eBiz Tomorrow by Chris Salazar

I recently wrote about how to become a successful intern since I was interned for about 2 years at a Bay Area tech company. But, since I’ve grown into the workforce, I’ve seen my blogging decline. I thought it was going to be the opposite, but I’m getting back into shape and motivating myself to continue blogging.

I will give this my best shot, but these are characteristics that I currently working towards since they seem to be prominent in most successful bloggers. This will serve as a checklist for me…I’ll revisit this to check on my progress.

How To Become A Successful Blogger

• Think PASSION, not numbers
  • Some bloggers start off or eventually participate in the popularity/number contest–AKA your technorati rank
  • Numbers and Ranks are a distraction, instead write about your passion
  • Blogs written with passion are much more powerful, resourceful, and interesting
• Join the CONVERSATION
  • Shel Israel, author of Naked Conversations, said we should join the conversation by listening FIRST–excellent advice!
  • Listen to what others have to say, start writing your own thoughts, comment on other blogs, and invite them to talk with you
  • Be a good listener and a good contributor
• Exhibit THOUGHT LEADERSHIP
  • Keep your posts unique and resourceful
  • Add value to what has already been said and introduce new ideas and questions
  • Make your posts thought provoking, not just a summary of what’s going on
• Create TRUST
  • Shel Israel said blogging should be like:
    • “Two neighbors leaning on a fence talking about their interests”
  • Create trust by creating an informal and open global conversation
  • Invite others to agree and disagree with you
• Enable comments
  • Comments are an important feature of blogs, enable them and help keep the conversation going
  • Positive and negative feedback are both good, don’t worry
  • The best thoughts, perhaps some you did not think of, come from comments
• Become the starting and ending point for all conversations
  • You want the conversation to start and end with you
  • First, keep up to date with global trends, news, and innovations and provide your honest opinions
  • Be enthusiastic and raise eyebrows
• Network with other bloggers
  • Build relationships, do not just sit back and hope things will happen
  • Venture out in the blogosphere, meet new people, and build friendships
  • Commend bloggers for a job well done and help them become thought leaders as well

Despite being a personal list, these rules apply to all (even corporate bloggers). This is an on-going list that I will continue to update with YOUR COMMENTS!

I am introducing a set of guidelines that can be used to enhance your user’s experience and inspire conversations. These commitments have been introduced by Barry Posner, Dean of the Business school at Santa Clara University, but in a student-leadership context…instead, I am relating these ideas to Blogging.

The Ten Commitments of an Exemplary Blog

1. FIND YOUR VOICE by clarifying your personal values and including your expertise. All publishers must have their own unique voice that sets them apart from all others. Whether its with humor or language, defining and exemplifying your own voice is key.

2. SET THE EXAMPLE by aligning actions with shared values. (GO FIRST!) Exemplary Blogs are leaders and need to model the way for others to follow. Set the example for everyone else and let them drive their own experiences, then allow them the opportunity to reflect and converse.

3. ENVISION THE FUTURE by imagining exciting and emerging possibilities. Most successful bloggers are “early adopters” and are constantly searching for the next opportunity. While some are just starting to blog, others are moving on to podcasts/audio conversations, and soon few will be moving towards video conversations.

4. ENLIST OTHERS in a common vision by appealing to shared aspirations. Publishers know their audience and should always write with them in mind. Appealing to their needs heightens the experience and enriches the conversations.

5. SEARCH FOR OPPORTUNITIES by seeking innovative ways to change, grow, and improve. An exemplary blog is always changing and finding new ways to both attract new readers and fulfill needs. There is always room for improvement, but those blogs who embrace the idea of positive change and run with it succeed.

6. EXPERIMENT AND TAKE RISKS by constantly generating small wins and learning from mistakes. Never be afraid to challenge the common belief, after all the worst that can happen is you are wrong. But in some cases, the “minority” belief is right, as we have seen in Why Blogs are NOT Important

7. FOSTER COLLABORATION by building trust. (Let the user’s drive the conversation). Allowing the user to take control builds trust. This is why RSS Syndication (the user’s vehicle) has been generating some hype among many online companies. In short, RSS gives users complete control over what they want to read, which establishes a sense of trust between the reader and the publisher/coporation.

