Written by Mhairi Petrovic, April 04th, 2012
We’re continuing on the topic of blogging with this infographic from Inboun giving some great tips on how to use your blog to market effectively.
See more our collection of social media infographics on our Pinterest boards.
Source: inboun.com via Out-Smarts on Pinterest
Written by Mhairi Petrovic, June 11th, 2010
Another Friday Funny from the creator of Being Five.
Written by Mhairi Petrovic, February 19th, 2010
It has been ages since we checked in with “a boy and his blog” at Being Five. Here’s a Friday funny all about product placement in blogs. Enjoy!
Written by Mhairi Petrovic, December 14th, 2009
The question has come up a few times lately as to how to import your blog so that it appears on Facebook. With all the apps, tools and functionality Facebook provides, its difficult to know the right approach.
The best way is to use Facebook Notes to publish your blog RSS feed to your Page or Profile. Here are 5 easy steps that will help you to easily do this:
Step 1 – Go to your Facebook Page or Profile,
Step 2 – Click “Edit Page” right below your profile picture, your Page editor screen will appear,
Step 3 – Scroll down the applications on your page until you see Notes – click to edit,
Step 4 – On the right hand sidebar you will see the option to “Import a Blog” – click on this,
Step 5 – Where prompted, add the web or RSS feed URL of your blog then click the permission check to begin importing your blog.
If you have done this right, your blog will automatically post to your Profile or Page and to the feeds of your friends or fans. Good luck!
Written by Mhairi Petrovic, October 14th, 2009
This fantastic blog post from Calgary’s Mud Creative is a must read for anyone with a blog. Thanks for allowing me to share it Louise!
A blog can be an endless sea of words or an alluring spot where readers want to lose themselves for a little while. In my own efforts to turn my blog into something of a guilty pleasure for visitors (not that Im there yet!), Ive found some fun toys that Id like to share:
1. Have “Bruce†read to you – slowly
Proofreading is great – and absolutely necessary. But you know how it is. When you write something, you get very close to it. Sometimes, even the most eagle-eyed of us will overlook an obvious spelling or grammar mistake. However, if you have your computer read your post back to you, your keen ears might pick up things your eagle eyes have missed!
This is easy to set up on a MAC. Go to Apple > System Preferences > Speech and choose your preferred voice (such as Bruce or Viki) and the speed at which you want it read. Then set your key command (I use “command shift sâ€).
When you want to hear your text, highlight it in your document and press your command.
2. Catch the eye of search engines
Its no secret that the right keywords can help your blog get noticed by the search engines, hence sending more traffic your way. However, when writing a blog post, working in popular keywords related to your topic isnt always in the forefront of your mind. If youre on a roll, you just want to write and publish, right?
SEO Blogger is a Firefox add-on created by Wordtracker that actually suggests the right keywords to use while youre writing your blog.
This free tool provides real-world search data. It opens in a sidebar panel where you enter a keyword or keyphrase and SEO Blogger gives you keyword suggestions ranked by popularity. You decide which to use in your post.
I have a WordPress blog, but according to Wordtracker, SEO Blogger works with whatever blog publishing software youre using.
3. Get personal with a Gravatar
Your Gravatar (Globally Recognized Avatar) is an image that follows you from site to site, appearing beside your name when you comment or post on a blog other than your own. It could be your photo or an image that represents your business. I use my pink rubber boots for mine.
The nice thing about the Gravatar is that it gives you control over the image that is used. Otherwise, your comment will be accompanied by a generic symbol or gray silhouette. Your Gravatar shows a little bit more of who you are, and can even encourage people to click through to your site. Readers are more apt to connect to a face rather than a name.
Go to www.gravatar.com to add some personality to the comments you leave on other blogs.
Note, though, that if youre leaving a comment on a blog that does not have the “Show Avatar†setting selected, your Gravatar wont show up. But the use of Gravatars is catching on across the blogging community, so its only a matter of time!
Mud Creative Gravatar
4. Share the luv
One day I was leaving a comment on another blog, and when I hit “submit,†a link to the last post Id written on my own blog at Mud Creative was added to the bottom of my comment. That means that anyone who reads my comment can click on the link and visit my blog!
Always a wealth of information, Tzaddi over at Thrivewire informed me that it was a WordPress Plugin called Comment Luv.
Comment Luv is a great way to “share the luv†by promoting other peoples blogs. Plus, it encourages them to visit the Mud Creative blog and leave me a comment when they want to contribute to the conversation.
Luv luv luv it!
5. Be Social-able
OK, this may a no-brainer for many bloggers, but it is worthy of repeating.
Add a social bookmarking widget plugin to make it easy for readers to bookmark and share your posts on their favorite social media channel like LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter. The more people you have sharing the news about your posts, the more your audience will grow.
My blog uses the AddThis plugin, (One of the many helpful nuggets from Glenn Murray of Divine Write in his terrific book, SEO Secrets) which adds a globally recognized button at the bottom of each post. Readers simply click on it and a box of social media choices comes up, enabling them to spread the word.
I loved this post from Calgary’s Mud Creative so much I had to share it with you:
Its always nice to share, and even better when you make it so easy to do. What toys have you discovered to make your blog more sexy and attractive to others?
Written by Mhairi Petrovic, October 09th, 2009
Blog Action Day is an annual event that unites the world’s bloggers in posting about the same issue on the same day on their own blogs with the aim of sparking discussion around an issue of global importance. Blog Action Day 2009 will be the largest-ever social change event on the web. One day. One issue. Thousands of voices. Will you blog for climate change on October 15th?
