Happy Birthday ConverStations: Bring on the 5th
It's funny. When a person has been alive for four full years, we say they are "four" for the following 365 days. Yet when a business is alive for four full years, we celebrate their 5th year in business for the next year. Either way, today, this blog site enters it's 5th year of conversation.
Together we've seen many changes on site and off site. Relationships have been amplified (and some silenced). Tools and toys have come out rapid-fire, but talk has always preceded tech
To help mark that event, I thought I'd repost the five most important posts -- not the most popular, or the most sarcastic, or the prettiest -- but the five most important posts within these pages. Hope they help. Here's to five more years (thanks for being a major part of whatever success the site/message/conversation has had):
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Blog Posting: Give 'em Eye Rest
We're scanners. Our eyes move fast and furious trying to capture all we
can in a short amount of time. Just as the best road trips have rest
stops along the way, the best blog posts have eye rests along the way.
Give your audience one (or more) eye rest stops in your blog posts.
- Images - I always encourage placing the image to the right. Why? We read left-to-right. Unless the image IS the story, let it be an eye rest. It will enhance - and maybe even compel more readership.
- Bold Text - As scanners, we're flying through text. Especially with longer paragraphs, publish a money quote in bold text.
- Hyperlinks - Hyperlinks are valuable to everyone involved, and the value for your reader is twofold: 1) They can dig deeper into the subject and 2) the change in text is an eye rest
- Lists - Short bullet or numbered lists are always good for an eye rest.
Which article are you more likely to read and remember?
This one:
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Pellentesque molestie neque nec ante. Pellentesque dui ipsum, porttitor vel, placerat sollicitudin, venenatis ut, dui. Praesent erat arcu, molestie sit amet, interdum in, nonummy pulvinar, nibh. Mauris imperdiet condimentum nisi. Donec eu turpis non leo nonummy sollicitudin. Vestibulum ante ipsum primis in faucibus orci luctus et ultrices posuere cubilia Curae; Integer justo lorem, sodales sed, mollis at, gravida viverra, diam. Donec nibh leo, scelerisque sed, cursus et, venenatis scelerisque, erat.
Or this one:
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Pellentesque molestie neque nec ante. Pellentesque dui ipsum, my money is on the second one, venenatis ut, dui. Praesent erat arcu, molestie sit amet, interdum in, nonummy pulvinar, nibh.
- Mauris imperdiet condimentum nisi.
- Donec eu turpis non leo nonummy sollicitudin.
- Vestibulum ante ipsum primis in faucibus orci luctus et ultrices posuere cubilia
Curae; Integer justo lorem, sodales sed, mollis at, gravida viverra, diam. Donec nibh leo, scelerisque sed, cursus et, venenatis scelerisque, erat.
Give your readers an eye rest. They're more likely to remember what you wrote - and therefore spread your words.
Photo on Flickr by imadoofus123
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Before we begin blogging, I ask each person/company I work with to answer six questions:
- What are three main goals for your business?
- What are three business objectives for your blog?
- Who is your audience? (Prospects, Current Clients, Colleagues, Internal)
- Are you targeting a national or regional audience?
- How do you want your audience to respond?
- How much time are you willing to devote to the conversation?
These questions have given pause to some business leaders - and that's a good thing. Tonight, I'm going to start giving the following two posts as handouts (after I get permission from the authors):
- Kami Huyse provides The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Blogging. Great Purpose Statement, Kami!
- Martin Gordon elaborates on Steve Rubel's 4 P's of Blog Marketing - and here's why the elaboration works. I still run into old school marketers who are looking at the traditional 4 P's. Combining Steve's outline and Martin's elaboration, there may be less of a battle.
If you're trying to convince your company to being blogging, grab these posts.
One other note: Both Kami and Martin included a comment of mine within their posts. That's how I found them. That said, this isn't just a reciprocal posting - their items are keepers.
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In Get Out From Behind the Counter, we talked about eliminating barriers from our customers in an offline setting.
