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Posts Tagged ‘blogs’

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How to Keep Your Blogging Enthusiasm

There are many benefits to blogging but, truth be told, it can be a lot of work. Unlike Twitter or Facebook, writing a blog post is something you can’t whip off in a minute or so. You need an idea, it has to be articulated in an engaging way, and well written.

Like anything that takes a lot of work, your enthusiasm can start to wane, particularly if you’re writing a blog on a regular basis. After awhile, the ideas may not be flowing as well or a case of writer’s block emerges.

So what are the things you can do to maintain your blog spirit? Here are a few tips:

1. Keen in mind that not every blog post has to be an opus offering in-depth perspective and insight. Blog posts come in a variety of shapes and sizes. Sometimes, they are long, thought-provoking pieces. But sometimes they’re short and poignant posts that deliver a punch in less than 250 words. Seth Godin has established a reputation as an expert bloggers, whose posts are only a few paragraphs long.

2. The collection of ideas is a continual process that can happen anywhere and any time. They key is being able to capture ideas when they pop up, which can happen in front of your computer, during dinner, at the gym, while having drinks with a friend, or while watching television. Having a notepad and a pen (or an iPhone) can be a good way to not let the good ideas escape.

3. Don’t force it. Sometimes, blog posts take awhile to arrive in the world. If you’re sitting in front of your computer but nothing is happening, walk away. Get something to eat, read the newspaper, go for a walk or listen to music. Sooner or later, the inspiration will come.

4. Read other blogs to see what other people are writing about and thinking. Spend some time on Twitter or go through your RSS reader as a way to gain information, insight and ideas. Who knows, you may come across a blog post that you violently agree or disagree with, which could spark a blog post of your own.

5. Unless you are compelled to blog every day, take a break once in a while. The blogosphere will go on without you. In the meantime, you can recharge your batteries and creative juices.

6. Immerse yourself in other activities to completely break away from blogging and the Internet. It could be playing hockey (a personal favourite), cooking, bicycling, going to the theatre, or spending time with your family. Again, it’s the time away from blogging that makes your a better blogger.

So what are the ways that you stay enthusiastic and engaged about blogging?

By Mark Evans - May 10th, 2011 - 1 Comment »
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Posted in Social Media

Is the Blog Comment Alive and Well?

There has been a lot of hand-wringing about the death of the blog comment in recent months.

Part of it has to do with the fact there are so many places to leave a comment such as Twitter, Friendfeed, Facebook and LinkedIn. It also has to do with the fact the novelty of the blog comment may have dissipated. Then, there was Facebook’s recently foray into the comment market, which was seen by some people as another blow to the blog comment.

In the wake of this concern, it is interesting to see Disqus announce a $10-million financing round led by Union Square Ventures and North Bridge. Disqus, one of the leading blog comment systems, also said it is close to attracting 500 million unique visitors/month. Disqus, which was spawned at YCombinator, said the money will be used to expand its “team, our products” and “on building our long-term business.”

So what should we make of Disqus’ financing? Is it a sign that rumours of the blog comment’s death have been greatly exaggerated? Is could also mean Disqus has emerged as the top dog in the comment business, pushing aside rival Intense Debate and, for the time being, Facebook?

From personal experience, the blog comment appears to doing well amid lots of different kinds of competition. On the Sysomos blog, there are posts that generate a lot of comments, which demonstrates the right kind of content can strike enough of a chord to spark a response.

Aside from good content, the other important issue is making it as easy as possible to leave a comment. If you make it at all difficult to comment, most people will click away rather than spend the time to leap over a hurdle – and this includes making people register, which is an absolute non-starter.

So here’s to the blog comment’s health. May it continue to live a long and prosperous life!

By Mark Evans - May 6th, 2011 - 2 Comments »
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Posted in Social Media

The Corporate Blog’s Renaissance

Since Sysomos officially launched in late-2008, our blog has been a key part of our marketing, communications and sales efforts. At a time when corporate blogs lost some of their lustre in comparison with Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, we have focused on creating content offering insight and value about the fast-changing social media landscape, as well as the capability of our monitoring and analytics products.

As it turns out, Sysomos isn’t alone in its fondness for the corporate blog. According to recent HubSpot survey, the number of businesses with a blog climbed to 65% in 2011 from 61% in 2010 and 48% in 2009.

