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The social component is thought by many to be the true spirit of what we obsessively hear called as the Web 2.0. Not the round font logos, nor pink or blue gradients.

The need for more human interaction and developing an online identity has lead to the apparition of thousands of social networks and social media platforms out of which only a few managed to get the blessing of the masses. What set them apart from the rest? What made them turn from social experiments to successful businesses? The user, their biggest asset.

Power to the people

During development stages and also while growing in popularity, these social media platforms understood the need to focus on what users wanted or needed:

• The means to connect with people who they shared interests with;
• The means to discover content based on their own interests;
• The means to become an important part of a community.

Driven by such needs, some members of these social networks turned into what we call power users. They were the most prolific users of each platform, gathering masses of other users around them, sharing the most content and most times acting like evangelists for the services they used.

The idea of one day becoming one themselves, of wielding the power that such users have, attracted more and more people to these social networks, giving them the boost required to reach mainstream and go beyond, turning them into the multi-million dollar businesses we know them to be today: Facebook, StumbleUpon, Digg, Twitter.

Social Media is shifting perspectives

The mirage of power users also had the unlucky, but somehow normal, outcome of attracting people who’d want to bend the rules and exploit the system in order to obtain personal benefits. So, unlike our wall-climbing-building-jumping superhero Spiderman, they did not get the fact that “with great power comes great responsibility”. Also, to an extent, the social media platforms themselves, turned into online business superheroes, neglected the concept completely and focused their actions against power users instead of thriving to come up with solutions to prevent such exploits. They chose the path of reaction instead of action and so, a witchhunt began.

The people that were once their most respected assets and their closest allies were forbidden to do any kind of self promotion, no matter the percentage of it compared to the contribution they made to growing the platform, nor the fact that most times, this so called self promotion was nothing more than addition of new content, quality content even. When money is involved and these platforms offer advertising methods to “self promote”, you have to be at least the next online Messiah, sharing fish and bread to the people expecting nothing in return.

Power from the people

Such is the case of StumbleUpon and more recently Digg. The idea of being a StumbleUpon power user was at some point similar to being some sort of modern Robin Hood. You’d have to keep quiet, do your thing and hope you won’t get noticed by the local SU sheriff. Shortly, Digg followed in their footsteps hunting such high profile users to the extent of banning them from ever using the service again. How dare they get any kind of profit from using the platform and not share it in part with the owners?

On the other hand, we have the platforms that have always encouraged you to be as active as you can, with limited restrictions (mostly common sense restrictions) and let the rest of the users decide if you’re worth following and thus becoming a power user or not. A notable example would definitely be Twitter .

Have you ever seen a Twitter user being banned because they dared share a link to their own website or blog, unless it’s a shady business or pornographic content? I haven’t. Indeed, Twitter is yet to discover its own successful money making recipe which might turn things around at a later stage.

And what about Digg’s new approach? The power users are still there, only they are not real people. They have been replaced with large media corporations and publishing groups that pump steroids into their content with the help of Digg users. Why aren’t they hunted down? The answer is truly simple: money. They bring in the cash for the platform, but their success depends on the mass-appeal of the platform. This way, the old creed of “power to the people” shifted to “power from the people”.  But how long will this last?

People started noticing that StumbleUpon is nothing but a way to pump up your Alexa rank. While a few years back this would have meant the world for a website’s advertising efforts, now that most advertisers seek results and real conversions, that you have more chances to get through cost-per-click or cost-per-lead than with the old cost-per-mile model, StumbleUpon’s model is outdated and thus has severely decreased in popularity a lot.

For Digg it’s just the beginning. When people will start realizing that their content will virtually have no chance to outrun the competing corporate content, they’ll abandon ship and Digg will be forced to either reconsider its position or take the fall.

These are the past and the present of social media, and unless the user is the center of attention of both, there will be no future.

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We’ve already established that how you act on Twitter is paramount in determining your success when using this microblogging platform. What you say, how you engage others, how you act towards them, all these matter in positioning you as either an ideal Twitter user to follow or a nuisance.

The following question is how to effectively choose people to follow on Twitter. There are literally millions of options to choose from and in most cases you know nothing of that user prior to seeing their Twitter profile page. What should you look for, what criteria are there to be used to decide if clicking the follow button is a good choice?

Again, this does not necessarily apply to people you know or whose work you follow. If your favorite bloggers are tweeting, of course you will follow them. You will probably also follow some friends and relatives for diversity. But these are people you already trust or look up to and the value of their tweets needs no further proofs.

1. Check out the numbers

How many people do they follow? How many follow them back? How many tweets have they posted already? If for example the person you want to follow has been tweeting for a week, has 3 tweets, follows 1500 people and only 5 follow them back, of which 3 are bots, that user is not someone you should follow.

If on the other hand they follow 10 people and tens of thousands follow them back, they won’t be a valuable Twitter connection. The most common scenario is that you’ll follow them, they won’t follow back, you will never engage in a meaningful conversation with them.

2. Check out their content

Is what they tweet interesting to you or your own followers? If the content they post is not in any way related to the fields or activities you’re interested in, following them makes no sense. Some people you follow for the great information they post, relevant to your job or line of business, some you follow because they cover your hobbies or passions, some you just follow because their tweets are a great way to relax. Of course, the reason you follow them might be the same for which other people follow you and retweeting their messages might be valuable to you. But if what they post is something you may as well leave without, the logical decision is to continue to ignore them.

3. Check out their conversations

Do they retweet other people’s stuff? How many people to they exchange replies with? If you’re on Twitter, you’re there to exchange ideas with other people, share tips and offer advice and be introduced to fresh content to users you might not be introduced to otherwise. If the only thing you get from following someone is fresh news from a field, there are dozens of other services that broadcast constantly.

4. Check out tweet frequency

If a certain user has not posted an update to their Twitter account in over three months, they probably won’t use that account again. They might come back later, but following them just to add a number to your counter has little value of any kind.

If they post on a regular basis, also check out how many tweets they post each day. Some people are power users that post a few updates every 5 minutes. If that does not bother you, then follow ahead. If you cringe at the thought of too many messages flooding your stream, step away from their profile

What do you check before deciding who to follow on Twitter? Which are the best criteria you’ve used up to now?

