Buzz Marketing with Blogs For Dummies Press Releases
Since I’m taking care of book business today, I thought I might as well finish out the day by posting two press releases for the book. I know these are going to be a lot less interesting to you all than the first chapter, but I’ve had some requests for them, so here they are as PDFs.
Use this press release however you wish!
The full text appears below.
Read the rest of this entry...
Book Table of Contents and First Chapter
I promised a surprise on Monday, and here it is Monday, so without further ado, I’m pleased to release the table of contents and first chapter of my upcoming book, Buzz Marketing with Blogs for Dummies. These are in PDF.
- Table of Contents (205 KB)
- Chapter 1: Checking Out Business Blogs (1 MB)
Update from Travis: As far as I can tell, this is the first time that the Dummies folks have published a chapter online before that Dummies book has been released. Go Susie!
Please feel free to redistribute these files, as long as you maintain a mention of the book title and a link back to this site. I’d love to hear your reactions and thoughts!
Blogger Agency
My friend (and Buzz Marketing with Blogs for Dummies’ technical editor!) Paul Chaney is a fount of new ideas. A couple months ago he founded the Professional Bloggers Association, and this week he began the world’s first blogger agency: Bloggeropoly. Paul will be making connections between bloggers looking for work and businesses looking for bloggers.
Congratulations to Paul, and to everyone who can make use of his great services!
Watch This Space
I’m seeing the Windy City today, and finding it fairly wonderful, actually. Ok, yes, it’s cold, but I—clever girl—brought a coat! And gloves and a hat… Chicago has such a different feel from the West Coast city aesthetic, and Millennium Park is truly outstanding.
On Monday, back at my desk, I’ll have something special for all of you. Five bucks to the person who guesses what it is first (you people who I’ve already told aren’t eligible!). In the meantime, have a great weekend.
Blog Research Resource
For blog newbies, basic information can be hard to piece together (despite all the great blogs on blogging out there!). About.com, newly owned by the New York Times, is one place to start as you ramp up in the blog world.
Today’s piece is on the ”Top 7 Ways To Encourage Blog Reader Interaction.” I won’t give all the tips away, but if you don’t have comments for your blog turned on, you’re definitely missing out!
There’s lots more in the About.com Web Logs section—from podcasting to moblogging to RSS.
Associated Press Gets RSS
From Steve Rubel’s Micro Persuasion:
Welcome news from Susan Mernit - the Associated Press has launched RSS feeds. This is the first time AP stories are available directly on the web in RSS (as opposed to running through Yahoo News.) The seventeen feeds include Top News, US, World, Business, Sports, and Technology.
2005 Business Blog Award Winner Announced
Congratulations to nominees and winners of the 2005 Business Blog Awards. Winners, announced, Wednesday, are:
Best Overall Blog - Security Awareness
Best Group Blog - Monty’s Bluff
Best New Blog - 800-CEO-READ
Best Law Blog - Phosita
Best VC/Entrepreneur Blog - Business Opportunities
Best Financial Industry/Investment Blog - Between the Hedges
Best Personal Finance Blog - PFBlog
Best Blog by a Small Business - The Tin Basher Blog
Best Blog About Small Business - eBizBlog
Best PR Blog - Media Guerilla
Best Tech Company Blog - Security Awareness
Best Media Blog - Fast Company Blog
Best Real Estate Blog - Tampa Bay’s Inside Real Estate Journal
Best Marketing Blog - JSLogan
Best SEO Blog - Blog Business World
Best Project Management Blog - AgileManagement
Best Leadership Blog - Leadership Now
The Picasso Award (Best Design) - Signal vs. Noise
The Peacock Award (Most Self-Important) - Inside Real Estate Journal
The Chris Pirillo Award (For Shameless Self Promotion) - Chris Pirillo
Darren Rowse on the Future of Blogging
This is the second of a two-part interview of ProBlogger Darren Rowse. If you missed part one, here it is.
What advice do you have for new entrepreneurial bloggers or businesses looking to use this medium?
Niche it up baby – think very carefully about your topic/s. I am leaning more towards a niche approach to blogging these days. Yes there is a place for the more general blogs that cover a wide range of topics, but in terms of commercializing them using the methods I use it is probably better to narrow your focus a little.
It won’t happen over night - take a long term approach. It takes time to build a substantial archive of posts, to build your page ranking in search engines, to get linked to by other sites, to build credibility and respect in an industry and to earn the trust of loyal readers. My blogs have hundreds (some thousands) of posts on them, this doesn’t just happen, it takes years of work – initially without much in the way of reward except the satisfaction that you’ve done a good job.