8. STRENGTHEN OTHERS by sharing power and discretion.

9. RECOGNIZE CONTRIBUTIONS by showing appreciation for excellence. Recognize those who are thought-leaders and provoke interesting conversations.

10. CELEBRATE THE VALUES AND VICTORIES OF OTHERS by creating a spirit of community. Ah Yes, building a community is important and perhaps an important goal for every blog. Exemplary blogs build communities where everyone is NOT afraid to speak and everyone has a voice. This voice is what drives the conversations and enhances the reader’s experience.

If you had to make your own list, what would you have?

I read this article about the 6 ways to not get stumbled. A lot of these reasons are logical and really take aware from the essence of the content posted. We all know that you need to not only report/summarize other content, but add some sort of value, right? Yes, this is all true, but HOW DO YOU GET STUMBLED?

Readers will stumble your blog if its useful and entertaining to them. This means your blog has to be in tip-top shape! Let’s review my 4 C’s of Blogging: Content, Clarity, Conversation, Customer. All of these shape your blog into something that is real and filled with value.

1. Content - Your content has to be relevant and up to date. This is what keeps your users coming back for more. Don’t just provide the bare bones, but add extra interesting and thought-provoking incite. Content on your site is key…and gauge success by noting trends and periods when you have most traffic.
2. Clarity - Make sure your voice is clear. Take a clear stance and prove it! In fact, be clear from the beginning of your goals for each blog post. This will help you stay on track with the blog post and gauge your success at the end. Is the purpose and point of your blog post conveyed clearly?
3. Conversation - Create an atmosphere that is ready for conversations. This will not come right away and takes work, but gear up and be ready for when it does happen. Conversations is important, but its not most important. First connect with yourself, write down your thoughts, then work on getting others involved.
4. Customer - Plain and simple, think of your users as customers. What do they need? What mediums do the use? How can you best express your thoughts? And, why are you blogging? Treat your users like customers, work on not only finding new customers, but keeping them. Shouldn’t be too hard considering we are all each other’s customers, just put on those shoes and write to your specific audience.

These are pointers on how to have a good blog, but theres still a lot of effort needed from you. You’ve got to connect with other people around the blogosphere. Don’t wait for them, go out and get them yourself!

I’ve previously talked about the basics for building an online community starting with corporate blogs. This is great for building a foundation, but each online community must have an underlying strategy to keep it living. Strategic planning is vital in ensuring online community goals are met and evolving.

Here’s my list of milestones and goals for all online community blogs (within the first few months):

• Integrate corporate blogs in all customer touch points including:
  • Announcements
  • Product Launches
  • Product Developments
  • Support
  • Customer Events

• Create community blogs to foster industry conversations (2-way) and thought leadership

• Encourage Product Marketing to actively participate in the online industry conversation:
  • Watch corporate bloggers and step in when needed
  • Interact with other industry practitioners and build an online social network
  • Provide corporate bloggers with research and ideas from the blogosphere

• Allow corporate blogs to be used as a feedback mechanism to improve products, support/tech help, messaging, and strategy
  • Connect product teams with current customers/users to build better products
  • Connect users with users to solve technical issues and log information in archives/database

• Utilize corporate blogs as sales tools
  • Use blog entries as conversation starters
  • Refer to corporate blogs and/or specific posts for tech help/information
  • Use blogs/bloggers to answer questions from the sales field

• Improve communication with partners and vendors
  • Blogs = reseller tools to promote vendor’s product info and support
  • Another medium to foster communication, product awareness, and channel partner advantages

• Use corporate blogs as a mechanism to keep track of competitor’s successes and advantages
  • Listen to their customer feedback - what are they doing well?
  • How are their customers reacting to your product launches, etc?
    • How can this information help your company improve product and operations?

