This isn’t going to be an in-depth discussion about Google+. I’ll leave that to the experts. In fact, before my search tips, let me point you to two sources that provide updates on all that’s new on Google+.

HubSpot has published a comprehensive free e-book How to Use Google+ for Business. Just click on the title and you will be able to download the PDF from the home page.

The other is also a lengthy tutorial (slightly more technical) but well worth reading on Blind Five Year Old by AJ Kohn.

My Tips

These are predicated on your being a member of Google+. My good friend Richard Newman at the Newman Group pointed out this new feature when you conduct a search on Google.

Search Personal Results    

You now have the ability to search a subject and get the results, plus see your own Personal Results for that search. The way you do that is by clicking on the tiny icon on the upper right side of the screen. It’s the one on the left that looks like a head and shoulders. The icon next to it, that looks like a globe, allows you to Hide Personal Results.

Here is a screen shot of the two icons:

Google+ Personal Results Icon (head and shoulders)

I put in the search term The New York Times, which I happen to mention often in my posts. I’ve also written letters to the editors and commented on their stories so I knew something of mine would show up if I typed in “The New York Times” in Google search.

First, I clicked the Personal Results icon. Sure enough, I found a reference to a recent post I wrote about The Times and its mistake in accidentally cancelling the subscriptions of 8 million subscribers.

My Google+ Personalized Search of The New York Times

When I hit the globe icon, that reference disappeared. Neat.

Highlighting Words in Google+ Posts

I wish I could find where I read this because I would give attribution. It’s a tiny but nice little touch that Google+ has incorporated so that you can highlight important words in your posts. Highlighting may improve your search results. I tried this tip and it works.

For example, see the bold face in this mock post:

 “Learn more about Google+ in HubSpot’s new ebook”

Here’s how you do it. Type the words you want to highlight. Then type an * in front and at the end* of the words. Like this: Learn more about Google+ in *HubSpot’s new ebook * and you get “Learn more about Google+ in HubSpot’s new ebook.” Viola!

I’ll pass along other easy-to-understand tips on Google+ as I find them. Please include your tips in the comment box. I’d sure like to know about them.

The title tag is the most important element of your blog or website. My blogging coach Bea Fields just recorded a tutorial about optimizing the title tag for her Become a Blogging Maniac course. It’s at the bottom of this post.

Your title tag must contain key words that describe your business. A descriptive, keyword-laden title tag is essential for increasing rankings in search engines.

The title tag appears at the very top of a blog or website and is usually overlooked by visitors — but not by Google or other search engines.  Search engines will “bold” (or highlight) those terms in the search results when a user searches for those terms.

Here is a screen shot of the title tag of SEOmoz.  I don’t need to tell you what they do. Below the screen shot is the video. Take the 5 minutes or so to view it and learn how to write a powerful title tag.

Related articles

• On-Page Search Engine Optimization Information and Facts (seotacticstoday.wordpress.com)
• Search Engine Optimization – Title and Meta Tags (stepup2success.wordpress.com)

I was in a new business meeting the other day and suggested that starting a company blog had the potential to increase visitors to the company’s website. We all know (don’t we?) that Google rewards dynamic content so posting regularly will eventually boost your rankings.

Why Blogs are Abandoned

The designer I was with said “Oh, no” that won’t work. I couldn’t blame him. He had designed websites and blogs for a number of clients and within a short time the blogs had been abandoned.

It’s a commitment to write a weekly or twice-weekly blog. Who will write the blog – someone inside the company or will we outsource it? What will we write about? Where will our ideas come from?

These are legitimate questions, but I believe it is a lack of will and commitment from top management that is behind the failures.There isn’t a plan in place to keep the blog going and building momentum.

