Category: blogging

blogging

Blog voting on blog branding

A few weeks ago I discussed the ongoing process Outskirts Press was engaged in to brand all our social networking channels–or at least the ones we were active with, which were/are Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and our Blog).  

In those postings I showed screen shots of the new branding for each channel as it went live.  Our blog was the last one to join the branding party.  This week, it finally got a much needed facelift.  And, to continue the topic I started a few hours ago, we posted a poll on the blog to solicit our readers’ opinion of the change.

Now, this is always tricky, because people by their very nature are often reticent about change.  So we wanted to clarify WHY we changed the blog when we asked for feedback.   That way, votes would be more likely to be fair rather than impulsively negative based solely upon the notion that “Any change is bad.”  

And this is a very important part of Web 2.0.  Web 2.0 compels companies to take more time to explain WHY they do the things they do.  There are usually good reasons.   The reasons for why we changed our blog are outlined on this posting of the Outskirts Press blog, along with the poll.  Or, I’ve included the poll here, too — Yes, WordPress allows you to duplicate the same polls across multiple blogs, and share the same results. How cool is that?

blogging

How to add a poll to your blog

One of the major benefits of “Web 2.0” is that it facilitates and even encourages back-and-forth communication between companies and customers.  People can offer real-time feedback in the way of comments, star ratings, reviews, “likes,” “thumbs up (or down).”   Surveys, polls, and other widgets also encourage this type of “audience participation” in fun, friendly ways. 

We have two polls active this week on our Outskirts Press blog.   One is gauging our blog readers’ reaction to the new branded blog we launched this week.  The other is soliciting the winner of our 2010 Best Book of the Year Award.  More about both of those polls later today.

In the meantime, if you blog on WordPress, adding a poll to your blog is very easy. Along the left-hand side of your dashboard is a category titled “Polls.”   Click on that to “Add a New Poll.”  The functionality is self-explanatory, user-friendly, and flexible. You can control, to some extent, the width and color of the poll to make it “match” your blog theme.  You have a number of different settings for how the results are displayed (or whether they are displayed).  Since Web 2.0 is not only about feedback, but feedback ON that feedback, I would encourage you to set the results so they are publicly viewable, at least in percentages if not the actual number of votes.   One thing Web 2.0 has shown us is that people like being heard.  Not only do they want to vote on your poll, but they want immediate feedback that their vote has been counted.  The WordPress polls offer that voting feedback instantly.

Polls can be a great item to add frequently to your blog postings, and WordPress makes it easy.

Speaking of which, in a few hours I’ll talk about our polls that we’re running this week, and include the poll so you can vote (or just see how the votes are turning out thus far)…

blogging

What is the “blogerati”

Since 75% of America’s population resides in the Eastern and Central times zones, you might think 9am Eastern time would be the perfect time to post. But that’s actually a little late. Why?

Because by then, all the blogger’s you’re hoping will link to your content have already committed to other sources or blogs for the day.  You see, there are many bloggers who have a daily commitment to blog about something…. they’re being paid to do it in one way or another, or perhaps they’re even doing it for free.  But, in any event, they ALSO know what I’m saying here — that blogs are best posted in the morning.   

So, many of them scan certain sources (namely other blogs in their industry) for ideas or stories.  So if your blog comes out BEFORE all those other bloggers (the coined term for these people is “blogerati”  – like “paparazzi” for bloggers), then your blog stands a better chance of being the source some of those bloggers use for THEIR blogs.  And that is how links are generated to your blog, and how your blog grows its audience.

So you want to make sure your first blog of the day is early enough to capture the attention of the blogerati, perhaps between the hours of 4-7am Eastern Time.  That also gives the entire day for your content to propagate through the search engines while it is still the most relevant (newest).

Then, if you are following some of this advice I’ve shared over the past week or so, your second and third posting of the day can target other time zones or audiences with the same strategic considerations…

blogging

Best time to blog post

Earlier we revealed that the “best time to blog post” was in the morning.  “The morning?” you might ask. What time zone is THAT?  Well, it depends upon the market you’re trying to reach.  Since I’m American and company Outskirts Press is based in America, my primary target for this audience is American.  Sure, we publish books by authors around the world, but when it comes to a specific social marketing tactic, it is best to target one primary market as well as you can.

For America, that means you should blog according to the Eastern time zone.  Nearly 50% of America’s population resides in the Eastern Time Zone, and in fact, over 75% of the population resides in either the Eastern or Central Time Zone.  Fortunately, and perhaps even coincidentally,  a New Yorker’s 9am is often the same as a Chicagoan’s 8am.

But both those times are a little too late to post your first posting of the day.  I’ll discuss “why” later today…

blogging

Best time to blog

In the recent past postings we have discussed the best way to blog (multiple postings per day, and why), and the best days to post (depends upon the goals for your blog), so now let’s discuss the “best time to blog.”

On a side note, did you know that if you repeat the title of your blog posting within the body of your posting surrounded by quotation marks you increase the chances of Google or Yahoo “scoring” your blog higher for that keyword term or phrase?

It becomes weighted even higher if you also link it somewhere… so, that’s just a little extra thing to consider today as we discuss the “best time to blog.”  (Although it’s better if the link actually goes somewhere relevant, but I didn’t have time to do that for this little example).

