Filter The Noise

Are you still dragging your heals on getting into the Social Media world?  Have you started a Blog yet?

As you know I have been on this blogging kick of late.  No, I have not made my goal of blogging every day, but I have definitely written more than I ever have.  Today, I write this blog because I had a really awesome experience that I wanted to share.

One of our clients called me today to tell me what a great job he thought I was doing on blogging.  He said that he felt that they really hit the point for someone struggling or just getting started.  He said he didn't comment on them because he felt there was nothing to add and that instead he wanted to call and tell me this. He said "Kim, I know many people read your blog and I too read everyone, I just wanted to let you know that I think they are great and that although I don't comment on them, know that I really liked them."  He said that he was in the "silent majority" of people who often read blogs and really feel impacted but that don't leave a comment.

I did explain to him that once his blog is up that he will indeed want to leave the "Silent Majority" and start leaving comments on the blogs he reads and feels impacted by, as this leaves inbound links back to his site. He was way excited about this new discovery that I am sure he will be leaving his comments behind from now on.

I just want to "Thank Joe" for sharing his thoughts with me.  You really made my day.  Like I said, most people will probably not receive a call thanking them for their posts, but I am sure you will receive an email or a comment left by someone that let's you know that you are indeed doing a great job!

So, what is the take away from this...BLOG! BLOG! BLOG!  People are waiting to hear what you have to say. For the skeptics out there, here is quote from one of my favorite authors (Avinash Kaushik) who says, "If at first you don't succeed, keep on sucking till you do succeed.”  Because if you never suck at something, then how do you ever improve it?

Has anyone else had any really cool kudos they want to share?  I would love to hear them.

Blogging, why is this such a scary concept to a lot of people? If you can write an email, you can blog! Remember that Life Cereal Commercial, where the two boys don't want to try the cereal, so they get Mikey to try it? That was one of my favorite commercials growing up. It was catchy and you remembered it. Just in case you are too young to remember the commercial, I have included it in this post. Mikey wasn't afraid to try the cereal because it was good for him and you shouldn't be afraid to try blogging, because it is REALLY good for you. Blogging is one of the greatest ways to increase your search results by Google. When you blog, because you are talking about a specific topic, you tend to use all the keywords you need to have google index your site for relevance. Most times your blog will be found before your website will be. The reason is because the content on a blog is always changing. By people commenting on your blog causes the content to change. Commenting on blogs you read that provide you with remarkable content is another way to increase traffic to your site. By commenting on a blog you leave behind, your name, email, an the option to enter a web address. Don't pass up this free opportunity to link back to your site. So, how do you get started Blogging?

• Find a blogging platform. Wordpress.org is a self hosted solution that many bloggers use and are very happy with. Wordpress has zillions of templates to choose from so you could be up and running in minutes. It also has a CMS built in so you can actually create pages. We call this a Blog First website.
• Go out and find other blogs that you find interesting and start subscribing to their feeds through RSS. As you comment on other blogs and your leave behind remarkable content, you build a reputation of being a "Thought Leader".
• START BLOGGING and COMMENTING.
• Submit your RSS feed to Technorati. Technorati is also a great blogging repository that indexes tons of different blogs. Go search and find some to subscribe too.
• It is recommended that you try to blog at least 3 times a week. Do what you can, once you get into it, it will become habit.
• Don't make your blog posts too long. Try to do about 400 words. Blogs that are too lengthly can lose the reader and they will abandon your post. Or break it up into multi blog posts over time.

I hope this helps those that haven't quite bought into the whole Blogging thing. Please let me know if you have questions or if you want to leave some of your wisdom for others to read. Enjoy this video (thanks panbiscuit for sharing)