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It’s been already established that Twitter is a great channel to form relationships, network and connect. Moreover, it is a great tool bloggers have to promote their writings. If your followers read the stories you tweet about, retweet them to their own connections, it translates into more traffic, more comments and leads for the business part of your blog.

While some get great results when using Twitter, others fail to see any positive outcome from their 140 character writing endeavor. Who are these users that get all the attention and added benefits of traffic, always more followers and business success? Let’s see how ideal Twitter users look like!

They are not self-absorbed

Twitter users with steady crowds reading fervently their every update don’t think the world revolves around them. They don’t exclusively tweet their own stuff, urging others to worship them. The only such users that actually are successful are the stars and wannabe stars in the entertainment world, and they are the exception to the general rule – narcissism does not work in social media!

They value conversations

Twitter is not just broadcasting your own products and services. It’s about engaging in meaningful conversations with your network. Be it to find out how they’ve been, to advise them or share some useful piece of news, popular Twitter users talk a lot with their followers.

They are the first to offer something

Power users know that the examples they set will most likely be followed. If they engage their online friends, if they answer their questions, if they retweet their stories, the same will happen to them. You cannot simply show up on Twitter, post a few updates and expect everyone to drop everything and concentrate on you. Most of them follow hundreds of people and need to notice you first. What better way to discover you than a reply or a retweet with a valuable comment.

They respect their followers’ interests

If you’re an expert in a field, have an unusual hobby that you tweet about, have a niche blog, your followers most likely read your tweets for that very reason. You can mix it up with personal updates, funny videos and other such casual conversations, but most of your tweets will be about your topic of interest, the one generally described in your Twitter bio.

If people have followed you because you initially posted a lot of great resources for small business and you switch to ranting about unimportant, unrelated details and only write a useful tweet once a week, they are bound to leave.

In conclusion, the recipe for success is not complicated, at least not in theory. All you have to do to be a successful Twitter user is to get to know the community you are about to join, find out what their interests and preferences are, then join the conversation and try to help whenever you can. The rest is mostly based on reciprocity and being nice.

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Despite being a trend these days, the Do It Yourself concept – referred to as DIY from here on – is nothing new. It’s been around since the Stone Age, ever since people decided to use sticks and rocks as tools and weapons. So, if you think you’re one inch cooler than the next guy, forget it, you’re getting the whole concept wrong.

Who should go for DIY?

There are three types of people that should go for DIY, and three only:

• Industry PROs;
• Industry savvy people;
• Amateurs.

Let see what each of them can achieve through DIY.

Industry PROs & DIY

Clearly, being a professional in the field you’re looking to apply DIY is a major perk. You’ve got what it takes, you have the knowledge, you have the skills and obviously the results are going to be of pro-level.

Industry savvy people & DIY

Being savvy with the online environment – for example – might help you get decent results through DIY. You’ve got the love for it, you’ve got some basic aptitudes, but don’t expect professional results. Such results are achieved through hard years of learning and working. Don’t get me wrong, pro-results can be a reality, but with a lot of time invested and quite a few trial-and-error mishaps.

Amateurs & DIY

If you’re looking to DIY and you know you’re an amateur at it, expect nothing else than amateurish results. Period.

Who should NOT go for DIY

If you’re not in any of the three categories above, then DIY is not for you. If you believe that you can boost your professional image (as a PRO in another field) by doing an amateurish DIY job, you’re wrong. It’s only going to hurt your professional appearance. Get some cash, settle a barter and let a PRO handle it. Do you think that a professional cars salesman (really good at his/her job) can benefit from a poorly executed DIY website? I don’t.

In my experience – and yet I let other people judge the level of my skills – it took me about 11 years to reach my current level of expertise, 11 years of being a web designer and more recently blogger. Where I lacked the formal training for it, I compensated with self-education, reading and lots of trials and errors.

Now, tell me what’s your story with DIY?

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OK, I’ve been dying to write about this for a while so bear with me for a little rant-type of post in today’s schedule. With the explosion of all social media websites and platforms like WordPress and Blogger, nowadays everyone has access to publishing and networking. The more time passes, the more such “Internet Marketer” and “Social Media Expert” profiles seem to rises around us, invading our Twitter accounts – following – and our Facebook accounts – connecting.

In a tough economical climate and with the rapid development that has always been the online’s industry trademark, it’s only natural for people to try different ideas and approaches as means to create either an extra income or a stable full-time income in this field. That’s understandable, but what I simply don’t get is where do these “experts” come from?

It’s a job like any other

Being an Internet / Social Media Marketer is a regular job, not much different than being a teacher or a policeman, for example. So if it’s just a job, I’m yet to see that person on Twitter – let’s say – that describes his/her job position as “Junior Internet Marketer”. Have you seen any? Let me answer that for you: NO.

We’re living in a world where being and Internet Marketer is not a qualification, but rather a personal decision, and where the “Expert” title is not earned by the appreciation of others or results of your work, but rather a catchy term that acts like a “nice bling” on your profile.

In a world where a self-titled Social Media Expert follows 3000 people on Twitter and has 4000 followers you know you’re bound to waste time and money if you put your trusts in the wrong hands. And to further express my worries about this topic: Have you ever looked at some of these Experts’ websites, blogs or even their big-bold-italic-red-titled-dash-bordered-money-back-guaranteed sales e-letters? Maybe I’m just crazy, but tell me in which universe a person that doesn’t put up the money to get a decent design (an investment in his/her own image – self-marketing/self-promotion) would qualify as an expert to teach us or promote our products/services?

Open your eyes

Take a good look at the reality around you. Want to see how a real Internet Marketer looks like? An expert? There you go: Chris Brogan, and if you don’t agree with me, check the stats:

• ~60.000 blog subscribers (not counting daily casual readers);
• ~145.000 Twitter followers (can you imagine the exposure?);
• Marketing business owner/president;
• Published book author;
• Top 5 in AdAge Power 150;
• Speaker at countless industry events and workshops;
• And the list could go on and on…

Now, if everyone else is an expert, what should Chris do? Start a religion? And before it passes your mind – NO – this post is not sponsored by Chris, although I bet he pays decently.

What needs to change?

