Archives for October 2010

Good Morning, Orion

October 25, 2010 by Ian Leave a Comment

I’m working on a re-design of this site – I’ve mentioned this.

What I haven’t mentioned is why, what’s involved, or how it may affect the people who have been faithfully reading for a while (and, while we’re on that – thank you if you have).

Let’s start with some history. In November of last year, I skipped National Novel Writing Month to write 50 thousand words in this blog instead. I dropped a post every weekday for the entire month, and for much of December, January, and part of February following that. In February, however, I took at job with Modern Earth Web Design, here in Winnipeg, as an Online Marketing Specialist. My blogging momentum dropped, but so did a couple of other things, including the regular posting of The Dowager Shadow, which only made it to chapter 4 as a web serial.

I had intended to continue posting daily, and working on Dowager Shadow – but job transitions are difficult, especially moving into a new K2-style learning curve as I did. So, both the blog and the novel fell off.

I want to fix both of these things.

I’ve recently written bits about making sure you don’t suck at social media, and ensuring your information architecture has integrity – the work I’m doing now follows some of my own advice. Here’s how;

My sensei and I are working on a project outside of this blog, to create an information resource for web workers. This project removes some of the pressure of currency from my blog, and will allow for some new challenges and opportunities down the road.

I’m also re-building the Dowager Shadow’s website, and working on finishing the book. More details will come on that front – but it will mean I’ll be a little quiet during November, because I’ll be participating in National Novel Writing Month (with only a limited expectation of completion).

Lastly, I’m rebuilding this website with a focus on supporting the work I’m doing at Modern Earth. It won’t be a “hire me” blog – but it will certainly be far more clear that I do, in fact, want to work with businesses on growing their presence on the web. I’ll keep you in the loop as the site is rebuilt. The aim for completion is the end of December – so it’ll be an ongoing process.

The short of it is that things are changing – and I’d rather keep you all in the loop over how, when, and what – even if I’m not quite ready to share the why – rather than springing things on you later and causing confusion.

Sometimes the plans are as important as the execution.

How to Suck at Social Media (And 3 ways to Get Better)

October 22, 2010 by Ian 1 Comment

It’s easier than you think. If you;

Do nothing but worry over ROI,
Con yourself out of trying a platform for any reason,
Convince yourself it’s all a load of hooey before diving in head first, (or)
Dive in head first, experience cold-shoulder-shock, and immediately stop…

… You might just suck at social media.

But it’s ok! You can get better at it – that part’s easier than you think.

First, stop worrying over how many followers you have, and start keeping track of how many points of interaction you create. How many blog posts are you writing per month? How many tweets are you sending per day? How many questions are you asking, answering, and participating in answering on LinkedIn groups?

Next, stop reading the stats about interactions and start counting the percentage of your interaction points which get taken advantage of. Look at your blog post-to-comment ratio and figure out how to encourage more comments and discussions. Look at your Klout score to see if you’re keeping up with the replies and long-lasting conversations over time (because a given Klout score is useless – the trend matters). Pay attention to how many questions are asked on your LinkedIn groups, and how many answers you’ve given – bonus points when your answers are not the last in the thread.

And whatever you do, don’t burn yourself out with hard sprints of activity that you can’t keep up. That’s the worst. If you can’t commit to posting on your blog five times a week, don’t do it in the first place – that’s what scheduling is for. If you can’t commit to answering every question on a group, don’t make one – join another and participate.

Participating in social media is always more straight-forward than curating it. Bonus points if you can stop worrying about building communities before you’re ready, and spend your time endeavouring to enhance the communities already in place by joining and taking active part.

And if you really don’t know where to start – you know where to find me.

Image by josh-n.

Rethinking Information Architecture

October 20, 2010 by Ian Leave a Comment

What’s your website for?

Seriously – when was the last time you gave a lot of thought to how you position the content of your website? And I’m not talking about writing 500-word blog posts versus 300-word ones, or developing your editorial calendar. I’m talking about the flow, pulse, and purpose of every piece of content on your website – and what it helps you achieve.

We’re so quick to blog, we forget to create anything else.

Many of the newest, most powerful content management systems, such as WordPress, put the news feed – the blog, or whatever else you want to call it – right at the front. So, we build our content based on blogs. This is getting more and more common, and it’s not a mistake.

Updated, fresh content helps search engine rankings – “new” is great for SEO. that’s half of why any blogger writes – to keep themselves relevant in the face of a constant stream of other new posts. But what does this do for our pillars?

It’s very difficult to create pillar content in a blog post. Even with longer form, less commonly updated blogs, 1250 to 1500 word exegesis-style missives don’t usually cut it. How many blog readers actually want to read an essay? Not many.

This is why we need to get better at creating our Pages.

We – yes, you, me, and every other blogger out there – need to get better at making the pillars which hold up the remainder of our content stronger. We need to plan, not just what word to put where, but what aim each link in our websites have.

For example; in the next few weeks, I’m transitioning the primary focus of my website away from being wholly a blog. I’m going to be restructuring my information architecture, and using the blog as a supplement to that architecture, rather than a replacement for it. Why? Because my needs are changing, and the purpose of my work on the web must follow. If it doesn’t, I don’t lose anything – but if I can do things better, I stand to gain. And if I gain sufficiently, I can pass that gain on through other projects, so that you can gain as well.

That’s what the web is about; creating a cycle of consistent, Pareto-increasing gains.

So expect some difference here. Soon.

I’ll be sure to explain as it goes – because I wouldn’t want to be a bad leader and dump change on people without warning.

