What your blog can learn from Guy Fieri's bad restaurant review

Guy Fieri is a famous chef who just got blasted by a New York Times restaurant review. And from reading the review, it sounded as if Chef Fieri created dishes that were just a wee bit out of context. Well, in a restaurant, creating recipes that are out of context is when you go so far with your recipes that diners are left wondering why in the hell you've covered foie gras with Milk Duds. The two have nothing in common. One doesn't compliment the other. Just as Guy Fieri learned that creating recipes out of context doesn't work; in your blog, if you are writing out of context, your readers won't know what you are talking about.

What is "writing out of context?"
At a recent social media conference, a speaker gave this example:

"I was watching Drew Carey's Improv-a-Ganza show with some older friends. In the show, Drew has actors act out improv skits based on the topic he presents to them. In 
acting out one of the skits, one actor kept referencing 'Milk Duds'. My friends were all laughing as the skit unfolded.  

Now, to ground you in what I'm about to say, you should know these facts about me. I am 25 years old, I have an undergraduate degree from Stanford, I have a graduate degree from Georgia Tech, I am married, and I have my own successful design consultancy. My point? In my entire life, I have never, not once,
heard the term 'Milk Duds'." 

No idea what you are talking about
Think about that for a second! He had never hear the term 'Milk Duds.' He had no idea what Milk Duds were, and thus he had no idea what was so funny. The whole thing was out of context. You've probably heard of Milk Duds, those awesome marble-sized balls of chocolaty goodness. So to you, a comedy routine that incorporated Milk Duds would make perfect sense. You've come from a background where you know and love Milk Duds. They are part of the context that you understand.

You had better not answer 'Yes' to this question
If you were writing about Milk Duds in a blog article, would your audience know what they were? The speaker at the conference was a highly intelligent, highly educated guy, yet he didn't know what Milk Duds were. Does that make him a nimbleweed because he doesnt know something so ingrained in your knowledge? If you answer yes to that question, you may not know your target audience. Do you know who your target audience really is? Do you know what their problems are? And if you don't, how is it that you are writing to them? You can fix this by getting to know your target audience.

How do you get to know your target audience?
Beth Hayden of Copyblogger offers this advice:

1. Do market research so you can know what problems your audience has
   Solving their problems is the #1 reason they will buy from you. What keywords are they searching on? What are they saying on social media? What questions are they asking on your blog or your competitors blogs? What's the airspeed velocity of the unladen swallow? (that was probably out of context for you, sorry)
2. Join the community you are trying to serve
   Take part in discussions and conversations via social networking sites, blogs, forums and other online groups.
3. Research your audience’s mindset
   The first thing you need to study is your audience’s mindset — the way they look at the world. What’s important to them? What types of people do they admire? What are their values? Once you have this information, sit down and write down everything you know that describes this person. 
4. Write to that person
   Now that you know your target, write as if you were talking directly to them, one on one. Solve their problems, and they'll keep coming back to you.

In the comments tell us what audience you are trying to serve
We'll reply (along with other readers) about ways to help you understand customers in that industry or demographic. Who do you think your readers are? What problems are they trying to get solved?

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Image credit: ProComKelly

The next best thing to a guest blog post

Adding new eyes to your blog
shouldn't be this complicated

All of us who spend our time in the depths of social media have been told ad infinitum that writing guest posts is the missing magic that will catapult us to stardom and wealth beyond the realms of Taylor Swift. Taylor secretly wants to write a guest post on my site, but I won't let her. Anyway, there is another way to add significant traffic to your blog that is rarely discussed. Whether you are writing an article that will serve as a guest post or one that is going to be posted directly to your blog, you can use expert quotes in your article to help significantly drive new eyes to your blog.

How does using expert quotes work? 
The idea is so simple, yet so overlooked. When you are crafting your blog article, include a quote from a known expert in the subject area of your article. Once you incorporate expert commentary into your blog article, you'll find that the expert who is being quoted will promote your post in social media to their own networks.

Everyone, including experts, wants to elevate their level of respect (being further viewed as an expert) in their niche. Once your article is published, they will reach out to their Twitter minions, Facebook likers,
their email list, and link to you on their personal  blog. And, if they are separately employed and have enough clout within their own organization, they will convince their employer's social media team to promote it as well.