The answer is so simple: We should all exercise our decency. Truth and honesty about our own abilities and performance would take us further than a faked-blinged-out profile. The road from spare-time blogger or work-at-home blogger to Social Media Marketer / Expert is long, and although many take it, less than a handful reach the end. Just remember that along this path, there are crossroads that we call stages, and through which you have to go. You cannot jump to the statute of Expert just because you wish to.

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In yesterday’s post I have shared some light on two of Facebook’s most attractive features for bloggers, the Facebook Like and Facebook Share buttons. While the decision of which one of the two use is your own (though the general answer seems to point to “Like”), today I’m going to talk about another feature that Facebook has improved and re-released back in June: Facebook Insights.

Through Facebook Insights you can gain free access to a whole bunch of highly useful information about your users’ behavior, their like/share habits and pretty decent demographics analytics, since Facebook uses their own user profile system to provide the information (and we all like to fill in our profile info, right?).

While Facebook Insights provides analytics data for Facebook Apps too, for bloggers probably the most interesting segments of this data are those that reflect the users’ like/share/reshare habits on Facebook accounts attached domains and the Facebook Pages created by their owners.

Getting Facebook Insights for your domain

Attaching a domain to the Facebook Insights is a straight forward job. All you have to do is to access the Facebook Insights dashboard and follow the 3 easy steps described in the image below:

Once you’ve completed these simple steps, you’ll gain access to a set of domain overall analytics data, as well as per URL data, by request, by entering the desired URL from your domain in a classic input box. Here are some eloquent screenshots of the data the Facebook Insights provides:

Facebook Insights: Likes vs. Shares

Facebook Insights: Demographics Analytics

With Facebook Insights, your choice is easier

Now you have a better tool to help you decide which button works best for your blog: Facebook Like or Facebook Share. Although my personal favorite is the Like button, I’d recommend using both of them for a while and simply compare in the Facebook Insights dashboard which one performs better, and only take a decision after you’ve come to a strong conclusion.

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Soon after one starts blogging, the fact that just posting the entries and waiting for an indefinite “them” to come is not really working well hits you. Posts need exposure, especially for new blogs that don’t have an established readership. Even when we’re talking about a well known blog, the audience has its preferences when it comes to where they like to receive the latest updates. And Facebook is one of those places where you can reach a lot of new or returning visitors.

As it happens with any other social media channel, the blog author’s connections are limited. But their readers come with their own friends that might be interested in what the blogger has to say. So making it easy for them to share your fresh stories on Facebook is important. You’re faced with two options – going for the Facebook Share button or choosing the Facebook Like or Recommend button that’s so popular right now.

Most times, Share buttons are placed at the beginning of the post. They’re easy to spot and a visitor shares the story with a few clicks. Recommend or Like buttons are usually smaller and harder to spot, especially when there are no prior recommendations. Yet when a few people have already clicked the like button, you’ll see how many of them have done so and if they are people in your network, their photos will also appear.

The names of those who have already recommended the story add credibility. If your friends, the people whose updates you follow, think this story is worth reading and sharing, it probably is. The one seeing the recommendations will more likely read and share it.

It’s also important to note that a single click on the Facebook Like button is a lot easier than a Share. People find it fast and painless and don’t think of it as a big effort. They just push the button and continue to read the story or its comments.

If you’re inclined to choose the Like button, you now need to consider Facebook visibility! A simple like comes with a quick update on the Facebook feeds saying X likes the Z story. A share comes with a link to the story, an excerpt and eventually a photo. If the person sharing it adds their comments, they will also show up on their wall and in their friends news streams.

The trick is the Facebook Like button also allows visitors to add their comments and share the story. But people sometimes overlook this feature. The option to add your comments and post them to your Facebook page shows up after liking the story. So a second action is required, which some would choose to say no to.

Best solution to decide which to use? Trial and error! Add each button to your website and see how people react. Add them both for further testing and see what the outcome is. Then decide which button suits you better!

Have you added Facebook Like and/or Facebook Share buttons to your blog? Which worked better in your case?

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There are a lot of bloggers out there that write great content and even if they get a decent amount of traffic, some of them don’t seem to have a lot of interaction with their readers. On top of that, some of them might discover your site from the search engines and never come back again, even if they liked it. Seriously, they could have forgotten your URL or website name.

Your goal is to grow as much as possible with your current traffic. There are many different ways to get more traffic to your blog or website, but why not establish a better connection with your current readers from the start. Master this and then you can work on getting more unique visitors later on. So listed below are some ways to accomplish this and brand your website or blog:

1. Email Optin Newsletter Form

One of my favorite suggestions is to display an email opt in newsletter form on your site. If you’re using a WordPress blog platform, then you can place it in a widget on the side. In order to get an opt in form, you will need to sign up for a email service such as Aweber, Constant Contact, along with multiple others out there.

Another tip is to choose a newsletter form that is eye popping and has a good call to action. Then once you got a large list of email subscribers, you can easily email them about a new post that you made. This is more direct than having them subscribe to an RSS feed because the message is sent straight to their email address. RSS feed subscriptions can also be powerful and should be used along with email newsletters. Also, RSS is free so don’t forget to display a RSS feed on the site as well.

2. Subscribe to Comments Plugin

Another favorite tip is to use a free plugin called “Subscribe to Comments” for WordPress. Quick Online Tips uses this itself as shown on the bottom of the comments section and all they have to do is check the box. This allows readers to get email notifications after they submit a comment. That way they don’t have to keep checking up on the blog to see if someone answered their question.They just get an email that shows any comments placed after them and it gets more exposure to your blog so they are more likely to reply to the conversation. It gets them coming back to your blog.

3. Social Media

This has been discussed before, but you sometimes need to do more than the average person does. Instead of posting to social media sites and expect people to start following you, go out and read other peoples information and leave comments. You should look for targeted and similar subject areas. For an example, in Facebook you can do a search for your topic and register on a fan or group page. Sometimes there are thousands of people registered on one fan page. By interacting with a large fan page and leaving a link to your site in the signature can help get people to notice you.

