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Using Content to Build Your Business

June 23, 2011 By Beth 1 Comment

I’m a big fan of Duct Tape Marketing, a terrific marketing blog. John Jantsch, the Duct Tape blogger, also has two books that are fantastic if you’re looking for actionable marketing advice that REALLY works. This morning John’s got an article about how to look at content building in your business as a crucial strategy.

If you’re looking for content ideas, check out this cool diagram from the folks at Eloqua and JESS3 that John includes at the end of his post -  it gives you a ton of ideas for types of content to create! Pay special attention to the colored dots next to each item – they let you know what tools you can use to publish that content (your blog, Facebook, Twitter, etc.)! This should keep you busy this summer!

(double click on this image to see detail)

The Content Grid

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Colorado Blogettes Meeting – Guest Posting!

April 13, 2011 By Beth 2 Comments

The Colorado Blogettes, a women’s blogging group, will be meeting again this Thursday night, April 14th from 6:30 – 8:30 PM t Boulder Digital Arts.

At this month’s  meeting, we’ll be discussing Guest Posting – what is is, why it’s important, and how you can go about getting awesome guest posting gigs on other people’s blog so you can start driving lots of traffic back to your site! Bring your suggestions and stories – we’re looking forward to hearing from you!

Admission is $5 at the door. If you live a woman blogger in Colorado and you’d like to attend, please email me directly to RSVP.

Boulder Digital Arts is located at 1600 Range Street, on the corner of Arapahoe and Range Street in Boulder.

If you’d like to get announcements about Blogettes events in your inbox (as well as blogging tips from me) please sign up here.

Hope to see you there!

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A Royally Cool Blog

April 11, 2011 By Beth Leave a Comment
Westminster Abbey

Westminster Abbey - The Royal Wedding will take place here! Sweet!

I stumbled upon an unexpectedly cool blog this week. It’s called The Royal Wedding, and it’s the official site of the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton, which is happening event in London on Friday, April 29, 2011.

Whether or not you’re interested in the Royal Family of England, this blog is still a good example of how to build a cool site around a big event. The blog features regular updates about the wedding (in a “Latest News” section), photos and videos of Westminster Abby and the bride and groom, a slide who of the procession route, and even links to Like the wedding on Facebook or follow news of the event on Twitter using the hashtag #rw2011.

I personally love the idea that the PR department of the Royal Family decided to include a blog in their efforts to build buzz for the wedding. Can you just picture THAT meeting??

And the royal PR department is smart to do this – polls in the UK are indicating that the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton is doing wonders to increase support of and interest in the Royal Family, and by creating blogs about big (BIG!) events like the wedding, the media folks for the Royal Family are making the Queen and her family look cooler, hipper, and more likeable than they have in decades. And that translates directly into even MORE good opinion poll ratings.

The blog is well thought out and well executed, and it makes the Royal Wedding look like an event you’d like to attend (or watch, for the mere mortal Americans who need to watch from afar.)

Contrast the uber-cool Royal Wedding blog with the official website of the British Monarchy.  While the official site does feature a YouTube video, which is a step in the right direction, it feels decidedly stodgier than the wedding blog. There’s lots of great information on the site – and lots of pictures – but there are far fewer ways to connect.

I must admit, the blog convinced me – I’ve got my calendar marked for April 29, 2011, and I’m going to watch the whole affair!

So if you’ve got an event coming up that ties in to your business or your personal blog, consider starting a new blog (or creating a special section of your existing blog) to put up special occasion content. Then publicize the heck out of your event using that new content. People love parties and events, so take advantage of that with your web strategy. You’ll be royally glad you did.

Filed Under: Blogging Tips, Blogs I Love, Content Tagged With:
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Switch: How to Make Your Blog Better with Storytelling

March 18, 2011 By Beth 2 Comments

Switch Book CoverThis is Part One of  series about the book Switch: Making Change When Change is Hard by Dan Heath and Chip Heath. Look for other posts in the series next week.

