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.
Sep
30
2009
Ask Sazbean – What’s Creative Commons?
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.
Aug
19
2009
Twitter, Tweets and the Twittering Tweeple Who Tweet Them
I still see a lot of people (and companies) misusing Twitter, so I thought I’d take this opportunity to address a few issues and make comments on how I use Twitter. Twitter can be a very useful tool for your business, if used properly. Here’s a few thoughts:…
Jul
30
2009
Why RSS is So Important For Your Business That You’re Probably Already Using It
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.
Jul
14
2009
Use Twitterfeed to Automate Sending Feeds to Twitter
You have a blog and you want your posts to automatically be tweeted without having to remember to do it. Or you’re reading articles on Google Reader and you’d like to have interesting ones sent automatically to Twitter. Twitterfeed takes any RSS feed and automatically sends new posts to Twitter for you. But you’ll have quite a bit of control over how the feed works…
Jul
13
2009
When They Can't Figure Out Your Site, People Turn to Search – Have One?
Usually when people come to a website, they’re looking for something. And they hope they can find it on the first page, but if not, most are willing to scan the page to see if there’s a link that may lead them there. This behavior really points out the importance both of properly organizing the information on your website, as well as having a navigation/menu system that people can quickly and easily understand.
Jul
07
2009
Your Website is Your Business Card
What does your paper business card look like? It probably has your name, your company logo, some contact information and maybe a quick tagline summarizing what your company does. People can find all the information they need to contact you just by glancing at your card.
Jul
02
2009
Why Blogging Is Important to Businesses
I was talking to a colleague the other day and she said she had a web developer tell her client that blogging wasn’t important for a business. Shocking. Blogging is one of the easiest ways to have constantly updated content on your website. It’s a way to show off your expertise, have an opinion, and get noticed. I think blogging is extremely important for businesses, here’s why:
Jun
23
2009
Create a Free Mobile Website with Winksite and Keep All The Revenue Too
If you’re in the market for a quick and easy mobile website, Winksite is worth a look. A free account allows you to create up to 5 different mobile sites, which can each be customized from Winksite’s library of functionality (which they call channels). Creating a site is as easy as giving it a name and a unique url (all linked off of winksite.com), and choosing what types of content you want to offer on your site. The creation process starts with up to 3 pages of text, an option to mobilize your blog (via RSS), and choices from the community & collaboration channels (such as events, feeds, notes, chat, forum, surveys, guestbooks, and links). You have the option of whether your site appears in Winksite’s directory and under what category and location (and content rating).
The interesting part of a Winksite mobile site is all the community functions (channels) you can include to increase return engagement. Such channels include a journal, feeds, links, events, reports, notes, chat, forum, surveys, zine, and guestbook to create an almost Facebook-like social site around your mobile site. You can also invite people to become members of your site, send broadcasts to members and send messages to other winksite’s.
Winksite currently does not offer any statistics other than basics (visits, members), but David Harper, Founder of Winksite, mentioned that may be a revenue model they’ll pursue in the near future. Winksite integrates with several different mobile advertising platforms, including Google AdSense, admob, admoda and others. You can control which channels ads showup on, as well as ad frequency and placement (top, botton, random, or top & bottom). 100% of the revenue collected from advertising is retained by the site owner, who can also create what are called self-service ads to advertise sponsors or self-promotions.
While their terms of service clearly says the Winksite’s service is for non-commercial use only, Harper says that they have many commercial sites using the service and have no problem with other commercial organizations using the site. Harper’s long term goal is to get as many eyeballs on their mobilized sites as possible and build value eventually (he compared their business plan to Google’s). Winksite has allowed Harper and parent company, Wireless Ink Corporation, to gather deep consumer insights into the mobile market, which they use for other paid services they offer and are developing (mobile sharing/consulting, etc.). With over 60,000 publishers, including large companies such as Warner, Nokia, and Atlantic records, Winksite’s services are probably “safe” for use for other companies.
Give Winksite a try and let me know what you think.
Technorati tags: winksite, mobile, marketing, mobile advertising, business
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Jun
05
2009
12 Ways to Get Ideas for Business Blogging
I have a lot of people ask me how I come up with ideas to blog about every day. It’s not that difficult – I just end up thinking quite a bit about various topics that can also be used for blog posts. Not all the time, mind you, but I do carry around various devices (iphone, pen & paper) to record ideas when they do hit. Here’s some ways to get ideas:
- Read – a lot – Other blogs, Twitter feeds, books. Anything related to your area of business (and some that aren’t) can spark a great blog post.
- Ask – your customers, your colleagues, your friends. What have they always wanted to know about (related to your business/industry)?
- Help – Provide helpful information, not only specific to your products and services, but related to your industry in general.
- Brainstorm – Sometimes just a regular old brainstorming session surfaces some great new post ideas.
- Spark – some controversy – Within reason, feel free to have and state an opinion related to your industry. Just do it in a friendly way, back up what you say and invite others to comment.
- Converse – with other bloggers. Post your thoughts on what others are blogging about.
- Share – links to other sources of information. Feel free to add your thoughts and comments.
- Review – products and services of interest to your readers. Skip your own (and probably those of your competitors).
- Support – take a look at questions your customers are frequently asking. If you have a FAQ (frequently asked questions), take the time to expand on them in various postings.
- Inform – Keep your readers aware of various events, industry happenings and news of interest.
- Create – If you’ve been able to gather some information or data that may be of interest to your readers/customers, create white papers and supporting blog posts to share your findings.
- Reuse – Take old posts and update them. If you do list posts like this one, take them and expand on the individual items in larger posts.
For tips on how to get started, check out today’s post over on Insights Group – Blogging, Are You?
How do you get ideas for business blogging?
(photo by apesara @ Flickr CC)
Technorati tags: content strategy, blogging strategy, blogging, content, strategy, business, marketing
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- Do You Have a Blogging Strategy?
- 11 Tips for Getting Readers for Your Business Blog
- Business Blogging – What to Write
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