Why is this happening? Why have blogs been so increasingly embraced at a time when they’re not as glamorous as other social media services?

There are a few explanations, which include:

1. The growing recognition that content is an important part of a company’s social media efforts. A blog that generates content can help power a company’s Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn activities. It also provide material for marketing collateral, newsletters and direct mail.

2. Blogs let companies differentiate themselves by providing insight and information in a far more extensive way than can be done with Twitter and Facebook.

3. A blog is a good way to engage in solid conversations with people who can leave comments, ask questions and provide feedback.

4. Google and other search engines love blog because they generate a lot of fresh content. If a company is interested in improving its search engine optimization (SEO), a blog can become a good organic tool to make that happen.

5. Unlike Facebook and Twitter, blogs are owned and controlled by a company. In other words, they are corporate asset as opposed to something owned by someone else. Blogs are also dynamic creatures that offer fresh content, which complements a corporate Web that is mostly static.

Do you have a corporate blog? If so, what the major reasons for having it?

By Mark Evans - April 22nd, 2011 - 2 Comments »
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Posted in Social Media

Long Live the Blog and Blogging!

As someone who spends a lot of time writing blog posts, it’s disconcerting to see blogs fade into the background while sexier services such as Twitter and Facebook grab the spotlight.

From the outside looking in, Twitter and Facebook are easier than blogs. Tweets and updates can be written quicker and more often, and they can often deliver the same ideas, thoughts or comments without the time and effort required by blogging.

But as much as Twitter and Facebook are user-friendly, they have their limitations. As short-form mediums, there is only so much real estate that can be leveraged. On the other hand, blogs provide a broader landscape to articulate ideas, information and resources.

At the same time, blogs are effective “content engines” in which the content can be repurposed to support social media efforts on Facebook and Twitter, marketing and sales collateral. In other words, blogs offer attractive return on investment (ROI) or bang for the buck.

In that respect, blogs can serve as an effective foundation for a company’s social media efforts. Sure, there is more effort involved in writing a blog but, in the long run, it is well worth the effort.

More more on the value of blogs, check out this post on why Facebook and Twitter are not replacing blogging.

By Mark Evans - April 8th, 2011 - 5 Comments »
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Posted in Social Media

The “Dividends” of Blogging

Writing a corporate blog is a challenge. There is a lot of work to consistently (hopefully!) create interesting or relevant content that balances the goal to be a valuable resource with the building a marketing presence.

The rewards for writing a blog are, of course, pageviews, comments, RSS subscribers and mentions on Twitter. But as many corporate bloggers know, success can be defined beyond the standard metrics if you consider things such as goodwill, respect by peers and competitors, being seen as a differentiator by existing and potential customers, and becoming a vibrant part of the social media community.

The trick is these kind of metrics can be difficult to measure because they’re not as tangible as a pageview, for example, This is why it’s rewarding to get outside validation that what you’re doing is resonating.

For Sysomos and myself, it has been great to be recognized by the AdAge Power 150, which ranks the top-150 marketing blogs. The Sysomos blog is now #98 on the list. Our blog also ranks 56th on the HubSpot Hot 100.

Being ranked on these list is a bonus because they are not the key metrics to determine the success of the blog. But, at the same time, they are important because it’s recognition of the work being done to write the blog and, as important, the commitment Sysomos has made to support the blog since the company launched publicly in late-2008.

To be honest, writing the blog can sometimes be tough slogging to grind out five posts a week. As a result, it’s always a good thing to see “dividends” for all the work behind the scenes.

By Mark Evans - March 21st, 2011 - 3 Comments »
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Posted in Social Media

Is Facebook Comments a Good Thing?

One of the key elements of blogging has been the ability to comment on posts. It has made blogging more vibrant, interactive, lively, entertaining and educational.

But one of the challenges of the comment landscape has been creating a system that would do three things: effectively administer comments on a blog, create universal identities to make commenting easier, and, as important, establish a system that would make comments more accessible than just having them sit on a single site.

There has been a lot of activity with players such as Disqus, JS-Kit and Intense Debate taking a crack at the problem. As social media has grown, the comment landscape has become more disperate with people putting comments on other services such as Friendfeed and Quora, or using their Twitter or Google IDs.