And, I’ll ask you as well: how intentional is the content structure of your websites? How much consideration (not just planning) goes into developing the information architecture of your new projects as they come out?

How can I help you do better?

image by suchitra prints.

Notes From #blogchat – Co-Host @ShannonPaul

October 17, 2010 by Ian 2 Comments

Tonight’s #blogchat featured Shannon Paul, from the Very Official Blog, and Michigan Blue Cross Blue Shield. The topic was responding to comments on a company blog.

This is a pretty touchy subject – I know many new corporate bloggers feel as though the comments are the bane of their existence, or that it should be so heavily moderated it may as well not exist at all – but at the end of the day, if there’s not a discussion, there’s not a community.

Here’s what shaped up in the chat:

First of all, Shannon is a great person. Really down to earth – and it showed even in the pre-game show. Watching some of the back and forth was great, as always.

Of course, 8pm hits, and the chat was already accelerating. The mandatory introductions were mandatory, the obligatory jokes were obligatory. Pretty standard.

The first question was about scope – do you respond to every comment on your company blog? What about your personal blog? It’s an important question.

Next thing – a note from a number of people about there being no one-size-fits-all approach to comments. I have to say I agree – strategy for comments is as individual as content strategy for the blog itself.

@mattceni let me know the first SEO question came in at 8:10 – which is by no means a record, but amusing none the less.

An awesome quote from Shannon Paul – “A blog is typically a conversation, but how you define the conversation you want to have differs.”

As well, a great notice from Shannon regarding dealing with trolls and inappropriate comments – leave the emotion at home.

A couple of people mentioned that comment sections are a great way to catch things you’ve missed – aspects of a story not covered, concerns not addressed and so forth. This is fairly important, and how you as a corporate blogger react to these challenges/criticisms/revelations/bonus points is paramount to the success of the blog you’re running.

Of course, timely as always, there were some comments about back channels and more direct, discrete areas.

Halftime! No intermission!

Mack Collier made a good point that many customers who make negative comments on a company blog do so because they see it as a last resort for customer service. I tend to agree – negative may not be constructive, but usually stems from a real reason, no matter how overblown the comment is.

This said; don’t feed the trolls. Once you determine whether or not there can be a resolution to a stated issue, resolve or move on.

There were a few notes throughout the chat about setting expectations, for readers and commentators, in order to ensure that there is both appropriate respect, and appropriate relevance in comments.

Companies, unfortunately, seem to think that having comments open in the first place will draw negativity, and encourage disgruntled people to make bad comments.

Hear this: Permission given from Shannon and Mack, and just about everyone on the chat, to delete abusive comments without response. There. Now, let people comment.

Similarly – comments both positive and negative can be very power ways to gather data for use across the company. If someone speaks up – either to praise or not – use that. Interact with it, unless it’s abusive (see; do not feed trolls) and make the most of it.

All in all, company blogs need to better embrace the comment section, and let their customers – and prospects – interact in a less formal manner with them. This isn’t about diluting your brand or your message – this is about making sure you do right by people, in the arenas where it’s expected.

Participants’ List from TweepML

What The Hashtag transcript for #blogchat on October 17th

If I missed something let me know! That’s what the comments section is for!

Keeping it Under the Buffer

October 16, 2010 by Ian 3 Comments

A long time ago, on an internet far away, I used to be a role-player.

I – and as many as a hundred other players – helped to curate, create and control a diverse world of characters, with centuries of in-game history, hundreds of criss-crossing plots, and inter-personal drama… Both between the dozens upon dozens of characters, and the few dozen players who made the game their life for years.

We had everything a community would expect – sex, lies, videotape – and then some. We were one of the first greatly inter-woven community groups on the web. We knew each other. Some of the players met in real life (and at the time, in the late nineties, that was a really big deal) and some players even got married.

None of that could have been possible without the buffer.

On the chat we wrote our worlds at, the segment of the screen reserved for private messages between chatters was called the buffer. Players – or, when out of character, chatters – who were either getting personal, displaying inappropriate activity, or often just plain lewd (it was internet chat in the nineties, after all) would be told quite clearly to “take it into the buffer” as a hint that their messages should be private.

We’re stripping a lot of the expectation of privacy away online. On Twitter, Direct Messages are a last resort – and usually not used unless you lack someone’s email address or IM. On Facebook, messages are very rare. Tonight, on #tweetdiner, Margie Clayman and Stanford from @pushingsocial’s weekly twitter chat, there was some talk about the idea that eventually Twitter might splinter into many smaller, more private groups.

This may not be necessary – we already have the means by which to get private – but if people fail to recognize when they should take their connections into the buffer, they’re missing out. The buffer doesn’t just mean privacy in the sense of strictly one-to-one connection. The buffer is anywhere that you can speak without the crowd at large listening. Business deals happen here. Lasting friendships happen here.

Without segmentation – not to be confused with segregation or exclusion – real interpersonal connection is a lot harder.

Not impossible. Just harder. But how do we get past the idea that everything we do is public? How about looking for buffers – and then making use of them?

Perhaps;

Email is a buffer. Whether one-to-one or group.
IM is a perfect buffer – even with small groups.
Podcast production can be a buffer – both in group production, and in distribution until a big audience gathers.
DMs can be a buffer – but they’re a better gateway to more efficient buffers.
Blogs and blog comments can even be buffers – they’re public, but sometimes just direct enough to be a source of real connection.

It’s not hard to see the spaces where we can make real connections with people. Make some connections.

Maybe even make a connection here. Hi. Nice to see you.

image by Steve Jurvetson.