Tips for Bloggers

So, if you, or your company, have abandoned your blog here are some steps to take:

• Make a commitment. Decide that you want to increase traffic to your website by x% within six months, or whatever benchmark you want to establish. A blog will help you do that. Static websites don’t cut it.
• Choose categories, or “buckets” of stories. Suppose you’re an accounting firm. You could decide to write about how to finance your retirement, tips for cutting taxes, and estate planning. Over time you could add more buckets.
• Assign responsibilities. Like any other marketing activity, you’ve got to allocate the necessary human and financial resources. Identify content experts in the company as sources for information the writer will need. Think carefully about assigning revenue-producing employees to write. They will usually find an excuse not to do it – I have a client calling, or I need to go to a new business pitch, etc. Better that they supply the writer with the facts she needs. Let accountants be accountants. Let writers be writers.
• Build an inventory of posts. Set a launch date for your blog and then prepare a schedule of posts for the first three months. Write your launch post and at least four other posts from different categories before you begin publishing. The first day, have a launch post that introduces your blog and why you are writing it. At the same time, publish the first four (or more) posts. Why? Because a single post will look like an orphan all by itself. The posts will contain great content and encourage readers to subscribe.
• Offer an incentive. Give readers a reason to subscribe, such as a special report, or something free that would otherwise cost them.
• Solicit guest posts. Ask clients and other experts to write guest posts. You will get backlinks to their sites (another SEO boost) and provide your readers with differing points of view.
• Post to social networks. Now that you have a blog you can automatically distribute new posts to social networks such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Google+. You will be reaching new audiences who may visit your website and decide you’re a company they would like to do business with.
• Repurpose the content. Turn your blog posts into articles, slide shows and electronic brochures. You will be leveraging your investment and distributing your content through other communications channels.

Beat the Competition

It’s true that many companies have abandoned their blogs. Shame on them. They are missing out on a great opportunity to establish the company’s authority on topics of interest to clients and prospects.

Most people still get their information about a company from its website. Your blog will serve as a sort of Pied Piper, luring in readers searching for valuable information to improve themselves and their businesses.

Why not have them come to you and not a competitor?

Related articles

• The benefits of business blogging: Part 1 (marketing.yell.com)
• 12 Business Blogging Shortcuts for Time-Crunched Marketers (hubspot.com)

Curbing company email

Volkswagen made some news recently when it came to an agreement with its unions to deactivate e-mail on company BlackBerries when its German staff members are off duty. Deutsche Telecom instituted a similar policy to give employees some time away from their smart phones.

Is this the start of a trend?

On All the Time

The on-all-the-time culture is spreading around the world. When business associates write to me in the evening or over weekends, they can usually expect a quick response – and vice versa.

There’s very little light left between work and leisure time. Companies are definitely worried about work-life balance because a burned-out employee isn’t very productive.

But wait a minute. How does this affect how many times my blog posts are retweeted or the number of comments that I get? This isn’t funny or off topic. Companies plan their social media campaigns around the times that consumers are tweeting and commenting – and that’s often after-hours on company smart phones.

Getting Measurable Traffic

I wrote about how to get traffic to your blog in an earlier post. From a study I quoted:

• Timing: Blogs get the most views at 11 a.m., most comments between 8-9 a.m., most retweets at 4 p.m.

• Post early in the week for views and links and on the weekend for comments.

If employees are tuning out email on their own time, will they also be turning off social networks like Facebook where consumer products companies are cashing in big time? Will they stop commenting on weekends?

No doubt social media fatigue is setting in. Twitter continues growing, but by some estimates close to 120 million accounts are dormant. Many users have only written a few tweets so they are hardly active.

Many businesses both large and small are jumping into social media to market to their customers, abandoning traditional channels like paid advertising.

It may be time to rethink throwing all your marketing resources into social media if the window for reaching buyers continues to narrow as customers tune out.

Imagine my surprise yesterday when I received the following email from The New York Times at 1:04 pm.

Not me. Of course, as you may have read, The Times committed a big boo-boo yesterday when it accidentally cancelled the subscriptions of 8 million print and online subscribers. The media and Twitter scribes were all over it in the intervening three hours before the Times sent out this correction at 4:19 pm:

The Correction

The Times did the right thing, of course, but I’d like to make a point about content and tone of the correction. Aren’t they in the communication business? Note the cold tone of voice and shortness of the second email. Why was the first email sent in error? How did it happen? Subscribers would have welcomed a more detailed explanation.

A Missed Opportunity to Engage Readers

A Forbes writer, who also received an email, tried calling the Times and kept getting busy signals. It’s a sure bet that many, many other subscribers had the same experience.

Sure, it was nice to receive an apology. But The Times missed a great opportunity to engage with its subscribers. The paper could have used some humor in its message and personalized it with the signature of an actual person.  Can a company write a letter?  Didn’t a human being write this missive?

