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Blog, Master The New Net, social media, social web, susan rice-lincoln
Like so many social media platforms, people are confused how to really tap into the power of the blog. They take a stab at using it, make mistakes, get disappointed and ultimately abandon their blog altogether.
The Web is notoriously littered with the carcasses of blogs gone wrong—and discarded forever on the side of the Internet highway. This phenomenon is so common that the abandoned blog has almost become a rite of passage into the Web 2.0 world.
Last year the New York Times reported that, according to a Technorati 2008 survey, only 7.4 million of the 133 million blogs the company tracks were updated in the last 120 days. This means that about 95% of blogs are inactive.
What a pity!
A blog is one of the most powerful tools available to you. It will deliver thought leadership, a robust community of followers and brand recognition which will drive sales.
But the power of a blog is only available to you if you execute it correctly.
I thought it would be worthwhile to make a check list of the right and wrong way to implement your blog:
The Wrong Way To Blog:
A poor blog will exhibit the following weaknesses:
• Not enough posts
• Intermittent, irregular posting
• Excessively long posts
• Posts that are no more than thinly veiled promotions; people visit blogs for interesting, original information, not to buy
• A lack of keywords
• No variety
• No pictures
• No distribution throughout the Social Web
The Right Way
A blog executed correctly will combine the following strengths:
• Ongoing original content that keeps your readers coming back for more
• Consistent posting
• Varied material that provides a balance of practical tips, strategic advice, comments on other blogs, statistics and interviews with other experts
• Frequent blogging; to obtain excellent traffic results, you should post 3 times a week
• Each post will include a picture to add visual texture
• Natural integration of strong keywords into your posts’ headlines and content.
• Automatic re-posting of your blog content throughout the Social Web
Do you have any other ideas?
Blogs, Master The New Net, social media, susan rice-lincoln
Ever since we were children, we were afraid of criticism. Someone might mock our hair, criticize our dress, whisper nasty things about the way we played in the playground.
Criticism has haunted us since Day One.
And social media is no exception. Has
When we write a blog, people can write a nasty comment. When we post our update, people can pop out with a mean comment. Our tweets can be sliced down in a word or two.
There doesn’t seem to be any place to hide. And we are back at the playground once again.
Okay. So this is the deal.
Negativity and negative comments are just part of the social media game. So the answer is not to hide in the corner just hoping no one will see you. The answer is to figure out how to respond to the negativity.
First of, don’t try to avoid them. Hiding under the desk didn’t work in elementary school. And it won’t work here either.
Confront the negative comments head-on
Learn to listen
Learn to respond.
And-if the criticism is merited- (and it CAN be merited), try to fix what is broken.
But the most important thing is NEVER IGNORE NEGATIVITY
Respond immediately and politely.
It may be hard. You might have to bite your tongue. But you will be surprised what happens. Often, your enemy turns into your advocate. It takes the wind out of their sails. And sails with no wind don’t travel too far. On the best of days, your critical enemy will become your advocate or even your friend.
And don’t prohibit people from saying negative things. Some people will review the comments made on their blogs. Don’t do that. Let people say negative things about you. Let them say those things publicly. It’s okay. It’s better to know what people think about you than just to ignore it.
Remember. Respond to criticisms IMMEDIATELY. And POLITELY.
If you say nothing, you are silent. And silence is always filled in with whatever people want it to be filled in. Which is not good. Silence is the enemy of communications.
Tell your side of the story
Agree to disagree if necessary.
Criticism is not your enemy. Fear of criticism just very well may be.
Blogs, Master The New Net, social media, susan rice-lincoln, Technorati, The Future Buzz, twitter
I stumbled across this great post on thefuturebuzz.com written by Adam Singer on December 10,2009; it is a statistical synthesis of Technorati’s 2009 State of the Blogosphere
Many sneer at the lowly blog. But as Singer points out, it is worth remembering the fact that a whopping 133,000,000 blogs have been indexed by Technorati since 2002. And according to Universal McCann, 77% of active Internet users read blogs.
