Golden Practices Blog

Who Are You Talking To?

Got a great question, or set of questions, this morning on a recent post. My answer got so long, I decided it's a post of its own. 

Jim Caruso asked about whether he should start multiple blogs or a single blog since he's thinking about writing for clients/prospects, his peers, and his personal interests. 

Here are my thoughts:

For anything we do/write/etc, always begin with the question "who is the audience?" And if the answer is that there are multiple audiences as you've described, you then have to ask yourself, where do their interests intersect and where do they deviate? 

The key with writing, especially in a blog where you desire loyal readers and subscribers, is to stay relevant to your audience. If the discussion can stay relevant to all your audiences (covering the "intersection" of interests) then by all means, approach writing for all in one place. 

BUT, if one audience will likely be bored, annoyed, or otherwise feel as though the content is not applicable to him or her, then break your blogs up. People, being SO busy and flooded with info, seem to pretty readily unsubscribe from previously interesting things that stop meeting their needs. 

The more specific your content is to any one common-interest group (say, martial arts on the personal side, or family-owned businesses on the work side) the more meaningful your content will be. 

Sometimes just one off-topic post on my part, and I lose a couple subscribers. Other bloggers I know have lost followers by talking a lot about their sports team or elections...veering off from their usual stuff.

Writing for peers in the same place you write for prospects and clients is probably not the best approach. 

A good post on this appeared yesterday by Jordan Furlong on the Stem Legal blog talking about lawyers writing for lawyers versus for others. Jordan wrote that the client cares about what's in the FedEx envelope while lawyers care about how you get to what goes in that envelope.

The occasional post about your personal interests or whatever is great. I've been downright shocked by the warm response to a couple of these that I've shared...like my son's return from Afghanistan (he's a soldier) -- the outpouring from business friends was very moving and that post is among the 10 most "clicked" on my blog.

Pick your audience first. 

Ideally this is based on what your greatest business passion is (because blogs without passion are awful). 

Think, literally, in terms of "common interest groups."

In the event you choose to focus your business blog on your peer group and not the end client, you can still gain a little out of it for marketing, but it's not truly a marketing effort. Certainly some prospective clients may see this writing and think, wow, he knows what he's doing, and you'll earn some credibility for that. But don't necessarily expect them to subscribe to your feed. 

And if you go down the road of a personal blog, assuming the content is publicly appropriate (not airing dirty laundry or constant party pics) go ahead and add the blog to your LinkedIn profile. This shows you are a dynamic person with rich interests. Others who share your interests might ultimately reach out to you on a business level.

Bottom line, think of what you're passionate about (enough to fuel ongoing interest in writing) then think about who the audience for those subjects might be. And then think more broadly about what they do and don't care about. Know your audience well. Stay as true to their needs and interests as possible.

Tell-tale Signs of an Amateurish Blog

 Blogs have been around for a decade so there are a lot of great blogs out there and a well-established community to learn from. 

Lots of newcomers are entering the blogosphere, and ya'll are welcomed with open arms. However, there are some things that newbie (or noob) bloggers do or don't do that a) make their blogs less usable or b) scream "we don't know what we're doing!" 

So to spare newish bloggers some embarrassment, I've compiled this list of signs that they may lack appropriate participation in the blog community:

•    Comments are disabled (in my opinion, this disqualifies it from being a true blog)

•    No outbound links in the posts

•    No blogroll in the sidebar

•    No indication of who the author is or about the author link/page

•    Too many or duplicative category names, or no categories set up (10-15 is good number)

•    Underlining of text that isn’t a link

•    Walls of text with no subheadings and paragraph breaks

•    Corporate speak, or text that seems "sanitized" by the PR department

•    Approved comments that are obvious spam

•    Calling their blog post a “blog” instead of a "post" (e.g. “in the blog that I wrote yesterday”)

•    White text on a black background – this is not readable! It hurts the eye.

•    Using Blogger.com but not removing the Blogger logo at the top of the professional firm’s blog

•    Ending posts with “For more information call or email me” or similar pitch. They won’t. That’s not how blogs work.

When I asked Twitter and Facebook friends what they believe signals that a blog is amateur, these friends answered with their thoughts:

•   "Infrequent updates" suggested by three people: Ginger Lewis (@Ginger_Lewis), Andrew Rose (@NadenLean), and Jason Blumer (@JasonMBlumer)

•   "Internal focus versus external focus" from Ed Kless (@edkless)

•   "Relying on memes instead of creating original content" wrote Robin Wheeler (@poppymom)

•   "Minutia—quantity over quality can help develop the blogging habit but writing about minute details of life without going deeper screams amateur" also from Robin Wheeler (@poppymom)

•   "No clear relationship/brand beyond the blog, itself" submitted by Langston Richardson (@matsnl)

•   "There is no RSS feed" from Ginger Lewis (@Ginger_Lewis)

•   "Typos" and when "links are broken" sent by Susan Gorham (@susangorham)

•   "Consistently poor grammar and spelling" contributed by Debra Helwig (@dhelwig) who elaborates: “If you can't take the time to proofread, or have someone check you, how can I believe you'll be careful when you do work for ME?”

and an especially important one:

•   "Asking to swap links—gotta earn that" submitted by Robin Wheeler (@poppymom)

This list is from my upcoming book, Social Media Strategies for Professionals and their Firms.