With this in mind, it is interesting to see Facebook’s new comment system, which was rolled out to a number of Web sites earlier this week. If you’re logged into Facebook, your identity is already established when you leave a comment.

If you let Facebook to also post your comment, it appears within your stream with a link to the original post, letting your friends know about your comment and the post.

There are obviously pros and cons – with the biggest con being the fact this is yet another way that Facebook will be able to gather your data and Web activity.

On the plus side, it does make comments more “real” by making people use their Facebook profiles. As well, it addresses the big issue of how to make the world know about a comment beyond the walls of a blog post.

For blog owners, Facebook Comments have the potential to drive traffic by providing a high-profile vehicle to highlight your blog posts. It could also make comments more legitimate, while providing a system to rank comments based on “Likes”.

The downside is Facebook now has another tentacle to gather data so there is a price to paid to use Facebook Comments. There’s no integration with Twitter or Google, and you’re giving up control of the comment system and how it works.

Like most thing Facebook does, Facebook Comments are controversial because there are definite benefits and disadvantages. Nothing Facebook does comes without a cost or, as important, a way to let Facebook expand its empire even wider.

As a long-time blogger who loves comments and has tried multiple commenting system, I’m not ready to embrace Facebook Comments because there seems to be far more benefits for Facebook. As well, the big issue is it’s Facebook, which has other motives than simply trying to offer a great comment system. To me, that’s a deal-breaker for the time being.

For more thoughts on Facebook Comments, including a break out of the pros and cons, check out this post by TechCrunch, which has implemented the system.

By Mark Evans - March 2nd, 2011 - 4 Comments »
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Posted in Social Media

How Social Media Was Used During the Queensland Floods

In 2009 I was fortunate to have lived in Australia for six months. I had a fantastic time while I was there seeing a beautiful country and meeting great people everywhere I went. That’s why I had been watching the news a lot lately as the country had been hit with flooding. Specifically, Queensland has been hit the hardest by the massive amount of rain and flooding.

After speaking with some people down in Sydney about the use of social media throughout the disaster, I’ve decided to take a closer look into what was happening. Using MAP, our social media monitoring and analytics platform, I pulled up some information using terms for “Queensland floods” and the hashtags #QLDfloods and #TheBigWet.

Looking at our world map for Twitter, we can see that the highest concentration of tweets were coming from the residents of Australia’s East coast. At the same time though, we can see that people from around the world were tweeting about the disaster.

Viewing online traditional media sources we can see that media from around the world was also talking about the floods.

When I looked to see what was being said in the blogosphere I was kind of overwhelmed. Most of the talk and reporting on the floods focused on the positive side of such a terrible time. The first sample I found is talking about heroes helping in a time of need while the second focused around already trying to raise money to help the people who’s lives had been washed away.

Pulling up our buzzgraph for Twitter, which shows words most used in conjunction with our search terms, we’re able to see that people were using the medium to seek out support. Some of the main key words seem to be an “appeal” for people to “pls” “donate”. We can also see that people were using Twitter to spread the word for “fundraisers” and “auctions” to help with “relief”.

While I know the disaster will take a very long time to clean up after and people will have to rebuild their lives, it was nice to see that so many people were focused on helping. I even ran a search to see if I could find people trying to ask for help through social media in the height of the floods. I added the word “help” to our search and limited it to only in Australia and could still only find people looking to help and not for help.

It’s really nice to see how social media can bring people together to help others whom they have never met. We hope that everyone down in Queensland and all of Australia is alright and if you’d like to help out yourself you can click here to donate to the Queensland Premier’s Disaster Relief Appeal

By Sheldon Levine - January 20th, 2011 - 3 Comments »
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Posted in Events, Samples, Social Media, Technology

Twitter vs. the Blog Comment

In the early days of blogging, there were no lack of comments because pre-Twitter and pre-Facebook, it was one of the few ways that people could engage with content.

Today, there are lots of options – Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Friendfeed, etc. While comments are still alive, my take is people aren’t as enthusiastic about them, and they don’t have the same cache as they might have a few years ago.

One of the biggest impacts on the comment is Twitter, which lets people post a mini-comment about a blog post or retweet a post they find interesting. A Twitter update or retweet is a faster and more efficient way to respond, and whatever the person has to say gets instantly distributed to their network.