Dead? Dying? I don’t think so. The blogosphere keeps chugging along.
Don’t underestimate its power.
And please enjoy the statistics listed below!
Demographics of bloggers:
• Two-thirds are male
• 60% are 18-44
• 75% have college degrees
• 40% have graduate degrees
• One in three has an annual household income of $75K+
• One in four has an annual household income of $100K+
• Professional and self-employed bloggers are more affluent: nearly half have an annual household income of $75,000 and one third topped the $100,000 level
• More than half are married
• More than half are parents
• Half are employed full time, however ¾ of professional bloggers are employed full time.
• Around half of bloggers are working on at least their second blog, and 68% have been blogging for two years or more
• 86% have been blogging for at least a year
Motivations of bloggers:
• 70% of all respondents say that personal satisfaction is a way they measure the success of their blog
• Bloggers are most likely to describe themselves as “sincere” (75%).
• 16% describe themselves as snarky.
• 71% say they blog at least in part in order to speak their minds.
• 72% say they blog in order to share their expertise.
• 61% say they blog in order to supplement their income.
• 53% of professional bloggers are interested in attracting new clients from blogging.
• 72% of those who are self-employed and blogging are interested in attracting new clients.
• 19% are concerned that their employers might disapprove of their views on their blog.
• For most bloggers (81%), even if the economic downturn has disrupted lifestyles or lives it has not changed the kind of topics or themes they write about.
• 63% of respondents say that blogging has led them to become more involved with things they’re passionate about as a result of blogging.
• Respondents report that blogging has had chiefly positive impacts on their personal lives; just 6% say that relationships with friends or family members have suffered as a result of blogging.
• 42% have become friends with someone they’ve met in person through their blog.
• 15% say that they have more executive visibility within their company as a result of blogging.
• 57% say that their future plans include blogging even more (including 74% of 18-24 year olds).
• 35% – including 43% of part-timers – plan to one day publish a book.
• Part-Timers, Pros, and Self-Employeds are blogging as much as or more than ever (73%, 76% and 80%, respectively), while Hobbyists are blogging somewhat less.
The how of blogging
• 15% of bloggers spend 10 or more hours each week blogging.
• One in five bloggers report updating on a daily basis.
• The most common rate of updating is 2-3 times per week.
• When looking at bloggers by Technorati Authority, higher Authority bloggers are much more prolific content creators, posting nearly 300 times more than lower ranked bloggers.
• The majority of blogs use tags (85%).
• Bloggers are very familiar with the technology they use to publish on the Internet – only 2% of all respondents say that they don’t know how their blog was built. (This data confirms “geeks” are the new influencers.)
• 13% say that they built their blogs themselves from scratch.
• 59% of respondents use a free third party hosting service.
• 82% of respondents say that they post photos to their blog, making images the most popular form of multimedia.
• 13% of all respondents say that they never post any images/videos/audio to their blogs, preferring to just use text.
• Of those who use media other than text, 73% say that that they also create the photos, video, or audio they post themselves about half of the time.
• 75% of those who use syndication syndicate full content.
• 20% of all users report having updating their blog or adding content from their mobile device.
• 59% percent report doing so at least somewhat more this year than they did last year.
• Fewer than 10% of bloggers say they don’t know the traffic to their blogs.
• Bloggers participate in an average of 5 activities to drive traffic to their blogs.
• On average 27% of a blogs page views come as referrals from a horizontal search engine.
• 74% of all respondents use a third party service to track their site traffic. Google Analytics is by far the most popular tool in the space.
Blogging revenues
• 72% of respondents are classified as Hobbyists, meaning that they report no income related to blogging
• Of those who have monetized their blogging to at least some extent:
• 54% are Part-Timers
• 32% are Self-Employeds
• 14% are Corporates
• 15% say they are paid to give speeches on the topics they blog about.
• 51% of Corporates – 58 respondents – report receiving a salary for blogging.
