Today, as always, I picked up a copy of the Chicago Sun-Times. I am one of those people who still likes to read the morning paper. I also open up to page 11 to read Richard Roeper’s column. He had an interesting piece today in which he spoke about writers and how they are perceived. Below is the relevant part of the column. The entire article can be read here.

Recently, a major entertainment conglomerate asked if I’d write a little piece for them. When I inquired about payment, I was told they thought it would be something “fun” for me to to do.

Uh-huh.

I think I’ll try that the next time I need work on a car. Payment? Oh, there’ll be no money, but you’ll get to work on my car! Thought that’d be fun for you, seeing as how you like cars and engines and stuff.

If you can get someone to write for free for your for-profit magazine or Web site, congrats: You’re the 21st version of Tom Sawyer hosting a fence-painting party.

Apparently, that’s the case with the new Huffington Post Chicago. As the Trib’s Phil Rosenthal reported last week, contributors, including some very well-respected professional journalists and some Chicago-centric celebs such as John Cusack, are writing entries for no pay.

I can see Cusack waiving a fee. But just try to get him to appear in your commercial film for free and see what he tells you to do with your offer.

If you’re a professional writer, I suppose you might write something without payment as a way of promoting a book, getting your name out there, something like that. To me, though, once you’ve set your rate at nada, you’ve started down a dangerous Slip ‘n Slide.

I found what Richard said to be dead-on. Across the blogosphere, people are contributing free articles at an alarming rate, and never asking compensation. They are promised by hundreds of other blogs that by doing this, they will build up that traffic and start making real money writing. I bet this happens for 1 in 100 professional bloggers. Most waste a year, make no money, and decide they weren’t good enough and move on.

I have written dozens of what I consider interesting columns and articles on several blogs aside from this one. I have seen little to no money for this work yet consider myself a pretty skilled writer. Why am I wasting my time blogging when I could be marketing my skills in other ways? Is blogging really an effective way to promote your writing?

Sometimes, I wonder if I would be better suiting spending more time looking for a paying gig rather than blogging.

What is your opinion? Keep in mind I am only talking about those who attempt to write professional blogs, not those who just enjoy writing and have a blog.

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Funny thing happened to me on the way to the Twitter client today. I tried to follow my friends band, Treaty of Paris, and I got a nice message from Twitter. I follow too many people. I need to follow less before I can add more.

This makes NO sense to me what-so-ever.

Who cares how many people I follow? As I have stated before, following someone does not mean you can spam them. They have to follow you back in order for them to see your messages and tweets. Has it occurred to Twitter that maybe I like following lots and lots of people because it helps my third shift go faster.

Is it possible that I like reading random tweets from people I don’t know? I have made new friends by following random people on Twitter. This limit disheartens me.

When you start controlling who people follow, you defeat the point of Twitter. I can understand limits to posting, spamming, but once again, YOU CAN NOT SPAM BY FOLLOWING SOMEONE.

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It is easy when you are blogging to lose yourself a little creatively. It is natural to lose focus from time to time. Some bloggers are even writing outside their comfort zone in an attempt to make a little money.

Wow, that sounds exactly like a lot of musicians I have met over the years.

When I was either writing records, or producing records, there were always a few simple rules we would follow in order to get the most out of the songs. Fast forward a few years, and I notice myself following similar rules while blogging. I am going to break down the rules I follow while writing songs, and show you how they can apply to blogging.

There rules only apply if you are looking to make a commercial product out of your blog. If you are writing for artistic purposes only, while these rules may help you, there are no rules. I write songs for commercial purposes and artistic purposes. I only use these rules when attempting to write a commercially viable song.

