Making Connections on #BlogChat

A few weeks ago, I noticed that my friend Kevin @KMullett would use the hashtag #blogchat on Sunday nights for about an hour on Twitter.

I asked him about it and it seems that one of the uses of Twitter is to create virtual Chat rooms.

A couple weeks ago I joined in on my first #blogchat and it was wild & crazy.

Imagine you are at a large gathering with a few hundred people and everyone is talking at once.

Every once in awhile someone asks a question and you can listen to the responses or add your own comment. Sometimes someone will ask you specifically a question about something you said and of course everyone who is in #blogchat can listen and respond too.

Last night I decided to join in the #blogchat which occurs every Sunday from 9 to 10pm Eastern time.

The topic of discussion last night was what can business bloggers learn from personal bloggers?

Since my blogs and social media brand is a hybrid of business and personal, I tossed a few comments out, and joined in the conversation.

Then this morning, I discovered that something I said caught the attention of Allison Boyer who wrote about it on the BlogWorld.com site:

Overheard on #Blogchat: Share People Stories (@ScLoHo)

By Alli on March 14, 2011

Do you participate in #blogchat? Every week, this weekly discussion on Twitter focuses on a specific topic and bloggers everywhere are invited to join in. Because I often have more to say than what will fit in 140 characters, every Sunday night (or Monday morning), I post about some of the most interesting #blogchat tweets. Join the conversation by commenting below.

(Still confused? Read more about #blogchat here.)

This Week’s Theme: What company blogs can learn from personal bloggers with @1680PR

This week, #blogchat was held LIVE at SXSW. Sad face that I couldn’t go, but happy face that there was still normal #blogchat at night for those of us stuck at home! Actually, I was so busy apartment-hunting that I didn’t get to the online version either, but moderator and host Mack Collier is nice enough to link to the transcript every week, so I was still able to pick out some awesome points to share with you all!

One that stood out to me just a few minutes into the chat:

@ScLoHo: Every business has people. Share people stories on your business blog

Business blogs are too often outlets for company press releases and nothing else. Think about your favorite brands in the world. I like Hershey’s chocolate. I like Gain laundry detergent. I like Dell computers (don’t judge me, that’s a debate for another day, haha). But really, I don’t like any of those companies enough to read announcements about their products every day – or worse, multiple times per day. It’s sometimes nice to know big changes that are coming, but I don’t need constant content that is little more than ads for your brand.

Corporate bloggers, write this down and post it by your computer: A blog is not a commercial.

Adding personality to your corporate blog is, in my opinion, the only way to go. But if you’re a major brand (like Hershey or Gain or Dell), doing that can be tricky, since you have a corporation to represent (not just yourself) and since you’re probably one of several people working on posts. Even as a small business owner, it can be tough to know how to go about adding personality to your blog.

That’s what I love so much about @ScLoHo’s tweet. Telling stories is something I do regularly on my own blog, After Graduation, and companies can definitely learn to do that as well.

• Share the story of how the company was founded and how the business owners helped it evolve into what it is today.
• Share awesome stories from people who work at your company. Feature everyone from board members to factory workers. Feel-good stories that fit your brand well are interesting and help promote your products.
• Share stories from your customers. Not only are you promoting your brand, but you’re starting to build a community by getting your readers involved.

I think that personal bloggers can take some value away from this idea as well. Don’t be afraid to share your story and the stories of readers if they are relevant to your topic. It’s one of the most basic ways we can connect as human beings. Between the press releases, some human interest stories go a long way for corporate blogs, and for personal bloggers, this is a way to spice up your content, doing something different and interesting for your readers.

Today, more and more people are discovering Alli's blog post as it is being shared with links on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIN.

This is the power of participating in Social Media.

Thanks Allison! http://twitter.com/allison_boyer/

Be sure to visit the original post at Blogworld and add a comment or two. Click here.

Tuesday on ScLoHo's Social Media Adventure, I will share a recent conversation regarding personal vs. business accounts in social media.