Colin Alsheimer » blogging

The Arsenio Hall Show’s Guide to Images on Your Blog

Neil Lemons — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 13:00:21 +0000

Remember Arsenio Hall?

If you’ve slept since the mid 1990s, comedian/actor Arsenio Hall hosted The Arsenio Hall Show, a late night talk show that aired from early 1989 to mid 1994.

A frequent gag in Hall’s opening monologue suggested that he still lived in Cleveland, and drove himself to Los Angeles every day to host the show. While on these alleged long drives, Hall would ponder certain thoughts, referring to them as “things that make you go hmmm…” This running gag inspired a 1990 C+C Music Factory song by that very title. “Things That Make You Go Hmmm…” reached #1 on the Billboard Hot Dance Club Play chart. It also reached #4 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

What does the Arsenio Hall Show have to do with images on your blog?

An image that makes your reader go hmmm… at the beginning of every blog post can increase the likelihood someone will read it in the first place as well as the likelihood he/she will read the post in its entirety. Your audience will read the whole post just to see why the particular image was chosen just to satisfy his/her curiosity.

Picking a slightly odd or weird image, combined with an interesting title causes more brain stimulation. By relating the photo to something closer to the middle of the post, it triggers a rewarding, “I’m smart” feeling in the reader when he/she makes the connection.

This phenomena is similar to when the name of a song or movie is mentioned in the middle, the viewer/listener goes “ah, hah!” It’s more fun, if it’s not that obvious and rewards your readers who figure it out.

Stats back this up as well. Your audience is more likely to read a particular blog post if it has an image, and he/she is more likely to read the whole post IF it’s not a connection he or she thought they already knew.

Practical Tips

Use at least one compelling image every time you write a blog post.
Make it a little weird or off, relating two things that have never been associated.
Use Flickr.com and perform an advanced keyword search in the “creative commons” section for royalty-free images..
If you use Google Images, give the photographer or website credit.

What to avoid: Blasé corporate clip art. Cartoon illustrations. Not crediting the photographer or artist with a link.

Photo Credit: TodaysHotTrends.net

HOW TO: Build an Effective Editorial Calendar for Your Blog

Eddy Badrina — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 10:00:33 +0000

This is a guest post by Eddy Badrina.

A/B testing. Editorial calendars. We hear these terms being thrown about quite a bit these days, but for most bloggers, implementing either one is a little daunting, if only because most bloggers were endowed with a creative gene rather than a process/methodology gene.

We’ve implemented an editorial calendar at Buzzshift before, but recently, however, we were repeatedly asked again and again, “what is the best time to publish a blog post?” and, frankly, we didn’t have a good answer. Instead, we merely had anecdotal evidence to support our claim. So, we decided to build an editorial calendar with an A/B/C test built into it.

Variables

Our primary objective was to determine the most effective time(s) to publish our blog posts. First, we had to identify the variables. Day of the week, time of publishing, author, and subject were all variables for us. Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays would seem to be better days to push it out there, because Mondays are catch-up days and no one pays attention on Fridays. Or so we think. Likewise, we suspect that 7am is the best time to publish it because it hits people’s RSS feeds before they get to them. Here’s the problem with those assumptions: our audience may be different from your audience, or your clients’ audience.

Good salespeople are up and reading by 6-7am, but researchers and analysts aren’t wired that way, and the ones I know tend to be night owls. And what about retail business owners? When do they read? Is it the same time as commercial business managers? All the more reason to test for YOUR blog (or your client’s blog) and YOUR audience.

Metrics

After identifying the variables, we had to define what metrics would determine “effectiveness”. For us, we want to look at the quantity of unique visitors to the page. “Hits” don’t matter to us, especially with blog posts, because people tend to go back and read them again and again, and bots crawl daily, so unique visitors are a better measure. Then we want to look at the quality of the visitors, e.g. the average time on the page, how many comments there were, the number of RSS subscribers who looked at it, and the bounce rate of the post.

These are the basic metrics, and it shouldn’t take too much time to gather these. However, as our friend Neil Lemons suggested, there are some people who think that the time of publishing doesn’t matter, only when you market them.

Social networks

So…. we added some independent metrics for Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and email. Some of these publish only once, and with others, such as Twitter, we tweet multiple times during the day. With these, it is crucial to have a custom URL shortener, such as bit.ly, so that you see the analytics from that, both in aggregated numbers as well as broken down by time.

Verdict

The result: a spreadsheet that you can manipulate at the end of your test period. We suggest you sort by overall unique visitors for the most basic of metrics, but we think comparing sources against the time of publishing is an interesting analysis. We blog once a week, with an occasional ad-lib post in there sometimes, so our editorial calendar with A/B/C testing spans some three months. If you blog more than that, then the timeframe will be a little shorter.

We have shared a sample calendar with you, and would love to get feedback on it if you think we are missing any metrics. Here’s the link: sample editorial calendar.