So the question that begs to be asked whether the update and retweet has supplanted the comment as the way to engage with blogs? While comments are still happening and much appreciated by bloggers, Twitter is becoming, in many respects, a blog comment system in and of itself.


By Mark Evans - December 8th, 2010 - 4 Comments »
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Posted in Social Media

Seven Reasons to Have a Corporate Blog

As more companies get into social media, there are many services that can be embraced. In some cases, it makes sense to use a variety of services; in other situations, it’s a matter of using a small number strategically.

For many companies, a corporate blog makes a lot of sense even though it may not be as sexy as a Facebook Page or a Twitter account. I see a corporate blog as a powerful and effective platform for the following reasons:

1. It offers a company’s target audiences – e.g. existing and potential customers, employees, partners, investors, media, bloggers and analysts – with valuable insight and information, and the opportunity to establish domain expertise and thought leadership.

2. A corporate blog is a good complement to other social media activities because it provides them with content that can be distributed and shared. This can help to attract and engage an audience and community.

3. A corporate blog can also serve as a “content engine” throughout the organization. It can generate content for social media, newsletters, and marketing and sales collateral.

4.  A corporate blog can be an effective tool to establish a competitive difference. Having a blog can be a lot of work, which means not every company is going do it. For companies with the interest and commitment to do a blog, there is a significant opportunity to gain a competitive edge.

5. Blogs are dynamic and live vehicles while a Web site is fairly static with information that doesn’t change that often. As a result, a blog can provide a Web site with appeal on a regular basis.

6. Google loves blogs because they generate fresh content. For companies looking to boost their SEO, a blog can be an effective and inexpensive vehicle.

7. A good corporate blog can provide a company and its key employees with personality to appeal to customers in a different way. Again, this can provide a competitive edge.

Any other reasons why a corporate blog is a good idea? Let us know by leaving a comment.

By Mark Evans - December 6th, 2010 - 4 Comments »
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Posted in Social Media

Five Key Ingredients for a Successful Corporate Blog

Despite the fact blogs no longer have a lot of social media sex appeal, they remain an integral part of the landscape because they offer companies valuable ways to deliver insight and information to customers, employees, partners, investors and suppliers.

But launching and running a corporate blog is not easy. It’s not as simple as writing posts on a regular basis because a blog has to provide value on a regular basis.

So what are the keys to a successful corporate blog? Here are five tips:

1. Content that provides insight, perspective and information. At its core, a corporate blog has to give its readers information they can use to increase their knowledge, learn new things or receive insight.

2. It has need to be well written. A blog with spelling and grammatical mistakes reflects badly on the person writing it and their employer. As well, a blog posts need to have good flow and provide an engaging narrative that makes it easy to read.

This is particularly important given many people scan content online as opposed to reading it. This is why a good headline so important to capture someone’s attention.

3. Posts have to happen on a regular basis. It could be one, two or five posts/week. Whatever the editorial plan, it needs to be consistent to establish expectations within the company and among the blog’s readers.

The worse thing a company can do is post four or five times a week for a few weeks, and then once a week or not at all afterward. When the audience doesn’t know what to expect, they start to drift away.

4. It can’t operate as a standalone entity. There are two angles to this advice. One, a blog needs to be supported and nurtured within a company. It needs to be actively promoted within communications, marketing and sales collateral, business cards, letterhead and email signatures.

It should also be promoted on social media services such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. A blog needs to be seen as an integral part of a company’s brand and identity as opposed to be left alone to its own devices.

Second, a corporate blog needs to be integrated into the blogosphere and the blogging community. The people writing a blog need to be reading and commenting on other blogs. You can’t write a blog in isolation otherwise there are no connections with the “outside” world.

5. It needs to look good and have a user-friendly design. As much as a company will spend time and money to create a good Web site, its blog also need to be functional and attractive. In many senses, it is a public marketing vehicle that reflects a company’s brand, culture and approach to business.

A good blog should follow best practices by including things such as an RSS feed (both through an RSS reader and via e-mail), information about the writers, the ability to leave comments, links to social media services, and links to other corporate resources.

What are some of the other things that a good corporate blog should feature?

By Mark Evans - November 3rd, 2010 - 3 Comments »
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Posted in Social Media

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