If you’re doing social media for your business, there’s nothing better than to do it right. Many companies partake in this “shiny toy syndrome” and do it all without a plan or strategy in place. Worse, many don’t really understand what to do once they start. They hear about tools, put forth a miserable effort, and are either too busy or just lazy.

With social media, an abundance of resources are at your fingertips. However, without a successful plan and any adequate preparation, your social media efforts will fail. Here are three dos and don’ts you should think about before you move forward.

Don’t self promote.

Okay, so this should be obvious, but there are so many businesses that don’t get it. On a particular forum I am active on (yes, I still use them!), I noticed someone asking for advice. A response came from a business owner who had the perfect answer on her website and directed the original poster to the website for a detailed reply. Sadly, this person’s post was pulled by the strict moderators on that forum; the post was purely self-promotional and nothing but. When I reviewed the poster’s account, I understood why. I noticed that she had done the same thing on other discussions on the same forum over a period of several months and all of them were pulled!

Want to self promote? You can! Just do it while giving back to the community as well. Engage in dialogue. Participate and offer genuine feedback. If you’re only on the forum to tell other people to visit your website or to use your product, you won’t go far. Maybe the moderators of the forum you visit won’t care, but the incessant messages eventually annoy your followers and they’ll unfollow you, report/bury your submissions, or find another place to congregate that doesn’t include your spam.

Do engage during business hours, especially if that’s your job!

Many of you who have hired me know that some of my best work may not come between 9 AM and 6 PM. I reply to emails around the clock like a robot. If I’m managing your Twitter account, you might find a response from me at 11 PM on a Saturday night or 2 AM on a Tuesday. But that doesn’t mean I go silent during business hours, and neither should you. While I respect that most of the world isn’t on the same schedule as I am and that most of the world is tweeting when they’re on the clock and won’t go the extra mile because it’s “just a job,” I do have the expectation that you should respond to your customers during business hours, and preferably within a reasonable amount of time (1-2 business days, but closer to one when using a social media channel). Don’t make your social media efforts half-assed. Don’t check in on Twitter and Facebook once or twice a week and only for 10 minutes.

I understand that some people may have other responsibilities on top of social media. That’s why this is more of a message for large and not necessarily small brands. Not long ago, I tweeted praise to a business and followed up with them about something else via email. Neither the tweet or the follow up direct message was responded to in a timely fashion. This is a well known brand, but yet they’re not building up their social media presence despite prominently advertising it on their website. Their Twitter account has less than 500 followers but they’re not engaging enough. The Facebook page could be totally overrun by bandits and they’d never know because they aren’t paying that much attention.

If you’re going to engage in social media, do it! Just do it head first, not with one foot.

Do study your influencers

Want to reach out to influencers? Yeah, most of us do. We want to get the people of a certain level of authority to talk about us. It can be potentially huge for everyone involved.

Thing is, some people don’t really reach out correctly to influencers. They don’t read 20 blog posts and comments. They don’t follow guidelines on contact form policies on what will be covered and what won’t be. Influencer outreach may possibly be the most powerful outreach tactic that PR practitioners or marketers are laziest about. This turns bloggers sour, thinking that everyone in public relations or blogger outreach is just a spammer.

I can tell a zillion stories about off topic pitches, but other posts have already told some of those tales. But before you gloss over this bullet point and say “it won’t happen to me,” guess what — it probably already did. In a recent campaign, I was reached by a social media agency about a topic that was totally irrelevant to my audience and would never be something I’d blog about. Some people get that. Meanwhile, this agency contracted one of the biggest social media rockstars in the space, a guy who has a stellar social media record. Yet he’s also the reason why I was on this agency’s distribution list using an email address I don’t publicize. If this rockstar knew better, he’d have used my contact form and read my coverage policy (short answer: I won’t cover anything you send to me). He’d also have done the outreach personally since I’ve met the guy at social media events. Instead, he passed on my email address without regard for it being a private email, and the agency sent me a clear newsletter blast with fancy fonts and the whole nine yards — with no regard for who I am and what I write about.

It’s time consuming to look at which bloggers to target, read posts, and then write a personal message to the blogger along with the actual pitch. However, if you want really good coverage, you’ll do it. Study your influencers out; don’t take the lazy path because you can. Nobody passes a difficult exam with little to no preparation (unless they’re really smart!)

This may be nothing more than a refresher course in the Captain Obvious department but even the savviest of companies is still missing the boat. When it comes to social media, social should always be carefully weighted before the marketing is put forth. In social media, it may be more important to market slowly and the right way or not at all. It’s not always about numbers and it’s not about sporadic participation. It’s about building relationships, spending time on the networks, and having regular conversations with the people you want to connect with who you will value for more than just helping move the needle and getting to the bottom line. All of that will come — but it comes more effectively once you put forth true effort into connecting with the people who matter.

Photos by Shutterstock.

[ 3 Golden Business Rules for Social Media Engagement is a post written by Tamar Weinberg. ]

Read more about The New Community Rules: Marketing on the Social Web, a primer to social media marketing. Or you can subscribe to the Techipedia RSS feed.

This is a guest post by Frank Lee.

These days, many people have started a blog for hobby or business. The trouble is, with so much competition out there, your blog really has to stand out from the crowd. In fact, not only does your blog need to stand out from the average ones that are popping up every day, but you also need to compete with established blogs, with their loyal fan bases, that have been around for years. In short, in order to have any impact whatsoever, good is just not good enough. Your blog has to be excellent.

Your Blog Is Not Getting Traffic?

Maybe you’ve set up a blog to advertise your business. Maybe you’ve set up a blog to run AdSense and earn money from the search engines. Maybe you just have a message you want to share. Whatever your motivation, your blog needs traffic to achieve those goals, and to do that, you need great content.

Today I will share with you some blog writing tips from my own experience that are pure gold, and will have you building traffic, and repeat visitors, in no time!

Get Your Blog Read and Followed

When it comes to the internet, there’s one golden rule that stands head and shoulders above the others: content is king. Although there are other types of content out there that you could post on your blog, that usually means you need to write great blog posts. Here are those sins, and how you can avoid them:

Using Jargon or Technical Terms

If you think writing blog posts that require a degree or a post grad in nuclear physics to understand, you’re not going to get a big following. No one cares how smart you are, or how smart you think you are. What they want is concise, interesting, and most importantly, intelligible content. Always write in layman’s terms (unless you are really writing for nuclear physicists – in that case, you’re on your own!)

Using Complex, High Brow English

You might be interested to find that the average internet user reads at high school level. That means that that entire high brow English you think is impressive is actually a giant yawn fest. When it comes to the level of language, I follow the K.I.S.S. principle: Keep It Simple Stupid! That way, everyone can read and understand your posts.

Writing As If You’re Authoring a Textbook

Blogs are not designed to be highly technical pieces of literature. They’re designed to be chatty – as if you were having a conversation with a friend. Write your blog posts to be funny, interesting and most importantly, as if you were talking to an actual human.

Not Using Keywords

Okay, so your blog posts need to be people friendly. That doesn’t mean they can’t be search engine friendly too. A peppering of keywords here and there will help your blog be more visible to search engines. This is especially useful when your blog links to a site, or when you are using AdSense or another service to earn off your blog.

Keyword Stuffing

All right, so it seems contradictory, but if you’re going to use keywords as I mentioned before, you can’t just stuff them in everywhere! Slow down! Remember, your posts still have to make sense to actual humans, so save the keywords for places where they actually make sense, and where using them won’t confuse your reader.

Long, Unbroken Chunks of Text

People read blogs and other web content to get information. However, when faced with a screen dominated by a solid block of text, it’s very hard for them to follow your train of thought. Use headings, subheadings, bullets and lists to break up the monotony, and make your text easier to scan through. You’ll have far more chance that visitors will actually finish reading your posts!

Not Including Images

Okay, so I know I said that content is king, and it’s true that the text content of your blog is what people are visiting for. That having been said, well chosen images can add interest, and help to put what you are writing in context. Think of it as eye candy for your readers! Just make sure that the images are relevant and copyright free!

Avoid doing the above when doing your next blog post. Blogging is fun to do once you got the building blocks right. As you develop the habits to write great blog posts, you will see your readership increase. And it is such a reward to see when your blog post helping people to make breakthrough or to learn a new idea. Those comments on your blog are great way to hear the feedback and to improve your blog constantly.

It is vital to master writing great content on your blog. Next step you need to market your blog to reach your target audience. Social media marketing, SEO, and forum marketing are the great ways to expand your market coverage.

Develop a systematic way to achieve your goal by doing content creation and traffic generation regularly rather than a shotgun approach. Schedule those important activities in your weekly calendar.
Keep building more valuable content and engage in marketing this content. Your consistent effort will payoff quickly.

Frank Lee shares a Free Gift to guide you step-by-step to “Breakthrough Article Marketing” – simply visit his site today and discover how you too can generate loads of free buying traffic using a simple 5 step unique article writing method in his Internet Marketing Systems. Frank also runs a list building program that will easily help you build your email subscribers.

Photos by Shutterstock.

[ 7 Deadly Blog Writing Sins is a post written by Tamar Weinberg. ]

Read more about The New Community Rules: Marketing on the Social Web, a primer to social media marketing. Or you can subscribe to the Techipedia RSS feed.

Inspired by my recent post on How Young is Too Young?, I was contacted by 16-year-old blogger Onibalusi Bamidele who has guest-written this post.

There is a trend among many new (and even old) bloggers. I discovered many of them tend to quit, lose hope, or even become less dedicated to their blogs when it seems they are not seeing any result for a period of time.

In blogging, however, we all know that there is nothing like overnight success and you will only get what you put into it. If you invest your time and hard work into your blog, then you surely will get something great in return.

This post will analyze five of the most popular blogs on the Internet and will detail a lot of factors about them that contribute to their success; hopefully, you can examine some of the factors and improve on yours.
The following blogs will be analyzed:

1. ProBlogger
2. Copyblogger
3. Daily Blog Tips
4. Steve Pavlina’s Personal Development Blog
5. Entrepreneur’s Journey

The following factors will be analyzed:

1. Their blog age.
2. Their domain name
3. Their post type – length, frequency and value.
4. Their monetization strategy
5. What they have in common

Their Blog Age

I will be using when they started writing blog posts to calculate their blog age which can be found in their blog archives. Based on my findings, Problogger started in 2004, Copyblogger started in 2006, Daily Blog Tips started in 2006, Steve Pavlina’s Blog started in 2004, and Entrepreneur’s Journey started in 2004.

You will notice that all these blogs did not just start yesterday or even last year. They have been around for years now. Yet many bloggers who have not even spent up to a year on their blogs keep complaining about not achieving any results. It is true everybody loves success but we should also not fail to understand that success does not come overnight; it comes after a lot of hard work, persistence, and patience.

I have yet to see a top blog that has not been around for years now, and that is what brings about the joy of it.

Similarly, this is applicable to the “make money online” niche. If that becomes too easy, then everybody will be doing it and it will lose its value.

It takes hard work and patience to make it offline and this is exactly applicable online.

Their Domain Name

Another great thing to analyze from these blogs is their domain name. I personally believe that your domain name will affect your blogging career and how people look at your blog.

It is very important to have a domain name that communicates what you blog about without even visiting it to get that assurance. To that end, if we take a look at the above domain names, we will notice that almost all of them made it easy to know they are about blogging. The only exceptions are Steve Pavlina and Entrepreneur’s Journey which are naturally not in the blogging niche.

Another great thing to note from the above domain names is that they are user friendly and very easy to remember, and most of them are less than 15 characters.

Further, if we also take a close look at some of the domains, you will notice they try to establish a type of authority for the blogger. For example, by looking at ProBlogger, we are being told that the owner is not an amateur but a pro blogger.

Many bloggers will ask “why should I use a name like ‘problogger’ when I don’t know much about blogging?” I will answer this question in a simple manner. Darren registered this domain name when he was not known and when he had no readers. It is how you treat yourself that your readers will treat you. If you begin to call yourself a mediocre now then your readers will regard you as such and it will affect your overall blogging career.

It should be noted that a blogger can still succeed irrespective of the domain name, but the better and more memorable your domain name, the easier it is for you to succeed.