Write with passion – start with something you have an interest, passion or some expertise in. It is possible to make money from a website or blog that you have no interest in, but its a lot more fun to do it with a topic that energizes you. Remember this is not something that might pay off quickly (if at all) so ask yourself the question - ‘would I be happy to blog about this for little or no reward for a couple of years?’ If the answer is no then it might be worth choosing another topic.
Blog til you Bleed – entrepreneurial blogging is is bloody hard work. Yes its fun, yes its a rush when you get Slashdotted or Gizmodo links up to you but it can also be a grind and slightly mind numbing. There is no getting away from the fact that to make money from it you need to be willing to work hard, post lots, build relationships with your readers and other bloggers. I blog between 3-10 hours every day (6-7 days per week). Blogging is a flexible job (you can do it around other things) but it doesn’t just happen, especially when you’re just starting out). Set yourself some posting goals (mine is 25 posts per day) and stick to them.
Diversify – don’t put all your blogging in one basket. My experience late last year of losing most of my traffic from a Google tweak reminded me how fragile blogging as a business can be. Diversify what you do in some of these ways:
- don’t just blog on one domain (Google’s update last year effected all of the blogs I had on one domain but not on another)
- consider a ‘real job’ - whilst I make enough to live on from blogging I also do a bit of other non blogging related work (research position) as well – partly to get me interacting with ‘real’ people but also as a back up income in case it all falls apart!
- blog on a variety of topics – Digital Cameras won’t be the biggest thing for then next 10 years – something else will capture the attention of people position yourself to be there to cash in on the new craze. Its also a good idea for your mental health not to obsess about the one thing exclusively – get a life!
- consider ways you can earn a non direct income from your blog – blogging creates experts (I wrote about this recently). As your blog builds consider other ways you can generate an income from it. Perhaps your blog will open up opportunities for a book on your topic, some speaking opportunities in the industry you’ve chosen, consulting on your topic etc.
Give us your thoughts on the future of blogs.
- I don’t really know where blogging is going. I’m seeing things start to shoot off in all kinds of directions with podcasting and vlogging – I guess there is some future here although I personally have a few reservations with it.
- I hope that blogging continues to grow as a medium and that more and more people start getting into it. However as they do the reality is that things are going to get more and more congested on the Pro Blogging front and it will be harder and harder to make it viable.
- I expect that tools and services will continue to improve. I can’t wait for the day that someone comes up with an RSS news aggregator that is more integrated with an ecto like blogging tool.
- I worry about blog hijacking and RSS feed stealing. Its getting more and more common to stumble across sites that have stolen content on them with no links back to their source. This concerns me and I’d like to see more tools for automatic detection and alerts of this.
- Blog Networks like Weblogs Inc and Gawker will continue to be powerhouses in entrepreneurial blogging. Despite my recent posts on ProBlogger that ‘one person blogging businesses’ are a viable way of earning an income from blogging I do acknowledge that joining together with others to blog is probably where the big money will be. I suspect we’ll see more attempt to start similar networks (although there is probably only room for a few to do it on a large scale). I wonder also if we’ll see some new models of blog networks emerge also that are less centralized and controlled by one person (or a small group of people).
Kottke Starts Donation Blogging
Jason Kottke has done a lot in the past few months. In December there was speculation that he would stop blogging altogether thanks to legal troubles with Sony. Today, however, he’s taken his blog to a new level by asking his blog readers support him.
I recently quit my web design gig and—as of today—will be working on kottke.org as my full-time job. And I need your help.
I’m asking the regular readers of kottke.org (that’s you!) to become micropatrons of kottke.org by contributing a moderate sum of money to help enable me to edit/write/design/code the site for one year on a full-time basis. If you find kottke.org valuable in any way, please consider giving whatever you feel is appropriate.
He’s not the first blogger to fund blogging or other activities through a donation drive, of course, but it will be quite a shift in how he handles the blog, though he’s clear that it will remain his personal blog and not become an entrepreneurial endeavor.
The goal is to use the increased level of focus and time to create a (much) better site. More time means there will be more content of a greater variety. Some days, that may mean more posts and more links. I’ll be able to go to more (hopefully interesting) events in NYC (& elsewhere) and write about them. I’ll have time do the occasional bit of real journalism, collaborate on neat projects like Dropcash, and do larger projects that require longer time scales to finish...dare I hint at a return to more 0sil8-like projects? (I dare.) And there are opportunities that I’m sure will present themselves as I settle into the luxuriant folds of full-timeness.