A Sample Editorial Calendar

Remember that, because of the time-sensitive nature of these posts, you have to manage your contributors so that they get the post in on time. Things people forget about: images in the post, SEO, hyperlinks, and grammatical editing. In our case, the post is ready to go the day before it is actually published.

So there you have it. Do you agree with our calendar? How would you change it?

Image Credit

Peer Inside My Google Reader Account

Colin — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 02:59:35 +0000

Recently, I was asked by a friend to create a bundle of the Internet Marketing blogs I subscribe to. I figured there might be one or two other people out there who may be interested in discovering some new blogs to read, so, I’m sharing the bundle here:

About the Bundles

Internet Marketing is exactly what it sounds like, a list of the Internet Marketing blogs that I read. Some are high level thinking, others how-tos and tutorials. They cover the gamut in topics from Social Media, to SEO and even a little PPC.

View my Internet Marketing bundle here.

Mobile is a new folder for me. I’m trying to learn more about mobile marketing (you’ll probably see a few more blog posts on the topic here), and figured this list was a good place to start. A note about this group, most (almost all) of these feeds were recommended by the Mobilisms blog. I haven’t been reading these for any significant amount of time – so if they stink – you’ve been warned!

View my Mobile Marketing bundle here.

Friends is my folder for friends’ blogs. If you’re an IRL buddy, and and a blogger to boot – you’re probably in this folder. Have a blog, met me in person and not in this list? Just leave a link in the comments, and I’ll check your site out!

View my Friends bundle here.

Do you have a particularly good bundle of blogs? Leave a link to your reader bundle in the comments!

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The Time Strapped Professionals’ Guide To Blogging

Colin — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 11:00:36 +0000

If you’re anything like me, you’re constantly looking for ways to save time.

As a professional in the digital sphere, work is a 24/7 undertaking between office hours, networking events, social media participation, and ongoing education. For most digital professionals, one thing that often falls to the wayside is blogging. Blogging is generally a time consuming endeavor requiring research, multiple edits, and creativity. But blogging is one of the most important activities any of us can be doing online.

A blog that’s regularly updated can:

Provide highly qualified search traffic
Be a source of quality backlinks
Prove thought leadership
Demonstrate technical knowledge to potential clients
Provide traffic from social media sites
Become a source of leads for your business
Increase customer satisfaction & brand retention
Create brand evangelists
Increase your digital footprint

But when you’re on a busy schedule, how do you keep it up?

1. Learn to Batch Process

Most elements of blogging can benefit from batch processing. I like to sit down for a few hours one day a month and brainstorm a couple dozen ideas for posts, mostly consisting of the title and a few sentences about the idea. I save all of these as draft posts. Then, on particularly productive days, I’ll sit down and write 2-3 posts at a time. On a once per week publishing schedule, that gets me pretty far.

2. Create an Editorial Calendar

Have problems coming up with ideas? Think of this as your road map to blogging. Take the batch processing idea above, and apply it to a 6 month, or even a full year’s schedule. Come up with one topic per week, or even a new theme to explore each month. This way you can deliver timely and seasonal content, and be prepared for it ahead of time.

3. Automate Your Promotion

While not a tactic I would always recommend, it can be a significant time saver. Use a service like HootSuite to automatically publish your new posts to your Twitter, Facebook & LinkedIn accounts. You can also use HootSuite to push out to Ping.FM, which can update any number of sites.

4. Become a Digital Collector

Inspiration can strike at any time, and anywhere. Capture that inspiration by becoming a digital collector. Anytime I see a piece of content online that inspires me – be that photo, video or blog post, I’ll save it to my Evernote Notebook. I then tag the clipping with “blog idea” for future reference. You can do the same with services like Instapaper, or even through your Posterous blog. This can also help when you need to find support material for a blog post that’s in the works.

5. Experiment with Other Formats

Maybe writing isn’t your thing. You might be a better public speaker then a writer. As Gary Vaynerchuk might say, “Find what fits your DNA.” Go ahead and experiment with video blogs or podcasts. Then, when you post to your blog, include a paragraph or two of text content that describes the video or podcast. This way you’ll get the benefit of search traffic for the content you created.

6. Recycle Your Content

Are you creating presentations, white papers, or other forms of content for your business? Many of these can be recycled into quality blog posts. If the content has been published online in other places, make sure you vary up the text to avoid pesky duplicate content penalties from the search engines.

7. Learn to Leverage Mobile

Create content while you’re on the go. The iPhone and other mobile devices include features like voice recorders and video cameras. Use these to capture your thoughts and ideas while you’re on the go. You can also draft entire blog posts through Gmail, and depending on your set-up, post through e-mail, or post when you’re able to access a computer.

What About You?

What tricks have you discovered for saving time while blogging?

