A few posts ago I wrote about an infographic from copyblogger that listed 20 ways to find inspiration for your next blog post when you don’t have a clue what to write. I don’t ordinarily publish a blog late on a Saturday night. But I’d like to add a 21st idea that I’ll reveal momentarily.

The weather has been gorgeous in New York and those of us who live here have heaved a sigh of relief that we had such a mild winter compared to last year’s piles of snow and freezing temperatures. I took a long walk and when I entered my apartment lobby I was enchanted by the vase of flowers — they are changed every week. I took out my iPhone and snapped a photo. Of course, if I lived in the ‘burbs the image would be of a flower bed in my back yard. But this bouquet is inspiration enough for me.

So tip number 21: blog about something that makes you happy.

They will write blogs, not term papers

The words “term paper” strike fear into the hearts of students, followed closely by “essay.”  I remember those dark days of burning the candle to finish a term paper in college. It usually wasn’t fun if you had been assigned a specific topic.

I was lucky that my English professor, Dr. Edward Chalfant, didn’t require term papers, but simply asked us to write what we felt about an American novel or a Shakespearean play.

He was ahead of his time and foretold the coming of the blog, an informal style of writing that can enable a more personal connection between students and professors and between companies and customers in the business world.

Blogging for Grades

The New York Times weighed in on this topic recently, quoting educators who advocate trashing the old-fashioned term paper and those who still preach that students need the discipline of the format: make a point, defend it, repeat it.

Championing the blog as a legitimate and more modern style of writing is Cathy N. Davidson, an English professor at Duke, who has written extensively about learning in the digital age. She wants to replace the term paper with the blog and says, “This mechanistic writing is a real disincentive to creative but untrained writers.”

Instead of term papers, she assigns her students to publish 500-1,500 word entries on an internal class blog as essays for public consumption. Many professors at other institutions are following her lead

The New Way of Writing

There is no doubt that writing has become informal with the advent of the Internet and social media. But don’t blame the Internet for everything. The trend towards a more conversational style started long ago when television entered almost every home. We’ve become accustomed to receiving information in “sound bites.”

Let’s face it: we want to be entertained. Fox News leads the audience ratings because the network understands this new paradigm.

Training students to write term papers and dissertations that no one will ever read again is not training students for the workplace. Yes, students must learn the basic rules of grammar. People won’t read poorly written blog posts just as professors will downgrade poorly written essays.

Out With the Old, In With the New

But the format for writing has changed:

Old

• Make a point
• Defend it
• Repeat it
• Summarize

New

• Grab attention
• Make your point
• Support with evidence
• Persuade to your point of view
• Call to action

Communication Preferences

Students who enter the workforce will soon learn the rules. How do their managers want to receive information: verbally, by email, in a written document? They sure don’t want something that reads like a term paper.

The most important element to any communication – written or verbal – is the call to action.

During our entire work lives we will be required to persuade others to our points of view. That’s how we assume more responsibility and authority. It isn’t good if no one pays attention to you.

George H. W. Bush famously insisted that his staff prepare one-page summaries on important issues. The President had the power to start conflicts, appoint Supreme Court Justices and approve or veto legislation. Yet, he wanted his information in short takes and felt that was enough to make a decision.

Blogging is the New Term Paper

Kudos to those professors who understand that the way we communicate has changed forever. Holding onto to old communications vehicles – like the term paper – is self-defeating. Worse, it doesn’t prepare students for the real world.

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)

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!

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!

As many of you know, I learned to blog from a master, Bea Fields, who conducts the Become a Blogging Maniac program. There is still time to register for her next course which starts on Monday, October 24. If you want to register, you can click on the banner ad at the lower right, “Get Your Blog Up and Running.” At the end of the program, you’ll have set up your own WordPress blog. I took this course from Bea almost three years ago and I’m a true believer!

Here is more information from Bea:

• 12 hours of live webinar instruction (both audio and video)

• Access to our online library (both the old and the new)

• 12 hours of video so that you can go back and watch any classes you missed

• 4 (one hour) coaching sessions with Bea Fields on getting your blog up and running

• Over 100 resources and tutorials to get each and every question answered.  We really go for it in this program!

So if you’ve always dreamed of having a blog, now is the time to start.

Image via CrunchBase

Facebook will be delivering another roundhouse punch to members when it eliminates the Discussions app on October 31^st.  The behemoth wants you to have these discussions on your Wall.

So what happens to all those juicy discussions you’ve had over the years? Poof. Gone. So if you want to save them, better make plans to copy and store them someplace else.

Why a Blog is Essential

Facebook’s latest announcement – and fans are still reeling from all the recent changes (for the better?) – reinforces my oft-stated case that a business needs to have its own forum for discussions with customers and other stakeholders. And that forum is your blog. (Even Facebook has its own blog).

You own your blog and its content. Imagine someone coming to your website and arbitrarily taking down a couple of your pages and all its valuable content. Well, that’s just what’s happening. Facebook owns its site and, remember, you’re just a guest and another pair of eyeballs for Facebook advertisers.

Facebook’s Explanation

Facebook explains in its Help section What happened to the Reviews and Discussions tabs on my Facebook Page?

ZDNet has a detailed story about this new change if you want to learn more about it.

Help With Your Blog

Write Speak Sell is built on a WordPress content management system. It is my website. When people refer to blogs they’re usually talking about a blog post. A post is an article like the one you’re reading now. So my website hosts content about me and my company as well as my blog posts.

