Guest post by Thomas R. Fox, principal of tomfoxlaw.com.

As a solo professional or small business owner, how can you create a footprint with little to no marketing budget? In today’s social media world, the answer is quite a bit. Following is my social media success story.

I am a lawyer who was trying to develop a solo practice focusing on the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), which prohibits bribery and corruption by U.S. companies overseas. I was out doing the circuit through personal networking, publishing articles, and giving speeches — some might call it the old fashioned way. But this was not providing any traction, so in January I decided to market exclusively through social media. Continue Reading »

Guest post by Larry Spada the vice president of branding and marketing at Outdoor Living Brands.

Apple changed my life. When I saw my first Macintosh computer in the mid-1980s, I was speechless.

My only exposure to computers at the time was those ugly, old, ochre cathode ray streams of digits beaming from clunky monitors – or those big monster server rooms that we typically see in spy movies.

So there I was, in my buddy’s office, looking at this unusual beige box with a seven-or-so-inch monitor. And he was showing me a slowly bouncing, rotating 3D black-and-white checkerboard-patterned ball. Continue Reading »

Catherine Novak over at WordSpring wrote a great post Tuesday on the merits of content versus conversation. As the word count on the comment I began to leave for her continued to grow, I realized I just might have a blog post of my own on my hands.

In her post, Catherine quotes Cory Doctorow (via Clay Shirky): “Conversation is King, content is just something to talk about.”

When I blog, my primary goal is to strike a conversation. Some people write for catharsis. Some to preach. Some to sell. I write for conversation.

“But this very post is published on a business blog,” you might be thinking. “Isn’t the point of a business blog to sell?”

And it would be difficult to argue with you – or with Joe Pulizzi, who wrote a solid post of his own on Tuesday entitled “Sales Is the Reason Your Content Exists.” But, wait, hear me out. Continue Reading »

Before you get to see me take the dare of vlogging in my cycling gear AND talk about whether or not you need to create an editorial calendar for your blog, I have a favor to ask.

This very blog has been nominated for PR Blog of the Year. Would you please go over to Arik Hanson’s blog and vote for us? We’re in the very last category so scroll all the way down. And, while you’re there, vote for the other categories, too. And, if you would rather vote for another PR Blog of the Year, I’m okay with that – we’re up against people I really respect, admire, and read daily.

And now, on with the show. I was dared by Brad Farris and Blair Minton to do a video blog in my cycling gear. So here you have it (I’m totally self-conscious). Answering a question from Thomas Scott about creating editorial calendars for your blog.

Earlier this year, I found Jeff Bullas and his blog and devoured his content. What initially caught my attention was “30 Tips To Make Your Company’s Blog Rock,” to which I added a few more tips. I blogged about it here.

Then, last week, he compiled tips from his comments and came up with “50 Ways to Optimize Your Blog.”

So, shamelessly stealing from him, I have compiled his tips, my tips, and your tips to come up with 52 different blogging tips.  Check it out! Continue Reading »

Today’s question from the Arment Dietrich Facebook page comes from Jason Verhoosky of Old Beauty Design who asks, “Do you schedule time on a daily basis for social media, blogging, and online interactions or do you post/interact as needed?”

Every week we invite our Facebook fans to post a question on our wall, which I then answer via video blog. This week, Jelena Woehr asks, “What is the best way a young professional can spend a few hours each week in order to give their current and future career a boost?”

Before the holidays, we spent some time here talking about blogs – how to create them,  how to attract readers, and how to optimize your content.

One thing, however, we didn’t discuss is how to promote and publicize your blog posts, after they’ve been published, in order to attract readers who don’t yet know about you.

This is the process I follow every time I hit publish:

1. Go to Delicious and create an account, if you don’t already have one.

Save your blog post, with the original link (not a shortened link), as a bookmark. I have our Delicious page set up to automatically feed my FriendFeed and Twitter accounts after it’s been posted. To learn how to do that, Scott Hepburn has an easy-to-follow blog post on the topic here. He even goes so far as to suggest you do this with Google Reader. I don’t do that because I want to have read the content I tweet before I actually distribute it.