Their Post Type – Length and Value

Many bloggers believe that you should be writing long posts (like Glen does), but I can tell you it depends on you, your writing style, and how best you can convey your message.

Let’s take Techipedia for example. Most posts are long but you will discover that the posts here are not just rehashed junk and have great value to add to you (the reader). It is simple because Tamar discovered that is what works best for her and she adapted to it.

I also love writing long posts because I love to give great value in my posts and I believe that can be done better in a long post. For example, if I’m blogging to tell you the importance of traffic then I should also tell you how to get traffic in the same post.

Short posts also work but you must be ready to update regularly. You will notice Tamar does not post everyday (Glen also does not) because their single posts already convey a lot of information. I prefer this method than a blog that just passes out anything and posts everyday.

Below are the posting frequency of the above blogs:
ProBlogger provides updates everyday, Copyblogger updates almost everyday, Daily Blog Tips has provides updates everyday, Steve Pavlina updates anytime (but regularly), and Entrepreneur’s Journey updates anytime.

You will notice that only half of the above blogs update everyday, while the other half updates when they like but I think this your own choice should depend on your online business model.

If your online business model is to make money from advertisements like AdSense and banner ads then I will suggest you should be updating regularly because the type of visitors who work most with this model are the search engine visitors, so the more regularly you update your blog, the more search engine visit your content and the more you get indexed, the more traffic you will gain.

It is also important to note that these blogs are not just popular because of one thing but because they give value. If you take a look into their blogs, you will notice that they don’t just write anything but they write high quality and informative posts.

Their Monetization Strategy

Many bloggers are of the assertions that using some types of monetization strategy will hinder the growth of your blog; this is true and is not true. You should know that using some types of ads like Kontera (contextual advertising) and the likes on your blog will irritate a large percentage of your readers but using AdSense the right way will not affect your blog.

Even the most popular of these blogs (ProBlogger) uses AdSense and banner ads and I don’t think it is affecting the growth of the blog.

My suggestion is for you to start monetizing now so that you curb the expectation of “free” amongst your readers. For example, my blog is three months old. I have never written a product review on my blog and my posts average 30 comments. However, after writing a product review on my blog recently, after 24 hours I only had 3 comments on the post (which is very unusual). This means I have built an audience who love free information only. Now I must work on correcting this.

All of these blogs also make use of affiliate marketing and it works for them since they have a large audience. However, what I don’t see them use is contextual ads, and I wouldn’t advise any new blogger to use it.

What They Have in Common

What all these bloggers have in common is passion and patience. If they were not patient then they would have quit years back. I am very sure there were some bloggers who started with them and were inspired by them but are no longer blogging. Blogging is really great only if you are ready to work hard and wait patiently for the results.

It is also important to notice that all these bloggers don’t just write anything on their blogs; they write valuable posts only.

MY TIP: Examine your blog now. Is it where you were some months ago or you are improving? It is true all of these blogs were not overnight successes and it took time for them to be where they are but you should also note that growth is a gradual process. If you are where you were six months ago then I would advise you to think twice and examine your blog to know what you are doing wrong, and if you can’t find any then my best advice for you will be to change your niche.

Onibalusi Bamidele is a 16 year old entrepreneur. He blogs at youngprepro.com where he shares some not so common tips. He also write about wordpress on wpkube.com. Get his free ebook on how to make it online.

Blog photo (bottom) by Shutterstock.

[ Analysis of Five Top Blogs and What You Can Learn from Them is a post written by Tamar Weinberg. ]

Read more about The New Community Rules: Marketing on the Social Web, a primer to social media marketing. Or you can subscribe to the Techipedia RSS feed.

I started blogging at age 20. Glen, too, got an early start. Today, there are young bloggers who have their own websites and blogs. Some even boast high rankings and good sized communities. As someone who is nearing 30, I look at these younger folks and am really impressed with their accomplishments, and I especially admire these youngsters as they chase their passions and dreams and still have time to do their homework.

I contacted a handful of young bloggers, all under the age of 17, to get an idea of whether they see their age as a hurdle and what advice they would give to new bloggers.

Let’s learn more about the kids and teens behind the blogs:

Ben Lang will be 17 in September and based in White Plains, NY. Ben’s blog, which covers entrepreneurship and social media, is wonderful despite him blogging for less than a year (he started shortly after his 16th birthday!). In March, he came out with a list of social media blogs you should be reading, and no, I didn’t play favorites here; Techipedia is not included.

Adora Svitak is amazing. Her blog reads better than some blogs I’ve stumbled upon that are written by adults. Adora is actually known as a “tiny literary giant” and is a voracious reader. Would you believe that she’s only 12? Yeah, that’s right. She’s been blogging since she was 7 and currently resides in Redmond, WA.

Josh Budde is 16 years old and had been blogging for three years. In fact, since we last corresponded, Josh moved blogs from this one to this one. A resident of Western New York, he’s not just a blogger but a podcaster. Josh also enjoys writing crime and law stories and uses his blog to share personal stories with his friends.

Marly (right) and Ani (left) are sisters and have both been blogging for about a year. Now 13 and 10 (note: Ani’s URL is private; she is 10, after all!) and residents of Southern California, they blog about personal life and whatever comes to mind. Also pictured (center) is mom Ciaran Blumenfeld, who is also a blogger.

Gloson Teh is one of my favorite social media kids. I met him on StumbleUpon over a year ago and he is one of those kids who never ceases to amaze me; he totally understands social media and his 22 Reasons for You to Blog was even featured in my annual Best Posts of 2009 roundup. What’s more surprising is that Gloson lives in Selangor, Malaysia and is also only 12 years old. He started blogging at age 10 and says that his mother encouraged him to get into it because of his online gaming addiction. Now a blogging convert, he says, “Indeed, blogging is really more fun than online games!”

Shelby really liked the TV show Jericho, and at the age of 9, started a site called Jericho4Kids. A 12-year-old resident of Missouri, Shelby’s Jericho website features a blog and has turned into a social good campaign with her promotion of charitable efforts for US troops, and even includes interviews with the cast and crew of Jericho as well as with US Air Force Thunderbirds and Alex O’Loughlin. (And yes, she has taken a photo with Skeet Ulrich.)

Carl Ocab has been blogging in the “make money online” niche since he was 13. Now 16, he ranks on the first page for a super competitive search phrase (that even John Chow tried to seize once upon a time). And he’s been compared to some hugely popular bloggers. Carl lives in the Philippines.

Sean McGee is a huge U2 fan like his dad (yes, that Matt). He’s 12 years old and lives in Tri-Cities, Washington. His blog is full with regular small byte-sized updates about U2, sports, movies, and more. He also tweets regularly.

I asked two questions, and here are their answers:

How Young is Too Young?

Ben: There’s no too young! I keep hearing about 13 year old bloggers, 10 year old entrepreneurs, the younger the more impressive.

Adora: I wouldn’t say there’s a set age where you should or shouldn’t be on a computer (well, I wouldn’t quite hand my laptop over to a one-year-old); I think that kids should have some amount of computer literacy by the age of eight. One of the reasons I type so well today is because I started typing on a laptop when I was six, and really fell in love with it. Technology, and blogging, offers a lot to kids. At the same time, I think it’s imperative that kids, both my age and younger, get the opportunity to play outside and experience nature, family, and some good old-fashioned reading before they start using computers heavily. After all, they’ll be using them for the rest of their lives.

Josh: Anyone under 11 is too young to be blogging, in my opinion.

Marly: Nine! No, Eight. No. Haha! You can blog at any age. Anything that you want to do, to express – you can do that on your blog. You just need to get your parents help to make sure the stuff on your blog is ok.

Ani: If you can’t write you are too young! Any age is okay if you can write.

Gloson: I believe there is no age limit as long as the person knows the basics of internet security and can administrate and write the blog by himself.

Shelby: You are never to young to go after your goals, you just might need a little help getting them accomplished when you are younger. I was 9 years old when my web site went up, and it was my dream, but a lot of people helped me to make that dream come true, so as kids we might need a little help but we can still go after our dreams.

Carl: Possibly when you don’t even know how to type yet.

Sean: Anyone under the age of 8. If you don’t know how to type or just put something like, “cupcakes are awesome” then you’re too young.

What Advice Can You Give to New Bloggers?

Ben: Most importantly, be persistent. It took me 6 months to acquire a good amount of traffic and cultivate a community on my blog and the same goes for any new blogger. It’s impossible to do it all in one day, it takes time, providing new content consistently, maintaining your blog and networking with other bloggers.

Adora: My advice to new bloggers would be: don’t look at it as something that you have to update every day in order not to disappoint readers, or because you have to stick with it; rather, enjoy it as a journey and write about whatever interests you. That’s what they’re for!

Josh: Anyone who is thinking about starting a blog or podcast: First, find a niche. Second, podcast and write away… And finally, third, write about what you want to write about. You control your blog, not someone else.

Marly: Write something that you are interested in and that you enjoy and want to learn more about.

Ani: Choose something you really like and won’t get sick of because you’ll be stuck with your blog for a long time. People will get used to your blog and if you stop, they’ll get depressed and you’ll have to start all over.

Gloson: Firstly, you must be patient if you don’t get visitors immediately (I haven’t got my first comment until the fourth month I’ve been blogging!). Many bloggers give up too quickly because they feel that no one is reading their blog.

Secondly, you must be dedicated, because even if you’re patient, you won’t be successful unless you are dedicated too.

Thirdly, get social and join social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, and StumbleUpon to connect with people and make friends! Blogging is so much fun with friends! Social media is also a great way to promote your blog posts.

Fourthly, read great blogs to be inspired (like Techipedia)! And be sure you pick a topic or niche you are passionate about so you will stay motivated!

Last but not least, remember to give more than you receive!

Shelby: Really think about what you want to do, make a plan, and do it. I started wanting to have a web site when I was 8, I kept drawing plans for one. Then all of this Jericho stuff happened and I sat down and drew most of my site on paper. I asked for other peoples opinions too and added a page for my brother and for my dog Bailey. I wanted to be able to blog but to also have a web site, so my site is a combination of those two things and it works. The site looks A LOT like my original designs and that is because volunteers helped to make my vision come to life.

New bloggers should find interesting things to write about, do interviews with people who do the things they are interested in and most importantly they should use their site to help charities and our troops. We need to let people who need help or just need someone to say Hi and Thank you to them know that we really do care. Use your blog to do great things! Also, be respectful on your blog, that doesn’t mean you have to agree with everyone all of the time, but disagree in a way that doesn’t make you look like the “mean blogger”.

Carl: Have a vision, plan then act. Top it off with a mentor and sprinkle Focus and you’ve got something cooking!

Sean: My advice to new bloggers would be, who cares if your friends think it’s dumb, just do it because you like it.

We can certainly learn a lot from kids. I know I’m learning from kids who aren’t even able to talk yet.

(Special thanks to Debra Mastaler for the inspiration behind this post.)

[ How Young is Too Young? is a post written by Tamar Weinberg. ]

Read more about The New Community Rules: Marketing on the Social Web, a primer to social media marketing. Or you can subscribe to the Techipedia RSS feed.

Social media might be old. It might even be a dead buzzword. That’s why you need to paint a picture that’s more meaningful and encompasses what “social media” as a label really is.

Some of us have been thrust into social media simply because the online landscape showed potential for online conversations. Others have been there for over a decade. Regardless of the many years of experience you have in the online space, the ideas behind social media and social media marketing are applicable to everyone. Let’s take a look at some lessons, takeaways, and tips.

Always be Listening. Social media rocks because it’s one of the most amazing tools for “free” market research. Your investment is merely that of time. Take the time to hear what people are saying about your business. If you’re the frugal type, take advantage of the free alerts from Google, YackTrack, Social Mention, BackType (which gives you alerts from blog/article comments, which other services do not include), and Trackur.

Blogging. Who said that blogging was dead? Perhaps 140 character streams have replaced regular blogging, but I’ve been blogging more than ever lately. Blogging helps you build community (especially via comments), establish thought leadership, bring links to your website (both internally, perhaps to products or to other articles on your blog, and externally, when people like what you say and opt to link to you), and get you some nice traffic. If you can blog, you should. And read these tips on how to become a great blogger.

