SEO (search engine optimization) is very important tactic for any website.  After all, most people use a search engine to find what they’re looking for online. However, there is such a thing as taking SEO too far and forgetting that it’s people, not computers who actually read your website and then make a purchase decision. The right amount of SEO will follow best practices and help search engines more effectively index and catalog your site without making the text (or site) unreadable by people.

Follow Best Practices

Best practices for SEO include things like using header tags (h1, h2, etc), having descriptive titles and descriptions and just the right amount of important keywords within the text.  If you follow best practices, your site will be more effectively indexed by search engines, but it should not overly affect the readability of your site.

Choose Only Important Keywords

Pick the top one or two keywords for each page and concentrate on using best practices to highlight them.  Don’t choose too many keywords or search engines will be confused as to which are important.  And people trying to read your content won’t have a clear understanding of what you’re trying to say.

Communicate Your Message

People are selfish.  They want to know what’s in it for them.  Your marketing messages need to communicate the benefits of your products or services to your potential customers.  These messages are vital for converting people into customers.  Make sure your marketing messages don’t get lost in your effort to optimize your site for search engines.

Give it the Human Test

To make sure your website still communicates your benefits and marketing messages after you’ve optimized it for search engines, have a few people who haven’t read it take a look at it.  Ask them what the major points are of the site and key pages.  Ask them if it’s comfortable to read and if it makes sense.  If not, fix it.

Strike the Right Balance

SEO is important for initially getting people to your site, but it’s even more vital that your site is readable by those people.  Find the right balance between SEO and readability so that you’re effectively communicating the information people are looking for as well as why people should by from you.

Thoughts?

(photo by Dannerzz)

Exit Rate measures how many people left your website from a certain page. It would seem like it would show you where people are exiting from your site so you can fix problems with specific pages.  The problem is that everyone who comes to your website has to leave at some point.  What if they came, bought something and then left?  That’s what you want them to do.  Or what if you blog daily and people come to read your latest post and then leave.  While you may prefer they spend time on other pages, if they’re loyal readers, they’ve been keeping up with your posts. So is Exit Rate useful?  Yes and no.  Let’s look at it in more detail…

Defining Exit Rate

Exit Rate shows you what percentage of people who were on a particular page exited the site from that page.  It doesn’t show you how many pages they looked at before they got to that page.  They could have entered the site from anywhere. They may have even accomplished what they set out to do.  You don’t know.  You only know they exited your site from this particular page.

When Exit Rate is Useful

If you have a site where people have to go to more than one page to complete a task — say on an eCommerce site — Exit Rate can be very helpful for understanding where people are getting lost in the process.  Knowing where people get lost in the conversion process can help you fix those pages to increase conversion and decrease the exit rate on those pages.  Exit rate in this context is often called abandonment rate — or how often someone started the purchase process and then left.

When Exit Rate Isn’t Useful

When you’re looking at the exit rates for specific pages (other than those involved in a conversion or sale), exit rate just tells you what percentage of people left the site from that page — meaning that was the last page they looked at.  Those people could have entered the site from anywhere, looked at a bunch of pages and just decided to leave from this particular page.

Outside of the conversion/eCommerce example, what if someone came to your site looking for specific information, found it on that page and then left.  They found what they were looking for, which is what you want.  Again, you may be able to entice them to stay longer by providing links to additional pages on your site, but your goal of satisfying their need was completed.  What can you do with the exit rate?  Not really anything.  It doesn’t give you enough information to know what to improve.

An Alternative Metric — Bounce Rate

An alternative metric that’s more useful for the purpose of improving specific pages is Bounce Rate — or how many people who enter your site on that page never click anywhere else and leave without looking at any other pages.  Unless they happened to find exactly what they’re were looking for on the first page (you have really good SEO), a high bounce rate is an indicator of a problem on a specific page.

Use Bounce Rate to Improve Conversions

Even in the case of good SEO, you probably want people to go to more than one page on your site.  You want them to convert, which usually means more than one page.  Take a look at your top content report and top entry pages in your analytics package and look at the bounce rate for each page. Focus on improving the pages with high bounce rates to increase conversions.