1. What is the aim of the song? The first and foremost thing any songwriter does is figure out the direction and purpose of the song. Is it supposed to be catchy and poppy? Is it going to be a deep cut? (meaning buried somewhere around track 8 of the record) Is it a song written with the sole intention to win the girl? When blogging, you must do the same thing when determining the aim of the blog post. Personally, I don’t like to outline posts because I feel it is more honest when it is coming unscripted from the mind, but you definitely need to find the aim early.
2. What is the hook of the song? The most important part of song viability is the hook. Hooks are unmistakable. They are the part of the song that you keep coming back to and remembering. Often, the main premise of the hook is repeated over and over again through out a song. In a blog post, your title is the hook. Make sure your hook is to the point, catchy and memorable.
3. Do the lyrics convey the story correctly? Lyrics are often abstract and are open to interpretation. But as a lyricist, you must refine the lyrics so they convey the story you want to tell. I used to revise my lyrics often in the early stages of writing, because I wanted to make it ‘perfect’. When I blog, I notice myself doing a similar revision. I will go back after writing the initial post to make sure I conveyed the idea the exact way I had intended.
4. Does the song first the scope of the record? Often times, I would write a song that did not fit the sound of the record, and sometimes, the sound of the band. It is easy to do that while you blog. Make sure what you are writing about fits the overall theme of the blog. It might be the best post since sliced bread, but if it doesn’t fit your overall vision, it will fall on deaf ears.
5. Can we trim the fat? Every songwriter instantly falls in love with a song. But sometimes, it needs to be edited and trimmed down. The bridge might be too long or the chorus might repeat too much. I make sure that there is no content that is irrelevant with every blog post. It might not be a perfect science since relevancy is in the eye of the beholder but it helps keep the reading pace fast.

Just like with any art medium, blogging is completely subjective. There is no right or wrong. However, just like with song writing, there are ways to make blogs commercially viable as opposed to just art. Some of the best songwriters I know have no goals at all to profit or make a career out of their art. Which, to me is honorable. But if you are looking to make money off of your blogging, you have to think of your blog as a commercial product. When you look back at your blog do you feel it is a hit or a deep cut?

• 1 Comment

Over the past few months, many people have commented on my Twitter promotional strategy. Most of the comments have been positive so I am taking the time today to write my Ultimate Twitter Resource guide. It will talk about all things Twitter, from what it is, to the many ways to use it, and other great Twitter related sites. I will forewarn you, this will get a little long but I hope you find it is worth the read. If you are more interested in strictly promotional aspect, you can bypass the first half or click on the links to my previous Twitter columns, most of the information on promotion is in those posts. At the end I have included a comprehensive list of links for you to peruse.

(Here are the links to my previous Twitter columns: Using Twitter to Increase Readers and Make Friends,  Don’t Take Promotional Personal with Twitter, and The Twitter Effect)

My series of Twitter entries created quite a bit of buzz, as over 75 comments will attest to. I hope I have consolidate all needed information into one well thought out entry. If you have anything to add, please join the discussion.

I also encourage everyone to post links to their Twitter account in the comments section.

Introduction:

I was first introduced to Twitter in April of 2008. Yes, I know, not that long ago. However, as soon as I saw the promotional ability of the tool I started using it daily and religiously. I quickly was able to build over 4000 followers and almost quintupled my blog traffic, all in 2 months of work. In addition to the promotional aspect, I have met a nice amount of really fun and intelligent people, and enjoy reading messages from everyone that I follow.

What is Twitter?

Twitter was started in 2006 as a ‘micro-blogging’ platform. Micro-blogging is a style of social networking that lets you send updates of 140 characters to those who are following your time line.  Social networking heavy-weights such as MySpace and Facebook refer to these as ‘Status Updates’. Over the last two years, Twitter has gone from relative obscurity to national prominence thanks to blogging, and many new related website (for example, the Chicago Sun Time columnists all have Twitter to let readers follow their daily activities.) Although there are a hundreds of micro-blogging websites, Twitter is far and away the most popular.

Another popular reason people Twitter is its ability to be updated quickly from a mobile phone. Once you set up your account, you can easily text message updates to display on your Twitter feed.

The following is a quick explanation of frequently used terms in Twitter.

A Tweet is a status update made to your time line.

Someone who Follows you is someone who receives your status updates on his or her Twitter profile.

When you Follow someone, you will receive their status updates.

Getting Started on Twitter:

Creating a Twitter account is fairly straight forward.  Think of a user name and fill out the simple form.

After you fill out the form, it will prompt you to check your current contacts in your email account to see if those people have a Twitter account. It was ‘Follow’ all of those people. You now at your default screen. It should look like this:

You are now ready to start making status updates. If you plan on using the update from cell phone feature, make sure you follow the on-screen instructions to set it up.

Customizing your Twitter profile:

Before starting promotion or using Twitter as a communication tool, you may want to customize your profile. There are a few things you can do to make the profile more personal.

