Archive for the 'Business Blogging Masterclass' Category

Did you know that you can stream your blog feed so that it shows up on your Facebook profile automatically?

This is a great way to share your blog posts on Facebook without any extra effort.

In your Facebook page:

1. Go to the Applications section on the left margin
2. In the list of Applications, click on Notes
3. You will be taken to the Notes page. On the right margin of the Notes page, you will see the option to Import an external Blog - click on that.
4. On the Import a Blog page, insert the URL of your blog.

• If you have a domain name that points to an underlying blog eg “www.mysite.com” that points to “www.mysite.wordpress.com”, you should insert the URL for the underlying blog ie “www.mysite.wordpress.com”

• This only works if you have a “real” blog ie one that has an RSS feed

• If you are not sure what your blog URL is (eg if your blog is part of a larger business website), open another browser window, go to your blog page and copy the address in the URL address bar at the top of the screen.

5. Click Import

It should now import posts from your blog.

For an example, visit my Facebook profile and you should see my imported notes in my mini-feed.

by Angie Macdonald

Last week I attended a two-day Social Media Masterclass given by two renowned gurus in the field: Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson and organised by Ragan Communications and Simply Communicate.

There was a lot to take in, but a few points struck me as being vital to the future progress and understanding of using social media or web 2.0 in the work place.

The Power has Shifted
What web 2.0 technology has enabled is a shift of power from large corporations and governments to individuals and communities online. It is so much easier now to reach people online to join your protest group, or to sign a e-petition at the 10 Downing Street site. And because millions of people around the globe have easy access to these things, the voice of the individual has grown in strength and really can matter and make a difference.

Web 2.0 is a Constantly Evolving Toolkit
Different events or messages call for different tools. It is up to you to choose the tools that suit the task or the message, whether it be a wiki, a blog or a podcast. The thing to do is to try them out and see which ones you like and which ones best fit what you are trying to communicate. For that is what they are essentially: communication tools.

Choose the Most Effective Method to Communicate your Message
Web 2.0 doesn’t mean that the old tried and tested methods of communicating are over. Brochure websites, print media and press releases still have their place. The point is to choose those methods and tools which will best serve your message. Each time you communicate, it may be in a slightly different way, but you now have the option to choose from a wide variety of methods to appeal to as many different audiences as possible. Combine traditional methods with the appropriate social media tools for the most effective results.

Ignore Bloggers at your Peril
Many so-called “A-list bloggers” have millions of readers all around the world and their words carry a lot of clout. They have the ability to influence people because they are seen as gurus or experts. There have been several occasions where companies have been brought to their knees by bloggers.

Monitor what Bloggers are Saying about You
That way you can engage from the very beginning and manage the crisis before it gets out of control.

Don’t Try and Pull the Wool over Bloggers’ Eyes
If there’s one thing bloggers hate it’s being smoozed by companies in the hope that the blogger will recommend their product. If you want them to do that, be upfront and disclose your intentions from the start.

It’s all about Trust
In this day and age, when consumers don’t trust company-speak, and trust governments even less, building trust is a difficult process. Don’t do anything to break that trust once it is established. When it comes to trust, we tend to trust people like ourselves.

You can’t Control it
So you might as well join in and enjoy it. If you join in the conversation about your company you have a chance to influence the way the conversation flows. Staying out of it could be dangerous.

By the end of the second day, the message was loud and clear - ignore social media at your peril! Love it or loathe it, you can’t afford to ignore it. Social media is here to stay.

Photo: Thanks to eshm on Flickr

When you first start out blogging for your business, it can be tempting to write press release style posts for your blog. You know the kind of thing: all perky and full of news about how well you’re doing and what new products you’ve got lined up for this season. It’s safe. It’s what you’re used to writing. And after all, blogging is part of your marketing strategy, isn’t it, so you should be marketing your business like mad on your blog - shouldn’t you?

