Ian M Rountree

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Archives for April 2011

7 Reasons I Don’t Care If You Tweet This Post

April 28, 2011 by Ian Leave a Comment

When I published 5 Ways to Make Every Blog Post Count two days ago, I knew it’d get retweeted. In fact, I believe I said this:

Linkbait: Effective Blog Writing

And it did. But I didn’t get more traffic than I normally do – for a lot of reasons. Specific to the post; I knew it was linkbait, but it was helpful as well. I truly intended to write a useful post, and I’ll be referring to it several times in upcoming work. However, as effective as the title was at getting a few extra mentions from people who don’t normally interact with my stuff, there are some reasons I’m less concerned with the effect the article – and the title – had on Twitter.

1. Not all of my traffic comes from social media.

A decreasing amount, in fact, comes from Twitter. Yet I have more followers now than I have in the past, and I’m actively working on writing better headlines. So what’s happening to the traffic that’s supposed to come with tweets?

2. Twitter is for conversation.

While a lot of people use Twitter for sending links back and forth, and information traffic control, I’ve had a better time using it as an ongoing chat. I’m a chat person, not a forum person, so this works for me. I don’t use twitter for sharing, but this might change, as my habits change; with any platform, there are bound to be reasons to use the tool one way more than another, but leaving yourself open to change is a good idea.

3. Twitter is not the only network I care about.

Lots of people consider Twitter the penultimate location for networking. However, Facebook, LinkedIn, and even other blogs, also have a lot of power. Considering I spend most of my time using Twitter for conversation, rather than linking, I’d be happier with blog comments, reactions, or other kinds of interaction than just sending another headline into the broader stream.

4. Not every post needs to be read by everyone.

Maybe you already knew how to make each blog post work harder for you. Just like you already know how to measure the effectiveness of tweets – if that’s the case, you’re not going to care what I have to say. You don’t need it. Instead, you could be reading about being awesome somewhere else. Any of this means that one more post on single-blog-post efficiency is just going to float by, and you’re not going to click. And that’s fine.

5. It’s just another list!

There are so many lists! Yes, it’s effective as linkbait, but more importantly if a list doesn’t contain actionable information (or at least informative entertainment), passing it on won’t help anyone. Granted, I do hope this list is helpful – but speaking broadly about link tweeting in general, passing nothing but links without the benefit of meta conversation or commentary only provides so much benefit to your followers. Tell me why it’s important, in a tweet, or don’t endorse it.

6. Linkbait retweets don’t work anyway.

Yes, the link mentioned above got retweeted – the trouble is that I know – and you do too, let’s be honest – that most of the time people bump articles with good titles, but don’t read the article itself. Whether it’s the headline, the tweet wrapping the link, or the person sending the tweet – there are lots of reasons to hit the “Me Too” button that don’t involve appropriately curating and endorsing things you pass on. And that’s ok. But it doesn’t make me care more about Twitter than I do already.

7. Getting a retweet isn’t my highest measurement of value in social media.

It’s really not!

There are many ways you can encourage reactions in social media, and gain traffic or further conversation. Things like:

  • Retweets (mediatrope: Me Too Button)
  • Facebook likes or comments
  • Trackbacks
  • Comments on the blog post itself, or
  • Even better off site blog reactions

… All contribute to a blog post’s effectiveness as a communication tool, beyond being just another publication. It’s up to you, as a content creator, to know – and appropriately rank – which of these is most important to your own measurements of value, and acceptance of success where you find it.

If we don’t decide on what matters before we hit publish, hindsight cannot help is.

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: calls to action, lists, measurement, priorities, rant-alert, twitter

Modern Earth Tweeting the QNet Conference May 4th

April 27, 2011 by Ian Leave a Comment

I’ll be part of the Modern Earth Tweet Team attending the Manitoba Quality Network Excellence Conference this time next week.