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14 Day Social Media Challenge

Colin — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 04:27:57 +0000

My Twitter stream is flooded.

And not in the you-follow-too-many-people kind of way. It’s more like a too-much-of-the-same-content kind of way. Every day my stream gets inundated with the same content from the same dozen sources, and I think we can do better.

There are hundreds of blogs that are just waiting to be discovered. Some have, and just haven’t found an audience yet. Most will have better content then many of the top blogs on the Internet. They’ll teach, provoke thought, and encourage the discussions that this industry needs to move forward.

That’s why I’m starting this challenge.

The Challenge:

I challenge you to find 10-15 blogs that are not ranked in the top 150 on AdAge’s Power 150 List, or within Technorati’s top 100.

The Rules:

For 14 days, when you tweet blog posts, it can only be from those blogs. (the only exception being your employer’s or personal blog)
Before starting the challenge, you must blog about your list.
When you tweet posts from your chosen blogs, include the hashtag #smchallenge.
Optional: At the end of the 14 days, write a follow-up post about some new post or blog that you found inspiring or enlightening.

As the tweets come in, I’ll compile digests of the blogs that people are finding (and enjoying). I’ll also create a Twitter list for those of you who participate in the Social Media Challenge.

The major point of this exercise is to find and promote blog content that may be a bit obscure, but just as deserving. Abide by that guideline, and you’ll do well in the challenge.

Do we have a deal?

My Ten Twelve:*

I’m starting on Monday – are you?

Photo Credit

*I added 2 more!

The Single Most Effective Tactic For Online Marketing Success

Colin — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 22:27:23 +0000

Create great content.

There’s just no other way around it. If you want to have success online, you have to be creating great content and you have to be doing it on a regular basis.

Look at some of the best and most highly trafficked websites online, Mashable, Chris Brogan, Search Engine Land, Copyblogger. What do they all have in common?

Great content.

I find it funny when I meet with people to discuss online marketing, and they don’t want to create content. Either they don’t have time, they don’t know what to write about, or they’re worried about what people might say.

Trying to achieve success without creating content is like trying to lose weight without going to the gym. It’s not going to happen.

What kind of content should you create?

It depends what your goals are. If it’s search engine traffic, text based content like blog posts might be the best approach. If it’s social traffic, blog posts, video, audio, and images would be good choices. If it’s for lead generation, try a white paper or ebook.

The really successful ventures will find ways to create all of the above.

But I don’t have time

Make time. Or hire someone to do it for you. This is an activity that you must work into your schedule. Start with at least one new piece of quality content each week. That will be enough to keep the content on your website fresh, keep the search engines coming back to index your site, and hopefully – build your presence online.

Note: if you work in a highly technical or tightly regulated industry, be sure the writer you hire has a solid knowledge of your industry, otherwise it can get dicey.

Pro tip: don’t wait for inspiration to come to you, instead, head down to your local bar or coffee shop and have an all night brainstorming session. Then, create an editorial calendar for yourself. Then stick to your schedule.

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Why I Left Posterous

Colin — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 05:04:07 +0000

About six months ago, I finally got around to setting up a new personal blog on my vanity domain. At the time, I was inspired by Steve Rubel’s decision to move his extremely popular blog to the new Posterous platform, and thus followed in his footsteps. While it was great for a time, I wanted to get more out of my blog, and Posterous just couldn’t keep up.

Specifically:

I decided that SEO was important, after all, (go figure, right?) and could not survive on Social traffic alone.
I wanted to incorporate other features, like a contact form, and multiple pages.
I wanted to be able to grow a community on this blog, and felt that Posterous was not the best tool for that goal.
I just couldn’t live with having the same design as thousands of other people.

What will I miss?

Posting through e-mail. Posterous really is the easiest posting platform on the web.
The way it handles video. When I do shoot video, it’s frequently on my iPhone, and Posterous is still the only video platform that I know of which will change the dimension of the player to support vertical video.
Cross-posting. Posterous is fantastic at cross-posting to my various networks.

I will continue to use Posterous as my lifestream, where I’ll share interesting content, and publish photos, videos, and other content that just doesn’t belong here.

Please do not take this as a negative review of Posterous – I think the platform is fantastic, and has quite a bit to offer, especially in the social media space. It just wasn’t the right fit for what I want to accomplish with this blog.

Either way, welcome to my new site! I would love to get your opinion in the comments!

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Team CJ Is Headed to SXSW 2010!

Colin — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 17:06:16 +0000

It started as a podcast.

Then, in August, we asked you to vote.

Now, it's my absolute pleasure to announce that Team CJ will be on the official lineup for SXSW 2010, March 12-16th.

Myself and Rondo Estrello will be leading a Core Conversation on the topic of Citizen Journalism, and doing our best to represent the awesomeness that is Team CJ.

There will be many more details to come, but please congratulate Team CJ for a job well done.

Team CJ is: