Posts Tagged: Blogging
Written by Corrie Scott, July 27th, 2011
Tumblr is a microblogging platform that allows users to share just about anything via their personal Tumblelog. You can 
quickly and easily post whatever you want – text, photos, videos, music, quotes, and links, from wherever you want – your web browser, phone, desktop computer, or email. The service prides itself on its ease of use, as well as the ability to customize everything including the colors of your Tumblelog and the HTML code of your Tumblr theme.
As of last month, Tumblr has surpassed WordPress in total number of blogs with more than 20 million. In fact, Tumblr has almost 22 million blogs, more than 7 billion individual blog posts, and averages more than 30 million posts each day. The service also boasts a retention rate of 85% versus Twitter’s 40% – once users sign up for Tumblr they are very likely to continue using it. When you compare Tumblr’s retention rate with traditional blogging you can see that they must be doing something right!
Benefits of Tumblr
Tumblr is poised to do to blogging what texting did to email, ie. not rendering it obsolete, but certainly giving it a run for its money.
With Tumblr, you spend less time writing content, and yet readers of your Tumblelog tend to get a better picture of who/what you are as a person or company. As founder David Karp said, “Tumblelogs don’t need all the context of written post. The context is the blog itself, or the person writing it.” Reading one post in someone’s Tumblelog doesn’t tell you much, but browsing through their posts gives you a remarkably accurate picture of who/what they are, without all the reading associated with a traditional blog. Also, Tumbelogs are likely to appeal to a wider audience, as some will prefer the assortment of photos, video files, and links that a traditional blog may be lacking.
Tumblr’s API allows Tumblelogs to be extensively modified; users can delete all the basic formatting and start from scratch. If you can imagine it, chances are you can do it with Tumblr. The outcome for brands and businesses is huge; connect more deeply with your readers, in less time, and on your customized, easy to use microblog. No wonder Tumblr is exploding in popularity!
To find out more about why everyone loves Tumblr, click here to see the many features available to you via your Tumblelog.
Written by Corrie Scott, February 24th, 2011
Many businesses would like to have a strong social media presence, but are put off by the sheer number of social networks available. It’s easy to get overwhelmed but remember, you don’t have to be on all social networking sites. In fact, being on sites that don’t directly speak to your target audience, or on sites that your target audience doesn’t frequently visit, can be detrimental to your business, and a waste of your valuable time.
A good place to start when entering the realm of social media is with the heavy hitters; Facebook, Twitter, YouTube for video content, and your business blog. If this list still seems overwhelming, don’t despair! There’s a way to connect all these social networking sites so you’re not spending half your day posting the same YouTube link to all your different followers.
It is best to set up Facebook as your hub when connecting all your different social networking sites. This is because Facebook has a huge amount of applications that have been developed for all sorts of social networking related purposes. All you have to do is go to the Facebook Application Directory and search for the appropriate application, chances are it’s there in the directory. Next up, how to connect your blog, Twitter, and Youtube accounts to Facebook.
Blog:
Connecting your blog to Facebook means that each time you update your blog it automatically posts to your Facebook page’s wall, as well as archiving in the ‘notes’ tab of your page. The process for linking your blog isn’t obvious when looking at your Facebook page, but it’s well worth the search. To begin, click on ‘edit’ below your page’s profile picture. Next, click on ‘Apps’ in the list on the left hand side of the screen. Once there, find the Notes application and click ‘Go to App’. Now, on the left hand side of the screen you should see ‘Edit import settings’ as the very last option. Click this. You should now see a screen that looks like the photo below.
From here, enter the url of your blog and click ‘start importing’. Your blog is now auto posting to your Facebook page.
Twitter:
To connect your Twitter and Facebook accounts, log into your business’ Twitter account, then open a separate tab and go here. Find your business page, click ‘link to Twitter’ and follow the directions.
Youtube:
Using the Cueler application, you can connect your Youtube and Facebook accounts so that videos posted to your Youtube channel automatically post to your Facebook page as well. To do this, click here, and then click ‘install’. This will bring you to a screen that looks like this:
Choose the page you want to add the application to, and follow the directions to automatically post Youtube videos to a new Youtube tab on your Facebook page.
Following the above steps will help reduce the amount of time it takes to update your social media accounts. However, don’t forget to manually update your accounts as well. A mix of manual updates and auto posting allows you to save time, but also ensure that your business maintains a humanistic and approachable presence online. Also, if people follow your business across multiple social networking channels, taking the time to manually post, along with auto posting, ensures they won’t continuously see the exact same content numerous times.
