Interesting, isn’t it?

Social media can be such a fantastic place – full of thoughtful, intelligent people.  Fun people. So thoughtful, fun and intelligent that its easy to imagine the whole world is cheering you on. Its easy to imagine that the social sphere or your blog are simply just an adult playground of cool people.  THEN it happens: SLAM BAM a snarky comment or worse, an outright attack. Suddenly, the social sphere doesn’t seem so warm and fuzzy.

I’ve been watching closely as over the last couple of weeks two incidents on different blogs have caused an outright fury in the blogosphere, dividing a typically supportive group (bloggers) on different sides of the fence. What’s interesting is in both cases, first by Gini Deitrich on her blog Spin Sucks and then by Neicole Crepeau on Danny Brown’s blog, both bloggers handled the fury with grace and elegance. I really admire them both. Watching the implosion over the last few weeks has really given me pause to think on a couple of different elements: 1) manners 2) leadership 3) stay’n classy.

So if you’re a blogger or any kind of social media participant, whether for a corporate space or for yourself, what can you learn from these two ladies?

First Rule of Fight Club is Not To Talk About Fight Club

First thing to understand about blogging and social media in general is that it is the ultimate in free speech, while we don’t like to talk about the downside of free speech, there are definitely a few. It isn’t worth giving up the benefits of free speech for the alternative and so it is with blogging and social media. We don’t spend a lot of time TALKING about it, but that’s because the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages.

But, one thing we’ve all got to understand is that once in a while people will disagree with us and we can not control the level of vitriol with which they do it. We can only control our own responses.

The second thing to understand is that criticism probably means more to you than the person who gave it, but if we take the critism and learn from it, then ultimately, we’re better writers, communicators and (most importantly) people.

Finally, when we go out on a limb, people are probably going to disagree with us and we’ve got to be OK with that fact.

Now with those understandings under our belts, what about those three things: 1) manners 2) leadership 3)stay’n classy.

Leadership: Much can be learned about leadership -  on both sides of the coin. You might be surprised to learn that those you thought were leaders aren’t really leaders at all…and that you may be a better leader than you thought.

• True leaders don’t resort to personal attacks. They don’t have to. Their ideas and actions speak for them, they don’t need to make anyone else seem smaller in an effort to seem bigger.
• True leaders find ways to support others, even when it doesn’t directly benefit them.
• True leaders can accept criticism, learn from it and get on with their day. Leaders can learn from it or decide its irrelevant, but they rarely let it keep them awake at night..UNLESS the opportunity presents itself to make them better professionals or people and then they REALLY go to town.
• True leaders stand tall. If you believe you were right – stick to it and agree to disagree. Don’t be bullied into submission just because the bully is someone who has a larger following, a book, or whatever.   It might be hard, but that blog post too shall pass.
• True leaders know: at the end of the day, there really is only one person you answer to, and that’s you.
• True leaders go out on a limb sometimes. They go cutting edge. They have opinions.
• True leaders accept the opinions of others with grace..even when the opinion differs from their own.

Manners: If your going to comment in social media or write a blog, go ahead and set some ground rules of engagement for yourself.

• If you believe you were wrong, say so and thank the person for making their point and opening your eyes.
• No name calling, OK? Just be a grown up…or at least a kindergartener, which is where I personally first learned not to call someone a mean or demeaning name.
• Say thanks to everyone – even those you disagree with.
• Have a sense of humor. Don’t take everything personally and learn that its OK to laugh at yourself.

Stay’n Classy: Sometimes, Mom was right. Just admit it.

• You don’t need to respond gun’s a’blazing. Even when someone attacks you personally, don’t be lulled into their game. You can defend your point in an intelligent way.
• Don’t over react.  As scary as it feels to be at the receiving end of a firestorm, take a deep breath before you respond.
• Its OK to moderate. When its your blog, its OK to ask people to calm down or explain that this blog has gone down a rabbit hole you never saw coming.
• Assume the best of people. Assume someone is having a bad day. Assume they didn’t mean it the way it sounded. Assume they didn’t know you’re feelings would be hurt.

I can’t even claim that this list is complete or even final. One thing that Neicole and Gini did so right was follow their inner guts. It isn’t always easy, but they did so with grace and elegance, I think they set the bar for dealing with blog firestorms. Kudos to you both!

So, have you ever had a comment or blog post blow up on you? What lessons did you learn and what would you do differently? Oh, and if you disagree with this post..go ahead and say so!

photo: creative commons by rob_moody

When your building content, you’ve got to remember not to be blinded by the demographics. Sort of.

To explain: last we I talked about how you shouldn’t be too blinded by demographics in social media, because, people like to talk to other people, not marketers.

