You’ve heard all about blogs. How about social community blogs?
If you’re ready to get started with your social community blog, you really want your thoughts, ideas, comments, and information about your product or service to get out there to the masses, then listen up.
How exactly should you get your social community blog started?
Follow these very simple tips on getting started with your SC blog in 5 easy steps, and you’ll be well on your way to success.
1. Pick your first social network, and build your profile there.
Many people get started with their blog with one of the “big” ones, such as MySpace, Facebook, or Twitter. These sites allow you to develop a profile-which you should fill out as completely as possible to show that you are serious about networking and building contacts!
2. Send out “friend” or “contact” invitations.
One great way to start is to send the invitations to friends you already have in your contact list for your email. It’s pretty likely that some of those people will sign up for the social networking service that you have subscribed to, giving you more contacts or friends there.
Not all of your contacts will be interested in this type of networking, but the way to increase your visibility and gain exposure is to build up your number of “friends” online.
3. Once you’ve tried to get all of your contacts to join (and it’s likely that many of them have at this point), then start growing your list of friends and contacts within the site.
Often you can search for common interests, geographical locations, and other targeted information that will assist you in building a useful, relevant network with your blog site.
Build up more and more contacts for your blog and build up your online “community.”
This is the best way to build credibility within the social networking world.
4. Now that you’ve got your first blog site up and running smoothly, and you’re starting to build a network there, look for other blog sites and social networking sites that are out there.
There are literally thousands to choose from. Each one of these sites is a little bit different in terms of focus, function, or purpose, so poke around and decide which ones might fit you best.
But, whichever ones you choose, you will want to build your list of these sites up and build contacts on each one-this will ultimately drive a lot of traffic to your site, based on how popular you can become with the social networking sites.
5. After you’ve gotten your blog site started, you will need to provide regular updates.
With multiple sites, this can become very time consuming, so it may help to have a rotation or a plan to keep current with all of them.
Add information consistently, so that your profiles stay current and lively. Join discussion forums, comment on other people’s blogs, leave trackbacks, exchange links, ask questions that stimulate conversations, and do everything you can to increase your contacts and network connections.
Do you have any other great ideas about how to get a social community blog started?
If you are a blogmaster (webmaster) you know how tedious it can be to accomplish all the tasks that ensure your blog(s) are getting indexed correctly.
Well, Google has made it much easier. They recently turned each of the Webmaster Tools into “feeds” that can be instantly added to your iGoogle homepage.
Once these “gadgets have been added to your iGoogle homepage, you’ll have access to all the blogs (or websites) in your Google webmaster account for instant stats on:
1. Crawl Errors
2. Content Analysis
3. Top Search Queries
4. Subscriber Stats
5. What Googlebot Sees
6. External Links
7. Internal Links
8. Site Links
From this page it’s just one click to tons of data that will keep your blogs and Google on good terms. This is a serious time-saver! And, if you are like most busy bloggers (me) and have sadly neglected this stuff, you (we) have no excuse now.
To find the Google Webmaster gadgets: Go to your Google Webmaster Tools account. Click on any verified site, click Tools, then click Gadgets.
So, you are already near the end of January 2008 and what does your blog have to show for “Great in 2008″?
Well, I am sure that you’ve had to make some tough decisions already:
“Do I buy a coaching program and learn more about getting some server-melting traffic to my site?”
“Should I increase the scope of my content so that I can more people and maybe get more traffic?”
“Or… maybe I need to narrow down my focus so I can rank on the first page for something?”
Those Are All Great Questions But…
Sometimes (I think most of the time) you need someone, with experience or insight, to help you answer those questions and make life-changing breakthroughs. That is how it works for me anyway.
Every time I venture into a new project, I seek out a mentor (or coach). I have found that doing so, in the beginning of an endeavor, allows me to progress to the end goal much more quickly.
That may seem obvious but the fact is, when it comes to online marketing, most folks waste $500 - $1000 (and countless hours) on a wide-variety of courses, seminars and programs before connecting with a “three-dimensional coach” (a real live person) which would cost about the same but deliver 10x the ROI.
Why? I think it is because most people can justify spending $50 here and there, 10 to 20 times over. But it takes a lot of discernment to see the up-front value of one relatively large transaction that gets you into a quality coaching program.
You Might Need a Doctor
If you are contemplating the hiring of an online marketing or an authority site building coach, I recommend Dr. Rachna Jain at NetSmartCoaching.com. Yes, she is a doctor, a psychologist in fact, and her online experience as a coach with the Authority Site Center is quite impressive.
Rachna’s unique background allows her to help a variety of online entrepreneurs with both the technical and mental barriers to building an authority site, getting traffic and, of course, increasing sales and conversion efficiency.
