Business Blogging - How to Build A Better Blog

Pitching Bloggers: 15 Rules to Obey

As a result of our very successful teleseminar on how to pitch bloggers that we presented with Joan Stewart, we've developed a couple of articles we want to share with you.  The first is Pitching Bloggers: 15 Rules to Obey.

Pitching Bloggers: 15 Rules to Obey
©2006 Patsi Krakoff, Psy. D. & Denise Wakeman, The Blog Squad

Creating BR (blogger relations) instead of PR is practically a new profession, as more publicity buzz gets started by prominent bloggers. Publicists trying to get media attention for a new product, book or service are now pitching bloggers in addition to journalists and the press.

But pitching bloggers is vastly different from traditional press relations. New rules apply. If you pitch a blogger the wrong way, you could get written up and publicly slammed by the blogger for everyone on the Internet to see. So how do you go about getting a publicity explosion without it blowing up in your face? Here are a few "do's" and "don'ts" for getting good blog attention.

Blogging Sins - Are You Guilty?

Do you commit any of these 5 blogging sins? Brian Clark writes a great post about these over on Copyblogger.

Keep this list of 5 “blogging sins” handy, and you’ll stay on the right track from the get go.

1. What’s the Point? - Stay focused with your headline and 1st paragraph.
2. Who Cares? - Stay on target with your reader's needs and wants.
3. Bad Chi - Make sure your ideas flow logically to the right conclusion.
4. Detail Dump - TMI or Too Much Information is really not necessary, use links.
5. The Rambling Road - You may enjoy the free flow of ideas, but your readers may be in a hurry. Get to the point and go home.

The Blog Squad is dedicated to improving your blogs. If you are having poor results, take a look at the quality of your writing. You may be in need of a blog makeover: www.fixmyblog.com.

As Brian says, "Remember, only you can prevent bad blogging!"

Blogging Relations: Learn how to pitch bloggers

Where else can you get up to the minute tips about how to attract more publicity for your business from both The Blog Squad AND The Publicity Hound?

Join us on Wednesday for an info-packed teleseminar on how to pitch the best bloggers to get more publicity for your business...

News Flash: You can get huge traffic and sales by getting bloggers to talk about you and your products.

Caveat: Approach bloggers with care or your efforts may explode in your face.

You've heard about PR and how a carefully crafted (usually expensive) public relations campaign can get you media attention that may drive sales.

There's a new game in town: "BR" or Blogging Relations. The stakes are high, and so are the risks. Pay attention to your blogging relations, and you can win big time. But you can’t pitch bloggers the same way you pitch traditional journalists.

www.howtopitchbloggers.com

CEO Blogging: A Cure for CEO Disease?

John Agno, a friend and colleague, suggests that if more CEO's started blogging, there might be a cure for what's wrong in many corporate top positions. 'CEO disease' was termed by Daniel Goleman and others in writing about Emotional Intelligence, whereby the CEO is last to know about things because feedback doesn't flow upward.

John is quoted in an article over at CNN.com about CEO's who blog. We couldn't agree more. Whenever there is transparency and authenticity, stupid decisions bite the dust. Read both of these blog posts for an update on who's blogging in the Big Corporate World.

How to Pitch Bloggers: 6 Tips

News Flash: You can get huge traffic and sales by getting bloggers to talk about you and your products.

Get 6 tips you need to know BEFORE you pitch bloggers ... Get your audio tips here

WordPress: See the Tubetorial

Want to see a nifty video on using WordPress blogging platform? We just had Michael Pollock of Solostream.com on as a guest expert on WordPress. Since a picture is worth 1000 words, take a look at the Tubetorial that Brian Clark of Copyblogger has created  I mean, Chris Peason of Pearsonified has created. (Brian Clark says that Chris produces the best damn video tutorials around.)

This makes it look so easy, even I might be tempted to test drive it. From what I've heard the biggest hurdle is in getting WordPress installed on your own server. And now they promise that it can be done with one click...

Since 43% of our readers surveyed expressed a preference for WordPress (as opposed to 21% for Typepad), maybe there is something here worth investigating further. You know me, I like to keep software stuff and tech tasks to a minimum. Denise will try out things lickety-split, but I'm still outside the store looking into the windows.

