I had a meeting with a client yesterday who was getting very discouraged because he hadn’t yet received any comments on his blog. His discouragement meant that he wasn’t blogging as often as he should because he wasn’t seeing the value in it. Unfortunately, this sporadic blogging can lead to a downward spiral which will lead to a self-fulfilling failure. While blogging at first can feel like you’re talking to yourself, patience and dedication almost always pay off.
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Oct
25
2010
14 Basic Blog Measurements
Once you’ve started blogging, you want to know how you’re doing, especially if you haven’t had much interaction (yet). Starting to blog can be frustrating since there’s not much feedback right away. Like other marketing efforts, blogging will be more successful if you measure results to see what’s working (and what’s not). Here are 14 basic blog measurements to help you get an idea of how your blog is doing… Most of these statistics are available in Google Analytics.
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Oct
22
2010
Building Relationships by Commenting
Commenting on blogs, posts, videos, and others types of content is a great way to build relationships, not only with the content producers, but also others who see the content. However, treating comments as link bait (commenting just to get people to click on your link), can have just the opposite effect. Such comments can actually hurt you in the long run (plus most blogs and websites have do-not-follow rules for links in comments). Build successful relationships via comments with these tactics…
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Nov
05
2009
Ask Sazbean – How do I make it easier for readers to share my blog posts?
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.
Aug
10
2009
Why I Moved Off WordPress.com
In December of last year we decided to move our blog from a hosted WordPress to WordPress.com (abbreviated as WP.com). I wrote about the advantages and disadvantages in the post Moving to WordPress.com – What to Consider. For several months it remained the right place for our blog and I still think it was the correct decision at the time. But many of the advantages of hosting with WordPress.com have actually been overridden by updates to the WordPress software. Here are the key reasons we went back to a hosted WordPress…
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Feb
23
2009
Ask Sazbean – What's a Pingback?
Sandra from Brighton (MI), asks:
Can you explain what a pingback is?
A pingback is when another blog links to an article on your blog and their blogging software automatically notifies your blogging software of the link (also works with websites). Usually blogging software will then put a link on your article with a link to the page linking to it. Sounds a bit confusing, but it just lets you and your readers know who has linked to a particular article and posts a link to it so anyone can go see what was said.
Since part of blogging is having a conversation, pingbacks make it possible to know when someone may be saying something about what you’ve said. Reversely, if you comment on someone else’s articles, they’ll know about it. It’s also a way to get some extra traffic to your blog – readers often follow links to get more information on a particular subject.
Have a question you’d like an answer to? Just email us and we’d be happy to help.
Nov
10
2008
What is Social Media?
I had an interesting conversation recently about social media. It seems that a lot of business owners kind of know what it means. If you ask them about it they’ll say “oh is that like facebook or something?” or “it’s media that’s social”. But if you try to dig deeper into what that actually means you’ll get a mixture of answers.
Social media is media that is social. But it goes beyond Facebook or MySpace. Social media is any type of media in which there is, at least, a two-way conversation – usually a multi-way conversation. Social media is about engaging the audience and having them respond to you and to each other.
Social media is also about a philosophy of listening (instead of shouting). Just using media that is social does not make it that way. If you have a blog but never reach out to your readers and never respond to what they are saying, you’re not being very social. Even if you don’t have a blog, you can listen to what your customers are saying on their blogs and respond to their concerns.
Social media are primarily Internet- and mobile-based tools for sharing and discussing information among human beings. The term most often refers to activities that integrate technology, telecommunications and social interaction, and the construction of words, pictures, videos and audio. This interaction, and the manner in which information is presented, depends on the varied perspectives and “building” of shared meaning among communities, as people share their stories and experiences. – Wikipedia – Social Media
Let me highlight the most important aspect of this definition:
“building” of shared meaning among communities
Social media is not just about your story or your company’s story. It’s about the shared meaning you create with your customers as you interact with them and they with each other.
What story are you building with your customers?
(photo by victoriapeckham @ Flickr CC)
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