img "Green Elephant Garden Scuptures" by epSos.De on Flickr

There are many reasons I love spring (being able to wear sandals again, dining outdoors, Waterfront Wednesday concerts are just a few examples), but I also really look forward to gardening.  Yes, gardening.  There’s something really awesome about tiny seeds developing into big, healthy plants.

But before you get to work, you’ve got to do a bit of planning.  Serious gardeners are checking out the seed catalogs in January and February, trying to figure out what this year’s project will be.  They’re making sure all their tools are in the shed and ready to go.

To me, social media is a lot like gardening.  You start small, with a blog post here and a Tweet there, and grow into something bigger gradually.

So if you’ve been a little hesitant to jump into social media, spring is the perfect time to explore.  Check out Twitter and see what all the fuss is about. Visit PostRank.com to discover the most-read blogs in a variety of subjects and to get ideas for your own blossoming blog.

And if you do plan on doing some gardening in the coming months, don’t forget to wear your Bionic Gloves.  They’ve been featured in a variety of publications, including Good Housekeeping and Ladies Home Journal.

(I just couldn’t help a little shameless client promotion!)

One of the most effective ways to communicate with your customers is through a corporate blog. Being able to provide useful content to your readers can be effective in creating brand awareness, thought leadership, as well as provide opportunities for your content and ideas to be shared across social media platforms.

However, many corporate blogs are started and left to die in the blogosphere. In the beginning they had good intentions, but due to lack of focus they slowly fad away.

I would imagine that the overall understanding of the effectiveness of having a blog hasn’t changed, it’s usually loosing momentum and purpose that becomes the deal killer.

Here a few ideas that could kick-start your corporate blog.
1. Establish goals and purpose of your blog.
2. Set specific goals for the first 30-60 days.
3. Draft an editorial calendar for the next 30-60 days.
4. Assign writing assignments with deadlines to all who are on your blogging team.
5. Have 1-2 weeks of post schedule to publish in advance.
6. Evaluate web analytics after the first 30 to determine your effectiveness in regards to your goals.

As you commit to producing content on a regular basis, you’ll begin to see traffic results to your blog, comments to your blog posts, and your content being shared on social networks.

Remember, that readers want to know more than just your products and your pitch. You want to provide insights and information that bring value to your readership.

image credit: spieri sf

Today would have been the 106th birthday of Theodor Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss.

img courtesy wikimedia commons

Supposedly, The Cat in the Hat was the result of an editor giving Seuss a list of 348 first grade reading level words, asking him to cut the list to 250, and write an irresistible children’s book using only those words.

Geisel managed to do it in 236.

Creative constraints can be frustrating (brand messaging in 140 characters, anyone?)  But they can also result in some amazingly good work.

If Dr. Seuss could create timeless work within his creative constraints, so can you.

Since the core of what we do at Doe-Anderson is building relationships between consumers and brands, we thought it would be cool to use relationships as a theme.  So in honor of Valentine’s Day, all this month we’ll be sharing 28 Days to Make People Fall in Love with Your Brand. We hope you enjoy it.

“I lost my phone number, can I borrow yours?”

“Can you give me directions to your heart?  I seemed to have lost myself in your eyes.”

“I hope you know CPR, because you take my breath away!”

There’s little proof to show that pick-up lines actually work at attracting men and women, yet many people still insist on using them.  The thing about pick-up lines is that they seem, well, phony.

Many journalists have this same complaint about public relations professionals.

Pitches that show a lack of understanding of the publication or media outlet’s target audience (for example, pitching the latest junk food to a magazine that specializes in vegan food) get tossed quickly.

Pick-up artists often play a “numbers” game—talk to as many people as they can, and odds are they will find someone who’s interested.   Journalists want to feel “special,” meaning they don’t want to be part of a 10,000 person e-mail blast, particularly if the product or service you’re pitching doesn’t relate to what they do.

So before you make a pitch, do your research.  Include the journalist’s name in the pitch.  If you know of a particular section of their publication that your product or service would be perfect for, say it.  And for goodness sake, don’t ask them if they’re tired because they’ve been running through your mind all night.

It’s been a whirlwind month or two here at Doe-Anderson’s EnthusioNation.

David and I have both been traveling quite a bit.  First, to BlogWorldExpo to sharpen my saw as a social media strategist, and then to SEMA on behalf of our client, Optima Batteries, to put those skills into action on a very cool social media program.

So I’m just now getting to catch my breath a little, and peruse ye olde Google Reader to see what I’ve been missing in the social media fishbowl for the last month.

