Let it go
Surrender
Dislocate

Here’s the biggest reason why social media marketing efforts and other new media campaigns fail.

They don’t let go.

They’re too afraid of that horrible blog post.

They try too hard to steer the conversation their way.

Falling Asleep at the Wheel: When Social Media and Blog Campaigns Forget to Forget Themselves

August 29, 2005.

Where were you on that day – the day Hurricane Katrina blew through The Big Easy?

In late 2006, I had the opportunity to be part of a team that started a well-meaning but ill-fated blog called New Orleans Truth. Its purpose was to help spread the word about post-Katrina rebuilding and recovery efforts in the Gulf Coast areas it affected.

But we didn’t do our due diligence before launching. We assumed that the local blogging community in the New Orleans area would welcome our out-of-town reporting with open arms.

Instead, they took our launch like a slap in the face.

We should have reached out to those in who were already leading that online conversation and who badly wanted to feel listened to instead of shouted over. Instead, we came across as The Disaster Profiteering Krewe.

But we forgot to forget ourselves first, and as a result, promoting our new venture rapidly become a losing battle.

If only we had approached a few leading bloggers in that niche first and said, “Hi – we’re a for-profit publisher looking to do a non-profit, fundraising, awareness-raising blog about this tough situation you’ve been living and blogging about already – would you like to work together?”

Lesson painfully learned:

You fail on the road if you fall asleep at the wheel.

Likewise, you fail in your marketing if you lose focus – if your gaze falls from your goals and the people who you hope will take you there.

Why Letting Go and Surrendering is the Fastest Course to Blogging and Social Media Success

And so fade away
So let it go
And so fade, fade, fade away

So let it go.

Have you ever tried to overcome a serious addiction?

It takes an amazing amount of sheer willpower. It also takes an amazing amount of sheer self-denial – of letting go.

Finding success in social media marketing is the same. Your campaign will succeed only to the degree that you remember that it’s not your campaign. It never was. It can’t be, unless you really want to shortchange yourself and your organization.

Where is your campaign? Where is your community?

If you think it’s headquartered at your Facebook page, your blog or your website, or anybody’s else’s URL, you’re wrong.

Takeaway Lesson: Surrender Your Social Media Campaign and Make It Theirs

I’m wide awake
Wide awake
I’m not sleeping

Is your new media campaign wide awake?

Could it be time for a revival?

Are you obeying the law of the harvest?

Don’t tell people what to do all the time. Instead, “make them want to do it in such a way that it feels like the idea was their own” (Dan Zarrella).

Surrender control of your campaign’s course and you’ll gain far more momentum.

Subscribe now so you don’t miss our next article, 15 Points Your Social Media Marketing Plan Should Include.

lyrics: Bad by U2; images: her wings

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“Feed me! Feed me!” it cries.

Ah, but you’re busy. And you’ve been ignoring it for a while.

Now you’ve decided to come back, dust off your business blog or professional blog and restore it to its SEO/traffic/attention/revenue-friendly ways. And you’re wondering what to do.

How do you revive your business blog?

Here’s how.

Solution #1: Talk to me.

Reviving blogs is part of what I do for a living. You can’t go wrong. Just call me up at 970-372-6630, leave a comment below or shoot me an email.

Solution #2: Spy on me.

Just keep an eye on this blog. I’ve left it alone for several months while I’ve been focusing on other projects, and now it’s time to return to it in style.

Watch and learn from my mistakes and successes as I work to clean up, improve and grow Visionary Blogging rapidly. I’ll post regularly on my progress right here. So sign up for updates if you haven’t.

Now let’s get your blog moving again!

image: srqpix

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I’ve spent hundreds of hours over the past three months on Internet projects at various stages of development.

Nothing has impressed me more in that time than the concept of momentum.

What is momentum?

My concept of momentum as it applies to the ever-emerging social Web is not unlike one of its textbook definitions, which identifies it as the product of the mass and velocity of an object.

In other words:

(how big you are) x (how fast you’re going) = momentum

example: (a really big dude) x (doing a belly flop) = mucho momentum

The Web Has Unbelievable Momentum

This beast we call the Web is like a nine-zillion headed Hydra galloping at full speed on a treadmill that’s constantly accelerating inside a spacecraft that’s hurtling across the …

… anyway, you get the picture. It’s really big and it’s going really fast.

And Your Online Stuff Needs Pretty Impressive Momentum

So how big is your stuff that you’re doing online, and how fast is it going?

And what does it have to look like so that when it streaks across the sky of each individual’s mind, its gleam and arc snatch their interest like a case of candy bars passing under the nose of a hungry five-year-old?

If you can’t answer these two questions, stop and don’t go anywhere until you can.

Because Working With Momentum is Sooo Much Better Than …

… working without it.

What On Earth Are You Talking About, Easton?

I’m talking about that website you keep meaning to start but never seem to get around to working on.

Or that (insert your favorite social media noun here – blog/Twitter account/Facebook page/widget/viral video/social network/etc.) that you started and stopped and started and stopped and started and stopped.

Start-and-stop is your mortal enemy here on the Web.

Pause as needed, but don’t lose your momentum.

How to Keep the Law of Online Momentum

On the Web, momentum matters much more than how much time or even how much effort you pour into a project or a product or an event.

So keep the social Web’s law of momentum. Propel each thing forward enough to get it to gather speed on its own – even if that means working on fewer projects at the same time.

Make a plan (with awareness/focus/discernment/imagination) and then apply all your diligence to it.

It’s that simple. Not always easy, but always that simple.

Helpful Resources on Building Social Media Momentum

• BusinessWeek: Keeping Momentum in Social Media
• The Executive Pastor’s Guide to Social Media – Part 6 – Momentum by John Saddington
• The 5 Different Forms of Social Media News Momentum by Greg Finn

image: Flickr

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Want a vastly improved website/blog? One that will help you drive more traffic and more revenue to your business than ever before?

If so, I have a very special offer for you.

UPDATE: Sold out! But we still offer great services that can benefit your business or organization today. Visit Website Habitat and Business Habitat to learn more.

