Defog1

Defogging the Connection Between Social Media and Blogging

In the past week I have pondered long and hard, read and listened to quite a bit on how best to tie a blog in with social media such as MySpace and facebook. It is an excellent thing to do except I keep hearing about the 'no follow rule' and want to investigate that first. I can find  plenty of past debate on the subject and when I hit upon Goggle's Own Blog, which you too can read, I realise that the rule is very much a fait accompli and the control is with the blogging and social networking platforms. So back to social media.

Jon Ray posed the question "What is a Social Networking and Media Campaign?” in his blog last Monday. He explained how advertising and marketing has changed and that it is no longer a one way conversation and companies now have to listen to their customers who expect to be heard. It is about starting conversations. He explains how you manage social networking and exhorts us to contact him on Facebook, YouTube, Kyte, Seesmic, LinkedIn, Twitter, MySpace, Flickr, his Wordpress blog, invite him to your event through Upcoming, e.mail him or just call him on the phone. So that gives quite a list to start with and for the terrific detail I will refer you back to Who is Jon Ray?

Later in the week I listened to a podcast where Perry Marshall talked to Joan Stewart of PublicityHound.net as she gave her analysis of the  successful marketing campaign that Amazon ran for the Kindle. Joan explained why it had been successful and gave pointers on how small companies could learn from them in terms of having a plan. Joan's view is that an influential blog can give you more exposure than if CNN and The New York Times ran a story on you. On social media she advises deciding who you want to reach and finding where they are on the social networks. Then join the conversation and start to build relationships but avoid being overtly promotional. Some of her favourites are MySpace, facebook and Linkedin.

By chance a query about domains and servers led me to Ask Dave Taylor where the question had been raised "Is syndicating my blog postings a recommended tactic?" The short answer is sadly "NO". In essence:

=> Google and other search engines may penalise you for having duplicate content.

=> Could end up competing against your own content on other sites for higher search engine ranking.

=>If you use article syndication submit articles that you have never published on your own site.

=> In your RSS feed give the original title and an overview of a few freshly written sentences and not the content of the posting.

I recommend that you read the full article at Ask Dave Taylor.

So working slowly and diligently with a plan, while forgoing the temptation of cut and paste, is the way forward.

You Heard Right! MyChingo Was Bought by DefogMyBlog This Week

Yes indeed on Tuesday evening this week DefogMyBlog bought a license for MyChingo for one year. Not the whole company then? No Michael Bailey, the owner, resolutely refuses to part with it and he is in the process of renaming it, Mobatalk. He knows its potential but he need not worry about receiving a large bid as $45 is my upper limit for take overs this side of Christmas.

I had seen it on other sites and thought it would be fun to try it and forgot about it. Then I discovered that one of the people I follow on Twitter owns it so I was prompted to download it again. I matched the colour to the shade of blue on my site and customized it with the words "Speak Freely" on the front. I'm not sure what words these replaced but the upshot was that I did not realise that I should press on those words and struggled to get going. I loaded up Audacity sound software and proved that my Logitech microphone was working really well. I was really disappointed and sent an email to Michael and he quickly pointed out the error of my ways and then very kindly popped by and left a message. Terrific customer care I think.

In my mind MyChingo is one of those trinkets like Twitter and Spinvox both of which I've written about previously. They simplify life. Now someone can just send a voice and text message from my site and it will arrive as voice and text in an email in my account. I have mine set on private and so you cannot listen to my messages apart from the few I have made public. Tech Critques use MyChingo to get listener comments about their podcasts and Journey Inside My Mind use it in a similar way to connect with their listeners. As they are using the public setting, visitors to the sites can listen to the messages as well as leave their own comments.

By the way I am not an affiliate for Spinvox, Twitter or MyChingo. I just happen to like them.

If you would like to follow this blog then click the subscribe button. Yes that is the big orange button at the top. I would love to hear you speak so maybe you could try MyChingo on the right. Follow my example and buy MyChingo for a year and I can pop by and speak to you too.

Could You Use a Blogging Platform for Your Business Website?

If you read my piece Defog My Blog? you will see that I think a blog can be adapted as a website and is great for helping to get a business off the ground quickly.I use TypePad for this blog and I have not got an old style website at all. Everything to do with DefogMyBlog will be on this site and I am so keen on Typepad and MovableType that I am an affiliate. Both companies belong to the Six Apart group. The founders called their company Six Apart because they were born six days apart.

Today I chanced upon a site called Technology for Business $ake and listened to some podcasts of interviews with Chris Alden, EVP and GM of Six Apart - Professional Division. It was heartening to hear that he concurred with my view and explained that blogs are being used for websites and internally within companies for customer relationship management. People are finding the technology easy to learn and companies are looking at bolting on other features such as shopping carts and gradually it will get easier to do things like print blogging posts. Over time his prediction is that there will be a shift from email as peoples start to communicate through blogs.

Click here to listen to the podcasts.

Twitter Me This: Will You Go Truffle Hunting in the Forest Today?

You don't Twitter? You think it is nonsense? At first glance it looked like nonsense to me too. I was persuaded by people like Darren Rowse and Chris Brogan to look at the value of Twitter a second time. Now I see it as akin to truffle hunting and a form of blogging. I've developed an instinct for finding treasure and maybe I can persuade you to take a pig to the forest and start foraging and my Twitter name is DefogMyBlog.

I think Twitter is a wonderful program and it can be as fun and as serious as you want and you can vary your twittering according to your mood. Twitter constantly updates and your tweets get pushed back and fresh tweets surface. By the way a tweet can only be 140 characters long. Hence it is referred to as micro-blogging. Here is a snapshot of a moment, chosen at random, from yesterday afternoon's timeline.
























Well Bob Hankin cannot decide if joining facebook is a high or low point in his life and the Canadians are poohpoohing Bernie Dodge's pain. If I go to his Twitter page and have a look I find Bernie's latest tweets.




We now get a feel for what he is about and that he is frozen with the cold. If we look to the right we can see that he has 232 followers and he follows 79 people. More importantly we see he has a website or blog and we can immediately access to find the One Trick Pony which reveals more about him.

So in my opinion this person would be interesting to follow and you do this by clicking the button under his photograph and next time you log in then his updates will also appear in your timeline. You click on the little icons for those he is following and find some more people of interest to you, find their blogs, and leave a comment if you feel inspired. Have you read my post on comments yet?

You can keep up with Twitter using your mobile phone and you can post to it via mobile too. It is possible to save yourself from all the typing by using Spinvox. See my post on it here.

If you want to reply to an individual post then simply put @their_twitter_name at the beginning of your post. To include a long url in a post it is best to go to Tiny Url first or otherwise you may use up too many of the allotted 140 characters with it.

All tweets get picked up on Google. You can have a private twittering circle if you wish.

People use Twitter in various ways. Sometimes they just say goodnight and other times they use it to flag up over time that they are writing a book or their company is having a big launch or conference. The accepted etiquette is that you are low key and not like a promoter on a radio or television advertisement. Subtle is how you need to be.

I will look at other features of Twitter at a later date. In the meantime it would be good to get your comments or queries. Are you going to the forest with a pig today?

18th December I've just read this bad news about T Mobile and Twitter Who is Jon Ray?