Most importantly if you are going to create a blog you need readers! Here is our top 10 ways to make your blog ROCK!

1. “Create valuable content and good writing and the readers will come.” – Four Pillars of Writing Exceptional Blogs
2. Write about what you know. Don’t try to fake it.
3. Keep your blog short and sweet. Long blogs can be overwhelming for your reader and may dissuade them from reading.
4. Ask questions to engage your readers.
5. Respond to comments thoughtfully and quickly.
6. Make commenting easy, don’t install a CAPTCHA box. Everyone hates those things and it’s easy enough to install a spam filter plugin. (I personally like Akismet)
7. Approve negative and positive comments. Negative comments are just as important as positive comments. Many great conversations are started from differences of opinions.
8. Blog regularly. In an ideal world you would blog everyday but that can be unrealistic for some companies so blog at least 3 times a week in order to keep your readers coming back.
9. Comment on other peoples blogs. This is a great way to engage other bloggers and get them to check out your blog.
10. Have a personality. Make sure your blogs tone reflects your company’s personality. No one wants to read a blog that sounds like a press release so have fun with it.

What is your favorite blog? What makes it so enjoyable to read?

To give you an idea about how these two websites work I will use my favorite Advertising Agency, Cowie and Fox.

Using Howsociable is easy. Simply type in your company name and hit enter. Howsociable gives a visibility score and also gives a score for a variety of different social media platforms.

Howsociable is a great tool but it isn’t perfect. If you look at this screen shot you’ll notice the Twitter score is zero. Cowie and Fox has a fairly strong presence on Twitter, so that is an obvious glitch.

Twitalyzer is a great tool to analyze Twitter further. Twitalyzer rates Cowie and Fox “Everyday User” which they define as “having a small circle of influence but great potential”.

These two websites are a great place to start your monitoring but sometimes it they don’t give a full picture of conversations taking place and the overall sentiment. In addition to using these sites I would recommend using Social Mention. Social Mention is great for searching for conversations your company is mentioned in. The site also has it’s own sentiment rating.

Although all these tools are great, nothing beats getting your hands dirty and doing your own monitoring research. Read posts on the sites you are engaged in and see what the overall sentiment is. For example Cowie and Fox doesn’t have a Facebook page but they do have a Twitter page and a blog.

Here are some @cowieandfox’s @ mentions

- From @rufinachang: Thanks to @roymelanie for being the Orchid Whisperer of @cowieandfox … and of course @mrbitterpants for being the Senior Pigeon Handler

- From @_stephco_ : AHHHHH!!!! Just won Canucks tickets! Thank u @cowieandfox for being so awesome!!!

- From @Social_Agency: Right back at ya’! RT @cowieandfox: Happy first day of Summer #Vancouver !

- From @swimco: Swimco’s fabulous ad agency, @cowieandfox, is excited for Sunglasses for Summer today!

Here are some comments from their blog:

- From NBC Kills The Peacock: That’s a horrible move, the peacock is such an icon. It’s like Nike getting rid of the swoosh or Target getting rid of the target.

- From BC Dairy Foundation Milk Slam Nice work C&F, I think that you guys did a great job on these posters!

- Love the work! Catchy and creative

- From Orling & Wu: Now Open Absolutely gorgeous branding, and the store is like a little piece of France! Wonderful work.

- From Design Trend: The Modern Banner Get Satisfaction’s logo has a simple banner approach. http://www.getsatisfaction.com/

- The latest issue of Fast Company Magazine has a feature on The 100 Most Creative People in Business, adorned with so many banners http://www.fastcompany.com/100/2010

- wow, banner overload. Thanks for the link!

From looking at Cowie and Fox’s blog and Twitter it is evident that the sentiment is all very positive. They are doing a great job and can continue to grow their engagement, especially on Twitter.

When conducting Social Media Monitoring it’s important to remember to do some hands on investigations in addition to using the monitoring websites. This enables you to see the whole picture. What do you use as monitoring tools?

Here are the 10 things that I learned:

1. The Global Director of Digital & Social Media for Pepsi Co, B. Bonin Bough said “Don’t get caught up in the minutia of the social media return on investment. Believe social media will change your business and the way that you connect with your customer.”

2. 3/4 of Americans say they get their news via email or updates on social media sites.

3. Kiip is going to take over the world with their new company. “Real rewards for virtual achievements”. Imagine playing Tiny Wings or Angry Birds and when you unlock an achievement you get a coupon for a new lipstick at Sephora or a pair of Levi’s. Well Kiip is making that dream come true.

4. Twitter’s co-founder Biz Stone describes Twitter as “not a triumph of technology” but a “triumph of humanity.” Adam Stone who was brought on to monetize Twitter says “the 3 keys to monetization of Twitter are humour, huge deals and humanity.”