What to Consider When Building Content

Guess what? The same is true of content. If you’re building content you should build it to attract the kind of people you want to do business with. I don’t mean the demographics of the audience, I mean the characteristics. Consider what inspires your ideal audience. What brings them into your world and shows that you can relate to them?  One of the readers of last week’s post, Gwen, made a salient point:  she wants to work with other women owned businesses, so she is supportive of women businesses in her sharing and tweeting. Not exclusively, but its definitely a focus.  But what Gwen does very, very well is communicate in a tone that’s likely to attract professional women, she is supportive, positive and warm in her tweets and engagements. Women are likely to be attracted to that type of communication so she naturally attracts more of the type of business she wants with that tone.

Dress for the customer you want

But again, it isn’t about demographics, its about attracting the type of business you want.  Communicate to your potential clients in the same way they communicate with their peers. Its the same philosophy of dressing for the job you want. Its one thing to know who your audience IS, its another thing to know who you want your audience to BE. Dress for the audience you want.  And that’s what we need to think about in our communication with our audience. If you aren’t sure what I mean by that, take a step back, start a listening campaign. Start watching what your ideal customers talk about, what they share and who they share it with. Start tracking your clicks on your posts – which of your posts created action? Which were reshared? You’ll learn a lot from your audience if you dig a little deeper.

When you create content, think about what your ideal customers would like to see and in what format they’d like to see it. By content, I don’t just mean blog posts, and Tweets and Facebook updates, I mean all content. Content can be expensive to make, so make it worth your while.  Consider companies who are creating inforgraphics. They know that infographics are easy to read quickly and easy to share: perfect for our attention-deficit social media community. But other companies create white papers, they are trying to attract decision-makers who have the time and budgets to dig into info deeper. Using video is extremely powerful, when you consider who will be viewing the content (I’m still not clear on who this Bollywood-Planned Parenthood video was trying to say and to whom), but a video that speaks to your audience in a way that they can relate? Powerful stuff. Me? I create blog posts that conversational in tone, occasionally take a risk and encourage some creative thought-I like people who can appreciate that tone, I work well with them.

And that’s really the point. When you stake your ground and create a strong voice, you may not attract everyone..but you will attract those people who you wish to attract and work with. At the end of the day, its more important to find the people who have the characteristics of people you work well with.

What are the characteristics of your ideal clients?

Photo Credit (Creative Commons) http://www.flickr.com/photos/uggboy/

So every once in a while…I think I have a fabulous idea for a blog post. I mean the kind of idea that wakes you up at night!  One that everyone will appreciate and want to discuss. Last week I had one and I wrote a post about it. That post last week was easily the least engaging post I’ve ever written earning me yet another badge of lessons learned. I mean, it was crickets. Nothing. We had a small amount of discussion on Twitter around the hashtag #sociallyspeaking, but even that was pretty weak.

Does this make that idea and that post a failure? Hardly. Nope. Not in my book.

Every single post is a learning lesson for me. And whether your blog is like mine or a corporate blog, you can learn from the experience of a blog post with no excitement. Excitement to me, by the way, is measured largely in conversation around the post. Regardless, you have to learn from the experience and move on. No matter what kind of marketing you do, you have to listen, engage, measure, repeat. In my case of course the only sound I heard was crickets, but that didn’t stop me from measuring and repeating and it lead me to THIS blog post to help you look at some of the things you can consider when you have a bomb of a blog post.

Know your audience: A failed blog post will likely tell you something about what your audience does and doesn’t want from you. Maybe they don’t care about a particular topic. Or maybe they don’t feel its up to them to write your blog post for you.  Maybe your audience expects solutions, not questions. Maybe they didn’t like the tone of the post or it just wasn’t human enough. Or maybe it wasn’t “you” enough…when you take a risk, you’re audience will tell you right away what they think..even if they don’t tell you what they think.

Timing: Let’s face it. Sometimes you post a blog on the exact wrong day. You know, like the day Google+ was announced (and they didn’t warn you). That wasn’t the case with my particular post, but you should consider where everyone’s attention might be before hitting “publish”.  Again, if you know your audience and you’re up to speed about what’s important to them, maybe you shift your editorial calendar on days you know they’ll be distracted. But it isn’t just about timing your post, its about timing the communication around the post. I’ve been experimenting with the timing on my tweets and Facebook and Google+ Profiles. I won’t say that I’ve got it down to a science, but I’ve definitely learned a few things about timing from you. Some days just work better than others.

