Archive for the ‘Blog Management’ Category

Blogging at its root is simple: it is words on a (web)page, put together and reachable by anyone with internet and your blog address. There are life bloggers, business bloggers, mommy bloggers, pet bloggers, food bloggers, pretty-much-anything-you-can-think-of bloggers, and every single one of them is doing the exact same thing: putting words on a screen for their readers to see. Blogging is not segregated. There is no restrictions to whom can have a blog. It is not picky on what is written or how often. It doesn’t require advanced degrees and (judging by some of the posts I have stumbled across) doesn’t even require a firm grasp on the language it is written in. Blogging is open to the world, and because of that, bloggers seem to be taking over.

But, because there are no set rules for joining or leaving, and there is almost no limit to what can be done with a blog, I often struggle to explain what blogging really is about.

Everyone has their own ideas – Ask 5 people and you will get a different answer every time, depending on whether or not they have a blog, what type of blog they have, or the types of blogs they read. The only comment I hear regularly is that a “blog is a way to communicate quickly with a large group of people”. Which, of course, tells us nothing. Even my own explanation – “A blog is a means to communicate with an audience who is interested in you, your service or your products. It creates a 2 way communication, opening the conversation and allowing you and the reader to learn” – isn’t perfect because it doesn’t incorporate all types of blogs, only the ones I know.

So let’s get talking, I want your thoughts! No matter which type of blogs you read or write, your voice needs to be heard. So tell me…

What do you think blogging is really about?

*image credit to The Glamorous Life’s Shirts

A few weeks ago, we covered strategy questions. Those questions were created to help you determine more about your business in general. But, your business is not just work, phone calls and clients. Your business is you, your good things, your bad things, your personal life and your business life. Learning more about who you are and who you are in your business will help you to figure out how to make it grow more effectively. After all, you are the most important piece of your business puzzle! IN order to get you to open up and learn more about yourself, I am giving you 20 questions to answer. The questions span from personal to business, as you need to understand both sides of you. I would love for you to share the answers you come up with, as many as you feel comfortable sharing.

1. Where do I want to be in 6 months in my personal life?
2. Where do I want to be in 6 months in my business life?
3. What does my ideal day look like?
4. What is my biggest strength?
5. What is my biggest weakness?
6. What part of me do I love the most?
7. What do I dislike about myself?
8. Which tasks to I perform the best?
9. Which tasks should I be delegating?
10. How do I act at networking events?
11. What would my friends say about me?
12. What would my enemies say about me?
13. Does my business make me happy?
14. What is my favorite thing to do outside of business?
15. What is my favorite thing to do in my business?
16. Do i feel supported by my family?
17. Where do I want to be in 10 years in my personal life?
18. Where do I want to be in 10 years in my business life?
19. What do I need to learn about me?
20. What can I change today to make tomorrow better?

Now onto my answers (it’s only fair if I ask you to answer them, that I need to too!):

1. Where do I want to be in 6 months in my personal life? Still happily married, working on 4 days a week, finally getting all my school and debt paid off.
2. Where do I want to be in 6 months in my business life? Hiring an assistant and building my business to the next level.
3. What does my ideal day look like? Sleeping in, breakfast with my hubby, an hour and a half massage, a relaxing afternoon and then dinner at Mastro’s with my hubby.
4. What is my biggest strength? My desire to succeed in my business.
5. What is my biggest weakness? Being afraid to fail so I don’t take a lot of risks.
6. What part of me do I love the most? My personality – I’m strong, and stubborn but also very loving and caring.
7. What do I dislike about myself? My need to please people.
8. Which tasks to I perform the best? Writing, when I have the freedom to write about what I want.
9. Which tasks should I be delegating? Coding and new client phone calls.
10. How do I act at networking events? The same way I act everywhere. What you see is what you get.
11. What would my friends say about me? That I am dedicated and caring, sarcastic, stubborn, very outgoing and a lot of fun.
12. What would my enemies say about me? That I am stubborn, pretentious and a little too sarcastic.
13. Does my business make me happy? Absolutely!! I love it!
14. What is my favorite thing to do outside of business? Spend time with my hubby, family and friends.
15. What is my favorite thing to do in my business? Talk with other business owners and write!
16. Do I feel supported by my family? Yes, they are all awesome and all very willing to help.
17. Where do I want to be in 10 years in my personal life? A mom of two, enjoying time with my hubby, helping with sports and school.
18. Where do I want to be in 10 years in my business life? Still running my business part time, but having my staff mostly manage it for me, just doing the pieces I love.
19. What do I need to learn about me? Where my limit is. I often overwork myself and regret it later.
20. What can I change today to make tomorrow better? Learning to compartmentalize a bit more so I can spend more time with my hubby without work getting in the way.

