Insights

The great thing about blogs is they offer a great starting point for discussions. The blogger offers his or her take, and then the comments provide even more juice.

So I?d like to point you to two blog posts you should read today (both, handily enough, over at the awesome Spin Sucks blog).

Five Signs that a Social Media Star?s Reputation is Spin is a great guest post by the very smart Liz Strauss, and looks at how many social media heavyweights are beginning to believe in their own importance. Or, were never really genuine to start with (I?m sure we all know a few of these).

PR Pros: Stop Treating Bloggers Like Second-Class Media is by Spin Sucks hostess Gini Dietrich, and is a continuation of the conversation started last night when she guested for the #sbt10 Start Blogging Today chat on Twitter. The title says it all, and there?s a great conversation in the comments from both sides.

Both of these are great posts with terrific points both in the post themselves and the comments that follow. Check them out when you have a minute, and leave your take.

And then pop back here tomorrow when I share an example of a PR agency that got it bang on the money for blogger outreach.

Cheers!

Seth Godin?s a very smart guy.

He introduced the concept of permission marketing.

He?s also written a slew of business and marketing bestsellers, and has one of the foremost blogs on marketing today (also my favourite marketing blog).

Basically, Seth?s usually bang on the money and that?s why people listen when he speaks.

But for me, his blog post today about whether we care about privacy or not (and his example of Facebook to make the point) is off the mark, for one simple reason.

Facebook uses the practice of opt-out privacy, while every other reputable business offers the option of opt-in.

When you sign up for a newsletter, or a blog, or a marketing database, it?s because you?ve opted in. You ask to be informed of something.

You ask to be involved.

If your information is used by that resource, it?s because you allowed this in your privacy settings.

When Facebook makes changes to its platform, it invariably does so by resetting all the privacy settings back to the equivalent of you being visible to the whole world.

If you want to be private again, you have to go back into your settings and make the relevant changes.

Go to Google and search for ?Facebook privacy issues? and you get more than 300 million results. Wikipedia has a pretty good breakdown of the main concerns with Facebook since 2007.

Seth?s right in that often we don?t take enough care to look at what we?re signing up to. But that?s usually because we have to sign up to get into something.

Signing up to get out of something is a different thing altogether. And people do care about that, even when Facebook doesn?t seem to.

Image: think isb

Over at Start Blogging Today (disclosure ? I?m a partner in the program), we talk about how you can use your blog as a homebase to help you with your business.

We also show you how to get up and running with your blog and keep growing it from a personal angle ? it?s not just for business owners and entrepreneurs. However, there?s a lot of stuff there that can help you turn your blog into a business for you.

Why focus on blogs? Simple ? they?re your property (self-hosted blogs) and offer an excellent way to share your thoughts, ideas and offerings to not only your readers, but their readers. Which, in turn, can lead to potential leads.

And the great thing? You can do it one block at a time.

Preparing the Blocks

Ask any blogger, and they?ll pretty much say the same thing ? you need to love it to enjoy it. But then, that?s pretty much true for anything in life, and that?s what a lot of folks miss when they think about blogging.

True, you don?t need to blog daily to have a successful blog, but you do need to have some sort of rhythm, and that comes from loving what you?re doing.

Blogging can often be a lonely pastime (even for multi-author business blogs) and you don?t always see quick returns (financially or personally). So unless you love what you?re doing, it?ll become boring pretty quick.

• Takeaway: The first block is built on love.

Blocks of Why and What

Before you start blogging, take stock of both the reasons why you want to, and what you?re going to offer.

I?m currently helping a friend take stock of her reasons for blogging, and she has a clear goal of both Why and What.

Her Why is because she has a great voice, and a mentor in a figure she looks up to from an opinion perspective. The What is she wants to offer a racier take of herself than her professional image normally allows.

By having a clear idea of her blogging goals, she?s already a few steps ahead of new bloggers that start without having a core idea. Yes, you can stumble your way into your eventual voice, but starting with a flourish will help you get there quicker.

• Takeaway: The second block is built on goals.

Square Blocks, Round Holes

According to Technorati, one of the leading blog resources, there are more than 130 million blogs registered with them. Type ?how many blogs are there?? into Google and the answer ranges from 50 million to 220 million.

Whatever way you look at it, that?s a heck of a lot of blogs looking for the same readers in their topics. So how will yours stand out?

It won?t. At least, not at first. But that?s okay ? with so many blogs on so many topics, it?d be pretty difficult to have a completely unique voice anyway. What you can do, though, is be the square block to your readers? round holes.

• Look at what others are blogging about and see what questions are left unanswered either by their post, or by comments left by their readers. Then offer your take and optimize it for search.

• Question popular opinion and if you disagree, offer a post on why. But don?t just disagree ? offer actions to follow if you?re pointing to a different path.

• Be creatively outlandish. With so many blogs on the same topics, a lot of repetition is natural. So combat that ? think of creative solutions and ideas to everyday topics. They might not always be realistic, but they?ll show a willingness to take a risk. And the best businesses are the risk takers.

Yes, there are millions of blogs with millions of thoughts. But you don?t need to join that thought process ? offer your own quirkiness and don?t accept the perceived right way of doing things.

• Takeaway: The third block is built around YOU.

These are just three blocks in an ongoing process ? your blogging adventure never really stops. The other blocks are defined by how strongly you place the first three.

What about you ? how are you shaping your blocks?

PS ? Interested in learning how to build more blocks? Come visit us at Start Blogging Today ? we have a ton of them just waiting for you.

Image: Tom Haynes

Joining the likes of Alltop and Social Media Today, new website Social Media Informer aims to collate the best social media news articles and blog posts and offer a one-stop shop for your social media needs.

With its tagline “The Best Content about Social Media for Business”, Social Media Informer sets its stall out from the start.

Instead of having news that may or may not be social media-related from blogs and newsfeeds that are loosely tied to social media and its business uses, Social Media Informer limits the bloggers and sources for its articles.

This can work two ways – it will either make Social Media Informer a more focused resource centre than Alltop’s social media feed, or it could narrow the news on display. Judging by the resources already on display over there, hopefully it’s the former.

At Social Media Informer, you can get the latest from very knowledgeable folks like Ari Herzog (who wrote about some of the features of Social Media Informer), Kyle Lacy, Problogger, Dave Fleet, Janet Fouts and more. I read their stuff regularly and it’s great to see them collected under one roof.

While there are a bunch of social media news resources already, hopefully Social Media Informer offers a more business-led approach for those who need it.

Check Social Media Informer out today – you might even see a familiar face… 😉

Note: While my blog is syndicated at Social Media Informer, this is my own take on the service. No payments have been exchanged.