As it turned out, this was an excellent day for me to pop my head back into the conversation.

Monday, PR guy and fellow highly-caffeinated person Jeremy Pepper posted a few thoughts on using bloggers as a means, not an end unto themselves.  I’d encourage you to bop on over there and read it if you haven’t already, but the part that was swirling around in my head in particular was the part about “blogger junkets,” the “pay me mentality” and what might be, for lack of a better and less touchy-feely term, a sustainable model for brands and bloggers to work together.

Right now, we have a few different models, none of which seem to really work all that well for either side.

We have the “shell out for some banner ads on my site because my audience is your target, and I will talk up your brand because I love my sponsors” model.

We have the “send me freebies, and I will love you and say nice things about you because I love free stuff” model.

Let’s be honest.  Both of these models are the modern day equivalent of Lucille Ball giving you a :30 commercial, in character, in the middle of I Love Lucy.  Only in 2009, no one is naive enough to think that Lucy is motivated to say those nice things by anything other than a paycheck.  Wasn’t the point of WOMMA that people don’t trust old school advertising anymore?

But public relations-ish approaches aren’t much more evolved than advertising-ish approaches.

We have the “bad blogger outreach” model, where PR people treat bloggers as just another media outlet to spam with press releases and other potential “content sources.”

We have the “better blogger outreach” model.  I think Jeremy’s blogger junket falls somewhere in the neighborhood of this model–where at least bloggers are receiving the same respect and “journalistic cred” as traditional media members.  It’s not entirely awful, but it’s also not really scratching the itch fully for either party.

All of this is made even more convoluted by the fact that bloggers themselves have trouble coming to agreement about what’s ethical, fair and reasonable.

And don’t even get me started about the FTC…

There’s another model, though, that I think bears more thought:  treating bloggers as creative talent. Hiring them to provide high-quality content, and using their social promotion talent, on a brand-owned website.

To a certain extent, this is what Crayon and Panasonic have done with their recent “LIHD Insiders” initiative.  It makes sense from both sides.

What do you think?  Where is the best value for both sides? Paying for eyeballs, or paying for talent?  Other thoughts?

I’d love to hear from you.

img Accordion courtesy SXC

David and I are back from this year’s BlogWorldExpo.  I had a great time, learned a lot and got the opportunity to meet several people in real life that I’d previously only known online.  

We did manage to snag a few smart folks and ask them our big question: "What makes a confident social brand?"  I’ll be posting the answers in video form here later this week. 

As for the conference itself, the keynotes were generally solid (the celebrity panel, in particular, was engaging and eye-opening).  However, some of the sessions were a bit hit or miss.  Some panels were really interactive and actionable, but a few were straight presentations with no real room for audience participation.  Also, some sessions seemed to be in the wrong "track" based on their actual subject matter.

The social media monitoring panel I attended, while one of the most helpful and actionable sessions, was entirely Q&A.  I can’t help but wonder if we might have missed some really good information that no one thought to ask about.  On the other hand, we didn’t spend the session mired in 101 level background.  

One of the most fascinating sessions I attended was actually in the Real Estate track.  It was on integrating/aggregating media into a single site.  The content of the session was wonderful (I learned some amazing tricks with Sweetcron and Wordpress), but it seemed pretty advanced from a technical angle for the Real Estate track.  It seemed like it might have been a better fit for the Nuts & Bolts track.  

I did get the feeling that some sessions were shoehorned into a track because that track had a "space"–rather than because the content was genuinely that relevant to the track. A few people told me they were ignoring the tracks altogether and simply picking sessions based on descriptions.  

From the perspective of this blog, and corporate blogging in general, I would say that BlogWorldExpo is a good conference to attend.  Many corporate bloggers are new to blogging, so some of the 101 level sessions would be valuable.  It’s also a good opportunity to engage some of the established bloggers in your topical area of interest. 

Professionally, attending BWE09 helped me get reinvigorated about my work. Personally, it was great meeting some of my online colleagues in the real world.  

 … and we’re totally stoked!  BlogWorldExpo is going to be a great opportunity for David and I to get inspired by the best-in-breed work going on in the world of blogging, new media and social media.  

But we’re not forgetting about you guys.  We set out to create The Social Enthusiast as a resource for marketers who want to build a confident social brand.  So we’ll be grabbing the smart, the experienced, and the too-slow-to-outrun-us at the conference and asking them one question:

"How do you build a confident social brand?"