Are you ready to share?

After spending the better part of my day under a fog of photoshop,  I surfaced just long enough to browse some tweets and respond to some emails. While looking through the twitter stream, a question from @Gizmodo caught my attention: When is it okay to check email during dinner?

I think the answers depends on the type of person you are talking about…

If someone is an employee of a company and they were to check email during dinner (after work hours) I would be offended. They are off the clock and have zero need to check in. If they are working on a large project, once 5 or 5:30 hits, the day is over and it waits for the next day. They get to keep business and home life separate. In this case, it is never okay to check email during dinner.

But, this is a tough question for a small business owner. I find that I check my email a lot in the evening, sometimes during dinner. Usually, this is because I am just taking a quick break from work to eat and then heading back into my office/closet. Then again, there are also nights that I am still checking emails even after I have shut down my computer and made myself cozy on the couch. Do I respond to a lot of the emails? No. But I do write notes on some of them, or create email drafts. This is helpful when the project is fresh in my mind and I am not overwhelmed with everything else that goes on during normal hours. It is hard for a small business owner to separate work from normal life because the separation doesn’t really exist.

What do you think? Should small business owners have different rules?

On February 22nd, the Wall Street Journal wrote an article about websites – more to the point – how expensive websites can and can’t be and what the benefit is for the business. The article discussed two female business owners, what they spent for their websites and how the sites were doing for them. Both were running successful businesses, and both had active websites. That’s about all they had in common.

Business owner 1: According to the article, “Katrina Garnett, 48, is an Australian-born Silicon Valley entrepreneur whose Crossworlds Software sold to IBM in 2001. Garnett has invested $2 million of her money to create My Little Swans, an adventure-travel business catering to wealthy families”. The portion of that she used on her website? An astounding $250,000. Her site, My Little Swans, sells luxury travel. (not really sure what swans and luxury travel have in common, but hey, she really wanted those swans!) Take a look through the site.What did you think?

If you’re anything like me, my first response was “you have GOT to be kidding me?!?!” Okay, so I will give the woman some credit, at first glance, I thought the site was pretty, and well put together. It was easy to use and captured what she does. There are a lot of cool features, and it is easy to connect with her on social channels. Overall, I would have given the site two thumbs up. But then…I remember that she spent $250,000 on it. More than I spent to buy my condo! And my thumbs drop. A lot. The site is good – but she easily spent $230,000 more than she should have. The site is nothing that special, in fact I have seen hundreds of sites that are much better than hers, and I can guarantee cost less than a tenth of what she spent. Seriously, that design team saw her coming a mile away. I hope they have trouble sleeping at night for the highway robbery they made out of her site.

Business owner 2: The WSJ says “Joan Bradford is a former schoolteacher and a theatrical costume–shop owner who bought and renovated an 1840s house 15 years ago in New Windsor, Md., and turned it into a bed-and-breakfast. She named it the Yellow Turtle Inn after she had a dream about such creatures and learned that they’re the only turtles that guard their nests.” And her site? She spent almost zero on her site, Yellow Turtle Inn. She used a program that came with her hosting and set it up in a few weeks. She says she has made tons of tweaks, but that she has never paid someone to work on her site. So take a look at this one. What you you think?