It takes a couple of hours for Delicious to feed to FriendFeed and Twitter, so I do this late at night (after 9 p.m.) in order to hit the people up, and on Twitter, around midnight.

2. Go to su.pr and create an account, if you don’t already have one.

I love this URL shortener because it:

* Adds your content to StumbleUpon (which helps with SEO AND attracting new readers);

* Gives you times of each day that your tribe retweets you most often on Twitter (so you know when to post);

* Shows you all of the retweets each post has received and who did the retweeting; and

* Gives you pretty accurate traffic information you can then overlay with your Google analytics.

I don’t, however, like to use the timed feature in su.pr because it tends to act wonky at least once a week and it sometimes “loses” your links. So I go there only to shorten the link so I can use it in other places.

3. Go to SocialOomph and create an account, if you don’t already have one.

I like using this service to time my tweets (I do one an hour from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m. CST) Mondays through Thursdays (I don’t tweet news on Fridays because of #FollowFriday).

Based on what su.pr tells me, I schedule our blog post (using the su.pr shortened link) to tweet three times the following day. For instance, I know on Tuesdays, 9 a.m., noon, and 3 p.m., are the times I’m retweeted the most. So I set up our blog post to be tweeted at those times every Tuesday.

For every other tweet during the day, I set up news, articles, and blogs I read that support my thinking, but aren’t self-serving (i.e. not information coming from Arment Dietrich).

Keep in mind that you can not use the same copy for the multiple scheduled tweets. They must be different copy or Twitter will consider it spam.

So this is what my scheduled tweets looked like yesterday:

4. Go to Facebook and, using the original blog link (not the shortened one), I let our fans know what they can read about on the blog.

5. Go to LinkedIn and, again, using the original blog link, update my status to drive my connections to the post.

6. Answer all comments you get on your blog. I typically answer on the blog, but also send an email to the commenter thanking them. This not only makes people feel good, but sometimes creates an offline conversation that builds my relationship with that person.

Rinse and repeat each day. I know this sounds like a lot, but I timed it when I wrote this post. It took me eight minutes.

Are there things you do to publicize your blog posts that are not listed here?

Based on the feedback from “Tips for Starting a Blog,” it sounds like you’re ready to attract readers. So let’s get started!

My friend Jeff Lipschultz commented on Monday that he was going to be brash and suggest quality is key to attracting readers. And he is 100 percent correct!

Quality, value, and “what’s in it for me” are what attract readers. If you followed the steps I suggested on Monday and asked your network – your friends – to read your blog and pass along to their friends (assuming they liked what they read), then you already have a base of readers. Don’t worry about the number of readers you have on your blog. Worry about providing great content and your friends will be happy to send your blog URL to their friends. And their friends will send to their friends. And pretty soon you have lots of readers who keep coming back for the great value you’re providing.

So how do I provide great content?

I said this on Monday, but it’s worth repeating. IF YOU BLOG, DO IT CONSISTENTLY. A few argued this point in the comments section and that’s okay. My point here is not that you have a blog. My point is that you become a blogger. And to become a blogger you must post at least three times a week.

A few tricks of the trade that make it easy to provide great content and write multiple times every week:

* Make the copy scannable, which means create lists, use bullet points, insert pictures, use headings and subheads and write about only one topic.

* Write short posts. Research states the average blog reader only stays on the same story for 96 seconds so write for that person.

* The copy only needs to prove the point in a very comprehensive manner. Give readers a reason to comment and, if you have extra points to discuss, do it in response to comments.

* Write a title that is both catchy and has search engine optimization (the blog post you can find here on Thursday will discuss how to do this so check back). Your blogs will last for eternity online and you never know when someone, even two years from now, may want information on your topic. Think about how they might search if they’re doing research on your top

* Link to other blogs and news articles that support your thinking. If you do this, find bloggers who aren’t typically quoted or linked to – share the love so the A-listers aren’t the only ones always quoted.

