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How to Blog. A Lot.

On September 24, 2009, In Comm, By Tac Anderson

: Image by Tac Anderson via Flickr

I get asked a lot lately how I’m able to blog so much. If you look at the bottom of my right hand column you’ll see I’ve had this blog for ~2 1/2 years. You’ll also see that as of the first of this year, my posting went up dramatically. Here’s how dramatically:

For the first 23 months I posted 242 times. That’s just over 2 posts a week
For the last 9 months I posted 293 times. That’s about 8 posts a week

What happened? I got serious about blogging.

The first step is to decide to blog every single day and then do it.

The best advice I ever received about blogging came From Jeremiah Owyang. He told me to take the first hour of my day and before I do anything else to read blogs and then blog. He also told me that a post should only take twice as long as an email of the same length.

Some days you may not feel like you have much to say. Some posts will be better than others. But over time you will get better. This is the only reason I watch my stats. If my visits, subscribers and number of times people share my posts goes up, I’m doing a good job.

Be a collector and use the tools.

I use Google Reader w/ Feedly, Twitter’s Favorites and Diigo to collect interesting things I find as I read throughout the day. I also use my Posterous site to collect things when I’m mobile. Then when an idea reaches critical mass I use ScribeFire or Windows Live Writer to pull it all together when I’m ready to write.

Zemanta then helps speed up the process by recommending links and pictures to use.

Remember: I am not advocating that popular blogs have to post everyday. The goal of posting every day is not quantity. The goal is consistently good content. But in order to get there you first have to blog a lot.

This is the short answer. Every blogger has tools, tips and tricks that work for them and there are probably hundreds of blogs dedicated to blogging. But until you make the commitment to start blogging regularly all the tools in the world won’t help you.

Why Would You NOT Blog? (newcommbiz.com)
Mobile App Blogging Thanks to Posterous: Regator vs MeeHive vs Byline (newcommbiz.com)
Marketers as Aggregators Creators and Distributors (newcommbiz.com)
Tutorial: Getting Started with Zemanta (zemanta.com)
Google Reader as a Lifestream Search Engine (philbaumann.com)

Popularity: 1% [?]

Tagged with: Blog • Posterous • Zemanta

Traffic vs Engagement vs Influence: Top 10 Posts [August 2009]

On September 1, 2009, In Comm, By Tac Anderson

Itâ€™s been very interesting to do these top 10 posts because it letâ€™s me look at 3 different factors:

Traffic â€“ The posts are ranked based on traffic (unique hits) according to Google Analytics.
Engagement â€“ How many comments a blog receives is usually considered a level of engagement.
Influence â€“ The PostRank scores are meant to judge the level of influence your post has based on things like tweets, comments, bookmarks on Delicious, etc.

Some might argue that I should base my ranking on PostRank since itâ€™s a more complete view. I donâ€™t use PostRank as my ranking for this list because then I would only be basing it on posts made in a month which would not account for posts made in previous months. Also PostRank does not get everything, they frequently do not gather all the tweets that Tweetmeme gets, so itâ€™s still not totally accurate, but it’s a really good indicator.

The main reason I base this list on traffic (even though that’s not the goal of this blog) is that tweets and comments donâ€™t always equate to traffic. Sometimes one tweet or one link from the right source is far more valuable then a dozen tweets and links from other sources.

This month for instance shows me that 3 of Augusts Top 10 are from July. Thatâ€™s because of the sites that linked to them.

Where my traffic is coming from?

Twitter is the number one driver of traffic to my site, although Facebook showed up in my Top 10 for the first time. But this traffic is very short term.

Search is the number two driver of traffic. Both Google and Bing appear in my Top 10 traffic sources.

Links are the number three driver of traffic. While some are legitimate follow on posts, several of my links come to me from other Zemanta users. This is the best feature of Zemanta but most people overlook that when doing product reviews.

Mobile App Blogging Thanks to Posterous: Regator vs MeeHive vs Byline

On August 19, 2009, In Biz, By Tac Anderson

If you havenâ€™t noticed, I like Posterous. I think they may have single handedly made email relevant for me again. Hereâ€™s my Posterous blog. I also like using tools in ways they werenâ€™t meant to be used. Thatâ€™s the case with this post. Please note that none of these apps were designed for mobile blogging so my review of them is completely irrelevant to the real reason people made them.