Think of a business that you might have contact with in your own life. Your dry cleaner. Your local restaurant. Your accountant. Your car manufacturer. Would you go and read their blog regularly if all they talked about was how fab they were, what deals they had on, what new staff just joined them? Of course they’d say all that, you think to yourself: I get enough junk mail through the letter box and junk email in my Inbox without spending my internet surfing time voluntarily subjecting myself to more of the same.

I’m not saying that you should do the opposite and blog in a way that is damaging to your business and say how crap you are, what a rip-off your prices are or anything that might be your personal “Gerald Ratner Effect“. Remember Ratner? He infamously bankrupted his own jewellry business by declaring in a speech that their products were “crap”.

The thing is blogging is different from marketing. Blogging is about making a connection, engaging in a discussion, sharing stories, views and ideas. It’s about conversation and community. It’s about your readers. Your audience. Your customers and clients. Your friends and colleagues. It’s about what they are interested in and what engages them. What piques their curiosity. What fires them up. What keeps them coming back to your blog. And to you.

So, what would make you read a blog by, say, your dry cleaning company? Off the top of my head, for me, I’d like to learn about: what it’s like running a small business in my local high street; what the heck is “dry” cleaning anyway and how is it different from washing; if it’s a Mr and Mrs business, I’d like to get to know them as people a bit; what’s going on in my high street that they are best placed to share with me. I’m sure you could think of some more ideas.

Yes, of course, blogging is ultimately about you and your business. It’s just that it is not ALL about you. So, there is a time and place to include the newsy type stuff about your latest products and your successes - you can fit them in alongside all the other things you can talk about with your readers.

So, take a step back and think about who you want to be reading your blog.

Then think about what they might be interested in. How your blog might be of service to them. How it might entertain and amuse, provoke, engage, inform.

Now, get blogging.

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If you run a dry cleaning business and have a blog - - or you know someone who does - I’d love to hear from you! Or if you have - or someone you know has - a business blog that reaches out in a fresh way to your community of readers and customers, let me know. It would be great to feature your blog on ZenGuide.

Here’s my friend Melanie Crowe’s blog - Therapeutic Massage . She’s a massage therapist but she blogs about health, how to de-stress and work/ life balance as well as massage. She offers tips on healthy eating and tells you how to be a good client (to get the best of your massage session). Yes, she writes about the courses she goes on to improve her skills but that’s just part of the holistic message of her blog - that massage is part of a healthy and balanced lifestyle.

Photo: thanks to dukejeffrie on flickr.com (CCL)

For those of you just starting off blogging, whether for your business or just for fun, here are some tips on responding to comments:

• Make sure Comments are enabled on your blog to allow people to comment on your posts (a bit obvious, I know, but worth stating!)

• When someone leaves a comment, do respond - even if it’s just to say “thanks”. It shows you read your visitors’ comments and enjoy engaging with them

• But don’t leap in too soon. Sometimes, allowing room for other readers to add to the discussion and comment on the comments is a great way to create a community around your blog

• It’s very rare, I think, that you’d get a negative, nasty or malicious comment. If you do, you would be entitled to delete it as it’s your blog. Or, you may choose to address the issue publicly - approach it as if you were the store manager approaching a stroppy customer kicking up a stink in your shop or as the host who has to deal with a difficult guest at your party. It also helps to have set up a comments policy somewhere on your blog at the outset so all your readers know what behaviour will and will not be tolerated.

• Sometimes a debate in the comments section between a number of commenters can get more and more heated and one of them starts to lose their civility and common sense (as can often happen in real life, too!). In one case on my other blog, I withheld an over-the-top comment that was likely to spiral everything in to name-calling and childishness and emailed the commenter inviting him to re-phrase the key argument without the name-calling and with a greater spirit of civil disagreement. He did not chose to reply so that comment remains withheld.

• When you respond to comments, the usual form is to do so in a comment under the main post that started the chain of comments.

• You may want to expand on a comment chain in more detail in a post. In that case, refer (and link) to the original post that started off the comment chain, summarising the key points and then go on to discuss the issue in more detail in your post. This helps give new readers the context of this new post and encourages them to go back and read the original one.