Pictures: I like to use a picture with my blog post because I think it pulls people in. Sometimes though, I choose a picture that I think really sums it up and its so weird people read the article just to understand why I chose that photo. Sometimes I choose a picture that’s really..well…B-O-R-I-N-G. Pictures are meant to engage and they do a good job at it. Pick carefully and smartly…and really, stay away from power point slides and logos. Just say’n-lesson learned.

Too technical or too long: I’ve done it. I’ll admit it, written blog posts that were 1,000 words or more. And you know what you guys usually say to that? “Pass.” Let’s face it, you don’t have a ton of time to read blog posts throughout the day – and neither does YOUR audience. Stick to the KISS principle and your audience will appreciate: Keep It Simple Stupid.

The conversation took place elsewhere: Sometimes, instead of commenting on a blog post, people will choose to engage on another outpost, Facebook or Twitter for example. While this might disappoint those wishing to drive traffic to the blog or website, the truth is, you go where the conversation is happening and be glad there is one! The audiences on your Facebook, Twitter and G+ are different. They’ll react differently to different topics. Track what topics are hot on what platform and expand upon it in that platform. Use it as an opportunity to really engage the community who engages you – give them something they want to talk about in the place they want to talk about it.

In the end, its important to remember..if you don’t try something, you’ll never learn. And blogging is very forgiving. If you have a blog post that doesn’t generate comments, you move on to the next post. You live another day.

So, bloggers…do you agree with my lessons learned?

Creative Commons photo by Amaury Henderick

(Picture Credit : Maria Reyes-McDavis)

So you want to start a blog? Or someone said you should so your considering it. Blogs for business are an outstanding tool for business, they can build community, be the backbone of your social media program, and drive traffic to your website, just for starters. But where do you start? Well, its an often overlooked question. Its so easy to think that because their are millions of blogs (and if you check out Technorati you’ll see that I am write right.) While we’re on the topic of Technorati, before you start following any of my 5 handy suggestions, you should check out Technorati and see what others are writing on the topics you plan to cover. You’ll probably get both inspiration and that sick feeling in your stomach that there is a lot of junk out there. Welcome to blogging, the place where you try to suck less.

But the business of blogging is just that, a business. You want to give careful consideration to your goals and efforts. Here are 5 tips for businesses thinking of blogging.

1. Define your goal.

There I said it. I know, so many of you hate me for always hounding on this, but if you don’t set your goal, how will you know if its working?  Blogging is at once a task master and a generous soul, so tap into the generous part before you get to know the task master. Determine what the benefits to blogging will be. Are you trying to create community? Are you hoping to help along your SEO efforts? Define it. Then live it. Then measure it.You can use Google Analytics, PostRank or even (GASP!) your own set of metrics. By the way, “sucking less” is not a measurable metric, get your own.   As the famous Greek philosopher, Nike once said, “Just Do It”.

2. Why should your customers care?

Don’t make me gag by posting press release after press release on your blog. NOW HEAR THIS: No one wants to read your overly edited, specifically written to attract media attention, 1 page maximum dribble. Press releases are for journalists, blogs are for people.  What people expect from a blog is the ability to get to know the insides of a company, to hear a single voice, to get information or insight that they wouldn’t normally get. Give them what they want: Education. Entertainment. Exclusive Insight. Speaking of sucking less, don’t be afraid to take some risks and suck a little. Step out on a limb and you’ll be surprised what you learn. Seriously, the blogosphere is different, you are allowed and even encouraged to experiment and be creative. Just like when you were in Kindergarten.  And, remember, ASK YOUR CUSTOMERS for their insight and participation, people like feeling part of the process. It may take time, but you must continue to invite others to be part of your blog.

3. Commit.

If your going to blog, make a commitment to it, in the best of circumstances, you’ll have an audience and they will miss your blog posts when you skip them. Be disciplined: develop an editorial calendar, leave room for newsy items that your company should be commenting on. Blog regularly 1-3X minimum per week. This is the blogger as task-master part. If you can’t think of what to blog about, get inspiration from the news, industry occurrences, message boards and other communities where your customers are hanging out. Let your talented employees be your bloggers – ask for volunteers to start. Think beyond the marketing team. If your going to be blogging 1-3X or more a week, you have room for a monthly CEO post, a weekly janitor’s post and an interns ramblings. Have fun with it and so will your customers.

4. Speaking of Writers..What IS your company’s voice?

Different writers can have different voices, that’s a fact, but there should be a thread of similarity in them all. Your voice is your tone, your goal, your corporate idiosyncrasies and more all wrapped into one. Spend some time developing your voice and allow your voice to develop.  All your writers so know what their goals are before they start and they should all be writing consistently with that goal. Maybe the janitor regularly posts his great ideas  – and asks readers to vote on them. Maybe the intern gives the inside scoop on how new products make it to the customer.

