blogging | It's All Virtual

10 Lists of 10: Insights on Social Media, Product Marketing and More

May 27, 2013

Introduction

Because “lists of 10” is a popular format on this blog, I decided to round up a “list of 10 covering the lists of 10.” Without further ado, I present you with my ten favorite lists of ten.

1) 10 Reasons Print Rules in The Digital Age

Call me old fashioned: this post provides ten reasons why I enjoy magazine subscriptions to The Economist and SI.

2) 10 Steps to Creating Blog Posts Your Readers Will Love

My ten step process for writing blog posts. Since this post is a compilation of past posts, I didn’t use the process this time.

3) 10 Reasons Texting Has Taken Over the World

Texting is not limited to the younger generation – in fact, texting is taking over the world.

4) Unable to Attend an Event? 10 Ways Twitter Fills the Gap

You simply can’t make it to all events. And when you can’t, turn to Twitter to fill the gap.

5) 10 Reasons Storytelling is The New Product Marketing

Calling all product marketers: tell good stories.

6) 10 Reasons to Skip the Web Site in Favor of Twitter (When Researching a Company)

When I research a company, I find it more useful to skim through their home page, then jump directly to their Twitter profile.

7) Top 10 Tips for Social Media Time Management

Intimidated by the amount of time social media consumes? Check out this list of tips on social media time management.

8) The 10 Things Marketers Should Do When Starting a New Job

When Marketers start a new job, they should engage with Sales right away, among other things.

9) 10 Reasons Social Media Addicts Should Go Camping

Want to get off the grid and disconnect from social media? Go camping.

10) 10 Reasons Product Managers and Event Managers are Kindred Spirits

This list argues that documents how: product managers and event managers do a lot of the same things.

Leave a Comment » | General | Tagged: blogging, event manager, product manager, Product Marketing, social media, Top 10 List, Twitter | Permalink
Posted by Dennis Shiao

10 Steps to Creating Blog Posts Your Readers Will Love

February 25, 2013

Blogs require ongoing care and feeding

Introduction

Blogging is like getting a puppy. You’re so excited the day you “bring it home.” You ask friends to come over and see it, then you snap pictures to share with the extended family. The next morning, reality hits, as you realize its needs to be walked at 6AM and find some accidents that it left you on the living room carpet.

In blogging, one of the most exciting moments is clicking “Publish” on your very first post. Soon, though, you come to realize that maintaining your blog (i.e. consistently churning out compelling blog posts) is like the family dog: it requires walks, love, nurturing, baths, brushing and visits to the vet.

To keep my blogging efforts going, I’ve developed a ten-step routine that I use to create each and every post. Here goes.

1) Find a topic.

This is the biggest blogging challenge for me. The more posts you publish, the bigger the challenge to find new things to write about. I’m quite discriminating with topics. The decisions you make with topics are closely linked to the overall quality of your blog. Lately, some of my topics have been driven by things I observe (and perhaps how they could be done differently or better).

2) Decide on a title.

I like to decide on the post’s title up front, because that guides the rest of the process. In the past, I paid a lot of attention to SEO-friendly titles (i.e. deciding on keywords I wanted to place in the title and where to place those keywords within it). These days, it seems Google is more interested in quality content. So I think in terms of key thoughts over keywords.

3) Assemble your thoughts: pen on paper.

Sketch out your blog posts on pen and paper

Pictured: here’s how I sketched out the outline for this post.

I find it extremely useful to close the laptop and assemble my thoughts on an old-fashioned notepad. Being “offline” helps me hone in on the key things I want to convey. The main objective is to map out the main themes of the post, rather than getting too deep in the weeds on any particular theme.

4) Take a break. Let it marinate.

Once the foundation is in place, go for a run, take a shower (or both). As I go off and do other things, the post will re-enter my mind and I’ll consider new ideas or new angles. This works quite well when I exercise. Then, go back to your trusty notepad and add the new ideas to your list. For my best posts, I’ve usually iterated via the notepad over a couple of days.

5) Find or identify the post’s main image.

The New York Times can get away with picture-less articles. Your blog can’t. Images are critical because they provide a nice balance (against all that text) and because they engage and sustain the attention of your readers. I like to use the clip art available in Microsoft Office and also search the Creative Commons area of flickr.

6) Ready to write? Use a word processor.

I compose my blog posts in Microsoft Word

I used to write my blog postings directly in WordPress. Now, I write them in Microsoft Word and it makes a big difference. Similar to “going offline” by using a paper notepad, writing in Word takes some pressure off me. For some reason, composing directly in WordPress made me more anxious. Writing in Word relaxes me. And, it helps me stay focused, since other browser tabs aren’t beckoning.