I’m currently halfway through reading a compulsively-readable book. I can’t seem to put it down. I’ve been reading in bank lines, in the car, in restaurants, and in the middle of the night when I can’t sleep.

The book is called Switch: Making Change When Change is Hard, and it’s one of the best non-fiction books I’ve ever read. Heck, it’s one of the best books I’ve ever read, period. And one of the things that makes it great is that most of the content of the book is stories.  I love books like this.

I’m a big fan of author Malcolm Gladwell. In Gladwell’s books – The Tipping Point, Blink, Outliers – he uses real-life stories to introduce his concepts and illustrate points. His books are so much fun to read that don’t even realize you’re learning a ton of information as you’re reading his stuff. He sort of sneaks it in. :)

Chip and Dan Heath (who are brothers) have a similar writing style in “Switch.” And story-telling doesn’t just make a piece of writing fun to read – it actually makes the author more convincing, too! It’s hard not to buy into a concept when you’ve just read a really interesting story that illustrates that concept perfectly and shows you how it works in real life.

Storytelling-style writing is also easy and fun to pass around. It can be fun, memorable, sometimes funny, moving, emotional and inspiring – all things you’d potentially want to tell your friends and family about (or post on Facebook!)

So how can you introduce more stories into your online writing?

1. Include a story in a blog post. Instead of saying “My life is different than it was when I was 21,” show your readers HOW it’s different. Add a lot of relevant detail and make the story really come alive.

2. Use a case study. If you’re blogging for your business, tell your readers a story about one of your recent clients and how they used your product or service. Give background on the client and talk about where they were before they used your service. What difficulties were they having and how did your service fix their problem? Hint: This is a great way to include a client testimonial, too! And why do you think testimonials are so powerful?? Because they’re STORIES!

3. Create a video that uses storytelling. Use Powerpoint slides, screencasting or just point a Flip camera at yourself and start talking. Tell a story in the video the same way you would tell it if you were talking to a friend.

Stories are powerful. Incorporate them into your posts whenever you can, and you’ll be well on your way to creating highly compelling content that people will pass around and link to on their own sites!

Check out Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard. The Heath brothers also have a very cool blog.

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Introducing Beth’s Blogging Byte!

February 13, 2011 By Beth 3 Comments

This week, I started doing something I’ve been wanting to do for YEARS – I starting sending out a weekly blogging tip to my mailing list. It’s called “Beth Blogging Byte”, and if you’re on my list, you’ll see it every Wednesday in your inbox. Each issue of the Blogging Byte will give you a specific action to take that will make your blog or social media presence better. Most weeks, this content is ONLY going to be available to the people on my mailing list, so if you’d like to make sure you get these actions, please sign up for my list here. When you sign up, you’ll also get access to my super-awesome Blogging with Beth Library, which includes advice on blog post ideas, using RSS on your site, and traffic-building!

This week, though, I’ve decided to share the Blogging Byte content with you, so you can see what you’ll get when you sign up for my list. If you like this article, please retweet it or share it on Facebook!

This Week: How Being Vulnerable Can Make You a Better (and More Successful) Blogger

It’s no secret that I’m a huge fan of the TED conferences. The TED events are a global set of conferences, formed to disseminate “ideas worth spreading,” and there are over 700 presentations and talks you can view online at TED.com. One of my all-time favorite TED talks is a presentation by researcher/storyteller Brene Brown. Here’s her incredible talk about connection, vulnerability, and what it means to be human.

If you haven’t seen this video yet, please take a few moments and watch it now. It will change your life. Don’t worry, I’ll wait for you to watch it. I’ll be here when you get back.

Okay – assuming you went and watched it – I want to talk about why Ms. Brown’s discussion on connection is so important for bloggers. It’s important because I believe the greatness and popularity of a blog are in direct proportion to the ability of that blogger to be vulnerable in her writing.

