A video prepared by Dorling Kindersley Books… watch it all the way through without skipping around….

Content is still important. We’re just consuming it in different ways. How publishers adapt (or perish) will only be shown with time…

What do you think?

Kevin from KidsDesk.net asks: Do Twitter Giveaways work?  While it’s hard to get actual numbers from Twitter giveaways and contests, they do seem to work for most of the businesses that use them.  Here are some guidelines and tips to avoid breaking Twitter’s terms of service and to make the giveaway work…

What’s Your Goal?

Is your goal to increase awareness of your website?  To signup for a newsletter?  Figure out what you want to ask people to do to enter the giveaway.  Most Twitter giveaways just have people follow and then retweet about the contest – meaning their goal is to increase followers, which is fine, just keep that goal in mind if you have something else you’d like to do.

Don’t Anger Twitter

Make sure you follow Twitter’s Guidelines for Running a Contest on Twitter.  Don’t have the same thing tweeted over and over again (duplicate tweets from the same person is a no-no) – let people enter only once.  Don’t encourage the creation of multiple accounts – make a statement that using multiple accounts will cause disqualification.  It’ll probably easier to track entries if your username is included in the tweet (have them include @yourname).

Work on Your Tweets First

Your profile needs to already have interesting tweets if you want people to continue to follow you after the giveaway (if you’re having them follow as part of the contest).  This is where the 80-20 rule comes into play: 80% of your tweets should be informative and interesting to your audience (and not be about you), then 20% can be about your blog posts and promotions (and what you had for lunch, although that’s not interesting to most people, except maybe your mom).

Don’t Be Annoying

Set guidelines that limit the annoyance of the giveaway to your audience (and to the followers of people who will be playing).  Don’t run contests very often.  And keep the contest short. 1-3 days is about the limit of people’s attention.

Worthwhile Giveaway

In order for people to be willing to enter the giveaway, it has to be something worthwhile.  It looks like at least $50-$100 for smaller businesses – and probably something tangible instead of a discount on your products.

Use Your Network

In order for contests to be successful, they need to be seen by those who have active followers.  This means you’ll probably want to reach out to some key influencers in your network and ask them to retweet your contest tweets.

Conclusion

I’ve seen some fairly successful Twitter contests by both larger and smaller companies.  The key seems to be running the contest in a responsible way with a giveaway that is valuable to the audience.

If you’ve run a successful Twitter contest or giveaway, we’d love to hear how it went for you – what tips do you have?

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Technorati tags: twitter, web strategy, strategy, marketing, twitter contests, business

Disqus is a comment system for websites & blogs.  If you’re using WordPress, it’s a simple as installing a plug-in.  I’ve been using Disqus since we moved the blog back from Wordpress.com.  I prefer it over the default system (and akismet) because it makes it easier for our readers to comment and easier for us to moderate – pretty important features for a commenting system.

Installation

If you’re running WordPress, Disqus is pretty easy to install.  Signup for account on their website and they walk you through the steps to install & configure.

Moderation

Moderating can be done from multiple locations & methods.  You can moderate through email by responding to emails sent to you by Disqus (approve, spam, delete), including adding a reply right in the body of your email which will show up on your site.  Through your WordPress administration, there’s also a panel under Settings which gives you access to the configuration and to moderation (it really loads the disqus website in a pane).   You can also moderate through the Disqus website.

You can setup Disqus to work within your comfort zone – whether you have to pre-approve every comment, whether you allow links in comments, what words are restricted and who else can help you moderate.  And for trolls or spammers who get through the system, you can add them to a Blacklist.

Blocking Spam

I’ve had very few problems with spam getting through.  All of the posts that did get through were done manually by a person and were of the “great post” nature – people posting a comment just to be able to add a link to their website.

Customization

How Disqus looks on your website can be customized both in layout and appearance.  They provide a few themes which you can edit to look the way you want through options or through custom CSS.  Comments can either be threaded (so that replies stay together) or just by time (so that all comments are ordered by time, regardless of whether they’re replies).  For sites with a lot of commenting, Disqus also supports pagination of the comments, which is extremely important for keeping them (and the site) readable.

Integration

One feature I really like is how Disqus integrates with other social networks and services.  Readers can login to leave a comment via Facebook, Twitter, OpenID, or Yahoo.  When they leave a comment, they can also share it on Twitter or Facebook.  Disqus also tracks reactions to your posts on Twitter and adds them to your post (as reactions).