• Add a customized background image. I personally didn’t feel the need to do this on my profile, but many people like to have their established brand or logo in the background of their profile. Example: Selina Wragg uses the same background image for her blog as she does her Twitter.
• Add a personal photograph. This will give your profile a personal feel for anyone that chooses to follow you.
• The biography section is an excellent play to post links to your websites, MySpace, Facebook profiles. Or if you want, just a little something about yourself. I will get into promotional optimization later on in this guide.

When your profile is customized, it could have a nice look and make it feel less sterile than the generic Twitter screen. Here is an example:

Notice how the Twitter background and the blog layout have the same feel.

After you are up and running, I recommend taking a few days to observe the culture of Twitter communities so you don’t feel in the dark when you start to promote your website or product. If you want to read more about the more common Twitter usage rules SheGeek’s has an excellent post about it here.

How To User Twitter To Communicate:

Once you have created your profile and added some friends, you should take the opportunity to learn how to communicate within Twitter before moving on to promoting your blog or product.

There are three general ways people communicate with Twitter.

1. Public Time-line
2. @User replies
3. Direct Messages

When someone posts to a public time-line, it is viewed as a general message. One of the first mistakes I made was not understanding this, so when people would send me messages I would just reply in the public time-line. People must have thought I was crazy. @User is the proper way to reply to a message from a user if it is not private. When you use @User, it will display in the users reply section on their Twitter profile. When using a Twitter client, usually the client will distinguish those messages and display them differently. The final common way is a direct message. Direct messages are private and only the user can see them.

Another great communication feature of Twitter is the ability to update it via cell phone. Once you set up your cell phone number in the Setup section, you can send an SMS text message to Twitter to have them update your profile. You have all the same options when communicating by SMS.

Below is a video that explains Twitter in simplistic terms. I thought it was pretty entertaining.

Most of this next section was culled from a post I made in April called Using Twitter to Increase Readers and Make Friends. You can find that post here.

How To Promote A Niche Blog With Twitter:

Most of these tips can be used to promote any product or website, but this next part is geared more toward promoting you niche blog through Twitter. Since my niche blog is about blogging tips and, on the fringe, a make money online blog, I started with the popular niche blogs in those fields.

These are the steps I went through in order to build the traffic and increase my followers. There are a few people who look at these types of methods as spamming, but they key to it is to NOT spam, and use your new found connections properly.  When I promoted my music on MySpace, I would find a similar artist to my music. I would go through and then attempt to add their friends and message them. The mindset was ‘If they like this artist, there is a better chance they would like my music than if I picked a random person off the street.’ Instead of spamming them, I would message them personally and ask them to check out my music. It worked well, until people took advantage of it and start spamming relentlessly. So far, I have found that not to be the case on Twitter. Here are the steps.

1. Make sure you profile has up to date links. I made sure that the blog I wanted people to go to was the first link on the profile. In the biography section of the Twitter profile, I added a link to the websites About page. This way if people wanted to find out about me, it would take them to my blog. (Keep in mind, I do not have advertisements on my site, I am more interested in sending them to the website so they can see what I write about, and if they like the content, will add my site to their RSS reader. However, if you are displaying ads, this is a good way to increase hits and traffic)
2. Find someone with a similar business or blog and attempt to add their followers. It seems pretty simple and it works fast. In my example, I immediately cruised over to the profile of Maki from DoshDosh. He has a wonderful social media blog, his writing is top notch, and I like his overall style. I went one by one and added every single follower. You can do it faster than you ever could add a MySpace friend. After I had added all his followers, I went to a few more profiles and added similar followers. My thinking is if someone is following another blog, they quite possibly could be interested in following my blog.
3. Download and install an application to help manage Twitter. I personally use Twhirl. It helps me manage replies and messages in a chat like setup. It is great for responding to messages. Later on in the guide you can find links to all sorts of Twitter tools.
4. Respond to every single message and tweet. You will get a fair amount of backlash from adding people so fast. The reason is because many assume that you will just be spamming them. Take interest and respond the messages. You will ease their mind and if they like your content and tweets, they may become a reader.
5. Don’t spam incessantly. One thing I have noticed, is the people who spam get removed very fast. So if you intend on building long lasting relationships and not just quick traffic spikes, make sure not to spam. I recommend starting conversation as well as posting links. You will be rewarded by meeting a lot of wonderful people.
6. Give back as well as take. You will have an opportunity to meet a wonderful community and find many new friends and blogs. Make sure you give traffic and subscriptions back. I assure you that you will find something you’ll love.
7. Add your Twitter Feed to other social media sites like Facebook and MySpace. If you have taken the time, like I have, to build extensive networks on MySpace and Facebook you can install applications and widgets to display your Twitter feed on those profiles. For MySpace, you will have to create a widget. Facebook has an application that you can add to your account by click on this link 
8. Setup a plug-in to automatically post new blog posts to your Twitter account. There are many great tools to do this, and on this blog I currently use Twitter Tools to achieve this.

