I’ll be speaking at Connected Marketing Week tomorrow in a session called “Small Voices, Big Results” at 1pm. Specifically, I’ll be discussing blogging rules that I’ve seen work over the years.Since I started blogging publicly in 2007, I’ve learned a lot about blogging and blogging culture. Along with things I’ve learned about myself and my own style there are some universal rules to follow to be a successful blogger, no matter who you are or what you’re writing about. Today I thought I’d share a few lessons I’ve learned and start a discussion. If you’ve got any additional bits of advice you would have given yourself when you first started blogging, please share them in the comments. I’d love to hear them. I don’t pretend to be an expert. I’m always learning like the rest of you.
Here are my 23 Rules of Thumb for Effective Blogging…
Rule #1: No one cares about you.
Every time you sit down to write, remind yourself that there are a trillion other websites out there competing for attention. Then remind yourself how little time you have these days to spend reading the news, books, all your friends’ Tweets and Facebook status messages and blog posts. Got it? In that moment, ask yourself honestly whether you’d spend time reading a 10,000 word blog post about your cat.
People invest their time reading posts that educate and enlighten, or organize complex information, or bust myths or provide pointers to great resources. Internet users have evolved into ultra-savvy scanners when it comes to web content, and they’re insanely good at figuring out whether there’s something in it for them in under 10 seconds. If they don’t get the immediate impression that what you’ve written is useful or entertaining, they’ll leave and go somewhere else. Web time is “me time” for readers. So write stuff that other people will find useful, and save the stories about your cat for your mom.
3.0 is here, and it’s packed with awesomeness. I do all of my website development on WordPress these days and there are a lot of great additions in this release that I’ve been waiting on for this site, as well as on client projects. They’ve made the maintenance easier with bulk update functionality for plugins and the software, you now have custom post types for products, newsletters and real estate listings, and you’ve got a heck of a lot more control in the widget area. Here’s a 3 minute video overview on the new release, as well as an hour long video (bottom) where Matt Mullenweg talks at length about some of the updates, why they went that way, and shares some of the vision and philosophy behind what Automattic sees in WordPress’s future.
Want a Facebook “Like” button for your WordPress blog like the one you see on this blog? It’s super simple. Todd Williams, Executive Developer at Media 1 Designs, got inspired by yesterday’s announcement at F8 about the Open Graph, and coded up a nifty lightweight “Facebook Like” WordPress plugin that you can use for your WordPress site! It was officially released today on the GunnJerkens blog.
Here’s what the options panel looks like:
Installation:
1. Head Over To the GunnJerkens blog (to make sure you’ve got the most up-to-date version)
2. Download the plugin (this link to the zip file will only work for the current version)
3. Unzip the file and place the Facebook Like plugin folder in your WP-Content –> Plugins Folder
4. Log in to your WordPress dashboard.
5. Go to Plugins –> Installed
6. Activate the plugin
7. Go to The Facebook-Like options panel, configure the settings
8. Click save.
And you’re done! Simple. Lightweight. Awesome (and every time someone clicks “like” that activity will show up in their Facebook stream and bring traffic back to your blog.
Also, if you blog about this plugin, please link back to the original GunnJerkens post.
Enjoy!
Recently, I’ve had a few of my clients ask me whether they should be video blogging more. My answer usually starts with the question “how comfortable are you on camera?”. Video blogging isn’t for everyone, and it can make or break you, in my opinion. While it’s true that your audience wants to interact with you in an authentic way, it’s also true that when people read text-only blog posts, they tend to bring their own filters and voice to what they read, which can work in your favor if you’re a talented writer who happens to be blessed with a squeaky voice or a shy demeanor.
By contrast, when they watch you on video, there’s no where for you to hide and your strengths as well as your flaws get amplified and become a focal point of the audience’s experience. People are picking up all kinds of non-verbal cues that they’re using to decide whether they like you and what you’ve got to say. There are people out there who are so comfortable and enthusiastic when they’ve got a camera in their face that they were born to do it. Others…not so much. Whether you were born to be on camera or stick to writing is not necessarily a reflection on your character or intelligence either – you’ve just got to know your DNA. Stephen Hawking wasn’t born to be a TV rockstar. Enough said.
The good news is that if you’re thinking about trying out video blogging, you can dip your toe in without committing too heavily on equipment and time, and use TubeMogul to measure and test how people are reacting to you and your video content in real time. If you’re a video amateur the instant feedback you can get from seeing how long people watch your content, where they’re watching it and when they drop out minute-by minute (called drop out rate), can give you a pretty good indication of how you’re being received, and whether people like what you’re doing or not. You can use that data to tweak your message and style and see how your audience responds. Pretty neat stuff. This way you can borrow a camera from a friend (or rent one) and see if this is something you want to invest in long term. Here’s the demo video from TubeMogul on how their drop-out analytics work:
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This morning I got a pleasant surprise. The mail man dropped off a hardcover copy of Seth Godin’s new book Linchpin sent from a new friend. Totally made my day. Luke, thanks for reminding me again why I love to write this blog, and why helping others and giving generously are the best ways to connect with others.
This lecture from Seth Godin is around 2 years old, but the ideas still resonate strongly, especially in the wake of recent discussions about Chris Anderson’s new book Free and the concepts of Freemium and Freeconomics. If you’re currently writing a book, or thinking of writing a book one day, you should get a lot out of this. The core concepts to keep in mind as you’re going through this are:
- Books are souvenirs (give ideas away and people buy)
- Permission is your only asset (relationships matter)
- Conversations are (the best) marketing
- Make words for readers, not readers for words (ideas that spread sell, so get the order right)
- Blogs work (and continue to pay off over time), and
- It’s not about selling books (it’s about spreading ideas)
I’m not a top blogger, a thought leader or industry expert, and probably won’t be any time soon. No big deal. I’m not out to take the internet by storm. I don’t worry about my daily traffic stats, I don’t stress out about posting every day and I don’t blog for money (although I do make money doing it that supports the habit). I originally started blogging just to become a better writer. I’ve been blogging consistently now for over 2 years and I’ve learned that blogging itself is not a means to any end. The real value is in the process – it’s about continuous learning, connecting, collaborating, and growing as a person. In many ways, it’s a lifestyle choice rather than an activity or a hobby, and the people who are doing it for the right reasons are generally in it for the long haul.
Seth Godin and Tom Peters recently weighed in on why they blog at an AMEX OPEN forum. There were some great points made by both on the value of blogging that really resonated with me — I particularly appreciated Seth’s comment on developing humility, and Tom’s on how it changes your emotional and intellectual outlook. These are two of the most successful bloggers on the web and even after years of blogging and thousands of posts they still site growth, dialogue and openness to change as the top reasons they’re still writing. I find a lot of comfort in that. I’ve included some video highlights from the forum below…