5. Make each post remarkable and SEO friendly.

Give some thought to each post, don’t just whip one up the night before. Write it. Edit it. Be ruthless. The more time you give yourself to write and edit the better the post will be. Remarkable content isn’t easy to produce and don’t expect every brilliant blog post to go viral, but just because it doesn’t go viral doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be brilliant  And remember, you can (and SHOULD use key words in your blog post) but don’t be a tool and write a blog post for Google, write it for your audience, use real language. Be Akamai about your key words. If your following #3, then you’re probably using your key words regularly enough anyway. I’ve heard stories of companies that stopped thinking of themselves as a “(insert industry here) company” and begun to think of themselves as a content generation company.

Bonus Tip: Use your words and your pictures.

Don’t shy away from pictures or video or even vlogging. Audiences have no shortage of media to consume, pictures and video help tell the story. Plus, let’s face it, it adds character…you know, the character that’s part of your voice (mentioned in #4). And be smart about using pictures, don’t forget to name them appropriately..and with key words. Photos especially are great SEO tools…so allow your photos to be your Google’s Marilyn Monroe, while your writing is the classy Jackie O. Got it? Good.

SO Mr/Ms/Mrs Reader , quit lurking and tell me: What would you add to my list of 5? What have you learned from blogging?

It isn’t that we need another tool. It isn’t that we need a tool that does everything. Its that we need a tool that does what it does really well.

As a blogger, there are numerous tools at your disposal to track how your content is doing. Most obvious of these is Google Analytics. Another is the popular “Add This” which also offers analytic information. But if you use blogging as a tool, whether for personal branding or corporate exposure, you’ll quickly see that these two tools don’t tell the whole story. Why? Because if you are creating content, you are likely distributing and promoting that content in variety of ways, including social media.

Enter: PostRank. A deceptively simple yet dynamic tool for bloggers which measures what it calls “Engagement Events” such as a comment, a bookmarked link, or a tweet about a particular post. In short, PostRank endeavors not only to show you how much TRAFFIC you got, but how many times a particular post was talked about.

There is even a feature to add additional pages, great for blog-specific campaigns and funnel analysis and comparing it to Engagement Events.

There are several tabs within PostRank, each designed to give you a unique view of the data.

The Overview page:

What I like: While the graphs aren’t exactly overlaid, at a glance I can see the impact of discussion about a post, compared to actual traffic, I can do this for 1 day, 1 week, 1 month or 3 months.  The top graph is engagement events, the bottom graph page visits.

Also, it identifies what days posts were made so that I can see the connection between traffic & post days.

Below this data, are the actual tweets about the post and who tweeted them. Helpful if you feel (as I do) that I might be missing tweets and RT’s occasionally.

What I wish they would improve:

While this data is great, none of this can be exported, even for paying users (there is a freemium model for bloggers), making long-term trends harder to identify.

Also, I wish someone would create an option where I could remove my own tweets about an article or posting. It would be great to see ONLY what others are saying.

Also, I wish I could set the dates, rather than stick to their 3 choices. It seems like an easy thing to do, let the user choose the dates, particularly helpful if the blog is part of an overall campaign.

The Trends Page

What I like: Again, quick, at-a-glance data shows which posts are most popular. Love how easy it is to read and interpret.

It also breaks down where engagement events are occurring for the time period (comments, Digg, Twitter).

I also like that the top tags used to describe content are displayed; helps to make sure that I am making the most of the audience most talking about my content. While most of this isn’t a surprise if you are monitoring your social media efforts, it is helpful to see it so cleanly laid out and including other sources besides Twitter.

What I wish they would improve:

Again, the data can’t be exported. In particular this page helps bloggers see how well particular posts are doing over time. At a glance is useful, but ability to export and manipulate is even better.

Optimize Page

What I like:

Shows primary influencers on different networks in a clean list.

Interesting (albeit basic)  info about each network.

What I wish they would improve

Influencers aren’t listed in order of number of engagement events.

Wish that originating account could be removed from influencers.

The information about each platform is basic. There are some tips, but they are essentially 101 tips. Obviously, this is a limitation of API’s but I wish the information could be tailored to the audience based on tags and categories. For example, instead of telling me that there are 150 Million people on Twitter, tell me how many people on Twitter are talking about the same things I am.

Overall, I like PostRank, its a relatively new tool so I suspect that they will continue to improve. But without export features, I fear that eventually this tool will lose my attention.

