promoting other people.

Innovation is exciting. I could write content like that all day.

5. Posts About Business Success Took the Most Time

I got immense enjoyment out of these posts as well. Writing about successful businesses is incredibly upbeat work, especially in this down economy. It takes time to really understand a business strategy enough to write knowledgeably about it, though. To do these posts justice took the most time of my three blog themes.

Another funny thing happened with these posts. Most people are not as forthcoming about their business successes as you might expect. I thought people would jump at the chance to talk about what makes their business tick, and they would quickly fill out the survey. Instead, I had to work hard to pull people’s stories out of them. While I love interviewing, again it comes down to available time.

6. “How To” Posts Were the Easiest

The “How To Tuesday” posts practically wrote themselves. Some required a bit of research, but since I learn something worth sharing about social media and content marketing on a regular basis, it’s a simple thing to channel that information into a post.

What Now?

Wouldn’t you know it, right after I got this fabulous blogging regimen set up I got really busy and couldn’t keep the pace. So I have to reconfigure my blog schedule yet again.

Combining all six lessons, I’ll be writing “how to” posts one day per week on a scheduled day, TBD. Some will be content marketing tips, some will be business success and some will be about innovative (“weird”) marketing, all with a goal to provide my blog readers with valuable learning.

This new schedule will give me a full week to interact on social media and share my most recent post, and will actually free up more time to connect with my blogging community.

So that’s the sitch! If you have tips or ideas to contribute, please take my survey. I will either share your tips or post your content as a guest blog post.

What is working for your blog? Please share in the comments below. And be sure to follow my blog so you can get notified of new posts.

To your success,

Jayna

Let’s have a look at the life of a press release.

One of my recent press releases was about a gentleman by the name of Rick Gosser. Rick wanted to tell his story because over the last two years he has lost more than 100 pounds, has regained his energy and his health, and has even made an appearance on MSNBC’s Today Show. Not only that, but Rick has taken up running, and now runs 5k’s and marathons.

It gets better. People are so inspired by Rick’s story that, in addition to running a promotional products business, he has added public speaking to his resume.

I know. Pretty cool! Rick enjoys public speaking engagements, and he feels that he can make a real impact in the world by helping other business owners to make the connection between their health, their lifestyle, and their success in business.

So we wrote up a press release about Rick’s awesome story. We published it through Online PR Media, which is one of my favorite press release distribution companies.

But what happens to a press release? Where does it go?

How to Follow the Trail of Your Press Release

An interesting phenomenon happens if you incorporate good keywords into a press release and publish it through a high quality distribution service. Other news services pick it up and redistribute it, with the complete title intact. Here’s how you find out which services picked it up.

Method 1: Search for the complete article title.

We published Rick’s press release on February 9th, about 12 days ago. The title of the press release was:

Gosser Corporate Sales Executive Achieves Personal Success, Becomes a Motivational Business Speaker

When I type the title into a search window, these are the results:

I hope you really look at the screen shot above and notice that Rick’s company name, Gosser Corporate Sales, appears with each of the redistributed links. That is excellent brand messaging and link building for one little press release. All in all, I counted at least 60 different results for the exact name of the press release.

Method 2: Search for the press release keywords.

This method is of coure much less reliable and depends upon a number of factors, including how well you chose your keywords, and the amount of competition for those keyword phrases. In our case, we wanted to rank for “motivational business speaker Indiana.”

For this search, I receive the following results:

And voila! There’s his press release on page one of Google! Of course results may vary. These days Google is so good at individualizing your search that these results may vary. Still, if we hadn’t done the press release, you can guarantee his name would not be showing up in results for those search terms.

Have you gotten some great results with press releases? If so, please share your results in the comments below.

Thank you for reading! This has been another “How-To Tuesday” post. If you have great tips and ideas you think I should cover on my blog, be sure to take my survey.

To your success,

Jayna

Why is Social Media Marketing So Challenging?