4. Conversations with Readers

My third tip is to actually interact with your readers on the blog. Write a sentence or two at the end of your blog post telling them how much you would appreciate a comment or tell them to ask a question. Then come and reply to their questions or think of some to ask them. Usually having them ask questions will help lead you to more blog post ideas because some people start to become stuck with new ideas to write about. So this can be a big helper to keep your blog fresh with ideas and the readers will be more eager to come back for the whole post.

I hope this has helped and if you implement these tips you will see your blog grow. With that said, please share your own experiences, or thoughts or any question that you might have. I appreciate any feedback or if you have a tip, leave it in the comments section. Thank you!

About the Author

This is a guest post by writer Eric Woolf from the Pixels and Dots web design team. Please leave him your comments below or on the Pixels and Dots blog.

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As promised a while back, I’ve finished editing the Corporate Blogging Guide in PDF eBook format. So, today I give you the chapters you’ve had the chance to read online plus a whole new chapter (8. Technical aspects) and some bonus tips to guide you in your corporate blogging adventures!

How to download the eBook?

In order to download the ebook, all you have to do is to subscribe for free to Blogsessive’s RSS feed (if you haven’t done so until now) and you’ll find the download link at the end of each article in the feed.

eBook preview and contents

Here are two screenshots of the book’s cover and the contents page:

Don’t forget to subscribe…

… to Blogsessive’s RSS feed to download the eBook and to stay updated. There are plenty more freebies in the works, including a new WordPress theme and my second eBook: “From Zero to Blogging Hero: 100 Blogging Tips”

Enjoy the eBook friends!

PS: Please do not link to the download link in the feed. Instead, if you wish to promote this ebook, link to this post. Otherwise, I will consider it spam and wrongful usage!

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A blog’s success is measured through both its number of active readers or of RSS subscribers and its performance in traffic: number of page views, of unique visitors, popularity, page rank and many others.

There are a few methods to obtain the needed statistics to track and measure such indicators.

1. Access and traffic statistics

Google, the most powerful and popular search engine in the world, provides bloggers with traffic statistics though its free Google Analytics service.

By choosing a free Google Analytics account, you can view stats regarding your blog’s page views, number of unique or returning visitors, keywords used to reach your blog, the most visited pages you have posted, geographical tracking of your visitors and much more.

Google Analytics is currently considered to be a very accurate and relevant tool. Other services you might consider are StatCounter or Woopra with its live tracking and analytics features.

2. Indexing statistics

The number of pages indexed by a search engine and their position in search tops reflect the indexing rank of a site.

Do you want to find what your indexing results are for two of the most important search engines are? Google and Yahoo offer you two critical tools for any website administrator:

1. Google Webmaster Tools (XML Sitemaps)
2. Yahoo! Site Explorer

You can check the number pages from your website indexed by Google by typing the following in the search box:

site:www.domainname.com

You can also check the number of outside links your website’s pages receive by typing the following:

link:www.domainname.com

3. Popularity statistics

Traffic, accessibility, search engine exposure levels as well as content relevancy and its focus on certain niches all contribute to your blog’s popularity.

The popularity is statistically tracked by a range of online services, of which the most relevant are:

1. Alexa
2. Compete
3. Quantcast
4. Technorati (Blog dedicated service)

4. Statistics’ relevance

A thorough analysis of your blog’s stats will help you identify its strong spots and the type of content best suited for its audience. It will also help you determine its weak spots or to improve your content and focus more on covering certain areas of interest.

Yet make sure you never forget that blogs are maintained through relevant, interesting and fresh content, not statistics!

This concludes the “Corporate Blogging Guide”! I hope you all found it useful and share it with those who you think might need the information provided here. A PDF version of the guide is also in the works and will include an additional chapter.

Other chapters of the Corporate Blogging Guide

Chapter 1: Introduction to Blogging
Chapter 2: Critical Questions Before Launching a Corporate Blog
Chapter 3: Setting up Goals and Blog Positioning
Chapter 4: Types of Corporate Blogs
Chapter 5: Blog Editors & Editorial Policy
Chapter 6: Blogging Tips to Get You Started
Chapter 7: Blog Performance Tracking Tools (current)

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Regardless of the blog type you choose, be it personal or corporate, the following pieces of advice are meant to guide your steps in your future blogging activity. These are the most important blog tips you’ll need to follow when starting a new blogging adventure!

1. Look for ideas at any time and in any place

A conversation in the subway, a debate or piece of news heard on the car radio, anything can turn into a new topic for your blog. Keep your mind open and tune your hearing, combine them with good analysis skills and you will have some killer weapons in your arsenal.

2. Raise and maintain interest

An attractive first paragraph is not enough to maintain the reader’s interest throughout your blog post. “Start big, finish bigger”. Provide new hooks in small doses to keep your readers interest throughout the article.

3. Generate the conversation and take part in it

Often times, bloggers are compared to journalists, and their blogs to newspapers (usually tabloids, not broadsheets). Yet blogs and online newspapers differ exactly where they are also alike – the comments section. Newspapers use the comments section to allow users to express their frustrations and almost never moderate them. The classic journalistic style rarely requires an answer or any feedback, usually being limited to presenting the facts or expressing an opinion.

The main ace bloggers play is their power to start conversations and to keep them going by being part of them.

4. Make sure you provide quality information

If your new blog post is based on personal opinions, make sure they have the required features to become points of reference. If you’ve used other sources for it, make sure you check their credibility and quality first.

5. Never promise more than you can give

Failing to deliver everything you have promised will lead to a significant decrease in a blog’s credibility and popularity. Teasers do work, but only if what you were teasing readers with becomes reality.

6. Offer help

Nothing pleases blog followers more than getting help from a field expert. Whenever you have a spare moment, help those in need of your professional help. Make sure to reply their comments and their emails.

7. Links are sacred

Are you quoting a source? Then link to it! Are you publishing survey results or statistics? Link to those who have created them. Are you expressing your opinion regarding something that has been published on another blog or online outlet? Link to the initial article. Why?

1. Because it helps prove the quality of the provided information and places them in a broader context;
2. Because it is a nice way to thank those who have inspired you to find a new topic for your blog.

If you have already discussed a certain topic in previous posts, link to them at the end of the current article. This helps those interested in the topic to get more details on it.

Additionally, a solid inbound and outbound linking policy will help your blog rank better in search engines.