I don’t think I’m revealing anything shocking when I suggest the best time to blog is in the morning. But I’ll discuss WHY that is, and provide additional insight to that concept later today….  For instance, the “morning” for who, or where?  The world is big, and round, and the internet is worldwide. One man’s morning is another man’s night…

blogging

Blogging Advice

Ahh.. and there’s the proper spelling, because even though “blogging advise” is the second Google Search Suggestion, “blogging advice” is the first.  And this further supports one of the pieces of advice I am sharing about blogging that I learned at a recent webinar: that multiple postings throughout the day allow you to title blog headlines differently, which thereby increases your chances of matching a common or popular keyword or phrase. 

Yes, it’s true that “content is king” but the jewel in the crown is the content in the headline of the blog. The “weight” Google or Yahoo gives keywords appearing in titles of blog postings far exceeds the value content receives in the body of postings.

And that’s not even the advice I was planning to share with this post. This is:  We’ve discussed posting multiple times per day, and we’ve discussed on what days it is best to post.  Now let’s talk about the best times to post.   According to statistics compiled by “social media scientists” the best time to post is in the morning.  Well, that’s okay if you’re only posting one a day, but what about the second and third postings?  This is my third posting of the day and it is going “live” in the afternoon (or evening, depending upon your point of view and what part of the world you are on).

So, ultimately, the “time” you schedule for your posts depends upon the time zone you want to target… and we’ll talk about that next time.

blogging

Blogging Advise

Yes, I realize I’ve improperly used the word “advice” in the headline for this blog posting: “Blogging Advise” and here’s why I did it:  “Blogging Advise” is second in Google Search Suggestions, which means I’m not the only one putting the “s” instead of the “c” when looking for blogging advice.  It is apparently a fairly common thing to do. So when all those people are looking for “blogging advice” and they enter “blogging advise” into Google, there’s now a better chance that MY blog will appear higher in the search terms.  Do those people care too much about the contextual meaning of “advice” vs. “advise?” I doubt it.  They probably care more about getting what the are looking for, which is not a grammar lesson.

So, I’ve already given one piece of advice, which is, when it comes to blogging, it benefits you to title the subject of your blogs according to what people are actually searching for, and to use the terminology (and yes, even the actual spelling) of what they are typing into the search engines. 

I have a love-hate relationship with Google Search Suggestions, which I’ve discussed at length on this blog in the past, so I won’t reiterate it here, but instead, still coming up later today, I will mention another piece of blogging advice I gleaned from the recent webinar from the Social Media scientist, Dan Zarrella…  As you can see from these shorter, multi-day posts, one of his pieces of advice was to post multiple times throughout the day. So I’m continuing to do that. Another is to post on days of the week according to your objectives for the blog…

blogging

Blogging Advice for Writers

Another piece of advice I learned from this “Social Media Scientist” is that you should blog on specific days of the week according to what you hope to accomplish with your blog. For instance, if you are trying to generate comments, blogging on the weekends is shown to be statistically better since people have more time to comment, and there is less competition for their time.

On the other hand, if you are trying to generate click-thrus, blogging during the weekdays is better because people are more pressed for time, given their own responsibilities, and are therefore more likely to click-thru on a link you have in your post than comment on your blog.

Well, that’s a no-brainer for this blog, since I’ve already discussed the logistic reasons why I don’t have “commenting” enabled.  But for your own blog, the goal may be different…

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Social Media Scientist

So rather than writing one long posting on the days on which I post, now I will — hopefully — post 2-3 somewhat shorter postings all on the same subject.   I say “hopefully” because there’s a chance this concept is more than I can chew; I already lack the time to devote to this blog the amount of time I do already.

According to Dan Zarrella, the “social media scientist” who was recommending this, the reason this is more successful is that the majority of blogs are only posted to once a day — if that.  Statistically few blogs are posted to more than once a day, and any time you do something “different” than the majority, you give yourself a competitive advantage.

He was probably summarizing a more complicated idea, so I will attempt to enhance that idea a  little bit with an example as it pertains specifically to this blog.  Every time this blog is updated, my account on HootSuite is programmed to automatically update our Outskirts Press Twitter feed with the subject of the post, a link to the post, and relevant hash tags.

Therefore, by only posting once a day, our company’s Twitter account is only updated with my posting once, unless I manually retweet it — which I admit I should do, but simply lack the time. More on that later.

But, by breaking a larger posting into smaller posts throughout the day, each posting receives its own Twitter tweet, thereby multiplying the potential exposure for the blog by three.

That’s just once example of the benefit. I’ll discuss more soon…

blogging

Social Media Energy

I learned in the recent webinar I attended that the “energy” of social media is dependent upon the time of day, and the day of the week.  One graphic in particular that was shared during the webinar demonstrated that blogs that are updated more frequently than once a day are many times more likely to be read, shared, and subscribed to. 

I’ve already discussed the fact that I “squeeze” this blogging effort into an already-overloaded schedule, so while I was listening to this “social scientist” tell me I had to blog MORE each day, my immediate reaction was, “Yeah, right!”  But then it occurred to me that I could post approximately the same amount of content, but I could also accommodate this “multiple-postings-per-day-directive” by  “splitting it up” through-out the day.

So… that’s what I’m going to try to do, at least for a while, and we’ll see how it works.