As you’d expect from this site, we bring together a couple elements in a post about Integrated Marketing…

More than a Logo

Okay, we’ve talked about brand and messaging and how important it is to get people talking about you.  We’ve also talked a lot about effectively using social media to support that goal.  And, because so many of you asked us to help you do all of that, we created CloutReach.

I’m not pushing product here.  Many of you don’t need someone to help you.  If you do, find someone you trust who can help.

90 Days?

The other day, someone asked me what the 90-day ROI is for CloutReach.  My reaction to that?

“A+ for thinking ROI and F- for thinking that integrating social media with your traditional marketing communication is something you can do for a few months and then quit.”

Let me say it again…  You want people talking about you!

Take a look at the video we’ve embedded below and its Starbucks “plug” (http://12mm.co/aliengirl).  How great would it be to find someone talking about your brand like this?

Lower Case "T" Stands For...

The use of social media isn’t a passing fad.  We’re not going to suddenly stop talking about our likes and dislikes and our customer experiences.  If anything, we’re all just starting to speak up, and we’re going to get a lot noisier.

So, once you’ve got the hang of using social media communication holistically and integrating it into your overall marketing strategy, stop paying us to do it with you through CloutReach, but don’t lose focus on the need to have people continuing to talk about you.

See you.  I’m off to Starbucks…

Want more information about CloutReach, or 12 Minute Marketing, or how everything we’re doing at Area 224 can potentially help your business? Use the links above, or get in touch with us using the Contact Page on this site.

Area 224 Mindmap

What ARE You Doing?

Some days, you’re gonna feel like you are spinning your wheels. Are you a blogger, or a business person? Are you a writer, or a developer? Are you launching things, or taking care of things long since launched?

Yeah, this sounds like us, too.

Here’s one tip: the Mindmap.

Go here: FreeMind Download Page.

Start figuring out what you’ve got to work with. With EVERYTHING.

For us:

• What domains do we have, even the dormant ones?
• What content have we developed that’s sitting on the shelf?
• Where have our leads come from – what lines of business do we potentially have?
• What are the relationships that we need to nurture, to grow?

Set aside an hour. Lock the door, turn off the mobile phone, get rid of all distractions. Go to it.

And, if you’ve done one, go back to it at least once a month.

Which is where we’ll be for the next hour.

We keep going with our Blogging Basics series. This is Part Six – Dave returns to talk to you about success.

6 Ways to Success

6 Ways to Increase Your Blog’s Success Rate

Blogging isn’t as easy as some would like to lead you to believe.  It takes time, commitment, a penchant for excellence, and the guts to make it happen.  It doesn’t happen overnight and you will likely not be a blogging superstar anytime in the near future.  However…

There are a few things that can help you exponentially as a blogger to become the type of blogger that makes some serious noise.  I’ve laid them out below, you can choose and implement at your leisure.  Whether you’re new or already have an established blog, these practices can help you.

Create a Plan of Attack

Sorry but blogging just for the sake of blogging won’t sustain over the long-term.  You’ve got to have a plan with an end goal in mind or you are doomed for failure.  You wouldn’t start a business without some sort of loose biz plan at the very least.  You wouldn’t start a marketing campaign without a solid strategy in place.  Why then would you start blogging without a blogging plan?  Outline a goal, create a plan, stay the course.

Create Remarkable Content

Not just good content, not just great content, but remarkable content.  Do it as much as you possibly can and strive for excellence every time you hit publish.  Write with your readers needs in mind and ask yourself with every piece- “Does this article provide value to my reader”?  If your answer is yes, well done.  If you aren’t sure, reassess.

Create an Editorial Calendar

More and more blogs are adopting the style of magazines and creating editorial calendars to plan their blog content.  It’s much easier to write remarkable stuff when you have a clear picture of what you want to talk about.  Creating an editorial calendar can help you map out your content direction for months at a time and help you create content that is fluid and cohesive and builds upon itself with your readers.  This in turn keeps ‘em coming back for more. (NOTE: We believe in this wholeheartedly; it’s one of the things we talk about over at 12 Minute Marketing.)

Optimize, Optimize

For search engines that is.  Yes the main goal is rockin’ content that delivers on value.  But that doesn’t mean neglect basic SEO principles to further grow your blog’s audience.  Things like catchy titles, using H1 and H2 tags within your content, anchor linking, internal linking, meta data, keywords in your content, etc.  All of these things contribute to great content that the search engines also love.  That means more readers for you!