My first response, “Okay, it’s time to cough up a little money, because this needs a face lift”. The site is boring, simple, and obviously home-made, right? It has all the content that is needed, but it just doesn’t make you feel all warm and cozy like an inn should. I don’t really have any desire to call them because with a site that rudimentary, I worry that the service won’t be great and that they won’t deliver a good experience. A little goes a long way, and even a $5,000 investment would really help her to turn her website, and her image around. But, she does get a little more respect from me than Miss Swan because while the site is poor, at least she didn’t get hog-tied and taken for all she was worth!

A website is one of the first things that a customer is going to see – it needs to represent who you are and how they can expect you to deal with them. Clean, simple and concise websites make people feel like the person will be easy to understand. Glamor, elegance and extravagance will make them feel special and important. There are hundreds of other emotions websites can bring out  and what matters is that yours brings out the right ones from your visitors. But, you shouldn’t have to break the bank to get this to happen.

What do you think about the sites?

Can you provide an answer to ALL of the following questions:

• What is your business strategy?
• What is your blog strategy?
• What is your twitter strategy?
• What is your facebook strategy?
• What is your branding strategy?
• What is your personal strategy?
• What is you financial strategy?
• What is your conversation strategy?
• What is your networking strategy?

If you can’t answer them, you need to take some time out of your schedule and come up with an answer. Without these answers, you don’t have a strategy. Without a strategy, you have nothing.

What say you?

image from Striatic on Flickr

So I am definitely not a psychologist…in fact, I am sure a psychologist would tell me that I probably need a little help. But, what I do know is blogging – and their is some serious psychology to the way people blog. What I have learned from my experience is that they way you keep your office organized says a lot about the way that you blog. There are three different types of organizers (and bloggers). The hyper-organized ones, the outwardly-messy ones, and the hidden-messy ones. Each type has a different way they manage their office…and a distinctly different way they manage their blog:

Think about some of the people that you know that are hyper organized (everything has it’s place, there is always a stapler when you need it, never a stray paper on the desk, and never a hunt for what you need). If you are not one of those people, you probably think that they waste a lot of time trying to keep it all so put together. But the reality is, it would take them more time to do things if they didn’t keep everything in its place. They love the feeling of clean spaces and open areas. In blogging, this means that they plan…a lot! They work out which posts go where, based on content, making sure that all the holes are filled. But they rarely have drafts…they always make them perfect before placing them in wordpress so that it is clean and organized with only top content. They also like their blogs to look pretty (lots of white space, and everything very easy to find). Their ideas tend to be a bit calmer, not really stirring the pot too much with crazy ideas or controversial posts. You may even feel like they leave some stuff out in order not to offend anyone. They will be the first to update plugins but will wait to update wordpress until the new version is out for awhile.

Okay, now think about the people whose desks are always a mess (papers everywhere, files stacked on files, no rhyme or reason to their system). If you’re not one of those people, you probably think they are slobs, that they waste time by searching for things that should be easy to find. These people are outwardly messy – they have no problem with their piles, in fact, they love their piles and would be more than happy to never have to move them. These people have a million drafts going at the same time, and are constantly making changes in wordpress. They have tons of great content, but it is sometimes all over the board. They will talk about controversial issues, but will do so by sharing all sides and really leaving it open for discussion, keeping their thoughts out as much as possible. These people are also more likely to have busy sidebars and a a lot going on in the blog. These people will always make solid points, but it will take some time to get around to it. Expect really content filled posts, but also a lot of fluff on top of the serious content.

Finally, we have the group that is a mix between the two. This group always has an organized desk, but what you don’t see is that their desk is normally super messy…they just cleaned it up by shoving everything into drawers before you arrived. They like to pretend they have everything under control with their organization, but the reality is, they can barely find anything in their mess because they are not one with it like the second group. They want to be clean and organized like the first, so they are stressed when they can’t be, and yet can’t figure out how to make messy work for them either. These are the fun bloggers. The ones whose posts make you laugh hysterically, or get you really angry. They talk controversy and drama…no matter the topic. They are very popular with their readers but also have a lot of trolls. These bloggers tend to write their posts on whatever they have at the moment and then attempt to put it all together in their blog. The topics will vary every day, and will be whatever came to them that moment. But, they will write often and will write longer posts…unless they are having one of those days, then it will just be a picture and a line of text. Their blog will have a ton of content on it…just a lot of it will be hard to find.

