Generating Ideas for Posts
I know that sometimes I struggle with coming up for content to blog about. So many times, I feel like it has all been said before and 100 different ways. In an effort to try and come up with some ideas for myself and to help my clients, I have some go-to resources and want to share them here. One thing I have learned from working with clients is that when you spend all day, every day, working in your business and industry you think that what you know is common knowledge, and therefore sharing that common knowledge is not interesting to other people outside of your specialty. This really isn’t true. You can almost always (I’m sure there is some topic that wouldn’t be appropriate to blog about) find someone that is interested in learning more about you, your company and your industry. So with that out of the way, let’s come up with some content ideas.
I did a post last month about using your inbox as inspiration, but it bears repeating here. Keep an eye on the questions that drop into your inbox, and see if you can compose a blog post to respond to the question. This provides you with two benefits, one you have a great blog post and two, in the future, you can point to this post when asked the question again. Let’s face it, you will be asked it again. It can testify that it works because it happened to me last week. I had a question pop up in my inbox and was able to respond with a link to a blog post.
A follow up to the idea of using your inbox to generate ideas is to also use discussion groups or LinkedIn questions in the same way. People are asking questions in many areas, so find one that matches your knowledge and get writing. You can always go back to where you found the question and respond with the link to drive a little more traffic and provide the answer. Once you start looking at what is on other people’s mind, you may find an overwhelming amount of potential blog posts.
Another great content generator is reading industry news and other people’s blog posts. While doing your regular reading, you may find an interesting article or point of view upon which you can comment. Write up some quick thoughts on it and post it to your blog with a link to the original. Often times someone else’s thoughts can really spur a flood of ideas. Use these ideas to share the information, expand on the idea with your own thoughts or even to disagree with the other person’s point of view.
There are a alot other ways to generate ideas. What are your favorite?
How Often Should I Post?
When meeting with clients about blogging, they often worry about how often they need to publish to be effective. I did a post regarding my thoughts on a survey that basically says the more posts a week the better conversion of customers. To recap, I firmly believe that you should concentrate on the quality of your posts versus the quantity.
At the very least, you should plan on one post a week or you just shouldn’t bother with a blog. There have been weeks that I have not had anything to post, and that is going to happen from time to time, but you really should have a goal of at least once a week. We’ve already talked about ways to help organize this content, namely an editorial calendar and chunking your writing time, so you should be able to produce, at the very least, one post a week.
As you make blogging part of your routine, my hope is that you will be able to add more posts into your weekly schedule. It is true the more you can keep people engaged with you and your company, the better for your branding and positioning. The more you can produce quality content that your audience is looking for, the closer you get to achieving your blogging goals. Will it result in more sales? Honestly, results may vary and may take a little more experimenting on your part with topics, frequency, media type and time of day when you post.
Tomorrow I’m going to give you some ideas for coming up with content for your blog. I’m hoping that will give you more ideas to be able to post more often as you find your blogging voice and groove. In the last week of July, I will discuss some measurement techniques to track in order to know whether what you are doing is working or needs adjusting. I’ll leave you with this, be realistic about your time and what you can produce for content. As soon as you take on too much, you will begin to dislike the process and give up on your blog. Take your time, build a foundation, and then add on as you go.
My Routine for Better Biz Blogging
This month I have been publishing a new post every weekday which is something I have never done. I’m not going to lie, it’s been a challenge, but I am finding that creating a routine has made the process much easier. I’m going to give you an insider’s view into what I have been doing.
First, when I thought about this idea I wanted to make sure I had enough content to fill a whole month so I created my editorial calendar, which I discussed yesterday. Once I had the main topics for the month, I sat down and wrote out an outline for each post so I had a skeleton to work from. I did this because it takes a lot of stress off of myself to get everything on paper at once and then expand upon it later.
This brings me to another point, pen and paper. Well, at least that’s how I prefer to jot down notes and ideas. I hear good things about Evernote and there is a great post by Amber Naslund about how she uses Evernote for more than just blogging. Whatever your preferred method, you need a place where you can record ideas, thoughts, sketches, or whatever else you need to remember what you want to write about.
So my calendar and outline are complete, and now it is time to write. Because I cannot just write on the spot, I like to set aside some time to complete a chunk of writing at a time. The time of day can vary because of my dual role of being a business owner and a Mom, but I am finding I write better in the morning. My mother would never believe I am becoming a morning person 
I am finding that if I can have 2 hours of time set aside I can get anywhere from 2 to 4 posts written especially since I have the outline already complete. Chunking my time allows me to concentrate on the topics and really put my thoughts together more effectively than I would jumping from client work to writing.