Use Some Personality

No one likes to read dry, boring, interesting as dirt content.  I know I don’t, do you?  Think of your favorite bloggers.  Are they boring in tone and style?  Or do they make an impact as you read?  Make you laugh?  Inspire you?  Motivate you?  A good blogger will experiment and find their “voice” that resonates the most with their readers, and then write content in a way that engages them thoroughly.

Get a Little Friendly

OK not THAT friendly.  But do allow a bit of transparency to shine through on your blog.  People want to know who they are reading.  They want to connect a face with the words.  They want to get to know the person they are taking advice from.  So be transparent, create an informative about page, use a nice, friendly picture of yourself easily found on your blog, and let people get to know the real YOU.  You readers will thank you!

What has worked for you? What did we miss? Let us know in the comments.

Back to Rick Strater as we continue our Blogging Basics Series. And, since he’s the Co-Creator of 12 Minute Marketing, good enough time to talk about Promoting Your Blog.

Marketing Your Blog – Promotional Basics

Marketing your blog is actually easier than marketing a static website. This is partly due to the structural nature of the blog, and partly due to the fact that there are more promotional opportunities available than for static websites.

There are many marketing options you can explore – and then you simply decide what works best for you, and stick to it:

Guest Posting

This is the process of placing articles on other blogs with a link back to yours.  Probably one of the most effective ways of driving visitors to your site, placing guest posts will allow you to be seen on blogs that are quite busy, allowing you to cash in on their authority that has already been established.

It is a very simple, yet effective technique that can – depending on the blog where you place the post – drive large numbers of visitors to your blog.

You can also find ezines related to your blog’s niche, and offer to write articles for them in return for the exposure. This way you will also be able to cash in on the reputation of the ezine publisher, and the relationship that he or she has with his or her list of subscribers.  Same idea, different medium.

RSS Automation

This is where you submit your blog’s RSS feed to your Facebook and Twitter accounts for instant exposure to your followers and friends. This can easily be accomplished by using a service called “Twitterfeed“. Additionally, you can submit it to Feedburner – a service from Google that will re-distribute your blog’s feed to a number of different destinations.

Social Marketing

This is often marketing on forums and social groups – by contributing value to any conversation, it is possible to showcase your expertise to people and by extension lure many of them into exploring your blog. Don’t just leave a comment and move on, but become involved in the conversation. The more you do, the more opportunities you will have of being noticed, and attracting people to your blog.

Blog Commenting

Placing comments on other blogs can be effective – or not – depending on how busy the blog is, and how soon after the actual post you can place your comment. The sooner you comment, the better the chance that it will be seen by a lot of people, some of which will translate into visitors.

Don’t waste your time commenting on blogs that have very little commenting action… you want to see a minimum of at least a couple comments on any given post before adding that blog to your commenting schedule – or you’ll see very little traffic from it.

Warning

Don’t even think about using traffic exchanges. These are frequented by people simply looking for more traffic to their websites, or opportunities to make more money. If your blog targets any of these, create a simple landing page, and funnel them from there. Most people using traffic exchanges do not really want to work hard to view any page – they just want to run up some credits and get some traffic of their own.  Really a colossal waste of time in my book!

There are many more options you can explore however – like videos, distributing documents, etc. Depending on the niche of your blog, some techniques will work better than others. You will simply have to experiment and keep the ones that work for you, throw out all the rest.

At the end of the day, it’s all about effort versus reward and taking daily actions to promote your blog.

So how will you market your blog today?    

Will It Stop? NO! We continue with Blogging Basics by talking about…Niche vs. Authority. Dave’s at the mic again.

Niche Blog? Authority Blog? Both? Neither?

The question of niche blogging versus authority blogging faces many new bloggers.

On one hand you might want to simply get something going that will make you some money, the sooner the better. On the other hand you might want to do something bigger that will last, make an impact, and not allow you to “outgrow” your project.

Creating an authority blog is a long-term project. It is about presenting yourself as an expert in your field. It takes time and effort to establish, but the rewards are great. To create an authority blog you will need to create loads of content over time, and some of it will have to be outstanding.

You will have to consistently provide good quality content, and connect with other bloggers for additional exposure. Getting your blog ranked well in Google and other search engines will take time and effort, since you will be up against some stiff competition from established marketers.

If you should decide on the “blogging for money” niche for instance, you will be up against people like Darren Rowse from “Problogger“, and Yaro Starak from “Entrepeneur’s Journey”. While it is not impossible to break into the market, it does present a challenge, especially for someone with no prior branding campaign.

On the positive side, however, authority blogging allows you to choose your field of blogging according to your own passions, or at least according to your own interests.