People who promote this way sometimes receive backlash. I cannot count on 100 hands how many times I have been hassled or harassed when promoting my music or blogs. But if you have something to say, you need to get it out in front of people.

Misconception of the Follower to Following ratio (F:F) and Spam Control

The first initial reaction to my promotional tactic from many long time Twitter users was outrage. How dare someone add a PUBLIC profile without knowing anything about me. Another thing you will hear in contrast to my promotional strategy is my F:F ratio in unfavorable.

What is an unfavorable F:F ratio? That is when your following number greatly outnumbers your followers. People feel that if you have an extremely high following number, that you must be a spammer. I find this completely backwards. I order to spam anyone they must be following you.

For example, I have a F:F ratio of 18.610 people I am following to 4,192 people that follow me back. The only people that can see my Tweets are the 4192 that are following me back. Those people had to chose to follow me. This is not spam. The amount of people that I follow should have no bearing or effect on you. If you choose to follow back, then you will receive my promotion. That simple. If you follow me and decide you no longer like the content I am providing or the Tweets I am relaying, simply stop following and your problem is solved.

The Twerp scan and The Twitter blacklist are examples of elitists who automatically assume that if you have a lot of people you follow, you must be a spammer or parasite.  The logic is completely wrong. If you follow someone, once again you CANNOT SPAM SOMEONE. They have to follow you back.

One tool that is effective in helping you manage those who Spam or are a little over zealous this week would be Twittersnooze.  If you follow someone you do not want to delete, but they are being a little too noisy, try this tool.

Things to Avoid While Using Twitter:

Although using Twitter can be a wonderful promotional tool, there are things you should work hard to avoid.

1. Everything is public so make sure to keep it public. Twitter can quickly become a chat client, but it really shouldn’t be used that way if you intend on using Twitter as a primary means of promotion. Everything, with the exception of private direct messages, is public. Even @User replies are viewable by all.
2. Avoid confrontation. When promoting your blog, you may encounter people who want to bait you in to an argument. Remember, everything is public and they can re-tweet you messages to everyone on their list.
3. Don’t just talk about yourself. Some people have a notion that all they need to do is talk about themselves. If you don’t participate in the community, you will be tuned out. Read other peoples tweets, @Reply when you feel like you can interject something intelligent, and make sure you stay interesting with your public time-line.

Twitter Resource Links:

Over the past few months I have relied heavily on the intelligence and hard work of other individuals. Here is a link of Twitter related post from some reputable blogs.

101 Twitter Resources by Traffikd.
17 Ways to Use Twitter by Maki at Dosh Dosh
5 Reasons to Twitter by Ben at BlogEx
5 Tips to Grow Your Twitter Presence by Darren Rowse at ProBlogger.
Why Twitter Isn’t a Waste of Time by Sheila Scarborough
Twitter is Stupid but Courtney Tuttle
13 Odd Ways to Use Twitter at Social Media Trader
5 Twitter Tactics to Building a Better Brand at Mashable
Get Into Twitter or Get Outta Public Relations at PR Squared
Why Twitter At All? at Road2Blogging
Twitter Feeds Made Simple at ClickPopMedia
10 Tools That Will Make You an Expert at Dumb Little Man
Twitter 101: Clarifying the Rules for Newbies at SheGeek
Tweeting for Companies 101 at HorsePigCow
Twitter and Business: The Conclusion at Business and Blogging
10 Best Twitter Tools at Quick Online Tips
How to Use Twitter to Build Brand Integrity at Marketing Vox
10 Things Twitter Users Should Not Do at Valley Wag
8 Awesome Firefox Plugins for Twitter at Mashable
Ultimate Twitter Resource by Arvind Jose
My Essential Twitter Tools at Web-Strategist.com
Simple Twitter Resource at Ext337
10 Ways Twitter Can Boost Your Social News Profile at ReadWriteWeb
Twitter Can Be Liberated - Here’s How at TechCrunch