Extras

Disqus also provides a few widgets to display comments on your blog on other websites or in the sidebar.  Widgets include recent comments, popular threads, top commenters or a combination of all three.  Widgets can be customized to show as many comments as you want, as well as some general appearance changes like size and color.

Identity

For anyone who logins to leave a comment, you’ll be able to see their name, email, and website (optional) along with how many other comments they’ve left on any blogs using Disqus (and you can read what those comments are), and how many people liked those comments.

For Readers

From the reader’s point of view, Disqus make it easy to login to leave a comment (Disqus, Facebook, Twitter, OpenID, and Yahoo as login options) and easy to see if anyone replies to the comment (by subscribing to see all comments).  Comments can be shared on Twitter & Facebook and other comments can be rated with “likes”.  Disqus provides a dashboard (called Disqus Profile) so that you can see all your comments across any site using Disqus so you don’t have to login to multiple websites to see who has responded to you.

Conclusion

If you’re looking for a step up from the default Wordpress commenting system, I highly recommend Disqus.  It has great functionality for both you and your readers.  Disqus has also announced a Disqus VIP version, so if you have plans of becoming the next best thing, Disqus should be able to grow with you.

What do you think? Do you use Disqus on your blog? Do you like Disqus as a commenting system?

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Technorati tags: Disqus, Disqus Comments, social media, blog, marketing, blog comments, business

Titles need to catchy and descriptive, obviously, but in today’s 140 character world, they also need to be shareable.  I run into titles all the time that I have to edit in order to share on Twitter – usually because they’re too long, but sometimes because they have too much extra “stuff”.  Here’s some tips for making your titles more shareable…

1. Descriptive – Many people share & see content on Twitter or Facebook and make snap decision whether it’s interesting based only on your title.  A good title accurately describes what the content is about.
2. Concise – A long title may be cute or funny, but you need to catch people’s attention in the first few words.
3. Less Than 100 Characters – I run into it all the time – titles that are longer than 140 characters, which means I have to do some editing.  Extra effort means people make just not bother.  Keep your titles under 100 characters to allow room for shortened URLs & retweets.
4. No Extra “Stuff” – Having the name of the site at the end of the title is understandable.  Adding a bunch of extra stuff (for keywords, etc.) is just annoying.
5. Same Title as Content – I see this occasionally, where the title of the page isn’t the same as the title of the content on the page – usually for SEO reasons.  Very annoying to people who want to share and to people who follow a link and find a different title.
6. A Couple Relevant Keywords – Including descriptive keywords is good (especially for people using searches), just make sure they’re concise and relevant (and not overdone).
7. Tips or How To – People like information they can quickly digest.  Titles with “tips”, Top # or “How to” grab attention (Thanks to Nikki Stephan for pointing this out)

What other tips do you have for making more shareable titles?

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Technorati tags: internet strategy marketing, social media, strategy, marketing, business strategy, business

Reader Sandi asked about how she can make it easier for readers to share posts on her blog (Thanks for the question, Sandi!)  She noticed that I have a “Share this Article” link on all my posts and asked about how to add that to her own blog. The “Share this Article” link is added via a plugin for WordPress.

The plugin I happen to use is called ShareThis, which you can find and install either by going to their site and clicking on “Get the button on your site” or by searching for ShareThis under “Add New” under Plugins in your WordPress admin.  I like the ShareThis plugin because the provide some nice reports and analytics on how many times the button is viewed and how my content is shared (and it’s free).

AddThis offers similar features and functionality (for free) and you can get their button without having to register (although you don’t get any stats).  I’ve liked ShareThis better because I could control what social networks and sharing sites showed up (and in what order).  AddThis may have added this feature as well since I last checked, but it’s not obvious from their site.

I also use TweetMeme Retweet button plugin which adds the ability to tweet about an article right from that page (search for Tweetmeme in “Add New” in plugins section of WordPress admin).  And for my rss feeds, I use FeedBurner, which allows me to add links to various social networks right into my feed.

How do you make it easier for readers to share your content? If you have a question you’d like an answer to, please email me at saz [at] sazbean [dot] com.