Let’s face it. If you have a Facebook fan page, you are either constantly dreaming up creative ways to make it fun and interactive or you’re D.O.A. People are busy. They’re overwhelmed by too much media saturation. And yet… they’re always looking for something inspiring or entertaining.

In this A.D.D. “ooh shiny!” world, it’s tough to get a little share of the attention. Even if you do capture someone’s focus for a moment, they can be gone in a snap when the next shiny object pops up. And you and your cool stuff are just as quickly forgotten.

One of the biggest mistakes businesses make is to self-promote. Of course, you have to promote your business to some extent. People need to know what you do and how you can help them. Just a little of that goes a long way, however, and you cannot keep people’s interest and generate activity if it’s all just your floor show.

How Idea Girl Media Generates Facebook Activity

Keri does things differently with her Idea Girl Media fan page. First of all, she keeps the action going all the time. Just to give you a notion of how much activity there is on her page, I had to click “Older Posts” 52 times just to get back to the beginning of the January Jig, which was a little over a month and a half ago.

I’ll tell you about the January Jig in a moment. The million dollar question at the moment is: what does Keri post on her fan page each day?

If you read my post earlier this month titled “Why Are These Bloggers So Weird?” you know that Keri loves to shine the light on other people and their expertise and keep things lively.

What you’ll see on her page is color and graphics. She spends quite a bit of her social media marketing energy sharing and reposting pictures, videos and other people’s interesting content. (And it’s not all business!) Here are two examples:

The result, of course, is that it starts conversations. There’s always something new and interesting and we “Like” that! Also, people are honored when she re-shares their content and they comment. Or, when she shares something by a celebrity such as social media expert Mari Smith, fans are inspired to comment or re-share.

How Keri Ran a Live Event on Facebook

At the end of December, 2011, Keri had an idea to take this promoting-of-others technique to the next level.

Here’s what she did:

1. First she created a Facebook event page called JANUARY JIG.

2. Next she shared her idea with 384 of her friends and fans and invited them to sign up to “hi-jack” her fan page for one day between January 6th and January 31st.

Each participant could share tips and ideas from their business expertise on their scheduled day. All they were required to do was show up at three scheduled times during the day, share a post, and interact with those who had questions. By helping to promote the event with their own friends and fans, they could help to make the event successful.

She had no restrictions on the types of businesses that could sign up, so she had a wide variety of business owners, including a website developer, a mobile marketing expert, and a children’s literacy expert. You might find it interesting to note that even though Keri is a social media marketing expert, she was happy to have several others take over her page for a day.

3. Finally, she promoted each participant before and throughout their stint on her Facebook page and let them take it away.

I checked in with Keri shortly after she launched the Jig. She was blown away by the excitement her event generated. “When I put the call out for presenters in December, the spots filled in less than a day,” she said. “I haven’t been able to keep up with everybody….they’re all knocking it out of the park!!”

The JANUARY JIG Outcome

I connected with Keri recently on a Skype call to talk about the Jig. I was so interested in her motivation to launch such a big undertaking and her perspective on how it went.

What were the results of all this activity?

The first and most obvious results that anyone could see by stopping by the Idea Girl Media fan page any day in January was a ton of activity, conversation and interaction going on live at each scheduled time.

Keri’s results by the numbers:

• Fan page Likes increased by 230
• “Talking About This” percent ranged from 10 to 18 and hit a total of 200

The less tangible yet just as important results:

• Invitations to collaborate on future projects and promotions
• Invitations to present at events
• New social media clients
• New partners and trusted sources

“I wasn’t looking necessarily for numbers,” Keri said. “Sure I wanted my page to grow. It wasn’t a goal number. It was really the quality of experience. I was mainly testing the idea of this collaborative effort. I wanted to find out if I can make this a part of my business. I learned a lot in that regard.”