Our Flip cams are fired up and ready to go.  Hopefully we’ll be back with some great, brief, interesting and helpful tips to post here.  

You can follow our #BWE09 exploits by following @DavidFinch and/or @KatFrench on Twitter.

  Starting a new feature here on The Social Enthusiast.  David and I have been so busy executing client work that we haven’t carved out enough time to provide the kinds of informative, engaging or otherwise valuable posts we’d like here.  

The most important thing on any blog is it’s content. Without valuable content your blog will never accomplish its goals. One of the ways to make sure that you’re creating high value content is by developing and following an editorial calendar.

An editorial calendar achieves it purpose for planning, as well as keeping your content on topic. It also gives you an overview of the direction you want to take your blog over a week, month and year. An editorial calendar is your guide to publishing online content.

Here’s how to start.

Decide how many posts a week you will post.
The first place to start is determining how many posts you’ll publish a week. In the beginning it always seems like an eager goal to plan on posting daily, but if your company is new to blogging you may want to start slower and than work your way up. Commit to at least 2-3 times a week and than work on developing killer content.

Decide what type of posts you’ll publish.
There are a variety of blog post types to reference, but here are just a few for you to consider.

• How-To’s
• Video
• Audio
• Interviews
• Product reviews
• Trends
• Opinion
• Employee showcase

If you take a little time and use a little imagination you’ll have no problem adding to this list.

Start brainstorming post ideas.
Personally, I also start with a title and then work my way to an outline, draft, edit and then publish. That’s why I keep a file of titles and a brief description of what the future post will be. I would recommend that after you decide the types of posts and categories that you want to write about, to begin coming up with ideas that fit with each category.

Once you’ve established the type of posts you want to publish and a list of future blog post ideas, now its time to start adding them into your calendar.

Input ideas into your calendar
Now it’s time to begin mapping and adding the future posts into your calendar. If you choose to use video and audio make sure you plan enough time for editing. If you work in an industry where you content has to pass through a legal or compliance department make sure you plan time in to your schedule for that as well.

The success of any blog begins with great content and frequent posting. I hope this helps you in reaching all your goals.

Related articles by The Social Enthusiast Zemanta

• The Value of Planning Blog Posts Ahead of Time (johnchow.com)
• EContent on Why Corporate Bloggers Often Miss (marklogic.blogspot.com)
• Five Great Resources for Starting a Corporate Blog (The Social Enthusiast)

Gone are the days of the mentality, “if you build it they will come.” It takes a lot of hard work, dedication and patience to build a blog that generates a high volume of traffic. However, with a little strategy and consistency you’ll begin to see measureable results.

Here are a few recommended strategies.

Set a Goal
If you are truly going to see the results you want it’s vital to start with a goal. Set a goal for how many unique visitors, page views, time of site, and bounce rate. You’ll also want to have a conversion goal. What do you want your readers to do after they read your latest post? Do you want them to subscribe to your RSS feed or newsletter or maybe check out a product that’s relevant to the post? Whatever conversion goal you decide to focus on, make sure it’s a part of your initial strategy.

Also, you’ll want to set a goal for how many posts you plan on writing per week. The more content you produce the better the opportunity you have to build your audience, and rank well with the search engines.

Provide Great Content
The reason why people will continue to return to your blog is the valuable content that you provide. Make sure your content is informative and adding value to your reader. Keep in mind that content doesn’t just have to be text it can also be images, videos, and audio clips. They all provide great additions to your content menu.

Increase Your Online Presence
Building your online presence is key to generating readership, as well as positioning yourself as a thought leader in your specific niche. Make sure your blog is not only listed in niche directories, but also be a conversationalist with the social media space. Social media and networking sites are great tools to build your online presence.

Promote Your Content
It’s OK to promote your blog and content. However, the key is making sure your adding value to those in your circle of influence and not just spamming them with your latest “promotion.” Also, make sure your offline promotions point to your online content.

Encourage Conversation
Don’t be afraid of blog comments. Yes, there may be the rare negative comment, but the percentage is a lot lower than you think. Blog comments are another great way to listen and engage with your audience.

Is your corporation already blogging? What are you doing to drive traffic? Feel free to leave a comment. I would be interested in knowing your thoughts.

Related articles by The Social Enthusiast and Zemanta

• 3 Ways To Cross Promote Your Content And Get More Loyal Readers (howtospoter.com)
• How Social Media Is Like Sharecropping (conversationagent.com)
• Encouraging Comments on Your Corporate Blog (The Social Enthusiast)