• Evaluating positive and negative cashflows, the mean profits for blogs with reported revenues is $57,369.20.
• 89% believe that it is important that the advertising placed on their blogs align with their values.
• More than 2 out of 3 bloggers monetizing their sites leverage self-service ad platforms.
• Comparing 2008 to 2009 there has been a 68% increase in the number blogs with ad tags installed.
Blogging brands
• 70% of bloggers are talking about brands on their blog organically.
• 46% of respondents post about the brands they love (or hate).
• 38% post brand or product reviews.
• Part-Timers, and Self-Employed bloggers are talking about brands at a much higher rate (80%), with one in three posting reviews at least once a week.
• 71% of all respondents who maintain blogs for a business – their own or one they work for – report that they have increased their visibility within their industries through their blogs.
• 56% say that their blog has helped their company establish a positioning as a thought leader within the industry.
• 58% say that they are better-known in their industry because of their blog
Twitter and blogging
• Just 14% of the general population use Twitter – but 73% of respondents in the 2009 State Of The Blogosphere survey do.
• 52% syndicate their blog posts to their Twitter Account, and 41% do so while also posting tweets that are not associated with their blogs.
• 26% of bloggers who also use Twitter say that the service has eaten into the time they spend updating their traditional blogs – though 65% say it has had no effect.
• 35% of those who do not use Twitter say it’s because they do not understand the point . And 54% report that they don’t feel the need to broadcast their life, despite the popularity of “personal musings” as a blog topic.
• Blogs with greater than 100 page views a day received on average .83% of their page views from Twitter referrals. This referral percentage was constant as the audience size of the blog increased.
Posted on April 28, 2010 in The Basics by admin
Audacity, Blogs, Google, Master The New Net, social media, susan rice-lincoln
High-quality content is absolutely crucial to your success on the Social Web. The problem is generating lots of interesting ideas consistently over time is no easy task.
Here are some tips on how to create superior content that will enhance your social conversation and grow your community.
Posted on April 23, 2010 in Social Media by admin
Master The New Net, social media, susan rice-lincoln, Wildfire
Companies large and small are always looking for new ways to engage their followers and fans on the Social Web. In my opinion, one of the most powerful ways to do that is by conducting a contest, sweepstakes or promotion. It is not only fun for your current followers but it can potentially create a viral buzz to entice more people into your community.
One of the best tools on the marketplace to help you create a winning contest is Wildfire.
Wildfire is easy to use, straightforward and relatively inexpensive. Here are some of its advantages:
Master The New Net, online videos, social media, susan rice-lincoln, Video Share Sites
Most people equate online video with YouTube. While YouTube is a huge giant, there are other video share sites out there. I recently ran across an excellent review on Top10 Reviews about video share sites. Here are some of the highlights:
Originally started in Israel, Metacafe is now based in California and enjoys a huge following in the US as well as other English-speaking countries. The site’s excellent content is easy to find while the community is vibrant. .
The videos submitted to Metacafe are reviewed by a panel of 80,000 community members, One big advantage of this system is the lack of duplicates, making the site feel orderly, well-organized and uncluttered.
Metacafe’s popularity is in part due to the fact that it pays people for posting videos. Once 20,000 people have seen your video, Metacafe will pay you $5 per 1000 views. If your video gets millions of views, this is obviously a very interesting option.
This video share site specializes in humorous videos. In addition, you can find videos on sports, entertainment and the military which attract its predominantly male audience. But if you are looking for humor (whether you are male or female), this is a great site to visit.
This video share site boasts more searchable categories than any other. You can search by category, search box or even use Google’s advanced search feature. The quantity of videos is large and the quality excellent. It tends to have more informational videos than other video share sites.
Google has one of the largest viewing windows, taking up to one-third of the monitor. Despite its size, there is still plenty of room for comments, ratings and playlists.
True to Google, it is easy to navigate with a user-friendly and clean interface.