This is a great list to start off with. It’s general, yet each corporation can prone it to their own liking. Additionally, here are some other thought-provoking posts that can help with your planning:

1. How to sell social media to your boss
2. Social 2.0 and How to utilize it’s full potential in business
3. The 4 C’s of blogging
4. Benefits of corporate blogs
5. Users vs Consumers - Who’s in, Who’s out

For the next few months, I will be putting on the hat of an Online Community Marketing Manager and pretending as if I’m starting my own from scratch. For simplicity reasons, let’s assume I’ve already got all the back-end server stuff taken care of.

Some questions to ponder about building an online community are:

• who will participate?
• how much time with contributors need to spend on the tool(s)?
• how long does it take to see results and how are these measured?
• how will the online community integrate with other promotional and communication efforts?
• should you allow comments?

Some corporations have only a few bloggers, usually expert thought-leaders, and others have a wide range of employee bloggers (like Sun and IBM). Figuring out what best fits the company’s culture is very important. Either way, here’s a good blog policy to follow (created by sun).

The next important question to ask is why you are blogging. How can you align the blog with the online community and most importantly, the overall messaging of the company. Here’s a few steps to do this:

1. What is the corporate message? Write it down on a piece of paper and figure out how you can achieve this
2. How can you shape the blog to support and coincide nicely with your company’s overall strategy?
3. What trends and topics are hot in your industry? Visit sites like technorati to find out. Using tools like Google Alerts to keep up with the market. You need to be 100% up to date.
4. Who should blog? An individual, a group, or the whole company?

It’s one thing to create tools and push them out there, but its another to have a strategy and a goal for them. They must be part of the value chain that ultimately leads to the corporate message. The blog should spark conversation within the industry, somehow promote the company’s image, and be used as a knowledge base for all.

There are a few important aspects of blogging that serve beneficial and could help jump start other community marketing tools as well:

• Tagging - the method of categorizing information by topic, idea, customer, solution, etc
  • Taxonomy - formal categories grouped by data hierarchy, data relationship, and data type
  • Folksonomy - allowing users the power to define categories to make info easy to search, find, and store (i.e. flickr)
• Webfeeds, RSS - allow sumarries and/or full text entries to be read in feedreaders (MyYahoo, Google Reader)
• Comments - allow all comments, only delete spam. This fosters a dialog between multiple individuals at a time
• Web Analytics - how will traffic be analyzed? Google Analytics is a great tool. What stats must every blog have?

These are all things a Community Manager must take into account and be ready for. Just the first step in creating a blog, but there’s more. What about other help docs? If I were to create help docs (as few as possible), they’d have the following titles (in no particular order):

1. How to incorporate blogs with Flickr
2. Best Practices for blogging: Blogging 101
3. Blogging etiquette: What should and should not be said
4. How to become social and up-to-date with industry trends
5. Blog Analytics Essentials: How to make sense out of graphs and stats

Last, but not least, the role of a Community Marketing Manager is important. This person must possess certain characteristics in order to successfully evangelize the importance of such tools and to keep a program growing. Jeremiah has the 4 Tenets of a Community Manager, which are very difficult to uphold.

This should be enough for now. Please let me know how you’re doing…what roadblocks are you facing? Maybe we can help each other!

I’ve got and I’ve found it…rather I’ve found the person who have surpassed me by a great deal! Someone who is my age and has already done so much with social media in both his personal and professional life…Dan Schawbel.  His main focus is BRAND…and he recently gave his predictions for Personal Branding in 2008

In the light of the new year coming and my attempt to add value to Dan’s contributions, here are my own predictions for 2008’s world of Social Media:

