Business Blogging - How to Build A Better Blog

Lou Bortone predicts there will be a "land grab" for .tv domains

Yesterday I had the pleasure of co-teaching a brand new online video program with my pal, the online video guy, Lou Bortone. The program, Online Video: Right Here, Right Now! was a follow up to the popular program we delivered a few months ago and which is now a self-study course.

Online video is evolving at a break-neck pace and we felt it was important to update our video students on new developments in tools, video distribution, social media integration and trends for using video in business. Over 125 people attended the program and the feedback on twitter and Facebook was great. 

During the class Lou predicted that there will be a land-grab or gold rush, for .tv domain names like there was for .com domains in the olden days of the Internet. As video becomes ever more popular (YouTube had more than 85 million visitors in July 2009 and is now the 4th most visited site on the Web), the demand for video channels will only grow. So here's the tip from Lou:

Email vs RSS Poll - The Results Are In

Last week I needed to satisfy a curiosity about whether more people used email or used RSS to subscribe to their favorite blogs. I set up a simple poll on PollDaddy. I wanted to get at least 100 votes since results generally stabilize and run consistent after that point.

As I suspected, Email beats RSS, though not by much in this small sample. I suspect the real stats are different since most of the people who took this poll are pretty savvy: they hang out online, they play on twitter and other online networking sites so skew towards an understanding of RSS. However, my experience with clients is that most have no clue about RSS and their blog audiences don't either. I think the real results (if I could find a scientifically conducted survey) would be closer to 80/20 Email to RSS.

I was surprised to see in the "other" category that someone said they subscribe to blogs on Facebook. Facebook actually pulls the blog's RSS feed in the Notes Application - if the blogger has it set up. And yes, that's certainly a legitimate way to get your blog updates, but in fact you're not really subscribing. If you're "friends" with someone who imports their blog, then you may see their posts.

What does this mean for you, dear blogger? YOU CANNOT IGNORE EMAIL OR RSS. If you only have one or the other option on your blog, you're leaving a lot of people out who may want to subscribe but either don't know how or want a different option.  Offer both. I use Feedblitz for email subscriptions and use Feedburner to offer a "smart feed" that people can use to subscribe with their favorite feed readers. Feedburner also has an email subscribe form.

Any more thoughts on this issue or is it time to move on? :-)

Online Radio Interviews with Denise Wakeman (replay links)

If you were not able to attend the live interviews I did last week on Twitter Talk Radio and this week on Your Partner in Success, here are links so you can catch up!

Twitter Talk Radio with host Angie A. Swartz Also available on iTunes.

Your Partner In Success with host Denise Griffitts

POLL: Subscribing to Blogs with RSS vs. Email

It's time to revisit this question. Today I was told by a blog developer that most people use RSS to read blogs. Hmmm. That's not my experience. In my experience most people still don't know what the heck RSS is and prefer to get their blog updates by email. But that got me wondering. Maybe times have changed dramatically. Maybe regular folk (not techy people) do prefer RSS. So I decided to put it out to you.

How do you prefer to subscribe to and read your favorite blogs? Please take the poll and let me know your thoughts in the comments.

Please help me get the word out so I can get a good sample of responses. Click the retweet button to share the poll with your twitter followers. Thanks!

Blogging Interviews, Teleseminars and Events

Today I was interviewed by my blogging friend and colleague Rich Brooks, for his column on FastCompany.com. Monday I was interviewed for an article about social media mistakes small businesses make. Then I had a conversation with a colleague about contributing to a new book on social media marketing. Whew!

Tomorrow though, I'm being interviewed by Denise Griffitts on her BlogTalkRadio show Your Partner for Success. You're invited to call in with your questions. We'll be discussing what it takes to create a successful business blog. The show airs at 9:00 a.m. Pacific Time.

On August 27, Lou Bortone and I are hosting a class about what's new and hot in online video and how to apply it to your business. If you're just getting started using video, the best deal is to get our home study course Online Video Made Easy and you get the new class Online Video: Right Here, Right Now, as a free bonus!

I'm also working on a webinar called Twitter Made Easy for Lawyers and developing a class on the psychology of social media with my esteemed colleague Dr. Rachna Jain (if you haven't read Rachna's white paper on the Future of Social Media, you REALLY must). Stay tuned for details.

Finally, if you can, make plans to attend 140 | The Twitter Conference L.A. on September 23 and 23. This is shaping up to be a stellar event geared directly at businesses using social media. Registration is only $299 until September 6. I'll be there and hope to see you too!

Are you willing to do what it takes to create visibility on the Web?

True to form, I've been thinking a lot about visibility, blogging and social media. After all, it's what I do. As I was walking to the post box, I was thinking about the opportunities that have come my way in the last couple of weeks: requests for interviews from two reporters; invitation to contribute chapters to two books on social media marketing; email and radio interviews (I get a request nearly every day), and the list goes on.

I don't say this to brag, but to point out that none of this would be happening if I had not made a very conscious effort to create visibility for me and my business. And none of it would be happening without my blogs. Period. When I ask how a reporter found me the usual reply is from a search that lead to one of my blog posts.

One of the topics I'll be talking about with a reporter later today is "social media marketing mistakes." I'll share my list after the interview when I know what is being included, and I will tell you that the biggest mistake I see/hear is a business owner thinking they do not need a blog if they use the myriad social networking sites available to them on the Web.

UPDATE: Here's my list of Social Media Marketing Mistakes - lots of good comments too.

I wrote about this earlier in my post Why Blog When You've Got Facebook? And with the recent cyber attack on twitter it's seems more obvious than ever that you cannot count on third party networks to be there for you 24/7. Your blog is your best defense and will be there in the long run.

Yes, your server can crash but in the end you have a lot more control. And you are backing up your blog, right?

Musing about blogging on the Pomo Bluffs

I shot a quick video when I was in Ft. Bragg for the Mendocino Coast Writers Conference a couple weeks ago. Since I've been traveling so much, I haven't had time to post it. Please forgive my inability to get a decent shot of myself. At the end I practically cut off half my face!

This was the second year I spoke at the MCWC and the authors were quite receptive to my message about the need to create online visibility with blogs and social networking if they wanted to sell their books. As usual though, the big concern is how much time it's going to take.

Frankly if you're not willing to put in the time to create visibility, then you probably won't achieve the level of sales success you want.

More visiblity = a bigger audience = more fans = more sales.