The main way I use Posterous is for mobile blogging. If Iâ€™m at me desk Iâ€™d just as soon use Windows Live Writer with the Zemanta plugin. Most of my mobile blogging is done from Byline. Byline is an amazing app that synchs with Google Reader making my RSS feeds portable. Byline is my secret weapon for reading hundreds of blog posts a day. But Byline has another cool feature: Mail Link to this Page. The mail a link option in many mobile news readers turns them into a mobile blogging app thanks to Posterous.

Last night Louis Gray turned me on to two new apps. Regator and MeeHive.

My problem with Byline is that itâ€™s a little ugly for blogging. Heck itâ€™s even a little ugly for an email. The link it sends is the feed proxy link not the Web URL or permalink.

My typical process is to copy and paste a section of the post, then select the email a link option. This redirects me to the iPhoneâ€™s mail program which I have linked to my Gmail account. I then paste the pull quote, edit the message of the email, which is the title of post and usually add a sentence or two of my own thinking.

Bellow is a screen shots of a post I did with Byline. As you can see the link at the end of the article is kind of ugly.

Byline

Itâ€™s a little dirty but it works. Posterous is even kind enough to convert wordpress.com into a link even though I didnâ€™t send it over than way.

Next are two quick posts done with MeeHive and Regator:

MeeHive

Regator

Regator wins hands down for pretty links. Even if youâ€™re only sending an email and not blogging it seems like a hyperlink would be nicer to get than a raw proxy link. Granted if they view email in plain text then it will separate the link out anyway but it canâ€™t be any worse.

MeeHive did a cool thing though when I highlighted text it inserted that into the email. That was cool.

No real conclusion here, Iâ€™ll continue to use whatever app Iâ€™m in to do quick blogs but I have to wonder if, as blogging continues to get easier, this is something app builders will need to take into account.

Anyone else out there mobile blog? Any tips or tricks?

I Love You Google Reader, But We Have Some Issues (regulargeek.com)
I Love Link (newcommbiz.com)
Expanding Posterous as a Workflow Tool (newcommbiz.com)
Be a Social Media Black Belt with Posterous (newcommbiz.com)
Blogs Aren’t Dead, They’re Just Fragmenting (newcommbiz.com)
Supercharge Google Reader with Send To Links [Feeds] (lifehacker.com)

Popularity: 1% [?]

Tagged with: Blogging • Byline • Google Reader • Louis Gray • MeeHive • mobile • Posterous • Regator • Windows Live Writer • Zemanta

I Love Link

On August 12, 2009, In Comm, By Tac Anderson

I Love Link

An Ode to the Link.

I love links. They’re like magic. Transporting you all across the Web with just a click.

It’s why I love Twitter. Links, lots of links. Behind each shortened URL is a wealth of knowledge and information.

I love Bit.ly for their innovative approach to making something as mundane as a URL shortener a breakout category.

I love Zemanta because they add all these links in my post plus all the links at the bottom of the post.

These simple links are the only think connecting the entire Web. They’re small but there are billions of them. Maybe Trillions of them, I don’t know.

I think most people take them for granted. I know that most of you don’t click through on the links I leave here. It would be impossible to click every link.

I love link blogs that people post. I love that some people who don’t have regular blogs use their Google Reader shared page or Delicious link blog as their blog.

Basically, I love link.

URL shortening service tr.im is back from the dead (macworld.com)
How to Consume Massive Amounts of Online Content Without Killing Yourself (fountainheadgardens.com)
Be a Social Media Black Belt with Posterous (newcommbiz.com)
Top 10 Posts [July 2009] Analog Trumps Digital (newcommbiz.com)
Why URL Shorteners Are Important (newcommbiz.com)
Expanding Posterous as a Workflow Tool (newcommbiz.com)
How a DM via Twitter to a Blog with a Link to Facebook Got Me My Job (newcommbiz.com)
Sharing Made Easier: Email and Tweet Your Bookmarks (delicious.com)

Popularity: 1% [?]