• Corporations will move past “community” and work to create CUSTOMER UTILITY
  • Yes, corporations should concentrate on providing their customers with a service; whether that be an interactive knowledge base, variety of web 2.0 product interfaces, or a network of online consultants available around the clock
  • Everyone is creating a community, but investing in the customer is important. Common questions to ask: What can they actually use? What’s missing in my industry? Why should customers invest their time with my company?
• Users will challenge corporations to become transparent and real
  • Open-communication is not enough; every leading corporation will have 2 faces (the CEO and the Community guy)
• Job openings in social media will explode - will we see CCOs (Chief Community Officers)?
  • We’ll have two versions of the story, two different types of Press Conferences. One will be on TV and in front of reports, the second will be on a blog “translating” into real terms what’s going on. Nowadays, CEO’s messages are lost in translation…its the CCOs job to keep it real.
• Blogging and Facebook will lose its value and utility
  • I’ve seen it with Facebook already, I’ve been bombarded with way too much SPAM and I’ve lost interest in it. I see other profiles, who I used to frequently visit, and they are filled with so much extra stuff that makes it look like one big blob of junk.
  • Blogging…people are trying to make a living through their personal blog? Too many adwords, too many attempts to make a $1, too many people why to become e-famous. What happened to true, passionate blogging for the love of writing and sharing one’s ideas?

What are your predictions for 2008? Am I on the right track or do you have some objection?

Many of us understand and realize that social media is powerful for individuals and businesses. However, there’s a vast majority out there who either disagree or are too old fashioned. Unless you work for a young company, those people are probably your boss.So, I want to start my own community marketing program at my company…how do I do it? Fortunately, I was privileged to follow under the footsteps of Jeremiah, who introduced social media to HDS; we have forums, a wiki, and a few bloggers. Yet, it was far from easy…but I learned from him.

Still its very hard work, so I look up to experts for advice and I came across an interesting article that really sums up how to start one. Only one catch, this article tells how to start one if others in your industry are catching on too…nonetheless, i cant argue with his findings.

I started off this blog with the intention to summarize someone’s thoughts, but instead I’m pushing myself…I’ll give you my advice from what Ive learned.

Here goes…

“In order to sell social media to your boss you must…”

CREATE A NEED

Bosses are busy people…in and out of meetings and/or working on bigger/better things; which is they have no time to waste on worthless projects. So…make social media a NEED, not a want. Make him/her say “We need to have blogs.” Social media is a utility that every company should and needs to somehow get their hands on.

Sounds easy right? But, how do you create this need? Here’s a few ways:

• Show ROI and Success with SEO- One word: proactive. The success of the social media program is in your hands; if you’re not proactive, you will not be able to see ROI. I read about how to show to your bosses that this ‘new media’ program is worth it’s weight, but its missing one important aspect…SEO
  • SEO - Search Engine Optimization is something that every company should be worried about, yet are they? Whether or not its in your scope, SEO can be accomplished by social media (forums, blogs, wikis, etc). Smart and active blogs have the ability to: come up early in search engines, produce incoming/outgoing links, and store a collection of thoughts and information. All of this helps SEO tremendously.
    • Example #1: Everyone knows about the whole DELL SUPPORT finding. When you search “Dell Support” in Google, scroll down, what do you see on the first page? …a link to Jeremy Zawodny’s post: What the F*** is with Dell Technical Support?
    • Enough said, this shows the power of blogging, especially with SEO. (I think before it came up a lot sooner, maybe 3rd or 4th in the search results). How much did it cost? NOTHING, FREE.
  • How much WORK does it take? - Aside from initially setting up the blog, which could take 5-8 hours total for branding, back-end work, etc…it depends on your strategy (which could range from 2-10 hours per week). I recommend blogging 3 times a week to keep your audience interested and subscribed.
    • Each blog takes 2 hours max, blog 3 times a week, that is 6 hours per week
    • 6 hours per week times 4 weeks = 24 hours per month
    • This is all the time you need…if done correctly, your company can use the 24 hours of time to benefit the overall SEO strategy.
    • Example #2: Type in “storage bloggers”…what is the first search result? The storage wiki (referenced above) that Jeremiah started. It might have cost something, but definitely not as much as paid search.