As we’ve done at other events, Modern Earth Web Design is deploying half a dozen Earthlings to platform journalism at the conference under the hashtag #qnet2011. We’re covering the entire day, beginning with the keynote presentation by (OH MY GOSH!) Mitch Joel!

See the blog post on the Modern Earth Blog for more details, or register for the conference if you’ll be in the city that day!

Filed Under: Event Notices Tagged With: attending, conferences, events, mitch joel, platform journalism, tweet team

4 Signs You’re Strip Mining Your Niche

April 26, 2011 by Ian 1 Comment

Vulture Mine | Flickr
Sometimes, the best way to get at a resource is by digging a pit and pulling it out.

People have been doing this for some time – but is it appropriate for bloggers to be approaching their niches the way some mining companies approach environmental conservation; with scorn, disregard for wasted effort, and their eye on nothing but fast profitability?

Like open pit miners, some content producers go right for the veins of gold in their niche by going broad and shallow with their content. By not only writing for your very specified subject matter, but addressing subjects in a strategic manner, you’re going to get more out of the wells you dig in your niche.

Here are some signs you might be missing the opportunity for sustainable work:

1. Removing overburden

When you’re starting niche work, one of the really tempting strategies is to write all the obvious blog entries first – 10 Ways to Get Better Sales, or How to Own A Hacksaw are great titles – but when you spend your first month in a blog with nothing but these super obvious subjects, one of two things happens; either you gain no ground because you’re showing no depth, or you lose enthusiasm because the learning curve goes from bunny hill to K2 after you’ve exhausted the easy topics.

2. Chopping off the mountaintops (overt criticism)

There’s always kerfuffle about negative action – but relentlessly hamstringing the competition isn’t just a bad idea online, it can be downright fatal to your career as a blogger. Because nothing ever really goes away (see also; Eternal Cache mediatrope), even if your opinions about something change, your Voice of Record never will. Endlessly pursuing conflict for whatever reasons you name is counter-productive.

3. Failing to survey properly

If you don’t do the research, no one can blame you for getting it wrong, right? Wrong. Dead wrong. Missing vital details, neglecting to give proper credit, or opining without disclaiming an article as opinion, can be damaging to your long term opportunities as an authority on the web. And that’s just with individual articles.

If you dive into a niche that’s dried up, or being effectively addressed by a range of other knowledge workers who both got there before you and know more than you do, you’re only going to be able to get a certain amount of return on your work.

4. Paying no heed to the tailings

Run-off from a blog may be harder to quantify than from a mine, but the fact remains that unaddressable byproducts exist. Unanswered comments, unthanked retweets, ghost town Facebook pages – all of these are the tailings of a sloppy blogging operation. Missing the opportunity to clean up after yourself, by responding to comments, and thanking those who share (when you find them), is a great way to waste future advocacy.

There are better ways to produce serialized content along a constrained topic set.

Because, let’s face it, that’s the technical definition of Blogging, isn’t it? We’re not just weblogging any more, we’re not journaling – certainly not if the idea of a niche has entered the discussion. Creating serialized content in a shallow manner will net swift results if done well – but it won’t last forever.

Image by Kevin Dooley.

Filed Under: Content Strategy Tagged With: content creation, efficiency, evolution, mining, politics, serialized content, weblogs

5 Ways to Make Every Blog Post Count

April 25, 2011 by Ian 2 Comments

Fist - Brian Tomlinson | Flickr

Bloggers toss out a lot of content.

We’re the serial monogamists of the writing world – forever working on a new article, loving it until we publish the next one, and moving on in an endless succession of text production. Our job, as Merlin Mann so eloquently puts it, is to “make the clacketty noise on our keyboards until the right words fall out.” The trouble with this is that eventually, even the best words don’t feel right, and we lose ourselves in the production.

“Oh,” we say, “I don’t really have to put the time into this post, because the next one will be published tomorrow.”

Bullpucky.