Tagged with: Blog • Delicious • Google Reader • Link • Twitter • Zemanta

What does Zemanta have to do with Freebase and Balloons?

On July 30, 2009, In Comm, By Tac Anderson

Image representing Zemanta as depicted in Crun...

Image via CrunchBase

Besides the fact that Freebasing and Balloons both have drug connotations Zemanta is partnering with social database company Freebase to launch a new addicting blog feature called Balloons.

You know those annoying little mouse over preview scripts that pop-up on blog and let you look at the page before you click through but don’t really tell you much? This is nothing like that. Balloons are useful pop-ups that actually let you watch video, see a map or read a wikipedia entry without having to leave the page. It’s very cool and I’m really excited for this feature to get pushed out. It was released today but like many FireFox plugins we’ll probably have to wait a day or two before see it.Â Check out the page for a demo http://www.zemanta.com/balloons/

Here’e what Zemanta had to say in their announcement:

Zemanta launches Balloons, open multimedia overlays for bloggers

Balloons, launched today by Zemanta in co-operation with Freebase, are dynamic overlays that allow any blogger or online publisher to integrate multimedia content – including YouTube, Google Maps â€“ and Freebase infoboxes – into their pages.

Balloons give bloggers and publishers access to the openly licensed Freebase database and content from YouTube, Google Maps and MusicBrainz, as well as millions of articles from Freebase contributors.

Whenever Balloons are added to a blog post or article, small, unobtrusive icons appear next to the key links in the page. Â By clicking on these icons, readers canÂ preview content without leaving the page and discover additional links to related items. Â This allows webÂ publishers to integrate all kinds of rich content into theirÂ posts without requiring users to leave their site.

Update: The guys at Zemanta alerted me to the fact that this is available already, you just need to go into your settings and enable it. Let me know what you think.

Apologies

On July 1, 2009, In Biz, By Tac Anderson

: Image by Tac Anderson via Flickr

Things got a little noise around here this last month. The noise to signal ratio was definitely a little out of whack and for that I apologise.

I don’t make money on this blog. With the exception of the occasional Amazon affiliate link that Zemanta adds in automatically for me I run no ads and never have. But I definitely make money off this blog. A lot of money actually.

This blog is my testing ground. This blog is my sandbox. This is where I share my half baked ideas about things I find interesting. What I learn here I take and help my clients succeed in their businesses.

Posterous has turned out to be an unexpected pleasant surprise. I think it’s a powerful service that has largerÂ implications for the direction the Web is moving. I’ve had a Posterous account for the last 6 months and I never did much with it. But when they turned it into a Web CMS tool I, and many others took notice.

I have finally legitimized my account and given it a URL www.tacanderson.com and I have evolved the site from a toy to my life stream.

This blog will not go away. Far from it. I hope that my life stream becomes a breading ground for ideas that fuel this blog. I promise to bring the signal to noise ratio back in line. I also plan on using Posterous as one of the many tools I use to get content to this blog.

So if you’re still here, thanks. If you have feedback, please share it. And if you haven’t yet, go check out Posterous.

Tutorial: Getting Started with Zemanta (zemanta.com)
Zemanta plus Google Alerts plus Posterous equals I don’t know. (newcommbiz.com)
Using Zemanta with Posterous (zemanta.com)
Marketers as Aggregators Creators and Distributors (newcommbiz.com)
Expanding Posterous as a Workflow Tool (newcommbiz.com)

Popularity: 1% [?]

Tagged with: Posterous • Signal-to-noise ratio • Zemanta

Marketers as Aggregators Creators and Distributors

On June 25, 2009, In Comm, By Tac Anderson

As I get ready to call it a day and I reflect back on all the content I created (I’m sure I’ll have several less subscribers tomorrow), I’m struck by the importance of workflow.

People think that 2 or 3 blog posts is hard. It’s really not. I didn’t create that much new content that I wasn’t going to create anyway. What you read today was content from emails, social bookmarking and tweets. What was original content was expanded thoughts building off of that content or heated, in the moment thoughts as I discovered something new or thought provoking.