8. Never, ever…

Do any of the following:

1. Attack someone else’s stand on an issue if you are not 100% sure of your own. Make sure to provide arguments to sustain it;
2. Publish someone else’s content without having their permission to do so.
3. Start open conflicts with your blog commentators. Keep your cool!
4. Allow the needs vs. solutions balance incline towards the former in your posts. Provide more solutions than debates over what’s needed.
5. Shy away from commenting on similar or competing blogs. As long as you don’t do it to shamelessly plug your blog or attach the author, your contributions will be valued and will direct more readers towards your own posts.
6. Take all blogging advice as laws. They are only pieces of advice. Experiment with them and see which work better in your case.
7. Fill your blog up with plugins, widgets and other useless elements. We are ultimately talking about a corporate blog. You really do not want to compete in MTV’s “Pimp my blog” competition!
8. Postpone for too long your blogging platform and plugins update. Don’t be the first to do it either, to make sure bugs are found and solved, but don’t be the last one either!

9. And the most important piece of advice…

….I’m going to ever give you is to never be afraid of EXPERIMENTING. Experiment with different tones, new post types, new topic approaches.

Stay fresh!

Other chapters of the Corporate Blogging Guide

Chapter 1: Introduction to Blogging
Chapter 2: Critical Questions Before Launching a Corporate Blog
Chapter 3: Setting up Goals and Blog Positioning
Chapter 4: Types of Corporate Blogs
Chapter 5: Blog Editors & Editorial Policy
Chapter 6: Blogging Tips to Get You Started (current)
Chapter 7: Blog Performance Tracking Tools

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Depending on the type of corporate blog you’re targeting, you can then put together an editorial team. To make sure you correctly appoint those in charge of content generation and blog management, you need to consider the following criteria:

1. Criteria to help build the editorial team

The future bloggers needs to be/have:

1. Experts in the filed they are going to cover;
2. A good communicator, able to manage potential communication crises arising from dialogues and feedback generated by the blog;
3. Concise, clear and explicit when they express themselves, as they will not target only those who are in their turn experts and are acquainted to the field’s jargon;
4. Believable and genuine in what the provided information is concerned;
5. A human touch and a pleasant manner of writing;
6. Ready to face a reduced level of privacy in their lives, at least in what the online world is concerned.

2. PR department involvement

Most communications through the corporate blog usually abide by the general public relations policies within the company, thus it is strongly recommended that your blogger(s) work together with your PR department. Their collaboration helps:

1. abide by the general communication tone imposed by company standards;
2. prevent or, if needed, manage possible communication crises;
3. develop the bloggers’ communication skills and ability to generate valuable content.

3. The blog’s tone

Depending on the type of blog and target audience, the tone and style of the blogger may vary.

Usually, a relaxed, human voice and an openness to communicate and interact with all those providing feedback or reactions within the comments section or on other blogs guarantees your blog’s success.

Staying clear from “corporate speeches”, what is communicated through the blog should have an equivalent in day to day life, such as:

1. A relaxed conversation with one or more friends;
2. A conversation with in a larger group comprising both good friends and recent acquaintances;
3. A first meeting with one or more persons that you have never interacted with.

To find the right tone or voice, the term “conversational” should always be your reference. Using words such as “I”, “you”, “us” adds more personality and openness and, thus being highly recommended.

Further reading recommendation: Finding Your Reader-friendly Blogging Tone

4. Content generation

Generating content for a blog is an activity that uses up a lot of resources, from time to information. The most common sources used to generate new debate topics in your articles are:

• your own area of expertise;
• news and events related to your company;
• the evolution of your products and services;
• industry events;
• industry press releases;
• debating your own opinions with other industry representatives;
• the analysis of industry statistics and forecasts;
• analyzing pieces of news published by the media;
• attending fairs;
• guides to success – tips & tricks;
• lists of preferences and recommendations, etc.

Mashable.com has published a comprehensive article providing over 40 sources you can use to generate content: http://mashable.com/2008/08/11/topics-for-corporate-bloggers/

Other chapters of the Corporate Blogging Guide

Chapter 1: Introduction to Blogging
Chapter 2: Critical Questions Before Launching a Corporate Blog
Chapter 3: Setting up Goals and Blog Positioning
Chapter 4: Types of Corporate Blogs
Chapter 5: Blog Editors & Editorial Policy (current)
Chapter 6: Blogging Tips to Get You Started
Chapter 7: Blog Performance Tracking Tools

Free PDF eBook: Corporate Blogging Guide by Blogsessive

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And anyone’s else for that matter. It’s not hard, you just have to ignore the most basic common sense rules of web-sharing and communication.

Be an ‘Internet Marketing Guru’

Yes, a guru, a ninja or a rockstar. You choose your title. After that, add me on Twitter. I’m a trusty fellow and allow Twitter to announce me when I’m added so that I can check everyone out and see their beautiful tweets. But not you Mister I.M. Rockstar. Let’s see how your profile looks:

• Following: 65.000 (roughly)
• Followers: 64.000 (roughly)
• Tweets: 5000 (roughly)

Out of all these people you’re following or follow you, you TALKED to how many? You retweeted how many links from them, or from other accounts/websites? Why are your last 5-6 pages filled with links to your amazing schemes to make money online fast and online sales pages to obscure ebooks for which people have to pay to learn that they can use AdSense to monetize their blogs? Come on! Add me! See if I care!

Twitter is about communication. About states. About the moment. Twitter is about friends and great content. Twitter is not about “I’m a guru in my own backyard!”. Twitter is about “I’m an Internet Marketing ENTHUSIAST, and I want to SHARE some amazing content with you!”

Make me click… and click… and click…

This happens so often lately. Way more often than it should (aka NEVER). These days folks share link on Twitter that send to Digg or some other obscure Digg clone. And as if that is not enough, the link posted on Digg leads to another “news” aggregation website that rarely has an excerpt listen, and in its turn links to the original post. So, to access that content that YOU PROMISED me within your tweet, I have to go through 2 websites that I don’t give a c**p about. I’m definitely not going to vote anything before I read it. And surely, if I vote, I’ll vote for the original website, not the news aggregation website!

