Tag Archives: Commenting

Blogging

To BLOG? . . . or Not To BLOG? . . . That’s a good First Question

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The MORE of YOU, the better!
The MORE of YOU, the better!

Tomorrow I’ll be meeting with 10-12 friends to teach them HOW TO START A BLOG.

The first question I could ask — but won’t — is WHY do they want to start a blog.

I won’t ask because I suspect two things: (1) most of them know little about blogging at all and (2) the majority are most likely hungry for any social media knowledge they can get.

And I love that!

. . . more for me to teach.

So let’s consider that First Question:

SHOULD YOU START A BLOG?

Take a look at these nine questions before you decide:

1) Are you really really passionate about something?

2) Do you have either a personal desire to speak your mind OR a business need to put your brand presence online?

3) Can you commit to some degree of consistency — whether it is once a week, three times a week, or three times a day?

4) Do you like to do like Picasso, i.e., Always Do What You Do Not Know How To Do In Order To Learn How To Do It?

5) If you make a mistake, can you admit it, accept it, and move on?

6) Can you be patient about gaining a larger readership?

7) Will you take time to read and comment on other bloggers’ articles?

8- Can you participate in a conversation where you could get criticized?

9) Would you like to be an authentic, honest, interesting voice in the Blogosphere?

If you can give a sincere YES to each of those questions, then I say GO FOR IT!

And to help you get started, you can check out my post on HOW TO START A BLOG and another post by my favorite blogger Adam Singer 50 Blogging Lessons To Know If You’re Starting Today

Blogging, Twitter

Top Trends in Blogging & Twitter via Mashable

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This morning as I was catching up with some of the blog posts I missed yesterday, I stopped for a deeper look at the Mashable article on Five Top Trends from experts attending  the recent BlogWorld Expo.

One of my intentions is to find at least one post a day to write a comment or two on — and this article had both “thoughtful” opinions from well-known “thought leaders” as well as some pretty good comments from the “peanut gallery.”

Big Bloggers Tweeting More, Blogging Less

. . . according to Chris Pirillo [whose YouTube video on blogging I showed to my PR students], Twitter allows people to say more “pithy” things with less time and energy . . . pithy, maybe, but “more valuable”? — I think not. Here was the comment made by Micheline and my response:

Micheline Hazou 22 hours ago
Very interesting piece. As someone who is thinking of setting up and starting a blog, I identify with Chris Pirillo ‘s [@chrispirillo] view that “more and more bloggers are tweeting instead of blogging…” The challenge of expressing thoughts, ideas and chit-chat in 140 characters is quite refreshing.
Micheline, as someone who has only been blogging about six months — and also a Twitter fan — I continue to see these social media platforms as two entirely different communication tools. The writer in me may “tease” and/or “direct” people with a TWEET [like an appetizer, I suspect] but the real meal is in the blog post. BTW, if you have not yet started your blog AND would like a tutorial, please check my blog post on HOW TO START YOUR OWN BLOG: http://tinyurl.com/yahjdxk

The Evolution of Twitter as a Platform

Guy Kawasaki, who moderated a panel I covered in a recent report on “Does PR Suck?’, suggested the future value of Twitter was mainly for Business by pointing to the Kobi BBQ success story.

Here Nick and I weigh in on our favorite uses for Twitter:
Nick D. 21 hours ago
The real value of Twitter trends lies in their predictive value – the extent to which they are reliable leading indicators of broader business or social trends. There is some surprising evidence to the contrary coming in – i.e. that Twitter is in fact a lagging indicator in many cases. You can find out more here: http://blog.vanno.com/
Nick, I like Twitter mainly for Search. For example, I have a running list of tweets on my Tweetdeck for “Twitter for business”; “Facebook for business”; “Future of Advertising” and various #hashtags.

Semantic Intelligence

Brian Solis —  one of my “heroes” ever since he brought his PR 2.0 philosophy to my PR students last spring — has the statistics to prove that Twitter is driving towards more intelligent, filtered [and thus USEFUL ?] conversation:

Twitter Curation

Steve Rubel — who was on an HP panel discussing Social Media Roadmap this past summer — suggests that the New Media companies will be filtering and aggregating Tweets of Value and that editors will have a host of opportunities. [Call on me guys :-)]

User Generated Twitter Lists

Leo Laporte, whom I have not had the good fortune to meet yet, echoes the praise for Twitter Lists — new functionality for Twitter that allows people to generate lists for others to follow.

Join the conversation. It’s FUN and INSTRUCTIVE. Read up on these trends and others . . . and then put in your own TWO CENTS!