I’m a fan of the WordPress platform because it is easy to go “under the hood” to make changes and add content and search engines love to reward new content. I recently became an affiliate for Bea Fields’ Become a Blogging Maniac program (Bea Fields was my blogging coach and she’s terrific). So if you’re interested in setting up a self-hosted blog, or become more proficient if you already have a blog, click on one of the two images at the bottom of the right column.

Take Control

Take control of your own content and don’t be at the mercy of Facebook and other social networks that can make your discussions disappear without your permission. Start a website on a blog platform or link a WordPress blog to your existing website. You’ll be happy that you did.

Is paid advertising dead? To hear the experts, it’s certainly on life support. Inbound marketing is all the rage.

HubSpot is credited with coining the term inbound marketing and the company makes its living by selling services to help companies figure out ways to get customers to come to them instead of the other way around. HubSpot describes it in this diagram:

It’s true that consumers are tuning out paid advertising and more often finding you by searching the web – your blog, through your participation on social media sites like Twitter and Facebook and now Google+. Those of us who write blogs are continually fretting over key words and SEO. We distribute our content to a wide range of social media networks. Build it, promote it, and they will come. Or, maybe not.

Inbound Marketing Campaigns

Thing is the companies that are reaping the rewards of inbound marketing are spending millions on inbound marketing campaigns. They run sneaky display ads to get you to their Facebook pages and corner the market for keywords by bidding up the prices of Google ads that will get you to visit their sites. More power to them.

So the notion of inbound marketing being “free” is a misnomer. Of the hundreds of thousands of blogs out there, many thousands never receive a visitor or get a comment. A lot of marketers are sitting around still waiting for their first visitor.

Going Offline

I may be in the minority. But going offline has me intrigued. You remember offline don’t you? That involves calling a prospect on the phone and making an appointment to discuss your business in person. Two live people in an office talking to each other. How novel!

I’m being a little facetious, I know, so please forgive me. But it’s important to re-evaluate how we communicate with our customers and how we sell to them. There are too many social media “gurus” out there who are selling programs that promise to “monetize” your blog. Take their advice and rake in the money from products and services you sell directly to consumers. Web searches will lead them to you like the Pied Piper.

What Works For You

Can we all take a breath for a minute and think, really think, about how we’re going to build our business? Inbound marketing is great and growing but it’s not the whole story. I have a friend whose husband is a lawyer with a special niche. She spends $100 a month for a local Google ad that’s always at the top of the page and that’s how he gets all his leads. Paid advertising.

Some people do make a nice living monetizing their blogs. But others use their blogs as brand builders and as portfolios of their work.

Find what works for you. Don’t be embarrassed just because you found your newest customer next to you in line at the movies or in an elevator leaving a networking meeting, like I did.

Image via CrunchBase

In my last blog post, I described  services that rank the popularity of websites. Alexa was among those I discussed. I amplified my comments on this ranking service in a post in The Blogger’s Bulletin. This is a subgroup of the Blog Zone on LinkedIn, and consists of articles written for people interested in blogs.

Earlier I had posed a question in LinkedIn’s Answers, “Are Alexa Rankings Influential and Accurate?” My post in The Blogger’s Bulletin is based on the responses I received.

The answers can’t be extrapolated to the entire universe, but I did get some interesting responses which I classified as Yes, No, and Yes and No. So if you’re interested in what other people have to say about Alexa, please venture over to The Blogger’s Bulletin and leave your comments, too.  Thanks.

Social media has grown so fast over the past couple of years that I often wish everything would stop for six months so I could catch up.  Do you sometimes feel that way, too?  In my blog, I try to keep up with developments and share what I’ve learned with you, my valued readers.

There are a number of ways you can access my content – and, if you’re not a subscriber already, I hope you will become one if you enjoy what you’re reading here. I’d also love to get your feedback on topics you’d like me to write about and how I can keep improving this blog.

Keeping Up With my Blog

Write Speak Sell is actually built on the WordPress content management platform – so it serves as my website and the place where I post my articles, or blog posts. So, when I say I’m writing a blog, I really mean an article. Bloggers are just article writers – no big deal!

There are a number of ways to follow my blog/website/posts:

• Email updates. You can subscribe and receive new articles by email. Just fill in the subscription box at the right.

 

• RSS Feed. You are no doubt familiar with the orange RSS icon. It’s the one on the far right under “Connect with Jeannette.” If you click on that you will see this screen that gives you the option of subscribing and being notified of updates on aggregators like your Google Reader or Google Home Page.You can always change it to another reader. This way you can see all of your news feeds together at a time of your choosing. Of course, you need to have an account with one of these sites.

 

• Bookmark it. If you want to read my posts on your schedule you can simply bookmark Write Speak Sell.

 

• Social Bookmarking – Increasingly readers are tracking their favorite bloggers on popular social bookmarking sites such as Delicious and StumbleUpon. You’ll notice at the side of every blog post there is a “traveling” vertical display of various social media sites like Digg, LinkedIn, and Twitter. (I’d love it if you’d click on these to RT and post to these sites for others to read my articles.) Next to the bottom is an icon “Save.” If you click on that you can save my blogs to Delicious and find them later. But you also help spread the news about Write Speak Sell which helps to attract more readers.

Your Feedback, Please

I’d love to hear from you in the comments section. Let me know the topics that interest you and what I can do to improve this site. Thank you!