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Technorati tags: social media, content strategy, content, marketing, sharing, social networking, business

Posting over on Insights today, I talk about how having a good content-to-ad ratio is important to having more impact with your marketing message:

Think about the people you are most likely to follow on Facebook or Twitter or on their blogs.  They probably provide you with useful information.  They may occasionally promote their own products, but it’s a low percentage in the sum of the content.  You’re less likely (or not likely at all) to follow someone who does nothing but tell you about their products (and what they ate for breakfest).  This self-promotion is the same as ads on a website or in a magazine.  It’s ok to do it, but it has to be a small percentage of your overall content for it to be acceptable (and for it to have a better impact). – The Importance of Having a Good Content-to-Ad Ratio – Sarah Worsham – Insights Group

Please join me on Insights Group for the rest of the post.  I’d love to hear your comments and ideas on maintaining a balance between useful content and self-promotion.

Read the full article ->

I often use photos that are licensed through creative commons for my blog and for presentations and I’ve often had people ask me about how to use creative commons and what it means.  I thought I’d try to answer that and give a few resources for learning more and finding creative commons content.

So What’s Creative Commons?

Creative Commons is a non-profit organization that was started to help people share their work legally.  Creative commons licenses work alongside traditional copyright to allow you to share your works the way you want to.  It was started because traditional copyright does not allow any sharing or repurposing of content without explicit permission.  Creative commons licensing allows content creators to decide how each work is shared, used and repurposed.

So I Can Use Content for Free?

Sort of.  Each creative commons license lets you know how you can use each work.  Some authors will allow you to use their content for free (with attribution).  Some will let only non-commercial uses.  Some will let you take their work and add to it or change it.  It all depends on the particular license the author has chosen.  At the very minimum, some sort of attribution is usually required.

How do I find creative commons content?

Creative Commons has a search.  So does Flickr.  You can also look for the creative commons license logo:

More about Creative Commons:

• CreativeCommons.org
• Awesome Free Pics for Your Blog or Website (Sazbean)
• Creative Commons (Wikipedia)
• Creative Commons Network
• Creative Commons Wiki
• Lawrence Lessig’s Blog

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Technorati tags: images, flickr, business, photos, creative commons, content

FollowFriday is a twitter meme where people recommend people they think you should follow.  The power of the followfriday recommendation has diluted somewhat with the practice of recommending a long list of people. A single (or few) recommendation with a reason is still useful.  Anyway, I think there are a lot of good blogs out there, so in the spirit of followfriday, I’m going to recommend a few I like to read….

Tech & Internet News – These are all fairly large sites, but they’re great for keeping up with what’s going on in technology and on the Internet.  One or all of these is always on my daily links.

• GigaOM
• TechCrunch
• ReadWriteWeb
• Ars Technica
• Silicon Alley Insider
• All Things Digital

Social Media & Marketing

• Chris Brogan – Chris teaches companies how to use social networks and communities to build value (for both sides).  He’s a great person to follow if you want to learn how to use social media for your business.
• Mashable – Great social media and Internet news, how-tos, ideas.
• Social Media Explorer – Opinions, ideas, and thoughts on how to use social media for business.  Since social media is evolving on the Internet, SME has some great ideas on what’s going on and how to use it for your business.
• Duct Tape Marketing – Everything marketing – blogs, twitter, facebook, etc.  with easy to understand guidance on how to use them to market your business.
• Marketing Charts – Marketing and market research insight in the form of daily charts and graphs which show the latest trends in various industries.
• Online Marketing Blog – Tips and insight on how to use the Internet to market your company.
• All Facebook – Facebook news and tips.
• Econsultancy – Internet, social media, and digital marketing tips, news, and opinions.

Internet Strategy

• Forrester Blog for Interactive Marketers – Insights from the research they do for clients.  Good stuff.
• Web Strategy by Jeremiah – Jeremiah analyzes what’s going on on the web and gives insight on how to create strategies that will work for your business.
• The Bivings Report – Ideas and tips for Internet strategies.

There are many other blogs I read and link to, but these are some of the ones that I try to always read.

What are your favorite blogs?