We can help:
If you are interested in connecting your social media accounts and are looking for more guidance, contact us at Out-Smarts Marketing – we provide social media and internet marketing planning services to help you achieve your online goals.
Written by Mhairi Petrovic, November 24th, 2010
Guest blogger Kerry Sauriol of Crunchy Carpets explains why small businesses should blog.
When I Started Blogging
A little while ago, I was attending an event held by the Enterprising Moms Network. As usual I had to explain what Crunchy Carpets was. One woman exclaimed to me that she had never gotten into blogging and Twitter and all that stuff as she just never had the time.
This got me thinking about a few responses to that statement.
If she didnt have the time, what did that say about me or the many women I know who are into blogging or social media?
The statement seemed to imply that a blog was a tool mainly for personal use: merely a hobby. Judging from the amount of women I knew at that event that were using blogging and social media as business and marketing tools, I was quite taken aback by this assumption.
Many small business owners and entrepreneurs feel overwhelmed by the thought of adding one more activity to their already demanding days. Most then want to know in concrete terms what they will get out of a blog. What their ROI (return on investment) would be.
If your company has a website, adding a blog to it is the simplest and easiest way to reach out to your customers. A blog can add a human touch to your website. It gives you the space to reach out and communicate directly with your customer base.
The biggest lesson about blogging is ….you get out of it what you put in.
Companies can struggle with the difference between marketing and communicating. With marketing, you see the results of it quickly and easily in the form of sales that stemmed from that campaign. Blogging is different. Blogging is about relationship building. This can be tough to understand when you are focused on the bottom line.
This is true for both personal and corporate blogs.
Blogging shouldnt be demanding…but quality writing is key. Poorly written copy or a blog that is just all about marketing can put off a reader/potential customer. So yes, hiring a copywriter or professional blogger might be your next step.
Blog Examples
Agoo Clothings web presence is an amazing example of taking social media and community building to the extreme. Their site is more than an online store. Their blog is a mix of promotional copy and child and family oriented copy that they feel their readers (their shoppers) will appreciate. Add their HUGE Facebook activity and the promotion they do with personal (mom bloggers) and you can call their social media presence a huge success. Agoo wants you to know that the people behind the clothing line are family people too with kids of their own and so they can share an understanding with their buyers.
Raspberry Kids, another online child focused store already has a rich and readable website, but the blog has become not only a promotional tool, but a great insight into the life of the owner/operator of the company. She shares the ups and downs of entrepreneurialship with her readers and customers. She is one of “us.”
From these two examples, you can see how well the addition of a blog to your web presence can enable your business to connect with your community.
Marketing today has a far more touchy feelly vibe to it than the days of traditional marketing, and for some this may feel frivolous, but I do firmly believe that community building, relationship building through the internet is the way to building solid business in the real world.
If you already have a company site, the addition of a blog is a simple and inexpensive step. Talk to your webmasters and they should be able to help you or talk to Out-Smarts.
If you don’t have a website, platforms like WordPress are simple and easy to set up and there are many free templates out there that can be customized without needing a degree in code. WordPress.com is a free system and their .org site is where you can set up a blog with your OWN URL and host.
If you need a writer for your blog, there are a lot of us out there!! And we are all so talented and ready to help.
About Kerry
Having discovered that children don’t give annual employee evaluations, Kerry jumped at the chance seven years ago to be a stay-at-home mom. She has found she can more than handle being called a stupid head by her two eldest and sweetly precocious children instead of being fired by her peers.
Kerry’s hold on sanity is her computer and the world of mommy bloggers. She can ignore the chaos created by three kids, three cats, a dog and patient husband and find the peace it takes to come up with her latest post at her personal site Crunchy Carpets . Apart from obsessive Tweeting and Facebooking, she can also be found haranguing people to post on her other site Wet Coast Women.
Blogging has brought her the opportunity to meet amazing people, speak on CBC Radio and be interviewed by the Globe and Mail on a few occasions.
Written by Mhairi Petrovic, October 08th, 2010
For this blog post, we invited Kerry Sauriol to tell us about the other side of marketing to bloggers: the blogger’s perspective. Kerry has built a large a loyal following though her blogs Crunchy Carpets and Wet Coast Women (see bio below). If you are considering a blog outreach campaign (especially one aimed at mommy bloggers), this is a must read post.
Marketing To Bloggers
When I started blogging, it was purely as a creative outlet and an amazing way to meet people out there in cyberspace. Later, as I discovered the local blogging community, it also became a great way to make REAL life friends.
I have loved the community that is mom blogging.
What I wasnt really prepared for was discovering what a commodity the mom bloggers of the world are to marketers and big business.
Granted, women count for 85% of the USs purchase decisions, and the mainstream media is saturated with ads targeting us over products from soap to well…soap.
