A few weeks ago I was blessed and honored to sit down for a few minutes with Dan Miller, the author of No More Mondays and 48 Days to the Work You Love for his podcast. We talked specifically about why you should care about blogging and other social media, how a person can use new media tools to promote what they do, some examples where I’ve seen this work, and how to get started.

Here’s a link to listen to the interview on Dan’s website or subscribe to Dan’s podcast and listen to it there.

If you want to know a bit about what Dan’s specialty is, check out this video of him on a recent Dave Ramsey Show and his blog. Dan’s principles have a lot to do with where I am today professionally and I’m grateful for the time and wisdom he’s provided. He’s also a great person to work for because he knows what he wants to know, he knows what he doesn’t know, and he finds the people to help him know what he needs to know.

I’ve encountered a surge of friends, associates, and acquaintances who are new to blogging. What I’ve found is that in some cases the new bloggers have been blog readers for quite a while and have picked up on a few things about blogging culture, etiquette, technique, and strategy. In other cases, the new bloggers have jumped right in without having spent a lot of time reading blogs (and therefore missing some of the above mentioned things.) I applaud anyone who’s jumping into the blogging waters so this post is for the people who are relatively new to blogging but may have missed a few things along the way…

Here are seven things new bloggers should know:

1. Terminology 101 (part 1): Your blog is a blog so just call it that. It’s not a website or a blog site. It may operate as your web presence (which is what I do and recommend in many cases) but it’s still a blog. It would be incorrect to say, “Check out my blog site.” It would be correct to say, “Check out my blog.” It’s as simple as that.
2. Terminology 101 (part 2): Every entry you add to your blog is a post. Your entries are not blogs. The blog is the entire space but a post is a single entry. Some new bloggers will say, “I just wrote a blog today about…” which isn’t correct. They wrote a post. Not a blog. You can say “post” or “blog post” but not blog. A blog is your web presence (see number 1 above.)
3. Determine your posting frequency: When I was in second grade I signed up for a race with about thirty other second graders. When they shot the gun I took off like a flash. I was a blaze of red-sweat-pant-Member’s-Only- jacket-wearing-glory. The problem was the race was a mile. I was in first place for the first 100 yards. I ended up in dead last. I had no energy for most of the race. I used it all in the first 100 yards. New bloggers can start like that. You have new ideas and are fired up and ready to go…which is great, but if you don’t plan on keeping up that pace for the duration of your blog life, dial it back a little bit to something you can sustain. I recommend you determine your meal to snack ratio. Blogging is not a sprint.
4. Triple the amount of time you spend thinking about your post titles. Most likely you spend only a few seconds on your blog post title but it’s actually one of the most important things you can do. People tend to scan titles and your title may make or break whether someone actually reads the post. This is even more important as people continue to use feed readers in increasing numbers. Your posts are just one trickle in a stream of information and your title is what people will use to determine whether they will read your post or not.
5. Link to people when you mention them. This is one commonly overlooked but easy to fix issue. Good blogging etiquette is to link to a fellow blogger when you mention her/him. If you mention them by name just hyperlink to them. Every blog tool does that. If you see something on someone’s blog and it inspires you to write a post based on what you saw, give that person a “hat tip” if you don’t mention them specifically in the post. If you’ve ever seen something at the end of a blog that looks like this: [HT to Chris] then it’s a reference to a post I saw on Chris’ blog. It’s a hat tip to Chris. Bloggers love links and they love to receive credit when credit it due. They’ll also return the favor in many situations so this can be strategic as well. Link love is a wonderful thing for everyone.
6. Check your moderated comments often. If you moderate your comments try to check them at least daily because commenters want to know that their comments were worth the time they spent to post them. Comments exist to encourage discussion and dialogue but if it takes you forever to approve the comments, you’re not encouraging someone to comment in the future. More than likely they’ll think you rejected the comment and then what was supposed to be a positive experience for the person turns into a negative one because they’ll be sitting there wondering why you didn’t approve their comment. Just approve them often and only reject the stuff that’s spam.
7. The golden rule of blogging is to provide content. Unless your blog is intended to be something personal for yourself, friends, and family this rule applies to you. If you have any hopes of blogging with the intent that people will find it helpful, useful, etc. you need to provide content on a regular basis. Here’s the test: how many of your previous ten posts were about you verses about something that meets the Old McDonald test? Content is about your readers. A personal blog is about you and that’s fine…but if you’re not writing a personal blog, don’t make it about you all the time. The fact of the matter is most people don’t really care about you but they do like it when you give them something entertaining, inspiring, educational, informative, or even outrageous. They may be amused about little things going on in your life from time to time and that’s fine to talk about, but otherwise, give them substance that has value for them.