Want an example of the kind of vulnerability I’m talking about? Read this post by one of my current favorite bloggers, Ree Drummond of The Pioneer Girl.

I’ll practically guarantee that unless you have a heart of stone (and I know you don’t, dear readers), you will moved by this post. Yes, it’s sentimental, and yes, she’s really putting her emotions and her baggage out there for everyone to see. And that is what makes it GREAT.

Ree Drummond is not afraid to write from the heart. And writing from the heart is the reason The Pioneer Girl has landed two book deals. It’s the reason she been on the Today show many, MANY times. And it’s the reason that her blog receives several million hits a month. She is coy about publishing her traffic stats, so I don’t have exact numbers. Suffice it to say that The Pioneer Girl makes a very nice living from her blog.

Writing from the heart is what connects you with your readers, and it is what will keep them coming back to your site again and again and again. They come back because they like YOU and want you to be vulnerable in your writing. So give your readers what they want. It will be good for you, too.

Here’s your action for this week – Be vulnerable on your blog. Write a post about something a little more personal than you normally do. Share something with your readers that they don’t know about you. And yes, business bloggers, this DOES include you, too! Your business is about YOU, and your customers do want you to be open and vulnerable with them.

After you’ve completed this week’s task, post on Facebook with your success!

Filed Under: Blogging Tips, Blogs I Love, Content
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How to Manage Your Time and Stay Motivated

February 11, 2011 By Beth 7 Comments

We had a fantastic meeting of the Colorado Blogettes tonight at Boulder Digital Arts. We called it the CONTENT EXTRAVAGANZA, Part ONE!! And yes, you need to say it in a very excited voice with multiple exclamation points!

Instead of just having a single presenter for tonight’s meeting, I really wanted to hear from the Blogettes members about their best strategies for content creation and management. We had a lively and interesting talk, and I learned a lot!

I think one of the most interesting parts of the discussion was about managing time in order to write and publish on our blogs. We also touched on a parallel topic – staying motivated in our writing.

I gave the Blogettes an assignment at the end of the evening. I asked them to add a comment to this post and share their best blogging time management and motivation tips.

Okay, I’ll go first! My favorite way of staying motivated is to look at my Google Analytics numbers, and notice how much my traffic spikes on the day I write a new post or send out a newsletter (for my business, emailing out my weekly newsletter with top-quality content is just as important as writing new posts).

After looking at the traffics spikes,  I then take a look at how low traffic dips in between posts. It’s clear that my readers are just waiting for me to write new stuff so they can read it – they WANT to hear from me! A few weeks ago, I even printed out a screen shot of my traffic stats and hung it over my desk, so my motivation is right there at eye level.

I say it to my classes all the time – the more you write, the more traffic you will get. If you write it, they will come! That’s the best motivation I know.

What are your best tips for staying motivated and/or finding time to write? If you’re not a Colorado Blogettes member, we’re still love to hear from you! Leave a comment below and share your ideas and tips with everyone.

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What Bloggers Can Learn from Viral Videos

August 3, 2009 By Beth 4 Comments

An unconventional wedding video, featuring the wedding party dancing down the aisle to a popular hip hop song (Chris Brown’s “Forever”) has been getting a lot of attention on the Internet and in traditional media lately.  The video itself shows the entire bridal party of the Minnesota couple’s wedding doing a choreographed routine down the aisle.  The video lasts for over five minutes and is riveting from start to finish.

The Minnesota couple, Jill and Kevin Heinz, first published the video on YouTube on July 19, 2009.  By the time I saw it on July 23 (a friend of mine sent it to me on Facebook), it was up to 300,000 views.  Within days, it passed one million views and the couple (and their dancing friends) were featured on the Today show to talk about their famous processional dance and the explosion of the video’s popularity around the world. 

As of the time of this writing, the video has racked up over 14.6 million views. 