Of course, these opinions are only based on what I have experienced…

So, what do you think about organization and blogging?

Can you guess which one I am?

Amanda (@funomenalrealtr) and I were chatting today about blog topics, and I asked her if there was a topic she would like to see covered by me. Her request was for a simple step by step for setting up and starting a blog.

There are two different types of bloggers: bloggers who are adding a blog to their already existing website and bloggers who use their blog as their website. Bloggers who are just looking to add a blog usually already have a domain name, design and goal to their site, the blog is just a secondary piece of the puzzle. Bloggers who want a blog as their website do not have a website yet, usually are just starting with an idea and have no design.  This article refers to the second kind – the ones who don’t have a website and want just a blog. The following are the steps I give my clients who are starting a blog from scratch:

1. Decide what your site is about. The first step to any website is to determine what it is for. What are you going to blog about? Who is your ideal audience? Knowing why and for whom you will write will make designing the site easier.
2. Choose a domain name and get it hosted. Your domain name should either be your business name, your name or something that refers to your site. Make it something relatively easy to spell or say so that people can remember it. Also, try to keep it short. Super long url’s are never easy. For hosting, I recommend (and use) Lunarpages, as they have great customer service and are affordable.
3. Wait 24 hours for your site to finish propagating (basically means that the hosting company is setting up the site). Sometimes it will take less time, but I recommend waiting until then.
4. Install Wordpress. If you choose to use lunarpages, you log in to your lunarpages control panel. Once you’ve logged in, find the ‘WebApp Pool’ on the left hand side and select to install wordpress. You will want to install it directly onto your site, so leave the subdomain blank. Provide a user name and password you will remember.
5. Go to the Wordpress.org theme’s section and choose a design. There are over 1000 free themes offered on this site, all of which are specifically designed for wordpress. Once you choose one that you like, just remember the name of it.
6. Login to your website using the information that your wordpress install provides you. This is your wordpress dashboard. On the left hand side, you will see ‘appearances’. Click on that and then select ‘add new themes’. Enter the name of the them that you found that you liked and click search. Once it comes up, you can then click install. After the theme installs, click activate.
7. Upload plugins to make using the site easier. There are tons of great plugins that I use, but the 5 I recommend to everyone are: All in One SEO, Disqus, WordTwit, Akismet and Contact form. Each have great explanations of how they work when you install them.
8. Add widgets with your social media buttons and links. SmashingMagazine.com has a great collection of freebies that you can use for social media icons. Once you find ones that you like, download the files. Then, click on ‘media’ and upload the images that you want to use for your social media buttons. Copy the url that wordpress gives you once it has been uploaded. Click on ‘appearances’ and ‘widgets’. Add a ‘text’ widget and paste the url for the image into the box. This way you have it for the next step. Next, you want to turn it into a usable link for your site. To do this, you will use the code: <a href=”http://url of the website you want people to go to”><img src=”http://url of the image”>Text if you want any after the image</a>. This code can be used any time you want to insert an image into the sidebar. If you want to just insert hyperlinked text, remove the section in blue.
9. Start writing your blog. For this, I refer you to my posts on writing blogs: Managing your time, the blog management puzzle, blog post topics, and creating a blog calendar.
10. Start promoting your blog. Link it up with twitter through the wordtwit plugin, add it to the networked blogs through facebook, and ask your friends for support. Soon you will start seeing comments and people sharing your content.

This is a very quick paced set up, and does not include a lot of the small details that will make your site successful, as many of those take a lot of time, and a lot of explanation. What this will do is get you started and get you going while you take time to learn the deeper details and start to integrate them.