I thought of one additional thing to add to my post earlier today about the recent hire of a full-time blogger at eBay. The additional thought is this: eBay didn’t try to outsource the blogging responsibility.

I’ve had conversations with people who think blogging is something that can be outsourced to college students or copywriters or stay at home moms or new media consultants. It can’t. None of those people know the company as well as someone who is inside the company day in and day out. They can convey the culture. They won’t have the relationships. They won’t respond as timely because they will probably be running most of their content through someone before they post…particularly if there’s an issue that demands a rapid response.

Outsourcing your blogging is not only a bad idea, it may be misleading in too. A great organizational blog conveys that your reading a person who is a true representative of the organization. Someone who lives and breathes the organization…and an outsourced blogger just won’t do that. Don’t outsource your blogging. Don’t even think about it.

Last week I found an interview with eBay’s new in-house blogger, Richard Brewer-Hay. This is an good move on their part and one that I think will become increasingly common in the future. There are a few things that were especially interesting in the interview and worth noting for any organization that has official bloggers:

• Bringing in someone from the outside isn’t a bad thing. Brewer-Hay was hired to eBay for blogging. He wasn’t a guy who had been there for a while and moved into that position. An internal person who assumes a full time blogging role isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but someone new will have less bias and likely be a bit more candid than someone who’s been in the organization for many years.
  
  LifeWay Christian Resources, here in Nashville, hired Ed Stetzer a year ago and Ed is an unofficial blogger for LifeWay but had significant credibility before being hired by LifeWay and LifeWay has received the lift it. An outsider can do that for you. The hard question then is this: when does that outsider become and insider? That’s a topic for another day.

• They trust him to say what he’s going to say. This quote really jumped out:

Question: Your blog will be linked from eBay’s PR webpage. How much influence will eBay have on what you write?

Answer: My words go straight up onto the blog, unedited. It’s got to be transparent. There’s got to be an authenticity to it, an honesty to it, otherwise there’s no point in doing it in the first place. I’m going to open up my e-mail to questions from folks. People can comment, too, and comments are going to be open. You’re going to get the good, the bad, and the ugly.

• They’re giving him time to launch. Brewer-Hay has been at eBay since January but the blog isn’t going to launch until April. They’re giving him time to build the blog, familiarize himself with the company, and get his blogging plan in place. It’s also giving them time to get the word out about the upcoming blog…hence the interview.

eBay has realized they need a blogger for all the benefit it provides both in being proactive with news and ongoing relations with the people who are most interested in eBay as well as a quick and immediate outlet for dealing with bad news. In the future most organizations with have numerous bloggers who specialize in particular areas of content but not every organization is yet ready to bring a blogger in. In October I wrote about five types of organizations that shouldn’t blog. This is still applicable for some organizations today but the good news is that they can be overcome with the right people in place.

I had the chance to give three presentations about new media marketing last week so I felt like my brain was constantly on the mantra: content is the new marketing strategy. On Thursday I had just come out of a two hour presentation and went to lunch with a friend at Chappy’s on Church here in Nashville. The food was great and the atmosphere was too. I highly recommend a cup of the seafood gumbo while you’re waiting on your meal if you ever go to Chappy’s.

While sitting there at lunch it struck me that when you create content you’re kind of like a restaurant. Both content creators and restaurants serve something for people that you hope they’re going to like. If we think of creating content more like a restaurant owner thinks about serving really good food (and experiences) to their patrons, we may be helped in making sure we’re providing valuable content and not something that’s half baked or overdone.

If you’re in the restaurant business there are three reactions you hope all your customers are going to have. If you’re in the content business, you want these same three reactions too.

• Savor - When we savor a meal it means we’re enjoying it at that exact moment. We’re taking it in and slowing down to make sure we delight in the full flavorful experience. What if that same feeling could be said about your content? Wouldn’t you love it if people savored the content you provide? If they savor your content you know they found the immediate value of it, and regardless of which of the five content strategies you choose, that is the primary rule of good content.
• Share - Have you ever had a meal at a restaurant that was so good you had to give everyone else a bite so they knew what they were missing? Or maybe you were talking about that restaurant for the entire next week after having eaten there because it was so good. Have you ever found a video so funny that you had to send to a few friends because you knew what they were missing? Same thing isn’t it? When we find something we like we share. Digital content makes sharing a snap and when you create good content one of the best thing you can hope for after the person savors the content him/her self is that they’ll share it. Do you create content that is best positioned to be shared? If you have video on your website that doesn’t provide an embed code, you’re not making it easy for people to share. If you don’t have permanent links for blog posts or articles you’re not making it easy for people to share. If your content doesn’t meet a need that some people (even if only a small group) have, it’s probably not going to be shared…and shared content that’s shared over and over and over again is of course viral marketing.
• Save - Finally, the last reaction you want in the restaurant or content creation business is that the person will save it. If we’re talking about a meal, when they save it for later they’re saying it’s worth taking home to finish later. When they see the immediate value in your content and take the next step to save it, they are indicating that they not only appreciate the immediate value of your content but the potential value it will have for them to reference in the future. One bonus with the save reaction: when your content proves to be worth saving, you have probably earned their attention for another chance for them to savor, share, and save your content in the future.