Customer Service. The letter “C” could be a lot of things, like “content,” “consistency,” and “community,” but customer service is a big part of the evolution of social media. This shift is becoming increasingly more obvious. The role of customer service online is becoming equivalent to social media marketing. If you use the online space to offer customer service, you are essentially marketing yourself. Showing a public interest in your customers and genuinely offering help helps nurture a positive perception of your brand.

Drive Leads through LinkedIn. Lead generation and client acquisition can be had on LinkedIn, especially in the B2B space, just as long as you’re active and engaging. Linkedin lead generation requires commitment to answering and asking questions on Groups/Answers, taking advantage of the deep searches, and connecting directly with those around you in your network. Effective use means more business.

Engagement. It’s not enough to broadcast. “Look at this! Twitter! Let me port my RSS feed to it and be done with it!” Nope, that’s the wrong approach. Engagement requires regular interaction between you and others. These are conversations, not broadcasts. You may not want to do it super frequently, but you should do it everyday. Be responsive. Offer value. Give to your community.

Friendships. Thought I was going to say “Facebook?” Sorry. The best types of social media marketing arise from genuine concern as if your customers are true friends. How many of you have made true friends from merely engaging in this space? Exactly. There’s so much to gain from being networked, and you’ll find that there’s a real reward in finding out that these relationships turn into something much more.

Goals. You shouldn’t jump into social media just because “everyone else is doing it.” There’s a lot of potential, of course, and it looks mighty appealing, but setting goals is advisable as well. You might want to consider the SMART formula for specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely goals. Whatever goal methodology you adopt, don’t jump into social media without having something you want to gain from it.

Human Business. Social media marketing is what you might call “human business.” I often use explain it as follows: “social media marketing is all about ‘leveraging’ the social through its media to market to your constituents.” “Leverage” may sound a tad too exploitative, because the idea is to build genuine relationships that put the customers first before promoting your own agenda. As such, it’s important never to lose sight of the “human” in the business. Social media marketing recognizes the fact that this online space allows millions of people to congregate and to communicate with one another, and it’s not much different than sitting in a real room talking to real people. Never lose sight that the online space is a human medium.

Influence. Social media gives you an opportunity to exert influence onto customers and prospects. If you’re active in any particular medium, you become influential. That influence often translates to interest; people want to hear what you have to say. Here are tips on becoming an influential blogger.

Join the Community. It’s not enough just to sit back and relax and hope that people notice you. Joining the community, and more importantly, participating, is crucial. Everyone needs to do work — real work — to reap the benefits of social media marketing. You can’t hope that someone remembers you when you’re not aggressively and actively doing that which makes you remembered. You need to court new customers. You need to keep your current customers happy. By joining various communities, you have the opportunity to meet with prospects and build relationships with current customers.

Kirtsy and Other Niche Social Networks. Did you know there’s a social news website catered to women called Kirtsy? There is. For any interest in the world, there’s an online community for it. You just need to look. Kirtsy is a social news network; there are also forums and even Yahoo! Groups. It’s a good idea to familiarize yourself with these communities and not to focus merely on the big players. Your target market might be hiding in a niche forum somewhere out there. Start digging and maybe you’ll reap some serious rewards.

Location. People always ask me what the “future” of social media is. I think that where we are will continue to evolve, but we’re seeing that face-to-face connections have a role in social media marketing as well. FourSquare, Gowalla, Loopt, and other location-aware services are social networks, unifying real connections. Beyond that, though, there’s the potential for businesses to run with special promotions, bringing more people to a business location and maybe even cultivating new friendships as well.

Marketing Beyond the Social. This is a blog post intended to address social media strategy, but social media marketing is not a panacea. It alone is not the only marketing solution. There’s display advertising, print/TV ads, SEO, PPC, email marketing, snail mail, etc etc. Focusing solely on social media might be nice, but your marketing reach should be a little more extensive than focusing on Twitter and Facebook. That said, marketing beyond the standard mediums (see letter K) should also be a given. I’m going to bet that 99% of you have not tapped into some the most powerful online communities that can serve you or your own clients.

Nurture Perception. Sure, people don’t want to lose control of the conversation. That’s one of the biggest reasons for companies not to engage in social media at all. They like dictating and broadcasting, and they’re afraid of a two-way conversation and the potential negative impacts of engaging. They’re especially worried when people are already saying negative things about them. That’s where you as a business, one that genuinely cares about building true relationships, can shine. You may not be able to change perceptions overnight, but you can certainly nurture those perceptions and give customers reasons to give you a chance in the future.

Opt-in, not out. Using social media is a privilege, but someone friending you on a social network doesn’t mean they agree to receive unsolicited messaging. This explicitly references the LinkedIn or Facebook connections that give you access to a person’s precious “commodity,” his email address. Just because you have access to it doesn’t mean he wants your newsletter. A relationship is not a newsletter opt-in, and quite frankly, it’s spammy. If I give you my phone number at a dinner party, it’s probably because I want to know about you, but I’m not inviting you to start hounding me with sales calls. Don’t opt someone into communications just because they’re your newest LinkedIn contact. Do it because they want to be a subscriber and explicitly opted in first.

Participation is Marketing. This term was coined by Chris Heuer five years ago and still rings true. The idea is that when businesses participate in social media (and do so because they want to actually be members, not marketers), their sheer presence and activity on the service translates to marketing. What does that mean for you? By engaging, being yourself, being altruistic (and coming bearing gifts, looking to offer value and not to receive), you’ll gain some followers and fans, and maybe even customers.

Queen. That’s what marketing is, according to Gary Vaynerchuk. Content is king, but marketing is the queen, he said. (I even have the shirt.) Content alone is not enough. Blogging is wonderful, but if you’re not going to market those blog posts, you might as well not be blogging at all. With billions of pages of content and yottabytes of data, marketing is how you’ll get people to see what you have to offer to the world.

Reputation Management. If you’ve seen a negative search result for your business name, social media marketing might be able to help. By creating social media profiles, updating content regularly, and actively participating on social media networks, you may be able to successfully push down those negative mentions of your business name.

Simplifying with Tools. One of my favorite things about social media marketing is simply the many tools that make your life so much easier. Tools that especially help consolidate the actions across social networks in one single location are quite helpful. Social media doesn’t have to be a challenge thanks to tools that help you track measurement, assess the reach of campaigns, give you updates when someone talks about you, and more. I’ll go into some tools in future posts (and we’ve seen some great listening tools under the letter A), but it becomes obvious that those of us involved in the social media space are quite fortunate; our jobs are made much easier thanks to so many software applications out there. Of course, never forget that this is human business, and the tools aren’t supposed to replace relationships.

Time. Want to be an “overnight success?” Sorry, that’s not something you can do in social media marketing. Sure, you can have viral campaigns that truly rock, but at the end of the day, it’s all a substantial time investment. I’ve said it before; social media is not a silver bullet. While some campaigns are formulated to broadcast and promote on social channels quickly, true social media marketing relates to building relationships with customers and constituents. That takes time. It won’t happen overnight and you shouldn’t expect it to happen in one month’s time either. If you’re in it to win it, you better be doing it for the long haul.

Understanding Your Community. Three years ago, I wrote that owning your community requires understanding of who they are. People love the prospect of submitting to Digg, for example, and some immediately submit the spammiest articles to the service. I’ve seen press releases, non-English releases, and everything else in between. Before you jump in, you need to actually observe and understand the culture on these services. Learn the rules, the language, and the things that make them tick. You can’t succeed in social media without understanding the community.

Value. Your success as a blogger and promoter really comes from offering value to your audience. It’s not about regurgitating content through twitterfeed, and it’s not about summarizing a post from Mashable without giving additional insights. Value-add comes from injecting your own thoughts, opinions, and feelings. It’s about giving someone else an education and/or leaving them with something to think about.

Word of mouth marketing. Social media is a big part of word of mouth marketing. After all, you’re using social media to talk, but hopefully you’re also working harder to get people to talk about you. People listen to their friends’ recommendations. In fact, are you surprised that Google now takes advantage of this in the form of social search?

Xperiment. Okay, that’s not a word. But experimenting is critical for success. You won’t know until you try. You can always run with some tests, get some feedback, and see if you can run with it full scale. Use the feedback others give you to improve or to go ahead with it. And don’t be afraid if you fail. Just consider that an opportunity to grow and do better the next time around. If you as a newcomer to the space see social media marketing as an experimental pilot program and use any feedback you receive as input for tweaks, you’ll consistently see improvements.

YouTube. YouTube now has 2 billion views per day. It’d be silly to ignore YouTube as a potential medium for marketing your business. It would also be silly to limit distribution of video by preventing them from being embedded onto other websites. That’s how the message spreads. If you’re considering video, do something creative; look for the traits of the most successful videos and do it better. And of course, don’t only focus on YouTube; there are other video syndication sites that you can spread your message to.

Zealous. Let’s put it this way: the most successful social media marketers are both passionate about what they represent and the act of marketing. They don’t shy away from putting their best foot forward — they know that the fact that your favorite search engine does not forget means you need to be on your best behavior always. This doesn’t get to them; they’re still offering service with a smile.

Sure, this only scratches the surface of social media marketing, and there are only 26 takeaways, but hopefully these tips, tricks, and tools will be able to get you thinking. What other social media ideas would you add to the list?

Photos by Shutterstock.

[ Social Media Strategy from A to Z is a post written by Tamar Weinberg. ]

Read more about The New Community Rules: Marketing on the Social Web, a primer to social media marketing. Or you can subscribe to the Techipedia RSS feed.

Influence is everywhere, but it’s up to you to spot it. As information flow is infinite, many find that it is of utmost importance to capture the attention of the select few who serve as influencers — these are the people who can actually stop their followers in their tracks to help spread your message. Perhaps this might serve as the start of a real relationship. If nothing else, these influencers will help to share your story with their own audience.

I contacted a number of influencers to see what grabs their attention. I selected influencers in all different “walks of life” and areas of influence, from the blogosphere to the power users of Digg to founders of successful startups and authors of bestselling books. The question I asked, simply, was “how do you recommend people grab your attention?” The question was purposely left open-ended; I wasn’t necessarily seeking out attention in the form of a product pitch, despite the fact that many of those asked are prominent bloggers. As such, the responses are varied — just the way I wanted it. Here’s what they told me:

Craig Newmark

Craig Newmark is the San Francisco-based founder of the nearly 15-year-old extremely successful classifieds site Craigslist. As of January 2010, Craigslist boasts close to 50 million unique visitors per month, according to Compete.

For me, it’s just asking, via email, Twitter, or Facebook.

Seth Godin

Seth Godin is the bestselling author of numerous books, including his latest, Linchpin. He also writes for the most popular marketing blog, is the founder of Squidoo, and is an extremely dynamic public speaker.

PR people shouldn’t try to get my attention.

Readers with something to say should email me.

Marketers should make great products that loyal readers or long-time friends or trusted colleagues choose to tell me about!

Pete Cashmore

Pete is the twenty-something founder and CEO of Mashable and is also a CNN columnist. Mashable currently boasts over 20 million pageviews per month.

I think keeping it short and to the point is most likely to get a response — having a clear message or request that gets the idea across in a couple sentences. Everybody is short on time these days, and the more succinctly you can express yourself, the better.

Mark Frauenfelder

Mark Frauenfelder is a co-editor of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE Magazine.

It’s simple: talk or write about things that interest me!

Nicholas Carlson

Nicholas Carlson is a Senior Editor at The Business Insider. Previously, Nich wrote for Valleywag and InternetNews.com.

People can get my attention by helping me. For example, I write a lot about AOL, and after the recent layoffs, I wrote how the entire mobile advertising team took a voluntary buyout and quit the company. Now, a couple weeks later, a PR rep came to me and said, hey a lot of those people are joining this one company (that I rep), would you like to learn more? Because I know that my readers care about that story, I jumped on it so now this PR rep is going to get her company coverage because she approached me in a way that will help me.

Jesus Diaz

Jesus is the Senior Contributing Editor of highly popular gadget blog Gizmodo.

Read what I write about and imagine what can interest me. No amount of pitching will make me write something unless it excites my gonads.

Chris Brogan

Chris Brogan is a blogger and president of New Marketing Labs. He is also the author of Trust Agents and Social Media 101.

