I Don't Know What to Write

For several years, I would encourage my radio clients to use social media, in the form of a blog, to increase traffic to their website and thus increase business.

The most common complaint was "I don't know what to write."

Often, this was just an excuse for:

1. I don't have the time
2. I don't want to do anything different
3. I don't believe it will work
4. I (blah, blah, blah)

My easy answer was, and still is:

Tell us a story.

Tell us about how you helped a customer. Take their picture and include their name. Send them a link via email, or social media. They will share it with their friends & family.

Tell us about an employee. Take their picture and include their name. Send them a link via email, or social media. They will share it with their friends & family.

Share your knowledge about your expertise. We love to have some inside knowledge.

Ask us how to solve a problem.

Tell us why you are in business.

Share a story that has nothing to do with your business, a story about your family, your kids, your dog.

Do one update a week and pretty soon, you'll be on your way.

Oh, and now that I'm in the Strategic Digital Marketing business, contact me and we can help you coordinate this with your other marketing efforts.


ScLoHo is Scott Howard, a Solutions Consultant with Cirrus ABS.

You can contact him here:

Social Media is Mainstream

Friday I posted a story about the Online Revolution extends beyond Social Media. Click here to read more.

But Social Media continues to explode as I'm sure you'll agree after watching this 4 minute video:

Out of Sight, Out of Your Freakin' Mind

Random is sometimes good. But not if you are using social media.

I write, edit, publish over 40 times a week on one of my 4 ScLoHo websites.

Fuel Your Blogging has some advice on this subject:

Establish A Publishing Schedule

Posted: 09 May 2011 04:32 AM PDT

If you’re like a lot of bloggers, you might find it a bit difficult to create a consistent flow of content as a publisher, which, as we all know, might mean the difference between capturing a reader and losing a reader.

There are plenty of tricks and tips out there designed to help you think up new ideas and create content, but let’s take a step back — even before we get to the content creation process — and think about how we approach the content creation process … and most importantly, when we approach it.

Content Isn’t Just About What … It’s About When

The single most important thing you can do to overcome your lack of discipline or drive to publish content — even if you feel you’re passionate about the content — is to establish a publishing schedule. If you want to take blogging seriously and reach that next level, you need to step up your game and act like a pro.

Depending on how often you can or want to post, consider throwing a schedule together on paper or whiteboard and stick to it.

Dedicate your efforts to creating content for the week during the weekend. Get yourself ahead of schedule so you’re not frantically throwing content together at the last minute.

Set yourself to a schedule, whether it’s a post a day, three posts a week, two posts (as copyblogger did), or even one post a week. The key is to create exceptional content that gets noticed and provides value.

Set yourself up and hold yourself to it … this will help you overcome your own inner block and help you get to the next level.

How frequent do you post a week? How often would you like to post a week?

photo credit: Chad and Kellye

Blogger or WordPress? (Part 1)

I was asked recently why I prefer using Blogger over WordPress for my blogs.

The first reason was I started out using Blogger, or Blogspot as it used to be called and am the most comfortable with it.

But on my most visited blog, Collective Wisdom, I have a couple of ads running. I was invited by Forbes magazine to offer ad space, set my price and they manage it including sending me an occasional check.

If I was using the free version of WordPress, I could not do this.

Jim's Marketing Blog has more:

WordPress.com for business: Think first!

Posted: 25 Feb 2011 10:00 AM PST

WordPress is, in my opinion, the finest blogging software in the world. Little wonder then, that the vast majority of the world’s top blogs run on Matt Mullenwegg‘s brain child. It’s the only blogging software I use and the only one I recommend.

WordPress.com offer a free version of WordPress, hosted on their own servers, which has proven extremely successful, and this free version is what today’s post is all about.

You see, although the free WordPress.com service is amazing, it has significant issues for some business users.

WordPress.com, advertising and you

The main issue is the idea of building your blog, knowing that you do not have the freedom to use it the way you want to. This is a particular problem for those of you, who would like to make money from advertising on your blog or earn affiliate income; 2 of the most popular ways to monetize a commercial blog.

Even this blog, with just 1 affiliate, would fall foul of the terms regarding a free WordPress.com blog and would be suspended! This can be a lot more severe than it may sound. Here’s a direct quote explaining what can happen to suspended WordPress.com blogs:

“If a blog has been suspended for violating our terms, its domain/URL and content will not be returned.” From the suspended blogs page on WordPress.com

You will also be suspended, if you decide to run adsense etc on your blog. Here’s what they say on the advertising page, in the WordPress.com support section.

