Sheila's Guide To The Good Stuff

Thank you, Mom.

Both my mother (a long-time journalist) and I are members of the AWC (Association for Women in Communications.)

This year, Mom noticed that there was a new category, Personal Blogs, in the Online Media section of AWC’s annual Clarion communications awards.

She encouraged me to enter this blog in competition for a Clarion.

Like a good Mom, she then followed up just before the deadline to ensure I’d entered. I’d totally forgotten, of course, and had to race off to the post office to mail in my paperwork.

So, it was pretty cool to attend the 2011 AWC National Conference in Tulsa with Mom last month, have her in the room when I spoke with Maria Henneberry about more effective webinars, and then turn around and win the Clarion for Sheila’s Guide.

Thank you to all of my readers for your support since I launched the blog in September 2008, and thanks, Mom, for always encouraging me to excel.

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In a previous post, I wrote pretty frankly about how to reach out to bloggers, and what makes us crazy.

Since I still get this question a LOT, it might be time to revisit the issue. Because the answer is simple in concept but somewhat time-consuming and difficult to execute, many won’t follow through, but here we go….

The magic bullets are these, from the perspective of one who has been blogging on various topics for almost five years now:

1)  Interact with bloggers on their turf, which usually means their blog, at a minimum, but often now includes Twitter, possibly Facebook, YouTube or Flickr if they’re an avid photographer.  You “interact” by being yourself, and leaving thoughtful comments on some of their blog posts, or bantering on Twitter, or leaving a comment on a few of their Flickr photos that you like. Be where they are, in their online neighborhoods.

Heck, get some cred and start blogging yourself, like savvy PR, marketing and communications practitioners Kami Huyse, Jason Falls, Liz Strauss, Valeria Maltoni, Tom Martin, Shannon Paul and Aaron Strout.

Don’t just parachute in and out of my email IN box or you’ll get nothing but Delete out of me.

2)  Interact with bloggers offline at the events they like to attend; it’s why tech conferences matter to non-techies.

Consider BlogWorld and New Media Expo, South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi), BlissDom, SOBCon, BlogHer, travel bloggers at TBEX, the Midwest’s I_Blog Conference plus numerous lower-key gatherings like Social Media Breakfast or local tweetups, Social Media Clubs and hacker groups.

We do that social networking thing IRL (in real life) too.

3)  Build a human relationship BEFORE you start lobbing pitches. Good practitioners have always known this; the social Web doesn’t change the need to “dig your well before you’re thirsty.”

Brands, think long and hard about why you want to “join the conversation” and how you want to connect what you offer and your company’s values with those “influencers” (getting really tired of this hackneyed term) who have painstakingly built independent voices online.

Bloggers, think long and hard before you let your voice and your blog become just another marketing mouthpiece.  Look for mutually beneficial relationships. Pam Mandel built one with TravelWild and several bloggers connected with Gap Adventures as “Wanderers in Residence.”

Want to know the glamorous story of how online influencers got so much, er, influence?

By busting their tails for many hours….often for little or no money in return….back when everyone thought they were nutballs (including most brands)….to create great content, be a helpful resource and do the networking necessary to become known and yes, influential, in the space you now seek to enter.

Welcome to the salt mines; here’s your pick-axe.

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It’s a simple formula, really.

To create and publish great content (blog posts, Facebook Page Wall notes, videos, tweets) you need….

1)  Lots of good ideas about something that interests you, a way to record those ideas and time to do so

2)  An editorial calendar to coherently organize and schedule the ideas – expanded into content – for publication, and time to think about and work on the calendar

3)  Structured blocks of time to create all of the great content that you’ve thought of, then organized and scheduled

Three simple things, and time ties them all together.

Number One is doing fine for me;  I have a whole notebook of blog post ideas that I carry around, and I keep notecards by the bed in case of late-night rockets of brilliance to the brain. Read Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life for more insights into organizing your ideas.

I used to be pretty good with Number Two, then fell off of the planning wagon, got tired of pulling content out of my left ear at the last minute, and stumbled wearily back to the calendar.  The key is to schedule time to think through and craft the calendar, organize the content ideas and fit it all into your workflow. Go read Becky McCray’s post on the six most important things; it will help.

I am not doing so well at Number Three.