She also shared that the event met her goal to help non-technical people to get a comfort level with online learning. “It was really for the not so savvy. I have a lot of people in my local area who won’t sit in a webinar. They don’t thave a lot of technology and tools available to them. So I wanted to know how I could help them access the information. It was a way to bring technology and information to people who are low tech.”

Keri quietly and humbly mentioned that there was one other important intangible outcome. “People started to look to me as a source of authority,” she said. “There were definitely some wonderful things that happened.”

Thanks for sharing your great success story, Keri!

About Keri Jaehnig and Idea Girl Media

Keri offers social media management, social media marketing and mentoring. People can go to Keri for social media setup, management, or to simply offload a portion of their social media tasks.

To your success,

Jayna

p.s. If you know a business that has a success story to tell, or you have some great marketing tips, please share your thoughts in my survey so I can share them in a future post.

The weird yet cool trick they employ from time to time is to create a blog post titled something along the lines of: “The 15 Best Facebook Pages You’ve Ever Seen,” “20 Examples of Great Facebook Fan Pages,” and “Top 10 Facebook Facebook Pages and Why They’re Successful.”

Why Cover the Best Facebook Pages?

Why do they do this? Do they sell Facebook page design? No, that is precisely what’s so weird.

To learn why a company might employ this weird strategy, let’s have a look at a few stats for some of the top posts currently showing up for the phrase “best facebook pages”:

HubSpot’s “The 15 Best Facebook Pages You’ve Ever Seen”:

• LinkedIn Shares: 461
• Google+’s: 77
• Tweets: 2076
• Facebook Likes: 722

HubSpot’s “20 Examples of Great Facebook Fan Pages”:

• LinkedIn Shares: 112
• Google+’s: 55
• Tweets: 290
• Facebook Likes: 216

Social Media Examiner’s “Top 10 Facebook Pages and Why They’re Successful”:

• LinkedIn Shares: 480
• Google+’s: 33
• Tweets: 7293
• Facebook Likes: (no counter widget)

So that is one answer for you. Very simply, people are looking for ideas for fan pages, so why not create a great collection and deliver that content to your readers?

Additional reasons include:

1. Link Bait. If you write a quality post with eminently share-worthy content, people will link to it from their sites and content curation tools, providing back links that can improve your  search engine ranking.
2. Authority by association. If you write about a variety of topics related to content marketing, including a collection of Facebook fan pages and some editorial on why they are successful, it can potentially give you some credibility and authority on that topic.
3. Search engine optimization. At the moment, the keyword phrase “best Facebook pages” is low competition and is searched about 27,000 times monthly, according to the Google Adwords Keyword Tool. Placing a post with this keyword phrase on your site is an excellent strategy.
4. Brand awareness. If that many people are tweeting, sharing, G+’ing and liking your content, you are going to get some serious brand visibility.
5. Page rank. Great content that provides exceptional value, is well written, highly sought after and widely shared helps the search engines to view your site as credible and high quality, resulting in improved page rank. HubSpot’s is currently at 6 out of 10, and Social Media Examiner’s is at 7.

Oh, by the way, all of those posts are between four months and more than a year old. So it’s time someone stepped up and wrote a fresh post covering the best Facebook fan pages!

To your success,

Jayna

p.s. Do you have an idea for a weird but effective marketing method or some great tips to share? If so, please fill out my survey.

(Ah, sorry! I got dreamy there for a moment! I haven’t been to Italy since 1997, which was way too long ago.)

Fabrizio Faraco, Marketing and Social Media Strategist

Appropriately enough, Fabrizio and I met via social media. Have you ever met a social media community manager that can’t be found on social media? Fabrizio is not that kind. He’s everywhere!