This site is one of the most popular and entertaining. The videos tend to be more professional and specializes in newscasts, commercials and short films. The downside of this site is it does not offer a lot of features for amateur video producers.
Yahoo’s site has great content although there is very little original content; most of the videos have been pulled from other media or video share sites. Much of the content you will find is taken from TV or movie trailers rather than content created by normal, everyday people.
Revver collects videos from other video share sites. It gives all videos a rating similar to movie ratings: G, PG and PG-13. This is one of the few sites that offers to pay you money for your videos. They do this by attaching a discreet ad to the end of your video. If anyone clicks on the ad, you get 50% of the revenue.
This site is popular both as a video share site and as a social networking site. It has become a place for videographers to showcase their short films and original videos and thus has more original content than other video share sites.
You can upload a maximum of 500 MB per week with a free account. If you pay, the upload limit goes up to 5 GB. Vimeo doesn’t offer any tools to help you edit or alter your video once uploaded. On the positive side, Vimeo can accept a wide range of file formats.
This site is a great place to meet people from around the world. There are chat rooms and video chats
Stickam is also easy to navigate. You can view videos by category or use the search box and the videos upload quickly.
One great feature is that you can upload your video and pictures from your cell phone.
Master The New Net, online videos, social media, susan rice-lincoln, TubeMogul
We are all looking to save time, particularly when it comes to managing our social media programs. One great way of doing that is by using tools that help us automatically share information to several sites at the same time.
Tubemogul is the leading tool which will help you share your videos to all the key video share sites. I recently ran across a Squidoo article which describes the benefit of using Tubemogul. Here are some of the highlights of the article:
As we all know, no one can resist the power of video. Video can help you share information about your company, your products, your ideas and YOU in a quick and entertaining fashion. Video is an excellent way to boost your profile online that everyone should be using. .
Not surprisingly, most people equate YouTube with video online. But as I have outlined in some of my recent posts, there are many other video share sites besides YouTube. They may not be as enormous as YouTube but this is a positive; hey offer you the benefit of making a bigger splash in a smaller pond.
The problem is if you have to upload your video individually to each video share site, this will quickly become cumbersome, time-consuming and inefficient.
Enter Tubemogul. With Tube Mogul, all you have to do is upload your video once and it will be automatically uploaded to dozens of video share sites. With one push of the button, you will have a huge presence. Even better, the service will also give you information on how your video performs on each site. You can begin to understand when, where and how often your videos are watched so you can really get a grasp on the impact of your video campaigns.
In sum, if you are creating videos online, you should be using Tubemogul.
Master The New Net, online videos, social media, susan rice-lincoln
Everyone loves watching a good online video. But what about posting videos yourself?
Video has evened out the playing field. Video used to be only available to big companies with big budgets. Now, with easy editing, inexpensive cameras and universal broadband, video is open even to individuals and solo entrepreneurs.
Here is a list of how you can use video-fast, easy and effectively:
1. Go out and buy yourself a Flip camcorder. They are the best invention since sliced bread and a 2 year old can operate them. They are inexpensive (a little under $200) and have surprising high quality. The best benefit is they have a built-in USB key so once you have filmed, it takes all of 2 seconds to upload your video to your website, YouTube and beyond.
2. Record all your FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions) that you normally post on your website. Its much more fun to hear the FAQs read out by someone you can watch than to scroll through a long list.
3. Write a list of the 20 best tips you can give to your audience. Then make a video (not more than 90 seconds long) about each tip. Post them on your website, YouTube and other video sharing sites,
4. Interview experts or even customers in your industry. . Keep your interviews short.
5. Use video to show off your latest product. If it’s a physical product, you can record with the Flip. If it is an online product, consider using Camtasia.
6. Post your videos throughout your Social Media space—not just on YouTube.
7. If you know someone is really happy with your product, send them a Flip as a gift and ask them to record a customer testimonial. They will love you for it. And future customers will love viewing the testimonial.