* If you’re passionate about something that is hot in the media right now, wait a week to write the post. It’s hard to gain awareness when you’re in a sea of others writing about the same topic. For instance, if you have value you can add to the Tiger Woods discussion, do it via your blog… and now (two weeks later) is a good time to do it.

* Avoid jargon. Remember the rule of life: Keep it simple, stupid.

* Make yourself uncomfortable. If you’re not making someone mad with every blog post, you’re not doing it right. Get out of your comfort box. Write controversially. But do it professionally.

* Ask for guest bloggers. My friend Harry Brumleve is going to write Thursday’s post on SEO for me. That’s one less post I have to write, but it provides value to him because you now are aware of him and it provides value to you because he’s an expert on the topic.

* Ask questions. People love to provide their thinking and insight. And through their comments, you learn more and become that much more wise.

Always, always remember: This is about your readers. This is not about you. Do not be self-serving or promotional. You are providing your thinking. You are providing your intellectual capital. You are providing your passion. And you are providing all of it for free. If people find value in your thinking, they will come back for more.

For those of you who already are bloggers, what would you add to this to create value in order to attract readers?

When I speak across the country, I have a lot of people tell me they want to start a blog and they want to know how to get started. I always caution that blogs aren’t for everyone and that, once you get started, you can’t stop. It’s a pretty big time commitment and it takes some effort to not only attract readers, but also engage them and keep them coming back for more.

My friend Rieva Lesonsky has a great article at AllBusiness.com about the pros and cons of having a blog. I also love Gary Vaynerchuk’s philosophy that first comes your passion. Your passion may be monkeys and you think no one will want to visit a blog about monkeys. He argues, in “Crush It!”, that no matter what your passion, if people can tell you really care about it they’ll keep coming back. And you won’t mind the time commitment because it’s what you love more than anything else. He also argues that you don’t necessarily need to write a blog. This is important thought – there also are video blogs (called vlgos) and audio blogs (called podcasts).

If, after reading Rieva’s article and figuring out whether or not you can write/video/speak about your passion, you still want a blog, following are some tips for getting started.

1. Go to WordPress or Blogger and set up an account. I like WordPress because it’s more professional and it has lots of really great templates for you to choose from so you can create something really nice in a couple of hours. Blogger is really easy to use, but it looks more homemade.
2. Write a list of 30 topics you can write about – just headlines. For instance, I write about social media, the PR industry, and what it’s like to grow a company. Under those three topics, I have 30 bullet points of different headlines. Under social media, I know tomorrow I’m going to write about how to attract readers to your blog, because it follows today’s topic.
3. Write (or video or speak) five to 10 posts and save them as drafts in your blog. Do not publish them yet.
4. Schedule an hour a day on your calendar to write your blog post, answer reader’s comments, and comment on other’s blogs about your topic
5. Publish your first draft on a Monday.
6. Send an email to your friends, clients, colleagues, peers, family, vendors, and partners and ask them to read your blog post. Ask them to check back on Wednesday and again on Friday. Ask them, if they like what they read, to send the link to their network.
7. Make friends with 10-20 people who already have strong social networks and ask them to help you spread the word. People will do this IF it’s a topic they’re also interested in and know their networks also will like to read. If your blog is about monkeys and I’ve been attacked by a chimp, you won’t want to ask me. Know your audience.
8. Be prepared to publish at least three times each week. And keep your drafts full – have five to 10 ready to publish at any time. This is hard to do, but trust me when I say that it makes life A LOT easier when you’re overly busy and something else has taken over your hour to blog.

I’m always willing to introduce bloggers to my network if they are consistent, have an interesting topic, and make me think. Think about that as you begin to write (or video or speak) and why someone like me would want to help you (other than I’m nice and help everyone). Then ask!  You’ll be surprised at how willing people are to help.

Tomorrow I’ll blog about how to attract readers, beyond your network and your 10-20 friends who already have communities built on the social networks. In the meantime, if you blog, do you have anything to add for people just starting out?