7) Look for additional images.

I like to avoid long blocks of text. It’s better (and more engaging for readers) to intersperse images throughout your post. So now it’s time to look for additional images that complement some of the main sections of your post.

8) On to your blogging platform.

adding-a-new-post-in-wordpress

OK, now that your post is done in your word processor, it’s as easy as copy/pasting it into your blogging platform. I like to embed hyperlinks in the word processor, so that all I have to do is format the headings (e.g. <h2>, <h3> and the like) and upload the images.

9-Tag and categorize.

Select the “category” for your post, then add a number of tags. Your blogging platform generates pages related to your categories and tags. Making relevant tag and category selections helps build valuable content pages that search engines love. As an example, here’s my category page for social media and here’s my tag page for Twitter.

10-Schedule, then promote (when it goes live).

I write my posts on the weekends, but like to wait until Monday morning to publish. So I schedule the post and have WordPress set up to tweet the link when it goes live. I’m also a member of a few Triberr tribes, which allows tribe members to tweet my post to their followers. After all the work you’ve put in to write a great post, it’s important to let others know. Sometimes, they’re too busy to see that you’ve just published a new posting.

Conclusion

There you have it: a blog post your readers will love. I followed this precise series of steps to write this one, in fact (hope you love it). If there’s one thing you remember from reading this, make it the important step of “going offline” when developing the post. Close the computer, use pen and paper, then do your writing in a word processor. Happy blogging!

Leave a Comment » | Blogging | Tagged: blogging, blogging best practices, blogging tips, Google, Microsoft Word, wordpress, writing | Permalink
Posted by Dennis Shiao

33 Blogging Lessons from Publishing 333 Blog Posts

October 4, 2012

Introduction

I recently published my 333^rd blog post here at “It’s All Virtual” (this one is my 334^th!).

It’s been a fun ride: thanks for coming along. In December 2012, this blog will turn four years old. So going with the theme of 3’s, I thought I’d share 33 lessons learned over my 3 (almost 4) years on this blog.

33 Blogging Lessons

Blogging is a whole lot of fun.
Your blog will be most effective if you write about what you’re most passionate about.
When you think up ideas, write a few posts at once (rather than one at a time in sequence).
Add social sharing buttons to your blog, so your readers can promote it on your behalf.
Author guest posts on related blogs. It helps drive awareness of your own.
Set aside dedicated, “turn off your devices and email” time for writing your posts.
Place your blog’s URL in your Twitter profile.
Configure you blogging software to tweet the link upon publishing.
Tweet your blog content. Repeat those tweets later on, in case followers missed it the first time.
Always respond to comments, even if they’re negative.
Only delete comments that are obviously spam.
Turn your blog into a book! There are a number of services that will do that for you.
Turn selected blog postings (topically related) into an eBook. Publish the eBook on your blog.
Use your blog as the foundation of your social media activities.
Write once, publish many: turn blog content into videos, podcasts and webinars.
Embed your YouTube videos, SlideShare presentations (and more) into posts. It’s so easy.
Share selected blog postings with family members. They’ll get to know you even better.
Use blogging to discover what you think.
Ask yourself questions on your blog, then answer them. Why? It’s good for SEO. The question you ask yourself is the same term (question) someone may enter into a search engine.
Keep a regular heartbeat to your publishing schedule. A blog that hasn’t been updated in weeks can be taken for dead, even when it’s not.
Another reason to publish regularly: apparently search engines like that, so your SEO will be the better for it.
Join a tribe on Triberr to help promote your posts.
Invite the community to contribute relevant guest posts.
Monitor blog stats regularly to help inform your future posts.
When making cultural references, try to keep in mind that your blog has a global readership.
You blog, therefore you are.
Create a pinboard on Pinterest to feature images contained within your posts. This helps drive traffic to your blog.
Publish contact info on your blog, as you may receive inquiries related to business or job opportunities.
Think about SEO when crafting titles for your posts.
Spend as much care and attention on your title as you do writing the post.
Write your posts outside of your blogging software (I use Microsoft Word), then copy/paste in the text when you’re done. I find that this approach helps me focus.
It’s OK to take a brief vacation from blogging.
But, never stop blogging, it’s great!

Note: I invite you to connect with me on Google+.

6 Comments | Blogging | Tagged: blogging, blogging lessons, SEO, social media, Twitter, wordpress | Permalink
Posted by Dennis Shiao

Harness the Power of Your Personal Brand

May 17, 2012

Introduction

In 2006, TIME magazine declared “You” their Person of the Year. TIME’s selection was based on the rise of YouTube and other social web sites that allowed individuals to become publishers. TIME’s cover concluded, “You control the Information Age. Welcome to your world.”