How do you get an expert to provide a quote?
This is easier than you may think. But you've got to consider your target first, and then do a little work to make the process as seamless as possible.

• Look for an expert who is reachable
• It's easier to reach out to an expert who works for a small software company than it is if you try to reach Seth Godin. Not that he's impossible to reach. In fact, he calls me so frequently to ask my advice I've had to put his mobile number on auto-block so I can get back to my real life. Seth, if you're reading this, sorry, you're going to have to come up with your own brilliant ideas from now on. 
• Reach out to the expert and tell them you are writing an article and would like to include an expert quote from them.
• "Own it"- own it means even if your blog only has two regular readers, one of them being your mom, when you contact the expert you need to be confident and sound more like a journalist than some schlep with no blog readers.

Make it easy for them to provide the quote

• Instead of asking the expert to write a quote, write the quote for them and ask them to review and approve. 
• Send them your full article with their quote already included
• The fact that you have pre-written the quote makes it so much easier to get the quote approved. And since you have sent them the full article, they can understand the context of how their quote will be used. What you are trying to avoid is waiting around for them to write a quote and send it back to you.
• Include links back to their site or blog. That is their payback for providing the quote.

Who are the best experts to target?

• The best experts to target are authors, press contacts, and those who simply participate in answering questions on LinkedIn or Quora (more on that below). 

In order to get an expert quote, what should your article be about?

• Do a review of an ebook (or pull a quote from an ebook). Reach out to the author directly.
• Review a software product (or similar). Reach out to the company's marketing team. Or, look at their press releases area of their website and find the appropriate press contact. Typically, press contacts at companies are very reachable.
  
  Example: "Post to multiple social networks quickly using one simple tool "

Where to find an expert:

• Finding an expert can be as easy as posting a question on a LinkedIn Group and waiting to see who answers. Once a good answer is given, take a look at that person's LinkedIn profile to see their level of expertise. Do they work at a respected company in your niche? Do they author an important blog in your niche?  
• This would also work on Quora or LinkedIn Answers.
• The type of experts that answer questions on these sites are the type of people who are likely to be reachable, and will respond to you.
  
  Examples:
  From a question about why ISPs block images, an expert ended up providing a quote for "Why email marketers should avoid the coming wave of mosaics in email and what to do instead"
  From a question about email deliverability, an expert ended up providing a quote for "Flush your email marketing job down the toilet with this one big mistake" 

Why bother adding an expert quote?

• This elevates the respect level that readers will associate to the article, and thus to you. 
• The expert will promote the article to their social networks, driving new eyeballs to your blog. The effect is similar to having your article posted as a guest blog which will include backlinks to your site which drives great SEO to your site.

If you are interested in a quote from a not-so-humble email marketing expert, let me know.

Image credit flickr under Creative Commons

Be glad Twitter broke up with LinkedIn

You date a girl for all that time, you give her all that great stuff, take her on dates to see those sappy girl movies, and then she dumps you for Steve McStud-o-bicepts because he has the really cool hair that has the swooshie thing at the front.  Well that's the situation with Twitter giving the old heave-ho to LinkedIn this week.  What does this mean to you as a small business owner?  In the past, if you created a Twitter post thingey (called a tweet), you could add "#li" in your tweet and that little code gizmo told Twitter to also post your tweet as an update to your LinkedIn profile.  This was looked at as a time saving measure whereby you could update both Twitter and LinkedIn at the same time (oh, and by the way, on your LinkedIn profile, there's also a place to post updates, for those of you that don't know).

Twitter has decided to bite the hand that feeds it by canceling this ability.  Not a smart move in my opinion, but it's no dumber than those nimnods at Netflix who decided it would be a good idea to separate their DVD vs streaming services.

Anyway, I'm really not that upset with this Twitter/LinkedIn spat.  Why?  Because you shouldn't be using the same text to post on Twitter as you post on LinkedIn (or any other social network) in the first place.  The reason I say that is because the viewers of  your different social networks have different expectations of what they want to see from you on each social platform (click the link and look for "The Social Breakup").  Twitter followers expect one type of post, Facebook fans expect another, and LinkedIn users a third.  The short of this is that you need to customize each post you place on each different social platform.  So, loosing this functionality isn't really much of a loss.