According to much of the pitches that are now arriving in my inbox…..I am VERY excited about things like mops and ham.
Courting mom bloggers has become a huge business. Cars are handed out; trips to Disneyland are offered as well as exclusive getaways at destination hotels where the corporations set up mini conferences for their new brand ambassadors. All for want of a positive post.
According to a survey by PQ Media, an alternative-media measurement firm, roughly, $50 million is spent courting bloggers to extol the virtues of their product. Very little of that money is actually seen by the bloggers writing the reviews.
It is now taken for granted that a review blogger, especially a mom review blogger will happily work for product or free all expense trips to things like the Toyota plant. And for the most, this is true.
For myself, if it is a product or service that I use or would use and I think talking about it would be REMOTELY interesting to my, readers, I will usually be happy to write something up.
For other mom bloggers, they want nothing to do with PR pitches and make no bones about it.
Other mom bloggers feel that our time and our blogs are worth more than some free product.
And that is the main point that all marketers must realize, there is no ONE mom blogger type. What works with one will not work with another. Before you send out your email blast to your mom blog list, do your research.
Read the blogs you are about to pitch to. Make sure that this is the TYPE of mom who will be interested in your product.
Yes, TYPE of mom. I said it. There are so many types of moms….all convinced that there way is the right way, that if you annoy the wrong type, you will be in a world of trouble. And by trouble I mean PR nightmare.
Ask Nestle.
Ask the Corn Refiners Association and (ironically) Mom Central.
While some moms will be happy to enjoy free webinars in return for positive press regarding their love of Betty Crocker or High Fructose Corn Syrup, there can be many more who will not be so thrilled and be more than happy to tell their online world why they are not happy about it.
And so my next key point about marketing to bloggers is BE PREPARED. Make sure you are aware of how mom bloggers are using social media. Facebook is dominated by women. Women and moms LOVE social media. What a mom blogger posts on their own site travels far beyond their RSS feeds….twitter sees all.
This can be a great thing for a marketer or a very bad thing. If your product is REMOTELY controversial make sure you are prepared to field discussions online about your product. Do not leave this up to the blogger.
When marketing to mom bloggers, you have to be very clear about what you want from them and their blogs. Are you looking for an advertorial or do you want an actual honest review. Be clear and honest in your pitches and expect the same from the blogger.
Build a relationship with the bloggers you work with. Get to know them. The better you know and understand the bloggers you are dealing with the better the posts and results of the posts will be.
Understand that a mom blogger tends to be a mom first and a blogger second. If you are inviting a mom blogger to a marketing event, childcare or being allowed to bring children to the event will be key to the attendance of that blogger.
And again, remember that while yes indeed you may be giving product or trips to the bloggers for free. Their time and their sites are valuable. Respect that and the bloggers will respect you in turn.
About Kerry
Having discovered that children dont give annual employee evaluations, Kerry jumped at the chance seven years ago to be a stay-at-home mom. She has found she can more than handle being called a stupid head by her two eldest and sweetly precocious children instead of being fired by her peers.
Kerrys hold on sanity is her computer and the world of mommy bloggers. She can ignore the chaos created by three kids, three cats, a dog and patient husband and find the peace it takes to come up with her latest post at her personal site Crunchy Carpets . Apart from obsessive Tweeting and Facebooking, she can also be found haranguing people to post on her other site Wet Coast Women.
Blogging has brought her the opportunity to meet amazing people, speak on CBC Radio and be interviewed by the Globe and Mail on a few occasions.
Written by Mhairi Petrovic, January 11th, 2010
- Customer Service – your company could provide a blog aimed at improving customer service. Users can share their experiences of using the your company’s product or services but beware, not everyone will be positive about their experience giving you the perfect opportunity to resolve their issues and prove your customer service excellence in the blogosphere. Not only that but it provides the perfect forum to monitor customer preferences. Be ready for negative customer comments and have a plan in place to deal with these when they arise.
- Market research – your blog, the comments it gets and the blog of others in your community are vital resources that you should monitored for market research purposes.
- Humanising – a blog can be used to put a face on your company familiarising customers and prospects with the people behind the brand and building trust. Company board members and staff members can contribute and in so doing make them seem more real – more approachable. See the effect company wide blogging had on Microsoft as referenced in Naked Conversations.
- Internal communication portal – a blog is a great way to communicate personnel changes, policy updates, CEO commentary and company events.
- Establish expertise – this is often the main focus of this blog i.e. to show people like you that we know what we’re talking about so that perhaps you’ll think of us us when considering your Internet marketing strategy.