Photo: thanks to customersrock.wordpress.com

by Angie Macdonald

Yang-May : “I’m delighted to say that Angie Macdonald is joining ZenGuide as partner, specialising in web-content writing and blog management/ editing for businesses. She has a background in teaching and drama, freelance journalism and high-performance coaching.

Enjoy!”

Let’s face it, finding ideas for your business blog isn’t always easy. There may be times when you’re overflowing with thoughts and ideas and others when you hit a blank wall, or rather, a blank screen. Nothing. Zilch. Your readers are waiting for their weekly or even daily update, and you have nothing to say. Panic sets in and you haven’t a clue where the next idea is going to come from.

Relax. You’re in good company. Any writer worth their salt will be able to recount tales of when the muse deserted them. But what they may not tell you, is that there are many ways to encourage the muse to return, to free up the brain and get those creative juices flowing again.

History is full of stories of inventors who had their moment of revelation at a time when they weren’t consciously working on a project. Take George de Mestral for example, the inventor of Velcro ™. After a walk with his dog one day, they both returned home covered in burrs, the plant seed-sacs that cling to animal fur and fabric. Mestral immediately studied one of the burrs under a microscope, and saw all the small hooks that enabled the burr to cling to tiny loops in the fabric of his trousers. In that moment he decided to design a two-sided fastener, one side with stiff hooks like burrs and the other side with soft loops like the fabric of his trousers and Velcro™ was born.

Taking a tip from Mestral’s book, my advice for any blogger looking for ideas is clear your head. Go for a walk. Get away from your computer, let your mind wander and see what comes up.

Experiencing something new, whether it be listening to different music, changing radio channels, or exploring an unknown part of your city, can all lead to you having fresh ideas. Just the other day I picked up a copy of Harper’s Bazaar for the first time. At first, flicking through the pages of beautiful people and society gossip, I felt like an alien newly acquainted with the species. Everything was so unlike my usual reading tastes – I have a fondness for .net magazine and Gardens Monthly. I wasn’t necessarily looking for ideas, but before I knew it, I had reached for pen and paper and was writing down idea after idea for blog posts. Posts I never even knew I wanted to write.

How observant are you? It’s so easy to switch off as we go about our day, talking on the mobile or plugged into an iPod. When was the last time you noticed a flower blooming in your garden? Or looked at a plaque or engraving on a building as you pass by on the bus? The more you notice in the world around you, the more you will find to comment on. And ideas for blog posts will arise.

As you go about your day, ask yourself questions about the people you encounter, the situations you take for granted. Why are things the way they are? Who is the person serving you? Curiosity starts with the question, “I wonder why…?”

Remember, the world is full of ideas and creativity. It’s a matter of how receptive you are to the ordinary that can lead to blog posts full of interest and vitality. It only takes a bit of imagination to turn the ordinary into the extraordinary. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I feel in need of a walk.

Photo: thanks to underconsideration.com

Someone asked me the other day if she needed a blog since she already had a website. It struck me as we chatted that there are probably many people who are not clear about the differences between a website and a blog and what some of the advantages of having a blog are, over and above the benefit of having a website. My friend is a writer but the advice I gave her is also useful and relevant for solo professionals and small businesses so I thought I’d share them with you here:

A website

• A typical brochure-style website gives you several pages with your brochure information on it. This can serve you very well as it gives you clients/ readers/ customers all the factual information they need to know about you and your business/ books/ services

• A website like that is pretty much static. Once people have been once and read whatever is there to read, they don’t really need to come again unless they need to be reminded about something eg your office address when they are coming to visit you

• It can do well with search engines provided your designer has included search engine optimisation within the design

• You can update the website yourself fairly easily once your web designer has shown you a bit of HTML. This can be useful for a “Latest News” page. But you usually have to delete the old text to make room for the new text unless you’ve got the capability to add additional news items and additional pages.

• A website is not interactive - you are stating your message to your audience and they can’t interact in any way although people can usually email you via the Contact page.

A blog

• A blog alongside your website enables you to update content easily - as easily as writing an email using a web-based email account.