Thoughts? How do you use exit rate and bounce rate?

(photo by Cellular Immunity)

Engaging customers is all the rage with businesses big or small. Companies are adding communities, comments and reviews to their websites to encourage feedback and conversations. This is all good.  However, if you ask for feedback from your customers, be ready to respond when they give it. Not responding is worse than never asking in the first place.

Requesting Feedback

While customers may already be talking about you online (via Twitter, Facebook, etc.), you can also request feedback just by asking or by implementing systems which allow customers to provide their opinions.  Systems such as comments, reviews and forums are fairly easy to implement for business websites and can be especially useful for eCommerce sites.

Expect the Negative

Unless you specifically ask people with positive experiences to leave their feedback, you may receive mostly negative comments.  People who have a negative experience are more likely to feel compelled to complain or leave their opinions than people who are satisfied (they’re usually hoping for some sort of resolution). If you’re asking for feedback or provide ways for people to leave it, be prepared for the negative and ask for the positive.

Be Ready to Respond

When you ask for feedback or provide ways for people to leave it, you need to be prepared to respond when it happens — for either positive or negative feedback.  Nothing is worse than a company that requests feedback and then doesn’t respond when it’s given.  This means someone needs to be responsible for monitoring feedback and responding to people.

What’s your experience been when you’ve given feedback? Do you have any examples of good response by a company?  How about bad?

(photo by Anna Majkowska)

Thinking about blogging for your business? Wondering about the effectiveness of taking the time to blog daily vs. blogging weekly (or whenever)? Established blogger Justin Kownacki, who was blogging daily, decided to try blogging weekly for a few months to see what effect it would have on his traffic.  That one post per week would be well-thought out instead of scrambling to post 5 times per week.  He found that blogging only once per week does not guarantee a high-impact read of the one post and also dropped his traffic considerably.

According to Google Analytics, I had:

• 7,500 page views in April
• 7,491 page views in May
• 3,583 page views in June
• 4,877 page views in July

Finally, my Alexa ranking hovered around 162,000 when this experiment began; it’s currently at 245,546 as I type this. – What I’ve Learned From Blogging Weekly Instead of Daily – Justin Kownacki

Social networking (using the social web) is about connecting with people — asking questions, having conversations — basically the same things you would do if you were talking in-person.  Yet many companies still treat social media like traditional media — as a way to distribute marketing and advertising messages.  While social media does provide a cost-effective way to reach a targeted audience for marketing, the real opportunity is in making personal and human connections with that audience.  Here are some of the most commonly repeated mistakes I see when it comes to social networking and using the social web:

Being Too Self-Promotional

Only using social networks to send out advertising and marketing messages. On the social web you  need to send out content that your audience wants or else they’ll just ignore you (which is very easy).

Being Too Selfish

Only sending out links and content on your own sites. If you want people to respect you online, share content and links from others in your network.  Give more than you receive.  Follow the 80/20 or 90/10 rule — 80 or 90% of your content and tweets and shares should be either links and content from other sites or content that is helpful or informative to your audience.

Being Too Automated

Only sending out content automatically, auto-following and auto-DMing new followers.  Take the time to look at each new follower and decide whether or not you want to follow them back.  Quality is better than quantity.  If you want to send a message to new followers, do it individually.  Take the time to respond to people personally and thank them when they share your content.

Being Too Inconsistent

If you blog every day for a week one week and then come back a month later, people are going to forget to check your site.  The same goes with Twitter and Facebook and other social networks.  Taking a day off here or there is fine, just try to be consistent in how often you post.

Being Too Overwhelming

Sometimes too much information is overwhelming.  Look for clues from your audience about how much content is right — or better yet, just ask them.

Being Too Personal

While most people err on the side of being too impersonal, some people share things online that they wouldn’t tell a person standing next to them.  Think about what you share and whether you want that information to be public information forever.

Getting it Right

The right mix of content and engagement varies from company to company.  Try social media out.  Get some feedback.  Take a look at what works and what doesn’t and make adjustments.  Keep trying new things and learn about what works with your specific audience.

What do you think? How else do people commonly social network the wrong way?

