Blogging Tips
Why Blogs Are Better Than Email (Part 1)
Instead of spamming all your friends, family, colleagues and enemies with that inspirational message, chain letter, urban myth, or warning about breast cancer you can just post it to your blog. Then we can all just skip that entry instead of having to download and then delete the email message.
Change Blog Software and Lose RSS Subscribers?
I was cruising through my blogroll today, catching up on reading blog posts and removing some blogs I haven’t been reading lately, when I realized I was still subscribed to Robert Scoble’s old RSS feed. In October, Robert migrated to the WordPress platform. Migrating a site to a new platform is a big job, and frequently one fraught with problems for blog readers. For instance, permalink URLs are often no longer valid. Archives are sometimes lost. Sometimes photos get stripped out… it all depends on how well the migration goes. One things always changes, however, and that’s the RSS or Atom feed URL. This means you need to migrate all your RSS feed subscribers to the new feed. You can see in this screenshot of my Scobleizer subscription through Bloglines, that Robert says he had 9,000 Bloglines subscribers—and more than a month after his reminder to subscribe to the new feed, he still has 8,292 subscribers to a now defunct feed. (OK, now he has 8,291, because I took myself off that feed.)
Frankly, this is alarming. Are all those people subscribed to the new feed? Are folks just not reading Scoble? (Oh, come on, everyone reads Scoble religiously, right?) Or did they, like me, subscribe to the new feed and forget to take themselves off the old? Whatever the reason, it’s likely that Scoble has lost a certain number of readers simply because he made a technology change.
There is a workaround solution for this—setup your feed with Feedburner. You’ll get a feed in all the many RSS/Atom flavors, and a Feedburner feed URL. Change blog software and, as long as you update Feedburner, your users won’t have to do a thing to continue reading your words o’ wisdom.
Of course, it would also be nice if blog software developers (at least those producing the kind you install on your own server) came up with a common syntax and location for the feed URL, so that switching to a new platform had a little less impact, but I suppose ensuring better compatibility with a competitor’s product isn’t necessarily a great business strategy.
What Blogs Are Really About
This from the Unvarnished blog recently:
I think we bloggers get b(l)ogged down in whether comments or trackbacks or categories or permalinks make a blog a blog. I think it’s none of those things, and I think the defining characteristic of a blog is also the reason why people react so harshly to “fake” bloggers.
The thing about blogs, you see, is that there are people behind them, and you get to see those people, and connect with those people. That’s something that is exceedingly rare in traditional media—it’s something that traditionally only columnists get to do, and even then, not every columnist develops the same openness that most bloggers seem to do intuitively.
You can go read the whole post.
It’s true, isn’t it? Blogs are unique and special in the Internet world because they let you make connections with people—and in the case of business blogs, with the people behind the corporate logo. It’s a great time to have a Web site!
Step By Step, Blog Tools Explained
Susannah took the microphone and the keyboard today in order to demonstrate via a live Internet connection the details of various blogging tools.
She set up a demostration blog, using Typepad. Then she walked through, step-by-step, how to:
sign in
make a new post
edit an existing post
change the color of the post
formatting a post to add bold, italics, indents and lists
linking to other Web sites
These are very basic things to do, but they were a warm up for one of the most confusing things to do: the trackback. The demonstration was carefully planned, and went smoothly without error. I could see the signs of relief as understanding settled over the audience. (For those reading along, here’s a good primer.)
With trackbacks accounted for, Susannah undertook a review of blog site designs: what works, what doesn’t. Without the screenshots, it’s a little hard to recreate the discussion, but essentially… most blogs share many of the same design characteristics. A few blogs use radical designs, but in a quick survey of the room, it seems that if you want a blog to be immediately accepted, adopted and read, stick with a basic format. In fact, Paul Chaney added that perhaps one reason for blogs’ success is that there’s such uniformity of design—you don’t need to relearn an interface with each new blog.
Basic blog design similarities were covered yesterday. Today, discussion was more about color and font choice, alignment and other structural details, and then how to actually modify the design, yourself through one of the blogging interfaces, or by hiring a consultant.
Other blogging tools were demonstrated, too: Expression Engine, Wordpress and Blogger. All share the same basic tools, but in fact the interfaces do take a bit of getting used to, and each has its own quirks and additional features.