But it’s cool. People need to pull their page ranks up, their traffic levels. Domains can be sold later for a better price. We know. We were not born last week.

So, the next time you do that, think of it as if you were actually spamming the Twitter flow, cause that’s what you are doing. Don’t expect Twtter love back, RTs, and followfridays.

Yes, I’m venting

Why do I care about it? Because I enjoy the tweets I get from my followers. Because I trust them with my “follow” and expect the same respect back. If you wrote a GOOD article and need votes (if that’s the case), just state it. Link to the original article and give me a voting link so that I can vote if I feel like it after I read it. That’s SOCIAL. That’s MEDIA. Not what so-called ‘gurus’ understand. Time to clean up my Twitter account.

Happy and smart tweeting folks!

Free PDF eBook: Corporate Blogging Guide by Blogsessive

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So, you think you are ready to launch a corporate blog for your company? Based on previously set goals for your blog and the available resources, the most common types of corporate blogs from which you can choose are:

CEO blog

The CEO blog is the blog authored by someone from the company’s top management. The general trend for such blogs is to publish analyses of the main events in a certain filed, forecasts and statistics, this content pattern thus positioning the author as a thought leader.

Often times this type of blog will be strongly related to the company brand, its products and services.

A few famous examples of CEO blogs:

1. Jonathan Schwartz (President & CEO, Sun Microsystems)
2. Craig Newmark (CEO, Craig’s List)
3. Jason Calacanis (CEO, Weblogs)

Entrepreneur blog

Similar to the CEO blog in what the editorial style is concerned, the entrepreneur blog is set apart by a significantly larger volume of information relevant to the author’s field of expertise and by diary-type entries describing the ongoing projects the entrepreneur is focusing on at the time.

A couple of examples of entrepreneur blogs:

1. Guy Kawasaki
2. Jeff Pulver
3. Kevin Rose

Multi-author company blog

Several authors – company employees from different departments – publish content on this type of blog, each of them writing articles that cover their area of expertise. Often times these types of blogs turn into blog communities aggregating content published by individual, single-author blogs.

Example: Google Blog

Department blog

This type of blog is almost exclusively authored by leaders in certain company department and it is focused on the activity and expertise of said department.

Example: Kevin Lynch – Chief Software Architect at Adobe Systems

Employee’s blog

This is the semi-professional blog of one of the company’s employees and it will use the company’s brand and image to promote the author as a guru of his field. The content of such a blog focuses almost entirely on job related topics.

Example: Lori DeFurio – Adobe Systems

Product/Service blog

This type of blog is dedicated to a certain product or service provided by a company, and it’s meant to help promote it, create a community around it and obtain feedback from the customers.

Example: WordPress Blog – Automattic’s corporate blog dedicated entirely to the WordPress blogging platform

Human Resources blogs

Although not a very common type in the corporate blogging world, the HR blog is characterized by its efforts to present a company’s team and the events they attend as casually as possible, thus opening the company up to potential employees who might be attracted by what they are being offered and the light atmosphere in the office.

Example: Astraware Team Blog

Choose wisely and make sure that the blog type you choose matches your goals and the resources you have.

Other chapters of the Corporate Blogging Guide

Chapter 1: Introduction to Blogging
Chapter 2: Critical Questions Before Launching a Corporate Blog
Chapter 3: Setting up Goals and Blog Positioning
Chapter 4: Types of Corporate Blogs (current)
Chapter 5: Blog Editors & Editorial Policy
Chapter 6: Blogging Tips to Get You Started
Chapter 7: Blog Performance Tracking Tools

Free PDF eBook: Corporate Blogging Guide by Blogsessive

With the StudioPress WordPress themes you can really take your blog to a higher level!

So, did you ask yourself if a blog is the right thing for your company? Is it a solution that will boost your business instead of being a resource consumer? If so, it’s time to find out what options are there in terms of positioning a corporate blog.

Each company has its specific communication needs. Based on said needs and other established targets, a newly launched company blog can help achieve specific goals, such as:

• Becoming an alternative, and dynamic method to publish content;
• Positioning employees as thought leaders and experts in their respective fields;
• Building a community around a company, product or service;
• Boosting sales;
• Encouraging customers to send their feedback;
• Speeding up customer service;
• Gaining you exposure through both new and traditional (print press, radio, TV) media;
• Positioning you as a trendy company that keeps up with new technologies;
• Becoming and effective channel for crisis communication;
• Supporting your HR efforts by offering an “alternative” look at your team and thus attracting new job applications;
• Helping your company rank higher for specific search phrases and attracting new backlinks.

It’s highly recommended to establish a set of complementary goals. If a company manages to focus on and reach its main goals, the adjacent targets will also be achieved at the same time.

Here are a couple of examples of complementary goal sets:

• Building a community + boosting sales + attracting feedback
• Positioning yourself as a thought leader + building a community + gaining media exposure

Other chapters of the Corporate Blogging Guide

Chapter 1: Introduction to Blogging
Chapter 2: Critical Questions Before Launching a Corporate Blog
Chapter 3: Setting up Goals and Blog Positioning (current)
Chapter 4: Types of Corporate Blogs
Chapter 5: Blog Editors & Editorial Policy
Chapter 6: Blogging Tips to Get You Started
Chapter 7: Blog Performance Tracking Tools

Free PDF eBook: Corporate Blogging Guide by Blogsessive

With the StudioPress WordPress themes you can really take your blog to a higher level!

Not all promoting and marketing techniques yield results in any given situation and likewise blogs aren’t always the best solution. In certain cases, a blog can become a useless investment, or worse, a way to boost the already negative view the audience has on a company.

Before launching a blog, each company needs to ask the following questions:

2.1. Is the blog a necessity or just a whim?

A company’s decision to launch a blog may be based on obvious advantages generated by the freedom of communication and by its being given a human touch. Considering these advantages or failing to do so, we still run into situations where a company chooses to launch a blog because of reasons such as:

• Our competitor X has launched a blog;
• It’s trendy, any teen has one. Why can’t we have one?
• We want to look high-tech / tech savvy.

In theory, none of the reasons above is a real obstacle, given it’s associated with and supported by other factors such as having the necessary resources to create and maintain a blog or a positive or neutral image in the market.