Interview with ProBlogger Darren Rowse
For today, I’ve got something special for you: an interview with blogger Darren Rowse, a blogger who is actually earning a living with blogs!
When did you begin blogging?
I first started blogging in November of 2002 on a personal blog (livingroom.org.au/blog) where I wrote (and still do) on themes of culture, spirituality, life in Australia and virtually anything and everything else that I had any interest in. That blog became quite popular within the segment of the blogosphere that I was interacting with and I began to build my domain’s page rank and traffic levels. I also realised that my bandwidth costs were getting a bit out of control so I added AdSense ads to this blog in the hope of covering my costs.
I blogged there for almost a year before starting a second blog which today is called Digital Photography Blog (www.livingroom.org.au/photolog). This blog originally started as a simple photoblog to record an overseas trip. However on a whim one day I added a short review of the digital camera that I use. After a few weeks I checked my stats and realised that not a single person had viewed my photos but that I was getting a few hits on the camera review.
I added a second review and a few news stories about digital cameras and saw traffic continue to rise. I added AdSense ads to this site also and realised quite quickly that I was going to cover my hosting costs for the year in a month or two and have a little extra money left over to put towards other ventures. So began a journey of ProBlogging.
How many blogs do you have, and why did you start them?
I now own and write on 17 blogs on a variety of topics ranging from Digital Photography Blog (my biggest one now) through to other technology blogs like Camera Phone Zone (www.livingroom.org.au/cameraphone - in desperate need of a redesign), to ProBlogger (www.problogger.net - my latest blog) through to Depression News (www.breakingnewsblog.com/depression/ - a blog on depression and mental illness).
I started each blog for different reasons. I have some sort of interest in all of the topics I cover, although I admit I’m more passionate about some than others. Some have a more commercial nature than others whilst others are more about offering a genuine service to others (like Depression Blog). ProBlogger.net is less about actually making money and more a profile raiser – its actually starting to help me build a clientele in blog consulting.
I also am a co-founder and partner in the Breaking News Blog collective of blogs (www.breakingnewsblog.com) - I don’t own or have an active part of all of them, but have an interest in them all and write on around half of them.
Why did you start blogging? How did you set about measuring success?
As you’ll see from the story of my first blogs above – my blogging has been an evolution rather than a strategic move. I wish I’d known what I know now and done a little more planning on some of my early blogs – but I won’t complain because I’m doing pretty well out of it all. When I first started “success” was more about traffic levels than anything else. Now I’m not so concerned about traffic levels (although I track them and see a relationship between them and final earnings). Now I also track a number of other factors including earnings of each blog (obviously), inbound links, page ranking, numbers of comments, SERPs and even feedback emails that I get. Somewhere in the midst of all these things lies success for me.
How frequently do you post?
I currently have a goal of posting 25 posts per day 7 days per week. Of course this is across 17 blogs, some of which I post multiple posts per day, others I would only post on a couple of times per week. I don’t always meet this goal (although some days when I’m on a roll I can do much more than that) but its what I aim for. I figure if I want to make a full time living from blogging then I need to put significant levels of effort into it. If I post for a full year at this rate I’ll have added 9125 pages which gives every opportunity for someone to find it using search engines.
Biggest blog mistake? Biggest blog success?
Mistake: One of the things I regret is not setting up some of the blogs that I’ve started on their own domains. Digital Photography Blog’s URL has always sat uncomfortably with me. I actually own the digitalphotographyblog.com domain name, but am hesitant to move now that I’ve built it to such a good level on the livingroom domain. Of course if I’d have started this blog 18 months ago on its own domain it would not have enjoyed the success that it now has because it became successful very quickly on the back of my previous blog on the same domain name.
Success: Apart from the overall success of being able to earn a full time income from my blogging I think the highlight so far was our Olympics blog last year. A friend of mine and I started a blog about the Athens Olympics a couple of months before they began in the hope of attracting a bit of traffic. Again it was on the livingroom domain (www.livingroom.org.au/olympics) so climbed the rankings in Google very quickly. We were in the top 10 results on most olympic games search terms on Google (number 1 or 2 for many) and over the month of August had close to 2 million visitors to the blog. It was a crazy ride – we both lived on Athens time during the games (slept all day and were awake all night) and made some pretty good money over the time that made the hard work worth it.
What tools do you use on your blog?
A number of tools come to mind.