The Times wrote a story online about the mistake at 2:29 pm and sent out this  message in its official Twitter feed, “If you received an e-mail today about canceling your New York Times subscription, ignore it. It’s not from us.” Oh, yes, it was. Turns out the email was sent by a Times employee, according to Eileen Murphy, a Times spokesperson. And why the delay of almost 90 minutes before the subscribers received the apology?

The Times Email Could Have Said –

Dear Valued New York Times Reader,

Wow, did we goof! We did NOT cancel your subscription. Please ignore our earlier email with the subject line, “Important information regarding your subscription.”

It was an honest mistake — someone pushed the wrong button and we had 8 million unhappy readers for a couple of hours before we fixed things. Your email was not compromised. Everything is back on autopilot. You’ll continue to receive your New York Times as you always have.

If you’d like to vent, we invite you to visit us on our official Twitter account at https://twitter.com/#!/nytimes. We’ll also answer any questions you have about your subscription or any of our other services.

Thanks for your patience and understanding. We value you as a New York Times reader.

Sincerely,

Arthur O. Sulzberger, Jr.
Publisher

— now isn’t that better than the email I did receive?

PS – see the comment below. The email went to non-subscribers, too. What a goof-up.

I don’t ordinarily hype affiliate products here but I do think if you’re a blogger you will like the CommentLuv WordPress plugin. Today is the last day to benefit from the launch price of $67 for this plugin.

The newest version of the CommentLuv plugin for self-hosted WordPress blogs displays the title and a link to the last blog post of anyone who leaves a comment on your blog as well as their Twitter handle. This shows appreciation for someone who takes the time to join the conversation. Nice touch for thanking people who comment on your blog by directing other visitors to their last post. There are many other bells and whistles like advanced backlink features and spam protection. Check out the video that describes all the features by clicking on the image below where you can also buy the plugin. Enjoy!

Associated Press has issued new social media guidelines for reporters who are sourcing social networks and retweeting content. What got my attention is that AP cautions its reporters to fact-check the authenticity of a person/organization posting on social networks and the information posted and tweeted.

Image via CrunchBase

AP points out in its guidelines:

If you come across photos, videos or other multimedia content that you would like to use in your news report, you must verify its authenticity. You must also determine who controls the copyright of the material and get permission from that person/organization to use it. Phony accounts are rampant in the social media world and can appear online within minutes of a new name appearing in the news. Examine the details to determine whether the page could have just as easily been created by somebody else.

AP gives this example of not giving an implied endorsement of a tweet.

Bad: “RT@jonescampaign smith’s policies would destroy our schools”

Good: “RT Jones campaign now denouncing smith on education: @jonescampaign smith’s policies would destroy our schools

Image via CrunchBase

There has been a lot of commentary about the new guidelines. New York Times media reporter David Carr @carr2n added his two cents in his own tweet: AP to staff: Don’t retweet anything with an opinion. http://bit.ly/rKbgDE Good luck with that. I believe what he meant is that so much of what flows through social media is opinion that it will be tough to enforce that guideline.

Am I Spreading Misinformation — and Are You?

That got me thinking that I post retweets without checking the authenticity of the information. I feel I’m on pretty safe ground if I’m retweeting articles from reputable publications like the Times, or business colleagues on Twitter that I know and trust. I also avoid content that defames others or seem suspect. But surely some of my RTs  could be questionable. So am I spreading misinformation?

And do you “like” a blog post, RT a tweet or give a +1 to an article without checking the source or accuracy of the information?

There is no doubt a great deal of misinformation circling the globe on the back of RTs and “likes.” What are your thoughts on this problem? Do you have self-imposed rules about the information you’ll help to go viral?

Here is a copy of the AP guidelines. You’ll need to save it to your computer as a PDF to open it.

AP SocialMediaGuidelinesNov.2011

Image via CrunchBase

My blog is automatically distributed to my subscribers when I hit the “publish” button. It usually works very smoothly. But lately, the gremlins have been at work. So if you are a subscriber, I apologize that twice last week you received an email with my latest blog post and the links to 9 previous posts. I had nothing to do with it!