(photo by Kaiban)

It really isn’t a question anymore.  You need to provide updated content online — whether that’s a blog or other content.  In case you’re still not sure you need a blog for your business, here are nine reasons why I think you do.

But don’t take my word for it.  What do you think?

1. SEO – Search engines look at how often you update your website when ranking it.  With Google’s recent algorithm changes this comes into play even more.  You may have the most perfectly SEO-site, but if you haven’t updated content recently, Google is going to penalize you.
2. Expertise – Potential customers want to learn more about you before they buy.  Blogs are a great way to show of your expertise.
3. Branding – Blogs give people a reason to keep coming back — thereby increasing your name recognition.
4. Freemium – People want something for free.  In this freemium online environment, people expect a little for free.  Providing useful information on a blog qualifies.
5. Personality – People buy from people.  Showing a bit of personality through blogging and other social media goes a long way towards showing the human side of your business.
6. Participation – Participate in the conversation.  No matter what industry you’re in, there’s certainly issues that are debated.  Blogging gives you the opportunity to give your own 2 cents and be seen as a thought-leader (or at least contributor).
7. Cost effective -  While blogging does takes resources — it does take some time to write posts (or record for audio or video posts) — but in the scheme of advertising channels, it’s very affordable.
8. Audience – Increase your reach (& audience & customer).  Blogging opens up your business to an international (or at least national) audience.  It’s one of the most cost-effective ways to reach more people.  Obviously you need to provide content that people want to read.
9. Listening – Open a venue for listening.  While blogging is mostly about providing content, it also can provide a platform for customers and industry colleagues to post their own ideas and comments.

What do you think?  What did I miss?

(photo by websuccessdiva)

We live in a very connected world. Not only can you send messages around the world in a matter of milliseconds, you can automatically update exactly where you are to your social network.  We share a lot of data and information about ourselves. Sharing helps build relationships, but how much sharing is too much?

We tweet amusing thoughts that come to mind.  We checkin to Foursquare.  We like and share and post links to content.  We’re more and more connected to our network, sharing information that we probably wouldn’t even have dared to just a few years ago.

Sharing your thoughts and experiences helps others get to know you.  People are more likely to do business with people they know.  Connecting with people via social media helps strengthen or build relationships with people you have met or will meet in person.

The lines between our personal and private lives are blurring.  What we would have shared only with family and close friends, we’re sending out into the public.  Does this bring us closer together?  Or is some information too much?

Facebook’s recent privacy changes show just tenuous our hold is on our private information and conversations. I’ve always maintained that you should never post or say anything online that you’re not comfortable with having out in the public forever.  But there are conversations that I think are better between just a few people.

Foursquare allows you to check in just about anywhere.  Should you check in at the dentist? What about the urologist? Would you publicize where you are or what you did in a newspaper or on the evening news?

I think there really is a limit to how much information people want about others (including those in their family). Some sharing and information is good.  We get to know more about the people behind the pictures and avatars.  We form deeper, more meaningful relationships.  But, just like the blind date that says too much the first meeting, too much information can be a huge turn off.

What do you think? How much information is too much? Do we share too much?

When designing a website or online service, companies often have a whole slew of great ideas for functionality.  When is enough enough?  Can a simple design suffice?  How do you make choices about what features to incorporate?

Even the simplest of interfaces, Twitter, has begun to add more complexity with new retweet features, lists, trending topics, and more. Aesthetically, “good design” means design that is appealing to the eye, and is easily navigated visually. With this idea, it is important that complex interfaces are well designed so that the users who prefer simplicity do not feel overwhelmed. – Finding the Balance of Design and Functionality (ReadWriteStart)

I believe good design is not separated from good functionality.  In order for a website to be well designed it needs to incorporate the functionality that is needed in a way that makes it easy to use and understand.  There are plenty of pretty websites which I would not classify as “good designs” because they do not make it easy for website visitors to use the site – or even worse, they miss some features that are required in order for the visitor to do what they want.

Good design is important because visitors have so many choices of websites they can use and visit online.  If your site is not both visually appealing and easy to use, people are just going to go elsewhere.  And good design does not mean cluttering your site with links and ads – white space does count too as it allows the eye to visually take in everything your site has to offer.