Some six years later, we have even more tools to publish, interact and discover. Facebook is approaching 1 billion global users, while the past 12 months has seen the rise of Instagram and Pinterest, to name a few.

In the midst of your status updates, posts, blog comments and photo uploads, I think there’s a larger meaning (and value) that you can achieve: migrating from simply “You” to “Your Personal Brand.” Let me explain.

Brand Around Your Passions

When I speak about personal branding, people often ask, “just where do I start?” I encourage people to identify their passions. For me, it’s sports, social media and virtual events! For others, it might be food, wine or art. Your personal brand has the highest potential when it’s based around your passions.

Personal Brand Benefits: PASSION

Now, let’s consider the benefits of your personal brand. I use the acronym PASSION. Let’s take them one by one.

Possession

Whether you’ve been at your current job for 20 years or 20 months, as an “at will employee,” you can be asked to leave tomorrow. Your personal brand, however, has guaranteed possession. No one can take it away from you – it’s your’s for the rest of your life.

Annuity

An annuity is defined as “a specified income payable at stated intervals for a fixed or a contingent period, often for the recipient’s life.” As you manage and grow your personal brand, it routinely “pays you income” in the form of recognition, authority, presence and “real” income (if you so desire).

It’s important to realize, however, that while your personal brand’s annuity pays out over time, it’s an investment that must be actively managed to guarantee continued payout. It’s a bit more involved than a conventional annuity: it’s more like a mortgage, in the sense that you need to “pay back” (contribute) each month (or each day!).

I love the part about “for the recipient’s life” in the definition, because it ties back to Possession: the annuity, like your personal brand, is your’s for life.

Searchability

Most businesses think and talk a great deal about “Search Engine Optimization” (SEO). It’s critical for your web site(s) to “get found” when potential customers are searching online. As you construct and develop your personal brand, a natural benefit is “searchability,” or the ability to “get found.”

In a 2008 blog post titled “Downsized? Fired? Here are the new rules of finding a job,” David Meerman Scott (@dmscott) tells us about Heather Hamilton, who describes herself as “Microsoft Employee Evangelist, Quasi-Marketer and Truth-Teller.” Hamilton performs an inverse of the typical job search process. Instead of posting a job description and receiving resumes, she proactively searches the web. As Meerman Scott writes, “So if you’re not publishing, you won’t be found by Microsoft.”

[As a side note, the above blog post by Meerman Scott is singularly responsible for the start of my own personal brand.]

As you join new social networks, it’s critical that you fully populate your profile there. This is a critical first step in establishing your personal brand. On LinkedIn, for instance, ensure that your profile is 100% complete. Don’t settle for 95%, make sure it’s a full 100%.

As you gain a presence across different parts of the web, be sure to “cross link” your presences within your social profiles. For instance, on my Twitter profile page, I link to this blog and to my book on Amazon. You’ll also notice that on this blog, I cross-link to many other “personally branded presences” on the right side of the page.

Now, let’s return to Heather Hamilton. If you’ve published content related to Hamilton’s search terms, then the following may appear in Hamilton’s search results:

Your blog.
Your LinkedIn profile.
Your Twitter profile or a recent tweet.
Your answer on Quora or Focus.com
An eBook that you published on your blog.
An article in which you were quoted.

So in conclusion, the more you invest in your personal brand, the more visible you can be. And with more visibility comes more chances of others finding you.

Sense of Self

By “sense of self,” what I mean is that you learn about yourself as you build your personal brand! I’ve been blogging since 2008. It’s helped highlight (for me) my passions, my strengths and my weaknesses. In a post about her own blogging journey, Amber Naslund (@AmberCadabra) writes, “One of my favorite quotes is from the writer Joan Didion, who once said ‘I write to discover what I think.’”

As I became active on Twitter and LinkedIn, I discovered something about myself that otherwise wouldn’t have been obvious: I love to find, meet and connect with others. Twitter has been amazing in its ability to find and follow others, share thoughts and ideas and get to thoroughly know (in my mind) someone I’ve never met in person. This discovery has led me to consider ways in which I can continue this “connecting” in offline settings, as well.

Identity

While your personal brand should align with your passions, going niche (vs. broad) gives you a lot of advantages. Building a personal brand around “technology” is challenging. Go a step deeper, based on what interests you. Consider “social web technology” or better yet, “social and mobile web technology.”