After I have my first draft written, I usually let it sit for a day or more before I read it again. Once I have reread the post and made my many edits, I run down a checklist of things I try to include with each post: title, picture, tags and categories. I like to have these elements planned out so I’m not stuck last minute trying to be creative. You’ve probably noticed the trend that procrastination is a huge enemy to my creativity. The more I have things planned, the easier it is for me.
So there you go. Just a little look into the routine I have created to make this series possible. It is definitely a routine I will try to keep once August rolls around to keep things more consistent. What do you find works best for you?
Getting Organized: The Editorial Calendar
This week we are going to discuss content for your blog, from getting organized to actual ideas about what to write. I want to start the week talking about one of my favorite tools for staying organized, the editorial calendar. I briefly mentioned it here, but I want to go into a little more detail here. I have found this tool when working with clients to be very effective for keeping them on schedule and focused because it allows them to plan ahead.
If you aren’t a natural writer or are new to blogging, it’s often hard to come up with content ideas on the spot. I find this especially true when I am busy and focused on my client’s projects. The editorial calendar forces you to sit down and look at the upcoming month and begin to fill it in with ideas for your blog as well as other marketing tools. Remember we are integrating here. Look at your schedule for the upcoming month and see what may be going on that you can incorporate into your social media content. Are there upcoming trade shows, holidays, promotions? You get the idea, right?
In addition to the content, there are some other items I like to incorporate into the calendar especially when working with a team. First i like to add to the calendar what days we will be posting to the blog and include the content topic as well. This gives a bird’s eye view of your content for the month allowing you see if you have spread it out well or if you have too heavy with one topic. Of course if you are doing a series like this one, then it will be topic heavy. It all depends on your goals.
Along with the content, I like to include who is responsible for the content, again if it is a team blog. This allows each team member to look at the calendar, see what they are writing about and when so they can incorporate it into their own schedule. If there is an approval process in place, you will want to put due dates on the calendar as well just to keep things on track. Back things out from the post date to create the workflow for the calendar.
One idea for your editorial calendar is to look at what days you want to post and try to keep them consistent. This is something I have been trying to improve upon because it gives your readers a better idea of when to expect new information from you. It also helps to build content creation into your routine. Some blogs are very successful creating a certain topic of content on specific days, so that on Monday’s the readers can expect the same theme in the posts. I love this idea and have struggled to come up with a great idea. Any input would be greatly appreciated…
I would love to hear from you on this subject. Do you use a calendar to plan content? Any additional ideas we should include?
Guest Post – Finding and Using Images for Your Blog
Image by Jessica Hibbard (jesshibb)
The absolute best images for your blog are the custom photos and graphics you create yourself. But there may be situations where you don’t have the time, technology, props, or skills to create the ideal image for each post. That’s why it’s essential to know where to look for great images and how to use them appropriately on your business blog.
Copyright, licensing, and image credits
Just because it’s online doesn’t mean it’s free. Using images properly will help you avoid legal problems and other headaches. (And, by the way, showing respect for work created by others is simply the right thing to do.)
When you’re searching for images online, assume that all images are copyrighted. (One exception to this is Flickr Commons, a public collection of images – mostly historic – with no known copyright restrictions.) Unless you created the image or paid someone to create the image for you, let’s assume that you don’t own the copyright.
Licensing is separate from copyright, and is frequently misunderstood. In most cases, when work is created by one person and used by another, the author retains the copyright and licenses the use of the work to the other party. The strictest license is “all rights reserved,” and it means just that: If you don’t own the copyright, then you have to ask permission before using the image in ANY way whatsoever. Don’t even think about right-clicking that image, let alone blogging, printing, or emailing it without negotiating its use with the copyright owner.
Stock images usually carry a royalty-free (unlimited use, flat-rate pricing) or rights-managed (restricted use, with pricing dependent upon intended use). The details of these types of licenses are readily available on stock web sites.
Creative Commons licenses are a bit more flexible, and are increasing in popularity. Creative Commons is a nonprofit with a goal of increasing the amount of content “available to the public for free and legal sharing, use, repurposing, and remixing.” Their “some rights reserved” licenses range from CC-BY (commercial and noncommercial use, requiring nothing more than attribution) to CC-BY-NC-ND (the most restrictive license, where content can’t be modified or used commercially). Creative Commons licenses are a great help to bloggers on a budget who wish to benefit from generous photographers, illustrators, musicians, videographers, and other creative people who are willing to share in exchange for credit.