Pricing is incredibly reasonable ($15/month lets you  track 5 sites with up to 10 custom pages/site). The Freemium model is kind of interesting for Pro Bloggers: it allows registration (in exchange for free use of analytics) to be included in a list of influencial bloggers, making the blog information accessible to professional marketers using PostRank’s additional services (I imagine).

What do you use to track post engagement? I’m always on the look out for new tools!

Ever wondered who are these people in the blogosphere and why should they matter to your business? Social media as a business tool continues to mature and one of the hot topics of 2010 has been identifying influencials relevant to your audience and creating relationships with them. No doubt, bloggers are among the influencials that can help your business grow. But blogger relationships aren’t like traditional marketing or advertising relationships and the latest research shows that.

Technorati’s (the blogosphere’s directory) research reveals some interesting stats very germaine to social media marketing professionals.

-Professional Bloggers are a growing group and they include corporate and independent bloggers.

-Professionals blog 10+ hours a week

-11% of Professionals say blogging is their primary income.

-33% of professional bloggers came from the mainstream media.

-24% are still employed by professional media, but blog independently.

Why should I care? This suggests that not only do professional bloggers “get” the ethics and importance associated with publishing quality material, but they also understand the nuances of making a publishing enterprise financially feasable: advertising. Meaning, they either accept advertising or they are PR friendly. Good for small businesses looking for marketing, pr or advertising opportunities, especially in niche markets.

Bloggers use Facebook and Twitter to drive traffic to their sites.

Why should I care: If your still doubting the viability of these two powerhouses to drive traffic for you, doubt no more. People are making a living off the traffic that they are receiving from these sites. The key is that bloggers who use these methods have engaged audiences, which they both attracted and keep engaged with social media. This also means that when they write something, the reach isn’t limited to the traffic on their blog, but can exponentially shared.

Bloggers spend an average of 27.3 hours per week consuming or sharing information on their tablets or smart phones.

Why should I care?: Still don’t have a site that can be accessed easily from a mobile device or tablet? Time to get with the program, influencials are accessing your site (or trying to). Turn these folks off and they aren’t likely to return or become a brand/product advocate. Especially since: 71% of bloggers only write about brands or products that they personally approve.

Almost 1/2 non-corporate professional bloggers write about brands. Almost 1/4 of them write about brands monthly.

Why should I care? I bet you understand why. Plus, bloggers, especially frequent bloggers are always looking for content. By providing them with information that is useful to their readers, you help them create content and they can help you.

1/2 of professional bloggers have been approached by a company to write about their brand or product.

Why should I care? Because the follow-up to that stat is that most bloggers feel they aren’t treated as professionally as traditional media outlets are. If you’re looking to create a blogger program, start with the relationship, respect their business and professionalism and your likely to get further.

If your wondering who really reads blogs and whether a blogger program (advertising or PR) is worth it for you, consider how consumers view blogs:

46% of consumers trust traditional media LESS than they did 5 years ago.

meanwhile…back at the ranch..

34% say that blogs are taken more seriously as sources of information.

Why should I care?: Because more people are reading. But here’s the rub: the reason people’s trust in blogs is increasing is likely because of a perceived sense of independence. Bloggers know this (see above stat about brands/products they blog about), so very few of them can be “bought” the way ad space is purchased. You’ll need to get the buy-in from the blogger before you can ask them to represent or write about your product. Simply sending them a sample probably isn’t going to cut it.

Consumers view blogs as second only as family and friends as a trusted source of info about a product or brand.

Why should I care? This kind of trust is simply the wave of the future with marketing. This is what social media marketing is all about – voices of regular people being empowered by other regular people.

Resources: To download and view the Technorati slideshow yourself click here.

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When was the last time your marketing efforts included a content calendar? For social media, content is hugely important. If you don’t have a content strategy, you don’t have a strategy, no matter what social media tool or platform you are using.

Also, if you have a website you should be incorporating an SEO strategy, which utilizes and employs key words. At the very least, you should understand what keywords are important to you and how competitive those key words are in the Google-sphere. Once you understand your key words, they should be used accordingly in your website and all of your social media platforms.

Keywords are one reason a quality content strategy is important.

That’s why I love WordPress. Its an easy content management tool that also integrates easily with your social media strategies.