Dawud Miracle and I have partnered to offer business website design services through WebsiteHabitat.com.

Here’s a taste of what you can get through Website Habitat:

1. A complete professional WordPress-powered website to help you market your business effectively
2. The incredible Headway theme to make updating your website a breeze
3. My SEO Action Pack service to help boost your website’s search engine rankings and traffic
4. A 30-day free trial membership at BusinessHabitat.com, our online marketing advice counterpart to Website Habitat

Let’s break it down a bit more so you can see what you’re getting.

1. A Robust, Easy-to-Use Business Website Running on WordPress

WordPress is an amazingly powerful yet easy to use platform to run your business website on. It lets you add a blog to your website very easily, and there are thousands of add-on tools (plugins) that make it easy for you to upgrade your website in every way imaginable.

We’ve got almost 30 ready-to-go layout options at our website. If none of those tickles your fancy, you can simply bring a theme to us – either let us know about a free theme you like and we’ll install it for you, or buy a premium theme and we’ll take of installing it for you as well.

We don’t just install WordPress and leave you to do all the rest – we actually do all the settings and install a bunch of additional plugins to help you get started. And we offer personal support to make sure you’re comfortable with your new website.

2. Headway 1.5 Included in Your Design Package

Headway 1.5 is simply the most powerful WordPress theme ever created.

That’s really all I need to say about it – watch the video and you’ll pee your pants see what I mean.

We’re ecstatic to be able to combine forces with Grant Griffiths and Michael Martine, the guys spearheading the Headway revolution, to give you the option of having Headway installed with any Website Habitat service package.

3. The SEO Action Pack for Better Search Rankings and Traffic

Along with your new website design, you can also get a top-notch master keyword/phrase list with personal instructions to help you make content for your website that gets the highest possible search engine rankings and traffic with the least possible effort.

Improve Blog SEO Quickly and Easily

• I’ll look carefully at your website and your industry in order to generate a hand-crafted list of possible content ideas, along with keyword suggestions
• Save countless hours of time because you don’t have to figure out what would be best to write about
• Save money by relying less on expensive AdWords and other pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns and more on free search listings to drive traffic
• Get one-on-one expert help to know how to apply the master keyword list to your particular website
• Enjoy a higher conversion rate thanks to the high quality of the keyword list
• Learn how to track your content’s success
• Make it much easier for you to write search engine-friendly content

What’s Included in the SEO Action Pack?

• A carefully prepared master list of the top 30-40 keywords and phrases that you’re likely to rank well at minimal effort and with maximum likelihood of return (i.e. clicks that lead to people visiting your website and ultimately buying your products/services)
• Dozens of headline ideas and copywriting tips to help you write for the Web
• 30-minute private phone conversation with me to discuss the implementation of your list and answer any questions you may have

4. 30 Days of Full Access at BusinessHabitat.com

Business Habitat is the sister project of Website Habitat, and is also run by Dawud Miracle and me.

At Business Habitat we can provide limitless service, support and training on how to do just about anything with your website. We offer weekly teleclasses on specific topics, a private blog, podcast and videocast, video tutorials, ongoing courses, and a way for you to ask questions directly of us – which we’ll answer.

The goal of Business Habitat is to provide you with the right information, support and training so that your business can thrive on the Web. So we’ve gone to great lengths to place content that isn’t just highly purposeful, but that also directly meets you business, website and social marketing needs. And unlike many sites that just talk about what to do – we talk about it a bit then show you, step-by-step, how to actually do it.

Get a Website Habitat Service Package Today and Enjoy a Stronger Business Presence on the Web

Dawud and I have worked extremely hard for weeks on end to prepare this offer. I can guarantee that it’s the best offer I’ve ever heard of for this level of service and attention to your business. And I can promise that you’ll love having us work for you.

What are you waiting for? Let’s get you the business website you’ve always wanted (plus amazing support) at a price you can afford.

Click here to visit WebsiteHabitat.com.

And let me know if you have any questions whatsoever. I’m here to help.

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Warning: You’re losing customers and fans right now because your blog content isn’t converting as well as it should.

Here’s a comprehensive step-by-step guide on how to make, publish and market blog content that will convert more visitors into buyers and brand promoters.

Why is the Blog Content Creation Process So Important?

Great blog content – the words, pictures, sounds and videos that you present to your blog visitors – makes your business or organization more successful in at least the following ways:

1. It impels your target audience to buy from you and to recommend your business to others.
2. It provides search engines with a fresh batch of original stuff for their spiders to feed on, which means that more people will find your blog in search results.
3. It establishes your brand more strongly.
4. It helps you develop relationships of trust with people. After all, you do business with people, not businesses.
5. It leverages the emerging social Web. Because it’s on a blog and not in a white paper or press release, it invites immediate personal feedback and shows people you’re approachable and willing to listen.

In short, successful blog content rewards you and your business forever.

So you’ve got to know how to create it the right way.

How to Make Sure Your Content Creation Efforts Are Not a Waste of Time

Truly successful blog content is worth the effort.

So worth the effort.

Example: The Boston Red Sox

The Boston Red Sox baseball team failed to win a World Series between 1918 and 2004. Between those two championship seasons, 85 long summers came and went, the world’s population more than tripled, and generations of Red Sox fans lived and died in the fruitless pursuit of glory.

When the Sox finally triumphed in 2004, heart-sickening failure gave way to immensely satisfying success. Their astonishing run through the playoffs, which included a heart-stopping comeback against their hated rivals, the New York Yankees, and a merciless sweep of the mighty St. Louis Cardinals, will reward them and their fans forever.

Who can deny that that seemingly endless effort wasn’t worth it?

Yes, But …

You don’t have 86 years to try and fail, try and fail, try and fail before succeeding.

You want your business to succeed, and you want your blog to grow fast now.

So without forgetting the elation, the celebration and the downright sweetness of pure victory, let’s talk about some ways to accelerate your path to blogging success (and, therefore, professional success).

Step 1: Steel Yourself Against Your Fears

Before you dive right into making fabulous content that knocks people’s sox – er, socks off and propels your business forward indefinitely, stop.