I asked Fabrizio which digital marketing methods and social media platforms he uses to reach out to clients and build his business, and he answered:

• Business blog
• Facebook personal page
• Facebook business page
• Facebook groups
• Google+
• LinkedIn networking
• Twitter
• Twitter lists
• YouTube
• Vimeo
• Slideshare
• Connect.me
• Triberr
• Twylah
• Xeeme
• Klout
• Kred
• FourSquare
• Digg
• StumbleUpon
• Pinterest
• Scoop.it

I actually think we’re connected on most of those. It looks like a lot, when you see it in a bullet list. But most people, Fabrizio included, focus on interacting effectively on two or three platforms. The rest, especially bookmarking and content curation tools are effective for sharing your articles and blog posts and those of your community. It’s important to interact, not just dabble.

Social Media Meets Content Marketing

Fabrizio shared some great tips for creative and effective social media management through content marketing.

Tip #1: Use the Tools Effectively with a Goal in Mind

As we’ve discussed, dabbling on many platforms is not as effective as really engaging with people on a few. Fabrizio has spent a considerable amount of time getting comfortable and familiar with as many social media tools as possible so he can share his social media expertise with his clients. But the social media tools are not the goal; they are merely a vehicle to take you to your goals.

“I’m using content marketing, i.e. creating valuable content optimized for search engines, and that content is used for engaging people in social networks,” he said. “The ultimate goal is building reputation while creating strong leads. It’s a cost-effective solution for small business.”

These techniques are just catching on in Italy. Fabrizio shared that there are very few companies who use content marketing back home, and even fewer who are targeting small business, so at the moment he is able to keep a corner on the market.

Tip #2: Creatively Involve Multiple Contributors

A community manager can only develop so much content. The thing that Fabrizio has found to be most effective with his clients is to get multiple contributors involved throughout the organization.

“Go around the company and ask every employee which are the most frequently asked questions clients and prospects ask. Start from your phone calls. From your FAQ. When you collect these questions let all people in your company speak and produce content. People like real people to talk about your brand – not only the marketing guys.”

Tip #3: Creatively Involve and Build Community

“How to engage people can be quite frustrating,” Fabrizio said. He suggests involving the community in the decisions about modifications to your products or services. “Build a community as a club with gamification. Reward the community members with mentions and tangibles.”

He told the story of how he helped an event products company to migrate into event management by implementing a Customer Club and awarding special “VIP” perks to clients who participated in other clients’ events. The result was that the organization increased its client base by 100%!

Thank you for your great tips, Fabrizio! I have enjoyed sharing your ideas on How To Tuesday.

To your success,

Jayna

p.s. Do you have some great tips to share? Please take a few minutes to take my survey so I can cover your ideas in a future post.

From Budding Photographer to Pro

I first met Gianna about seven years ago, when I hired her as my kids’ nanny. She was young and talented, and I always knew she was going to make it. For Mother’s Day and special events, she would give me gorgeous portraits of my kids – their cherubic sweetness captured for eternity on film.

But her true love was weddings and engagement photos. To see Gianna not only making it but really thriving as an in-demand wedding photographer, especially in this difficult economy, is a thrill.

A Unique Approach

What makes Gianna’s approach different is that she takes part in all the action at the weddings she photographs. “I’m not a photographer who just shows up, shoots, and leaves at the end of the day,” she told me recently. “I am involved in the entire planning and scheduling process, in creating a wedding day that will be organized and fun. I am in action the whole day, like paparazzi, catching every angle of the chaos.”

She also experiments. She is inventive and likes to add special touches. She showed me one of her fun new specialties, which is a video she makes from a series of stills. She’ll take a few of the wedding guests aside and get them clowning around, and all the while she is going snap snap snap snap snap. Run together, those pictures look like an an old time film. It’s a remarkable effect.

Keys to Success

Staying alive in this economy with a service that is picked over by choosy brides is a fantastic feat. Gianna gets referrals from her happy clients, of course. But the richest source of new business has been her profiles on free business listing sites such as Yelp, as well as on The Knot – the most popular and well known database of wedding services.

“I love The Knot, because it is not only a listing, but an advanced search engine to find any kind of wedding vendor,” she said. “They also publish well-written articles about anything from etiquette to honeymoon travel and trends in the wedding business. Brides spend a significant amount of time planning their wedding directly through the website.”