5. The parties can be the best part of Ad:Tech so make sure you know some cool people ahead of time so you can get invited to cool parties. At Kiip’s party I got to meet MC Hammer. I mean who doesn’t want to meet MC Hammer?

6. Although I hope the quote isn’t true it’s hilarious. “In the future, marketing will be like sex – only the losers will pay for it.”

7. People interest in their community and local news is the new trend. Patch just launched and it’s a website that put, Patch is a new way to find out about, and participate in, what’s going on near you. They’re a community-specific news and information platform that has launched in the US.

8. In a two and half year period, Visa has gone from a 10% Digital Marketing budget to a 36-40% digital marketing budget.

9. Think Farmville is just an annoying game that equally annoying friends pressure you to play? Well in addition to being annoying it is a hugely success game. In fact Manny Anekal, Director of Brand Advertising at Zynga said “if Farmville were a country it would be the 5th largest in the world and 5 new players join the Zygna network every second.”

10. Lastly I learned Ad:Tech is a great way to mingle with people in the advertising and/or technology industry. There is also a lot to learn from the speakers and the seminars throughout the day. If you get a chance to go to an Ad:Tech it’s worth going to.

Have you been to an Ad:Tech? What did you think?

I recently “dugg” this article about Social Media Strategy and I think the title says it all: “A Social Media Campaign Without a Strategy is Like Nipples on a Man (and other useless things)” In this article the author, Jax, writes about the kinds of things a strategist considers when creating a social media strategy. “With every new client a strategist is charged with the task of determining the demographic, identifying what they want to know/learn etc. Finding out what they’re talking about online. Where do they spend their money? What do they get from the site when they visit? Do they share information they’ve found with others? What are the competition doing and are they successfully engaging clients?”

What are some other important things to consider when creating a Social Media Strategy? Here is my brief list of things to consider when creating a strategy.

Situation analysis
Target Market Definition
Competitive Analysis
SWOT analysis

Social Media Marketing Objectives
Qualitative
Quantitative

Social Media Marketing Mix
Identity
Conversations
Sharing
Platforms

Communications Plan
Messaging
Potential Topics
Integration

Timeline and Execution
Content development and Posting
Blogger engagement
Monitoring and responding

“So, if you work at, or own a company that has assigned a staff member to “do” social media take a moment and find out how engaged your online community is. Are they commenting on your posts? Are they suggesting interesting articles? Are they re-tweeting, re-posting, re-marking to what you’re putting out there? If not then you may want to start thinking about bringing in a strategist that can help you on your way to significantly more engagement.” – Jax

Does your company have a SM strategy? How effective has it been?

But even before Guy Kawasaki “Enchanted” me with his humour, I use to follow him on twitter but I had to stop following him because he was taking up my feed. I mean the guy literally tweets something every 5 minutes. Intrigued I decided to look into Guy Kawasaki’s twitter strategy further. From his blog I learned a lot about his twitter strategy, in particular, how he manages to tweet so much and why he chose to tweet so much.

Although the blog was very insightful I was still left with the question, does anyone want to see that many tweets in their feed? Apparently there are many people who don’t mind how much he tweets because he has 349,114 followers. But the big question is, is he losing followers because he tweets too much?

I would love to put this theory to the test. What if Guy Kawasaki split his tweets up into a few different profiles? Keep @guykawasaki for his personal tweets and then make 2 more profiles.

@guykawasaki will continue tweets like these recent tweets by @guykawasaki
– Just noticed I had 780 pending friend requests on Facebook. Not so enchanting of me!
– 14 social media treats for your customers http://is.gd/bCJjhr

@guykpulse will cover news worthy or trending topics like these recent tweets by @guykawasaki
– Satellite images reveal growing prison camps in North Korea [video] http://is.gd/bCt51N
– World’s largest radar network now on Pacific coast http://is.gd/Dksef3

@guykhack will cover tweets like innovations in the tech industry, cool do it yourself projects, etc. like these recent tweets by @guykawasaki
– Make any credit card into a guitar pick http://is.gd/czdDsI
– You can own this personal robot http://is.gd/iTxmT9

To launch this twitter campaign Guy could post the announcement on his blog and then distribute the announcement to all social media avenues. In addition, I would also recommend creating a short Youtube video about the change in profiles. This will convey the message quickly to those who may not have time to read a blog. Also there are some people who are more likely to share/retweet a video instead of a blog.

I believe that people who are already following @guykawasaki will likely follow the two new profiles.

To build @guykhack you could go after people who follow @wired @laughingsquid. By following their followers and engaging with them it is likely they will follow you back.