• You never lose the old content from a previous “post”. This is particulary useful if your latest “latest news” item is a follow up item to your previous “latest news” items. eg. Last month your news was “I’ll be appearing at the Hay Literary Festival…”; this month you can write “When I appeared at the Hay Literary Festival, we had a lively discussion about the publishing industry…”

• You can archive your posts according to date or subject eg “Book Events”, “Current Novel”, “Publishing Industry” and eventually build up a body of work

• Search engines LOVE regularly updated pages. They are likely to throw you up near the top more often and you’ll start appearing all over the internet as you write more and more. Your posts that are never deleted from months ago will be found by someone searching on a particular topic and that will introduce them to the rest of your blog. For example, my post on Malt Loaf on my arts blog Fusion View keeps getting picked up by a range of people from France across to South America even though I wrote it around a year ago - and hopefully, that means more and more people are discovering my blog through atypical searches (ie not by a typical searching like “Malaysian/ UK writer”, for example)

• And that is exactly the reason I started blogging as a writer. Almost two years ago, my presence was disappearing off the internet - my books website itself was just not enough to keep me active and live on the web. Traffic to my site was pitiful. Since I started blogging, I’m all over the web and my arts blog Fusion View has over 8,000 unique visitors a month.

• A blog is interactive and you can easily engage with your readers/ customers, building up loyalty and trust

• You can add multi media such as pictures, audio podcasts and videos very easily

• A blog has what is called an RSS feed that sends out notifications (like radio signals) to the rest of the web whenever it is updated so you don’t have to sit and wait for people to come and find you, it automatically tells people about your latest update.

• For solo professionals and small businesses, it may take time to blog but after the initial set up costs and some training, it’s a very cost-effective way to promote your presence online - which is very important if you have a limited budget.

Both

If you don’t already have a website, discuss with your web designer using the blog platform - you can create numerous static pages for the brochure part using the same blogging software: you don’t need to pay for a website plus a blog. Traditionally, some web designers charged you by the number of pages because the old technology meant that they had to hand code and link each new page. If you incorporate your website as part of your blog, once the blog is designed you don’t have to pay extra for the number of additional pages - that’s all part of the package.

My books website www.yangmayooi.co.uk is actually part of the Fusion View blogging platform - when you arrive at www.yangmayooi.co.uk, you’ll see the URL is in fact www.fusionview.co.uk/yang-may-ooi/. The brochure pages - click at the top of this page on the various links to Who We Are and What We Do etc - are all part of the pages facility in this blogging platform for ZenGuide, included at no extra cost.

And finally…

Yes, it’s true that I’m a blog evangelist, especially for smaller enterprises. It’s such a great way to make a big impact on limited resources that in my mind, you’re really missing a trick if you don’t take advantage of this great interactive web tool!

Photo: thanks to serc.carlton.edu

This is a terrific little video that explains how social networking online works, created by Common Craft.
There’s really nothing more for me to add other than it’s short, too the point and entertaining while being informative.

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At the end of the video, Lee Lefever suggests three social network sites to explore. If you want to check out a few more, take a look at a post I wrote back in April about meeting a new friend on a social network site and listing some other sites to look at.

Some recent conversations I’ve had with executives and professioals has got me thinking: what’s in a name?

For many companies and businesses who have a natural affinity with innovation and early adaptation of new technology, a business blog is something they have embraced with enthusiasm. They see it as a great way to keep in touch with their clients and customers and to showcase their expertise. However, for other businesses still wondering if communicating online with their stakeholders in this way is something for them, the notion of a blog comes with a bundle of negative pre-conceptions - it’s for teenagers and loud-mouthed mavericks, it’s not a proper platform for serious business communications, it’s about trivial things like what I had for breakfast this morning.

Many busy professionals and senior-level executives have said to me that they don’t have time to read blogs. They aren’t interested in what someone had for breakfast. (What is it about things people have for breakfast that’s become this catch-phrase for blogging?) They’ve got too many emails to get through. What possible business value is there in spending their limited time reading a stranger’s blog?

