It's All About the Conversation

Recently, I created a blog strategy for a client that I thought was really pretty good.  Maybe a bit aggressive, but after reading Justin Kownacki’s post on “What I’ve Learned From Blogging Weekly Instead of Daily,” I thought that this strategy was pretty close to getting the sort of website traffic that I thought was needed to really make a difference.

It’s really pretty simple, as most things should be, and I know I don’t follow it myself, but as my parents told me several times, “Do as I say, not as I do.”  Let me know what you think or if you’ve created similar strategies.

Your Blog should have a purpose and strategy behind it to make sure that it works and doesn’t get blog rot.

Here are a couple questions to consider:

1. Why are we doing this?
   • because it’s fun?
   • to find business?
   • to show off our thought leadership?
   • increase customer engagement?
   • PR for media, news, social networking and other bloggers?
   • Improve search engine optimization?
   • Provide a way to disseminate information?
   • Recognize and promote employees, clients, partners, projects, etc.?
2. How will we know it’s successful. What metrics are we setting for ourselves?  Can we put numbers to this?
   • Analytics, increased traffic, time, pages, etc
   • Comments on blogs
   • Links to blog postings
   • Increased leads
   • SEO
   • Social Media mentions.

1. Purpose of the blog. The blog should show that you are a collection of experts that are not only knowledgeable in your respective fields, but excited about learning and sharing what you see, know, experience and demonstrate in your key business areas of expertise.

2. Solve a problem or identify a solved problem. This is somewhat related to number 1. Part of your strategy should be solving a problem, or another way to think about this is responding to issues from clients or to just find a way to be useful and relevant – with examples.

3. Be the Subject Matter Experts (SME). This will help determine your content strategy and help build your brand. Demonstrate what you’ve done and how it’s improved our success or our clients’ success.  Wave your own flag a bit.

4. Optimize our content for SEO. Do a bit more work to get the right titles and keywords for the post.  Find keywords that support the blog and the post.

5. Be honest, encourage 2 way conversations. Create content that is open and honest and is truly trying to offer solutions.  Give of yourselves without needing anything in return accept happy readers.

6. Monitor the world. Create searches on keyword or clients to watch what people are saying in the world.  Re-tweet, create a post about it or tell your client.  If there’s a client you’re trying to land, monitor what’s being said about them to find a way to respond. See Number 3 “Be the SME.”.

Some bullets on process:

• Address a business need
• Participate in other industry specific blogs, LinkedIn answers, business.com answers.  Guest post both ways whenever possible.
• Encourage online reviews of your work
• Be strategic not trendy
• Focus on long-term engagement, not a short term hit.
• Social media is NOT an experiment.  It is a proven, strategic, integrated part of your website.
• Test, Measure, Optimize, Repeat.
• Frequency: 1 major article per week, several supporting per week – create a schedule and trade off.
• Social connections.  Connect the blog to pre-determined set of social media outlets.  Don’t do all of them, but go deep in the ones we do.
• Take into account customers, competition, your Unique Value Proposition.

I’m a firm believer that change is good.  Good for everyone involved.  It always has been and I expect it always will be.  Sometimes we know right away and sometimes it takes a bit longer to understand this.  For me, this change is very good.  The last few months has seen a transition for me from FreshCurrent to Vermilion Design + Interactive in Boulder.  The change is very good and I’m very excited about it.

Below is my official release:

Let the mountains talk, let the rivers run. Once more, and forever. -David Brower

April 1997 was a long time ago.

The last 13 years was definitely an amazing experience. I followed the currents wherever they led me with this business and recently it became obvious that the next part of my journey no longer included FreshCurrent. So, with a HUGE thank you to everyone I’ve come into contact for the last 13 years, FreshCurrent is officially closing down.

If you need to get a hold of me for business reasons, please continue to use the email address you have, or you can get a hold of me for a while at info [at] freshcurrent DOT com. Phone service won’t last long (and isn’t checked much) so email is truly the best way to get a hold of me. If you still need help with your web project, contact me and I’ll help to make sure you’re taken care of either with the firm I’m with now, or another.

With eternal gratitude, Mark Peesel

P.S. for those of you with domain registrations, spam filtering and/or email newsletter subscriptions, your services will not be interrupted, but I’ll contact you individually as accounts are migrated. Thanks!

Like many people, sometimes I get writer’s block.  But it’s odd, because I’m not really a writer, I just sometimes have lots to say but not always sure how to go about it.

Recently, I came across this interesting article with 13 Tips for Actually Getting Some Writing Done. The article is technically for people who want to write a book or novel of sorts, but I find that it’s truly effective for just about anything you ant to write.   I’ll summarize it here.

1. Write something every work-day, and preferably, every day
2. Even if you have just fifteen minutes, you can write something
3. Don’t binge on writing
4. Sometimes it’s easier to stop in mid project and then continue later
5. Don’t get distracted
6. Write regularly and frequently
7. Just get ideas down, lot’s of great writing comes in the revisions
8. Find a way to keep track of your thoughts
9. Be comfortable
10. Limit or eliminate interruptions
11. “Wait” or do it “Now”
12. Take a walk or read something else
13. Have something to say

I would add a last item to this from my old public speaking days.

14. Write what you know about.  Don’t try to write about things just because you think someone will want to read it. If that’s all your interested in, you won’t last.  In fact, if you follow this one tip (#14), it usually solves most, if not all of the other tips.

Recently, in Time Magazine, there was an article about The Future of Work.  In it was an section about Training Managers to Behave by starting in business school.   A small business school out side of Phoenix, Thunderbird School of Global Management, has taken the tact of an Oath of Honor upon graduation.  With the assumption that many of today’s financial problems and the Wall Street collapse occurred from Manager and CEOs that were taking less than ethical actions to drive profits, Thunderbird is looking to rethink how they send business school graduates into the world.

Their Oath is:

As a Thunderbird and a global citizen, I promise, I will strive to act with honesty and integrity. I will respect the rights and dignity of all people. I will strive to create sustainable prosperity worldwide. I will oppose all forms of corruption and exploitation. And I will take responsibility for my actions. As I hold true to these principles, it is my hope that I may enjoy an honorable reputation and peace of conscience.

The article inferrs that business schools are focused on getting the highest paying jobs for their graduates and that this needs to change.  Apparently, not all their students like it and some have refused to sign or recite this oath at graduation.  Makes you wonder if when you’re hiring from business school, or any school, if it’s worth asking about the school’s oath and whether the student participated or not.   The oath certainly isn’t required and not part of their professional, student record, but, would you hire someone who refused to take an ethical oath?

Also see the Thunderbird website.