My personal brand focuses on virtual events and social media. The social media part is challenging, in the sense that many, many others are more knowledgeable than me. The virtual events realm is smaller and more focused, so there’s more of an opportunity to build an identity around it.

By “identity,” I mean that your personal brand comes to be known for something. My personal brand is closely tied to virtual events – I suppose the name of this blog says it all.

Objectives

Having a personal brand helps you set objectives around it. For some, it can be as basic as “continue to grow the brand.” For others, it might revolve around Twitter followers, a Klout score or page views on your blog. Yet others may seek to parlay their personal brand into a new job in a new industry. Your personal brand will evolve over time and objectives are there to help guide you.

Networks

Based on your employment history (or your small business), many of you have amassed a “network” of connections on LinkedIn. A personal brand allows you to significantly extend that network. Via social networks, your blog, comments on other blogs, guest posts on other blogs and articles submitted to publications, you can meet and engage with new people.

It can all start with a single Twitter hash tag. On Twitter, there’s a vibrant community of event professionals who gather around the hash tag #eventprofs. By simply reading, responding and re-tweeting (via this hash tag) over the years, I’ve gotten to know lots of event professionals that I otherwise would not have “met.”

Many #eventprofs are sole practitioners or run a small event business. So personal branding is critical to them, as their personal brand and their business’ brand are one and the same. In addition to the “#eventprofs network, I’m part of many others, including the networks on Quora, Focus.com, Instagram and Pinterest.

Actively engaging in networks helps raise the visibility of your personal brand and brings with it annuity, searchability and many other benefits.

Conclusion

Got a passion? Then put some PASSION around your passion. Developing your personal brand can lead to business opportunities, speaking gigs, fame and fortune. Why not get started today?

How to Use Social Media to Improve Your Products #prodmktg

March 7, 2012

Read the full post: http://12most.com/2012/03/07/12-powerful-ways-social-media-improve-products/

Introduction

In my latest post for 12Most.com, I wrote about how product marketers and product managers can improve their offerings via social media. My post is titled “12 Most Powerful Ways to Use Social Media to Improve Your Products.”

The 12 Ways

My post covers the following 12 tips:

Understand customer language and terms.
Provide customer service.
Crowdsource new features.
Learn about the competition.
Motivate internal teams.
Share updates and roadmaps with the market.
Ask for input and advice.
Find and solicit beta testers.
Host regular Twitter chats.
Host a Google+ Hangout.
Promote customer events.
Vote for a product name or product feature.

To read all the details, visit the full post here:

http://12most.com/2012/03/07/12-powerful-ways-social-media-improve-products/

Leave a Comment » | Product Marketing | Tagged: #prodmktg, 12Most, blogging, Facebook, product management, Product Marketing, products, social media, Twitter | Permalink
Posted by Dennis Shiao

Top Blogging Tips From … Influential Bloggers

February 6, 2011

Blogging Tips

Introduction

Blogging Success Summit 2011 (“The Web’s Largest Online Business Blogging Conference”) is in full swing. We’ve identified recent blog postings on the topic of … Blogging Best Practices and wanted to share them here.

Heidi Cohen: Why Above-the-Fold Matters for Blogs

Heidi provides a great list of “16 Must-Have Elements to Put At Top of Your Blog” (above the fold). I reviewed this list against this blog … and it seems I have some work to do! The link to the article:

http://heidicohen.com/blog-above-the-fold/

Lisa Barone: A Quick & Dirty Legal Guide For Bloggers

If I could sum up Lisa’s post in a few words, it would be “blogging: be careful out there”. Lisa provides a list of five myths and then provides details to dispel those myths. Many of her points I had not considered. The link to the article:

http://outspokenmedia.com/blogging/blogging-laws/

Joe Pulizzi: 10 Blogging Tips for Beginners and Experts

Joe shares the 10 tips that were included in his presentation at Blogging Success Summit. I think I need to focus more on Joe’s #3 – “Less is More”, since I tend to go on and on! The link to the article:

http://blog.junta42.com/2011/02/blogging-tips-beginners-experts/

Jeff Bullas: Are You Making These 10 Mistakes On Your Blog?

Jeff provides a list of 10 things you ought to have on your blog – the good news is, you can quickly and easily implement the majority of Jeff’s list right from your blogging platform’s dashboard. I know that in WordPress, I can knock out many of these items quickly. So what are you waiting for? The link to the article:

http://www.jeffbullas.com/2011/02/03/are-you-making-these-10-mistakes-on-your-blog/

Conclusion

Even for those of us who have been blogging for a while, there are new things to learn, each and every day.