Posting Tools:
TwitterMail is a tool to send messages to Twitter via email
Twhirl is a desktop applicaiton that makes it easier to post to Twitter
Twibble is a multi platform desktop application that makes it easier to post to Twitter
Twitterific is desktop application for Mac OSX
TwitterBerry is an application to post to Twitter from your Blackberry
Search and Stats:
Tweetburner: shorten the URL and get stats on it so that you can tell what people are clicking.
TwitterLocal: put in your location, select a radius and find (and subscribe via RSS) to the tweets that are in your area.
twemes: follow messages marked with hashtags (words or phrases after the # sign)
Twitter Karma: Allows you to sort through your friends and followers and see a variety of info about them
Quotably: allows you to follow conversations by user
Tweet Scan: Allows you to search twitter. This can be a great help when you are looking for people to follow.
TweetStats: Shows you your twitter behavior, or the behavior of any twitter user. Nice to see, in your own stats, who you send tweets to the most.

I have grabbed a lot of these links from several locations, such as Traffikd. Please check out his blog post which is listed at the top of the resource list.

Most of these links are care of Twitter Fan Wiki. There are hundreds of more links there as well.

I will be adding to this as needed, if you have suggestions or additional blog posts regarding Twitter please leave them in the comments section and I will add them.

• 25 Comments

Quick Blog Tip: If you have a java browser installed on your cell phone, you can install Opera Mini browser and update your blog just like you were on your computer. There are a few limitations but in a pinch it works. That is how I am posting this tip.

• 5 Comments

Originally, back in January, I commented and made a little post about scoring systems. The first one I read was devised by Eve at Confessions of a Housewife.

Since then, I have seen a few posts on various blogs about implementing a point system in order to keep yourself productive while blogging. Recently, I have implemented the following daily point system on one of my websites for myself and my other writers. It is less-intensive than some of the other point systems out there, but it enables me to keep track of what is being done and how much promotion is being put into the website.

I will explain a few things. There is a slightly different grading ‘curve’ when it comes to longer posts and the amount of posts, because although I feel it is VERY important to have an excellent flow of content on a timely schedule, my ‘band’ and music industry experience tells me that promotion is sometimes MORE important than the actual writing. How many times have you heard the phrase ‘How did that band make it so big? They suck!’ uttered. Exactly my point. Promotion is still a huge key to success.

So this system rewards grassroots promotion and ways to generate traffic almost as much as content. The daily goal is to reach the standard 50 points (this is pretty common on most daily point systems). I require my bloggers (or yourself for that matter) to ‘work’ 5 times a week average. The way I look at it, is instead of worrying about ‘hours’ or ‘days’ worked, I focus on the number. 250 points per week is what I hope to get, per blogger, per blog. I personally know that I can get 50 points an hour if I really buckled down, so I do not feel these numbers are unreasonable.

The key to my system is the number 250. I really don’t care how fast you get the 250. If you do it in one day, take the next 6 off if you’re working for me!

• 5 points for any blog post that is over 200 words (content, not just a post linking to another site)
• 10 points for any blog post that is over 400 words
• 10 points for a ‘column’ (I like my blogs to have newspaper style columns weekly to keep people interested)
• 5 points for enhancing the theme
• 5 points for redesigning the theme, or implementing a new theme
• 1 point for every person signed up for the email list, or RSS feed (if it can be accounted for)
• 5 points for every bulletin or note sent out on MySpace or Facebook (limited 2 per day)
• 2 points for every blog commented in which you have commented before
• 5 points for every blog commented in which you have never commented on
• 100 points for advertiser conversion (generating a lead which in turn generates ad revenue)
• 100 points for every contest created (generating a prize in order to use in said contest)
• 100 points for a great promotional plan or tactic discovered and implemented
• 50 points for a guest blog post on a website with high traffic or RSS subscribers
• 10 points for every unique widget created (mainly for use on Facebook)

As you can see, my point system rewards usage of social networking such as Myspace. Why have a leaned heavily on those sites? Well, lets go to the stats! I will be referring to one of my blogs.