Stop and stare at your fears.

Because if you don’t steel yourself against them right now, this journey might just take you 86 years and then some.

Ask Yourself:

• What makes me feel fear? When am I most afraid?
• How do my fears cause me to feel? What do they make me do or avoid doing?
• How does my blog and/or my business suffer because of my inability to face my fears?
• What would I like most to change about those situations which bring my fears to the forefront?
• What would I like most to change about my response to my fears?

As you answer each question, think about the types of fear you may be experiencing. The four fear types generally run in descending order of urgency – while all are important to address, you should probably prioritize your attention as follows:

1. Fear of physical pain that you may suffer due to lack of shelter, food, protection, clothing or money.
2. Fear of mental or emotional distress that you may feel.
3. Fear of physical pain that others may suffer.
4. Fear of mental or emotional distress that others may feel.

Studying your fear is like shining a bright light in a dark room. Everything becomes clearer, and things that once seemed menacing often turn out to nothing but shadows. And even the really scary stuff becomes easier to face, because you can discern its shape, its color, its direction. You can finally look fear in the eye and prepare to fight it.

Step 2: Choose a Purpose for Your Blog Content that Aligns Well With Your Professional Goals

“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?” – Alice
“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to.” – Cheshire Cat
“I don’t much care where …” – Alice
“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go.” – Cheshire Cat

Most businesses or organizations are trying to do one of two things, or both:

1. Make money.
2. Make a difference in the world.

So what’s your blog going to be for?

You have to know that now. You have to decide why you’re doing it in the first place. You have to know why you’re going with a blog instead of some other format for presentation and delivery of your content. And you have to know what you hope to accomplish in the end.

What’s the Point?

Do you always ask that question about every aspect of your Web marketing?

In other words, “Why am I doing this instead of not doing it? Why this and not something else? What is it about this activity that is meant to lead my business to success as quickly and efficiently as possible?”

If you can’t honestly think of a point to each marketing effort that clearly addresses your long-term success, should you really keep doing that thing?

What’s the point of what you just spent the last minute/hour/day/week/month/year doing on the Web to promote your business/product/service/event/cause?

If you don’t really know, then there’s not much point, is there?

Always Know Why You’re Doing a Blog in The First Place

With a strong purpose in place as your foundation, you are prepared to build the framework of your blog’s content on top of it.

For example, let’s say you’re the new media director for a global non-profit organization. You want your organization to have a powerful blog that motivates visitors to donate to your cause and spread awareness of the issues you’re passionate about.

Or let’s say you’re an independent business owner who wants to make a living by selling real estate. Perhaps the purpose of your blog could be to provide a way for people in your local area to discover you, come to trust you and eventually do business with you.

Whatever purpose you choose for your blog, make sure it passes this simple test:

If you remove it, your business or organization will have a significantly harder time achieving maximum success.

If you can’t honestly say that about your blog, scrap it. Unless:

1. You haven’t started the blog yet, or you have just started it (say, less than 90 days ago).
2. You can afford to waste time and money. (If so, I’d love to know what you’re doing all day!)

Step 3: Identify a Target Audience for Your Blog Content by Considering Your Blog’s Purpose and Goals

With a purpose and topic in mind for your blog, you should be able to decide who your blog is for.

Try to imagine the perfect visitor to your blog.  What is she like? What does she want that your blog can give her?  What problems does she have that you can solve through your blog?

For example, if your blog’s purpose is to help you sell ear plugs and your topic is going to be how awesome your custom made ear plugs are, then perhaps your ideal audience is a person who works at a busy airport or in a loud machine shop or at a shooting range.  Maybe that person suffers from hearing loss or headaches because of their loud environment and they want to know where they can find good ear plugs that fit their ears just right and keep all the noise out.

Who’s the Target Visitor?

Who your blog matters more than what your blog. It’s bigger than when or where or how, too.

Knowing why you’re blogging and who you’re blogging for is more fundamental than deciding anything else about your blog, including what to blog about.

When you’re birthing a blog, the why and who are the head and shoulders. After those emerge, the what and how come out quickly. (Unless it’s breech …)

A Bunch of Ways to Figure Out Who On Earth Your Blog Should Be For

• Observe carefully. Pay close attention to details. Pay extra close attention to the blogs and people whose examples you want to follow. Hang onto their every pixel and word.
• Experiment. The only way to know if a seed will grow into a tree is to plant it. If it grows, it’s a good seed. If not, either it’s a bad seed or its growing conditions are too poor. Similarly, you should have the courage to try things out on your blog and in your blogging routine. If they work, keep doing them. If they don’t, stop and consider changing your approach or replacing your idea.
• Imagine the future. Think of the possibilities and probabilities involved. Should your blog become a company? Depends in part on how many gray hairs or wrinkles you think that would give you.
• Remember the past. What to write about? Well, what worked before? That’s one good approach.
• Think about needs. For instance, what does your blog’s target audience need?
• Gather things together. It’s much easier to compare, say, possible blog niches if you’ve assembled a list of them in one spot.
• Narrow your field. Of vision, that is. Limit the options to make the right choice easier to discern. For example, instead of wondering which of a billion post ideas is best right now, you could force yourself to choose from among just three.
• Ask for help. Maybe someone in your blog audience, in your email contact list or in your apartment building has a better sense of discernment on a particular matter than you do. Maybe they’ve got access to a light source that you don’t. Or maybe they’re just positioned at a better angle.
• Write everything down. Well, not everything. But if you’re stuck in the discernment process, having a written collection of thoughts can help you begin to get clarity.
• Refresh your focus. Sometimes you lack discernment because you’re distracted.

Got all that?

Now you know your purpose and your audience.

All that’s left is for you to satisfy your audience over and over.

Step 4: Decide on a Theme for Your Blog Content that Fulfills Your Blogging and Organizational Purpose by Attracting and Satisfying Your Target Audience

What? It’s a broken tulip in soda.

Anyway, once you have decided on a purpose and an audience for your blog, it’s time to choose a theme that will help you fulfill that purpose.