What tips can you share for someone getting started with a blog? Or what other questions can I answer?

As a blogger myself, you would assume I was really good at commenting and adding thoughts to other peoples blogs. Unfortunately, that is just not true. And something I really need to fix.

Don’t get me wrong, I read a lot of blogs…probably about 30 or so posts per day from both blogs I subscribe to and links I click on through twitter. Of those 30, I will maybe comment on one each day…if that.

Why is this such a problem? Because commenting on blogs is one of the key parts of being a blogger.

First, it helps you to build your community. Say someone leaves a comment on your blog, and then you respond to them. They are now more likely to comment again because you have made them special, included and a part of the conversation. People want to feel like they are making a difference, and when you appreciate their comment by commenting back, they will.

Second,  if you comment on someone else’s blog, they appreciate it. Appreciation leads to visitation, visitation leads to comments on your content, and maybe even subscribing to your content. So, if you leave valuable comments on multiple blogs, you will have more people coming to see your work.

Third, comments build your SEO. When you leave a comment on a site, you leave your url as well. If you leave comments on blogs that are in the same topic area as you, and your comment includes that topic, your link is attributed to that comment, and in turn, that content. The more links you have that are connected to your content, the stronger your SEO will be.

Finally, it is just nice. I love when people leave me comments, which means that they probably love it when they get comments too. So if I leave them comments, I am making them happy. Nice, see?

Now the tough question, if I know all this, why do I still not comment more?

I have a couple theories.

My first theory is that I just don’t have the time. But this is a pretty pathetic theory because I can make time, I have time to do it while I watch TV at night, or while drinking my morning coffee. If I have time to read their blog, I have time to comment. I could cut out a bit of twitter and facebook time and do it then, or read 3-5 less blogs a day and use that time to comment. I could just suck it up and stop blaming time as the issue.

If I do that, then I hit theory number two: frustration with other commenter’s. This one is a little more realistic. I get frustrated when I see blogs with 50 comments that all say the same thing: “good content, I agree with you, you’re amazing, blah blah blah”. When I see those comments, even if I have something interesting to say that would add to the conversation (as opposed to kissing the butt of the author) I won’t leave it. Why? I don’t know. But I just don’t like adding comments on top of garbage like that.

Okay, so theory two makes sense, but it leaves out a lot of the blogs I read that don’t get comments like that (or gets a lot less of that). So what about those blogs? Theory three is that I am shy. Yup, me, shy. Stop laughing. Seriously, are you done? Okay, thank you. The reality is, I am very shy with my writing. I actually avoid writing about a lot of stuff on this blog because I don’t want to offend people or don’t want to come across the wrong way (even though sometimes I still do). There are many times I have contemplated creating a whole new (anonymous) blog to share the thoughts and stories I don’t share here. It is the same thing with comments. I either think that I can’t express my point well enough, so why try, or I worry that my comment will offend someone because it is the opposite of what everyone else is saying. So, instead of opening up, I become shy and don’t leave the comment.

What I am realizing, after looking at these theories, is that I really don’t have a good reason at all not to start commenting more. In fact, after asking my readers to de-lurk last year, I should be required to start de-lurking more myself. And I plan on it, starting today.

What say you?

If the only place you can work on your blog is sitting in front of your laptop at a location with wifi, you are missing out. Today, Wordpress for Blackberry left the beta phase and entered full availability. iPhone addict? Check out Wordpress for iPhone (wordpress for iphone)!

I’m using the Blackerry app…and just might be in love. Super quick to install, and set up, easy to use interface and overall really, really cool!

Do you have easy access to your blog?

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, this weeks post topics are all courtesy of my twitter followers and friends. Today’s question/idea came from @hagre, who asked me to share a how-to on something I do well.

In the last few months, I have shared tutorials on many things, blog management calendars, complete blog designs, improving your social media, how to be a better writer. But what I noticed was that none of these discussed the root tutorial, the “how-to” everyone needs to have in order to actually do any of the above “how-to’s”. The tutorial I was missing? How to manage your time and enable yourself to actually have a blog.