By keeping her pricing in a target range for the cost-conscious couple, she ensures that she is searchable and she gets those bookings. She also won a 2012 “Best of The Knot” award.

Additional creative techniques she uses include:

• Offering special services at no cost to her clients as she experiments with a new technique.
• Adding specialties such as a guest photo booth at no charge during the slowest months for weddings.
• Running contests in which the winner is awarded a 50% discount on a wedding package.
• Sending a post wedding follow-up survey; couples that complete the survey are entered to win a 16′x20′ portrait. From the surveys she gathers feedback she can use to continually enhance her skills while also collecting testimonials.
• Offering Destination Wedding Photography. Not all wedding photographers will travel. Gianna does.

You can see Gianna’s announcements and specials on her Facebook page.

The final thought Gianna shared was simply that you’ve got to be creative and flexible to survive in business today.

“I am succeeding in a poor economy by being adaptable,” she said. “The photography business is rapidly changing with digital and computer technology. Photographers that stick to an outdated business model are going out of business, but because I am always searching for new and exciting trends in the business, I am happy to see my business growing.”

Thank you for sharing your great story, Gianna!

To your success,

Jayna

p.s. If you know a business that has a success story to tell, or you have some great marketing tips, please share your thoughts in my survey so I can cover it in a future post.

The fellow’s name is Joe Cross. In the picture below, at over 300 pounds, he was on a huge medication regimen in the attempt to keep disease at bay. It wasn’t working.

Joe Cross - Before Weight Loss

You can watch a movie trailer of Joe’s documentary that tells a little about his story – how he discovered the wonders of juicing fresh vegetables and fruits, lost over 100 pounds and regained his health. The movie also talks about why there is so much obesity in our society.

The problem is that the available literature, systems and programs are failing to get these people off the couch and improving their diet. Until they heard Joe’s story, many of them had simply given up.

Joe Cross - slimming down with juice fasting

His story made waves. People struggling with obesity, illness and diabetes started listening. Some of them tried Joe’s juicing method and began creating their own success stories.

Which brings me to the reason I’m covering this story for Weird Wednesday. Joe didn’t take the standard path of showing up in spandex and trying to motivate people who simply could not relate to his story.

Instead he traveled the U.S. He talked to people on curbsides and wherever he could get someone to talk to him. He stopped people in grocery stores and asked if they could fathom how something that came from the earth turned into processed mac and cheese.

Joe talking about processed food in the grocery store

He talked to people about fresh foods and micronutrients, and he got people to taste his green juice that combines freshly juiced kale, cucumber, apples, celery and ginger.

Fresh green juice - the remedy for Joe's weight and health problems

And best of all, he chose a truly catchy and imaginative slogan for his whole endeavor. He didn’t choose a name that was reminiscent of all the other weight loss campaigns in existence today – all about being a lean, mean machine. The trouble is that people don’t believe they can get there when they are 100 pounds overweight and don’ t know how to begin.

Instead, he called the initiative:

Can we agree that that’s weird?

But it’s eye catching. It arouses curiosity. And before you know it, you’re captivated. You’re watching this guy’s videos, listening to his interviews and hearing how people have dropped weight, gotten off medications, jettisoned their migraines and gotten their lives back.

So that’s the story today. It’s weird but it worked. In a society where weight loss advertisements are everywhere and obesity is worse than ever before, someone needed to come up with something original that made people wake up and think.

To get an idea of the impact Joe Cross has had, check out the Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead Facebook page. This community page is a place where people can share their stories, compare notes on juicers and techniques and get support from one another while getting through the first few tough weeks of juicing.

Over 100,000 fans can’t be wrong. His weird approach worked. What innovative strategy might you come up with for your own business? Maybe it’s time to shake things up and do something a little outrageous!