If you want to help streamline your control over posting to each different social network, try installing the Shareaholic plugin  in the Google Chrome browser.  It will at least help make the process somewhat easier and faster.

5 steps to create your first Pinterest board

5 Steps to create your first Pinterest board and take over the world

Are you a simpleton?  Do you read a lot of "Dummies Guide to...." books?  If so, you've come to the right place.  So, your wife told you to "set up a Pinterest board to help drive traffic" to your small business (eg- restaurant, fishing supply store, online junk seller, used tire salesman, pharmacy, or whatever).  But you don't know what Pinterest is, why your wife is on such a rant about it, or how your business could use Pinterest.  And after all you'd rather be applying suntan lotion whilst sipping iced cafe-o-laite.  And anyway, even if you knew how to set up a Pinterest account, you wouldn't know what to do with it.

Let's quit all the pouting and general caterwauling you're doing and set up your Pinterest account and your first "board":


Request an invite to Pinterest.
I have to request an invite?!  What they hay?  Yes, at this point Pinterest still requires an invitation to join.  The invitation must be embossed on 100% linen card stock.  The engraving must be done in 24k gold leaf in 8 pica font.  And, to get an invite in the first place, you must first prove that the engine oil in your car is Valvoline,... no, make that Quaker State.  Anyway, just request the invite and it won't be long before you get an invite.

Create your first "board"
A board is a hard thing made out of wood. Hitting your head on it hurts. But, it's also a place to stick images onto.  Now that you've received your coveted invite to join those of us who are elitist Pinterest pinheads, and your friends are all jealous, you need to create your first board. Before you do so, read this article because it will tell you why you'd want a Pinterest board, and what you are trying to do by creating one.  Within Pinterest, click Add > Add a Board. You'll get a popup that looks like this:

Type in a clever board title, choose a category, and then click Create.

Add pins (images) to your board
There are a couple of methods to add pins to your board.  You can use the Add+ button at the top of the Pinterest page and you'll get the same popup shown above. Then just click "Add a Pin".  But, to use this method, you need to have the image stored on your local computer.  Instead, it's easier and more flexible to install the Pinterest "Pin It" browser plugin so that you can pin images that you have on your website or elsewhere, from right inside your browser. To get to this magical button, you'll have to travel to the land where gnomes and fairies live.  Or, just go to "About>Pin It button" on the Pinterest.com website.  You'll then see this popup:

What the above image means by "Add this link to your bookmarks bar" is that it wants you to save that url as a bookmark in your browser (on your Bookmarks Bar). When you click the "Pin It" button, you'll see this dialog popup:

So, just literally drag the button onto the top of your browser where your bookmarks bar is located.
To use the Pin It button to add a pin to your board
When you are on a webpage where you see an image you'd like to pin on your board, click the Pin It button on your browser bar.  It will present you with a page of all the images on that webpage similar to the below (on this particular webpage there were two images; one with some text in it, and the other of Elaine Benes dancing, which is awesome).

Select which image on the page you want to pin and then you'll see this dialog:

Add a few details
Here you'll have a way to select which board you want to pin the image to, and what text to add to the pin. The text you add is important!  Search engines will see this text.  You should consider using text that relates to your website.  Once your image is pinned, you can Edit it to change the link (the default setting is that your image will link back to the page you pinned it from).

After you've pinned several images to your board, you should look around Pinterest and find similar boards.  Repin some of those images to your board and comment or "Like" other images.  The more you participate in the community, the more people will find your board and repin your pins.  And the more people that visit your board, the more traffic you'll get to your website, and the closer you'll become to world domination, the demise of your arch nemesis, and independent wealth beyond your wildest dreams.

PS- if you don't like the way Elaine dances, I can't help you.  It's awesome.  Come to think of it, get off my blog, you're not allowed here anymore.  You come back, 1 year.

Imagine your small business if you had a blog that didn't suck - 8 tips to avoid oblivion

Elaine needs your help

You own a small business, and business is down, revenue is down, profit is down, cash bribes under the table are down..... And what's that I hear you saying?,  "Oh, it's the economy, that's the problem".  Yeah, yeah. Cry me a river. Listen, if  your business is off, then you need to write a blog.  And not a blog like your current blog, but a serious blog that actually elevates you into the position of being looked at as an expert in your field. A person that people turn to when they have questions. A person willing to help by providing expert advice in your field. And no one is more adept at providing that type of advice than you. This isn't something you just hire out for someone else to write. YOU write it. Otherwise it will come off as cold, off-point, and impersonal.