When working with some clients, I’ve recommended that it may be an idea to re-think this interactive online thing that they are implementing. It’s just a tool that allows you to upload information quickly and easily in reverse date order - you can sort the information into categories and link to other information. What about defining it by what content or information you’re putting on it? If it’s a place where you are offering additional resources to your clients eg you are sharing your expertise for free online; or you are pointing them to other resources they can find on the web; or you are putting up your materials from a conference or workshop - why not refer to it as a Resource Centre? Or what about focusing on the objective of why you want this social media tool - is it to stimulate discussion and engage your stakeholders in conversation? Well, what about calling it a Discussion Space or Conversation Corner?

This simple re-thinking of what the tool is has opened up for my clients a whole range of possibilities which have excited them about the blog platform - a complete transformation from their previous scepticism and uncertainty. For the one setting up a Resource Centre, the creative juices started to flow and they brainstormed a long list of information, resources and articles they could post on their site. For the one creating a Discussion Space, they began to look for contributors to write articles with different views around one theme so that readers might be prompted to add to the discussion via the discussion responses facility (ie comments).

And for those coming to read or participate in such spaces, they are immediately entering an added value space that offers Resources and Discussion, rather than a potentially time-wasting personal diary thing called a blog.

For me, I enjoy reading blogs or discussion spaces or newsletter or whatever you call them, especially blogs by:

• industry experts eg high-profile marketing guru Seth Godin (whose blog is on The Times’ list of top 50 business blogs),

• trend watchers/ news breakers eg TechCrunch and Mashable

• writing and book lovers eg Bibliobibuli

• colleagues eg X-Culture by Silvia Cambie

• friends eg massage therapist Melanie Crowe

• other Asians/ Orientals eg British Born Chinese

I generally steer away from blogs by journalists and reporters like those on the Guardian or the BBC - though I do sometimes find it useful to go to those blogs as well. My reasoning is that I read or hear these paid writers’/ commentators’ views anyway via the news and traditional media channels. The joy of blogs is to hear the voices and encounter the thoughts of those who don’t necessarily already have a grand outlet like the premier news channels for sharing what they have to say. I like the democracy and clamour of the ordinary individual adding to the discussion. I keep them all on my blog aggregator and pick and choose a few to dip into over lunch or when I feel like being stimulated.

Which blogs / resources/ newsletters/ whatever do you like? Add a comment and share your favourite with me!

Photo: thanks to raisinsawdust on flickr.com

NOTE: ZenGuide is updated Mondays and Thursdays

Continuing the Conversation from the Social Media round table I chaired in Slovenia….

One of the business communicators at our discussion was working with a company who had developed and implemented an internal social network for their research and development teams to innovate new products through facilitating sharing of ideas and communications between the individuals and teams. But not many of these staff were using this tool. My colleague wanted to know how to increase staff take-up of the tool.

The Kevin Costner movie, Field of Dreams, brought us the visionary saying: “if you build it, they will come”. That may have worked in the movie and it may work for some business ventures. In most cases, we all have to be somewhat more pragmatic in adding a few more steps into the process after we present the world with our exciting new baseball pitch or mall or product - or social media tool. And one of those crucial steps is communicating with the people who are ultimately going to use or benefit from that product or tool

So in our discussion, we explored what processes the company had used to encourage the teams to integrate this social network tool into their research and development work. What were they already doing to share ideas and communicate with each other? What activities (eg team and individual meetings, face to face workshops etc) where they involved in as part of their innovation of new products? How were aware were they of the benefits of the tool and how it could increase their communication efficiency?

My colleague came away from this session with a concrete plan to implement training sessions for the relevant teams at her client company so that they could learn the benefits of the tool and how to use it in their work.

A key message here, I think, is to view social media tools as just that: tools. And as with any tools, people need to be trained to use them and also, understand how they can help improve or facilitate the relevant processes.

Photo: thanks to soundtrackcollector.com

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NOTE: ZenGuide is updated Mondays and Thursdays