Movable Type and WordPress – these are the backbones of my blogs. My more recent blogs are WP based and I’m considering moving my older ones over to it too when I see how 1.5 goes.
Ecto – this little tool has revolutionised my blogging. It allows me to blog when offline, drag and drop in images and other files, import quotes from other sources with one click, insert Amazon affiliateship products with a couple of clicks and write it all in WYSIWYG.
Bloglines – RSS is a major development that cuts down the time that it takes me to find content for many of my blogs. I track 300 or so sources daily and find the simplicity and availability (being web based) of it is great.
Powerbook – ok its not really a blogging tool – but I love my Mac 
How do you find find readers and drive traffic?
Good question. Really these days most of the traffic I get comes courtesy of my “friends” at Google. This makes me a little uncomfortable as all it takes is a tweak to their algorithm and my traffic can be whisked away (something I experienced for 6 weeks in December and January). I’ve been working harder more recently to diversify the flow/s of traffic that I have.
I’ve been experimenting with an opt in email newsletter on my Digital Photography Blog over the past few months in an attempt to build up loyalty of readers. I’’ve got this list up to 3500 subscribers which has definitely helped things – although Google continues to serve 90% of traffic to that blog.
RSS – this is an area that continues to grow. It’s nowhere near as big as Google but an increasing number of my readers at ProBlogger come over via my RSS feeds. I guess this is because I don’t publish full posts in RSS which forces people to actually come to the site. I know this annoys some readers but for a number of reasons will only continue to publish excerpts.
I also work hard on relationships with other bloggers in the fields of my blogs. My motivations for this a numerous – it’s partly about fostering working partnerships with them (I believe that even fierce competitors in a niche can work together to better the position of both blogs) - its also partly in the hope of some incoming links (Google juice) which are so important in building search engine rankings – but it’s also out of genuine interest in other bloggers and how they operate and how we can support each other. All of this builds readership.
What kind of traffic does your blog get?
This goes up and down depending upon who has linked to me on any given day or what scoops I might have published on. As of today I’m averaging just under 20,000 readers across my blogs each day viewing around 32,000 pages.
What’s the most surprising aspect of blogging for you?
I am constantly surprised that people read what I have to say. I’m surprised by the amazing people I’ve had the opportunity to meet through it. I’m surprised that I can make a living from something that started as a hobby. I’m surprised that my wife let me follow my dream of doing this instead of a “real job” (she was very gracious in the early days when I only earned a few dollars a day). I’m constantly surprised by how the technology is improving to make what I do easier and easier. I’m surprised that I’ve stuck at it for two and a half years (I have a short attention span)!
Do your blogs earn income for you? How?
Yes they do earn income for me. I have a number of income streams across my little blogging network which include Google AdSense, Amazon affiliate program, other affiliate programs, private sponsorship (banner ads, text ads, button ads), impression based advertising, systems like BlogAds, Adbrite and hopefully BlogKits (if it takes off).
I’ll give almost any income generating program a go for a period to see how it works. I find that some blogs are better suited to some systems than others.
How much do I earn? This is the big question, isn’t it? Some of the systems I use don’t allow disclosure of actual figures so I won’t break it down or give specifics. It is actually difficult to put a figure on it because each month is different and overall my earnings are still on the rise from month to month. However based on how things are currently going I expect that this year my blogging (across all blogs and income streams) will generate a six figure income ($US).
I have some new projects, deals and ideas that I hope will become a reality in 2005/6 which I’m hoping will enable me to diversify my interests a little more.
What are your favorite blogs?
I don’t have time to read other blogs!
Ok – this isn’t completely true – I do read 300 or so of them, but mainly through their RSS feeds. Its hard to pick out just a few as more special than others so I’ll limit it to three of my daily reads (if they post daily...two of them need to do a bit more work – get the hint boys?).
- WorkBoxers - Paul writes a lot better than me on Pro Blogging
- Figby - Michael has been making money online for years and is a wealth of knowledge – watch my site for an interview with him shortly.
- Blog Herald - for a good sum up of blogging news each day.
Tomorrow: Darren gives us his thoughts on the future of blogging and tips for new business bloggers!
Dickless Blogging!
Thanks to Andy Wibbels at Easy Bake Weblogs, you can get the scoop on blogs from author and blogger Yvonne DiVita of Windsor Media Enterprises and Lip-Sticking fame.
Andy says:
Upcoming Exclusive: Dickless Blogging with Yvonne Divita
Mark your calendars for another rollicking extravaganza.