I should also add that the morning tea break had something you never see at North American conferences: instead of bagels and danishes, the food provided was deep fried chicken morsels with spicy red sauce, and “mee” noodles with bok choi and mushrooms. For someone who loves Asian food as much as I do, this was wonderful.
I’m cross-posting this on three sites: Buzz Marketing with Blogs, Radiant Marketing Group, and BlogAsia. If you’d like to comment, please come to BlogAsia to do so.
Why not have a blog?
The usual objections:
not enough time
not enough money
we don’t have the expertise
what if we make a mistake and other bloggers or the press or our customers think poorly of us
Objection 1: Time
Yes, it takes time.
Time to setup (but not as much as you think, and certainly not as much as a more general Web site)
Time to write each post. But you can scale that to your own time load, and you can fit it in whenever is convenient. First thing in the morning, or set aside one day to write several posts
Objection 2: Cost
A hosted service like Typepad can be only a few dollars a month
Start out with a lower cost solution, and if blogging starts working for you, you can upgrade all parts and not lose any traffic or effort
Objection 3: Expertise
You can acquire blog writing expertise quickly
Technology expertise can be hired, but also, blogging technology is designed to be as simple as possible, as accessible as possible
Objection 4: Mistakes
Every company fears new initiatives, but the benefits are far greater than the potential losses.
Your legal liability is likely very small
Because it’s a new technology, mistakes are forgiven and understandable
I’m cross-posting this on three sites: Buzz Marketing with Blogs, Radiant Marketing Group, and BlogAsia. If you’d like to comment, please come to BlogAsia to do so.
Adding a Blogroll and Other Questions
Here’s a question I got recently from new blogger Stan DeVaughn:
Hi, Susannah: It’s day-1 for my blog experiment. I’m following your guidance and trying out hosted solutions, starting with blogspot. Problem here is that I want to include a blogroll and have some additional pages for details about me, my background, etc. Can’t seem to do it with blogspot. Is Moveable Type hard to use? Thanks! sd
And here’s my answer:
Adding elements to your blog sidebar is a pretty basic modification—at least in terms of wanting to do it! When I’ve seen people set up a blog for themselves, after writing their first couple of posts, the very next question is about putting things in the sidebar.
The “how to” on this varies from one blogging tool to the next. With Blogger, you must actually go into the blog template (click on the Template tab). Look for the Edit-Me tags inserted by the default template and add your own links to create a blogroll. HTML links are formatted like this:
<a href=“http://www.buzzmarketingwithblogs.com”>Buzz Marketing with Blogs</a><br>
<a href=“Full URL Goes Here”>Text that is clickable goes here</a>
Other blogging tools, like Typepad for example, have built-in tools that let you build a blogroll without going into the templates or writing your own HTML.
One final tip: some newsreader applications let you put the list of blog feeds you are subscribed to on your blog as a blogroll. I do this myself using Bloglines, and I find this especially handy because my blogroll gets updated automatically when I subscribe or unsubscribe to a feed.
By the way, a blogroll is a list of blogs that you read yourself. Putting this list on your blog is a reader service because it lets your visitors see where you get your information and lets them go there themselves.
Creating pages that aren’t part of your blog, but that you link to from your blog, is also another common request. Typepad lets you build an About page that is separate from the blog using the admin tool; other blogging tools, like Wordpress, have a built-in function that lets you add several pages. With a little HTML know-how you can create the page yourself and link to them. There is one common cheat that works pretty well, however: Put the content you want on that page in a blog post, and then link to the permalink URL from the sidebar of the rest of your blog. (This is pretty much the only way to do this in Blogger.) The page will look just like your blog since it is part of your blog; it’s simply in how you are linking to it that it functions more like a standard Web page.
And finally, to answer your question about Movable Type being easy to use: Opinions vary, of course. I find Movable Type pretty easy to use if all you want to do is post a new blog entry, but as soon as you want to customize it things do get a little more complicated. Installation is also a bit of a bear for the technical novice, but you can get it pre-installed with some Web hosting accounts. Expect a bit of “culture” shock if you go directly from Blogger to Movable Type!
Motivation Through Procrastination
I’m working today on writing the pages I need for the BitTorrent for Dummies book deadline I must meet on Monday (I know it’s a holiday—what’s up with that!), but you may have noticed that I’ve posted several times to this blog.
Procrastination on another big project is sure a great way to get work done on other projects, or on your blog!