I’ve also posted using multiple tools. I’ve used Windows Live Writer and Scribefire, both with the Zemanta plugin. I’ve posted text, pictures and audio. I’ve used the WordPress blog interface, Diigo and Gmail via Posterous (right now I’m writing on my iTouch in Gmail). In addition to the content you see here there were also posts to the Studio D WaggEd blog, posts on Posterous that didn’t make it hear and a post to my Tumblr blog. Plus I have 3 posts already for tomorrow.

And I did all this with a full day of client meetings and still getting deliverables done on time.

I do all this not because I think you are all that interested in my every thought (actually I think I over did it today) but because I know that other than strategic thinking the ability to create and distribute targeted, real time content will be marketers #1 most needed skillset. #2 is the ability to teach that to others. And the only way to do that is to know the tools and they aren’t word processors and presentation decks.

Posted via email from Zemashup

Popularity: 1% [?]

Tagged with: Gmail • Posterous • ScribeFire • Tumblr • Weblogs • Windows Live Writer • WordPress • Zemanta

Expanding Posterous as a Workflow Tool

On June 22, 2009, In Biz, By Tac Anderson

Iâ€™ve been using Posterous for a while. Mostly as an experiment to mashup Google Alerts with Zemanta and post via Gmail.

Image via CrunchBase

As Iâ€™ve used it Iâ€™ve refined my process from just a pure Zemanta overlay on top of the Google Alerts to adding commentary and deleting non-interesting alerts. But as Posterous continues to expand what you can do with the service Iâ€™m going to try something different.

Image representing Google Alerts as depicted i...

Image via CrunchBase

You can now post to multiple places via Posterous, including your blog.Â Iâ€™m going to begin posting my more relevant Google Alert, Zemanta mashup posts to this blog. Weâ€™ll try it for a while and if you find them annoying please let me know.

You can see these posts over here but I interject my commentary as bold, italicized quotes like this:

On-demand site Fizy offers huge selection of rock songs
CNET News – San Francisco,CA,USA
Today, Fizy relaunched with a handful of new features such as the ability to save playlists and the ability to post all played songs to your Friendfeed …
See all stories on this topic

Fizy looks interesting. I use Pandora to post songs to FriendFeed and then post to Twitter. I may need to check out Fizy.

Image via CrunchBase

Like I said weâ€™ll give it a try and see how it goes. I also plan on using Posterous as a workflow tool for other types of posting via email. Like all my experiments this may or may not go over so well. Weâ€™ll see.

Image representing Diigo as depicted in CrunchBase

Image via CrunchBase

Iâ€™m also going to start back up my Diigo link posts which will post auto post on Sundays, a day I normally donâ€™t post on.

Why do I do all this? I try and do posts that both expound on topics or give insight into trends I see but I also want to give people a glimpse into the things that Iâ€™m seeing that add context to my perspective but may not have a clear meaning. Link posts like Diigo and these mashup posts are the best way I know how to do that.

Image representing Posterous as depicted in Cr...

Image via CrunchBase

What do you think? Are link posts valuable or are they just noise?

Popularity: 1% [?]

Tagged with: Diigo • Posterous • Zemanta

How I moved up 300 spots in AdAge’s Power 150 in 4 months

On May 5, 2009, In Comm, By Tac Anderson

How I moved up 300 spots in AdAge’s Power 150 in 4 months

First off I would like to say that I do not blog for fame or fortune. I don’t think having a high ranking blog is ever a means to an end. But gaining greater exposure to you content can help meet many a marketing goal. I have said in the past that I blog for three main reason:

I believe that blogging makes you smarter. I would continue to blog if no one ever read this blog. Believe me that there were many times when it really felt like that.
I learned so much from all of you and all of the blogs I read that bloggingÂ is my small attempt to give a little something back. It’s with that intent that I share this post.
By learning what works here on this blog I am able to apply that in my work.

When I started this blog I signed it up for the AdAge Power 150 list not with any hopes of having a high ranking but mostly because I could (so can you if you have a marketing focused blog). The name of the list is a little misleading, there are actually almost 1,000 blogs. If you’re not familiar with the 150 you can get the back story and methodology here. I’d like to point out that there are many great blogs ranked lower than this one that I think are far better. There are also many, many blogs not even listed on the 150 that would crush mine if they were on the list.