Best of all, WordPress is that it free you from the reigns of your “web guy”. For example, when was the last time you wanted to make a simple text change to your site? I bet you called your “web guy” only to find out that he was on vacation and would be back in two weeks. When he got back from vacation, he was buried and it took him another week to execute your simple request. 3 weeks it took you to make a simple text change. Who is in control of your marketing? You or your web guy?   WordPress is more than a blog, its an entire website backbone. What people are doing with WordPress, which is a free application that you can host on your server is simply amazing. As importantly, you can make simple modifications like pictures and text without learning complicated computer languages like HTML. Most of the WordPress themes run around $100. If your looking for a highly customized site, you can still use WordPress, but the modifications will end up be in addition to that $100, but its likely to still be much more reasonable than a completely customized site. And here’s some of the best news about WordPress, because its open source, a lot of what you will need to customize your site is free. Someone has already written a program for say, a Google maps app. Or maybe you want to incorporate video, there’s an app (called a plug-in) for that too. So let’s see: easy to manage, affordable, and supports your other marketing efforts. Yep. That’s pretty much the best website scenario I can think of.

Here’s the cool thing: regularly updating your website with new content helps your SEO efforts, plus, SEO enhancements are available through WordPress. Now, let me clarify, that doesn’t mean you should get rid of your SEO guy, because for high rankings, you’ll likely need some power that simple on-page enhancement can’t exclusively do. That said, your WordPress site will have an SEO advantage that most sites do not.

And since I am the “Queen of Engagement” I can’t let this posting go by without saying that any WordPress page or posting can allow comments. This gives you one more chance to engage your audience and icing on the cake: one more chance to increase your rankings. Lots of businesses are concerned about this type of communication, but here’s what I remind my customers: people are already talking about you, wouldn’t you like to be in the loop and have an opportunity to address the topic of conversation?

So, whether you actually employ a blog or not (and I think almost EVERY business should), I encourage you to to create your site with WordPress. AND I encourage you to create a content calendar. Information that is updated regularly, directly on your site. Including Press Releases and product information. And don’t forget: utilize those keywords!

Let me know (on my WordPress blog) what you wish you could do on your site. I’ll let you know if its possible (the answer is probably: YES) and I’ll even direct you to a plug-in that will help you do what your looking for.

Of all the social media tools in our arsenal the easiest to do is blogging. Yet, time and again, I encounter businesses large or small reluctant to blog.  Frankly, I am baffled by this, particularly when the very same businesses are already creating content for mailed newsletters or e-blasters.

So, why blog? Here are five very relevant business reasons to blog.  If you don’t have any particularly talented writers on your team, partner with a copy-writer or someone who knows your industry and/or business.

SEO Support

This is perhaps the most heart-stopping of reasons to blog. Even with the recent changes at Google (and maybe particularly because of them), you want Google to index more than 10-12 pages of “about us”.  The more pages indexed, the higher your ranking. Blogging gives you key-word content and additional indexing opportunities with Google.  Further, several permalinks functions give you a chance to use keywords in your URL (the all important H1 header) while at the same time creating an engaging title. Here’s the trick: the more frequently you update, the better your search results; while it might not be practical to blog everyday, even 1X per week gives you 52 more index pages a year.  Blogging also gives you the all important link opportunities too. Write timely, credible information and the blog will likely receive links, even better and more important if they are from high-impact websites like newspapers or e-zines. No, simply starting a blog will not shoot you to number one immediately, but it will increase your rankings.

Industry Expert

Blogging gives you the opportunity to showcase your understanding of your industry and its trends. Whether you write to inform or you write with opinion, either way, you send a message to your clients that you are a market leader. Your company’s blog can feature a round-robin of experts at your company, raising their profile and your company’s because you hire industry leaders.

Customers Read and Interact

Giving your customers a voice shows savvy and confidence. You’ll find your blog a more effective tool for making customer announcements than letting them hear about it on the news and you give them a way to comment and forward the information. Responding to your current or potential customers who engage your blog is a great way to show your listening and create a brand advocate.  A blog is also an outstanding place to engage customers asking for their ideas or opinions on future products or suggestions. You can also grow your email list with blog registration.

Driving the press to your blog can also be a powerful tool as well, giving them countless pages of your well-controlled material, back story and access to key sources for future stories within your industry.

One more customer reason to blog: give your customers a reason to visit your website.

Social Media Support

While you want to balance your social media self promotion (on Facebook, Twitter, etc.) having your own content to showcase gives you reasons to engage and communicate with your audience. Its just another way to show your customers that you will communicate with them in a way that’s usable to them.

ROI

Blogging is free, so the ROI is admittedly tricky. However, what would you pay to be considered a first-class resource by the press? What would you give to grow your email list? Could you pay anyone to become a passionate company advocate? How much does it typically cost for you to query your best customers. The advantages of blogging vs. the cost of blogging (time) rack up pretty quickly.

So tell me – what’s stopping you from having a blog at your company? I’d love to hear from  you and maybe I can even help.

10 days after the original posting, I’ve updated my open letter to reflect current efforts on behalf of BP.

Dear BP Marketing and PR team-

Its been a rough couple of weeks, hasn’t it?