- Expand Network – a blog is a great way to expand your network. Its always good blog practice to respond to those who comment on your web page and in so doing you are establishing contact and networking.
- Leads – A blog can build leads for your company but remember if you do this though that outright selling and self promotion are considered taboo in the blogosphere and will only annoy. The rule of thumb for blog posts is 20% promotional, 80% value add.
- Brand – a blog is a great way to further entrench your brand.
- Generate revenue – many successful blogs like John Chow‘s put their traffic to good advantage by promoting related products and affiliate services to them through ads that are tailored to the intended audience and earn affiliate revenues in doing so.
- Grow your base – a blog is a great way to extend your company’s reach beyond its traditional geographical base. This blog gets comments and traffic from people as far and wide as India and the UK.
Written by Mhairi Petrovic, October 09th, 2009
![Blog Action Day 2009]( "Blog Action Day 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, July 30th, 2009
Social Media Listening Tools
Social media content is a great source of information for research, customer service and planning purposes. Its important to use tools to effectively listen to what is being said about: your company, its products services and representatives; your competitors and clients; your market niche as well as your target geography and other marketing considerations.
With millions of people on-line every day exchanging opinions, thoughts, feedback and other information – this data source shouldnt be ignored.
But how to listen effectively, what to listen for and how to do so in a timely manner? As with any other market research initiative, it is important to have a social media listening strategy or plan that outlines what you are hoping to learn, the information you want to track and how you will analyze and use it.
There are thousands of social networks, millions of blogs, how do you sift through this information to find the gems that are relevant to your company and industry? Its important in advance to know what you want to listen for. Identifying and listening for keywords pertaining to your company name and product or services names is a good start. This allows you to get going with something concise and manageable and get a feel for the type of information you will return.
There are a number of tools available to effectively listen some are free, the obvious one being Google and some charge. If you expect that you will use these tools extensively or if you hit the wall with free tools then you may want to consider the paid options as they provide structured and strategic solutions.
Here are some more specific services:
FREE
Google Alerts – this service sends e-mails outlining Google search result for your keyphrases.
There are a plethora of Twitter tools like Twitter Search, Monitter (my current favourite) and Tweetlater that allow you to monitor for keywords via email or online.
Pipl – great tool for assessing your personal brand online across multiple social networks
Backtype – search terms, follow conversations.
Facebook wall comments Lexicon.
Trendrr – social and digital media tracking
Technorati – blog monitoring
PAID
Radian6 – this is a paid service but word on the street is that its worth paying the price. Radian6 tools
Trackur – another tool for social media monitoring. Starting at $18 a month with a free trial.
Visible Technologys Trucast – Social media and blog monitoring.
Written by Mhairi Petrovic, March 05th, 2009
I get asked the question “what is social media?” all the time. It came up today during our teleseminar with Sue Clement from Success Coaching and I thought I would follow up in this forum to answer the question for a wider audience.
Social Media, according to wikipedia, “are primarily Internet – and mobile-based tools for sharing and discussing information”. The words sharing and discussing information are key. Social media tools are all those tools online or on your phone that let you post information and get feedback, or interact with your others in that forum.
Social media tools include: blogs, podcast, videopodcasts or vlogs, and social networks. Basically any tools that you can use online that allow you to interact, collaborate or get social. In business, which of these tools you use will depend on what you are trying to achieve, who your customers are, your corporate brand and resources.
Social media are simply tools that can be used to extend your reach, to grow your network, to drive traffic, to increase brand awareness and to build business. These days they are a vital component of any company’s marketing arsenal because they are more targeted, less expensive and more versatile than traditional marketing methods.
Written by Mhairi Petrovic, February 20th, 2009
Liveblogging from Northern Voice afternoon session on Friday. This session is aimed at beginners but there will be tips for people who are professionals at this.
Aims of the presentation:
Get started at audio and video
Get better at it
Bruce is actually a rocket scientist -formerly from MacDonald Dettwiller. Now with Singular Software.
Podcasting – a blog + audio and video – like having your own radio or TV show boradcast over the Internet. Also things you would put up on YouTube
Why do it? – Because the audience wants it. Every minute there’s 10 hours of video uploaded to YouTube. People will be more interested in your blog. Its a new medium of expression for you. (Mhairi – For me I podcast because it drives traffic but mainly because I was bitten by the bug and love doing it and it helps me to learn). This presentations will cover: 5 W’s: Why, what content; where; how and recommendations etc.
Lots of steps in producing audio and video – can be very daunting. Bruce will tell us one way to do each thing.
Video Examples:
- Now Public
- Underground News
- Unboxing on YouTube
- Live events – Bruce Sharpe.com
There is no end to the interesting things you can do.