The first and foremost referral site has always been Google. People search via Google and Google alone. I don’t care what other search engines there are. I don’t see this trend dying anytime soon. But a quick scan down the list shows me that much traffic has been coming via Myspace and Facebook. You have a lot of ways to get your links out there on social networking sites. Bulletins, profiles, blogs, status updates. You name it. It is a promotional machine if you know where to use it.

So far today; I have done the following in accordance to my scoring system. I am not referring to this website. Mind you, it IS only 3:30am.

• 10 points for 2 blog posts over 200 words
• 10 points for creating a Facebook application
• 20 points for 2 bulletins and 2 notes on Myspace and Facebook.
• 22 points for comments on blogs
• 3 points for adding people from my AIM buddy list to the RSS feed

So as you can see, I am off to a good start for the week. I usually tend to hammer a lot more than 250 points in a week, but I don’t expect everyone to want to do it that way. I spent quite a bit of time getting that silly Facebook application working, but it has already driven traffic to the site.

I do tend to make scoring changes as I go, systems like these should always be fluid. Example, there is one writer that I expect to do about 400 points a week because of how fast he can write and promote. Another writer I only expect about 150 but she has a million other things to do, but her content is exceptional. However, so far this has seemed to work for me and my associates.

• 7 Comments

This is a guest post by Heather von Doehren, Assistant Editor at Relief: A Quarterly Christian Expression

Scott Sweeney’s previous article on How to Handle A Reputation Hit caused me to reflect on how we at Relief handle not only a hit to one’s blogging reputation, but how to handle negative feedback from loyal readers.

Most successful bloggers will give you the advice to really listen to your readers when they have comments, feedback, or criticism. And it’s good sound advice, as not listening to feedback/criticism is the first step to losing anyone’s respect, let alone website traffic. But what happens when your readers are just flat out…well…wrong?

I’m not referring to the kind of “wrong” that you feel when you are hurt from negative feedback (can you say denial?) …I’m referring to commentary that runs counter to the very niche that you’ve built for yourself in the blogosphere. One such occurrence happened to us at Relief.

Now, if you are unfamiliar with the purpose of Relief, we are a Christian print journal publishing fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction with a spiritual slant; however, we’re not your typical “safe-for-the-whole-family” Christians. We’re looking for work that isn’t sheltered, fluffy, or preachy. We sell our journal as being “edgy” in that we don’t censor our authors. So, in essence…anything goes. At our website, (our blog specifically) we attempt to build this persona as well as act as a resource for writers striving to write/represent Christianity as it stands in the real world, not the fabricated ideal one that you’ll find stacked in a typical Christian bookstore.

As you can imagine, blogging in such a strange, narrowly-focused, and controversial niche has placed us in a difficult position. Some conservative Christians judge us because we’re too “morally loose” and some nonreligious folk hate us because we’re too preachy. Needless to say we get some hate mail, which is to be expected.

What surprised us though was to find an atheist website that criticized us for not being more biblical, attacking our reputation not just as a Christian literary journal, but as Christians. And following the advice of many, we decided to counter that attack by running a blog series centered around studying scripture, something that our website had yet to really dedicate itself to doing. All in all, the criticism was valid in that by shear omission of the topic, we had left it open for attack. So something had to be done.

We enlisted some bloggers to help with this and quickly posted two blogs on reading the Bible, as this is what we perceived needed to be done in order to “fix” our problem. But to our surprise, we received more negative feedback from that move than anything else we had ever done.

I thought about ignoring the criticism, thinking that it was just impossible to make everyone happy. But when I received an email from a loyal Christian reader titled, “WTF Relief? So Much for Edgy” I knew I had to do something.

What To Do To Win Back Your Loyal Readers (And Gain Some Too)

1. Confront the Criticism Privately If You Feel It Was Wrong

Since ignoring a reader’s feedback is the first step to losing that reader, confront it privately first. Send that person an email explaining your reasoning/rationale. More often than not, a lot of criticism stems from a misunderstanding, and opening the door for communication is the first step in seeing eye to eye.

2. Make Your Readers Aware of the Situation

If the negative feedback comes from more than one person and you still feel it’s out-of-line, write a blog addressing the issues ASAP. A good, successful blog is more than just one person standing on a soapbox writing about whatever pops into his/her head. It’s a community of people who share similar interests and goals of which you are the mediator. If your children aren’t playing nicely, put them in time-out by writing a blog that confronts the issues at hand. Speak to them and with them. They’ll listen.