By the way, her coaching program is not a large “membership” site of hundreds of folks learning together. It is actually a more one-on-one approach catered to people who appreciate frequent, personalized help.
To find out why Rachna is uniquely qualified and exactly what the coaching program offers, take a listen to this 29 minute audio interview I did with her and then visit NetSmartCoaching.com.
Day after day (or evening after evening if you still have a “day job”) you craft content, read posts, comment on blogs, submit
to social media sites, tweak your blog’s theme, and, of course, dream of the day your blog proudly sits atop Google search for your selected niche.
All the while, you have probably not spoken to a single soul.
Just you, your keyboard, a bag of chips and a somewhat greasy [ from the chips ] mouse.
It doesn’t have to be that way.
In fact, even Dr. Phil would tell you that you’d have a much better chance at “making it” if you had a few colleagues to share ideas and frustrations with.
Now, I have never been big on joining membership sites or attending marketing seminars. There is so much free how-to content these days that just about everything you need to know is an eBook or free trial away.
However, I noticed something pretty interesting when I joined the one membership site I am still a member of over a year later, The Authority Site Center.
What Happened?
I realized that my authority site building, my blogging quality and consistency, and my passion for marketing was improving by leaps and bounds.
After a bit of introspection (think: me sitting quietly in a field of barley) I concluded that the difference was the fact that I had made friends doing exactly what I was doing and so… my little mind was just “keeping up”.
What do I mean?
Well, instead of thinking that I am a lone ranger plowing through unchartered waters ...blog, ping, blog, ping, blog, ping, blog, ping, you get the point... I subconciously began to think and feel (yes, I have feelings too) that all that “work” was normal.
In fact, I looked forward to trying out new authority blogging “methods” and acheiving new blogging goals so I could share my escapades with the guys and gals I had connected with at ASC.
I was “keeping up” with the folks I was congregating with.
Without even thinking about it, I had broken through to the next level of authority site building and marketing.
That is the true power of a membership site.
Yes, training videos, audios, webinars, weekend seminars, and tutorials are all great but unless the membership has some truly AWESOME people involved, it’s a DUD.
So, the best authority blogging advice I can give you is:
Find one membership site that rocks and stick with! Invest more than your money and connect with other positive people doing what you’re doing, and succeeding.
Of course, I recommend the Authority Site Center (<--affiliate link alert) because it worked so well for me, but, shop around and compare the programs, I certainly did.
Look for a membership that fits your blogging or marketing goals and has been around awhile. That way you won't get stuck with a online community that has been left to die on the vine.
Whatever you do, don't wait 'til tomorrow and don't assume you are better off quietly blogging away like a cloistered monk.
Connecting with the right group of people can absolutely transform you!
It is similar to the new Yahoo! Shortcuts plugin (that caused errors on my blogs by the way) but, in my opinion, is much simpler.
In short, what “linkify” from Xenomachina.com (don’t go to linkify.com like I did– different company) does is allow you to create a quick anchor text link while you are posting to your blog or any other other content site where you are entering text into an online textbox. This is all done in “real time” without have to go browse for content and a link.
Here’s How Linkify Works
You begin typing into the textbox on your blog, an article service or a social media site.
You highlight a word or phrase you want to turn into a hyperlink, to add interest, to provide a quick shortcut to your readers, whatever.
You then press the “linkify” button you have added to your browser and choose from a list of relevant links that has just popped up.
Your choices will include a variety of web links, video links and blog links.
The search is powered by Google so you can’t argue with that (well, maybe some would…).
Click “create link” and your highlighted phrase is formatted with a perfectly formatted “a href” html tag.
Why Does Mr. Problogger Like Linkify So Much?
To find that out you’ll have to read his blog…
Oh, you say you would rather have my opinion? Well, yes, of course….
I think this great little tool has caught the attention of pro-bloggers for 1 very important reason.
Pro-bloggers are genuinely interested in providing content that rocks!
And… as hard as they try, all good, professional bloggers know that their thoughts, opinions, ideas and textual dribble is not “all” there is.
All great authority sites (or professional blogs) will be (1) current AND (2) have links to related and interesting topics, even if those links take the reader to the other side of the world or to Youtube for a few minutes of mindless pleasure and giggles.
Readers need new, fresh information and they need the world around their niche brought to them.
If you never share content outside of your own little perspective, you and your dwindling readership will die of narrow-minded misery. (wow…that sounds pretty dramatic huh!)
I totally see why Darren Rowse picked Linkify as “the best thing he started doing in 2007″… it literally makes creating those “world-sharing” links about 100 times faster.
Linkify Video Demo
For a demonstration of this tool in action, check out this 5 minute screen capture video:
] mouse.
Friday, May 16, 2008
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