This means that at least it is unlikely that you will tire any time soon of writing about topics related to your blog!

On the flip side, creating a niche blog is easier. Unfortunately, it is also somewhat limited. There is only so much that you can write on any given topic, after which it can become difficult to come up with new ideas for content.

To make it worse, you might even tire of writing about the subject along the way, making it a drag to carry on in the first place.

But a benefit is that it is easier to rank well in Google for a niche blog. Since it is written for a very specific type of target customer, the blog can be created around the needs and search engine searches of these potential customers.

Additionally, due to the lesser amount of work involved, it is possible to maintain a couple of these niche blogs, and have more than one stream of income. Whenever you tire of any given topic, you are also free to sell or “flip” your blog, and start something new.

If you built an authority blog, on the other hand, it would be harder to let go of something that you put so much work into, and it would also be harder to sell something with which you deliberately have branded yourself.

At the end of the day, though, it all boils down to your own expectations and preferences. If you get bored easily, you might want to consider creating niche blogs. There are many marketers who specialize in creating profitable niche blogs, and that is their sole business model.  They create a string of small, profitable blogs and outsource the maintenance of them, and they are happy with that.

Which direction appeals to you the most?

BTW, don’t hesitate to check out what’s going on at 12 Minute Marketing. We’re in full launch mode. Love to have you join in!

Hi there. Dave back with you, as we continue this “Blogging Basics” series. A lot of what we’re talking about dovetails nicely with 12 Minute Marketing, the product we have launched.

Blogging Ain’t All Sunshine and Roses

Although they are overshadowed by the many benefits, the cons of blogging are still quite real, and have to be taken into account before you make your final decision on starting a blog or not.  Here are a few things you might like to consider before taking the leap.

Blogging takes commitment.

You can build a website with only a few pages, and if you decide not to continue, you can simply let it be. A blog, on the other hand, attracts people who are interested in fresh information, with the result being that you will have to update it frequently.

If not, the long and short of it is you will begin to lose the interest of your readers, and the conversation on your blog will start dying down.  NOT the goal!

Blogging takes some skills.

Not many mind you, but some.  Blogging – or rather the platform – does have a short learning curve. While it is possible to create a free blog with just a few clicks, there are dangers attached to free services.

For instance, Blogger.com regularly deletes blogs by mistake, and simply fails to restore them when requested.  If you are going to blog seriously, it will have to be on your own domain and your own hosting, and you will be wise to set-up WordPress.

There are are also a few plugins that you will need to install to have your new blog operating smoothly, for which you will have to ascertain the correct settings.  So there is a small learning curve but I promise it’s not as painful as you think.

Blogging requires some marketing skills.

Promoting your blog takes constant time and effort – at least at the start. You are likely to find yourself leaving comments on other blogs, as well as connecting with other bloggers in order to exchange ideas and arrange for promotional opportunities.

It is not like a static website where you can just stop adding pages at any given time without suffering any ill effect.  You need regular fresh content and you need to promote that content to insure the world actually sees it.

Blogging requires some geek-speak to really flourish.

Unless you have a good knowledge of CSS (cascading style sheets), or the ability to invest in a decent theme (template set), it is not possible to do much fine tuning on the appearance of your blog – not as easily as you would have been able to do with a static website anyway.

Additionally, you are also not able to give every page a different layout without having some knowledge of advanced plugins, and risking slowing your blog down (while loading a page for viewing) in the process.  So some techie skills can come in handy to really help your blog thrive.  (Or of course the ability to outsource the techie stuff!)

Blogging is ever-changing and evolving.

WordPress is being updated all the time; this version that we’re using is 3.2.1. Additionally, it is all open source; meaning that everything is done by volunteers working for free. As such, many of the available plugins are not updated regularly.

As a result, it happens from time to time that some plugins simply stop working correctly (or at all) after a major WordPress core update.  This can be annoying on the small scale, extremely horrid if the plug-in happens to be an integral part of your blog’s functionality!

Blogging requires the ability to be social.

Finally, blogging requires you to be part of the blogosphere. If you don’t enjoy interacting with other people, and using social platforms to connect with as many people as possible, you are likely to achieve only mediocre results.

If this is the case, blogging is simply not for you and that’s OK. It just means you may need to consider an alternative model for your online business adventures, if that’s what your goals are.

Really though, at the end of the day the benefits to blogging far outweigh the hassles and more and more businesses and brands are beginning to sit up, take notice and jump on the bandwagon.  The question now is what will you do?

Note: 12 Minute Marketing Co-Creator Rick Strater returns with Part Two in this Blogging Basics series.

