President Obama's announcement of Osama bin Laden's death was viewed by more
Americans than every other address he has given as president.
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
WordPress Plugin Releases for 5/3 (Weblogtoolscollection.com)
New plugins CataBlog allows you to catalog pretty much anything you would want
and share it through your blog in a simple but elegant gallery. Floating Menu
creates a widget, which adds a floating, sticky, drop down menu from any
standard WordPress custom menu using jQuery. Updated plugins Front-end Editor
lets you make changes to your content directly from your site. No need to load
the admin backend just to correct a typo. Mute Screamer uses PHPIDS to detect
attacks on your WordPress site and react in a way that you choose.
and share it through your blog in a simple but elegant gallery. Floating Menu
creates a widget, which adds a floating, sticky, drop down menu from any
standard WordPress custom menu using jQuery. Updated plugins Front-end Editor
lets you make changes to your content directly from your site. No need to load
the admin backend just to correct a typo. Mute Screamer uses PHPIDS to detect
attacks on your WordPress site and react in a way that you choose.
To Blog or Not to Blog
Outside of the fact that you happen to be reading one right now, I find that there are lots of smart, business savvy folks out there who when placed in the position of having to explain, strategize or build a blog (or decide if one should be built at all) are at a bit of a loss. Blogs are usually easy for most people to recognize but harder for folks to define.
When I hosted a free class on the subject (as I do from time to time) it "sold out" (in the way only free classes can!) the room filled to capacity.
Even those who can sort of describe a blog, often find it hard to understand when, why and how to create one so that it will actually create benefit for a business, organization, cause etc..
I Can Email You With the Next Update
Click here to get notified of new posts to "The Internet Strategist" by Email
Of course everyone who manages a successful blog has found themselves in a similar position at least once and gotten past it, so I thought I could impart a few words of advice.
First of all, what is a blog really?
A blog is just a Web site.
Let me repeat that for the non-believers — A BLOG IS JUST A WEB SITE.
But it's a special kind of Web site.
Let's start by looking at the different kinds of Web sites that exist. Many of the students of my in-person classes will recognize this.
According to my calculations and ruminations, there are essentially 4 kinds of Web sites you can build based on how your business attracts revenue:
Web Site Types
BrandingExamples: Coca Cola, Dove Advertising Revenue
Examples: Inc.com, Google.com eCommerce
Examples: Amazon, Zappos Lead Generation
Examples: messagemedium.com, razorfish.com
A branding site like Dove is working hard to immerse the viewer in the company's ethos. You can't actually buy any product from their site, they don't seem to sell ads, nor are they pushing hard for you to give up your contact information. Dove's site is all about convincing you of their commitment to improving women's natural beauty and self-esteem in the hope that this will generate an emotional affinity to their brand.
Related Articles by Maisha:Building Your Tribe - 6 LinkedIn Success Studies (final/part 3)
Building Your Tribe - 6 LinkedIn Success Studies (part 2)
Small Business "Success Studies" Using LinkedIn
LinkedIn the 11 Most Useful Features for Small Business
An advertising revenue site like Inc.com has articles and information as its content. It is designed and organized into categories like "Business Advice" "Tech Startup" "The Internet Strategist" to display that content in a way that's easy for you — the reader — to find, read and pass along.
An Online Store like Zappos.com has products — shoes - as its content. So it is organized and designed to make it easy for you to find the kind of shoes you're looking for. One of reasons Zappos is so popular is it provides a variety of ways to find what you're looking for.
A service Web site like message medium has services as its content. So our site is organized to make it easy for you to find our services and also to find the things that make us a credible company to work with — testimonials, articles, client samples, news clippings etc.
As a business owner, more than likely you are not looking to spend millions of dollars on a branding Web site so let's focus on the other three.
So How do Blogs fit in?
Blogs are an interesting breed of Web site. In structure, they are most like Advertising Revenue sites. Like a newspaper, they usually publish content with some predictable regularity, and the content is typically arranged by date and/or by category so that it can be easily found by readers.
But what's interesting about blogs and has made them so ubiquitous, is that they, with all of their content and social elements, can be used very effectively to support an Advertising, eCommerce or Lead Generation Web site.
My blog "The Internet Strategist" is designed to fit within Inc.com's business model of generating revenue through advertising and things like events.The blog of Tony Hsu, the CEO of Zappos, is designed to generate brand loyalty and increase sales of the products Zappos sells.
This blog also does double-duty, helping you the reader understand my areas of expertise as an Internet Strategist, which my company message medium hopes will help us generate more consulting, Web site design and construction, and Internet marketing clients as well as attendees in our classes.
So the first thing you have to identify when considering blogging is — what kind of business do I have and how do we stay afloat? How do we generate revenue? This will help you determine your ultimate blogging purpose.
Next time — I'll discuss "The Big Payoff" what can you expect a blog to actually accomplish for you?
Post Your CommentHave a question? Got something to share? Something I missed?
Your feedback, comments, real world experience and tactical questions are an important part of the discussion. If you have a comment, question or feedback post it below.
Share:
Stay up to date:
Read Related Articles by Maisha:
Building Your Tribe - 6 LinkedIn Success Studies (final/part 3) Building Your Tribe - 6 LinkedIn Success Studies (part 2) Small Business "Success Studies" Using LinkedInLinkedIn the 11 Most Useful Features for Small Business
Why It Pays to Be No. 2 in Your Industry
The Study: "Legitimacy Vacuum, Structural Imprinting, and the First-Mover Disadvantage," by Stanislav D. Dobrev, David Eccles School of Business, University of Utah; and Aleksios Gotsopoulos, Boston University; Academy of Management Journal
The Finding: Contrary to the accepted idea of "first-mover advantage," the best time for a start-up to enter a new industry is after other companies have already gotten there. Because basic practices, such as lining up suppliers, have not yet been established, first movers perform poorly at these tasks.