Adsense, Yahoo, Chitika, TextLinkAds and other ads are not allowed on free WordPress.com blogs. If you would like to run ads on your blog, one of these options may work for you:

We have a feature called Ad Control that lets WordPress.com bloggers with a lot of traffic (generally 25,000 pageviews/month or more) and appropriate content turn on AdSense and Skimlinks for their blog and split the resulting revenues 50/50 with us.

So, you can actually advertise on WordPress.com, but only if you get your blog delivering 25,000 or more page views a month AND you pay WordPress 50% of the money you make!

If you’re OK about working for years to build that kind of readership, and then giving half your income away, it’s an option. Why any business savvy person would do that is beyond me. To have that much traffic and give half your earnings away, just for some free hosting, makes no commercial sense whatsoever.

Automattic is right to charge businesses for a business service

Automattic, the company that owns WordPress, is totally right to charge for what they do, when business users want to benefit from their services. That’s my point. If you want to monetize your site with ads then WordPress.com is a paid for service, not a free one. Equally, there’s no option I can see, to allow you to use your affiliate accounts on WordPress.com – free or paid versions. (If you know otherwise, please let me know including links and I will update the post.)

Vague areas

My understanding is that you are allowed to mention your business on a free WordPress blog and even mention special deals you have, but there seems to be a great deal that’s unclear about what WordPress consider appropriate and inappropriate.

For example, in a section on WordPress.com regarding the types of blog you are not allowed to have, they actually mention pyramid selling and MLM in the same sentence, and seem unaware that one is a legitimate business whilst the other is illegal in most countries. Putting these in the same category is also rather insulting to those working hard and ethically in Multi Level Marketing, and makes it hard to see how an MLM business owner could use the platform and stay within their rules.

In my experience, it makes a lot more sense for you to simply build a blog, like this one, using the excellent WordPress software, and place it on the best hosting you can afford. It starts from around $5 a month. This gives you freedom to build your legitimate online business, your way and retain all your income. You are also free to use whatever plugins you need, giving you and your readers a huge amount of added functionality.

WordPress.com and you

As I said at the beginning, I love the WordPress software, but believe that their limitations may make their free hosting service a poor choice for some business bloggers and entrepreneurs. It seems WordPress agrees, as one of the suggestions they offer to people who want to make money from their blog, is for them to do exactly as I suggested and get a self-hosted version of WordPress from WordPress.org. I also have concerns regarding the vague nature of what a WordPress.com moderator may regard as inappropriate, (thus suspending your account.) Just look at how they categorised MLM and pyramid selling together.

I would like to know your feedback, regarding WordPress.com as a business blogging platform. Maybe you believe that their free hosting is worth the price (millions of people do)? Whatever your feedback regarding this amazing platform, I would love to hear from you!

Image: WordPress

Hey, it's me again. One other feature that Blogger has that I've been thankful for is the spam filter on comments. I used to have to approve comments due to the amount of spam that was being added.

Just a couple days ago, I decided to open it up again so anyone can leave a comment. I get an email notification if someone leaves a comment and Blogger still lets me verify those that look like spam.

There is more news about Blogger coming Thursday at noon. See ya then!

Deliver Daily

Yesterday I touched on the Magic Secret of Success in Social Media.

Today I'm laying in on the line.

Do you want to be a player or an also-ran?

Most bloggers quit after a few months.

Same with Twitters.

Why?

Impatience, unrealistic expectations, and a lack of commitment are the top 3 reasons.

So to overcome those three reasons, you need to understand that there is a direct correlation between your level of activity with social media and the growth of your brand.

There is also a "natural timeline" where you can't rush things.

Face it, everyone of us filled our 24 hours a day before social media was around. And each of us have limited time to spend with social media every day and every week.

So, if you write and post 7 new blog posts on one day and do that once a week, odds are the results will be less than if you were to post one time each day, 7 days a week.

The 4 blogs that I own and update regularly are a living example of this.

Collective Wisdom is updated 3 to 4 times a day and last month received over 7,200 visits.

Really? is updated twice a day and last month received over 3,400 visits.

The site you are reading now, ScLoHo's Social Media Adventure is updated at noon, 5 days a week. 574 visits in the first 4 weeks.

The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo is updated every Tuesday and last month had 272 views.

This is why I recommend you post every day, at least 5 days a week.

By the way, I am also updating my Facebook and LinkedIn status at least once a day too, with a link to one of the blog posts.

Want some hints on how to manage this and still have a life? There are still a few openings for the Social Media Breakfast Fort Wayne gathering on February 22nd. Click here for details and to reserve your spot.