My 2 Cents on Why Blogging Rocks

The benefits of blogging are numerous. In fact, considering the possibilities, it becomes unclear why people doing business on the Internet would prefer a website over a blog.

First of all, blogging allows you to create a conversation. That’s HUGE.  By allowing comments, you are able to engage your readers.

Additionally, in many cases you will find that visitors return to monitor new comments on a given post. Depending on the popularity of a particular post, you might find people returning to comment on other comments, thus creating a lively debate and racking up page views.

Page views I might add, that are vital if you ever plan on making cash from your blog.

Secondly, blogging allows more freedom than having a website. You can vary the topics on your blog as much as you wish, plus you can vary the length of your posts.  There is no reason to bore your visitors with the same information day after day; blogs allow you to spice things up.

Plus you can fiddle with your writing style and approach from time to time and get away with it, while any changes in tone or style would immediately stand out like a sore thumb on a static website.

Thirdly, the most popular blogging platform – WordPress – allows for a multitude of plugins with which you can add additional functionality to your blog.

(Editor’s Note: Of course we talk about WordPress in the 12 Minute Marketing program. A lot.)

You can add anything from an online contact form to creating a custom site-map for search engines. Some plugins will add visual changes, while others will simply work behind the scenes to make your blog more efficient.

Trust me this is uber cool when it comes to increasing the usability and functionality of your site.  And your visitors will love the results!

Fourthly, blogs possess an RSS (real time syndication) feed.  As a result, every time you add new content, a number of services are notified of the update, resulting in attention from the search engines.

Additionally, this feed can be routed to your Facebook or Twitter account, allowing you to share your blog updates on your status without even logging in. Visitors can subscribe to your RSS feed to stay updated on new content, or even subscribe to the comment’s RSS feed to follow new conversations.

BONUS: the structure of blogs make them search engine friendly by nature, which means it’s ten times easier to attract search traffic than it is with a static site.

Finally, the blogging platform makes it possible to change the appearance and layout of your blog in seconds. No really, seconds.

You can change the colors, the sizes and the layout of your sidebars by simply selecting a new theme (template set). This, along with adding plugins, can be done from within the admin area of your blog – something which is not possible with any other website built on any other platform.

(Editor’s Note: We use The Thesis Theme for WordPress - that’s an Affiliate Link.)

Ease of use and convenience is – of course – an important factor for many people. While it does take some time initially to set it up and install your preferred plug-in’s, etc, adding new content afterwards is as easy as pie.

The best part is that you can add all this new content, tweak a new appearance and install new plugins, without any knowledge of FTP (file transfer protocol) or PHP (the coding language on which WordPress was written) required.  Pure heaven for you techno-phobes out there.

The WordPress platform is continuously being improved. Every few weeks there are updates available for the platform itself, as well as frequent available updates for plugins and themes.

Updates can be done in a few clicks from inside the admin area – something which again is just not possible with your typical static website.

Considering all the upsides, it is sometimes hard to see why anyone would still prefer to waste their time with the old school static sites anyway.

Note: We’re starting a special series today called Blogging Basics. Today’s post is from Rick Strater, Co-Creator of 12 Minute Marketing.

What Is ‘Ze ‘Ting You Call Blogging?

If you’re new to the online world, you might be asking yourself that very question.  What is blogging?

It is, in simple terms, the use of a dynamic website to attract an audience and create a conversation. Now, while it all sounds very simple, the possibilities can be staggering.

A blog, by definition, is a website on which the latest additions appear first, with older entries moving down the list as new content pieces or “posts” are added. The content is arranged chronologically, as well as classified according to categories and tags for easy browsing.

Additionally, its structure allows comments from readers, encouraging interaction.

The comments structure allows you to create a conversation with your audience. The interaction plays a big role in the popularity of blogs in general, allowing you to partake in the conversation and answer questions along the way.

While a static website is usually built and left to be, barring the odd update, blogs are constantly updated, and are considered to be much more “alive”. Many people prefer to read fresh information, and as such try to find blogs that recently posted about their own unique topics of interest.

Originally, blogging was merely a means of sharing information and allowing conversation.  In fact they were often referred to as “online diaries” and contained information more personal in nature.

While there are still some blogs that follow that old “feel” many blogs are no longer used as personal diaries.  They are used for business, for branding, for growing authority within a niche, for teaching, motivating, and inspiring.

The Blogging Evolution

Blogs have since evolved into amazing platforms that can be constructed in such a way that it can drive your entire online business. Depending on the theme you use when setting up your blog, you can create sales letters, squeeze pages, add video, and even run a membership site.