8. Select your favorite blog posts and record yourself reading them. Post them on YouTube and other video sharing sites.
9. Before you press the record button, know EXACTLY what you want to say.
10. Be sure to include a call-to-action—tell people to go to your site, to subscribe to your newsletter or to buy your product. But tell them to do SOMETHING
Master The New Net, opportunity, social media, susan rice-lincoln
A few weeks ago in France, there was a huge hurricane. It happens once in a blue moon. But the winds sweep through and we all just sit tight until its over. And when the wind finally subsides, we creep out of our houses to assess the damage.
This last storm wasn’t anywhere as destructive as the famous storm of December 1999 which ripped off roofs and downed chimneys. But this time, when I ventured out of my house, I was heartbroken to discover that my favorite tree—a majestic old pine- had simply fallen down.
I sat and stared. And I wept.
We all have landmarks in our lives. We learn to love them, we lean on them, they provide us with comfort. And when they disappear, we mourn them, realizing that it in some small way our lives will never be the same again. I know this was just a tree. But for me it had been a daily reassuring site and a place of memories.
One thing that is crystal clear to me when I speak to my friends and colleagues around the world, is that I am not alone. For so many, the old landmarks are gone. So much has changed. For so many of us, our belief in basic institutions like banks and governments and corporations have been left in tatters. I know so many people in their 40s and 50s who have been rudely awakened in recent years, realizing that even though they played by the rules, they have lost out. The old landmarks just didn’t live up their promises whether in the form of ruthless employers, inadequate medical plans or the obscenity of greedy bankers who behind our backs had been busy playing Russian roulette with our money-our retirement funds, our mortgages, our savings and our hopes for a secure future.
But as a half-glass full person, I believe that where there is disappointment, there is always opportunity. So, where my lovely old pine used to stand, I have now created a brand new vegetable garden which in a few months will yield lovely fruits and vegetables for my family and neighbors to enjoy.
Loss means opportunity. And today, despite the wreckage, I firmly believe there is more opportunity than ever before for people to re-create their lives. Social media , to my mind, is a vegetable garden with no limits. In it you can share your passions, your areas of expertise and create vibrant communities—a launching pad for new businesses, new ideas, new products and services.
I am convinced with every end comes a new beginning. And with today’s Social Web, you don’t have to look hard to usher in a new definition, a new life, a new business that will replace the old ways of doing things that –when all is said and done—may not have been giving you the life you really wanted after all.
Master The New Net, Perfection Obsession, social media, susan rice-lincoln
I believe that successful social media is a mysterious, magical blend of strategy, tactics (i.e. tools) and the right mindset. But of the three, I think ‘getting the right mindset’ is what stumps people the most.
One of the biggest psychological obstacles in social media is the notion that we must be perfect. All the time. And to all people. This Perfection Obsession has dominated corporations for years and has trickled down even to small businesses and solo entrepreneurs. We want to portray ourselves as perfect. We want to show off our companies as having no blemishes and no faults. And we are frightened to death that someone, somewhere might pull the curtain back and find out that we are really just the little old man in the Wizard of Oz.
This Perfection Obsession mixes badly with social media. Why? Because social media is social. . It is all about interactions between people. And, human relations are anything but perfect. They are messy and contradictory and full of good , bad and in-between emotions. Human beings—their thoughts and feelings—cannot be packed up neatly in a little box and pushed out in neat, manageable, bite-sized pieces. That was the old way—the traditional thinking behind mass media and advertising. And that way of thinking is going the route of the dinosaur.
So, let’s all forget about the Perfection Obsession. (The secret is out anyway—no one ever thought either you or your company was perfect).
Aim instead for another mindset. Honesty. Integrity. Transparency. Let people see your mistakes. Talk about them. People will not think the less of you for it.. To the contrary, humans, oddly enough, like humanity.
Oddly, in all areas of our lives, we are drawn, like moths to flame, towards the perfection of imperfection. So celebrate your imperfection. Everyone will appreciate
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