To build @guykpulse you could go after the followers of @fastcompany @mashable. Again, by following their followers and engaging with them it is likely they will follow you back.

At the end of the day the content will speak for itself and will build a following. Those who don’t want to miss out on any of @guykawasaki’s tweets can follow all three profiles while still leaving room for those who don’t want their feed taken up if they want to just follow one or two of the profiles.

Do you follow @guykawasaki? Would you be more likely to follow him if he didn’t tweet so much?

Personal Branding is creating a brand but the product is you. When you are creating a personal brand think of some key questions such as; how can creating a personal brand further your career ambitions? What is it you want to accomplish? Who is your target market?

For example I have my company, Stiletto Marketing, which has it’s own brand. Stiletto Marketing’s brand has a blog (which you are reading), Facebook Page and a twitter profile @stilettomrktg

In addition I have a personal blog called The Wandering Dumpling, a twitter profile ( @brittanyyu ), a Youtube Channel and of course a Facebook profile. The twitter profile, Youtube channel, Wandering Dumpling blog and sometimes Facebook profile are all used to create a personal brand that is me.

For both blogs there is an underlying personality that is the same, but certain personality traits are highlighted on different blogs. For example with The Wandering Dumpling the personality characteristics I show are down to earth, unpretentious, brutally honest, fun, outgoing, and adventurous. In a perfect world I would love to attain a mixture Bethenny Frankel and Anthony Bourdain (maybe less verbose).

However, some of these qualities may not be as appropriate to have on my Stiletto branding. My Stiletto brand personality is professional, knowledgeable about SMM while still maintaining some humour and personality. Ideally Guy Kawasaki (with less tweets, the guy tweets way too much) but with my own personality. I particularly resonate with his Enchantment speech he gave the Ad Tech conference.

So how do you get started with branding yourself?
1. Figure out what it is you want to accomplish
2. Start to follow industry leaders, read their tweets and blogs. Learn from them, engage with them and use what you have learned in your social media channels.
3. Think of what makes your personal brand unique and be sure to feature it often
4. Be yourself. If you try to fake it you will have a social media fail like politician Advani. Advani used the social media as a political campaign but failed due to his spammy advertising like messaging.

You know who we don’t really trust? Faceless companies.

Yet the vast majority of marketing campaigns are less than personal and follow the traditional model of companies pushing the discussion in one direction.

I can’t be the only one having an issue with this.

So how might the opposite of this look?

Let us use as our example the evil entity known as Rogers Communications. The parent company of everyone’s least favorite wireless brands Rogers and Fido. Now I could write a whole post on all the horrible things that Rogers/Fido do to their customers, but for the sake of brevity do a search on twitter for #rogers and #fail…case made.

Is it just me that sees a massive opportunity for Bell and Telus to not only steal some customers away from a rival, but also to tap into the voices that those around us trust?

If I were Telus and Bell, I’d be searching on Twitter and making a list of say 10-20 people who are extremely unhappy with Rogers/Fido. I’d then go to these people and explain that you would like to take care of them, get them on better packages, with better customer service, better phones and get them away from the evil Rogers/Fido.

I’d go all out. I’d offer to pay their contract cancellation fees, give them their pick of new phones including iPhones and Android devices, counsel them on which packages would be best for the life they lead, hell I’d even give them the phone number to a personal customer service rep…I’m talking all out.

The end result? You’ve now created 10-20 loyal evangelists willing to spread the gospel for Telus/Bell and their services. Folks that will tell everyone who will listen how well they were treated, how they were saved from the clutches of the evil Rogers, how they’re loving their killer new smart phones and the custom wireless plans chosen with their input. They’ll do this on Twitter, on Facebook, but more importantly they’ll do it in real life, to their friends, family, and peers.

Want to make it even bigger? I’d record every minute of the entire process and I’d put that content, even in rough form…EVERYWHERE. I mean everywhere, all over twitter, Facebook, the Telus and Bell websites, on YouTube and Vimeo. I’d create an entire blog around the process, allow the Telus/bell employees to talk about how great it is to give customers what they want ( also bringing a human face to the process ), to follow the process as it unfolds and to very likely provide a venue for others to vent at how they also dislike Rogers/Fido and wish they too could switch.

The final piece of the puzzle. The sheer moxy of the concept would get a tonne of traditional press, newspaper stories, magazine profiles and blog posts and all that mainstream press for free.

If nothing else, Telus could at least stop running those inane animal commercials.

This is a guest post by Kerry Morrison of Reason Intelligent Design, a Vancouver based Web Marketing company.

Contact Kerry
Follow Kerry on Twitter

If you’re thinking of using blogger outreach for your business, here’s my quick primer on how to approach this tactic.