APPENDED: July 28

Just to be crystal clear, while the first list is my list of traits of amateur blogs, the second list are traits submitted by the persons credited with contributing the trait. These were suggested publicly (Facebook and Twitter) with notice of my intent to publish them.  I am not suggesting they are guilty of the trait shown. Thanks!

Clearing Your Mind and Your Business-Related Indigestion

Received a forwarded article today from pal Rob Nance of AccountingWEB fame. So good, I thought I'd share it with you. 

It's from Amex Open Forum and it's entitled "6 Things to Think About on Your Summer Vacation" by Jane Applegate.

It is somewhat marketing related...

CLIENT SELECTION

#1 on Jane's list is "Stop working with anyone that gives you a headache or stomachache" 

My take: this applies to clients AND employees. Bummer customers suck you dry. Bummer employees suck everyone in your organization dry (one rotten apple spoils the barrel) AND they don't represent you well externally, either.

CUSTOMER SERVICE

#2 is "Admit that everything takes three times as long and costs twice as much."

My take: this pertains to the expectation setting you should do when committing to work, the pricing you give to your customer, and meeting delivery terms.

KNOW YOUR MARKETPLACE

#3 is "Don't operate your business in a vaccuum." 

My take: pay attention to what others (your competitors, yes, but also companies you aspire to emulate from a service and impression standpoint) say and do.

KEEP YOUR QUALITY HIGH

#4 is "Put yourself first at least one hour a day."

My take: you cannot be a "great" thinker and service provider when you are are operating on an empty tank. In order to have the energy to innovate and solve problems for people, you need to recharge.

BE LIKABLE

#5 is "Keep your sense of humor."

My take: if you are too serious, you're probably not that fun to be around. Lighten up by looking at the brighter, or funnier, side of things more often.

DON'T OVER-PROMISE AND UNDER-DELIVER

#6 is "Cut the email and phone tether."

My take: not only do we need a mental break from being constantly accessible, but technology can render us less effective than we otherwise would be because we underestimate the affect of 24/7 intrusion on our time and thinking. The distraction often disrupts our ability to get done what we promise. See #2.

Enjoy the read and wish me luck because I definitely need to apply this advice too!

Setting Up a Blog (for Professionals)

I gave a presentation yesterday (hosted by Association for Accounting Marketing, but open to all) on Blogging 101, but it wasn't about "what" a blog is or "why" to have one...it was about "how" to go about setting one up, particularly in a professional firm. 

We covered topic selection, traits that make a successful author, the process in making strategic and technical set-up decisions, and a bit about content and promotion. Here are the documents I shared for the teleseminar. (I was excited that the slide deck was selected by Slideshare's editors as their featured presentation today in the How-To and DIY category!)

If you missed the session, you might still enjoy the handouts, and think about attending the second part on Aug 10 (details below).

Blogging: The Practical Matters

Anatomy of a Blog Post

New Blog Development Process

NEXT SESSION

The next session (Blogging 202) will cover expanding a blog's visibility and readership, monitoring online mentions and learning from your traffic data, finding blog content inspiration, and the process a blog author can expect to go through as he or she goes from noob to seasoned.

It will be held on Aug 10 (also free) and you can register at: http://bit.ly/GoldenBlogs202 You need not be a member of the association to sign up, but you will be prompted to set up an account. 

Should Your Blog "Live" on Your Firm's Domain or a Unique Blog Domain?

I gave a How-To Start Blogging session yesterday (deck & handouts in my next post) and received this question afterward:

Q: 

Do you recommend hosting your blog on your firm website or linking from your site to [external] blog sites such as blogger/wordpress?

A:

It really is fine to do either. There are some strongly polarized opinions on separate versus apart, though, and I try to keep an open mind to both sides of the argument. 

A WordPress site (or MovableType) that is self-hosted can usually be hosted on the same server with your standard website. As long as the host can accommodate MySQL databases (GoDaddy, for instance, can). 

When you self-host, you have the option of hosting the blog on its own domain (www.yourblog.com) or as a subset of your firm's url (www.yourfirm.com/blog or www.blog.yourfirm.com). Even if you choose the subset, you can buy a domain (www.yourblog.com) and point it to your firm.com blog url. 

The key difference will be the URL for your individual blog posts. As an aside, blog post URLs, just like your website URLs, are better for you when they contain the words in the title of the posts (versus a numeric string)--this can usually be designated in the blog set-up screens. 

Some considerations in making your choice are: 

Is your firm's URL already long? 

If so, you might benefit from picking a short blog domain and hosting at that domain so that you don't lengthen an already long URL by naming your blog in it (e.g. www.blogname.reallylongfirmurl.com/blog-post-url-that-is-the-same-as-the-title-of-the-post) <--you could cut out the "reallylongfirmurl" part. 

Associating your firm's URL with the content of your blog. 

If the blog post URLs are "housed" on your firm's regular website URL (either via actual hosting, or via "domain mapping" through a hosted solution's set-up preferences) then you have the obvious advantage of all the SEO (search engine optimization) juice of every blog post word ON your own web domain. This is a clear benefit. 

Creating lots of external links to your regular website.

Alternately, a benefit of your blog being hosted on a domain EXTERNAL to your site is that every single post made to your blog creates a unique "web page" and, in doing so, if your firm name is a link that appears at least once on every page, this creates a TON of inbound links to your firm's website that also benefit your firm's standing in the rankings. Neither approach is "bad" and both have advantages. 

If you host it externally and "pipe in" feeds of recent or most relevant blog posts to your regular site, you can benefit from both.

Comments from others about pros and cons are welcome!