As business bloggers, it may be more of "Get Down Off the Pedestal", remembering to get out into the audience once in awhile. Off the stage, into the audience.
In a recent workshop, while I was in front of the group, the mood was a bit...tense (Technology Blinders?). We came to the point of building a quick blog site. I went into the audience so we were all looking from the same view. What happened?
The mood quickly changed. We were all on equal ground. Just as it should be.
So get out from behind the counter, get off the pedestal, mingle with your readers. They won't bite.
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When I was coaching baseball, our hitters memorized this mantra for a great swing:
"Front Foot Closed, Back Foot Pivot, Back Shoulder Turns, Head At Contact."
Here's the checklist (mantra?) I offer for a great posting practice
- Write Post First - Sometimes we humans can get on a rabbit trail. By writing the post first, you don't handcuff yourself to a certain title.
- Then Title Post - By
doingwriting your headline after the post, you'll have a better headline and it will match the content of the post. - Pick a Category - You may decide to add a new category after the first two steps.
- At Least One Link Out - This practice extends the conversation. If you can't find a blog, find something relevant. I also suggest to link within your sites, but don't be a dead-end.
- Image Above the Fold - Understand that many are reading from feed aggregators. If an image helps tell the story, make sure the reader doesn't have to scroll to see it - they may not scroll.
- Tag Your Post - I prefer Technorati. You may prefer something else. In any case, make sure you use tags. Think find-ability and link-ability.The easier you are to find, the better your chances of people linking back.
- And Ping 'Em - Use Pingoat or Pingomatic to let blog search engines know you've updated your site.
This list doesn't talk about length, voice, subject matter or ethics - and it's not meant to do that. This is a checklist that can be used to make sure you touch all the bases. From a mechanics of posting perspective, what else is on your checklist?
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Search Once and SubscribeYour Name, Your Company, Your Keywords and Phrases, Your web or blog URL, Your Competition, Your Industry, Your Clients, Your Prospects.
Next time you search - Search Once and Subscribe. Why?
1) Saves time. How many times have you repeated a search this month, this week, or even today? Most search engines allow you to subscribe to the RSS feed (what is RSS?)of a search string. Search once, subscribe, get notified of changes. Search Once and Subscribe
2) Instant Knowledge. Know when something good or bad is said about you or your company. Know when someone links to your web site. Know when a news item is published about you, your competitor or your industry. Search Once and Subscribe
3) Show You Care. Repeat the same steps for your best clients or prospects currently in the sales cycle. If something comes up that interests them, you can forward it and prove that you care for them. Use these tools as a news clipping service. Search Once and Subscribe.
4) It's Free. For now.
You can either do this as you go or invest an hour and get it done. Get in the habit of Search Once and Subscribe.
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And in case you're wondering, the post that started this journey on February 16, 2006:
Blogs are Conversation StationsWelcome to Converstations, a new blog site focusing on how-to's and what-for's of companies using blogware to communicate with their customers.
I also publish used to write the Copywriting Watch Blog,
and the focus there has been on blogs lately. I'd like to separate the
subjects of copywriting and blogging. I believe that while copywriting,
marketing, and PR are all changing - due in part to the blogosphere - they aren't dead, just changing.
One of the first questions prospective copywriting clients ask me is how they can improve their search engine results. Publishing a blog is a great way to do that - though that's not the only reason to blog. Nor is the text-based blog the only way to deliver your company's message. Podcasting is another popular form of getting your message out there.
I believe that cob...err...stale...err...static web sites still have their place, but blogs offer much more effective forms of communication - which is the very reason for a web site, right?.
Here are the distinct differences:
- Frequently Updated Content
- Permalinks (or archives)
- Reader Comments
- Syndicated Content (or RSS Feeds)
Search Engines are attracted to blogs. Internet users are attracted to blogs. Your customers will be too.
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There are others that will stand the test of time, and I should update the Top Posts page sometime soon. Lots of changes are still in the making and about to be shared. Stay tuned. I'm hoping that the 5th of ConverStations is the best year yet. Thanks for reading and riding along the rails:-)
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