There is a specific reason that some videos on YouTube go viral – meaning that they gain widespread popularity through Internet sharing, usually through email, blogs and other media sharing websites.

That reason is JOY. 

In videos – as well as in real life – People relate to other people when they are at their best – whether they’re excelling at a sport, graduating from college, snuggling a brand new baby, or dancing down the aisle on their wedding day. When someone witnesses moments of true joy seen on video, they want to spread the joy by passing the video around.  Viral videos become popular simply because they are being passed around, just like a cold or flu germ, except that the passing is done via email, Facebook, blogs or Twitter.  The Minnesota “Forever” wedding video is a classic example.  People take this path – see joy, revel in that joy, and pass it on.  Beautiful.

The lesson bloggers can take from the huge popularity of these videos is this – You will attract more bees with honey than with vinegar.  When you’re writing blog posts, write about what you love, rather than what you hate.  Write about someone or something that thrills you, excites you, makes you light up.  If you’re passionate about something, and if you’re writing about something that’s unique (or you’re writing about it in a unique way) it will resonate with people.  With any luck, people will start to pass it around and link to it, which will lead to more traffic, more loyal readers and subscribers, and a bigger potential audience.

More great examples of joyful, passionate writing and film in social media (in blogs and viral videos):

Do you have favorite videos or blogs that come from a place of joy? I'd love to hear about them!

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Why “Bad News” from the NY Times May Actually Be Good News in Disguise

June 8, 2009 By Beth 3 Comments

The New York Times recently published an article on abandoned blogs called "Blogs Falling in an Empty Forest".  In a nutshell, it says that many bloggers don't stick with blogging.  The article says:

"According to a 2008 survey by Technorati, which runs a search engine
for blogs, only 7.4 million out of the 133 million blogs the company
tracks had been updated in the past 120 days. That translates to 95
percent of blogs being essentially abandoned, left to lie fallow on the
Web, where they become public remnants of a dream — or at least an
ambition — unfulfilled."

So overall, that's not such great news.  Most blogs get abandoned because the blogger tires of writing, he/she feels like they want to go back to living a life out of the public spotlight, or because the blogger gets frustrated that she's not getting enough traffic. 

But the golden nugget of good news it that if you DO stay with blogging, and pay regular attention to your blog, you're doing better than 95% of the blogs out there.  That's pretty astounding!  If you make a post more often than every 120 days – FOUR MONTHS – you will keep gaining traffic, grow your audience, and you'll be well on your way to becoming a successful blogger. 

In the meantime, you can increase your odds of getting heard by concentrating on your content, promoting your posts in appropriate ways, and participating in the public conversation by regularly commenting on other people's blogs. 

In the world of blogging, it's the classic tale of the tortoise and the hare.  Just keep going, slow and steady!

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Turning Your Blog Into a Book

February 15, 2009 By Beth 8 Comments

Authors and would-be authors, take note – it is absolutely possible to turn your blog into a b0ok and get publishers to buy it.

I work with a lot of authors in my coaching business, and one of the biggest questions I get asked is "Am I going to get in trouble with a potential publisher if a lot of the material in my book has already been published on my blog?"  I used to a give a tentative "no" answer, with some caveats and disclaimers.  Then
it moved to a slightly-less-tentative "no".  I told people that smart publishers are figuring out that authors who have developed big fan bases by blogging turn out to be GREAT authors – and their books really sell. 

Now I tell my authors to blog away with no hesitation whatsover, and that blogging can help them build exactly the kind of big reader base that many publishers are looking for these days.  I can cite many, many examples of books that have recently published that are comprised almost entirely of re-mixed and re-edited material that had already being published on a blog. 