The way people get my attention is simple, and yet so few do it well. They start by telling me all about what they need from me. They start by telling me all about their wants, their angles, their client, etc. By contrast, the people who get my time, and who keep my time, actually have read my blog enough to know what I cover and what I don’t. (For instance, I rarely talk about software.) They know that I look for the “human business” angle for most of my stories. They know that I actually care about my community and that they’re not an audience. They understand brevity. And they understand that promoting others is every bit as important as promoting themselves.

Adam Pash

Adam Pash is the Editor-in-Chief of the highly popular blog, Lifehacker. He has also authored How to Do Everything With Your iPhone.

It’s about a lot of dos and don’ts for me.

• Don’t send me what’s clearly a form note.
• Do be direct.
• Don’t try impress me with your funding or whatever industry related things you think you do really well. My eyes glaze over at the site of industry jargon.
• Do make it easy for me to understand what your thing does, and what’s interesting or awesome about it (and do it as quickly as possible).
• Don’t make me read a press release to figure out what’s special about whatever you’re trying to highlight.
• …and so on.

Honestly, the best way to get my attention is to make something cool and show it to me. I love talking with developers about things they’re clearly and genuinely passionate about.

David Chen

David Chen is currently the Managing Editor of /Film and the host and producer of both /Filmcast and The Toblowsky Files.

Do your research and select your targets smartly. I’m a content/podcast producer, so I’ve spent literally hundreds of hours talking and writing about the types of movies (and other products) I love. You don’t need to listen or read all of my work to get a taste of my personality, but if you put in just  a little bit of effort, you can easily figure out what types of things I’m likely to enjoy and eager to promote. In other words, blast e-mails and form letters with no personalization will usually go ignored.

Robert Scoble

Robert Scoble is a prolific early adopter and blogger. He currently serves as the community guy at Building 43.

Do something interesting.

OK, that’s a lame answer.

But to get my attention you should look at what’s getting my engagement at http://twitter.com/scobleizer and the other places I write.

To tell the truth, this is difficult to say in an email. Why? Because, well, if you have something worth paying attention to you probably already have my attention.

Jason Calacanis

Jason Calacanis is the founder and CEO of Mahalo. He also co-founded Weblogs Inc. and the Silicon Alley Reporter. Jason is also the host of This Week in Startups.

Do something epic.

Matt Cutts

Matt Cutts is a blogger and Principal Engineer at Google, where he heads Google’s Webspam team.

I think it’s sometimes overused to call someone out by name; it can backfire. An introduction from a trusted contact can make a big difference. Getting to know the person first without asking for something (e.g. tweeting stuff back and forth without a specific “ask” in the beginning). I would say great research or a catchy piece of unexpected data that appeals to me. And of course a snail mail letter is likely to at least get opened.

Peter Rojas and Ryan Block

Peter Rojas and Ryan Block are the founders of gdgt. Both come from popular gadget blog Engadget, where Peter was founder and Ryan was former editor-in-chief. Peter is also the founder of Gizmodo, Joystiq, hackaday, and Engadget Mobile.

Peter: That’s easy: just do something interesting!
Ryan: …and keep doing it. I’d say being consistent and tireless amounts every bit as much as doing something interesting or worthwhile.

Danny Sullivan

Danny Sullivan is the Editor-in-Chief of Search Engine Land. He also founded Search Engine Watch. Danny is currently Chief Content Officer of Third Door Media which operates the Sphinn social news site and organizes the popular Search Marketing Expo conference series.

I guess it depends on the attention they’re after. If they’re writing about something and trying to spread the word, I can be reached through email using a form on Search Engine Land, plus I do see tweets that are addressed to me. If it’s interesting, I love to spread the word. Point me at so-so, ho-hum content, and you’ve wasted a first impression. If they’re after coverage, email remains best. Be to the point, succinct, and that’s the best.

Anita Campbell

Anita Campbell is the Editor of Small Business Trends and an expert in everything small business.

Participate in my site’s community. Leave comments; tweet “with” me; share information that is valuable to readers (not self-promotional stuff, but something that gives freely of your expertise to others).

Also, while I appreciate requests to do guest posts, I strongly prefer those who have shown a propensity to contribute to the community on an ongoing basis. “Hit and run” guest posts are of little interest to us, for two reasons: (1) there’s a certain amount of work involved in getting someone set up as a new author and showing them the ropes; and (2) the community responds much much better to those they get to know and converse with regularly.

Louis Gray

Louis Gray is a prominent technology blogger and Managing Director of New Media at Paladin Advisors Group.

People can get my attention an a lot of different ways. The easiest way is interacting with me in my data flow. That means making comments on my blog posts, interacting with me on FriendFeed or Google Buzz, and sending me notices on Twitter. I will see all of those, every time. But I also have my e-mail addresses public and cell phone number on the Web site. People reaching out to me in those ways will also get me.

If the question is not just connection but actual attention, they need to find a way to be differentiated and interesting – helping to solve a known problem, or finding a new approach that has entertainment value. I am always interested in hearing about new approaches to solve today’s issues around information overload, content discovery or new ways to discover interesting people.

Brian Lam

Brian Lam is the Assistant Managing Director at Gawker Media and Editorial Director at Gizmodo.

Make noise, but backed up by fact!

Andrew Sorcini

Andrew Sorcini is also known as Mr. Baby Man and is Digg’s #1 User. Andy has submitted nearly 15,000 stories to Digg and over 4200 of his submissions have hit the front page of the impossible-to-game social news site.

First and foremost, show me something original.

Steve Gebhardt

Steve Gebhardt is the Content Editor of the COED Magazine, one of the fastest growing online publishers in the 18-24 year old market.

When it comes to work related instances the best way to get my attention is to be introduced formally by a close contact we have in common or email me at my “personal” work gmail account with a subject line that includes my name and something that I find interesting.

Steve Rubel

Steve Rubel is a prominent marketing blogger and SVP of Edelman Digital. He also contributes to Forbes and AdAge.

Basically, it’s really easy – provide high value content that’s targeted to my interests and those of my internal Edelman and external audiences. They can use any channel they would like – email, Facebook, Twitter, etc. (just not IM or the phone). I am very accessible.

This doesn’t necessarily mean pitch me, however. There are lots of people and companies that have secured my attention because they provide regular value. One example is Mint and the insights they offer via their blog. Another is Google, which is putting out gems on their Twitter feed – like this http://twitter.com/Googletech/status/10184907622

Kurt Kohlstedt

Kurt Kohlstedt is the Founder & Editor-in-Chief of Webist Publishing & Misnamed Media, which includes the famous WebUrbanist blog.

Offer me something of value to me – no, it does not have to be money, or free samples, or anything of that sort. This can be as simple as some sincere praise for a project I work on or a truly interesting tip on something I would really enjoy learning more about. The key here is: make it relevant and personal – let me know through your words that you have actually read about me or a publication of mine, and explain briefly (ideally with real examples) why you believe you have good reason to reach out and contact me.

Alternatively, if you would prefer negative attention and a quick trip to the email recycling bin, send me a link to something that you did that has no relevance to anything I do, ask for support with a clearly commercial venture in which I have no professional or personal interest, or my personal favorite: ask to swap links with one of my publications and offer a link from an obscure page of your e-commerce site in return. The last is most likely to get you a response, though not of the sort you want.

Dharmesh Shah

Dharmesh Shah is the founder and CTO of HubSpot, a software company that focuses on Internet Marketing. Dharmesh also blogs at OnStartups.com.

To get my attention you have to do one of two things: Create something that is so amazingly awesome that all who regard it are amazed with its brilliance. Or, another alternative is to connect to someone I know and trust and have them tell my this is so great.

Note: I rarely take direct messages from people I don’t know.

Owen Thomas

Owen Thomas is the online editorial director for NBC Bay Area executive editor of VentureBeat and founder of Ditherati an on-off again site that has been around since 1997. He has previously written for Valleywag and brought it to its greatness.

You know, I think I’m going to refer back to Louis Rossetto’s original instructions to people who wanted to write for Wired:

http://valleywag.gawker.com/333152/the-ultimate-luxury-is-meaning-and–chocolate

“Amaze us.”

Gretchen Rubin

Gretchen Rubin is a former attorney turned blogger and author of The Happiness Project among other books.

People most get my attention, I have to admit, if they come to me through someone else I already know and trust.

Marshall Kirkpatrick

Marshall Kirkpatrick is the Vice President of Content Development at ReadWriteWeb and a technology consultant.

I recommend people do fantastic things, then reach out to me through whatever channel works best for them. Maybe more than once. I am generally looking for engineers more than marketers though, so if I don’t respond to you it might be that our definitions of fantastic are different.

Gary Vaynerchuk

Gary Vaynerchuk is the personality behind Wine Library TV, author of Crush It!, and a dynamic speaker.

Tweet about the NY Jets

Also write an honest email … and the biggest mistake everyone makes is the ask or sell instead or greet or welcome in their 1st interaction.

Ben Huh

As CEO of Pet Holdings Inc., Ben Huh is the mastermind behind sites like I Can Has Cheezburger? and FAIL Blog

Speak your mind freely and clearly. Provide a perspective that isn’t usually offered. Then take other people’s opinions with a grain of salt and an open mind. And do it often.

Aaron Wall

Aaron Wall is a search engine optimization expert and is the founder of the very famous SEO Book ebook-turned-training program.

I think too many people are sales all the time. Everything is about them and how much they can sell and how great they are and so on. Lots of jerks want to put you on a sales call or try to hype their trash to you without giving you anything for your efforts. In their eyes you are simply a conduit for their misinformation and sales materials.

I typically tell those kinds of people that they can go to hell or that they can buy an advertisement or an hour of consulting. Since they are typically greedy one-sided pieces of trash they get nothing and they help me pigeonhole their product as something to never talk about (if it was worthy of discussion they wouldn’t need that sorta hard sell strategy). In essence they are doing anti-marketing for themselves by pissing off the people they want to connect with.

You know what is easy and works well? No hype. No sales pitch. None of that crap. Simply give a person a 3 or 4 sentence email explaining

• what it is & does
• why it was created
• how it can benefit them

and then…if it is something where incremental access costs next to nothing (like a SAAS offering) then give them a free account to check it out. SEM Rush did that to us…and I have promoted them aggressively (even before they had an affiliate program) because their service was valuable and useful and original and they priced it reasonably while using soft sell marketing asking for me to check it out and setting up an account for me.

Even if an item costs $50 or $100, that is how much a crappy link costs…so the product give away strategy should apply to just about anything which retails under something like $500… because if you get exposure on one good site that makes it easier to get exposure on another good site, and the more expensive the item is the more likely people would be to appreciate that you gave it away and mention it.

Other ways to get attention are to buy ads in some well read spots, participate in the target market in a meaningful way for a while before you launch, and/or to develop an affiliate program. Some people also like to start out a non-commercial website and then later slowly transition into commerce. If you build a media channel of your own with readership and throw off attention + links, then that can lead to relationships which make it easier for you to promote something. This is one of the reasons group interviews and such are so popular…they allow you to select the people you hope to gain attention from WHILE giving those people a reason to want to talk about you.

Jeremy Schoemaker

Jeremy Schoemaker, aka Shoemoney, is a blogger and founder of Shoemoney Media. He is also the co-founder of AuctionAds.

The best way to get my attention is to get right to the point of the email. Don’t patronize me, don’t ask me to honor your embargo, don’t ask me if I would be interested in your product — just tell me what you want.

Darren Rowse

Darren Rowse is founder of b5media and ProBlogger.net. He is also the co-author of ProBlogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six Figure Income and one of the cofounders of Third Tribe.

A few quick thoughts:

• Be personal – impersonal ‘pitch’ emails are a turnoff.
• Be useful – whether its being useful to my network/readers, business, me personally or just the world in general – I tend to pay attention to people who are solving problems and meeting needs.
• Introduce yourself – I get a lot of emails and don’t always remember everyone I’ve talked to before – help me out a little Being ‘polite’ goes a long way too.
• Keep it brief – the longer the initial contact the less likely it is that I’ll get to the bottom of it – unless it’s VERY compelling
• Let the Relationship Evolve – I’ve had quite a few people ‘pitch’ me on really big and complex stuff in a first email to me (including people wanting to go into business together). I tend to be pretty cautious with people I don’t know – I need time to warm up to bigger stuff!