I hope my editor isn’t reading this. 
Full or Partial Posts in RSS Feeds
A little flurry in the blogosphere this week: Robert Scoble announced that he was going to stop reading blogs that don’t include full entries in their RSS feeds. Namely, he was going to stop reading Chris Pirillo’s blog, despite the value he finds in it. Pirillo called this “cutting off your nose to spite your face” but has actually turned on full posts in his feed.
I sympathize with both sides of the argument here. If your main way of reading blogs is through an RSS reader, it really interrupts your workflow to have to go to the blog itself to get the rest of a post. On the other hand, we’re all publishing blogs and if nobody ever visits them, well, what’s the point? Maybe we should just be publishing feeds and call it done.
Speaking for myself, I know I prefer RSS feeds that include the full post, and I’m much less likely to read a blog post that is only partially available through RSS than I would a full one. But, of course, when I get the full post I almost never click through to the blog. So actually, neither technique gets you good traffic to your blog.
But here’s the real problem, as far as I’m concerned: partial posts in RSS feeds that are so short you can’t even get a grip on whether the post is something you want to read more of. Twenty words isn’t enough, unless you’re an exceptionally tight writer or have amazing titles. This is the worst of both worlds—no one will click through to your blog to read the full post, nor will they read it through a newsreader. Now that’s shooting yourself in the foot!
I’m begging you, folks, throw those RSS-reading folks a bone and give them some motivation to click through to your blog!
Here are a few people’s thoughts to consider:
- Darren Rowse - Should Bloggers Learn about Change Management?
- Tris Hussey - Full feeds aren’t the problem. Better advertising choices are needed
- Chris Pirillo - Full-Text Feeds are Dead
- Constantin Basturea - Why I’m asking for full-text RSS feeds
- Allan Jenkins - Pirillo and Ochman Declare Full-Text RSS Dead; Wake Me Up for the Funeral
- B.L. Ochman - I’m With Chris Pirillo: Full Test RSS Feeds Are Dead
- Agylen - Switching to full feeds
SitePoint’s Blogger’s Primer
This article is a bit old, but the information it contains is evergreen: The Blogger’s Primer.
A blog is not a technology, a technique, or a cool trick. A blog is form of content site; what’s important is the information it presents, and the ways in which that content meets the readers’ needs.
The lengthy discussion on readers—finding them, keeping them, tracking them—is thorough and easy to understand. This is a great article for beginnines, but also for those of us who have been blogging for a while and have gotten distracted or forgotten what we were trying to do.
Learn Blogging by Reading Blogs
I did a teleseminar for a group last night (hi, guys!) and this morning put together a short list of blogs for them to read just to get started. I always recommend that folks new to the blogosphere spend some time reading blogs to learn the ropes. It isn’t that important what the blog is about, just that you read some good ones that attract readers and comments. So here’s a quick list of blogs I think would be fun and informative for potential bloggers to take a look at for a couple weeks (keep in mind that it’s important to show variety and have a little fun while you do this):
ProBlogger, by Darren Rowse (http://www.problogger.net/)
Darren earns a living from his many blogs using revenue programs like Google AdSense, and because he provides practical, useful information. Reading ProBlogger is also a great way to keep up on blogs!
Chocolate & Zucchini, by Clotilde Dusoulier (http://chocolateandzucchini.com/)
Food lover Clotilde’s blog is exceptionally popular although Clotilde isn’t a chef or a professional foodie. People like reading her wonderful descriptions of food, and she’s been featured in the SF Chronicle, Le Monde, the Chicago Tribue, The New York Times… This is also a good example of a blog that has some additional features that are more Web site-like than blog-like.
Dooce, by Heather Armstrong (http://www.dooce.com/)
Heather writes a personal blog with a huge readership, based largely on the strength of her writing. She has the dubious fame of having been fired for blogging about her workplace a few years ago, too.
Gizmodo, edited by Joel Johnson (http://www.gizmodo.com/)
This blog for gadget freaks taps directly into our current love of small electronics. Big, big readership, and a blog that manages to sell ads. Reviews of digital cameras, speakers, cell phones, you name it.
And, if that’s not enough, go to Technorati and do a search for a topic that interests you, personally or professionally. The results returned will be for those blogs on that subject updated most recently.
If you’re ready to get started blogging, or just to try it out for a while, why not begin for free with Blogger? You’ll be blogging 10 minutes from the moment you click on this link!