For example:

• If your blog’s purpose is to help your company make money, pick a main topic that people think about often when looking online for information that can help them make a purchasing decision that is related to what you’re selling.
• If your blog’s purpose is to help your organization enlist supporters, pick a main topic that people who fit the description of your ideal supporter would respond favorably to – something they would say “Amen” to and want to join your cause because of having read, seen or listened to via your blog.

What about multiple themes?

In general, it is best for your blog to have one central theme or topic. You should have a single, specific audience in mind. But of course there may be valuable and important sub-topics to cover that can help you achieve your blogging and business goals.

Step 5: Make Content, Make Content, Make Content, Make Content, Make Content, Make Content … and Oh Yes Make More Content

run, rabbit, run
dig that hole, forget the sun
- Pink Floyd

Well, now comes the easy part.

Hard, hard, hard work.

But seriously – if you already know why you’re blogging and for whom, and what you’re supposed to blog about, and you’ve faced your blogging fears … what else is there to wonder about? Just start creating.

Okay, so this really is the toughest part of all.

To help you with that, here are 17 tips on how to get creative with your blog content:

1. Approve. It’s okay. Go ahead. Give yourself permission. Nobody’s watching. Don’t worry about embarrassing yourself.
   
2. Exercise. Take a few minutes each day or each week to do nothing but imagine stuff. No imaginary pain, no imaginary gain.
3. Write it down. Take notes as you daydream or imagine things. Wait until your imagination time ends if you’re concerned about breaking its flow. But once you’re done, write down what you’ve learned or experienced or thought.
   
4. Start with anything. Picture your blog if you like. Or picture a blue barracuda named Bob. It matters less where you begin than where you go.
5. Change something. So there’s Bob the barracuda in your brain. Now change something about him. Poof! His name’s Shirley. Poof! Give him legs. Poof! Red legs.
6. “What if …?” Ask yourself how the outcome may change if you change the input. Be merciless with the input, sensible with the output. “What if I posted once every 10 minutes to my blog for an entire week? My brain might turn to alfalfa, but I sure would get attention from the other bloggers in my niche. Maybe there’s a viral idea in there … how can I prevent the alfalfa and still get the attention? Aha! What if I just did this for one day? And all around a central theme? And invited others to do it too?”
7. Be silly. You’d be surprised at how many serious, useful ideas are born of ridiculous, useless parents. I say useless because so-called “crazy ideas” may not serve any real purpose by themselves – but they may become powerful means to coming up with totally sane concepts. So maybe Bob the barracuda’s image flashes in your mind, and you give him a bowtie and have him speak Hungarian backwards … and then you realize that the pattern on the bowtie would make a perfect logo for your blog, and that a single backwards word would make a brilliant catchphrase to go in your next post headline.
8. Go sideways. You think and act in well-worn paths all the time. When you practice honing your imagination, make sure to spend some time not forsaking those paths altogether, but rather following them for a while and then taking a brief detour. So if your habit is to answer every thoughtful comment left at your blog with a heartfelt expression of thanks, perhaps you might tweak (but not completely redo) your approach so that you always try to end with a follow-up question inviting further discussion.
9. Consider opposites. Let’s say your blog’s color scheme is dark on light. Without stopping to question your logic, just imagine the absolute photo negative opposite – a light on dark scheme. Allow both extremes to stand before you. Ponder their differences. What do you observe that can be applied whether or not you make a complete shift from the light scheme to its polar opposite?
10. Tell a story. Make it up as you go. It can be set in the past, present or future. “It’s tomorrow morning. I’m reading a bunch of new blog posts on how to increase my RSS subscriber numbers when there’s a knock at the door. It’s my favorite blogger! We’ve never met before, and it’s great to say hi in person. We sit down together and form a plan to play a practical joke on 100 other bloggers – the most audacious such plan ever concoted.” Etc. The point of this exercise is to evoke feelings or thoughts in passing that you can then latch on to and do something about.
11. Drink from imaginative fountains. Go to a creative blogger and ask them for inspiration. Talk to just about any eight-year-old. Watch a movie with lots of surprises in it. Just chug lots of IJ (imagination juice) and see what color your pee turns. In other words, you are what you drink. So partake of as much creative content and conversation as possible.
12. Mix things together. Bob the barracuda and your first blog post. The aftertaste of strawberries and the smell of whipped cream. Put any two or more things together and see what happens.
13. Consider iterations. Ask yourself what the next logical step in a progression should be. Fetus, baby, child, adolescent, adult, worm food. So after you put out that huge resource list post to charm the legions of social media fans, then what? Then you’ll probably get a lot of first-time visitors to your blog. So how can you prepare for that influx? What needs to change about your design, your content and your community? After the social media traffic spikes come and go, then what? Etc.
14. Apply everything. Try to always glean a meaningful lesson from your escapades to the land of enchantment and imagination (or whatever you wish to call it). And apply each lesson or insight like mad to your blog and to your blogging activities.
15. Share with someone. There are so many more ways to improve your imagination. Let someone else hear some of your mental rumblings. Imagination, when shared, becomes almost frighteningly powerful.
16. Caveat: Imagination isn’t everything. It’s wonderful, but it’s still all in your head. You have to do real work to make the internal become external. But hard work can make imagination pay off like – well, I guess you can imagine.
17. Caveat: Imagination can be scary. Especially when you let it run wild. Don’t let fear of the unknown paralyze you. You can control it. You can be its master. Remember what Mark Twain said: “Some of the worst things in my life never happened.” Remember what we said about fears at the start of this guide.

How Do You Delight Your Blog Audience?

The way to really please your blog’s audience is to create content that does at least one of the following:

1. Answers their questions.
2. Solves their problems.
3. Scratches their itches.
4. Soothes their fears.

Think about what combinations of text, images, sounds and/or videos would most successfully quench the different desires that your intended audience may have.

For example, if your blog topic is the latest news about U.S. President Barack Obama’s dog, you could:

• Share a video of the dog playing fetch.
• Show some photos of the dog and President Obama.
• Share an audio recording of the dog attempting to bite Rush Limbaugh.
• Write some tips on how to care for a dog of the same breed.