Audio Format Examples:
- News
- Commentary
- Interviews
- Education
- Conference Presentations
- Sports
- Whatever You Want.
TOOLS -You need an audio recorder of some kind.
- Video – you can use the audio recorder on your camcorder.
- Audio – record it on the phone using your PC’s recording device
- Or: Olympus Voice Recorder, Zoom H4
Microphones – You need one. Don’t use the built in one as the quality is really bad on a laptop. So you should buy one:
- Clip On Microphone thast plugs into camera
- Recording to computer – buy USB mic that plugs into your ports – i.e. BlueMic Snowball or Better USB $125
Cameras
- Cell phone cameras aren’t good for this.
- Still camera’s are surprisingly good.
- Brand Name Camcorder – Sony, Canon and Panasonic are all good as are Mic input, flash memory or HDD.
- HD – Go for it!
Question – Flip is it good?
Not great for video podcasting – 2 versions of the Flip very compact, easy to use, selling like crazy (affordable). If the nature of your podcast is serendpitously finding stuff about life. But the quality isn’t that great – a still camera has better quality. Flip is okay depending on what you are doing – if not great quality is okay with you then go for it.
Tripod – Oh yeah – get one! Usually about $60 -$100 for a reasonable one – much more for a great one.
Check out review sites: dpreview.com and camcorderinfo.com
Lights -are the number one way to make your video look better. Don’t do halogen. Instead Bruce recommends:
- Natural/practical light
- Got to a camera store and ask
- Flouresecent, daylight balanced, diffused 9cost more but worth it!)
Green Screen - not really for beginners but so much fun. Check out tubetape.com and you tube tutorials. You can be in your basement recording and make it look like you are in NY.
Time to Record – plug in your mic and start up your editing software.
Prepare – If you are interviewing – prepare your questions in advance and prep the person being interviewed so that they can prepare (give them context).
You can use phone or Skype
Using Skype – free – good to use. Better quality than the phone. To record on Skype, use:
- Pamela
- Audiohijack
- Others were mentioned but connection was lost and memory is shot
).
If you have to record over the phone buy a recording device (but these tend to be dear)
Screencast Software
- Camtasia Studio
- Mac SnapZProX
- Screenflow
Editing
You should listen/watch and edit before you post. There is a lot of debate about this. Bruce likes it when people edit right – take the stupid stuff out. Take the ums and aahhs out. At the very least you should:
- Trim the ends -the deep breath before your start and so on.
- Cut the dead air – strange pauses
- Adjust levels (please, please, please)
- Add intro, outro and music.
- Add music, reduce noise, add sound effects
Levels – adjust the levels and take pity on peoples eardrums. Use Levelator to this easily.
Audio Editors:
- Audacity
- Garageband
- GoldWave
- Audition
- Soundtrack Pro
Video Editors
- Windows Movie Maker
- iMovie
- Pinnacle Studio
- Final Cut Express
- Sony Vegas
Resources:
Music thats safe to use:
- 17 Places to Find PodSafe Music blog post on blog talk radio by Deb Ng
- Magic
- Garageband
- Pinnacle Studio
- 99 Designs
- Audio needs to be in MP3 format. Download LAME from Audacity
Where to Host:
BlipTV – free, high quality better than YouTube, Ads are optional.
Show notes: Highly recommended, link resources.
Bruce provided a tonne of info and so far provided the most valuable presentation of the day. Thanks Bruce!
Written by Mhairi Petrovic, February 19th, 2009
Tomorrow and Saturday I will be attending Northern Voice – the personal blogging and social media un/conference. I thought I’d post my top 10 reasons for going again (yes indeed my reasons do differ from last year – this is not a repost).
1. Number one reason is that I met so many fantastic people at last year’s event that I am dying to reconnect and meet some more.
2. Its such a social media lovefest with back slapping and all.
3. I hope to learn something new perhaps about podcasting, video content or the next big thing.
4. I like to learn some WordPress tricks so that I can in turn share my knowledge with you.
5. At only $60 a pop its well worth the money and that even includes lunch.
6. I am hoping to get the chance to macrame my own lanyard in the interests of reducing, reusing and recycling.
7. I intend to podcast, liveblog and even take some photos of the event.
8. I will be trawling for innocent future podcast contributors, partners and prospective clients (you have been warned!).
8. I see the conference is being sponsored by the BC Liberal party and I want to know why.
9. I also want to know what the hell EduBlogger Hootenanny means (methinks perhaps some kind of teacher/nanny/owl that blogs but I could well be wrong?!?!?).
10. And last but not least I always like a good excuse to get out of real work for the day.