The blogging platform also opens up unusual possibilities for promotion. There are a number of dedicated blog directories; there are blog carnivals and a number of blog communities. As such, becoming a blogger allows you to easily interact with other bloggers – many of which you will find to be quite willing to help you get off the ground and welcome you into the “blogger’s fold”.

Creating your own blog is about raising your own unique voice (sometimes even shouting if need be) - and attracting an audience who is eager to listen. It is about being an individual, and being able to express yourself as you please, while building a community of followers or fans who become regular readers and possibly customers and clients.

Another nifty thing about the blogging platform is that it allows you to link your blog to your social activities online, making it possible to spread the word instantly as you publish new information. This is excellent strategy for drawing your social following in and seducing them into becoming part of your regular blog readership.

Now.

Considering the fact that it’s possible to build an audience of returning visitors that you can engage in conversation, blogging offers potential that would never be possible with any conventional website.

And ironically, it is actually easier to run a blog than a website!  Well, in some respects at any rate.  That isn’t to say blogging is easy by any stretch of imagination.

Keep in mind blogging requires constant effort and commitment. While you can create a static website and leave it, a blog needs to be updated constantly, and you will have to be consistent in your efforts.

As a reward, however, you are likely to find a blog a very efficient tool in attracting traffic, building a business, and keeping your visitors engaged and clamoring for more.

So, who’s ready to blog?

A Road Sign with 23 on It.

Editor’s note: we ran this last fall, in honor of Blog World. Running it again, with new commentary at the end.

My Engagement Is Better Than Your Engagement

“Before you throw stones at the glass houses, be sure the glass is half full.”

If that doesn’t make any sense, well, neither does “engagement” to a lot of people.

Case in point: had a great dinner with a friend whose startup is kicking a%%. I told him there’s something called “Blog World.” His eyes rolled back in his head.

We then went back to talking about how his startup is kicking a%%.

I had another chat today with a leading provider of software to an industry that thrives on social commerce. They’re engaging just fine – companies, brands, people who sell stuff are doing the “customer service” thing correctly.

I emailed another friend whose business is doing just fine, with a Twitter page that has more followers than Area 224 does.

#bwe10 would not be happy, since this company’s Twitter page does nothing to engage followers.

But hey, if you’ve got objectives – like you know why you’re in business – the engagement will come. Or it won’t.

That’s the point, kiddos.

Whether my engagement is better than your engagement is irrelevant.

New commentary from Dave:

People, scoring points for engagement is all sorts of random and crazy. What are you selling? Why do you want to engage? Are you trying to move the political needle? Are you trying to offload dozens of widgets at rock bottom prices?

This could go on and on. Avoid the buzzwords, come up with a plan. Have a nice day. Now get back to work.

Thanks, mrbubble.com

I’ll admit it – I can’t stand the echo chamber. It’s mind-numbing of late – signal-to-noise ratio is really tilted toward blowhards talking a good ballgame.

There’s a better way. Actually, here’s a 4-step program. 1/3 the steps of a 12-step program. Go!

1. Ignore “Influence.”

That’s right – don’t give a hoot about whether someone has a Clout-a-riffic score of 8000 degrees Kelvin, or whether they are a best-selling author of self-help books for descendants of Vikings.

This means that you should interact with people on the social channels – Blogs, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, VikingDate.com – with one question in mind:

Is this person interesting?

2. Exit the Bubble.

Everyone reads blogs about social media. Everyone blogs about social media. Social media blogs exist so people who blog about social media can be read by everyone who blogs about social media.

Does this make you want to scream?

Don’t get us wrong – there are dozens of GOOD social media blogs out there. But once you start getting out of the bubble, you discover that there are actually people who are writing about stuff that you might be interested in.

Exit. The. Bubble.

3. Have a POINT – and only visit blogs that have one.

Our point behind blogging is simple: thought leadership and positioning of our firm – StraterEdge Consulting – as people who know what we’re talking about when it comes to Sales Velocity and Marketing Effectiveness.

When you visit a blog that says “Random musings” or “Ramblings” or “One twenty-something’s journey toward” something…this is likely a blog without a point.

4. Don’t Believe the Hype.

Everyone. Is. Awesome!

If you visit enough blogs it will appear that the same 15 people seem to comment on the same 15 blogs and then they cross-pollinate on each other’s blogs and it becomes a circumlocution of awesomeness.

You can do one of two things: hang out and try to crack the code, or realize that the Awesomeness Cliques will always be there, social media is like high school, and it’s time to move on.

There’s a world OUTSIDE of the Social Media Bubble. Go find it.