The blog post ideas above could:

1. Answer the question of what on earth is going on with that dog anyhow.
2. Solve the problem of not knowing much about the president’s dog.
3. Scratch the itch of wanting to feel in touch with politics or animal kingdom news (or both).
4. Soothe the fear that perhaps the President isn’t having fun with his dog or that the dog is sick, etc.

As long as you keep giving your audience members what they want, they will do two wonderful things:

1. They will keep coming back, forever and ever.
2. They will keep inviting others to come to you, forever and ever.

See how great blog content rewards your business forever (and ever)?

Step 6: Improve Your Blog Content Endlessly

After you’ve boldly set forth to delight a specific audience with blog content that fulfills a specific purpose for your business, the final step in this creation process is to continually strive to create better and better stuff.

To help you do just that, I recommend the following action steps:

1. Listen. Stop talking. Be still. Observe. Pay attention. Seek awareness before anything else. Listening enables deep conversation – the kind that builds relationships of trust. And trust is the single most valuable thing you can cultivate through your professional blog. A blog works best when it listens more than it talks.
2. Learn. Never stop learning. Learn what your blog visitors want. Learn what tools work best. Learn what content strikes the most pleasant chords. Learn what else you can do to improve your blog. Learn from every interation, every conversation, every meditation, every setback.
3. Lose. Stop trying so hard to win. Lose your pride. Lose your fear. Lose your doubt. Lose yourself in the service of your blog readers. You will win more customers and fans this way than by any other approach.

Not specific enough for you? Here are 23 specific aspects of your blog content that you can, and should, strive to constantly improve:

1. Number of published articles (posts + pages)
2. Posts published per month
3. Words per article
4. Images/audio/videos per article
5. Internal links per article
6. External links per article
7. Compelling headlines
8. Descriptive headlines
9. Concise headlines
10. Appropriate writing style
11. Useful content
12. Remarkable content
13. Targeted content
14. Accurate content
15. Unique content
16. Viral content
17. Effective use of multiple media formats
18. Appropriate anchor text in hyperlinks
19. Appropriate number of hyperlinks
20. Relevant hyperlinks
21. Descriptive use of categories/tags
22. Concise use of categories/tags
23. Relevant use of categories/tags

Your Homework, Should You Choose To Accept It

Is to get out a piece of paper and write the following on it, in as much gory detail as possible:

1. Why you started your blog, what you ultimate hope to achieve with it and how it relates to your overall business goals.
2. Who your blog is for.
3. What your blog will be about.
4. What you plan to create over the next 30 days for publication at your blog.
5. How you plan to improve your new and existing blog content over the next 30 days.

Feel free to share your ideas and plans with me. I’d love to help you out.

Review: What We’ve Covered in This Guide to Blog Content Creation

We just spent close to 4,000 words going through the following points:

1. You must strive to create blog content that will reap dividends for your business/organization continually, specially in terms of revenue, marketing and branding.
2. You must steel yourself against your blogging (and business) fears in order to be prepared to create that content.
3. You must establish a clear purpose for your blog that makes sense, given your business goals.
4. You must establish clearly who your blog’s target audience is, given its purpose.
5. You must establish a clear theme for your blog that will enable you to produce lots of successful content, given your blog’s purpose and audience.
6. You must continually churn out blog content that matches your chosen purpose, audience and theme.
7. You must constantly strive to improve whatever blog content is published, given all of the above variables.

As you work to accomplish these things in your blog content creation efforts, I promise you a greater degree of professional success.

Images: Boston.com, Wikipedia.org, notacrime, Sebastian Bergmann

What to Do if You Liked This Article

If you liked this article, I invite you to subscribe to Visionary Blogging and to check out my VB Pro membership service for blogging professionals.

Also, I’d love it if you shared this article with friends by Twitter, Delicious, email, smoke signal, etc.

Thank you and stay tuned for my next article, which will explain how to promote all the fantastic blog content you’re creating.

What’s the biggest challenge you’re facing right now in this whole blog content creation process?

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1. Help Me Create the Ultimate Blog Improvement Resource List
2. Blog Content Improvement: A Struggle of the Heart
3. How to Develop Faith (Business Blog Ally #2)

We’ve heard a lot about rudeness lately.

Shall I mention names? Serena, Joe and Kanye spring instantly to mind.

If a star tennis player, a prominent politician and a world-famous rap artist can do it, why shouldn’t you?

Here’s how to be inconsiderate, uncouth and downright rude on your blog and in your social media efforts.

Step 1: Stop Listening

This is the exact opposite of one of my all-time favorite business blogging tips. What’s there to listen to anyway? It’s all mindless babble, right?

Why bother following what people are saying about you and your company/organization on Twitter or Facebook or LinkedIn or any other social networking website? What good would listening do? You’ve got a message to sell.

Don’t pay any attention to what people are saying about anything else, either. If you want to make a widget, make a widget. Want to publish a book or sell an ebook about your life, your lessons, your business? Do it. No need to ping anybody for input. Feedback is for sissies.

While we’re at it, you can forget about listening to what people aren’t saying as well. The comments they aren’t leaving at your blog. The votes and thumbs-ups they’re not giving you. The rave reviews you’re not seeing in forums, message boards and comment threads.

So what if the microphone is in someone else’s hands? So what is the spotlight is shining on another’s face?

Social media rudeness is all about you, baby …

Step 2: Stop Caring

… And because it’s all about you, who else matters?

When you start caring about what people think, you open yourself up to all kinds of pain. Why put yourself through all that? It’s so much easier to just speak your mind and go your own way.

The successful blogger and new media types who do care? They’re just pretending. They must be, right? Or maybe they really do care, but they could be getting so much more money and fame if they stopped bothering.

One of the best ways to be rude – and therefore, one of the best ways to guarantee that you’ll never achieve social media marketing success – is to stop caring about anything and anyone else except for you and your stuff.

Step 3: Stop Sharing

Sharing is tough. Sharing means selflessness. Sharing means listening and caring.