Written by Mhairi Petrovic, January 29th, 2009
In a recent edition of Information Week Canada, there appears an article called “What if social networking doesn’t take off?”. It is written by Robert Parkins who, thanks to a quick Google, is also editorial Director of Canadian Government Executive Magazine, isn’t on Twitter, nor could I find him on Facebook (unless he’s grown a beard and moved to Santa Barbara but please feel free to correct me if I am wrong).
On reading his article, I commented about it on Twitter and @shawnpisio asked the obvious: “Was it written in 2003 or something”.
Sadly it was not. Robert’s article cites a survey done by Synovate in Sept 2008, that asks the question “do you know what social networking is”. The result: 58% of people surveyed in 17 countries across the world did not.
I was actually surprised that 48% did know. My mother who is approaching 70 is on Facebook but if you were to ask her what a “social network” was, she probably wouldn’t have a clue as to what you were talking about. Perhaps the issue here is in the wording of the Synovate question.
In the article Parkins suggests a reluctance to embrace Web 2.0 as the cause of this apparent ignorance. Excuse me Mr Parkins but 150 million people on Facebook and 180 million worldwide blogs can’t all be wrong. Perhaps its a reluctance within a certain (ahem) age demographic (my mother accepted).
According to Parkin’s, the tide is already turning on 2.0, especially in his area of expertise: government.
One need only take a look south at the recent success of Barack Obama’s campaign to see how far from true this is. Obama harnessed social networks effectively to build awareness of his campaign and reach and motivate people who otherwise wouldn’t have voted. His first blog post as president was posted shortly after his inauguration. Hardly the use one would expect to see of a dying medium.
He’s right in one area though it remains to be seen how the public sector will harness web 2.0 effectively but a survey that found that 58% of respondents didn’t know what social networks were doesn’t mean they should ignore the phenomenon altogether.
Far from the tide turning on web 2.0, the crest of the wave isn’t even upon us yet. Many traditionalists like Parkin have yet to be convinced and with many similar naysayers out there, this implies a huge opportunity from people just waiting to be convinced!
Written by Mhairi Petrovic, November 07th, 2008
1. Write an article that relates to your area of expertise and submit it to ezine and article sites (the ones with the highest Google ranking).
2. Update your site often – a blog is a great way to do this.
3. Add forms to your site – check out Jotform.
4. Get more backlinks – find out which sites link back to your top competitors and submit your site to those with the highest traffic – don’t use a mass submit tool.
5. Podcast – add audio or video content to your site and make sure its listed in the podcast hubs.
6. Have the right content: effectively use keywords and appropriate SEO copy writing (listen to our upcoming podcast to find out more).
7. Get active in social networks – LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter and make sure that those link back to your site.
8. Encourage community – use your blog or podcast to build community and invite others to get involved.
9. Remember that Google may be the most common search engine but there are many others – take these into account when considering SEO.
10. Utilize the hot spots on your site to the best advantage. The top left hand corner is valuable real estate – use it to tell the audience (and the engines) what you do.
Written by Mhairi Petrovic, June 24th, 2008
Worried that your good work could be plagiarised or that someone’s going to steal your thunder on the Internet and not reference your writing appropriately? There’s a solution to every problem and this one comes in the form of Creative Commons. An offshoot of a US non profit organisation , Creative Commons was founded in 2003 with the help of the University of Ottawa Law and Technology Program and theCanadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic.
The service allows you to license your work easily and at no cost. With various different license offerings based on how much freedom you want to give people to use your writing and in which forums, Creative Commons steps you through an easy process to find the right license and then you simply download some HTML to your web-site and your covered like so:
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Canada License
People using the works are then morally and legally obliged to use them accordingly (or not at all if you so choose). Whether or not people act appropriately remains to be seen and there’s also the issue of the global reach of the Internet with different laws governing different jurisdictions but if this plagiarism is a concern for you then Creative Commons is definately a step in the right direction to protecting your work.
Written by Mhairi Petrovic, April 07th, 2008
A recent article by a local Vancouver writer Sheena Daniels, in Blitz Magazine debated the benefits of newsletters versus blogs. A blog and newsletter are two totally distinct tools marketers can use to grow their business. Each should be aimed at an entirely different audience and used for different purposes.
The article points out 3 important considerations should you have to choose between the two:
1. Audience you are trying to reach;
2. Internal resources available;
3. Message you are trying to communicate.
Unless limited by the 3 above, why choose between the a blog or a newsletter at all? Each can and should be used for distinct purposes to enhance marketing communications and by using both you can hone in on 2 distinct audiences with distinct marketing messages and increase effectiveness of each.
A newsletter, unless you’re a spammer, is aimed at adding value to existing contacts, partners and customers (people that have already “touched” you) and should be used to keep your company at the forefront in the minds of those important in your network and to reinforce your presence with them.
An blog is aimed at a wider audience many of whom are unknown entities. It should be used to bring attention to what you do, spreading awareness and establish expertise with new prospects or new markets. They key difference is that a blog is a collaborative medium aimed at supporting on-line interaction between interested parties via comments. Its a two way street whereas newsletters are a one way push.
Both are complementary technologies and as the article points out, you can blog a newsletter via RSS allowing your efforts to reach people the way they want to be reached. But consider this, if you intend to focus on newsletters and use RSS you cannot call this a blog as the article suggests, not unless your newsletters go out at least once a week. A corporate blog, to be considered effective and established should be updated once a week at the very least.