99.9% of business can benefit from a blog, but a very small percentage of those actually have a blog. Why? Because the majority will write a few times and then give it up. They won’t have the time, and won’t be willing to hire someone to do it correctly. So, the blog will fail, and the company will blame it on the blog instead of the real culprit – lack of time management and organization. A blog takes a serious time commitment, and a lot of dedication. I tell anyone who asks, a successful blog requires a minimum of 7 hours of dedicated time per week. If you have more than that to give, you will be better off, as you can really work on quality posts, and making sure every single one has the highest level of content.

Now if your wondering how I define success, I believe a successful blog is one that brings you more traffic to the site, more sign ups on your mailing list and gives you a way to converse with potential clients in an open environment. Fair enough?

Okay, so back to those 7 hours per week. Remember, this is the absolute minimum I recommend, on my own blog I spend about 10 hours a week, on a good week, it’s closer to 15.  So where do you find those hours? Trust me, they are already there, you just haven’t been capitalizing on them! The biggest part of time management is finding ways to use your hours more effectively. If you were to give 10 people the same projects and the same amount of time to do them in, no one would finish at the same time. We all have different ways we work – which is why an “exact” time management plan is difficult. So instead of a one size fits all solution, we are going to walk through a normal day, and see where we can pull out some extra time…remember, just 1 ½ hours each day and you will have enough time for your blog! Here is my average day, and how I get my blog managed. The amount of time (in pink) is the actual amount of time during that part of my day that is quality blog time.

• Morning: When I get up, the first thing I do is turn my computer on, while it boots up, I make my coffee and think about my dreams. Anything happen that make me think of a post? If so, there is a notepad next to my coffee pot. I pour my coffee, sit down at the computer and the first 30 minutes are spent with only one window open, my blog. I spend that time working on current drafts, or adding new blog posts. I don’t edit, I just write, get out as many post ideas as I can and create drafts of each one. Most will never see daylight, but some will turn into quality posts. (30 mins)
• Checking in: Once I’ve spent this 30 minutes on my blog, it’s time to focus on my day. I check emails, flagging anything important (which sometimes includes post ideas from friends who send me great articles). I open tweetdeck, the other browser windows I need for my clients and start work. I always keep my blog window open so I can add thoughts if something pops up like a good tweet, a question on a site, or an interesting link. (15 mins)
• Meat of my day: This is the section where I can focus on the most work for my clients, they are available to talk and I can get quality work finished. This time is dedicated to everything except for me. On days that my client projects are small, I use this time to look for new clients and send emails to prospectives. My goal is to not write for myself during this time, which can be hard, but I need it to be focused completely on my other agenda.
• Driving time: I have at least 30 minutes in the car almost every day…heading to meetings with clients, getting a workout at pole fitness or running, or heading to the store. During this time, I talk outloud…and my phone records me. Don’t have a recorder on the phone or need more time? You can get an inexpensive recorder from Amazon. While you are driving, press record, set it in your lap and start talking. When you get home, you can transcribe your ideas and now a 30 minute drive has a useful purpose! (15 mins)
• Evening: I love to cook, so I make dinner almost every night. While I make dinner, I have time to think back through my day, usually over a glass of wine, which helps me to loosen my thoughts and let things flow. So, I use the same notepad that is next to my coffee pot to add more ideas while I cook. Sometimes it’s just notes, other times, I will stop and write, standing in the kitchen, while dinner cooks. The hubby laughs at this one… (15-30 mins)
• Watching TV with my hubby is one of my favorite times to write, I can just sit next to him with my laptop and jot down thoughts and work on posts. I have also gotten ideas from TV shows, or things that have been said on the news. (1 hr)

Adding it up, my average day provides me with about 2 ½ hours of time where I am working on my blog. While some of it is broken time, it still counts, and still helps make my blog possible.

Where can you find more time in your day? Try going through it in sections, and see where you can pull out some time.

If you already manage a blog successfully, what is your time management schedule?