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17 Ways to Great Social Engagement

by RandallCraig on January 25, 2013

Filed in: Blog, Blogging, Make It Happen Tipsheet, Promotion, Social Media

Tagged as: , , , , , ,

Have you ever been disappointed with the engagement level of your blog?  Have you decided that this year something “better happen”, to make it all worthwhile?  If so, you’re not alone.  Here are 17 ways drive more users to your blog, and increase their engagement with it:

  • Write great content.  If you write poorly, or have uninteresting, uninsightful posts, people will never return.
  • Focus your topic.  You will attract a more loyal following if your topic is keyed to your target audience.
  • Be consistent.  Write using the same style, length, posting frequency, and posting date/time.
  • Be controversial. Very few people are interested in commenting on a dry (or vanilla) post.
  • Move beyond words.  Embed pictures and video within the blog itself.  It looks more interesting, and research shows that people are more apt to read a post with picture(s).
  • Team blogs.  Sharing a blog with a colleague is a great way to generate some variety. It also means that two people are promoting the blog.  A secondary benefit is that each team member can respond (like/share/comment), providing an “instant” base level of activity.
  • Tweet a value-added Headline.  If there really is value in the Tweet, then it will be retweeted.  And it will draw people to your blog
  • Use your email list.  Send an email talking about the post with an intriguing click-through link.  Send a direct message to your LinkedIn and Facebook contacts as well.
  • User your groups.  Post a summary of the blog in relevant LinkedIn groups.  If you post in irrelevant ones, you’ll get instant disengagement – and worse.
  • Auto-syndicate.  Connect your blog to LinkedIn and Facebook, so that your blog appears on your profiles.  Users will participate on those platforms directly, as well as on your blog.
  • Empower others to syndicate.  At the bottom of every post, let people syndicate the content through to their favourite social sites.  (AddThis.com and ShareThis.com)
  • Hold a contest.  Nothing like a little competition to drive activity.
  • Share your stage:  Ask others to be a guest blogger, taking your spot from time to time.  They’ll pull their readers with them, exposing yourself to a completely new set of people.
  • Share others’ stages.  Ask to be a guest blogger on someone else’s blog. You will pull these new readers back to your blog, if you are relevant enough.
  • Connection/integration with overall marketing plan.  The blog – and all social initiatives – shouldn’t stand alone, but should be integrated with all of your other marketing activities to achieve a specific goal.
  • Improve your Search Engine Ranking.  Ensure that people can find your blog when they search for it, by ensuring that each post contains the right mix of keywords.
  • Ask for comments.  Don’t end your post with a conclusion – ask your readers what they think, what their experience has been, or whether they agree.

This week’s action item:  Beyond the obvious of improving the engagement level on your own blog, this week, respond to this post with one or two ideas of how to improve social engagement.

More on Blogging:

The Make It Happen Tipsheet is also available by email. Go to www.RandallCraig.com to register.

Randall Craig

@RandallCraig (follow me)
www.RandallCraig.com
www.108ideaspace.com
www.ProfessionallySpeakingTV.com

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Information Thief

by RandallCraig on August 16, 2012

Filed in: Blog, Communication, Make It Happen Tipsheet, Media

Tagged as: , ,

Are you an information thief?  Have you ever plagiarized, pilfered, or “borrowed” someone else’s knowledge or reputation?  And has someone ever done this to you?

With the social web in front of us, it is too easy to use others’ information without their knowledge or permission – even if it is free.  Depending on how (and what) you share, you’re either seen as in-the-know… or a thief.

What type of attribution should you give, when you are using someone else’s information?  It depends:

1) Clicking the “share” or “like” button when reading a blog.  In this case, Facebook (or LinkedIn) automatically notes the source, and the writer or publisher – by virtue of having the share buttons available – is giving you implicit permission.

2) Quoting a few sentences within your blog or article.  If you are quoting someone else’s material, put the  quote, the writer, and the source website name with a link to the original article.  Doing this drives traffic to the source, and will generally keep you in the good books of the author and publisher.  Quoting an article without a link is selfish and lazy. 

3) Quoting an entire article or most of an article, even with attribution, is also on the ethical border.  If you do this, there is no reason for the reader to go back to the original site. Effectively you are monetizing someone else’s work – and preventing them from doing so themselves. If you wish to use their article, connect with them first and ask for permission.

4) “Reporting on” an article by rephrasing most of it is also considered unethical for the same reason as the above.

These last two actions typically will make the author quite upset – enough sometimes to make a public example of you.  Or if they think that what you did is illegal, to write a nasty legal response to you and your employer.

This week’s action plan:  No one means to steal, but with everyone a publisher on the social web, it’s too easy to cross the line without recognizing it.  This week, give credit where it’s due whenever you speak or write.  Not only is it the right thing to do, but you will increase your credibility, both with your audience – and your sources.