Beyond Facebook

Facebook has its place, but don't believe that Facebook is everything you need to be involved with Social Media.

There are two additional Social Media sites I believe you should be on:

Twitter

and

LinkedIn.

In the days ahead, I'll give you some tips and pointers on these two social media platforms, but first here's why I believe you should be involved with these two platforms.

They are not Facebook.

For the opposite reason that I am on Facebook, I am also on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Why am I on Facebook? Because "everyone" else it on Facebook.

It's where the masses of people are. I can find nearly anyone, from my 80 year old Uncle Bill to my wife's 12 year old grandson.

Facebook is not exclusive, it is inclusive. I use Facebook to find others and to be found.

Twitter and LinkedIn, are much more exclusive. Not because they have certain requirements that keeps people from joining. They have different purposes which people don't always understand.

But like I said, I'll dig into those more in the future.

My primary online presence, my first venture into the social media world, was none of these.

In 2004, I started my first Blog. And it was my blogging that gathered attention. Google loves Blogs. Start a blog and do it right, and you can turn up in search results with Google, Yahoo and Bing.

So, Blogging is another path I'll take you on with this adventure.

And I encourage you to ask questions, make comments, agree, disagree, it's up to you. All I request is that you keep it clean and if you spam, you will be blocked.

Also depending on the time of day, it may be a few hours before I can respond.

The Introduction

This past weekend, I kicked off ScLoHo's Media Adventure by writing several blog posts, including this one.

With this one, I'm going to give you the background and then in the days and weeks ahead, I'll be sharing tips and tricks that I have learned along the way, along with posts from others that will add to our experience.

1st. What's a ScLoHo?

ScLoHo began as a mash up of my first, middle and last names, using the first 2 letters of each to create a unique email address back in the 1990's. Today, I've expanded ScLoHo as a personal brand to distinguish myself from the hundreds of other Scott Howard's in this world.

2nd. What makes you an expert?

Expertise in Social Media is difficult to quantify. It is a growing and expanding world, and I usually do not refer to myself as an expert. However, I've had a lot of success, more than most of the people I know and with my other backgrounds, have been asked to share, teach, and write about this subject.

3rd. Do you do this as a full time occupation?

At this time, no. Although my family sometimes thinks I do. I earn the majority of my income from "Traditional Media". Since 2003, I have worked for a group of radio stations based in Fort Wayne, Indiana; creating advertising and marketing programs and campaigns. I have worked for radio stations for 25 years, along with positions outside of the media world. I also do media and marketing consulting for other businesses and media.

4th. So how do you measure success?

For each of us success has its own personal definition. My online goals have evolved over the years without a grand master plan. The platforms have changed since the days I began developing an online presence and personal brand.

I define my success in how much I can help others and build relationships. That has been my passion before Social Media, and Social Media is simply another arena, another set of tools to accomplish this.

As I mentioned, my background is in advertising and marketing. There are timeless principles to communication that are basic to how we as people build relationships that should be used and those are my guide.

And if you want some numbers, here's some that were current as of 11am on Sunday 1/2/11:

Number of Facebook Friends: 611
Number of LinkedIn 1st person contacts: 573
Number of Twitter Followers: 1302
Number of Blog Pageviews: 9987 in the past month.


5th. I thought Social Media was about making money?

Well, my friend, there are plenty of people who will try and sell you on using Social Media as a way to wealth. But the number of people who become financially independent is similar to the number of people who play basketball who become Michael Jordon.

If your main goal and focus on using Social Media is to become wealthy, then this blog is not for you.

6th. So why get involved with Social Media?

Social Media, is another tool to communicate, build and maintain relationships. You can find others with similar interests, you can connect with friends and family, you can promote your business, you can use the internet as a two way communication device.

If you have a business, then there are consumers and customers who are already looking for a business like yours, and by using Social Media, you can connect with them and convert them into paying customers.

And finally, your business is already being talked about on Social Media by others. Perhaps it is time to join the conversation.

7th. What is this blog, ScLoHo's Social Media Adventure, going to be about?

My adventure began in 2004, so I have some catching up to do:

1. I will bring you up to speed on what I have done, right and wrong, to achieve what I am doing now.
2. I will give my opinion which is based on my own experiences and the data and studies I see on a regular basis.
3. I will update daily at 12 noon Eastern time, Monday thru Friday.
   
4. I will share with you lots of wisdom from others, including those who do this as a full time profession.
5. I will tell you how I use Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, SlideShare and a few other sites.
6. I will show you how I post between 40 and 50 blog posts a week, on a part-time basis, and why you don't have to unless you really want to.
7. I encourage and welcome your comments and feedback.