• Illustrate how your company can benefit from “human” contact - one of the most valuable rewards from a community marketing program is the human contact. 10 years ago, this sort of communication was unheard of, but now its part of our life in and out of work. Human contact sparks relationship marketing and relationships build trust. Trust in every business activity is very important and difficult to achieve. Social Media is the hub for open communication and a new way of “marketing”
  • Social Media allows for all types of communication - prospects to prospects, prospects to customers, customers to customers. More importantly, this is all happening in YOUR space…you can listen and participate openly and freely.
  • Can be used as a sales tool - bloggers should be subject experts and because of this, the sales force can use it to their advantage.
    

    “Our product has XXX and it can be integrated with XXX solution, which is why we are the leaders in our industry. For more info, you can see XXX blog post on this…”

This list will continue to grow as I learn more about these new mediums.

Also, I’ve left out some important parts…but now its your turn!

Social media, or Social Business has really been on my mind lately. Not because its a hot topic now-a-days, or because its buzzy…but I don’t feel like Businesses (overall) are really benefiting for the “social” side. Don’t get me wrong, becoming a social business can help, but it takes more work than just launching a blog/forum.  This post will first define terms like society, talk about common themes, and provide some incite on how to start a successful program.

First, let’s take a look at some key terms: Society, Social, Networking, and Business. (I’m trying to figure out how these can compliment each other) …I got these definitions from Dictionary.com (which uses the American Heritage Dictionary too):

• Society: a body of individuals living as members of a community
• Social: living together or enjoying life in communities or organized groups
• Networking: a supportive system of sharing information and services among individuals and groups having a common interest
• Business: the occupation, work, or trade in which a person is engaged

All of these definitions involve people - like you - which make up society, networking, and business. This is not new information and does not come at a surprise, but in a lot of businesses today there’s still some missing links. Several other pieces to the puzzle must come together to successfully intertwine business and community.

The next common denominator in the definitions above is community. Again, not a surprise, but its a bit more complicated than just community. Simply finding a community, creating tools, and expecting them to embrace it is NOT enough. If I were to start my own community, I’d take these steps:

1. Define my community, including all sub-communities and groups.
2. Live/Engage with my community - wear their clothes, eat their food, talk/eat with them, think like them, and go to their events.
3. Research what’s missing - why they need it - how they should access it
4. Welcome the community to help you build their tools - especially with (beta testing)
5. Encourage feedback - they are your customers, do what they say (but with your unique twists)
6. Reach out to the community and business world - let them know you’re out there, build trust, build relationships, build a support system, and build a community
7. Find a sponsor - someone who benefits from your tool, but has a presence in your community. Make them your success story - brag about them and they’ll brag about you

Understand that your community program is living, it’s growing each and everyday. As more and more users engage themselves, the community grows and the support system grows…but keep this focused with your company, strategy, and competition. What else is happening in your market? Incorporate that too into your program.

Be the leader, be the innovator. This is not about being first, its more than that. It’s about staying on top of competition by moving ahead of the industry and anticipating your user’s/community’s next moves. This is why living their life and knowing your customer inside and out is vital. Evolve with the users as they evolve with the world.

This is WHY businesses are not captivating and reaping the rewards of a community marketing program. Deploying tools is not enough, there’s several months worth of research and planning that need to take place before hand. It’s okay if competition rolled their stuff out, your’s will be better!

If you’ve started a community marketing program (like Jeremiah Owyang), or are currently managing one (like Mario Sundar, Robyn Tippins), please let me know how you’ve done it! I want to know from YOU, the expert!

I just finished reading an interesting blog post about what matters most to bloggers by Darren Rowse, and I can’t help but put my own two cents. Keep in mind though, some of the topics might overlap (note: ive only read the bold bullet points, I have not read his full explanation yet, I want to see if we are similar or not)

I’ve been blogging for a little over a year now and I’ve seen the ROI. It might not be monetary in my case, but my network has definitely grew and I’m left with a feeling of fulfillment. However, there’s several tips I like to follow on my own when writing blog posts; similarly, this is how I look at other bloggers/blog posts as well.