Your strategic marketing plan is in the hole, giving way like an oil gusher to emergency disaster response. Suddenly, issuing press releases is burdensome and not nearly as fun as press releases about record breaking quarterly profits. And although you probably HAD a plan for how to engage the media in case of an oil spill (you DID, DIDN’T YOU?) you didn’t count on it being the worst disaster in history.

You’re a little overwhelmed. Anyone in marketing can understand. You haven’t asked my opinion and presumably, you have an entire team working on this strategy. But since I am not in the thick of it, perhaps its easier for me to identify just SOME what’s missing in the marketing and PR response. Here are 10 things I think you should start today:

Communications:

10. Start a blog on your website. Right now the information on your website is static and boring, worse yet, its not really helping your cause. There is so much MORE information about BP right now, your website is getting buried, making it harder to drive the message. While you can’t create enough content fast enough to remedy that situation entirely, you CAN start creating dynamic, real-time content. May 13th-still no interactive communication. I know you fear the comments that people will leave, but here’s the thing: people are saying it anyway. At least if they say it on your blog, you’ll get to hear what people are really saying and communicate with them.

9. Apologize. Time for it guys. Start doing it.  Its starting to feel like you don’t really think you have to apologize if you continue to promote your ongoing (if unsuccessful) efforts. You should also reassure the (broke) American public that you will use some of your monumental earnings, every last penny if need be, to clean up this mess. You’ll turn your scientific community on the challenge and invent new tools and strategies if you have to. May 13th – essentially you’ve done this, then you pulled back a little. Keep pressing this point, its an important one.

8. Don’t let us forget. Presumably, the green efforts of BP are ongoing. Now would be a good time to continue to promote those efforts, PARTICULARLY given this mess, we’d like to see that oil companies are committed to a more sustainable future. We should see specifics and the face of those efforts. Don’t bore us with statistics or generalities, give us the story. May 13-remember those “green BP” commercials? Remember how you re-did your logo to reflect the next phase in energy development? Showcase it. It might not get as much traction as the bad news, but everyone should be integrating this message.

Twitter:

As of this righting, you have 2088 followers and you are following 7 people. The world at large does not think your Twitter account is very useful and you aren’t controlling any messages. May 13th-your followers are up to 3585, and your following 33 people. You still using Twitter exclusively to send links to press releases. Your following relevant people now, but you aren’t engaging them. I could see you RT’ing the @gulfvolunteers, @USCG and the White House as a matter of discourse, relevance and information.

7. ENGAGE on Twitter Start by following members of the media AND the White House. Follow Gulf State agencies and environmental non-profits. They’ll take notice, trust me. You need to build up this account both for now and in the future. Your going to need every outlet you can get. May 13th – better. Much better. But I don’t see any recent engagement.

Monitor the conversations about BP. Use this to understand what groups are most angry. Use this to tailor your message both to them and to the media. You’d be surprised what you could learn by listening. May 13th – I can’t tell if your listening because the only thing I see are links to press releases.

Stop with the constant links to your site about the numbers of people you have there. Start telling the stories OF those people. No one cares how many people are cleaning up – it isn’t enough. You’d be better off telling the human story. May 13th – still no transparency or humanization.

Nonprofits

6. Start communicating WITH, not at, nonprofits on Twitter, on your blog. Ask them how you can help, where you are needed most. Then, get on it. Wildlife, fisherman, they need help. Offer it AND do it.  Money isn’t enough, get your people down there. When you start the conversation, you’d be surprised at how positive it could be. Show the world your doing it both on Twitter and YouTube.May 13th – better. Much better. But I don’t see any recent engagement with the nonprofits. You MAY be having those conversations, but they aren’t transparent and the world at large isn’t part of them.

5. Financial Support for nonprofits involved in clean-up. Nonprofits will be cleaning up this mess for many years, you can start a foundation today to support their efforts. The process should be simple and fast, get the money down there now. Don’t wait. Now. Your company should be sending volunteers down there too. To train nonprofits and to help train more volunteers. Get moving. May 13th – again, if this is happening, its getting buried. You’d have more notice of it if you engaged.

4. While we’re at it, I think sustainable energy job training would be a good place to start investing. Training the fisherman who are losing their livelihood to this tragedy in this new industry would be a great, grassroots way to engender support. Help them learn the industry, support their efforts to start businesses. It could be selling solar panels or building wind farms. Create opportunities for people.