No Customer Support

Feedburner, owned by Google, is a service that 99% of bloggers use to distribute their posts. But there is no way to get in touch with the company when you have a problem. You are directed to Feedburner Help Groups whose members are simply other Feedburner users who may be able to help you with your problem if you can’t find an answer in Feedburner’s Q&A section. Fine and dandy, but I saw my question posted earlier by other users. The response? Nada.

How are ordinary folks, like me, supposed to work out these technical problems? As I’ve often said, technology is great when it works. It’s not working, Feedburner!!

If you are a fellow blogger and know what is causing the problem, please leave me a comment.

Thank  you!

Slowly, but surely, more companies are seeing the wisdom of enlisting their employees as brand ambassadors. I’ve written about this several times, including the post 7 Steps to Making Your Employees Brand Ambassadors.

Employees are eager to help because if their company succeeds and grows, they will too.  Employees who are actively engaged on social media as brand advocates help to burnish the company’s brand, they are motivated by being asked to take on the assignment, and customers receive better service.

CommProz.biz has identified 10 companies with outstanding brand ambassador programs. What companies would you add to their list?

Pick your best blog posts

I’ve been inspired by my fellow blogger and marketer Danny Iny at Firepole Marketing and taken up his challenge to curate seven of my blog posts for my readers.

These will be my own selection of seven posts that I’ve written: the most beautiful post, the most popular post, the most controversial post, the most helpful post, the post whose success surprised me, the post I didn’t feel got the attention it deserved, and the post I am most proud of.

Danny, in turn, got the idea from Stuart Mills at Unlock the Door who borrowed the idea from…you get the idea. Hey, viral marketing at it’s best.  So, here goes.

7 Posts in 7 Categories

My most beautiful post. There is actually a tie for the posts I wrote about my wonderful late husband Charles. What I Learned From My Husband About Having a Passion for Life and Do People Write Love Letters Anymore? These are written from the heart and I hope you enjoy them. Tip: don’t be afraid to show your emotions in your writing.

My most popular post. I wrote Profile of a Social Media Director over a year ago and it still regularly tops the charts or is close to it, depending on what I’ve written that week. It’s not surprising. I simply went through the job boards and wrote a list of what I found most often. Hmm. I need to go back and see if it needs an update. Tip: know what’s being searched and write about it.

My most controversial post. This has to be “Connect by Hertz” Car Sharing Deal Leaves Me Spinning My Wheels on Facebook in which I complain about Hertz forcing me to use Facebook to book a $5 car which wasn’t really a deal…well, read the post and the very long response from Hertz (guess they will never hire me). Tip: don’t be afraid to stick your neck out.

My most helpful post. I was surprised that my post How to Insert the Name of Your Website into Your LinkedIn Profile received so many comments. The default “Company Website” in a LinkedIn profile can be changed to the actual name of your website but few people even know you can do it – or how to do it. Made me feel good to help out. Tip: do not be afraid you’ll be talking down to your readers with simple how-to posts.

The post whose success most surprised me. That would be another simple how-to post entitled How to Write a LinkedIn Invitation. I had received a well-crafted invitation that so impressed me that I wrote about it. (You never use the default I’d like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn do you?). Tip: see above.

The post I didn’t feel got the attention it deserved. Considering that I feel a lot of my posts don’t get the attention (read traffic) I want, maybe the post should have been better written. Anyway, here is one that landed with a thud. It received one comment – from my blogging coach. I still think it has a lot of good content even though it didn’t do what my advice said it should! 11 Types of Blogs To Generate Web Traffic and Please Your Readers. OK, stop laughing. Tip: don’t overestimate the power of your writing.

The post I’m most proud of. I didn’t think this post July 4th is a Day to Celebrate Life, Liberty and the Heart and Soul in Writing would generate a lot of traffic, and it didn’t. But I’m grateful to live in America. I have so much to be thankful for when I see the suffering in the rest of the world: hunger, poverty, social unrest. So I hope you don’t mind, if you live elsewhere, that I took the opportunity to celebrate the red, white and blue. Tip: write from the heart.

Which of my seven posts is your favorite?

Taking a cue from Danny at Firepole Marketing, do you want to do a 7 Links Challenge on your blog? (If you do, let me know, and I’ll link to it as Danny will link to mine).