To your health and your success,

Jayna

p.s. Have you used a highly innovative marketing approach to great effect? Or do you know a company that has? Share the story in this survey so we can cover it in a future Weird Wednesdays blog post!

While it may be flattering to have 20, 30 or more comments on a blog post, it’s important to note that from a visitor’s perspective – if they are spam bot garbage – it makes you look just a teensy bit… well… slutty. Sorry! It had to be said. I am kind of shocked when I see the blog of an established business professional groaning with comments that either make no sense or link back to seedy websites.

How to Detect Blog Spam Comments

Spam comments tend to have the following characteristics.

1. The comment is completely vague and does not pertain to your blog.

For example, you might see things like this:

“Thanks for the details. I am just starting and have been a little slow, but hope to pick it up this week. Will undoubtedly be carrying out several of the points you’ve mentioned.”

Or you might see an even longer rambling comment like this one:

“I do enjoy the way you have presented this matter plus it really does give me personally a lot of fodder for thought. However, from what precisely I have observed, I just simply wish when the actual comments pile on that men and women keep on point and don’t get started upon a tirade of the news du jour. All the same, thank you for this outstanding piece and though I do not agree with this in totality, I value the standpoint.”

2. The only content is a link, or there’s a suggestion to visit their link.

Examples from my own filtered spam comments include:

“Fanned & faved. I believe your assessment is spot on. [Link to some icky sales site]“

Or, for your amusement:

“Hey, I stubled across your blog and thought you should check out this wordpress plugin. I use it for all of my sites. [Spam link.]“

3. The comment is very poorly written or makes no sense.

Check out these gems my spam filter removed for me:

“All good tips and suggestions to obtain started together with your blog, but I obtain that with several individuals it is a lack of confidence.”

And even more amusing:

“Cheers good on the proficient information. Admittedly unprejudiced wen upward! My spouse and i routinely accomplish certainly not icreasing in those however, think about anyone does a new animatedly buddy-buddy despoile along with I’m unquestionable a lot of people suavity your a lesser amount of at just about any rate.”

(What the…?)

These are most likely computer generated by bots (with limited English proficiency, I might add).

4. The comment is a simple compliment.

For example, you might get just a one liner like this:

“Thanks for posting this, very useful.”

Now I have to admit, I was guilty of accepting some of these “compliment” comments before I caught on. These are the sneakiest spam comments, and you should not accept them on your blog any more than the gibberish.

Why? Because these spammers are trying to slip past your spam radar. They are merely trying to get links back to their own site for their own purposes. This comment masquerading as a compliment is no more about you and your blog than the one providing a link back to a site selling male enhancement solutions. In fact, the site associated with the commenter is most likely of that quality.

Don’t reward them by allowing these comments on your blog.

How to Eradicate Blog Spam Comments

To prevent spam comments, take one or more of the following steps:

1. Set up a spam filter.

For example, Akismet is available for multiple platforms, and is very easy to set up via a plugin on WordPress sites. Once you have a good filter installed, it will move a high percentage of these comments to a folder where you can review them at any time.

Be sure to go through your filtered comments from time to time and verify that no quality comments have been filtered out. Also, review and clear out filtered spam comments.

2. Install a profile authentication plugin.

Authentication plugins verify that the visitor is a real human by requiring a login, typically with one of the following profiles:

• Google
• Yahoo
• Twitter
• Facebook
• OpenID
• Disqus

To set up a profile or avatar authentication plugin, search the plugins for your blog platform to find the best one for you or make a request of your web master. For example, you can search for “simple Facebook connect,” “Disqus” or “Google avatar.” There’s also a WordPress plugin that combines functionality of multiple profile logins and avatars called “Janrain Engage.”

3. Require visitors to perform simple math logic problems with Captcha.

Captcha is a plug-in available for various blogging platforms that requires the visitor to perform a simple math problem. Bots cannot read and do math, rendering them harmless on your blog.