The 4 C’s of Blogging

1. Content: the content of every blog is key in attracting an audience and retaining loyal readers. A good way to narrow down the blog content is to establish a foundation/purpose for what content will be published; whether or not its general topics, industry-specific, or who the target audience is. I’ve seen many good examples of this, here’s one; I picked this example b/c Marc has managed to generate a great amount of traffic/comments/ROI in just a few short days. Although, the key is to stick to it and not drift off to far from the overall purpose (unless you’re evolving with time/industry/users).
2. Clarity: this has probably been the hardest obstacle; often, I have trouble conveying my thoughts clearly and instead some blog posts are full of unnecessary text. So I’ve adapted a motto that less is more. If I could, I’d go back and revisit some of my old blog posts and rewrite them just for kicks. I’m sure (at least I hope) that I’ve improved as a writer/blogger…if so, then that’s all the ROI I need.
3. Cost: there’s no real, tangible cost for blogging, at least for what I do. However, the opportunity cost is very clear as time plays a big factor. If I wasn’t blogging, I could be doing other things like Tae Kwon Do, Salsa dancing, working (hahaha!), or even watching TV. But, I have a passion for blogging and thats what counts. To me, its not a cost, but a privilege to have somewhere to express my thoughts and have others add in their own input.
4. Conversation: the phenomenon of blogging. Engaging others in a conversation about something you’ve started is very rewarding. These conversations are almost like reading a text book with commentary b/c on the surface there’s opinions, but when you dig deeper the facts arise. Through the research you gain so much more than what you started for and it almost leads you to another topic/journey of knowledge. Its a never ending conversation.

• BONUS - Customer: this is really a bonus, because not many people get this. Believe it or not, your readers are like customers…you have to shape your posts according to the audience. This will help keep your blog posts focused and it will keep users coming back. As a user, I like bookmarking a site that I know will always have relevant information to me. It actually makes me feel good that someone out there cares about my interests, cares about what I’m reading, and cares about me.

I hope I’m pointing in the right direction…if not please let me know. I’d love to hear your thoughts as well. Later, I’ll update this post with Darren Rowse’s/ProBogger’s thoughts.

Marshall Kirkpatrick announces that eBay is set to integrate blogs and wikis in the already successful platform. It sounds like a good idea, especially since it’s already community driven! They are just becoming even more sticky, I suppose, but will users really benefit or even use them?

Steve Rubel makes a convincing argument that users can actually use these blogs to talk more about products, sellers, collectibles, and even listings. I’m an avid eBay user and seller, so I think this is a great idea. On the side, my family and I sell and collect rare oldie music (link to our eBay seller profile)…I’ve even started a blog for us to promote our newest release. Perhaps it will be a bit easier to engage users if we had a blog on the eBay platform, but here’s my feelings:

• Will users even participate? I’m sure a great deal of them will, but for all the others, is blogging a value-add service?
• Its good for research purposes. You can tell a lot about a person from their blog. Are they nice to other users? Do they have a loyal fanbase? Do they even respond to users?
• eBay’s global community will be broken down into several micro-communities. This is good, b/c each community can create its niche. I know my dad would love this…he’s passionate about oldies, and whats better than to talk with other passionate people?
• Easy for advertising. Ah ha! I know once we have our next CD out, i’ll be scouring the blogs on eBay and commenting like crazy advertising our new release. Yep, ill be using it for commercial purposes…is that what eBay wants?
• How flexible will the platform be? Can I post pictures, sound clips, and videos? How will the comments workout (i.e. will there be a spam blocker?).
• MOST IMPORTANTLY - Keywords will come up in Google Search. Yes, this is the primary reason why I’d start a blog. Already eBay listings come up pretty high, but adding a blog will just make my chances of attracting outside customers even higher! My google ranking as a seller will sky rocket to the top! Thats of course, if im the only blogger. =)

Believe me, I’ll be keying you in on my experience with my new eBay blog. Who knows maybe I’ll even see you there!

Here’s how eBay is already embracing social media:

• eBay Chatter
• eBay Developer’s Wiki