March 2nd @ 7pm EST - 440-389-9715 x834
There is an audio introduction on Easy Bake Weblogs for more information.
More on the Dunkin’ Donuts Blog
Today, I spoke with Scott Lewis, creator of Dunkin’ Donuts Talk I wrote about last week. Scott is a consultant with Nebo Group, a Chicago-based business consulting company.
Scott told me that he started Dunkin’ Donuts Talk to show up a friend who was teasing him about his love for Dunkin’ Donuts. “It was almost a joke,” Scott says. “He said I ought to start a blog about it, so I thought for $8 [the cost of the domain name registration] I should show him what I could do.”
As it happens, the blog has been quite successful, tapping into a “cult-like” following of Dunkin’ Donuts fans who share Scott’s love for fried dough and fresh coffee. Scott says the site gets 1500-2000 unique visitors a day. Even better, it has proven to be valuable research for The Nebo Group; Scott realized that the company could leverage their success in building an online community as part of their client services, and is working with at least client who was intrigued by the demonstrated results of Dunkin’ Donuts Talk.
As of last week, Dunkin’ Donuts is officially aware of the blog. Scott mistakenly posted some incorrect information about a free coffee for soldiers campaign. Readers of Dunkin’ Donuts Talk contacted Dunkin’ Donuts, and the company came to Scott to correct the information. In the short term, they are also sending him some product images, since he gets quite a few inquiries about Dunkin’ Donuts t-shirts and hats.
In the longer term, Scott says “I would love to do some consulting services with them with Nebo Group, and some real marketing for them—something in addition to a blog. Our blog is small potatoes for them, but I’d like to transition that into a real project with them.”
Dunkin’ Donuts should think about it. After all, small potatoes or not, the community that reads and comments on Dunkin’ Donuts Talk are arguably exactly who Dunkin’ Donuts advertising tries to target.
For Scott, and for Nebo Group, the blog that started as a lark has been useful—and “a lot of fun to do. It puts a smile on our faces in the morning, to find other people out there in the world that like the things we like.”
Nebo Group is also responsible for MetroFreeFi.com, a site that tracks free wi-fi locations around the U.S., which you traveling bloggers might find useful.
Podcasting Podcast
I posted on Saturday about a great session at Northern Voice by Tod Maffin about podcasting. Well, the podcast of the session is up on Blogosphere Radio, and you can hear for yourself just how to create a good podcast, including tips, tools and software suggestions.
Tod has also put up the slides and a transcript from his talk here.
When Hunter S. Thompson Happens, Are You Ready?
I was sad to hear today that Hunter S. Thompson, who penned “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” fatally shot himself tonight at his home, his son said. His gonzo journalism was much closer to blogging than the objective journalism practiced by most mainstream media today; overall, his own style of New Journalism, and New Journalism itself for the most part, was rejected, but it demonstrated to me a road less travelled that I’ve always been attracted to, and I think it helped lead me into blogging.
I learned about his death from the Los Angeles Times Web site; it was the top story. There are already over 200 news sites reporting this story, many are using the same story from Associated Press, which reports that Thompson’s son, Juan, originally released the news to the Aspen Daily News.
No other media had the story first-hand. So I, and I’m certain a lot of other people, went to the Aspen Daily News to read more about the story, thinking that, since Thompson lived in the area and they had the news first, they’d be a good source for more details. Sunday at 9 p.m., I saw this front page:
(click to enlarge)
No story about Thompson was found on the site. Now, Aspen Daily News doesn’t have a super-sophisticated Web site, but they don’t need a super-sophisticated Web site. What they do need, is an up-to-date Web site.
When your blog has its opportunity to capitalize on a significant event, when it has a chance to be the place that people go for information about something of wide interest, will you be ready to handle it? At the Northern Voice Conference, there was a lot of interest in the panel about how to build traffic. I think one key is that when the unexpected traffic opportunity happens, you need to be ready. Can you post to your site from anywhere, at any time? Do you have a plan? Even if you’re a small blog on a niche topic, the time to prepare is now.
ANT Video Aggregator
Heard from video blogging devotees Jay Dedman and Peter Bull during the Introduction to Video Blogging session today. They introduced the ANT video blog aggregator, a fun little tool that works like any other RSS reader. Subscribe to your favorite video blogs, and ANT will refresh and download new entries. You can then view the video files right through ANT. Very cool little app.
About
This blog is the companion Web site for "Buzz Marketing with Blogs for Dummies," a book for business professionals looking for advice and solutions for business blogging by Susannah Gardner. In stores now!
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