The Methodology: The authors researched the U.S. auto industry going back to the 1880s. The most successful companies entered the industry only after some 20 others had launched. The researchers compared their findings with the experience of French and British auto firms to corroborate the relationship between first movers and failure.
Intriguing Insight: Most people believe in the first-mover advantage because they rarely hear about the many first movers that fail.
The Takeaway: If you are second—or third or fourth—to market, you stand a better chance of success by learning from the first guy's mistakes.
Nominations open for the 2011 .net Awards (zeldman.com)
SUGGEST YOUR FAVORITE sites, apps and people and celebrate the best of the
web. Nominations for the 13th .net Awards are now open at
www.thenetawards.com. We want you to help us find 2011?s best of the web and
there are 16 categories to choose from. This year there's a renewed focus on
emerging talent with [...]
web. Nominations for the 13th .net Awards are now open at
www.thenetawards.com. We want you to help us find 2011?s best of the web and
there are 16 categories to choose from. This year there's a renewed focus on
emerging talent with [...]
Best WordPress SEO Plugins
I have been blogging for almost 2 years now and the most difficult area for me to wrap my head around at first was SEO or Search Engine Optimization.
Shortlist of Twitter Apps for Your Desktop
Last time I was discussing the challenges in deciding which Twitter tools to use once you've decided you're going to use Twitter at all. And when I say "use" I'm focusing on your role as a distributer of content.
I want to reiterate that this isn't as big a decision as, say, choosing blogging software. If you decide to change blogging software it can be a real pain (and expense) to do so. But Twitter management tools tend to have three things in common that make them wonderfully interchangeable:
Free Versions - pretty much all the tools have a free version that will work for the majority of people. You don't have to make any financial investment to try the tool out.Low Learning Curve - the tools don't take a lot of time to learn how to use – so you don't have to invest inordinate amounts of your time to discover if one of them is going to work for you.
Won't hoard your content - because the tools are basically taking content from Twitter itself (and just displaying it in a more useful way), your core content is on Twitter, not stuck inside the tool. You can even use more than one tool to read the same content in different ways if that's what works for you.
So it's not that hard to switch between them or even to use more than one tool at the same time! While I offered some hints last time on mobile tools, this becomes more relevant as we look at the tools you'll consider for desktop usage.
In fact I actually use four or five different tools to manage my Twitter accounts. Between active posting, list management, direct message conversations and statistics, there isn't one tool so far that has met all my twitter-ing needs. While this obviously isn't ideal from an ease of use perspective, it is great that I at least have the option to use as many tools as work for me i.e. using Co-Tweet to answer all of my direct messages or using HootSuite to publish all of my posts. This is only possible because the tools happily pull all of the relevant content *from Twitter* instead of storing it in their own database. So I never actually *have* to choose.
Here is a breakdown of some of the available tools that I think are worth checking out:
I Can Email You With the Next Update
Click here to get notified of new posts to "The Internet Strategist" by Email
TweetDeck - known for it's desktop version but also has a mobile version. You can monitor multiple accounts, tweet from multiple names, and setup pop-up alerts. There's also an iPad version.
CoTweet - great when you'd like to give multiple users access to the same Twitter account or even assign specific posts to an individual user to respond to. Because of it's multi-user and assignment features it's a great tool if you plan to use Twitter for customer service and has attracted large brands like Starbucks, JetBlue, and Coca-Cola. They do offer a feature-rich free version. As of the writing of this article it is desktop only.
Twhirl - like CoTweet and TweetDeck, Twhirl can handle multiple accounts and has all the features you'd expect. Note Twhirl was acquired by Seesmic in 2008.
HootSuite - a great tool (and my personal favorite) with a user-friendly interface. All the standard Twitter functions plus the ability to track keywords and trends, post directly to Facebook, schedule posts, put followers into groups and the ability to manage multiple accounts. You can also track clickthroughs on your embedded links. HootSuite has both desktop and mobile versions.
Twitbin - Twitbin is actually a Firefox extension that allows you to view your Twitter accounts as a sidebar in your browser. This setup allows you to easily keep a constant eye on what's happening on Twitter. Wonderfully convenient. For those who want to make Twitter a central communication tool holding real time conversations and posting multiple times per day this "always on" setup may be the tool for you!
SocialOomph - people really debate the automated direct reply issue. I like it beacuse although it can be annoying having to delete DMs that aren't very useful, it can also be a quick way to learn more about the person you just followed -- what someone puts in their direct message, and sends to every single person who follows them is telling. Or if you ask a good question in your own automated DM, it can be a way to learn something about the person who just followed you. SocialOomph has a good tool to enable you to create an automated DM as well as lots of other features.
Which Twitter desktop app do you use? Did I leave yours off of the list? Have you had any great or challenging experiences with any of the tools above?
One of the most important things you can do on Twitter is actually engage other users. While the list above tackles some of the basics of posting, next time I look forward to getting into tools for engagement and for measuring your success.
Follow me on Twitter. Special thanks to Dave Clarke, Communications Strategist at Churnless, for his excellent help in compiling the data for this article! You can ask Dave about his favorite Twitter tools at @thedaveclarke or ask me more about mine at @maishawalker.
Read Related Articles by Maisha
Pick the Right Twitter Tool: Mobile Apps8 Types of People on TwitterYour Social Media Marketing "Killer App"A Guide to Social Media Tools and their Uses
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)