Simply search your blogging platform plugins for “captcha” and install the plugin, or ask your web master to install it for you if you do not manage your own blog programming.

4. Add the CommentLuv plugin.

Commentluv is a smart little plugin that requires the visitor to type a bot-proof code from an image into a text window. But it also provides extra benefits to the visitor. The CommentLuv plugin visits the blog of the comment author, grabs the author’s latest post, and displays it along with their avatar. Depending upon how you configure the settings, a visitor may be able to select a favorite post to display from up to 10 recent blog posts.

So go forth, my friends, and help put a halt to blog spam!

I hope these tips have helped. Please share your own spam fighting adventures and tips in the comments below! I would love to see some discussion here on what works best.

Jayna

p.s. Would you like to contribute a “how to” post like this one? I love to feature guest bloggers. Simply start by responding to my survey on SurveyMonkey!

Wallace Carlson’s Small Business Success

It’s of little secret that many hard-working people have lost their jobs in recent years. And traditional printing is one of the hardest hit industries. Charlie Cox, an expert in the printing field, was one such layoff victim.

Today Cox is VP of Operations and Production Manager for Wallace Carlson. Together with Brian and Ann Turbeville, President and CEO respectively, he is laser focused on the future and on business survival. The company finished 2011 with an overall 11% increase in sales and returned to profitability after a near brush with extinction.

“We’ve worked our butts off, and it’s paying off,” Cox said. “We’ll pat ourselves on the back for 15 minutes, then get back to ruthless focus in all that we do.”

That statement, “ruthless focus in all that we do,” is the company’s business mantra, and has been a guiding light for their business survival.

The Perfect Storm That Nearly Wiped Out an Industry

“Printing has gone through some major shakeups in the last 5-7 years,” Cox said.

“There are many things that led to those shakeups. Primarily, the use of Internet vs. traditional print, technology and of course the economy. We kind of hit the ‘Perfect Storm,’ if you will, and it really had a big impact on our industry.”

During that time, mergers and acquisitions were devouring small companies. Cox said about 15 years ago the printing business was one of the top 3-5 businesses in Minnesota. He estimates that there were close to 1,900 printing companies in 2003-2004, and that number dwindled down to approximately 900 by 2007-2008. In 2008, Cox’s previous company was one of the victims of a merger, and his job as one of the company VPs was summarily eliminated.

Around that same time, Wallace Carlson was in trouble. They filed for chapter 11 in 2009 and restructured the company in the hope of getting a new lease on life.

Charlie Cox met Brian and Ann Turbeville, Wallace Carlson’s owners, through a mutual friend who suggested they offer Charlie the challenge of turning the company around. Cox came aboard in August 2010, and the power trio was formed.

From Bankruptcy to Success Story

What Charlie Cox brought to the table was a lifelong involvement in printing. A 30 year veteran of the industry, Cox has acquired many certifications in business management and leadership throughout his career.

Joining the Turbevilles in business meant it was time to roll up his sleeves and get the company on track.

“I spent the first 90 days observing, taking notes, working day and night, building a model in my head and on paper,” Cox said. “I was doing what I do best, taking it apart and rebuilding.”

Charlie’s Keys to Success

As Cox shared his story, several key factors to the company’s remarkable turn-around came into focus:

#1: A talented, dedicated team

Cox feels strongly that cultivating a chemistry and building teamwork within a company is what ultimately breeds success.

“We take very good care of our employees, first and foremost. We make sure they enjoy coming to work each day and that they enjoy what they do,” Cox said.

#2: Ruthless focus

It’s not just a mantra, but a methodology for getting on track and staying there.

“Rebuilding a company is difficult. It’s tough. But its not impossible,” Cox said. “There are many things to look for. You have to take a hard look at your shop floor, your production,” he said. “You have to figure out how to maximize productivity and efficiency everywhere: work flow, faster turnaround, reducing your costs, touching the job less (getting it right the first time).”

