ProBlogger - Latest Posts

Add Social Proof to Your Blog With TweetBacks Posted: 08 Jan 2009 02:33 PM PST In this post Dan Zarrella tells us about a new tool he’s created for bloggers - TweetBacks - a tool that allows you to add instances where your blog has been mentioned on Twitter to your blogs comments section. A few days ago, I created the first implementation of TweetBacks (see the WP plugin here), which is a porting of the idea of trackbacks to Twitter. By first reverse engineering a bunch of the most popular URL shortening services, it then searches Twitter for Tweets that link to your post. These Tweets are then displayed under your original post (either above or below your comments section). Beyond simply adding a new layer to the conversation and allowing your readers greater flexibility in how they choose to respond to your content, it also adds an important factor in “going viral”: social proof. By showing your readers how many other people have also liked your post enough to share it, you tap into a powerful human tendency towards imitation. I’ve written about the power of social proof in viral and social marketing before, but this is one of the most direct and effective ways to accomplish this. Tweets are a lower-commitment, easier way to share content than either traditional commenting or blogging, and therefore lowers the bar for your readers to join in the conversation. Something like 3/4 of all ReTweets include a link, effectively making them a form of TweetBacks. I plan to integrate TweetBacks into myReTweet mapping system, moving towards a more general understanding of ReTweets. If you’re using my javascript-based implementation of TweetBacks, that system will be able to include your blog and content, and you’ll also be able to visually and granularly track its spread through Twitter. Share This

5 Steps for Planning the Direction of Your Blog in 2009 Posted: 08 Jan 2009 06:13 AM PST Last week I shared a series of questions for bloggers to ponder as they look back on their last year of blogging. The point of the questions was not to engage in a navel gazing exercise but to look back with the objective of identifying how a blog has been performing in order to improve it moving forward. Today I want to suggest a process for thinking about the future of your blog. I’m not sure that this process appears exactly like this in any strategic thinking books or teaching but it is the process that I use when I periodically look at how my blogs and business is going. Here’s a quick visual with some questions to explain each step in the process: Hopefully the diagram speaks largely for itself but let me extrapolate slightly on each step. Step 1 - Define your Mission This is fairly big picture stuff and for me actually goes wider than just why I blog and more fits with my overall life mission. I guess it’s about looking at your overall purpose and direction - what you want to achieve etc. Having this firm in your mind then enables you to work out how blogging fits into that overall purpose. Step 2 - Paint a Picture of Your Vision This is still pretty long term and looks beyond the coming year to where you want to eventually take your blog. It’s a picture of a reasonably distant future. Dare to dream a little and think big in this stage. Step 3 - Make Goals Now we’re drilling down into the year ahead. Where do you want to be at the end of 2009? Hopefully it’ll be somewhere towards your ‘Vision’ and have helped you to accomplish some of your ‘mission’ - but what will your blog look like, be doing and have achieved this time next year? Dare to think big but keep in mind that it needs to be achievable. You don’t need to have done everything in your vision in 12 months - these goals are stepping stones to the eventual goals. Step 4 - Devise a Strategy What are you going to need to DO to get to your goals? Usually this means some kind of ‘change’ in your approach. Do you need to blog more, start a new blog, change your topic slightly, hire a writer, network with other bloggers more, start using a new method for promoting your blog, follow what others are writing more, build community engagement, redesign your blog etc? Think about strategies across the different activities of blogging that will take you closer to your goals. Step 5 - Set out an Action Plan Most people set ‘resolutions’ in their lives (and for their blogs) that are quite ‘general’ and wishy washy in nature. ‘I’m going to lose weight’, or ‘I’m going to find a girlfriend’. While these resolutions are great they are often not achieved simply because while a decision is made to do something - the person making the decision puts no actual plan in place for ‘how’ they’ll do it. The same is true for thinking strategically about your blog. ‘I’m going to get more traffic in 2009′ is a great goal - but what are you doing to specifically focus on DOING to get that traffic. Your action plan should be made up of very concrete tasks that you’ll do in the coming months. I will write 5 posts a week - I will email 7 readers each week - I will leave 1 comment per day on another blog in my niche - I will write a guest post for another blogger each month - I will run a competition on my blog in June. The above 5 steps are the way I approach planning on my blogs (in fact it is how I do it in other areas of my life also). I actually do this for each of my blogs. The mission generally is much the same for each one and at times there are similarities in other steps. This process will not be for everyone but I think can make a useful starting point for thinking about your blog in 2009. Some personality types will find it easier than others to think this way - actually for me it is not a natural way of thinking - I’m quite impulsive and this is a real effort to do. You might find some steps in the process more natural and quicker to complete than others but thinking things through from the big picture right down to specific tasks will hopefully help you to not only plan but make the changes you need to make in order to achieve your dreams. Share This

You are subscribed to email updates from ProBlogger Blog Tips To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now.	Email delivery powered by Google
Inbox too full? Subscribe to the feed version of ProBlogger Blog Tips in a feed reader.
If you prefer to unsubscribe via postal mail, write to: ProBlogger Blog Tips, c/o Google, 20 W Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610