Plagiarism alert:  There are services that will check for plagiarism.  One such service is www.Copyscape.com.  Try it out by testing one of your own pages: was the content copied from anywhere?

Note: The Make It Happen Tipsheet is also available by email. Go to www.RandallCraig.com to register.

Randall Craig

@RandallCraig (follow me)
www.RandallCraig.com
www.108ideaspace.com
www.ProfessionallySpeakingTV.com

Pictures from the Masters

by Randall July 5, 2011

Have you ever spent time looking at the European Masters – Rembrandt, Van Gogh, and the many others?  During their era, there were no newspapers, telephones, let alone an internet.  When a subject sat down to be painted, it was often for hours, not minutes.  And the resulting painting was designed to last well into [...]

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A New York state of mind

by Randall June 28, 2011

How would you describe a typical New Yorker?  More likely than not, you wouldn’t use the same words to describe someone from Los Angeles, or from a small mid-western town. People are a product of their environment, and often will take on the mindset, attitudes, and perspectives of where they are from.  (They also take [...]

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Strategy and Synergy

by Randall April 5, 2011

Many people are interested in writing a blog, particularly if they have special expertise.  Yet, the precise subject of the blog usually eludes them.  Choose the wrong subject, and you’re stuck with it, and because of Google, it sticks to you… forever. The overall blogging rule is simple: write for your reader.  Imagine who that [...]

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The Rule of Three

by RandallCraig December 7, 2010

Have you ever read a blog post or listened to a presentation, only to find yourself unable recall what was written or said? Have you ever found yourself frustrated when your own ideas are so quickly forgotten? There are many possible reasons for this, but often the culprit is a lack of focus in the [...]

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Enough Fluff

by RandallCraig November 3, 2010

In today’s society, we are surrounded by fluff: low value information whose noise gets in the way of solid analysis, improved relationships, and personal excellence. Some of the fluff is mis-aimed advertising, some fluff is reply-all emails, and other fluff is “analysis” that doesn’t really analyze. We see fluff at meetings that go on too [...]

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Repurposing

by RandallCraig October 19, 2010

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be an author of a book, but you can’t see yourself ever finding the time to make it happen? If so, you are exactly like the vast majority of authors, before they write their first book. How do they start? Some authors book time away, [...]

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Remember First, Second, Third

by RandallCraig October 13, 2010

Many blogs I read I don’t like – the posts have no interest to me. Have you ever read a blog posting or listened to a presentation where the topic didn’t resonate, or where you felt excluded? If so, the writer made a common mistake: “you” were squeezed out by “I”. John Smith had travelled [...]

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No Blog Pressure

by RandallCraig September 29, 2010

Have you felt the pressure to write a blog? If so, you’re not alone – many people (and businesses) succumb to the pressure. This results in a sparse, poorly written blog, disconnected from strategy, and which is eventually abandoned. Of course, the embarassing initiative is preserved forever somewhere on the internet, even if it is [...]

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Zoom Lens

by RandallCraig September 15, 2010

How do you solve problems? One way to do so is to use a zoom lens. If you’re like most people, at one time or another you’ve played around with a zoom lens. When you zoom out as much as you can, you see just about everything: you have an overview. Zoom in a bit, [...]

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16 Blog Topic Ideas

by RandallCraig September 8, 2010

As an expert, writing a blog is a great way to demonstrate your knowledge and perspective. It helps prospective clients (or employers) understand how you think, and how you can solve their problems. If you are a marketer, a blog begins to create a community around your products and services. Blogging is one of the [...]

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Idea Popularity Contest

by RandallCraig August 11, 2010

How do you know if your idea is really popular? Asking around is one way. Doing a survey is another. But how about the popularity of your idea on a world-wide scale? While this might be a bit of a challenge, if you can boil it down to a few keywords, there is a way, [...]

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SMS: Social Media System

by RandallCraig January 19, 2010

Have you committed to writing a blog, only to find that you don’t quite write as often (or as well) as you’d like to? Or have you decided to use Twitter, only to find that you never really have much to say – let alone time to say it? If so, then you’re not alone. [...]

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Letters to the Editor

by RandallCraig November 24, 2009

When you read a book or newspaper article, do you think that the writer got it “perfect” on the very first draft? Or do you think that an editor (or two) may have made a few changes, prior to publication? Yet when we write a memo, report, or presentation outline, we are so rushed that [...]

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What catches your eye?

by RandallCraig September 8, 2009

What can we learn from the world of advertising? That ads that are intrusive or annoying might stand out for some, but billions are spent each year, in every country of the world — surely something has been learned that can have direct applicability to us? Effective advertising shares a number of key attributes. Consider [...]

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