Now, picture yourself a year from today with this great blog that you've written. Lots of insightful, witty, advice-giving, smart blog articles. And instead of empty tables at your restaurant, or more employees than customers in your retail store, or less traffic to your e-commerce site than the Queen has to her Diamond Jubilee website (actually, her website is probably slammed, bad example), or less good looks than that jerk who stole your girlfriend in high school just because he had an awesome Nissan 240-Z and you had a stupid '78 Pinto.....  
Anyway, picture your business with a blog. What looks different just because you have a blog of awesome-ocity?  People are now talking about your business whereas previous to your blog, no one even knew about your business. Why are they talking about it? Because one of your potential customers read a blog article of yours and told one of their friends about it. Since it was really helpful to her, she really liked it and posted it on her Twitter feed believing it could help other people in her situation too. It was seen by 81 out of the 426 twits who follow her on Twitter. And one of them was that jerk that stole your girlfriend in high school.  BUT, now he writes articles for the Decatur Dispatch, that cute little neighborhood pub that distributes around 8,000 free copies per month (about 524 of which are actually picked up and read), so you forgive him (and his now rusted out 240-Z) because he wrote a short little bio of your business and actually called to get a quote from you for the article. That's social media man. That is what I'm talking about.  Your blog, if good enough, is the cornerstone of you finding your way to many many more customers than you have now. Don't revisit this concept of writing a blog a year from now, having done nothing. Read the rest of this article to help you get going, and don't whine about it.

If you need to build your business you need to go at this with all cylinders firing. I'm not telling you to stop the adds you are placing on Google, take down that roadside billboard you rented off of highway 41 in Hahira, Georgia, or even stop paying for that Yellow Pages ad. Well, actually, I am going to tell you to stop that one.  Anyway, those are all "outbound" forms of marketing and are valid methods that can and do work.  But you want to also use "inbound" forms of marketing. Inbound is marketing where customers come to you instead of you pushing ads to them. How do you do that? Well, the pillar of a good inbound marketing campaign is an exceptional blog. Let me be clear about this.  If your blog sucks, your inbound marketing efforts will be about as profitable as that investment I made in online grocer Webvan.com, right before it imploded in 2001. When it was all over-with, the only thing I was able to recoup was a couple of over-ripe papayas and a broken down '79 Pinto that was once used as a grocery delivery vehicle.  

Anyway, when you write an incredible blog, people want to read it, people want to share it, and your status is elevated to that of Supreme PooBah (or at least to the level of Grand Under-secretary to the assistant to the Grand PooBah). Writing a great blog just takes some thought.
Here are the things you want to consider when writing a blog that people will want to read:

• What problem do your potential customers have that you can solve?

• Do not sell.  Selling will turn readers off.  They want your expertise.  The selling will take care of itself.

• Write with a single person in mind.  Her name might be Elaine Benes or whatever.  Think of Elaine and what problem she has that you can solve.

• Write the blog in service to your customers

• Write to equip your customers to be successful

• A catchy title is a must

• If you have other content to offer, like an ebook or some other such nonsense, then have a call-to-action in your blog to download the additional content. Other calls to action might include: Follow the business on social media, Subscribe to the blog, or Join your newsletter

• Types of blog articles that go viral:  

• Controversial articles- stay away from politics or the really sensitive stuff, but if you have a specific opinion on how to solve a problem, then state it.

• Motivational articles- tell them your sappy story about triumph over adversity in a down economy when everyone said it couldn't be done, and how your high school guidance counselor said you'd never amount to anything. People love that crap.  

• Instructional articles- Although this has been beaten to death, people simply like articles with titles like "3 Steps to Newsjack your Restaurant that Would Make Gordon Ramsay Jealous"

I realize here that telling you how to write a blog makes me look like someone who thinks they are some kind of expert and all smarty-pants and all.  I'm likely to catch a rash of some sort from having written this.  But, I'm the writer, not you, so go write your own blog.....

Leave comments to tell me what other information you'd like to know about writing a blog.
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