Even with the most flexible CC license, it’s important to remember that the artist still owns the image, and you MUST provide credit for Creative Commons images. No matter what license you use, it’s a good idea to contact the copyright holder, let them know how you plan to use the image, and ask them how they wish to be credited. If you negotiate use of an “all rights reserved” image directly with an artist, make sure you clarify expectations when it comes to providing credit. Build this process into your plan for creating content, and leave space for image credits and web site links when you design your blog.
Where to look
Google and Bing searches will yield the most results, but more isn’t always better. You want to find relevant, high-quality images that are free or inexpensive to use.
Flickr is by far my favorite place to find images online. Use the advanced search feature on this photo-sharing site to find images by both amateur and professional photographers. You have the option of filtering to restrict results to photos with a Creative Commons license for commercial use. Sort the results by most “interesting” or “relevant” to find the images with the greatest potential as quickly as possible. If you have a budget for photography on your blog, increase your chances of finding the perfect image by opening your search to include photos that are marked “All Rights Reserved” or licensed for noncommercial use. Those designations don’t mean you’ll never be able to use the photo. It just means you have to contact the photographer to negotiate licensing and payment. Just send a FlickrMail (account required, but registration is free), use the email address on the Flickr photographer’s profile (if provided), or click the “Request to license via Getty Images” link on the photo page (if enabled).
Stock photo sites, including iStockPhoto, Veer, and Getty Images, also have some great options. Royalty-free, small-size images may be more affordable than you think. Advantages of using stock photography include faster and more precise searching, immediate download, and no need to negotiate directly with an artist. Disadvantages include limited selection, lack of free options, and the risk of using an image that your audience has already seen elsewhere. Check each stock photo site for pricing and licensing information before making a purchase.
Why go to all this effort?
Aside from the (hopefully) obvious fact that legal problems resulting from the misuse of copyrighted images can cost your company time, money, and reputation, here are a few reasons why going the extra mile will make your blog more effective in the long run:
- Properly credited images are a subtle indication that your blog is professional and trustworthy. If we don’t know where you’re getting your images, how can we trust the accuracy of the other information you’re publishing?
- Photographers, illustrators, and designers, like other professionals, are often well-connected and share information with each other. Many of us have hundreds or thousands of connections on Twitter, Flickr, and LinkedIn, not to mention real-life interactions with clients and contacts. The last thing you want is an angry artist telling all of his or her friends about the business that stole their image.
- Intellectual property is increasingly important … Legally, politically, and economically. In its 2010 Join Strategic Plan on Intellectual Property Enforcement (PDF), the White House published a quote from President Obama: “[W]e’re going to aggressively protect our intellectual property. Our single greatest asset is the innovation and the ingenuity and creativity of the American people. It is essential to our prosperity and it will only become more so in this century.”
I hope this is helpful as you create a new blog, or look for ways to communicate more effectively on an existing blog. It sounds complicated, but it all comes down to simple, common-sense guidelines: Think twice before using an image that doesn’t belong to you, and when in doubt, ask! Doing things the right way is easier (and less expensive) than you might think.
Resources:
- Photographers’ Rights group on Flickr
- A Photo Editor: How to deal with infringements
- Photo Attorney Blog
- Plagiarism Today Blog
Please note: This post is for informational purposes, and should not be considered consultative advice or legal counsel. If you need professional help with intellectual property issues, please contact an attorney.
Guest post by Jessica Hibbard, a.k.a. jesshibb. By day, Jessica is Communications Director at the Frederick County Chamber of Commerce. The rest of the time, you might find her snapping photos in Frederick and beyond. Her work has been used (with permission) by The Impossible Project, Four Corners Dark, Frederick Maryland Online, Dry Soda, Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Morris Arboretum, ColourLovers, and many others.
Comment Tool Box
Yesterday I discussed some options regarding strategies for handling comments on your blog. Today, I’m going to talk a little about the technical options for comments. I want to touch on 3 plug-ins that I think enhance comments, 1 of which I am using and the other 2 I hope to implement soon.
