I sat in on a graduate level social media session today led by Josh Hallett at the 2008 Counselors Academy conference in Naples. (I was hoping to come away with a master’s degree in blogging – an MB, so to speak – but for now those letters will simply remain the province I am from.)
As I mentioned, Josh was one of my blogging mentors, though the last time I heard him talk, my head was swimming from all the new concepts I wanted to absorb.
Today’s presentation was no less provocative.
Here are a few highlights:
- On the benefits of blogging: You may not have a lot of readers but blogging provides you with ‘long-term search relevance’. People find you. As an example, try googling ‘beauty PR agencies in Toronto’; my blog post is the first entry.
- WordPress is Josh’s platform of choice. It provides users with the ability to insert replies right under a comment (so it’s easier to follow conversational threads) and can differentiate between commenters and the author. He likened Blogger to having an @aol.com email address. With all the little glitches I’ve been encountering on Blogger, I wonder if I could move my blog over to there (and if it will be worth the effort).
- Publish as many times a week as you want people to visit your blog.
- Blogging is a great way to seed a story by reaching the mavens, asking for feedback and starting to generate WOM. (Of course, you have to identify and get to know them first.)
- When you’re developing communications strategies, don’t forget the forums and message boards. That’s where you can find some of the most passionate and influential people on a subject.
To discover more about the conference, visit Matt Kucharski, Jeff Davis, Indra Gardiner or the CA blog. BTW, the conference posts were written by a group of students from College of Charleston.
“Blogging is a great way to seed a story by reaching the mavens, asking for feedback and starting to generate WOM.”This statement twigged for me — probably because I see this on a t-shirt too:”The early bird gets the WOM.”
Thanks Udin. I’d agree that traffic is important. The more readers you have, the more people they may refer to your site, the more influence your site begins to have.However, I think traffic (I’d prefer readers) is something you need to build up organically through originality of ideas and voice, participating in your community and creating relationships.
NICE TIPS. but how about traffic?
Thanks to both of you for your comments. Josh did mention Twitter (and, as an aside, I noticed him Twittering during the keynote). But, as I mentioned in previous posts, I’m just not there yet.
Thanks for the mention. Counselors Academy had lots to offer this year and I attended a different session during that time, so wonder if he mentioned Twitter as a great way to alert followers to a blog and topics of new posts. On Twitter you can follow Josh at @hyku and me at @contactjeff
Indeed, Josh does leave one’s head spinning. Made me feel like our social media tactics are in elementary school.Thanks for mention!