The sooner you stop posting about other people’s successes and ideas on Twitter/Facebook/etc., the better. The more space and time you’ll have to devote to strutting your own stuff.

Besides, why would people interested in your brand want to be diverted away to a competitor? Isn’t that antithetical to your quest for domination and control of your niche?

Never mind that whole thing about reciprocity. As you sow, so shall you … however it goes, you’ve long since forgotten.

Step 4: Start Complaining

Now that you’ve stopped listening, caring and sharing in your blogging and social media marketing, the next step is to fill the void. Time for some griping!

Open up your favorite social media hangout. Fire up your YouTube channel, perhaps, or better yet, go live on UStream. Spout off, say whatever you want. Talk mostly about what annoys you and what irks you, especially about other people in your industry.

Complain about the technology. Complain about the conversation. Complain about the chore of going on and on about yourself at that stale company blog and on all those cumbersome social media accounts you’ve got.

Heck, you can even complain about the complaining.

Since when did a positive, grateful attitude lead to online success?

Step 5: Start Being Ugly

Now for some real fun. It’s time to get mean and nasty.

Not to mention unforgiving. Remember that fiasco last year when so-and-so didn’t spread the word about your self-centered viral marketing campaign? You could just forgive them and move on, but where’s the fun in that?

Track ‘em down and give ‘em a piece of your rude, rude mind.

Wait a sec – don’t track ‘em down. Instead, bring them to you. Go on your blog, your Facebook page, your Twitter account, your MySpace, your anything, and just vent. Be as filthy and rotten as you can.

After all, people seem to like that.

Moral of the Story Time

Let’s review, shall we?

The best ways to be rude in your social media and blog marketing:

1. Stop listening.
2. Stop caring.
3. Stop sharing.
4. Start complaining.
5. Start being ugly.

Now get out there and make me proud. And may you fail miserably to the extent that you do these things.

And whatever you do, do NOT leave a comment below. Because I don’t care, and I’m not listening.

Isn’t rudeness wonderful?

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Overall Social Media Marketing Tips

• 25 Must Read Social Media Marketing Tips
• Social Media Marketing Training: 5 Tips for Breaking Through The Knowledge Barrier
• 7 Reasons Your Social Media Marketing Failed (and how to fix it!)
• 10 Tips for Social Media Marketers
• More Social Media Marketing Tips
• 50 Ways Marketers Can Use Social Media to Improve Their Marketing
• Social Media Marketing Tactics
• Social Media and SEO: 5 Essential Steps to Success

Facebook Marketing Tips

• Facebook Marketing Bible
• How to Use Facebook to Promote Your Blog

StumbleUpon Marketing Tips

• Ten Tips for Successful StumbleUpon Marketing
• A Comprehensive Guide to StumbleUpon

LinkedIn Marketing Tips

• Guide to LinkedIn Marketing
• LinkedIn Profile Tips & a LinkedIn Profile Makeover

Twitter Marketing Tips

• How to Use Twitter to Grow Your Business
• The Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to Marketing Your Business on Twitter

This list is just the beginning. What would you add? What are you curious about? Do you have any tips of your own that you’d like to share or link to here? Please leave a comment and let us know about it!

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These 50 evergreen resources will help you raise or make more money with your blog, no matter whether it’s a personal, business or non-profit blog.

If you like this article, please share it:

• Share on Twitter
• Share on Facebook
• Share on StumbleUpon
• Share on Delicious
• Share with your Gramma
• Write on your forehead: http://bit.ly/blogprofit

Improve Your Blog Content for More Blog Profit

1. 37 Viral Post Ideas You Can Use Today – Or tomorrow, or the next day, or on March 13, 2047. Remember, this is a list of timeless resources.
2. 10 Killer Post Ideas – Not to be confused with “10 Post Ideas for Killers.”
3. 40 Ways to Deliver Killer Blog Content – Not to be confused with … hey, how’d you know?
4. 7 Steps to More Coherent Blog Posts, More Readers, and More Subscribers – How about making the readers and subscribers more coherent too? Because sometimes I wonder.
5. The Art of Linkbaiting – Yes, it’s an art. Yes, there’s science in it. No, you can’t have a bite of my granola. Keep reading.

Enhance Your Blog Design for More Blog Profit

6. 9 Things You Can’t Forget When Designing a Blog – Because if you do, the boogeyman’s stepmother is gonna getcha.
7. 30 Ways to Improve Readability – I’ll tell you how I improved my read ability. I just kept reading and reading. Oh wait, readability, not read ability.
8. 50 Tips to Unclutter Your Blog – Oh, you are so busted. How many of these tips are you not following? I bet at least 25.
9. Web 2.0 How-To Design Guide – Ooh shiny. If there is one article on this list that deserves an ooh shiny from yours truly, it’s this one. So thus I say, ooh shiny.
10. Are You Making These Common Blog Layout Mistakes? – Or are you making all these other common and not-so-common mistakes?

Strengthen Your Blog Community for More Blog Profit

11. 10 Techniques to Get More Comments on Your Blog – Wish it was titled “10 Ninja Techniques.” I just like inserting the word “ninja” in things.
12. How to Improve Your Blog Community – Yes, I wrote this one. It’s pretty good though, I couldn’t just exclude it from this list!
13. 8 Steps to Growing Your Blog Community One Person at a Time – Slower but easier to count than if you try to do two or three people at a time.
14. Adding a Newsletter to Your Blog – Remember when a newsletter was a printed thing? Remember when you used to write with a stick in your hands?
15. How to Expand Your Blog with a Forum – Great for when you’re fresh out of helium tanks.

Increase Your Blog Traffic for More Blog Profit

16. 21 Tactics to Increase Blog Traffic – I just wanted to be the 1,000,000th person to link to this article.
17. How to Build a High-Traffic Blog Without Killing Yourself – Easy … just install lots of traffic lights and look both ways every time. (Ouch, that one was bad.)
18. How to Increase Blog Traffic with Your Blog Content – Or just skip this one and pour honey all over your blog instead.
19. How to Build Blog Traffic Using the Visionary Blogging Method – It’s my method and I’m sticking to it.
20. How to Build a High-Traffic Blog – A plentiful plethora of palatable palabras from Pavlina.