…I think he would be saying some of the same things he was saying 85 years ago. I had never heard of Claude Hopkins until recently. I think I would have liked him. I also think he would have liked the marketing opportunities we have today with social media tools. Here’s something Claude wrote in his book, Scientific Advertising, back in 1923:

Remember the people you address are selfish, as we all are. They care nothing about your interests or your profit. They seek service for themselves. Ignoring this fact is a common mistake and a costly mistake in advertising. Ads, say in effect, “Buy my brand. Give me the trade you give to others. Let me have the money.” That is not a popular appeal.

The best ads ask no one to buy. That is useless. Often they do not quote a price. They do not say that dealers handle the product. The ads are based entirely on service. They offer wanted information. They site advantages to users. Perhaps they offer a sample, or to buy the first package, or to send something on approval, so the customer may prove the claims without any cost or risks. Some of these ads seem altruistic. But they are based on the knowledge of human nature. The writers know how people are led to buy. Here again is salesmanship. The good salesman does not merely cry a name. He doesn’t say, “Buy my article.” He pictures the customers side of his service until the natural result is to buy.

Claude Hopkins, Scientific Advertising

I think Claude would agree that content is a good promotion strategy. He might even sing a little bit of “Old McDonald” with me.

I have recommended blogging specifically as a great marketing tool for quite a while now and I’m always excited to hear how it works for people. Back in December I spent some time with Jeff from Mossy Creek Custom, a local gunsmith here in Nashville. He was just launching the business in Nashville and was anxious to get the word out about what he does so I encouraged him to start blogging. We went over all the “content is promotion the new strategy” stuff and even had to back up with the six categories of web 2.0, but by the end of a few sessions together the light had clearly come on and we were just talking specific strategy and execution.

A few days ago he called to tell me that his traffic had tripled because his post on Friday was showing up on the first page of a Google search. It turns out there are a lot of people who are interested in modifying their Glocks. He’s been doing a great job of creating content for people who are interested in custom guns and has discovered that he’s one of only a very few people who are blogging about guns like this. Jeff is already emerging as one of the best and most helpful voices in the area of shooter information. I predict that by the end of the year he’ll be recognized widely by gun enthusiasts for his blog. He’s already made some great connections and his traffic is on a steady growth pattern. The recent post was just a big shot in the arm that’s still going strong now five days later. It’s giving him more exposure to more people with more opportunities for business.

This is a great story of someone blogging strategically with a marketing mindset. Many people would likely think that gunsmiths and blogs don’t mix but Jeff is taking the approach that content is the best (and most affordable) way to connect with people. He’s creating helpful, educational, and informative content to the readers. He’s building a base while finding his blogging voice at the same time. It’s stories like this that should encourage someone on the fence to give blogging a shot try.

I’ve noticed that people who have opinions about blogs and bloggers see them in one of two ways: either as fish or rats.

Fish are:

• Beautiful
• Admired
• Valuable
• Prized

Rats are:

• Disruptive
• Sneaky
• Hated
• Pests

The reason I bring this up is because some of us who happen to think blogs and bloggers are fish work with, for, or around people who see them as rats. It’s a huge divide when you think about it. If someone thinks they’re rats how can you convince them otherwise? You could talk about blog growth and hope they’re convinced that 100 million bloggers worldwide can’t all be wrong. You could give anecdotes of stories where bloggers have made and changed news stories or rallied around causes to help people. You could tell them that generating content is the new promotional strategy (and I would insert personal stories here) but that may not be enough either.

If I know I’m talking to someone who sees blogs and bloggers as rats rather than fish I generally try to find out how they arrived at their conclusion. Many times this idea developed from an experience (either one they had or something they heard about) where a blog was used in a negative way. Perhaps it was an attack blog or some kind or the perceived lack of control with a blog that made them uncomfortable. Whatever the case I haven’t yet discovered a sure-fire method of changing someone’s mind and I don’t think there is one but the best thing to do is to deal with the issues that led to the conclusion they now hold before dealing with their perspective of blogs and bloggers. Forget that they think blogs are rats. Deal with the reasons they think that. Take the time necessary to reconcile those issues. Only then will you have a chance to turn that rat into a fish.