My basic schedule for keeping up with 3 blogs means a post for one of them each day, Monday through Friday (this blog is scheduled for every Tuesday and Friday. Ain’t happening, is it?)

This means I need a more functional schedule. It also means I am considering dropping one of the blogs for which I’ve run out of creative energy. In my Navy shipboard engineering days, the electricians called that “load-shedding”….dropping noncritical items off of the power grid to ensure power to vital systems and equipment.

It does not mean I need to “make time.”

You can’t “make time.”  That goose is already cooked. No one gets extra helpings of time or special favors from the Wizard of Time.

24 hours. That’s it.

As usual, strategist and thinker Chris Brogan has a thoughtful take on time. Here is the direct link to his video on YouTube if you can’t see the box below.

I found it helpful, and hope you will, too.

PR practitioners, if you remember this, you’ll be a lot less frustrated….

Unless you have a signed contract with a blogger for advertising or some sort of goods/services exchange, bloggers owe you nothing.

Nada.

Zilch.

Not one tweet. Not one Flickr photo. Not one Facebook mention. Not one blog post.

They do not owe you “buzz” just because you fed them tacos or beer at some event.

You want a tit-for-tat arrangement, go buy advertising or set up a contract that they will tweet X number of times about your brand in exchange for Y sponsorship money (or whatever.)

PR folks are paid to figure out how to build relationships with bloggers.

Bloggers are not paid to figure out PR (um, they’re usually not paid at all for blogging.) They do not blog to build your brand. They blog for themselves and their readers.

I’ve been stewing on this since reading Amber Naslund’s excellent A Dear John Letter to PR Folks. My favorite quote in her post:

“My blog is an intellectual adventure for me, not a channel for you. (emphasis added) I intend to keep it that way.”

Yes, it’s a pain, but if you want what bloggers already have, then you’ll have to do what we did – work for it.

I almost didn’t take the time to write this post.

I mean, it is Saturday. The house needs major vacuum love (hey, four cats, two kids, what can I say….) and there are piles of things to sort, file, toss and put away. Laundry. Mail. Dishes.

Our weed collection on the front lawn is doing great, thanks.  The mower’s ready to go, but whoops, need to make a run to fill the gas can, first.

And so on….

But, you know, none of that is as important as supporting special people who do special things, and one of the most unique and special people I know is Boston-based Chris Brogan.

Yeah, Mom, he’s one of my “Internet friends.”

Sure, we’ve chatted in person at numerous geeky events like SOBCon (for Successful and Outstanding Bloggers, not that other SOB) and South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi) but since we’re a half-continent apart, I mostly keep up with Chris through his Twitter stream and his consistently thoughtful and articulate blog. You’ve never met a more giving, friendly guy and he’s a dynamite speaker as well.

He’s also something of a travel/tourism buff; I’ll bet you’d enjoy his blog posts like Tourism Bureaus and Bloggers and Social Media Starter Moves for Tourism.

Chris and co-author Julien Smith have a new book coming out this week (which is a lot more exciting than dealing with my laundry pile, so I’m blogging instead.)

The book is called Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust.

What’s it about?  Breaking through the noise, essentially.  From the book’s inside flap:

“There’s no question that the Internet has changed the way we do business—especially when it comes to marketing. Consumer environments are short on trust and populated by consumers who are cynical, savvy, and informed. Though it’s easier than ever to reach your customers, it’s less likely that they’ll listen. Today, the most valuable online currency isn’t the dollar, but trust itself.

At the same time, social networks and personal connections have far more influence on consumers than your marketing messages ever will—unless your business knows how to harness them. In Trust Agents, two social media veterans show you how to tap into the power of these networks to build your brand’s influence, reputation, and profits.

Trust agents aren’t necessarily marketers or salespeople; they’re the digitally savvy people who use the Web to humanize businesses using transparency, honesty, and genuine relationships. As a result, they wield enough online influence to build up or bring down a business’s reputation. This book will show you how to build profitable relationships with trust agents, or become one yourself.”

I unequivocally recommend his work, and if you have a chance to hear him speak, be sure to get a front-row seat.  Here’s Chris talking to Book Expo America about the ideas behind Trust Agents…. (the direct link to the video is here for my RSS readers and anyone who can’t see the box below)