I’m not as high maintenance as that sounds – but I’ve had ALOT of bad ‘pitches’ over the years

More on this type of topic – http://www.problogger.net/archives/2007/10/30/how-to-pitch-to-bloggers-21-tips/

Jay White

Jay White is a blogger at Dumb Little Man, a successful productivity blog.

My attention span is short, like a dog. The best way to communicate with me is in short bursts of information. Your Value, Intent, and the Desired Result need to be conveyed for both of us: If you can summarize those in 2 sentences, odds are you will get a response from me. If you notice, things like name, credentials, work experience, where you’ve guest blogged, etc., are not on the list. You know why? Because it doesn’t matter. I know plenty of MBAs successful entrepreneurs, and downright blowhards and many of them aren’t bright so a paper trail of “I am great” doesn’t cut it with me.

To me, the value you bring to the conversation speaks for itself. You tell me how my audience gets smarter or lives a better life by knowing you, now you’ve got my attention.

Corvida Raven

Corvida Raven is the author of SheGeeks.net, and co-producer of EverythingTwitter and TheSocialGeeks Podcast. Her passion for Technology and Social Media has made her one of the most Influential Women in Technology (FastCompany, 2009).

The easiest way to get my attention is to be excited about what you’re showing me. If you don’t care about it, no one will. So many people lack passion and enthusiasm for the things they do.

It leaves me wondering why I should be paying attention. Their presentation should say it all, otherwise we’re wasting time.

Mark O’Neill

Mark O’Neill is a freelance writer who serves as the managing and publishing editor of successful software blog MakeUseOf.

How would I recommend people get my attention? If you mean if they want to promote their product, I would immediately say “get to the point and keep it simple”. People spend so long waffling and rambling, and all I’m thinking is “when are they actually going to get to the point?”. They spend so long saying how great their product is but I still don’t know what the product actually is!! I’ve read so many bad email press releases.

Brian Solis

Brian Solis is a blogger, photographer, and principal of FutureWorks. He is also the author of a brand new book, Engage and co-author of Putting the Public Back in Public Relations.

Interesting phrasing of this question…I assume that by responding, I consider myself an “influencer.” It’s easier to say that, like anyone living and breathing new media these days, my attention span is testing its elasticity. Truthfully, it’s a difficult question to answer. Cleverness, wit, tenacity, and most importantly relevance are the ingredients for assembling a plan for attracting my attention. It’s important to connect with me where I’m actively engaging…when I’m present. Make it easy for me to digest, providing the value and the action up front…prompt me to respond or ask for more information…turn it into a dialogue.

Tara Hunt

Tara Hunt is an entrepreneur, speaker and author of The Whuffie Factor, among many other things.

How would people get my attention? I guess I’d say to build relationships far before you need to get anyone’s attention. Do good, positive things for the community. Help me out when I ask questions from time to time. Interact positively in lively discussions and debates. Then, when you need to get anyone’s attention, it doesn’t feel like an imposition or spammy. It just feels like you are calling in a favor from friends.

Vitaly Friedman

Vitaly Friedman is a web designer, author, and editor-in-chief of popular web design blog Smashing Magazine.

Be short, be precise and convince me. Instead of explaining features, tell me what makes you or your product different, what’s unique about it and what advantages it has.

My own advice

Do it more than once. I get a lot of messages directed at me. I am more inclined to notice people when they tweet at me again and again. (I respond to emails pretty quickly, so you don’t need to email me more than once. Of course, pitches that you send that are off-topic normally won’t get a response.)

Not too long ago, I asked my Twitter followers for a service provider. One person who caught my attention through repeated exposure stood up and offered herself. I was excited about meeting her and told her that I was giving her preference explicitly because she made the effort to catch my eye. She was the epitome of this example! (I was pretty bummed when she proved not to be reliable, but I did reach out to her first.)

Today, I look at a few things. I look at effort put forth in comments. I look at tweets. I look at engagement. I look at what looks like a solid personalized effort versus just a blast. Show me you’ve put the time into it and you’ll be acknowledged.

If you’ve elected to email me, make the email short and sweet. Brevity is all the rage these days simply because there is so much noise vying for my attention. Make your pitches succinct. I don’t care who you are or what brought you where you are today. I might be interested in your life history at a later date. For now, if you want me to know about your service or a cool startup, try to use the Twitter format: tell me in 140 characters words or less.

Summary

It’s pretty obvious, then, that there are some underlying themes behind the responses I’ve received. If you’re reaching out, keep it short and sweet. Submit content that jives with the recipient. Get to know the influencer’s influencers. Be a purple cow. Immerse yourself visibly in the influencer’s community. Put effort into the outreach attempt and make it obvious that you are passionate about it.

Yes, this is a process, but hey, do you see all those influencers up there? You’ve gotten the secret sauce. It’s now up to you to heed to the advice given and make a real splash.

Disclosures and Credits: Affiliate links are added to all the book links, but I recommend them wholeheartedly. Photo credits: Jesus Diaz by Diana Levine, Brian Lam by Brian Solis and Wired, Pete Cashmore by Lisa Bettany, Brian Solis by Brian Solis, Anita Campbell from a UPS video, and others that have been so frequently distributed online that I do not know the source. Know the photographer or source? Let me know so I can update this section. (Note: Non-collage photos of Aaron Wall, Ben Huh, Gary Vaynerchuk, Marshall Kirkpatrick, Jeremy Schoemaker, Danny Sullivan, Robert Scoble, Nicholas Carlson, Chris Brogan, Matt Cutts, Louis Gray, Adam Pash, Owen Thomas, Darren Rowse, and Jason Calacanis were all taken by me.)

[ How to Get an Influencer’s Attention is a post written by Tamar Weinberg. ]

Read more about The New Community Rules: Marketing on the Social Web, a primer to social media marketing. Or you can subscribe to the Techipedia RSS feed.

A few weeks ago, I posted about the seven characteristics of highly effective online video. Taking this theme a little further, I decided to branch out into the blogosphere, but using the number seven this time around was a tad too limiting. There are at least ten characteristics off the top of my head that make blogs and bloggers successful. These characteristics give the blogs mentioned below fame, fortune, and loyal followings.

Want to build your blog and following? Here are some key ideas and takeways — as well as inspirational bloggers you might want to follow — who can help you realize that dream.

Consistency

If you want your blog to be recognized as a household name, you better be consistent at providing quality content on a regular basis. The most popular blogs, according to Technorati, maintain that consistency by posting more than once a day. Granted, these are typically publications that have a staff of writers at their disposal, but they are like the newspapers of the blogosphere and readers have come to expect frequent updates. Blogs like Mashable and Gizmodo offer a consistent stream of stories every single day.

Blogging numerous times daily isn’t necessarily a necessity for blogs just starting out, nor is it feasible for most blogs, especially those who don’t blog for a living but for a hobby. Bloggers like Valeria Maltoni of Conversation Agent, who don’t have a team of bloggers at arm’s length, offer content on a very regular basis (in Valeria’s case, 6 days a week). You don’t necessarily have to pump out content hourly or even every day, but if you want to be a successful blogger, you should try to stick to some sort of schedule. If your readers are expecting content from you weekly, you should deliver weekly content. If your readers expect content from you daily, skipping a day might cause worry or the decision to unsubscribe because neglected content may inadvertently translate to neglecting your readers too.

Eloquence

My three favorite bloggers are Brian Solis, Lisa Barone, and Adam Singer. Why? Because they write damn well. They always have something insightful to say, and it shows in every single blog post that they write. It’s pretty clear that their content exudes intelligence and occasional wit. They treat writing like an art and their art is viral. You can tell that you’re reading blog posts of brilliant writers. They’re that good.

For every post you write, take the time to proofread thoroughly. Would it be embarrassing for me to admit that I proofread every post I write 9-10 times on the low end? (This post has 53 post revisions, for the record.) It’s surprising to see how few people actually do it!

Want another tip on how to write well? Read a lot. Blog posts that are well written are well-received. By putting effort into the writing process, you reap the benefits of a community that supports you because you lift them through your words.

Uniqueness

Darren Rowse wrote a great post about how you can be a unique blogger. Here’s a hint: it requires not doing what everyone else does. There are so many blogs out there that regurgitate news, causing clutter in the blogosphere. Darren suggests having a memorable design, trying your hand at being a character (e.g. Fake Steve Jobs), and being a vault of resources (e.g. Smashing Magazine), among other things.

Search Engine Roundtable is an excellent example of a successful unique blog in a saturated market. This blog covers specific topics if and only if there’s discussion in a variety of internet marketing forums. The discussion has to be highly specialized and relate to search engines and it must not have originated in the blogosphere; typically, discussions are discovered at WebmasterWorld, High Rankings Forums, Cre8asite Forums, Digital Point Forums, or Sphinn. Is there no related discussion there? Then you won’t get covered.

Specific

Are you a distinguished expert in a topic matter? Bloggers who focus on a niche and tackle it are highly respected among their peers and within their communities. Who do you look up to for productivity tips? Tips on self-improvement? Search marketing? Social media? Small business?

Having a specific focus is what made Dumb Little Man (productivity tips), Lifehacker (productivity and tech), Jonathan Fields (lifestyle, business), The Happiness Project (self improvement), Small Business Trends (small business), Social Media Explorer (PR and social media), and other blogs successful. They’re chock full of great content on the subject matters that their readers care most about. I know exactly what kind of content I am going to get when I go to each blog and there are typically no surprises.

Not yet an expert in a topic, but have aspirations to get there? Read Career Renegade (aff). The premise of the book is about quitting your current job to go after your passion, but it’s got a ton of great ideas to take that topical blog — which could be your business (or not) — to great heights.

Specificity is why SEO blogs exist in great numbers. It’s why we can find social media blogs in the thousands. If there’s an interest in a subject matter, there’s probably a blog. Or two. Or two thousand. And if you want to be first, you certainly can try your hand at it.

Personal

There’s a ton of informational content out there on blogs, though sometimes it’s not about the information that you share that makes you a spectacular blogger. It’s about getting to know who the person is behind the screen. Mommyblogs are a great example of thriving personal blogs; they take you behind the scenes into the life as a parent. Personal accounts of everyday events is what made Dooce and the Bloggess so successful.

You don’t have to make your blog completely personal, though. Instead, give personal stories as it relates to your mission in blogging. Jon Morrow wrote an incredible piece on fighting for your ideas, which is perfect Copyblogger content — except it relates to his battle with Spinal Muscular Atrophy. It’s an incredibly personal but powerful piece. Darren Rowse talked about how changing his style in a 90s road trip made him a better blogger today.

Give your readers a taste of the real you. Sometimes it helps to just be yourself.

Analytical

Blogs that take a good look at data and analyze it clearly are hugely resourceful. Brian Solis does this with regular status updates of everything in the social media marketing and PR universe. Yuvi Panda became extremely successful at a young age (15!) because he analyzed other blogs in the space, especially when Robert Scoble picked up on it. Unfortunately, much of Yuvi’s analyses are hidden in the depths of the Wayback Machine, but from what is accessible, the detail is amazing.

People love data, and they love knowing how data can be aggregated to make conclusions. They love charts and graphics, and they love the findings that can be made from this data in aggregate. A good example of this is a recent post on blog lengths in certain industries by Glen Allsopp, who recently guest posted here. By looking at the standard lengths of blogs in certain industries, new bloggers can get a feel for blog word counts that are successful and that which may not be as helpful to grow a new blog.

Detail

Bloggers who actually show that they put their passion into the blog post, offering deep insights instead of just regurgitating news, are the winners of this category. My favorite examples of this come from all corners of the Internet, with some blogs always offering original detailed content (which is what I hope to achieve here on Techipedia) and others providing a mix of news bytes in addition to deeper commentary. A good example of this is Search Engine Land, which features search-related news briefs to keep the public informed of the industry, but also offers two separate categories contributed to by members of the search engine industry that offer great detail: the how-to category and the features and analysis category. Both categories offer a great amount of detail and insights from dozens of experts.

Other blogs only provide detailed content. If something is newsworthy, the blogger turns that into an opportunity to give a detailed analysis into the story. Jeremiah Owyang’s blog does this with deep, meaningful insights. A great example is how he provided a deep matrix into Google Buzz, Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter just a few days after Buzz was launched. I actually also found out that PayPal was being accepted via Facebook through Jeremiah and not through the regular blogs I read that cover the social space/tech industry.