In Cranking, an essay on failing to prioritize a book on setting priorities, Merlin talks about the manner in which he’s developing his work for the book he’s under contract to deliver. He’s struggling, in part because he’s not an author. He’s a writer, sure, but as we’ve discussed before, authorship and writing are different things. Merlin’s having the issue many transitioning tradespeople have – he’s trying to apply the method that works in one medium to another, and failing (as he says, not me). Does this mean his book will suck? Quite the opposite – should it ever be released, I think it’ll end up being a canonical example of what productivity books are for; helping people get their work done better, quicker, sooner.

Why is this a big deal for bloggers?

Because I’m in the same boat, and I think a lot of you are too. While some people are diving back into the things that work for them, there’s a feeling that not everything we do actually counts. One of the thing that I read from Merlin’s essay, and some of the reactions to it, is that while prioritization is key, making the work you actually do more meaningful is a great way to avoid burnout, while being more productive.

So let’s talk about some of the things you can do – for yourself – which might just help keep you in the zone, and make sure the posts you publish are worth your time.

1. Limit the number of categories on your blog.

When you force yourself to write only about stated subjects, you automatically increase the likelihood that your articles will be more impressive over time. By keeping yourself to a strict regime of topics, and retaining an open approach to themes that address those topics, you’re going to do better work. If even a cinnamon toast can come back to creative work, for example, you’re on the right track.

2. Research is your friend.

Do your discovery! While not ever post requires fact-checking, looking into your subject matter can almost always provide some additional resources. Maybe someone’s already related food to sales pages, for example, and you’re writing the same theme from an entirely different voice. Referencing existing material can be as helpful for fact checking as it can be for making sure you don’t sound too old hat.

3. Make sure you’re filling in all the fields.

Search engine optimization aside, it’s generally a good idea to go for completeness. Have you referenced everything you need to? If you’re in an SEO-ready blogging environment, are you entering your own titles and meta descriptions? Have you tagged and categorized the blog post properly – or are you relying on your defaults to cover these things for you? Just like you can’t steal third base from first, you can’t expect a blog post to do well in search without some tender care. And, as much as we love social media, it really does contribute to the per-post feeling of ephemera.

4. Make every possible connection.

Cross-linking posts, and linking out to other bloggers, is important; links are part of how the web works, not to mention being important for SEO. At their core, however, links are a great way to expose new readers to your existing material – which will help you feel like the things you’ve done in the past actually mean something. More than just increasing the value of the work you do today, cross-linking your blog posts can also increase the value of the work you did last month, last year, or even further in the past.

5. Ask questions.

Unless you’re writing a research paper, don’t be afraid to leave things open to interpretation, and encouraging discussion. Even if you end up with an in situ comment count of zero, you might be causing ripples – giving people something to respond to can help then find their way as well, and may end up in some ancillary social sharing, a trackback, or other forms of off-site engagement.

Back to you – what have we missed?

There are a lot of ways to make your blog posts more effective – what works for you? How do you maintain interest, without feeling overwhelmed by the inner editor, or worse, by the inner apathetic? How do you make your work count for more than you once thought it might?

Filed Under: Content Strategy Tagged With: Blogging, productivity, seo

Trench Notes: Engagement

April 22, 2011 by Ian Leave a Comment

If you’re looking for better observation on social media, look no further than Margie Clayman.

Margie’s a blogger, twitter fanatic, and marketer whom I first encountered in #blogchat more than a year ago. Since, she’s founded #tweetdiner, worked her way onto just about everyone’s radar, and produced some truly awesome stuff. Most recently, she’s been writing about engagement – one of the key issues in Social Media.

In the vein of Chris Brogan, who wrote 100 posts about using social media for business in 2007, Margie set out to write 100 posts about Engagement as a study of social media itself, among other things. As of this writing, she’s into the 30s, and still going strong.

Read through from the start, before the backlog gets overwhelming; there’s gold here.

The series starts with “The Engagement Series is Go for Launch“.

Find the archive at Margie Clayman – The Engagement Series.

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: challenge, chris brogan, engagement, links, margie clayman, series

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