2.2 Do you have the needed resources to launch and maintain a blog?

Unlike classic company website, blogs keep consuming resources.

Blogs imply costs. Be it the technical side – design, development, hosting, be it hiring an experienced blogger to maintain it and publish fresh content, a blog needs financial resources.

Blogs take time. It takes time to create and publish content; it takes time to research, write posts, update them and maintain the blog. And for any company with a sense of business, time always means money.

Blogs need dedicated personnel. While there are quite a few tools to render content publishing automatic, the best results in corporate blogging are harvested by those publishing customized content, created by their own people. Are there people in your team who can maintain the blog? If not, do you have enough resources to bring in someone new?

Blog require information. And information is either created or needs to be searched for, analyzed and filtered. These steps also take time and need to be carried out by people who need to be effective and thorough in research, data filtering and content creation.

2.3 How does the online audience feel about your company?

We are talking about the online world, where the fastest and most relevant reactions are being published. How do we track them?

2.3.1 Reactions in the blogosphere: Technorati

Technorati.com is at the same time a blog search engine and a blog content aggregation service. According to the latest data, Technorati indexes and analyzes the activity of about 110 blogs from around the world.

Through a system reviewing both post tags and inter-blog links, Technorati returns relevant search result in a reverse-chronological order, the most recent ones being displayed first.

2.3.2 Reactions in the blogosphere: Google Blog Search

The world famous Google has a search engine entirely dedicated to blogs. Using the traditional search algorithms it’s already known for, Google Blog Search allows you to filter results based on multiple search parameters as well as on the date when the blog articles and reactions have been published.

Running a search for your company’s name will most likely return relevant results which are usually very personal, as they are reactions from within the blogosphere. If your brand mainly targets domestic customers, the wisest choice is to use the local version of the blog search engine.

And of course, running the search directly on the main Google search engine can return similarly relevant results.

2.3.3 Reactions in the online press from your field

Although it is not always the most relevant source, as it is often affiliated to certain trade groups or biased by advertising constraints, the online press covering your field can be an effective indicator for your company’s image by taking into account what their experts and analysts have to say about you.

2.3.4. Quantifying the risk factor

Based on the results obtained after analyzing all these online reactions, one can quite accurately quantify the risk factor their company is exposed to by publishing a blog, especially if it is a blog that allows comments to be posted.

A negative online image can lead to a virtually unlimited series of negative comments which rarely have to do with the actual content published on the blog. Visitors would have thus found a way to express all their frustration caused by real or imaginary flaws they see in the company’s products and services.

2.4 Interpreting the answers

It hardly takes a genius to determine if the blog is just a whim with a short life span and inexistent success in communicating with customers.

Also, it is obvious that without the necessary resources, a blog cannot be launched or it will be launched while lacking any real possibility of it being maintained in the future.

And who would ever want to help spread an already bad image through exposing themselves to ever present negative comments, especially in their own “online home”?

Other chapters of the Corporate Blogging Guide

Chapter 1: Introduction to Blogging
Chapter 2: Critical Questions Before Launching a Corporate Blog (current)
Chapter 3: Setting up Goals and Blog Positioning
Chapter 4: Types of Corporate Blogs
Chapter 5: Blog Editors & Editorial Policy
Chapter 6: Blogging Tips to Get You Started
Chapter 7: Blog Performance Tracking Tools

Photo credits to Johanna Ljungblom

Free PDF eBook: Corporate Blogging Guide by Blogsessive

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A few months back I was invited to attend, as a speaker, an event on corporate blogging where the people in the audience were mostly PR Managers for different companies in my country. Along with the PowerPoint presentation, I have decided to also give those who attended the event more information on corporate blogging through an eBook I wrote at that time.

The following post is the first chapter of that eBook, translated into English. The rest of the chapters will be also published, over the next few days, except for the weekend. Now, let’s see what corporate blogging is about and if it is the right tool for you and your business.

1.1 Blog, Blogging, Blogosphere

The term blog, contracted form of weblog, defines a certain type of website where texts, photos, audio or video content are published in chronological order, much like an online diary.

The first blogs date back to 1993 when the term was first introduced, but they only started to be used more frequently in 1998 when the first blog community, Open Diary, appeared.

The true hit of the online mainstream happened around 2002-2003, when the first blog reactions regarding the Iraq war were published and when Google acquired the Blogger.com platform, which allows any person with Internet access to create and maintain their own blog.

The Blogosphere comprises all public blogs and is defined as a community based on the theory that all existing blogs are somehow interconnected, often through blogrolls or links inserted in their content.

A blogroll is a list of links, commonly displayed in a blog’s sidebar. The links usually point to blogs the author deems relevant to the content of their own blog or simply wants to recommend to their readers.

Therefore, through blogrolls, it is believed that any two blogs can be connected through one or more intermediary links.

Blogs allow publishing content in a wide range of types and formats, and these types of content lead to a first classification of blogs:

1. a. Classic blog – text content
2. b. Photoblog – publishes photo content
3. c. Videoblog – publishes video content
4. Audioblog (podcast) – publishes audio content

Microblogs and tumbleblogs, both defined as blogs with extremely short entries, are two other blog formats gaining more and more popularity in the past few years.

Regardless of information format, the online publishing of content through blog platforms is called blogging, and the author of a blog is called blogger.

1.2 Corporate blogging

Once they have hit the spotlights, the blogs’ potential to communicate effectively was immediately noticed by companies.

Initially seen as a mere tool to promote products and services, blogs gradually became part of a company’s brand. Aside from placing a name and a logo on them, blogs granted companies a persona they could be associated with. In short, they made them human. The corporate blog managed to break the barrier between the “inaccessible company” and its customers.

The true value of a company is undoubtedly fueled by its employees’ individual values. But how exactly can these values be expressed? How can they be best presented to the world?

Blogs allow companies to position their employees as industry leaders through the opinions they publish, through the breakthroughs shared on the blog, all in a human, personal form that eases communication with customers.

A few companies that have successfully adopted the concept of blogs are:

Adobe – http://blogs.adobe.com/
Microsoft – http://www.microsoft.com/communities/blogs/ and http://blogs.msdn.com/
Google – http://googleblog.blogspot.com/

The benefits of a well crafted and maintained blog are plenty, but is it the right tool for companies? Find out in the next chapters.