Thought-Provoking

Blog posts that make you think once you finish reading the article to improve are the ones that fit this label. Seth Godin’s posts are short but sweet, but he’s so well read not only because he’s been blogging since before I graduated college (which actually was a bit of time ago!) but because his posts are really that thought-provoking. You can’t help but read his posts and get a few takeaways on what to do next. Seth also explains ideas very well through illustration — and have you ever heard him speak? This guy is swimming with thoughts from head to toe. Color me impressed.

Controversy, done correctly, also fits under the notion of thought-provoking blogging content. Two of my three favorite blogs do this regularly; they push the envelope but make the reader (and possibly others) think long and hard about what’s going to happen next. In many cases, their audience is applauding.

Passion

Sometimes bloggers have it. Sometimes bloggers don’t. Bloggers who seethe passion attract visitors who need the inspiration to continue. In an earlier post, I touched upon how Gary Vaynerchuk and Chris Brogan show passion through their work. In everything that they do, it’s evident that they love what they do and will work tirelessly to provide the ultimate experience to their readers, their audience, and their community.

When Danny Sullivan writes his most lengthy and great pieces, you can see passion all over it. You might even feel some emotional bond with some of this kind of content. You can tell that there’s such depth to this content because of the proximity of the “story” to the blogger that you get drawn by it.

Most bloggers, though — at least those who have kept at blogging for such a long time — are the true examples of passion. It’s very hard to provide regular content for readers on a consistent basis, and there are countless bloggers who do so regularly. I’m amazed to see how some people, especially those operating a one-man blogging operation, can do it with different topics every single day. Sure, this might overlap with the first section of this article, but I’ve found it difficult in the writing of this article to separate some themes from others. Most of my favorite blogs are true examples of many of these characteristics.

Instructional

Instructional blogs don’t just give you insights. They actually hold your hand to get it done. Blogs in this category include DIY (do-it-yourself) blogs, such as MAKE or Instructables, or recipe and cooking blogs.

I’ve said in the past that informational videos and how-to content are extremely spreadable. The idea behind this is no different. If people in your community seek you out so that they can learn something new, they’ll follow and they’ll spread the ideas to others too. I see Lifehacker regularly sharing DIY content sourced from several blogs because the content is educational and enriching.

I also come across really savory recipes that just beg a share. And it’s pretty incredible to see how the content across some of these instructional blogs intersects across different online communities. I learn about these new blogs mostly outside the “social” space because they do the hand-holding from start to finish, and as such, they often cater to a wider audience. This is the kind of content that spreads beyond the typical blog reader to an entirely different group of people.

Networked

Being networked is a quality that bloggers must have in order to be successful in this highly saturated space. I’ve been asked more than once about how bloggers, who seem to meet all other criteria — that is, they may be consistent and eloquent and cover a specific niche — can still succeed in the blogging space. The answer, really, lies in thinking outside the blog. In order for people to find you, you need to be able to market your blog to them. How does one do this? Comment on other bloggers’ posts consistently. Send tweets out to the bloggers with your own commentary. Go to local or national face-to-face events to meet other bloggers.

Blogging is an online activity, and one you may think should stay there, but the bottom line is the most successful bloggers are known outside their blogs. (However, they became known through their blogs.) Putting a face to a name can translate to great opportunities. It’s one thing to be a great writer. It’s another to let people know you actually exist in the real world. Face to face networking can help do that.

Bloggers become successful out of staying connected to their peers online too. That’s why you need to engage in other communities, on Twitter, and anywhere else you may find them.

Not all blogs will meet all these criteria, but if you’re a growing success, you will likely find that your habits overlap with a few of these traits: consistency, eloquence, uniqueness, specificity, personal[ity], analytical, detail, thought-provoking, passion, instructional, and networked. The more you can cross off your list, the better your chances for success and influence as a blogger. Who are your favorite bloggers and why?

[ 11 Characteristics of Highly Influential Blog(ger)s is a post written by Tamar Weinberg. ]

Read more about The New Community Rules: Marketing on the Social Web, a primer to social media marketing. Or you can subscribe to the Techipedia RSS feed.

As a blogger, I’m sure you receive a fair number of emails pitching you with products. As someone who does public relations for companies, I’m sure you carefully pick your bloggers for the pitch. We both have difficult jobs. Bloggers have to weed out the crap and PR pros need to find the right people for the job.

The job of someone who does blogger outreach can be difficult. They’re tasked with contacting bloggers about different initiatives, sending out story ideas and “press releases” (hopefully with a social component, since those are preferred by many bloggers). Unlike traditional journalists, if you’re doing blogger outreach, your focus should be a lot more on relationship building with the right people.

It’s not always the people doing blogger outreach who don’t get it right. Public relations representatives sometimes actually do a great job sending targeted pitches to the right people. They invest a lot of time finding just the right bloggers, carefully cherry picking out the right people to whom to send a perfect pitch. These are the people who really make a solid effort — they review the blog content and realize that their pitch might be a further extension of content that they had already seen on the blogs they are targeting.

When the pitch goes out, it’s up to the blogger to take the story to heart and possibly share it with their readers. Sometimes they won’t, and they’ll ignore the pitch altogether. That’s just fine. Sometimes they might respond with a “thanks but no thanks” response that shows that they at least put effort into considering a fit on their site. That, too, is just fine. If you’re sending a carefully crafted pitch, you’re probably sending it to a handful of people and hoping that a small percentage of those bloggers is actually receptive to your message.

Imagine If You Had to Pitch to Bloggers

What if you were involved in the task of blogger outreach? Let’s say you worked with a client to give away a freebie to readers of specific blogs. The client approves the pitch, which you targeted to the blogger, and you send it off to the chosen bloggers.

Now let’s assume one of the bloggers responds with, “I have read your email carefully and it would appear that you have omitted the part where you request my advertising rate card.”

(Yes, forget about organic promotion. The money is where it’s at for some bloggers, and story tips or ideas are unwanted. I bet you’d wonder what the FTC would say, especially given that this particular blogger has a disclaimer stating that they will never post sponsored or content where money exchanges hands.)

Instead, you decide to clarify your specific role in this initiative. You say, “this is merely a story idea as there’s no advertising budget. Would you like to run with the story?”

The blogger responds with something that goes along the lines of, “they could pay you to email me, maybe they should pay me to blog about it.”

They then write two nasty tweets about a poor approach that they likely thought you never saw.

Yes, seriously.

Perhaps some of you PR pros are nodding your heads in agreement at this point. “Hey, I’ve had that happen to me!” It becomes painstakingly obvious that some bloggers have zero respect for the people they are dealing with, realizing that their fame and authority as a blogger puts them in a position to request favors or speak down to people sending requests to them. I’ve seen and heard it before. That means you’ll get more requests for money, and the sadder thing is that if you meet them in person, their attitudes aren’t much different. It becomes clear in your dealing with some bloggers that they operate on a firm foundation of “pay or walk away.” (Do their readers know how greedy they’ve become? Do their readers even realize that most of the content on these blogs is likely swayed by the glory of financial riches?)

But greed is not what this blog post is about. It’s about how you should handle yourself as a blogger.

Your Responsibility as a Blogger

There are some social media etiquette rules that people sometimes forget to follow, I suppose. After all, words onscreen are not facial expressions, and it seems some people lose sight of human emotion when they get caught up in the fame of becoming a well-known blogger.

As bloggers, we might hold the public relations representatives to a higher standard, but relationship building goes both ways. If an organic story pitch is not of interest to you, that’s fine. Let it be. Demanding that someone pay for content with because they emailed you a story idea is a way to burn bridges, not build them. If you feel that you must respond to the email, your tone is everything. Convey your thoughts nicely, even if it pains you to do so.

Bloggers typically have a lot on their plates; those working for big publications who have to fulfill a daily quota of stories can see hundreds of pitches per day. They’re overwhelmed. It’s hard enough to churn out content, and then there’s a pile of email waiting for their attention in the form of story pitches and ideas. Yet those sending story pitches are overwhelmed too. They’re tasked with weeding through hundreds of blogs (if there are even that many in the specific niche), reading the content to get to know the blogger better, and finding the right angle to pitch the story to. And that doesn’t even account for the deadlines they have. But as mentioned earlier, relationships go both ways, and the approach goes both ways too. As the blogger, you have the upper hand.

Here are seven rules that you should always follow as a blogger when dealing with public relations pros (though some can be applied to your relationships with anyone):

• Rule #1: Act professionally. Remember that professionalism is everything. This relates to courteousness too. Keep your tone polite.
• Rule #2: Be humble. By blogging, you’ll reap some nice rewards (and awards). Don’t let that fame get to your head. You might be great and receive a lot of accolades, but it doesn’t make you any better than the people you deal with. In most cases, you’re not as important as you think you are.
• Rule #3: Remember who you are dealing with. PR people aren’t in the ad sales industry.  Their goal is to send press pitches, not to buy ads on your site.  If a blogger outreach consultant or social media agency emails you a story pitch, read their signature.  If it doesn’t say “media buyer” or if they haven’t explicitly asked for your media kit, chances are they can’t follow through with an ad buy.
• Rule #4: This could be the start of something big. The right PR person is just as connected with the rest of the world as they are with bloggers themselves.  In fact, a relationship that starts on the right foot might actually translate to better things down the road, including special event invites and freebies that might as well be equivalent to a really good ad deal.  Perhaps, real ad sales will follow.  A bad first impression will never get you to that point. A great first impression can be very rewarding.
• Rule #5: It’s a relationship, stupid! Did I mention at all in this article that these are still interpersonal relationships? To quote The Happiness Project author Gretchen Rubin, act the way you want to feel.
• Rule #6: Remember where you were when you started. There’s more to blogging than just dollar signs. There’s relationship building (see rule #6), influence, branding, and more. Don’t have a narrow focus because the grass seems greener when the riches are easily attainable. At the end of the day, blogs are a relationship-building tool. That’s probably how you got to where you are now, by sharing your voice and providing insights that helped build those relationships, like having your readers trust you. Think about what you did before to get you where you are today. Never stop doing that either. The options might be more plentiful nowadays but you should stay true to why you started blogging to begin with.
• Rule #7: You need PR people as much as they need you. Maybe not now, but your future could depend on them.

Bloggers have a real opportunity here, but it should be said that they need to evaluate why they’re blogging and what keeps them doing it. Did passion drive them to blog? Is that still the case? Thankfully, of the thousands of people I’ve met in my past 4 years of publicly blogging, there aren’t that many individuals who cause alarm or worry. Most of you get it. You realize that there are other people sitting behind a computer screen to talk to you, and they’re not much different than you are.

Bloggers have a responsibility to themselves but they also have a responsibility to everyone around them. There will be times when despite how the public relations person sees it, the story doesn’t fit the blogger. But handling that correspondence gracefully is what will separate one blogger from others. Handling all incoming inquiries professionally (and even quickly) can do wonders on indirectly building up your blog (and maybe even your brand) with high regard.

You don’t just build your blog on your blog. There’s this thing we also call offsite optimization, which is a big term for SEO but also can apply to growing your blog. Every single blog-related correspondence you have with someone matters to your bottom line. That’s why email communication should be treated with utmost respect and caution. Handle those communications gracefully and you’ll be viewed the same or better than beforehand. (The only way to go from there is up!) If you choose the impolite and inconsiderate way out, you’re hurting your blog and yourself.

Do you have any stories to share about blogger relations? Did I miss any rules? The comments, as always, are yours.

[ Blogging Etiquette in the Face of a PR Pitch: What Miss Blogging Manners Would Do is a post written by Tamar Weinberg. ]

Read more about The New Community Rules: Marketing on the Social Web, a primer to social media marketing. Or you can subscribe to the Techipedia RSS feed.

It’s my birthday! And like last year, I have a gift for you.

Every year, I read hundreds (thousands?) of articles on the topic of Internet Marketing, from SEO to social media to web usability and then some. And every year, I hand pick the best articles that I’ve read and compile them in a resource that I hope will last a long time. Here’s my list for 2008. Here’s 2007. Here’s 2006. I painstakingly go through these resources with the hopes that these posts will serve as references for you in years to come. Yes, that’s right. Despite the changing landscape, the articles I list here are typically those that I feel are “timeless” in that they could be referenced in the future and still have utility. These posts are not in response to newsworthy events, nor are they displayed in any particular order. They are strategic guides that hopefully will enhance your internet marketing experiences in the future.