3. Ask for help

I’ve experienced a strange phenomenon among some of our readers. Sometimes they forget that there’s a person at the other end of the computer screen who’s just as fallible as they are. Asking your readers for advice will not only remind them that occasionally we need help too, but motivate them to be more active members of the community you’ve worked so hard to build.

After posting our reply about our negative feedback, we received not only the highest traffic day ever, but so much positive feedback from readers who had previously been very passive members of our blog.

If you follow all the above advice and you still receive the same negative commentary, then it’s time to either start considering taking the feedback and making some real changes, or…it’s time to get ready and kick some reader ass butt.

• 6 Comments

I haven’t been as active on this blog as previously, and part of that was due to the Twitter experimentation I was doing. Now that I have concluded that for the time being, I am going to be resuming my normal posting pattern of 5 times a week. Honestly, I miss blogging here! Other endeavors have been swallowing my time as of late, but I feel I learned some valuable lessons which I hope to share here.

First off, I welcome all the new readers that have started following this blog in the past month or so! I am glad you find my ramblings at the least entertaining, and hopefully, thought provoking. Since April, I have increased by almost 100 RSS readers! That is exciting to me. Thank you!

A good majority of the emails I receive on a day to day basis are regarding my experience with promoting using Twitter. Since that is the case, I am going to link to my three part series in this post, and they will be permanently linked on the sidebar.

Part One - Using Twitter to Increase Readers and Make Friends

Part Two - Don’t Take Promotion Personal With Twitter

Part Three - The Twitter Effect

Last week on Twitter, I asked if people would be interested in trading guest blogging posts. I received a number of responses so in addition to increasing my posting I will also be featuring guest posts, the first of which will be tomorrow. If anyone would like to trade posts or just be featured here with a guest post, feel free to contact me or leave a comment here.

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This week, I stepped away from the computer for a moment and headed to the local Borders. You know, the book store? Although the majority of my reading is done online now, there is still nothing like grabbing a new book, opening it for the first time and fully immersing myself. I had two purposes for this visit. One, I just love to scan around at the new releases to see if something interests me. The second was a business purpose. I wanted to pick up a copy of the new Problogger book. I figured two well known bloggers might shed some new light on the subject. Plus, like I always did when I was in the music industry, I feel it is a good idea to support people who are in your line of work because they encounter the same challenges and struggles you do on a day to day basis.

Time for the disclaimer. I love Chris Garrett’s blog and writing style and I am a frequent visitor to Darren Rowse’s Problogger.net website. I find them both very informative and well-versed in what it takes to succeed in blogging. I am also active in Chris Garrett’s Authority Blogger forum and follow them both on Twitter religiously. I consider both of them highly influential to me and what I have learned in blogging.

First off, I am not a fan of the title. Obviously, they needed to market it accordingly and if I had written the book, I probably would have named it something similar. In my opinion, It probably should have been called “Problogger - Secrets for Blogging Your Way to Potential Income’ because as any blogger knows, it is much more difficult to earn substantial income than the current title indicates. They do a good job explaining the challenges early on in the text, but I guess it needed a sexier title to grab the attention of a passer by. I also found the price tag ($24.95) a little steep considering its relatively low page count, but as with anything, had I purchased it early or online I would have been able to save a little bit of money.

Upon first glance, the book’s layout out is similar to many beginner technical books. It is obviously written with the novice in mind, and that is how it should be marketed. Isolated tips are located on basically every page, and usually they do not go ‘over the head’ of a non-technical person. Also included are exercises to help drive the information home. Chris Garrett has experience writing technical books and it shows in the quality. The book is broken down into 11 sections, with the first a brief introduction to the authors’ story and history. After which there are 10 specific chapters relating to certain aspects of blogging, ranging from setting up your blog to secrets from other successful blogs. Each chapter breaks things down in to easy to digest segments, and the book flows very well from chapter to chapter.

The authors try to convince you this book is for beginners and experts alike but it is just geared towards beginners, in my opinion. I had very high expectations for the ‘printed’ version of Problogger and I personally feel let down. I spent an afternoon reading this book, and it will probably sit in my bookcase for years to come. I was hoping for juicy secrets and a magic wand but what I got was stale (but accurate none the less) information. I probably built higher expectation than I should have, but that is how much I respect the authors. I compare it to watching Michael Jordan score 32 points in a game. If it was anyone else, 32 would be great! But with MJ, you grew used to those ‘average’ performances and held out for a 55 point outburst. This book was a 32 point game, not a 55 point outburst.