What do you think good design means?

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Technorati tags: design, usability, business, navigation

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

In your Internet travels you may have seen, “Do not feed the trolls” or DNFTT on a blog or discussion board.  Who or what are these trolls and why shouldn’t you feed them?

In Internet jargon, a troll is usually someone who posts a controversial (and usually offensive) post or comment just to get a rise out of the author or community.  They’re “trolling” for a response.  The Internet makes it pretty easy to be anonymous, which brings out some bad behavior in certain people.

“Do not feed the trolls” or DNFTT means that you should not respond to a troll since that’s exactly what they want you to do.  Most trolls will move on if they’re not given attention, but they may also require some moderation (in the form of blocking or removing posts).

Just about any site which gains popularity will see some trolls.  The more people you have coming to your site, the bigger the audience for the troll.  This isn’t a reason not to encourage comments and conversation.  Just be aware that you may also have to spend some time moderating conversations (which is true even with non-trolls).  It may help to have community guidelines in place before an incident happens.

Troll hasn’t always had such a negative meaning.  There used to be a practice of “trolling for newbies” by encouraging new comers to react to items that experience members knew not to react to.  Still probably not a nice thing to do, but it wasn’t as nasty as some of the more recent trolls.

I hope this helps you understand what a troll is in terms of the Internet.  For more reading, check out the Wikipedia article.

What’s been your experience with trolls?  How do you contain or deal with them?

(photo by kevindooley @ Flickr CC)

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Technorati Tags: comments, commenting, community, troll, social media, social media strategy, social networks, social networking, internet marketing, marketing

Many people I talk to don’t know what RSS is and so they’re confused about how it might be important for their business.  RSS, which stands for Really Simple Syndication, and is sometimes just called a feed, is a way for one website to send out it’s content in a way that other websites and programs can easily read. Most people are actually already using feeds, they’re just not aware of it.

You’re probably already using RSS…

Do you have your blog or website content post to Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter?  That’s done using RSS feeds.  Do you use Ping.fm to update multiple social networks? Feeds. How about Friendster? Yup.  Subscribe to blogs? You’re subscribing to their feeds.  Download podcasts? Done with feeds. Much of the handling of feeds is done automatically by the websites and programs we use, so much so that you may not be aware that you’re already using them.

Why RSS feeds are important for your business

Having RSS feeds for all the content you update regularly is important so that it can be distributed as widely as possible.  Feeds make it easy to re-purpose content where ever you want.  Have your Tweets show up on your website (using feeds).  Send your blog to Facebook (using feeds).  Whatever it may be, feeds send your content out to a much wider audience than is possible without feeds.

But I want everyone to read my content on my website…

Get over yourself.  What’s important is that people actually read your content.  If you refuse to use feeds because you want people to come to your website, you’re missing out on connecting with a larger audience.  People who subscribe to your feeds are probably reading your content much more often than those that have to remember to come to your website.  People will come to your website when they want to interact directly with you – or when they need information.  Use feeds to build your reputation and get your message out there.

Added bonus…

When you have feeds for your website content, you’re also making it easier for various search engines and crawlers to find your content and be updated when you add new content.  Having search engines know when you have new content can help with your rankings.

How do I get a feed?

If you’re using blogging software such as WordPress or Blogger (and many others) you probably already have a feed.  Most content management systems (CMS) also provide the ability to create feeds for content. You’ll have to check the support information for your software, or ask your webmaster, for more information on how your particular website can have a feed.

Checking for feeds

To see if you have a feed already, try to subscribe to your blog or website using MyYahoo or Google’s personalized webpage.  You can also look for an RSS image in your browser (some support reading feeds in the browser), which may look like:

Do you already use RSS feeds for your business? How?

Additional Reading on RSS feeds:

• RSS – Syndicate Your Content
• 8 Places to Syndicate Your Business Content
• Set Your Content Free
• How to Find RSS Feeds on the Web (WikiHow)
• RSS: What it is, Where to get it, How to make it, How to use it (interleaves)

(photo by takomabibelot @ Flickr CC)

Technorati tags: content strategy, marketing, content, rss, business, strategy

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