Boost Your Blog Subscriber Count for More Blog Profit

21. 5 Tips for Gaining Subscribers to Your Blog – Are you following them? Tsk, tsk.
22. 10 Effective Ways to Get More Blog Subscribers – As opposed to the slightly less popular list, 342 Ineffective Ways to yadda yadda.
23. How I Attracted My First 100 Newsletter Subscribers – Have you bagged your first 100 yet?
24. 19 Strategies to Help Turn New Visitors into Loyal Readers – If you haven’t read Skellie’s stuff, you either didn’t know about her or you don’t know how to read. But I doubt the second one for some reason.
25. 10 Ways I Got 4,700 Subscribers in Three Months – I *so* wish I could write this headline on my blog and have it be true.

Improve Your Blog SEO for More Blog Profit

(SEO = Search Engine Optimization)

26. Improve Your Search Rankings with Internal SEO – First clean the inner vessel.
27. Improve Blog SEO with Internal Linking Structure – Next time you’re out with friends, use the phrase “internal linking structure” in a random sentence.
28. Simple SEO Changes to Improve Unexpected Rankings – If the unexpected is expected, does that make the expected unexpected?
29. 101 Ways to Build Link Popularity – Can you guess which ways I’m using with this article?
30. Linkbaiting for Fun and Profit – Throw that man a fishing pole!

Improve Your Blog’s SMO for More Blog Profit

(SMO = Social Media Optimization)

31. 6 Beginner SMO Tips for Social Media Marketers – Trust me: NOT just for beginners.
32. 13 Rules of Social Media Optimization – Break ‘em and weep.
33. The 5 Pillars of Social Media Optimization – Not to be confused, of course, with Shahada, Salah, Zakah, …
34. 5 Tips for Getting More From Social Media Marketing – Get mo’ from yo’ SMO.
35. An Essential Marketing Principle: Give Before You Try to Get – Do you know how long it took me to figure out what “dosh” meant?

Improve Your Blog Monetization/Conversion Rates for More Blog Profit

36. 7 Tips for Increasing Your Conversion Rate – Because without conversions, you have zero, zip, zilch. Nada.
37. Increase Conversion Rates with a Visitor-Friendly Website – As opposed to a friendly visitor website. (“Welcome to the one-stop shop for friendly visitors – hi Bob!”)
38. 101 Five-Minute Fixes to Incrementally Improve Your Web Site – Don’t do all 101 in one sitting unless you have precisely 8 hours and 25 minutes to spare.
39. 10 Ways to Monetize Your Blog – “Monetize” = geek speak for “make wads of cash with.”
40. 5,623 Words on Starting a Profitable Blog – If each word were a foot long, you’d have to walk more than a mile.

Other Tasty Resources for More Blog Profit

41. 100 Ways to Improve Your Blog – In case you were still hungry for more.
42. 21 Surefire Tips for a Successful Blog Launch – For getting started or restarted the right way.
43. 100 Awesome Articles to Get You Fired Up and Motivated About Blogging – Can I get a witness?
44. Rabid Blog Audience Building: 4 Steps You Must Follow – Because rabies isn’t all bad.
45. 50 Free Resources That Will Improve Your Writing Skills – Would you like a glass of water to help you swallow that pride?
46. 77 Ways to Learn Faster, Deeper, and Better – A blogger’s mind is a terrible thing to waste.
47. 50 Different Ways to Vastly Improve Your WordPress Blog – And you thought there were only 37.
48. 10 Ways to Become a Better Writer – Channel your inner J.K. Rowling.
49. The Ultimate Guide to Blog Usability: 36 Tips and Resources – If it ain’t usable, it ain’t gonna get used.
50. The 130-Point Blog Improvement Checklist – Somebody had way too much time on their hands.

Super Bonus Resource for the Truly Profit-Minded Blogger

51. How to Become Truly Happy Forever About Your Blog By Simply Clicking Right Here – Cue the angel choirs. (Easton starts running for the exits.)

image by DuckBrown

Sign up for VB Pro and get expert blogging and social media help starting at only $9 a month.

Related Articles

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Are you wondering how to improve your business by combining your blog and your other social media/social networking assets (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn)?

Here’s Part 1 of a series on how to blend blogs and other social media tools for professional success. Subscribe now so you don’t miss upcoming articles.

The Problem: A Cluttered Social Media Landscape

And one that is always changing.

For example, TechCrunch has a fascinating article on why teenagers don’t use Twitter. A survey polled approximately 10,000 teens and it boils down to this: Today’s hyperconnected teen already has MySpace, Facebook and text messaging to communicate with the world around them – so she thinks, why clutter my personal social media landscape any more with Twitter?

I thought you might get a kick out of the most popular reason why teens say they don’t use Twitter: “It’s lame.” (Followed by “My friends don’t use it” and “I don’t understand it.)

Not understanding something like that is clutter. Not knowing where it will be tomorrow is clutter. The fact that there are 13 zillion “social media sites” online is clutter.

The Solution: A Simplified, Head-Screwed-On-Straight, Blend-Friendly Approach to Blogging/Social Media

Do you have a blender at home?

Don’t worry, this isn’t a Blendtec pitch.

What do you do with a blender?

Exactly, you blend things. (I know! Strange.)

So if we’re talking about blending blogs and other social media stuff, what’s your blender for this task?

Simple. Your blender is your brain.

I’ve argued before that your blog community is a matter of the mind – that it doesn’t really exist anywhere except inside human noggins (which therefore makes this whole discussion extremely important). Here, it’s the same principle. You figure out what on earth to do with all of your different social media/networking/discovery/sharing accounts by … gasp … thinking about them.

Okay, not just thinking about them. You’ve got to really dig deep and compare the properties of each tool with what you already know about your business based on your brand statement, your mission statement, your experience, etc. We’ll have to cover this in more detail in a future article.