Just give me the goods

Don’t want to read this long post but just want my tips? Here they are.

Blog 3 times a day or close to it
Use the right tools
Find a network and engage

Blogging 3 times a day

One of my New Years goals (I don’t really do resolutions) was to blog much more often. I try and blog every day, multiple times a day if I can. But I don’t kill myself trying to do it.

This was the first trick to moving my blog up the ranking. since I first added my blog to the Power 150 this blog was always listed in the 400’s somewhere. (As of this writing I’m at 148. Who knows how long that will last.) Technorati’s State of the Blogosphere found that one thing all of the top blogs had in common was that, on average, they post at least 3 times a day.

What’s funny about that is that 3 times a day has been the Golden Rule of blogging forever. It’s considered the magic number for SEO and it appears to be the magic number for attracting readers.

I don’t have time to do 3 huge posts a day. Honestly I don’t average 3 posts a day and there are many, many successful blogs that only post a few times a week. But if you’re wanting to make your blog better, blogging more often makes you a better writer and keeps people coming back.

Using the right tools

Like I said, I don’t have time for 3 long blog posts a day. Instead I try to throw out several short posts a day and a few longer ones each week. As I’m reading all the various blogs and news each morning, I come across articles that I find particularly interesting and I feel I have some value added thoughts to add. I use the ScribeFire blog editor to grab a link and some quoted text, I add my thoughts (be it what they may) then use Zemanta to add images, links and some related posts then hit post. The whole processs takes about 10 minutes on average.

ScribeFire lets me post quick short posts as I’m reading inspiring material. Zemanta allows me to quickly add all the extra stuff that makes a post a little extra special. Zemanta is also a valuable tool for gaining links, helping me discover other similar blogs and help my blog get discovered on other blogs by adding my posts to the related articles suggestions.

These are the tools that work for me but it’s important to find the ones that work for you.

Find a community and engage

This one ranks second only to having valuable content. One could argue that it is just as important for having a successful blog because if people can’t find your great content then it won’t matter.

I blog a lot about Twitter because I think it’s super cool. I also blog about it because it has by far been the highest value community I’ve been involved in. By being as engaged as I have been with Twitter it has allowed me to meet some wonderful people, share stuff I find cool and allow me to promote my own blog in the process.

Social networks are the #1 source of traffic to my blog. That’s a huge difference from last year. Last year Google was the main source of traffic. This year of all the social networks, Twitter is the main source of traffic.

Weather it’s Twitter, FriendFeed, a network of your favorite blogs, an email distribution list, whatever; get engaged, comment, share.

Beyond even that the main value I get out of being engaged on Twitter is the feedback. The community involvement makes me not just a better blogger but also a better marketer.

Final Thoughts

Much of my progress has corresponded with AdAge’s updates as they’ve tried to make their algorithms better. It’s also important to note that these tips work now but it’s ever evolving. I think these core tipss will always be fundamental but how you apply them will vary from blog to blog and as this space adjusts.

Happy blogging.

Zemanta discovers a content worm-hole via FriendFeed (newcommbiz.com)
The Life and Death of Darcy Validate by Twitter (newcommbiz.com)
Media Consumption: Scoble vs Rubel (newcommbiz.com)
How My Blogging Style Changed Over the Years (lucafiligheddu.com)
ScribeFire and Zemanta Team Up To Create a Smarter Blog Editor (via Google Reader) (mashable.com)

Popularity: 1% [?]

Tagged with: AdAge • Blog • FriendFeed • Google • ScribeFire • Search Engine Optimization • Social network • Technorati • Twitter • Zemanta

New Comm Biz

Social Media and the Future of Business

How to Blog. A Lot.

Traffic vs Engagement vs Influence: Top 10 Posts [August 2009]

Where my traffic is coming from?

Top 10 posts for August

Mobile App Blogging Thanks to Posterous: Regator vs MeeHive vs Byline

Byline

MeeHive

Regator

I Love Link

Top 10 Posts [July 2009] Analog Trumps Digital

What does Zemanta have to do with Freebase and Balloons?

Apologies

Marketers as Aggregators Creators and Distributors

Expanding Posterous as a Workflow Tool

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