Other chapters of the Corporate Blogging Guide

Chapter 1: Introduction to Blogging (current)
Chapter 2: Critical Questions Before Launching a Corporate Blog
Chapter 3: Setting up Goals and Blog Positioning
Chapter 4: Types of Corporate Blogs
Chapter 5: Blog Editors & Editorial Policy
Chapter 6: Blogging Tips to Get You Started
Chapter 7: Blog Performance Tracking Tools

Photo credits to Peter Nielsen

Free PDF eBook: Corporate Blogging Guide by Blogsessive

With the StudioPress WordPress themes you can really take your blog to a higher level!

Tweetmeme buttons, plugins to show latest tweets on blogs, Twitter accounts linking to the owner’s blog, new posts being tweeted, and blog addresses and twitter links in signatures. If that’s not enough, I don’t know what else would show that blogging and tweeting go hand in hand for tons of people. If you think of names, blogging and microblogging, you kind of see the connection. If you think microblogging appeared later, you’d think much of the blogging knowledge is applicable. But how can you be on both platforms and make them work individually and as a team?

1. Spot the similarities

Blogs and Twitter are of the same species. They come from the world of the social web where the same rules apply. You know, give before you ask, be nice, share relevant information, never, ever, ever limit yourself to broadcasting, be conversational, help out. It’s not rocket science and it’s definitely not new. To make it more clear, here’s the example section: comment on other blogs before you expect comments – or – retweet before you expect your followers to retweet your 140 characters of content.

Catchy and interesting content is crucial for both. If your blog post is a big hit, make your tweets the same. “New blog post + link” won’t make a lot of people click. “Star Trek is real! We can all now teleport! + link + Fresh from the blog” might work a lot better.

They both need frequent updates. If you’re planning to create a blog and never post after the first time, you’ve failed. If you’re planning to get a Twitter account to say hi and have a cool button on your blog without ever doing anything more, you have failed. People expect updates from both bloggers and microbloggers.

Both need monitoring. You need to check responses, reactions and trends to be on top of your game. And if you’re blogging and tweeting right, that will take a whole lot of time.

Your blog and your Twitter account need to be welcoming and make it easy for visitors / followers to take action. Login required, captchas and about three other levels of security make it difficult to comment. Protected tweets make it difficult for new followers to 1. decide if they want to follow you and 2. actually do the following. It all has to be easy and accessible.

2. Acknowledge the differences

Blogs and tweets need different frequencies in updates. While it’s OK to post a couple of times each week on your blog, that might not work that great for Twitter. It’s more like a few posts per day. Yes, it takes time. It does take less time than to write a blog post. Plus content is readily available: your posts, industry news, tweets from those you follow. Add a few replies and you’ve got a quite active Twitter stream!

140 characters vs. virtually no limits. You need to adjust what you want to say to the platform you’re posting it to. Keep ideas short and sweet for Twitter and develop on the blog. Yes, we’ve all seen the huge ideas split into 4 consecutive tweets… But if you follow a few hundred people, you’ll see how fast the meaning gets lost in between tweets.

Different pace, different tempo! It all happens faster on Twitter. Yes, you can reply to a comment after two days. But if you reply to a tweet after the same amount of time, you have 90% chances that the person getting the response will have no clue what you’re talking about.

3. Fuel the team spirit

If it’s a team, it has to look like one! You are in the end promoting the same brand, so make sure to have common visual elements on your blog and Twitter page.

If it’s a team, it should feel like one! The style on the blog and that of your tweets need to be somewhat similar. People have to sense the same spirit behind it all; otherwise the connection between the two will be feeble. They’ll stick to one or the other, and your plan to make them work together would have failed.

If it’s a team, it should have the same purpose! Be it to promote your business, stay in touch with friends, position yourself as an expert, you need to have a common goal for both platforms. You can’t try to drive leads your way with the blog and talk about raising kids on Twitter if you have any plans to promote one through the other!

Over to you!

As it happens to just blogging, just tweeting, blogging and twitting, or any field for that matter, the pool of relevant information is always bigger than one person. What tips and tricks have you come across while trying to make your blog and twitter work like a dream team? Do share your advice in the comment box!

About the Author

This is a guest post by Alina Popescu, PR Consultant & Founder of Mirror Communications. If you’re looking for a fresh voice, balancing unique views on life with original PR and marketing tips, head over to her blog at WordsOfABrokenMirror.com, or better yet, subscribe to her RSS feed.

Free PDF eBook: Corporate Blogging Guide by Blogsessive

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A new wave of phishing attempts makes its way through the direct messages (DM) system on Twitter.

You might receive a DM from one of the people you follow that could look like this:

Username: haha, that u on here? http://videos.ds*****w.com/

Clicking the link will take you to a page that for the untrained eye looks exactly like the Twitter login page. DO NOT enter your username & password. It’s not a Twitter API or anything. You’d just be giving away your authentication data.

Also, don’t be quick to judge the one sending you the DM as a spammer and report him/her. He might only be the victim of one such attack.

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Let me start of by asking you one thing: have you ever doubted the power of social media? The U.S. president, Barack Obama stands proof of its power and now the Revolution in Moldova too.

After the recent election which are said to be manipulated by the communist party, Moldavian teen and teenagers started today that will probably go down in history as the first European revolution covered by live blogging and twittering.

Police, army, students, students that speak my language, as Moldova was once part of my country, Romania. Smoke, fire, fights, gun shots. These are the images that are spread via YouTube, Flickr, Twitter and personal blogs.

In an attempt to stop these images to go live, Moldavian authorities have restricted internet access, have taken down websites and have shut down private TV stations and news sites. But even so, the revolution is still transmitted live.

It’s enough to check out these hashtags on Twitter and you’ll see how fast the information is pouring in: #pman, #moldova, #chisinau.

Photo copyright by UniMedia. More on Flickr.

So, my question to you: Do you still doubt the power of social media? Do you still believe that Twitter is only a tool to exchange links with your friends? Think again! These kids didn’t!

Used in the right context, and for the right reasons, social media is the most powerful tool a common person can get.

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