YouTube:

3. Get a video production crew down there. The pictures just show a mess. We need to hear the passion in the voices of those leading the charge. We need to see Hayworth out there talking to fisherman, we need to see BP clean-up crews working. This is one situation where video, not pictures, tells the story. Start posting every single day a new video. May 13 – I still see primarily photos, with the notable exception of the underwater video of gushing oil. When you launched the idea of “capping” the leak last week, that would have been an ideal time to create a video of how it will work. Also, why is it that the AP is the only releasing any YouTube video in conjunction with the oil spill?

Events:

2. Animal clean up. Beach clean up events. Coordinate with nonprofits to hold clean up events and train volunteers. Green career fairs. Some of this may not be immediate, but planning and announcing would be a good idea. May 13-haven’t seen any of this from the BP side. Am I missing it?

1. Back to communication: stop hiding. Yep, you are going to take heat, but in all the criticism, you might find jewels of wisdom.  You’ve issued a couple of press releases, sent out 64 Twitter messages and sent Hayworth on TV. Your not being proactive. Time to get creative guys. If all this seems expensive, it is, but we know you can afford it. May 13-Transparency is key. People have come to accept it. You’ve up’d your tweets (now at 200), but what are you saying?

If you think your already doing this, then revert back to the communications strategy, and start letting us know about it.

Good luck. I hope to see great things out of BP in the next couple of years, because you owe it to the Gulf States and all of America. If you do it right, you’ll be a shining example of corporate communications. Do it wrong, and maybe a career fair might be good for you too.

Readers: any other suggestions?

Over the last two months, I have been busy building a blogs for others and even one for me: dedicated to one of my passions: food and cooking (www.whatwechow.com).

I’d like to tell you a little bit about my blog, because its a good case study for web traffic,driving traffic and community.

I started my blog with zero visitors a month.  Today, I have more and more new readers, increasing at over 50% a week,  40% of my readers are new, which means I also have a very loyal audience, they also stay on  my site for more than 5 minutes on average. In otherwords: they are engaged. If I continue to grow at this pace, I will have at least 5000 visitors a month by the end of the year. I’m OK with that kind of traffic, particularly since I’ve done it 100% targeted and 100% grassroots. But what’s more important to me is the engagement level.

People are always asking me how I did it. I’ll answer this in several blog posts. But, the first answer is time. I began by identifying my target audience. Then I used a variety of source to find them: Twitter, other blogs, community sites, Facebook. I also employ a blog for several reasons, not the least of which is customizable content, with some SEO control. I’ll write about the advantages of a blog in the next installment.

But I didn’t just identify my audience, I engaged them. That in turn, made them want to engage more with me. Its sort of like holding out your hand to be a friend.

About Twitter:

Using Twitter isn’t hard, its just time consuming. It means actively following others, which means finding them. But I can typically grow my Twitter audience by 100 or so with 20 minutes after dinner. So I do that.  Simple enough. In two months my following is over 800 people; those people have an average audience of 400 people, which means my reach is multiplied by their reach. While My following isn’t the 25,000+ of some people, I never set out to have that many followers. I wanted followers who want to read and talk about food. I set out to engage. The people who have 25,000+ followers can’t even keep track of their followers and they almost never, ever, help out other people with their goals. They might be mega-brands on Twitter, but they aren’t mega-brands in terms of success.

But finding people on Twitter isn’t the key to growing traffic. Its the beginning. You must, must, must engage. You must help others with their goals, you must create relationships. I help others out on Twitter. I am on it all day long. I send out information not related to my blog, that I think will be interesting to my followers.  I re-tweet interesting info for others, I thank them when they do the same. I have even created friendships on Twitter. Think of Twitter like any other networking event. If you just strut around the room, jamming your business card in everyone’s face, telling them all about you, without ever asking about their business or why they came, how effective is that? Yet 90% of Twitter people do that exact thing.

About Community Sites:

Also, I engaged communities that are built around my topic of choice. Anytime I can add my website link, I do. I am active on these sites and supportive of their members. I comment and engage.  Which brings me to the other very time consuming part of blogging: reading and responding to other bloggers. You will get traffic this way. Some weeks I get up to 10% of my traffic from two other popular sites I visit. Blog readers are always on the look out for new sites, new information.  One other rule of engagement: when people make a comment or stop by your site: thank them. Make them feel special for visiting and make sure you stop by their site (if they have one) to comment and follow as well.

Small business owners are always shaking their heads and raising their hands when I tell them, in detail about my process. They answer is always the same: I don’t have the time.

But are you going to let this new form of marketing pass you by? Aren’t you interested in driving more traffic to your site? Don’t you want to know more about your customers? The web captures information in a way traditional advertising does not, and its cheaper, but that comes at a cost of your time or someone else’s. Whichever you choose, I wish you the best of luck. Feel free to ask any questions in the comments, I will respond!