(photo by woodleywonderworks @ Flickr CC)

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Technorati Tags: blogging, blogs, community, social media, social media strategy, social networks, social networking, internet marketing, marketing

I had the opportunity to interview Gary Vaynerchuck on Twitter this morning about his new book, Crush It! Why Now is the Time to Cash In On Your Passion.  If you weren’t able to join us, here’s the twitterscipt:

sazbean Everyone please help me interview @garyvee here – all your questions are welcome! #crushitbook

garyvee @sazbean I am ready #crushitbook

sazbean @garyvee awesome! thanks for the opp to interview #crushitbook

sazbean @garyvee What should biz owners know about #crushitbook that makes it stand out from other social media books?

garyvee @sazbean it is real, I am not full of crap and I will give them back the $14 if they don’t like it #crushitbook

sazbean @garyvee heh good to know! what got you interested in writing a book? #crushitbook

garyvee Easy @sazbean people read them, I am not romanced by any platform, I want to talk to people..heck Ill put a cup on a string #crushitbook

sazbean @garyvee cup on a string – the new social media? How do you convey passion over the Internet/SM? #crushitbook

garyvee @sazbean u don’t filter, u don’t apologize, u come from your heart and most of all you care abt the people that care about YOU! #crushitbook

sazbean @garyvee caring is excellent advice! Do you have any tips for connecting with your community on so many diff tools/networks? #crushitbook

garyvee @sazbean YES- DO IT! so many people talk…work and try to do it and just pound through it and it will happen #crushitbook

sazbean @garyvee oh, one more quick Q: @msesthy wants to know when you’ll be book signing in Metro Detroit #crushitbook

garyvee @sazbean trying…….. lol

sazbean Thanks everyone for joining me for the @garyvee interview – more info on his book: http://bit.ly/kOeAB followup post soon… #crushitbook

Thanks, Gary, for the opportunity to interview you on Twitter.  I know you had a lot of interviews lined up today.

About the book, from Crushitbook.com:

Everything has changed. The social media revolution has irreversibly changed the way we live our lives and conduct our business. There are billions of dollars in advertising moving online, waiting to be claimed by whoever can build the best content and communities. Despite this change, most people keep working at jobs that don’t make them happy and businesses continue to ignore the major marketing and public relations benefits that can be found online.

Buy the book: Crush It!: Why NOW Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion (Amazon link)

About Gary, from his blog, http://garyvaynerchuk.com:

Gary Vaynerchuk has captured attention with his pioneering, multi-faceted approach to personal branding and business. After primarily utilizing traditional advertising techniques to build his family’s local wine business into a national industry leader, Gary rapidly leveraged social media tools such as Twitter and Facebook to promote Wine Library TV, his video blog about wine. As his viewership swelled to over 80,000 a day, doors opened to a book deal, several national TV appearances, and a flurry of speaking engagements around the world. Gary’s dual identity as both business guru and wine guy has made him the “Social Media Sommelier.”

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If you’re interested in purchasing his book, you can pre-order it on Amazon (release date is Oct. 13): Crush It!: Why NOW Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion

When I talk to clients and workshops about blogging for business, one of the top hangups is posting daily.  I agree.  Blogging daily has its difficulties, so I thought I’d share some of them…

Time

It obviously takes time to post every day.  You either have to set aside some time every day to write and post or you have to set aside a longer period of time to write for the entire week.  I usually write and post each day, but if I have an event or vacation, I’ll write posts ahead of time.

Content

I usually have a backlog of posts I want to write, but I don’t always have the time to write about them.  Some take research or more thought than I have time for.  Other times I just don’t feel like writing about what’s on my list.  Most of the time I get really good ideas from reading other blogs or books.  Any time I read a book, I try to keep a moleskin notebook around to jot down ideas.

Schedule

If you say you’re going to post once a day or once a week (or whatever), people expect you to post then.  When you miss a post it can really affect your blog’s regular visitors – they get annoyed when they come to your site for a new post and don’t find one.  I have occasionally missed a post due to a holiday or whatnot.  I just try to keep them to a minimum.

Consistency

After you’ve been writing for awhile, people expect a certain level of expertise and insight in your posts.  It can be hard to keep up the level of consistency in terms of post quality. Keeping a lot of ideas on hand can help when you have writer’s block.

While blogging every day can seem like a bit of a hassle, it’s a great way to build up your readership, which leads to nice business benefits (traffic, leads, branding, reputation, etc.).

What difficulties have you found with posting daily?  What are your concerns with posting daily (or weekly)?  What questions do you have about blogging?

(photo by Martin Kingsley @ Flickr CC)

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Technorati Tags: blogging, blogs, community, social media, social media strategy, social networks, social networking, internet marketing, marketing