#3: A tight ship

“Make sure your workforce is flexible. You might not need as much staff as you think you need,” he said. “Run leaner. Run tighter. Monitor your monthly P & L (profit and loss). Be prepared to make adjustments quickly based on your data.”

Combine all of these with a company focus on integrity and serving the customer, and you have a winning strategy.

The results of these success values have been fantastic. Not only is the company profitable and on track, but there is a cohesive team focus that carries through everything Wallace Carlson does each day, and it is one that brings customers back to the shop again and again.

CEO Ann Turbeville added, “It’s wonderful, because everybody is dedicated and they do the best they can do. And it shows. Profits are up, morale is up, people smile and we have fun.”

I hope you’ve enjoyed this guest post from Jeff Barthel. Thank you, Jeff!

To your success,

Jayna

p.s. Do you have a great company story or some business tips to share? Take my survey!

What are some of these strange bloggers doing? I’ll tell you. Instead of promoting their own work, they promote other businesses and blogs. Now that is seriously weird. Don’t believe me? Take a look at this very weird stuff, my friends….

Martha Giffen, author of Be Social Be Rich, recently wrote a post called “Do Blogs Really Matter? These Do!” where she shows off the work of four other bloggers. Martha, Martha, Martha! Why wouldn’t you proselytize about your own work? After all, you’ve got an awesome book on Amazon.

Christy Birmingham, a freelance writer, poet and award-winning author of the blog “Poetic Parfait,” spends much of her blogging time reviewing other people’s poetry and music! Come on, Christy. How do you expect to get your own work promoted if you’re spending all that energy shining the light on other people’s stuff? Good luck trying to wade through the sea of comments she gets on all of her posts, by the way.

Anne Marie Dwyer (just call her “Red”), a prolific blogger at Momma’s Money Matters,  hands out Gold Star blogging awards to other bloggers! She also interviews musicians and writers. And she recently promoted my first Weird Wednesday post on Google+ with a message titled “You Had Me at a Skull in a Blender”. Seriously, Red, what are you doing pushing other people into the limelight? We need to have a little talk about PR, honey.

Knikkolette Fahrendorf Church, of Your Social Media Mogul: When she’s not educating people with her short snappy video training and educational blog posts, she’s all over the Internet coaxing people into promoting each other. Now that’s just strange behavior. If I could hazard a guess, I’d say she has been responsible for at least 100 to 200 people improving their Klout scores and overall online visibility, if not directly helping them to land more clients. Why does she do this? I don’t know. Maybe you can learn something about this weird approach from her blog post about the Benefits of Online Communities.

Keri Francek Jaehnig, of Idea Girl Media. I don’t even know where to start with this gal. She takes the prize. At the end of last year she put out a blog post called “My 2011 Gratitude Honor Roll” highlighting the people and online communities that had made a difference in her business last year. (Again – it’s all about them! What is up with that?) But here’s the show stopper. She spent the entire month of January 2012 hosting a program she called “January Jig” featuring other business and marketing professionals in live interactive chats on her Idea Girl Media Facebook page. I’m not kidding! There was a different one every single day!

And it’s not just women. Men are out there promoting other people too.

Fabrizio Faraco, whose blog is available in both English and Italian, is also into the business of promoting others. He recently wrote a blog post about improving your online presence with content marketing that was devoted to highlighting the recommendations of another blogger. He’s just all about sharing! If you so much as comment on one of his posts or +1 his content, he’ll turn right around and promote you or give you a K+ on Klout.

And check this out. His Google Plus feed reads like a catalog of other people’s content!

Well, that’s just a brief survey of this weird trend, my friends. It’s happening everywhere. I may just have to cover this topic again because I have merely scratched the surface.

Please, if you have any insight at all as to why these weird bloggers are doing this, I beg you to share your thoughts in the comments below.

To your content marketing success,

Jayna

p.s. Doesn’t anyone want a promo brochure anymore? Anyone? Anyone?