Qualify blogs based on their audience
There are over 200,000,000 blogs on the WWW and the vast majority have little to no following. Not to say that more is always better (if what you are marketing is a very niche product then that niche blogger with a small but loyal following could be an incredibly effective media outlet) but in general, a decent size audience is important. The other thing that I think should be obvious is that the blog’s audience should directly correspond to the target market of whatever it is you are marketing.

Read the blog
This is also part of the qualifying step because there is nothing worse for a blogger than to have to waste time going through pitches that aren’t relevant to their blog or their audience. Engaging through comments or on twitter is also a good way to start to build a relationship with the bloggers you are hoping to gain coverage from.

Optimize your release for the web
By and large, we are a “snacking society” especially when it comes to the content we consume on the web. Bloggers know this any many of them try to limit the amount of text in their blogs focusing instead on rich media like images and video.  To that end, keep copy short and to the point and attach engaging videos and images to supplement your text. If this seems like common sense, I apologize but I have seen PR companies mass-email multi-page, text-only releases to a list of hundreds of unqualified bloggers.  Successful bloggers are simply don’t have time for this.

Give bloggers the respect they deserve
I think something that not everyone realizes yet is that certain blogs are becoming more trusted by the public than traditional media channels. Even though this is happening, I still don’t think that bloggers are always granted the same amount of respect as their traditional counterparts. If you want to gain favor in this community don’t ever patronize a blogger (no matter how big or small) by making it seem like you are doing them a favor by sending a sample, providing a “hot tip” etc. and don’t ask directly for coverage. If the blogger feels that what you have is news that pertains to their audience and, if their editorial calendar has some space, you will get covered.

Everything I’ve touched on here is really all about building authentic two-way relationships with your online media sources. If you reach out to these individuals and consistently provide them with the newsworthy content and new, creative ideas, you’re likely to get a great return on that investment. If you blast out your traditional press release to every blogger’s email address you can get your hands on, you’re unlikely to get any favorable coverage and could even generate some negative press.

If you’re serious about this stuff, do put in the time to get to know this community online and, if at all possible, take it offline too (as in, meet them in person). If this seems extremely time-consuming, it’s because it is. If you don’t see yourself or your company having the time to execute this type of strategy properly, consider outsourcing to an agency that has experience with this type of thing and that has existing relationships with bloggers in your industry.

As I mentioned, this is only a very basic intro into blogger relations. Please feel free to add your additional tips in the comments.

Huge thank-you to Erica Lam and Nicole Soon, two smart and savvy bloggers who were very helpful with this post. You can find them at www.thestylespy.com and www.lemodedujour.com respectively.

- Rosa Meyer

Stiletto Marketing – Interview with Glowbal Group’s Charles Zuckermann from Stiletto Marketing on Vimeo.

Scenario #3 The Big Guns

The ideal situation is one where the organization’s founder, president, or CEO is in charge, or heavily involved in the company’s social media. In this case, this person can become the true “face” for their company. Where we are actually seeing the most of this is in small business or start-ups which makes sense. In these cases, it’s often the owner who is driving sales to start off with and actively trying to promote their company and develop a name for them-selves. What better place to start than social media?

Joyce Cajucom owner of Noir Lash Lounge is one example of a business owner who does a great job with social media. Joyce is sending out tweets and Facebook posts all day long, personally interacting with anybody who has anything to say online about her company. I sent a tweet to @NoirLashLounge letting her know I had enjoyed my appointment with her new trainee and almost immediately, Joyce tweeted right back to say how glad she was that things had worked out. You can imagine how powerful this might be with negative comments as well. How often is it that easy to find such a direct line to the owner?

There are still two main issues that can arise with this arrangement:

1. Business owners, especially small business owners, are typically very, very busy people. This doesn’t always lend itself well to making the time to maintain all the different social media channels they have chosen to engage with. As with most things, when social media is done halfway it’s almost not really worth doing at all.

The best way to get around this obstacle is to really make updating and maintaining social media sites an important part of one’s daily routine. For example, spending half an hour in the morning, right after checking email, and again before the end of the day often works well. The other thing is to make sure that whatever aspects of your social media program can be automated are. I’m not going to go into too much detail about that here because I plan to cover social media aggregating and automating in another post.

2. The second issue I have with putting social media into the boss’ hands is what happens when the boss lacks the skills and knowledge to carry out this task properly? If you can’t imagine, here is one example. The quick answer to this is to make sure either to take the time to learn how to use social media properly or, hire a professional to get your company started and then show you how it’s done.

At the end of the day, although the owner is generally my top choice for who to handle the social media rains, there will always be people who just don’t have the interest or time it takes. In this case, it’s most definitely better to give the responsibility to somebody who is going to handle the job with enthusiasm and care.

- Rosa