Every year, I can only read so many articles. I try to keep this as exhaustive as possible, but even so, I don’t know every great resource. Like last year, I enlisted in help from my followers on Twitter, many of whom gave me some great posts to add to this list. If you’re looking to be included on 2010′s list, you now know what to do.

Like last year, if your article is highlighted in this comprehensive post, there’s a badge for you to proudly celebrate this achievement on your site. Thanks again to David Mihm who specializes in Portland Web Design for creating them. Scroll down to the bottom of the post to grab the code you need for your post or site.

Without further ado, I now present to you the best internet marketing posts of 2009.

Social Media: Getting Started

• Why You Have to Engage in Social Media, Even if You Don’t Want to (A Smart Bear): Jason Cohen (@asmartbear) makes a compelling argument into why social media must be considered, even if you have no interest in it. The article has examples of how social media worked too.
• The Poetry of Social Networking to Court Customers and Invest in Relationships (Brian Solis): Brian Solis shares his foreword to Sean Percival’s book, MySpace Marketing.  In it, he offers some thought-provoking insights into what must be understood before going into social media marketing.  And… Brian Solis is the most eloquent writer I have ever seen in the blogosphere.  This post is really poetry, as are all his other writings and blog posts.
• 40 Key Elements to Getting Started in Social Media (Louis Gray): Mike Fruchter writes an awesome blog post on Louis Gray’s blog about how to get involved in social media, from branding to blogging to Twitter to community. It’s definitely a worthwhile read.
• Marketing on the Social Web: A Few Key Ingredients (Michael Fruchter): I love the graphic. But more than that, Mike’s post explains that social media is really about using social channels appropriately to communicate and converse — and as an extension of that, you might just end up being able to sell something. It’s really not that hard!
• How Big Brands Can Start Testing Social Media (Conversation Agent): It’s really not that hard to get into social media marketing. It just requires a small shift in mindset.
• Why Social Media is Scary (Steve Radick): Why is social media scary? There are challenges to be overcome by junior employees, developers, managers, and even senior leadership. Steve Radick tackles them all in this post.
• The ABCs of Online Networking (Your Job Stop): I love Joanna Lord’s article — every single letter of the alphabet has an application in online networking. Don’t overlook these — at least consider them!
• What Social Media is and What Social Media is Not (Louis Gray): So many people don’t get what social media is. Mike saves the day by straightening them out.
• Is it Too Late to Catch Up? (Seth Godin): Seth Godin suggests ideas that will make social media slowly work for you as an organization.
• Creating Your Social Media Plan (Outspoken Media): This good primer talks about securing your brand, setting metrics, knowing who you are, setting a presence, engaging, and assessing success.
• 6 Steps for Creating a Social Media Roadmap and Plan (Green Marketing 2.0): Lorna Li writes very introductory post on what social media is and what you can do with it with some great insights.
• A Corporate Guide for Social Media (Forbes): Forbes actually gets it when it comes to social media strategy in the workplace. Have a read and see for yourself.
• 20 Ways to Drive Leads Through Social Media (Kyle Lacy): Here are some of the things you can do to start seeing some movement in this thing they call “social media marketing.”
• 10 Tips for Social Media Marketers (PR Squared): Todd Defren tells you how to jump into social media marketing. What can you do today?
• How to Create Measurable Objectives (Altitude Branding): We’ve talked about goals and strategies as it relates to social media marketing, but let’s break them down even further.

Social Media: Implementation and Execution

• 7 Reasons Why Social Media Marketing Campaigns Fail, and How to Fix them (Stuntdubl): Todd Malicoat never blogs, but when he does, he writes great posts like this suggesting that if your social media marketing campaign is failing, you may have had the wrong strategies in place. Good thing he proposes how to fix them also!
• Two Approaches: Shotgun vs. Laser (Web Strategist): There are two (of many) approaches you can take in your social media strategy. Which approach best suits you?
• How to Make Social Media Work for Non-Consumer Brands (Mashable): This is a good B2B social media article which is chock full of examples.
• Ways to Be Human at a Distance (Chris Brogan): Chris Brogan always talks about how businesses can be human again. So what are they to do? He breaks this article into some of the basics of presence, how to converse, how to add multimedia to those conversations, and the topics of conversation.
• How to Manage Successful Social Media Promotions (Mashable): How can you get feedback from social channels to offer exclusive deals to your followers on social media communities? Read this Mashable guide.
• How to Build a Social Media Cheat Sheet in Any Topic (ReadWriteWeb): Marshall Kirkpatrick writes an amazing guide on how you can find thought leaders in any industry.
• The 12 Step Social Media Program for Traditional Marketers (HubSpot): Here are a few things agencies looking to replace different pieces of their business with social media can do.
• 10 Creative Contests Powered by Social Media (Mashable): You can use social media to do many things: build community, make business decisions, and more. Let a contest help make these ideas a reality.

Social Media: Small Business

• Why Small is the New Big in Social Media Marketing (Jonathan Fields): Jonathan Fields explains why small businesses have a real advantage over large ones when it comes to biting the social media bullet. This is a great read.
• 5 Advanced Social Media Marketing Strategies for Small Businesses (Mashable): Here are five techniques proposed by Samir Balwani that go beyond the mere social media presence, including contests.
• How to Promote a Small Business Website (Small Business Trends): This article isn’t totally social media focused, but it’s part of it.  If you want to market a small business website, social is just part of your overall marketing mix.

Hiring for Social Media

• How to Evaluate Social Media Street Cred (Logic+Emotion): Do you know if that person is able to handle a social media marketing initiative? How omnipresent is he? How well-versed is she? David Armano suggests to study out the candidate first; they shouldn’t just be focused on Twitter, for example.
• 25 Signs You’ve Got a Strong Social Media Consultant or Agency (The Buzz Bin): Beth Harte and Geoff Livingston explain that social media consultants need to know a lot more than about the basic tools out there.
• Why You Shouldn’t Trust Social Media to SEO Consultants (Social Media Explorer): The fact that a few in the SEO community have a narrow approach with regard to social media engagement troubles me.
• 10 Questions to Evaluate a Social Media “Expert” (Conversation Marketing): Well, how did you fare in this quiz?
• I’d Like to See a Social Media Consultant or Agency That… (Direct Marketing Observations): I really liked Marc Meyer’s post here. It was actually how he and I built up a relationship.
• 25 Tips to Choosing a Social Media Consultant (Kyle Lacy): How do you find a social media consultant? They might want to pass this test with flying colors.
• Hiring for Social Media: What I’d Look For (Altitude Branding): Amber Naslund has a great series on good and bad approaches for social media job description and tops it off with what she’d look for if she were to hire for the position.

Social Media: Measurement and ROI

• Measurement Strategies for 5 Social Media Goals (PR Communications): John Cass talks about the various goals you might get through social media and the various ways to measure these goals.
• Are We Too Worried with Finding the ROI of Social Media? (The Viral Garden): What are big brand saying about the ROI of social media? Check Mack Collier’s post to find out.
• 100 Ways to Measure Social Media (Inside the Marketers Studio/David Berkowitz): Who said you can’t measure social media?
• Social Media Metrics: What We Need to Track Sales (Samir Balwani): Samir Balwani writes a great post on some of the ways you get ROI from social media.
• Measuring Social Media ROI: Does Size Matter? (Mark Hayward): Mark Hayward shows the ROI of social media. With a plan, you can measure effectiveness of SM.
• Social Media: Who Can Show Us the Real Value? (Econsultancy):  I like the measurements this article provides. The Online Consumer Engagement Value report idea is a good one.

Social Media: General

• Web Promoters: What Qualities Make Up the Effective Ones? (The Future Buzz): Adam Singer writes an excellent piece on the qualities that make up the most popular “power users” of the social web — that is, those individuals whose content people want to consume always.
• 11 Ways to Lose Friends and Followers Online (Social Media Rockstar): This reminds me of my social media etiquette post; there are just so many things you can do that will not win you any friends on social networks. Brett Borders explores the behavioral triggers that don’t win you any new friends at all.
• The A-Z of Social Media for Brands (Econsultancy): They say it’s “social media for brands.” I say it’s “social media for everyone.”
• Is Social Media Overrated? (Samir Balwani): This post serves as a reminder that social media is just one part of the marketing mix, and you still need to strategize and allocate resources intelligently. What is social media about? At the end of the day, it’s about real connections to consumers. (No, it’s not about the tools!)
• 10 Ways to Be a Great Social Media User (Search Engine Journal): Vince Blackham writes a great post on Search Engine Journal about how to be a great social media user, with tips such as contributing, diversifying your efforts, being real, being meaningful, and more.
• Experts Talk About Social Media Training (Samir Balwani): Samir has a great interview on the background on social media marketing with 5 experts. (Note: I was interviewed. Normally I don’t self-promote in this roundup, but the quotes are good, and Jason Falls, who was featured, is one of my role models.)
• Social Media Tips for Optimizing Time Spent by Marketers (Online Marketing Blog): Social media takes time, but yes, you can optimize it with tips from Adam Singer.
• Answers to Social Media Questions You Should Know (Online Marketing Blog): Here are some great questions and answers from Lee Odden on the typical questions you face in social media marketing.
• The Social Media Conversion Scale (Logic+Emotion): David Armano provides a graphical chart showing the various stages of social media acceptance. Where are you on the list?
• The Hardest Things to Teach Your Clients About Social Media Marketing (10e20): A collaborative list of what things you should or shouldn’t expect of social media marketing.
• The Seven Deadly Sins of Social Media (Search Engine Journal): I love how Jennifer Horowitz equates social media with the 7 sins. She has some great comparisons.
• 23 Social Media Marketing Tips from Dell, Comcast, HP, Wells Fargo, Best Buy, General Mills, Ford, UPS, Home Depot, Cirque du Soleil (Online Marketing Blog): Lee Odden takes advice from the best minds in social media who have worked in the corporate world. This is a fantastic interview!
• The Real Lesson in the Yelp User Review Lawsuit (Nine by Blue): The bottom line is that people need to realize that they can’t control the message. The best solution is to proactively address the situation and make it work for you.
• 5 People Who Broke the Rules of Social Media and Succeeded (Mashable): Real success stories and the experiences learned is the subject of this article.
• Which Social Media Channels Should You Be Using? (The Jordan Rules): This is a great chart and article on the best social media channels for both B2B and B2C companies.
• Share This or Else! What Makes People Share Content? (Samir Balwani): What prompts people to share content — and how does one capitalize on this? Samir discusses human psychology and explains how this correlates to content that is shareable.