I do like the fact that WordPress can be customized to look and act like a regular website, making it a smart choice for small biz owners and solo-professionals who don't want to be held hostage by web designers, or to have to learn Dreamweaver or Front Page to do their websites themselves.

What about you, have you tried WP yet, and what are your likes and dislikes about it? I think that one day in the not too distant future, setting up an effective, blog-like web presence will become easier for all professionals.

Blogger PR Continued

Thanks to a comment by Scott Monty to our post on what NOT to do when pitching bloggers, we've been alerted to an evolved form of the press release.

The Social Media Press Release by SHIFT Communications definitly turns the traditional press release on its head. You can download a template to follow and see an actual example on PRNewswire.

Want to learn more about pitching bloggers in this evoloving age of social media? Join our teleclass on Wednesday, How to Pitch Bloggers to Create a Publicity Explosion.

WordPress vs. TypePad: Michael Pollock's Perspective

Michael Pollock made a repeat appearance on Conversations with Experts in our 58th Conversation in the series. Over the last year Michael has transitioned from using TypePad blogs to WordPress. He shared with us the pros and cons of blogs hosted by a third party provider and hosting a blog on your own server as you do with WordPress.

A primary reason Michael recommends WordPress is that you can build your entire web presence, not just a blog, with WP and integrate the complete look and feel. Rather than having multiple sites to manage, it can all be done through your WordPress control panel.  There is also a huge community of WP users who can provide support and help, and who are constantly developing new features, plug-ins and templates (themes).

If you saw our poll on which blogging platform business bloggers use, you'll see that WordPress gets 47% vs. TypePad's 21%.

Sites we discussed:

Michael's WordPress driven website/blog:
http://www.solostream.com

WordPress driven site without a blog:
http://www.hfsleuth.com/

Where to find a list of plug-ins for WordPress:
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/

Tutorials on installing WordPress:
http://www.solostream.com/category/tutorials#post-621

http://www.cre8d-design.com/blog/wordpress.html

The Blog Squad's hub site created on SquareSpace (similar features as WordPress, but hosted by a third party):
http://www.blogsquad.biz

Michael had some great info to share so be sure to listen to this 57 minute program.  If you missed the program, you can get the audio for only $9.95 at Conversations with Experts.

Conversations with Experts is hosted by The Blog Squad, Denise Wakeman and Patsi Krakoff.

Blog Business Summit - Discounts still available

Will you be at the Blog Business Summit in October?  I just received an email about the presenters.  If you're a business blogging (dare I say) fanatic, you may want to consider attending.  You can still get a discounted registration fee.  Here's the info I received today:

Besides the "usual suspects" such as Robert Scoble, Buzz Bruggeman, Dave Taylor, Mary Hodder, and Halley Suitt, etc. we're pleased to have several new presenters including:

Jason Calacanis: CEO of Weblogs Inc. an AOL company
Jory Des Jardins: Co-founder, BlogHer
Ben Edwards: Manager of New Media Communications, IBM
Andru Edwards: Entrepreneurial Blogger

We're also pleased to have Maryam Scoble on board as our conference co-chair.

We're excited to announce that we've added new sessions on Podcasting and video blogging. Please head over to our site for all the details:

<http://www.blogbusinesssummit.com/conferences>

Special discounts to the event:

Early bird pricing is available until September 22. Use the discount code "loyal" (lowercase) to save an additional $50 off any package.

SPECIAL BLOGGER DISCOUNT:
Bloggers who post about the event (and link back) prior to registering can save $100 off the current pricing by emailing us with a link to the post. We will respond by sending a discount code worth $100 off any package. Just email.

Unfortunately, this Blog Squad gal will be going alone since her trusty sidekick is having back surgery the very same day.  :-(  But if you're going to be there, let me know and let's connect.

Blogger PR: What NOT to Do

This is no joke.  Among the many press releases I've received so far today, I got one from NBC.com about their new season.  The press release I received was atrocious.  This is an example of what NOT to do when pitching bloggers. I've posted it here EXACTLY how it appeared in my email reader.

Check it out and let me know what you think:  Download NBC_PR.pdf

Perhaps the reason I received this is because they are going to have blogs for all their prime time shows.  I don't know.  I certainly don't blog about TV or entertainment.

Want to learn how to pitch bloggers correctly?  Join our teleclass next week and learn how to get it right.