It’s easy to get distracted by blogs, so as you read keep these questions in mind, and try to apply what you learn to your own blog:
- How often does the blogger post?
- What kinds of thing does the blogger post about?
- How long are the posts?
- What makes you interested in a post?
- What turns you off about a blog or a post?
- What kinds of posts get people to comment?
- What ideas can you get for cool blog functionality and features from successful blogs?
- How often does the blogger link to other Web sites or blogs?
- When does the blogger choose to include personal posts in a professiona blog?
You can read any blog or combination of blogs while you’re learning, don’t be constrained by my list, which is pretty general and not focused on a particular type or style of blog. Let me .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) how it goes, too!
All About Blog Memes
If you’re new to blogging, you may not be aware of blog memes—ideas and post topics that spread across the blogosphere. Blog memes range from posting a picture of your cat, to posting the first sentence on page 123 of the book you’re reading, or this one:
| Your Linguistic Profile: |
| 70% General American English |
| 15% Upper Midwestern |
| 10% Yankee |
| 5% Dixie |
| 0% Midwestern |
Participating in a blog meme is a great way to go if you’re having a hard time coming up with a post topic, or for those Fridays when you’re brain takes an early weekend, or just to lighten things up a little.
If you’re looking for a meme to be part of, start by visiting the Memes List, which lists memes for every day of the week.
MarketingProfs: 5 reasons to use RSS (for marketing)
1. Avoid spam filters2. Make journalists happy3. Improve your Web traffic4. Monitor your online reputation5. It’s easy (even for a non-techie)
RSS is a valuable tool, a new weapon to add to your arsenal and an efficient way to reach customers, partners, investors and journalists. It’s an easy way to communicate information to an interested audience.You know the people subscribing to your RSS channel want your news, and you are providing that information in an unobtrusive, timely fashion. Because RSS is still a relatively new technology, you can still be ahead of the curve.If 2004 was the year of the Weblog, 2005 is the year of RSS.
Top or Bottom?
Don’t miss Steve Rubel’s great post today from Wednesday on top-down and bottom-up corporate blogging philosophies. Steve says it better that I can, but to whet your appetite, here’re a couple of quick definitions:
A: Bottom-up blogging - when real employees “on the ground” blog about a company and their work. Steve says, it’s “unfiltered, fun and, for many, incredibly risky.”
B: Top-down blogging - when management sets a strategy and selects a blogger for an official company blog.
Steve points out that companies can use both blogging methods, and get the benefit of each format.
When a Drought Becomes a Flood
March 22 is World Water Day. Google told me so, with one of its fancy logo modifications that it uses to mark interesting occasions.
Sadly, the site of World Water Day, worldwaterday.org, is down—as your site would also likely be if Google decided to feature you on its home page.
What’s that expression? “It never rains but it pours?” Well, even if you can’t get to the site, you can follow these tips for water conservation.
And remember, it never hurts to be ready for a big spike in traffic… Have you asked your Web provider how they’d handle something like this happening to you?
If Google Powers It, Check Your Site Search Today *
I may have discovered a shift in Google’s search strings that blocks searching a particular domain. If you have a search box on your own site that uses Google, you should probably go test it to see if you’re having the same problems I’ve just encountered.
As I was looking at an entry on Darren Barefoot’s site, I tried to use his site search, but when I did, I got booted to a blank Google page, despite the search-term-encrusted URL:
Now, Darren’s not likely to have a messed up site, but I’d probably have written it off, except that earlier in the day, the PMachine Expression Engine documentation search also went blank on me:
The likelihood of two decent sites both having problems with Google search boxes seems extraordinary.
So, either Google changed their query string format, or they’re having troubles returning domain-specific results all of a sudden, or they’ve decided to block certain types of searches. If you give me a few more examples, perhaps we can figure out which it is.
Update: 3/12 Darren Barefoot’s search is working now. So perhaps this isn’t the uber-crisis I made it out to be. :(
Incidentally, if you’re a business debating whether to design / install your own site search or use a Google-powered search, I would have said go with Google. You get better relevance and options in exchange for a loss of branding. If you’re a popular site, Google indexes you pretty frequently, too. However, any time you introduce another Web site into the mix, you may potentially run into problems like I’m seeing today, so that’s a consideration as well, especially as in-tool search options improve.
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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