Cases in point:

Gluten-Free Girl: How I Found the Food That Loves Me Back…And How You Can Too
 by Shauna James Ahern (who blogs at Gluten-Free Girl)

The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use News Releases, Blogs, Podcasting, Viral Marketing and Online Media to Reach Buyers Directly
by David Meerman Scott (who blogs at Web Ink Now)

Stuff White People Like: A Definitive Guide to the Unique Taste of Millions
by Christian Lander (who 
blogs at Stuff White People Like)

All three of those books are made up of previously-published blog material, and they are all terrific reads.  And for those of you concerned about the size of your possible advance – take note that Christian Lander actually received a $300,000+ book deal for his book, which is one of the largest deals ever for a previously unpublished author.Cover

And in case there's still any doubt in your mind, notice that Heather Armstrong, author of the wildly popular blog Dooce, just announced that her new book (again, comprised almost entirely of edited material from her blog), It Sucked and Then I Cried: How I Had a Baby, a Breakdown, and a Much Needed Margarita
 is available for pre-order.  It is currently #1 in Amazon's "Motherhood" category, #4 in "Family Relationships" and #221 overall – it's that's just in PRE-ORDER.

Authors, you can blog your heart out and then find a perfect publisher for your blog-book.  Stop hesitating now and start blogging!

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I Don’t Want My Mother Reading This.

January 12, 2009 By Beth 2 Comments

I get a lot of questions about what people should and shouldn't post on their blogs.  Here are three questions, all related:

  •  I’d really like to have a place to spout off about some relatives that drive me bonkers.  Can I start another blog for this and never disclose that it exists?
  • Can I safely assume that if I don’t give away its location, potential employers will never find my personal blog, in which I talk about my wild personal life?
  • If I write a blog about how much I hate my job, do I need to worry about my employer finding it?

I heard a great rule of thumb a few years ago regarding these types of quandaries, and I follow that rule every single time I put up a new post or start another blog.  When you're writing anything on your blog, consider what would happen if the person you'd be most horrified about reading that post would read it.  The person in front of whom you'd feel embarrassed or humiliated.  Or the person whose feelings would be most hurt if they found out you were writing about them.  Or the person who could cause you the most legal problems.

Then decide if you can live with the consequences if that person DOES see it.  Because she eventually MIGHT see it – in some cases, it's likely she will.  If you can't live with the consequences, don't publish those lines of text that are leaping out of your hot little fingers onto the keyboard.

If your name is attached to it, you can safely assume that it will be found – and read – by the very people you’re writing about.  People manage to find EVERYTHING, and since search engines love blogs, your “secret” blog will rise to the surface quicker than you'd think.   And before anyone gets their undies in a bunch complaining that there’s no privacy on the Web, remember this – it’s the WORLD WIDE WEB.  When you publish a blog, you’re publishing a web page to the world.  That’s how it works, and you cannot expect to maintain any secrecy when you’re publishing publicly. 

That being said, here are some options if you still want to publish your thoughts -

1.  By using free, hosted services like WordPress.com or Blogger (and blogging under an assumed name), you can take your best shot at blogging anonymously.  If you do this, you will need to set up an entire account under that new name.  You should also use the service’s domain name (i.e. MyAnonymousBlog.wordpress.com).   If you must use your own domain name, use a proxy service with your registrar so people can’t see the domain belongs to you.  I don’t recommend using paid blogging services like Typepad, because you’ve got to give the service your name for payment processing, and that’s one more way the blog can be traced back to you. 
- OR -
2.  Password protect your blog.  Most services will either let you password protect the whole blog and/or certain pages on the blog.  Give the login and password only to the people you want, thus assuring that you won’t get any eyes on the page that you don’t want.  This is what I’d recommend for most people, rather than writing under an assumed name and staying up at night wondering if your fake name will be traced back to you.

So my advice is – don't put it online without password protection (under your name, anyway) unless you're okay with it becoming public.  As for those rants and raves you really want to make, but you don’t want anyone you know to hear them?  Pick up a pen and put ‘em in a diary.  I’m a big fan of those. 

Okay, I’m climbing off my soapbox now.  Happy blogging!

 

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