Posts Tagged ‘Social Networking’

Writing a blog isn’t rocket science.  It can be formulaic if you want, it can be as complex as you make it. The more complex something is, the less it’s likely to happen. That’s why we are not all rocket scientists. Looking after several multi author blogs one of the things the bloggers say from time to time is – What do I write and I have run out of things to write.

Crowdsourcing via twitter, Facebook and Forums really comes into it’s own here. People who know you through the forums, often make excellent suggestions as to what to blog about next.

Let’s say you have plenty of inspiration, how do you actually write a blog?

I like to think of it as a story and in the blog you tell that story. It’s readable, it hooks you in, you learn something and you get to give immediate feedback in the form of a comment. If only books were that good

What sounds better?

Yesterday I did 6 deliveries for 4 new customers in a white transit van

or

Yesterday was a busy day for our same day courier business. We had 4 brand new customers to deliver for and they all had different requirements meaning our organisational skills were tested – you will be pleased to know they were not found lacking!

I can expand and say how I came about those customers, what sort of things they needed to have delivered, what items they were and if it was a confidential delivery, I can say that too. The blog will show future customers and regular readers you know what you are doing, or you don’t know what you are doing.

If you don’t know what you are doing, don’t blog about it as a factual blog. Make it a “what if” blog…

What would happen in your business if you took on 4 diverse customers from a variety of backgrounds? How would you cope? Is it some businesses can deal with multiple customers better than others? Let’s explore that further, the multiple customer thing. In this scenario your blog is asking for advice and if you tweet it out or share it on Facebook, you may get comments that will help you.

Back to writing that blog…

• Tell the story and tell it as best you can.

• Be as open and as honest as your business allows.

• Just write.

In telling the story you describe the features of your business and how a client has benefited from them, the story aspect makes it readable, the blog and your company become memorable by default. Having to read lots of facts and figures is more palatable if it is part of the blog. A list of figures will get glossed over and some of the impact of them lost. Experiment, tweak, test – see what works for you and your readers.

Being open and transparent, is a good thing, your readers will identify with it and you become a credible source of information to them. Over time this will enable you to build a strong relationship with them and they will trust and recommend you and your blogs.

Just write. Seriously. JDI. So many would be bloggers spend hours worrying over the colour of their blog, spelling, what to say – it’s displacement activity. Do you think this post looked like it does now whilst I was writing it? It was one huge block of text and when I finished. &00 ish words and no capitals and very little punctuation. I started adjusting, tweaking  and formatting it. Remember the power of JDI, don’t get over zealous and edit the life out of your blog and if you make a typo or spello, it is not the end of the world. If someone comment s to correct you, they are engaging. It may not be the type of engagement you want. But it’s a start.

Despite what people will tell you, you will get better with practice. You will cringe at some of your early stuff – even if it’s very good. Writing blogs is like using a muscle it gets stronger with use. So use it.

Sarah

Useful further reading

• Six @ Six: 6 Pioneers in Corporate Blogging
• Promoting Personal vs. Professional sites and posts
• Win Copies of John Jantsch’s “The Referral Engine”

The blogmistress and I, have just come back from the first Kaslers Tweet meet in Kent

I promised the twitter names of all who attended that I had… so go follow and send them a tweet to say hi

• Chris Lodge – @caraccidentaid
• Barry Nuttley @greenenergychap
• Adam Cowper Smith @adamcowpersmith
• Luke English @EnglishMedia
• Helen Vining @thecocktailclub
• Mark Jenner @markdjenner
• Sue Robinson – DTF
• Janet McKenner @delicakesME19
• Rodney – DTF
• Ian Smith – DTF
• Alastair Wood @Alastairwood
• Brian Tidey @briantidey
• Anthony Draper – DTF
• Stephen from Kaslers – Dtf
• Peter Eves – DTF
• Michael Breeze @michaeldbreeze
• James Primarolo
• Justin Somerville-Cotton @dunbarconsult
• Mark Loughlin @talladviser
• John Botting @johnbotting @4networkingkent
• Julie Blunt – DTF
• Mark Hickman @lovetoddydotcom
• Robert Killington @vatark @4ncrawley
• Kevin Arrow @Freight_rescue
• Marc Lemezma @lemezma @4nMaidstone
• Mike Gilbert – DTF
• Dermot Sheehan – DTF
• Babs Saul – @babssaul @blogmistress
• Sarah Arrow – @Essex_courier

DTF – Details to follow

I will be contacting everyone via email with a download of the Blogmistress’s guide filled with tips and useful info.

Lovely to meet you and put a face to the twitter name

Sarah

PS: If we missed you and you were there, please add your twitter name below – thank you (Babs)

What are the types of social media and how can you utilise them for your business and why the heck is this post in a Blogmistress Blog?

First, the components (or ingredients) of social media -

• Blogs
• Video
• Forums
• Instant Messengers

are just a few of them, they are the CONTENT, think of them as the TV programs, they are independent of the Television itself, and you need a TV or appropriate NETWORK to read/watch them.

Social Networks, places like Facebook, BT Tradespace, LinkedIN, Smarta would be the TV sets in this analogy. The sets are made up differently from the programs it shows.

If you have a blog, you can use a social NETWORK to distribute your social MEDIA…. get it? Please say yes…

You film a video, upload it on Youtube, you distribute the video via Twitter, Facebook, your blog, social media and social networks working hand in hand, the social part is the sharing, the talking and the discussing – the action.

A social network is not social media, it can be a platform for social media as in it contains blogs and videos, but it’s not the media itself, it’s the aggregation of that media. That’s a big word for me.

Social networks are focused communities and social media is the chosen communication method.

Ok, one big word and lots of small ones. I think I have explained it – correct me where I am wrong please and add your opinions on the subject.

Sarah

This post is to all those out there in the big wide world of WordPress that code plugins…

How do you name them?

The other day I was reading and loving Joe’s post about the Hottie McFoxy dashboard plugin, but it turns out if you read the post that it isn’t actually called a hottie mcfoxy dashboard plugin at all, it has a rather dull name that I can’t recall for love nor money. Which got me thinking about how I search for plugins and what I actually find for my efforts.

Looking for – a diary of blog posts scheduled and what I get is this…. pre-date-future-post not what I was looking for at all, but I am sure it does whatever it does very nicely, it’s just doesn’t help me… what I was really looking for was Calendar by Kieran O Shea . It did not cross my mind it would be called a calendar. A Calendar goes on the wall doesn’t it? What about a schedule? Err, nope. Not that either. In fact the list of plugins under schedule blogs seems to have  nothing at all to do with scheduling blogs!

I like to do my follow Fridays for twitter in a blog, so I was looking for the holy grail of plugins – I was looking for a fabled plugin that does something that really will make my life easier, the plugin that hyperlinks twitter names. Could I find it? I could find that Grail quicker! I stumbled across the actual plugin by accident after searching through a pile of plugins that pulled my tweets into the blogs, sent my blogs to twitter and all sorts of things, it was more luck than judgment that I found the easy twitter link plugin!

So back to my original question… how do you name a plugin? Do you give thought to non technical minded people looking for your excellently coded piece of WordPress perfection? or is it something else?

Sarah