The first plug-in you cannot live without is Akismet for managing comment spam. Yes, like everything else, the spammers of the Interwebs have discovered blogs are another way to let you know about their wonderful enhancement products. If you don’t have this plug-in installed, you will have to wade through all the spam to find the legitimate contributors. I will caution that sometimes a legitimate comment gets caught in the filter so you should check it from time to time. Believe me, this plug-in is a huge timesaver.
Like most bloggers, I love to get comments on my blog, but sometimes find it difficult to respond to people because of the standard format of comments. I love the idea of threaded conversations in comments and am looking at adding that capability here by using Disqus. From a user standpoint, it allows you set up a Disqus profile which keeps track of where you have left comments and any responses to your comments. This is especially helpful to keep track of what you have said and if you need to return for additional comments. From a blogger standpoint, it allows your commenters this functionality and makes responding to each individual much easier.
The last plug-in I want to mention is CommentLuv. This plug-in is really about giving a little bonus to your readers that leave a comment. This plug-in links to the latest blog post of the comment author. This allows the reader to promote his or her own work a little and may even increase the likelihood they leave a comment in the first place. This is yet another plug-in that I want to install if I ever get a break from writing these posts
I know you have some alternative plug-ins to the ones I mentioned as well as some other comment plug-ins, so this is your chance to share with us. Ready, go…
Managing Comments
We have talked a little about the overall look for your business blog and gone into a little detail about subscription options. Now let’s discuss a topic that always produces a lot of questions from the companies that I work with, comments. I’m actually going to break this topic into 2 post with today discussing dealing with comments on your blog and tomorrow talk a little about some options for expanding your standard commenting functionality.
One of the first things that a client says to me when we begin to discuss a blog is “I don’t want to allow comments.” I understand the concern about someone saying something bad about you or the company, it’s legitimate. It’s new for a lot of companies to be that open to direct criticism in a public forum. They are use to dealing with these issues behind the scenes, whether it be over the phone, in person or even through email. What they don’t realize is they still may be criticized through other social media avenues, so I feel it’s better to have it take place on your blog where you can fully respond.
I’m a firm believer in allowing comments on a blog. There are a few exceptions to this rule, but for the most part companies need to be willing to open themselves to conversation. By not allowing comments, the company sends a message of being closed off to their audience and most likely will not enjoy much success and quickly abandon the plan.
I offer two bits of advice to clients to help ease their apprehension, one is to create a comments policy and the second is choose an option for comments moderation. The use of a comments policy gives you a little control over being able to remove the trolls from your blog. My favorite example of a comments policy is at Outspoken Media’s Blog. If you have a policy that people can read and you can enforce, you can deal with trolls that are just out to cause trouble and offer no true value to the conversation.
The second item is that you can choose how comments get posted to your blog. WordPress gives you three options:
- Let every comment automatically post to the blog.
- Every comment must be approved before posting to the blog.
- Approve the comment author the first time and then future comments from the author will be automatically posted.
I prefer and recommend Option 3. I feel like if you are legit the first time, you probably will be every time you comment. It allows for more real-time conversation and a little less effort on my part. As an add-on to this idea, you should also consider when you publish a new post try to be close to your blog’s dashboard so you can approve comments quickly. It can be very frustrating to people that post a comment to wait for it to be posted. It stifles the conversation and turns people off from leaving comments in the future.
Comments are not to be afraid of, they allow you an opportunity to learn and respond. Just plan a little and you will be able to deal with anything. Tomorrow we will talk about some technical options for comments.
Let’s Talk Subscriptions
One great thing about blogs is the ability to let people subscribe to your updates. The vehicle for this is Real Simple Syndication (RSS). Blogs come with this functionality standard, but I like to use a third-party solution, in this case Feedburner, to manage my subscriptions for me. The caveat is that Feedburner can be a little flaky with subscription counts, but you get what you pay for which is nothing. I have also been told about Feedblitz which I have not personally tried.
In addition to RSS, Feedburner allows your readers to subscribe to your feed via email. This is very important because no matter how long RSS has been around, people are much more comfortable with email. About one half of my subscribers use the email option to stay up to date with my blog. If I didn’t have email subscription as an option, this is an audience that I may not be reaching. Depending on your target market, you may find this percentage to be even higher.
Another great thing about the Feedburner email subscription option is the ability to customize that email. You are able to customize the subject line, add a logo and customize the fonts to be used. Beyond the appearance, my favorite customization is defining when the email should be delivered to the reader’s inbox. As you go, you will probably play with the best time of day to publish a post until you get a feel for what works well. Once you know this, you can set your email to go out in that 2 hour time frame.