I want to like this book. I really do. It is very well-written but I don’t feel it gives any information that hasn’t been discussed at length on hundreds of niche blogs, including their own. Darren and Chris have always gone out of their way to explain in detail every aspect of blogging on their websites, and it makes the book seem unneeded for any blogger who has already spent time researching how to build a successful blog.

One big positive I took from this book is they prove once again that there is no easy way to having a successful blog. If a printed version of Problogger cannot give me anything new, then I need to stop waiting for the secret to success to arrive at my door and continue to work hard.

Have you read the book? I am interested in hearing opinions on the book. It is quite possible that my own expectation poisoned my perception of what this book is about.

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In life, your reputation is something you should hold dear. In the blogging realm, it could mean the difference between a well received blog and a clunker. Sometimes a bad reputation can breed success (usually in a niche market, see John Chow), but it can lead to death of your brand if not handled correctly.

How do you recover from a well-publicized reputation hit?

I have looked to one of my idols, Bear Grylls, and the way he and his team handled his reputation hit in order to showcase some tried and true methods to regaining the trust of your audience.

For those who do not know, Bear Grylls is the host of the television show Man vs Wild. He has an extraordinary list of accomplishments including being the youngest Briton to climb to the summit of Mt. Everest and survive the trip down. He is charismatic, dynamic, and is an excellent speaker. Originally, the premise of the show was that of a survival expert being placed difficult situations with a 5 day window to reach civilization. It made for outstanding drama, and great entertainment. Bear would showcase his exceptional survival skills in the face of what appeared to be grave danger. A camera crew would follow but according to the introduction, they were only instructed to help in life and death situations. It was staged to appear in real time, and in a documentary format.

It also was a little too good to be true. Reports started surfacing about the staging of events and the fact he would receive assistance while filming these episodes. He was branded a fraud, Discovery Channel pulled the show off the air, and he was bashed all over the blogging and talk show realms. His reputation had taken a serious hit, and while it was in my opinion unfair, the damage had been done.

The problem with being labeled dishonest or fraudulent is that almost all other aspects of you reputation are now considered non-valid, at least to those who do not invest the time to know the full story behind the label. Most of what happened to Bear he had no control over. He didn’t edit the show, he just did what was needed to make the show entertaining from his end. There was no dispute that he was putting himself in difficult situations, or that his skills at surviving were exceptional. People were more fixated, however, on the fact that this gorge he just scaled without a rope or climbing equipment was near civilization and not isolated as the shows editing made it appear. The focus on him doing extraordinary things was completely lost.

So rather than running from this whole situation, Bear Grylls and the those associated with the show did some proper damage control. All the previous shows were re-edited to make sure that events that were stage were disclosed. New voice over spots also helped explain to people that these situations are controlled and there are people standing by to assist if need be. Producers behind the show identified that although some events may have been staged, Bear’s exceptional way of selling the situations is what made the show entertaining. After some careful re-branding, the show is now more of a survival ‘how-to’ guide and Bear’s reputation has been restored. The show is more popular than ever.

As a blogger, what can I take from this story?

If you feel your reputation has taken a hit, the first thing that has to happen is you need to identify the problem and correct it. In Man Vs Wild’s case, the problem was the producers didn’t trust that Bear Grylls’ survival skills and visual storytelling would be enough of a selling point for the viewer. They decided the make the show seem more dramatic by creating the whole ‘trapped in the wild, needing to find civilization’ storyline. It backfired on them when it came to light some events were staged. They immediately took steps to correct this. If you are an excellent writer, trust your content and your ability to storytell.
While rebuilding your reputation you need to focus on the positives. While the way they branded the show at the beginning was misleading, the show itself was entertaining. When you have a good product, you can take the occasional hit. After the show was re-branded, more of an emphasis was placed on Bear and the things he does, and this made the show more successful than ever. The producers focused on the positive while handling the negative accordingly.

When I was moonlighting across America as a rock singer, I heard the same thing over and over again. All publicity is good publicity. That is not entirely true. Bad publicity can destroy your reputation. But if you carefully spin the bad publicity, you can use it as a boon to bring traffic or new readers to your blog.

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