The other thing you have to do is decide to be blend-friendly. Don’t keep your blog/social media blender (your brain) hidden in the back of that cupboard next to the dishwasher, stuck behind an old toaster and under a bunch of napkins. Pull the sucker out and use it. What thrilling combinations can you create? Ask those tough “What if?” questions.

Throughout this series, we’ll talk about how to actually blend Facebook with LinkedIn, Twitter with MySpace, YouTube with Flickr, your blog with everything else – you get the idea. But first I wanted to establish this key idea that you have to first be willing and anxious to spend some time pondering how you’re going to do all this in a way that makes sense based on your existing business situation and values.

How to Conduct Research to Decide on the Best Combination of Blogs and Other Social Media in Your Marketing Strategy

Over the past several weeks I’ve been working with a software startup company called Clickety-Split. Excellent team, run by a great guy I’ve worked for before, Hal Halladay. Anyway, we’ve had the opportunity to use our social media thinking caps – our mental blenders – to come up with some foundational ideas that will guide us through the next several months or even years as we decide how to convert our overall strategy for social media into tactics that make sense for the business in the long run.

Here’s the research model I recommend:

Step 1: Consider Your Core Business Problems and How Social Media Can Soothe Them

No, not that dentist appointment tomorrow. I mean your organization’s problems, challenges. How could social media on the emerging Web solve them or help to solve them?

Ask that question first and you’ll have a much easier time avoiding the flawed mentality of, “Well, everybody else seems to be setting up a Widgetybook or a FlickTuber so we probably need one pronto.” Bah. Just because the company down the street, or a hundred companies in your niche are doing something online, doesn’t mean you have to.

Of course you should pay attention. Watch competitors like a hawk. But always go back to this: What challenges does your company have that you’d like to look into solving via social media tools?

Step 2: Consider the Wants and Needs of Your Customers and Potential Fans and How Social Media Can Galvanize Them

Now that you’ve thought about your business and how it would make sense to use social media to meet its challenges, it’s time to meditate about what the rest of the world would love to see.

First, think about your customers or supporters – what is it they really want from you? How often do they like to talk to you? Where do they go online to hang out? What wants and needs of theirs could you meet via social media (that you couldn’t meet as effectively via any other means, or as cheaply)?

Second, think about the rest of the world – your potential fans. What would they respond well to if they came across it in, say, Facebook? What would set their hearts on fire? How could you get them to love the bejeebers out of your business with social media?

Step 3: Consider the Social Media Tools Themselves and All Their Different Possible Combinations

Picture this.

You have a big desk. It’s completely empty on top – no papers, no computer, nothing.

You have a big list of social media tools and thingies. Each one is a little object, a Monopoly piece if you will. The Twitter bird, the Facebook book, the YouTube TV set, whatever. Dump ‘em out on the desk.

Now look a bit closer. These Monopoly pieces are actually more like Legos. They’ve got little knobs and dimples on them.

You know what comes next, right? Start sticking them together. See what happens. See what beasts you can assemble.

Now this is all in your mind, of course. But have some fun and get creative. Given what you already know that you’ve figured out in Step 1 and Step 2 of this exercise, what combinations seem to make the most sense – again, for your business?

For example, you may find that a lot of your customers spend hours every day on Facebook. And maybe you’ve set up a company blog and a Facebook account. Couldn’t you stick those two pieces together somehow so that you can efficiently interact with your customers on Facebook while driving them all the time to your blog, and vice versa? And couldn’t you figure out a way to harness the combined power of both to generate more sales, more positive impressions of your company, more understanding of what your company really does and how people could get involved in its initiatives?

Maybe you could. Maybe you couldn’t. It depends on what your organization is like. But there you have it.

One last point in this step: Consider not just binary combinations, but also power combos. Facebook + blog is fun to think about, right? Okay, but what about Facebook + YouTube + Twitter? What about all of those + blog + 3 other blogs you haven’t even dreamed of yet?

Step 4: Consider – Okay, Stop Considering … Go Find Out What Internet Users Are Saying and What They’re Actually Doing

There are two ways to do this last chunk of the research leg of your journey to blended social media nirvana. They’re not mutually exclusive and yes, you should absolutely do them both all you can.

First, ask them yourself. You already know how to do this. Just ask people. Pick up the phone. Walk down the street with a stack of papers and some pencils. Knock doors. Send out emails. Set up a SurveyMonkey survey. Get as many opinions as you can about how people connect to the social Web.

Second, spy the heck out of them (and I mean that in the most harmless, innocent way possible). Don’t skip the first part just to get to this, but definitely do your share of espionage. Did you bother reading those survey results that your competitor just published? Are you watching for mentions of certain keywords in the blogosphere and on Twitter and in the online news, etc.? Are you frequenting popular forums to see what threads are getting the most attention?

In other words, are you doing all you can to find out exactly what people really want and how you can supply that with your business?

Visionary Blogging Resources to Help You Make Your Combined Blog/Social Media Efforts More Successful

Note: When I say “blog/social media,” I mean two things that intersect, not two separate things. Brian Clark at Copyblogger would agree that blogs are a form of social media.

• Join VB Pro to get personal help with all of this stuff I’ve just talked about
• 50 Ways to Mix Your Blog and Twitter
• 25 Ways to Mix Your Blog and Facebook
• Course: Advanced Social Media Strategy and Tactics

images: caruba, woodleywonderworks

Coming Soon: Blog/Social Media Blending for Business, Parts 2-5

See the VB Calendar page for details on upcoming articles at Visionary Blogging. Feel free to make any suggestions or ask questions there or in the comments following this post and I will answer them as we go through this week!

Thank you so much for your support of this website and this growing community!

Any links or insights to share?

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3. Should You Add Facebook Connect to Your Business Blog?

I’m delighted to announce a new Visionary Blogging course: Advanced Social Media Strategy and Tactics.

In this unique, intensive course, I’ll teach you what I’ve learned from over four years and 8,000 hours helping entrepreneurs, companies and organizations understand how to use social media effectively.

Update: I’ve moved the information for this course to its own special page in my Courses area. Learn more about this course.

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