The last thing I want to mention about Feedburner is the analytics it provides. As I mentioned, it is a little flaky when it comes to subscriber numbers. Mine seem to be up and down significantly on a daily basis, but at least I can get a feel for where I am with respect to numbers. The analytics also break down how people are accessing your feed by showing which reader or if it is via email subscription. The analytics also show you which posts are the most accessed on a given day.
There is so much more that Feedburner offers that I haven’t discovered yet, but this is an overview of what you want to consider when adding subscription options to your business blog. What is your experience with Feedburner or another system?
Book Review: The Retail Doctor’s Guide to Growing Your Business
While I t
ypically write about social media, I wanted to take a break and let you know about a book that I was asked to read and review. I agreed to read it because I have some retailers as clients and that read this blog, so I thought they would be interested in the book. Also, I have always had an interest in retail and jumped on an opportunity to learn more from the Retail Doctor.
The book covers all aspects of the retail business from financials, setting up your store, hiring and training staff and marketing. I think one of the most interesting things in the book was evaluating what type of business owner you are whether it be a driver, analytical, expressive or amiable. Once you choose which best fits your personality, Bob gives you insight on how to best approach the other parts of your business to leverage your personality type best. It was nice to see an approach that didn’t make assumptions about the business owner.
The Doctor does not take a Mary Poppins approach and sugar-coat any of his advice which may put some people off, but I found it to be very no-nonense and actionable advice that can put your store on track for success. It is realistic advice and I totally enjoyed learning about how to set up your store from merchandise layout to traffic flow. I may never look at a retail store the same way again.
Of course I spent the most time on the chapter that talked about websites. He discussed a two-tier approach with your website being Tier 1 and your social media being Tier 2. The social media discussion focused on the most popular tools (Facebook, Twitter and YouTube) that retailers should look at for promotion. Overall, if you are in the retail business or looking into opening a store, you really should take a look at this book to gain some insight.
Have you ever read anything from the Retail Doctor? What do you think about him?
Disclosure: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for agreeing to review the book, but with no restrictions on what I say.
The Window Dressing
This week we are going to discuss the mechanics and logistics that go into your business blog. Today, specifically, I want to talk about the look or window dressing of your blog. Too often I see companies use the standard WordPress theme with no customization or branding. Whether you want to brand your blog the same as your other marketing tools or as a separate entity (like this blog) you should look to extend a theme or template to customize it for your needs. In addition there are some other elements I want to make sure you include in the overall look, so let’s jump in.
There are numerous options when it comes to picking a theme to use with your blog. The main decision to make is whether to use a free theme or pay for one. All you have to do is a simple Google Search on “free wordpress themes” or “premium wordpress theme” to see all of your options. In building blogs for clients, I have had experience with both free and premium themes, and my best experiences have been with premium. Mind you the premium themes are almost always under $100 which is a little price to pay to make life easier.
Here are the advantages:
- You can get support from the developer if you do have a problem.
- You may have a footer with the developer name, but you won’t have affiliate links in the footer that you can’t remove.
- They typically have easy-to-use control panels that make for easier and faster customization and changes.
- Upgrades to the theme to go with updates to WordPress
Once you have your selected, installed and customized your theme, you are going to want to add a few more things to your blog. First you want to add an About or Author page. Not a post, a page. You want people to know who is behind the writing of the blog. It helps to give the reader a better feel for the voice of the author or authors. Be sure to include all your authors if it is a team blog. In addition to short bios, try to include a photo. I know, I know I don’t have a photo on here and that is on my list of improvements to make.
The last thing I want to see you have on your blog are links to both your company’s website and any social media spokes you are using. This provides two benefits to you and your readers. One, it let’s people know other ways to connect with you, such as Twitter or Facebook. Different people prefer different social media tools, so if you link to them on your blog they are able to choose how they want to stay connected. The second advantage is that if people find you on Twitter and want to make sure you are, in fact, legitimate it helps to have links that cross-pollenate so they will know you are who you say you are.
Simple things to get your blog ship-shape and on the way to better business exposure. Tomorrow we are going to talk about giving your readers options to subscribe to your blog. What has your experience been with themes?
Note: I have been referring to WordPress self-hosted edition throughout as this is the platform I have the most experience with and prefer. You can apply most of this information to the platform of your choosing.