Leave a Comment » | Blogging | Tagged: best practices, blogging, Blogging Success Summit, Blogging Success Summit 2011, Heidi Cohen, Jeff Bullas, Joe Pulizzi, Junta42, Lisa Barone | Permalink
Posted by Dennis Shiao

How I Published A Virtual Events Book

December 4, 2010

For more info: New Book, Generate Sales Leads With Virtual Events

Introduction

Publishing a book has never been easier. Today’s Web 2.0 tools (e.g. self publishing, wikis, crowdsourcing, etc.) completely empower the aspiring author. If you’ve got the inspiration to create a manuscript, then the logistics of going from completed manuscript to Amazon.com has gotten a whole lot easier. Here’s the approach I took to publish my book, “Generate Sales Leads With Virtual Events“.

Self Publishing

With self-publishing, you’re in complete control. You dictate all the details of the book (e.g. title, cover image, etc.) and you define the schedule. At the same time, you become your own editor, producer and PR agency. Those are some key trade-offs. In the end, I decided self-publishing was the way to go. Its immediacy is a huge advantage – with a completed manuscript, you can self-publish a book in as little as a day, whereas a traditional book publisher requires several months.

First, I selected my self-publishing service, FastPencil. While there are a number of services available, I had used FastPencil for a family project and found it quite intuitive and easy. It also helped that their support team (especially Dave) was helpful and always responded to my emails sooner than I anticipated.

As you can see above, self-publishing looks a lot like blogging. And it really is that simple. For me, publishing a book was like writing a series of blog posts in Microsoft Word – and then copy/pasting them into a blog editor, with a little bit of formatting afterwards. I then purchased the “Wide Distribution” option from FastPencil and they took care of assigning the book an ISBN and listing it for sale at Amazon, BarnesAndNoble.com, Ingram and Apple’s iBooks Store.

Community Publishing

As I was working to complete the manuscript, I posted the book’s introductory chapter here on this blog and on a PBworks wiki. My objectives were to get some early promotion of the book (and give potential readers a taste for what I’d cover) and see if the community would want a hand in editing it. Anyone who created a PBworks account could edit the introduction.

Copy edits were welcome – and, I invited folks to make changes to the content. If I liked the edits or contributions, I’d apply them to the manuscript and acknowledge the contributor(s) within the printed book. While no one made edits to the wiki, I think we’ll see a trend towards community publishing of books.

Authors will leverage the web to source spelling and grammatical corrections from a global network of copy editors. And industry peers will participate to become co-authors. You see it today on sites like Quora or FOCUS.com – in the near future, the collaborative discussions sourced there will be excerpted into printed books.

Cover Image via Crowdsourcing

It doesn’t get much better than this: you name your price for a cover design and have a global network of graphic designers bid on your project. You then receive several submissions of the actual (proposed) book cover, which you then need to whittle down to a final few. For submissions you like, you request some adjustments or alterations. Those updates are made by the designers and you make a final selection on the eventual book cover. This was all made possible by a great site called 99Designs.

I’ve worked with some design shops who limited the number of iterations they’d allow on a design (i.e. since each iteration increases their cost). With the crowdsourced model at 99Designs, I received messages from designers that I had not rated their design or provided enough feedback! Such is the dynamic when the incentive model is inverted: you get paid only when your design is selected.

99Designs has done cover design projects for other books, including “The Purpose Driven Life” and “Tim Ferriss’s 4-Hour Body”. “Crowdsourcing is a great way for book authors to see the many different ways in which artists interpret the title and subject matter of the book. They get ideas and concepts that they would have never gotten otherwise,” said Matt Mickiewicz, co-founder of 99Designs.

With a neat polling feature from 99Designs, I invited friends and family to review the submissions – they were able to rate each submission and leave comments. The number of submissions received will correspond to the dollar value of your reward – I happened to set a moderately priced reward, but still received 67 submissions, which I thought was a fantastic amount. The biggest challenge was in narrowing them down to a single selection.

Conclusion

Aspiring authors have more tools at their disposal than ever before. If you’re a high frequency blogger who loves to write, then turning you expertise and passion into a printed book (or, e-book) may be the thing to do. The power is in your hands (and fingers).

1 Comment | Virtual Events | Tagged: 99Designs, Amazon, blogging, book, book publishing, book self-publishing, Crowdsourcing, FastPencil, Focus.com, Generate Sales Leads With Virtual Events, PBworks, Quora, Virtual Events, virtual events book, Web 2.0, wiki | Permalink
Posted by Dennis Shiao

It's All Virtual

10 Steps to Creating Blog Posts Your Readers Will Love