Twitter

• Twitter, the Most Important Website Since Google (97th Floor): Yes, Twitter is that important. Chris Bennett features some great parallels in his article.
• Twitter, Customer Service, and Good Brand Management (Conversation Agent): Valeria Maltoni writes a great primer to why Twitter is important for customer service, but then goes a step further and tells you what tools you can use to monitor your brand (and some that cost money and let you respond).
• A Twitter Basics Primer (The Buzz Bin): When you use Twitter for marketing or whatnot, you should consider why you intend to use it and what you plan on getting out of it. This is a basic article but goes into great depth.
• Who Should Tweet? (Samir Balwani): Samir talks about the pros and cons of Tweeting by company representatives, from the CEO to a brand. He suggests a “character” to be the face of the brand on Twitter, sort of like a mascot.
• 8 Twitter Networking Tips: From Online to In-the-Flesh (Twitip): Whether it’s getting instant responses or meeting people in real life via tweetup, some Twitter tips are not to be forgotten.
• The Ultimate Guide to Everything Twitter (Webdesigner Depot): This is a crazy in-depth guide on Twitter, but it’s already outdated since there have been a lot more news and apps that have come out since. Still, though, you can tell that there has been in immense amount of work put into it, and it definitely deserves recognition.
• You’re On Twitter, Now What? (Conversation Agent): How do you want to use Twitter? There are many goals you can achieve with the site.
• 4 Real Offline Uses of Twitter (Dream Systems Media): Twitter marketing is happening online, of course, but it’s happening offline too. Just a few weeks ago, I saw a Twitter decal on a car. It was rather cool. Here are four other ways people are promoting their Twitter accounts.
• How to Use Twitter to Grow Your Online Business (here.org.uk): This is a nice beginner business guide of the various things you can do in order to be seen as a credible and useful Twitter user.
• 101 Tweets on How to Use Twitter (SEO 2.0): Tad offers 101 ways to use Twitter in retweetable format. Tips include being active and tweeting daily, limiting using Twitter for broadcasting, focusing on company-wide social media policies, and more.
• Connecting with Customers on Twitter: 9 Tips for Success (10e20): Jake writes a great piece on what you should be doing on Twitter in order to be successful.
• Top 10 Reasons Your Company Should Not Tweet (BL Ochman’s Blog): Not everyone will be able to use Twitter. Here are 10 reasons why you as a company entity should avoid it.
• How to Integrate Social Media into Product Marketing (Social Computing Magazine): This is a nice detailed guide on how you can market products via social media. (P.S. Sending products to bloggers helps too!)
• The Tao of Tweeting (Mashable): Good art via Twitter is not that hard to achieve. Soren Gordhamer shows you how.
• Breakdown: 4 Ways Brands are Earning — and Buying — Followers on Twitter (Web Strategist): Jeremiah Owyang explores the Twitter space to see how followers are being earned (or not) on Twitter.
• The 10 Twitter Commandments (Econsultancy): Patricio Robles says that doing these sins is like shooting yourself in the foot.
• How to Use Twitter to Find Local Blog Content (Hyperlocalblogger): Twitter can bring you local traffic, so use it wisely to build friends and a following in your neighborhood.
• 137 Small Business Twitter Tips (Small Business Trends): One hundred and thirty seven people were asked to offer their best Twitter tips, and this has been aggregated and put in a document (PDF, but not linked to this page) for all to see.
• From Corporate to Personal: The Four Types of Social Media Profiles (Web Strategist): What kinds of brand profiles do you find on Twitter?
• 62 Ways to Use Twitter for Business (WebWorkerDaily): Be it credibility, growing your network, or marketing (and then some), this article is a good way to inspire yourself to grow your business Twitter presence.
• 8 Lessons Learned as a Brand on Twitter (tins/Rick Klau): Rick Klau works for Google. He talks about what he has learned by maintaining a brand presence on Twitter: specifically, Google’s Blogger account.
• Make Tweet Love: Top Tips for Building Twitter Relationships (Brian Solis): This is an excellent compendium of tips to get the most out of Twitter, both by Brian Solis and then his own Twitter friends.

Facebook

• How to Create Rich HTML Tabs on Your Facebook Page (10e20): I know Jesse just contributed an awesome article on this blog but Victor’s guide here is also pretty good.
• Why You Need to Create a Facebook Fan Page (Quick Sprout): Neil Patel decided to build a Facebook fan page that was interactive, using it as a case study for why it would benefit you as a business to maintain one and what would be necessary to make it engaging.
• 10 Key SEO Strategies Every Facebook Owner Should Know (Inside Facebook): We all know Facebook tips and tricks, but did we know we can marry the schools of thought of Facebook optimization and SEO? Let’s dive into Justin Smith’s tips.
• How to Build Facebook Community (Socialbrite): If you’re looking to meet some goals with Facebook engagement, you have to actually be able to engage your audience and participate. This article presents fourteen tips for achieving this goal, most of which are common sense but which may inspire you to get more active.
• How to Win Facebook Friends and Influence People (All Facebook): Nick O’Neill’s post on how to become a Facebook power user (read: genuine) is great.
• The Beginner’s Guide to Advertising on Facebook (Jonathan Volk): If you’re looking to advertise on Facebook, be it for your product for via affiliate marketing (in Jonathan’s case), take tips from this guy. He makes 6 digits a MONTH.
• How to Violate Facebook Etiquette and Piss Off Your Friends (All Facebook): Sure, there’s no right or wrong way to use social networks, but there are still socially acceptable limits.
• Are Your Facebook Fans Truly Engaged? (Conversation Agent): Valeria Maltoni shares the findings of a Frozen Frogs study with regards to engaging Facebook followers.  It’s good to know that there are ways to bring Facebook community closer together.

LinkedIn

• 10 Ways to Use LinkedIn to Find a Job (How to Change the World): Thought you couldn’t get a job on LinkedIn? Think again!
• 10 Tips to Optimize Your LinkedIn Profile (SEOptimise): This is a beginner level LinkedIn howto, but it’s amazing to see how many people actually do not follow the basic rules of engagement for LinkedIn!
• Top 10 Reasons Why Your LinkedIn Question is Getting Mostly Pitches (Conversation Agent): Valeria Maltoni writes a great piece about why your LinkedIn community involvement may not be so great for you when you start getting an abundance of pitches. What can you do differently?
• 7 Ways to Get More Out of LinkedIn (Mashable): Taking advantage of the professional network isn’t hard. Here are 7 ways to get the most out of it.
• How to Ensure Your LinkedIn Profile is Effective (Web Worker Daily): Meryl Evans has a good writeup on how to optimize the features of LinkedIn to make a pretty spiffy looking profile.

Leveraging Other Social Media Sites

• How to Get Media Attention and Traffic Out of BusinessExchange (Small Business Trends): Not many people know about BusinessWeek’s Business Exchange, but Anita does, and she explains how you can get visibility out of it.
• 10 Tips to Get the Most Out of Posterous (Make Tech Easier): Posterous is the new lifestreaming app. Shevonne tells you how to actually use it and take advantage of its features.
• 10 Useful Tips to Using FriendFeed (Make Tech Easier): FriendFeed is still going strong, and its community is pretty powerful. Shevonne Polastre tells you how to make the most of it. Big emphasis on point #9. That’s the way to maximize the potential of FriendFeed.
• How I Use FriendFeed (Webomatica): If you wanted to know a little more about the potential of FriendFeed, check out Jason Kaneshiro’s post.
• FriendFeed Groups – The Fast Track to Content and Community (Knowthenetwork.com): How can you use FriendFeed groups to your advantage? Easy.
• Tools to Analyze Delicious Tags, Bookmarks, and URLs (Search Engine Journal): I normally do not put toolbox posts in my yearly roundup because I look for posts with actionable ideas to be put to use. However, how many of you actually knew that Delicious has tools to help you get the most out of it?
• 3 Easy Tips for Improving the Potency of Your StumbleUpon Account (Search Engine Journal): This post by Ryan Caldwell explains how you can improve your StumbleUpon account, but I’d argue that the information could be applied to other social bookmarking sites or social networks as well.
• Getting Links AND Content from Flickr (Search Engine Land): Using Flickr to build content isn’t so hard once you get inspiration from this article which features a case study and suggested scenarios that you can use Flickr with to help.
• 4 Tools to Track Flickr (Search Engine Journal): If you are tasked with monitoring Flickr for the purposes of listening to the conversation or finding out statistics on the photos you’ve uploaded, you should check out these tools to make your job a whole lot easier.
• 6 Tips for Getting the Most out of Foursquare (Mashable): Foursquare is new for many, so learn it and soak it in while it’s still hot.

Blogging

• 13 Tips for Marketing Your Business with Your Blog (Problogger): Most businesses have one goal with their blog: marketing. Darren Rowse gives you 13 ways to do just that.
• 25 Things I Wish I’d Known When I Started Blogging (Web Distortion): Paul Anthony (@webireland) writes an incredible high-level blogging guide, which, if followed, will definitely bring you ahead of the competition. Guaranteed.
• Do You Make These 10 Mistakes When You Blog? (Michael Hyatt): This is a good article on the common pitfalls facing bloggers, from not posting enough to posting too much and everything in between.
• Blog Post Ideas that Always Generate Buzz (The Future Buzz): In case you needed to be inspired even more to write good blog posts, Adam Singer covers even more angles for the aspiring blogger.
• A Crash Course in Comments (Chris Brogan): So many people don’t value the connections that can be had if you write meaningful comments on blogs.
• How to Find the Best Free Images/Photos/Graphics for Your Blog Posts (Smackdown!): Some really great public domain image search tools are reviewed in this article. Plus, of course, there’s Creative Commons licensed images too. And I’ll add another favorite: everystockphoto.com.
• 10 Things to Do Before Launching Your Blog (Small Business Trends): Maybe everyone reading this already has blogs.  Maybe you don’t.  If you’re about to start, read this guide.  If you’re starting a new one later on, read this guide.
• How to Write a Review (Blogging Tips): This is a different kind of blogging post, one that pertains to writing reviews of products. If you want to write a complete review of something, be sure to follow the guidelines highlighted in this post.
• 100 Ways to Find Ideas for Your Blog Posts (LifeSnips): If you’ve lost blogging inspiration, Steve Aitchison will bring you out of the blogging slumps. You can’t really run out of blogging ideas after reading this article unless the motivation isn’t within you.
• How to Make (and Keep) Your Blog Content in Demand (The Future Buzz): Adam Singer explains how you can keep your blog in demand, making it referenced and looked at regularly.
• 101 Ways to Promote a New Blog (Daily Blog Tips): Some of these ideas are rather unconventional, but I like ‘em.
• 19 Reasons Why You Should Blog and Not Just Tweet (The Future Buzz): Everyone Tweets nowadays, but there are reasons why you should blog instead. Some of Adam Singer’s points include demonstrating passion, getting full analytics, limits of 140 characters, and being in full control of the content and the website.
• How to Make Blogging Work for Your Business (Wordtracker): This is a great guide by Chris Garrett into what blogs can do for you and how you can build your blog to be successful for your business.
• Suggested Guide for Writing Effective Blog Posts (PMA Media Group): Blogging isn’t always just about opening a “new post” link and typing your thoughts. For some, it’s just not that simple. You might want to start with ways to inspire yourself and include some SEO keyword ranking tips as well.
• 10 Steps to Creating an Authority Blog (David Walker): Bloggers, take note: the presentation and the content of your blog is everything. There’s more than that, though, and David Walker walks you though it.
• 5 Ways to Increase Your Blog’s Search Traffic (Search Engine People): In Glen Allsopp’s guest post for Search Engine People, he says that you can increase your blog’s search engine traffic by applying some tactics to old (already published) blog posts.
• 5 Ways to Turn Blog Comments into Conversations (SEO Scoop): Blog comments should be ongoing conversations, but how do you do that? Barry Welford explores ways to make blog comments more engaging.
• The Complete Guide to Video Blogging (Mashable): Ever wanted to be a video blogger? This in-depth Mashable article by Leah Betancourt talks about the roots of video blogging and how to get started.
• How to Use Curation to Make Your Blog Better (Influential Marketing): I love how Rohit Bhargava compares PostSecret to success in blogging. He offers great tips here.
• Starting a Blog? These 50 Lessons Will Help You Succeed (The Future Buzz): Using data gathered from the Technorati State of the Blogosphere 2009, Adam Singer gives solid actionable tips on how you can start a blog and why it’s important that you do.
• 22 Reasons for You to Blog (Gloson): The youngest person who will ever make it to my top posts is totally Gloson. He’s 11 and gives you 22 reasons why you should blog.
• 8 Tips for Building Community on Your Blog (Problogger): If you really have a strong blog, you have potential to also grow a strong community. But how? Darren Rowse provides the insights.
• How to Create a High Quality Blog (Dan Blank): Pretty pictures and solid advice make this blog post a winner for anyone — companies and people — looking to craft a high quality blog.
• A Short List of Content Elements for Your Consideration (Broadcasting Brain): Before you publish your blog, ask yourself the following questions. Due diligence, my friends.
• How to Make Your Corporate Blog More Social (Social Media Explorer): Dan Zarrella shares small ideas but smart ones that can make your corporate blog a lot more approachable.

Reputation Management

• Top 10 Ways to Save Your Online Reputation in 2009 (Small Business Trends): Business need to step up a notch and be a lot more personable to avoid a reputation management fiasco. Most companies need to start by simply acknowledging each and every incoming request from a customer as alluded to in #2.
• Using Social Media For Reputation Management (DirJournal): Some of the tips here aren’t discussed in other articles, such as focusing on video and optimizing for local search.
• How to Build a Reputation Monitoring Dashboard (aimClear): This is an incredibly huge post by Marty Weintraub on how to set up a reputation management monitoring dashboard, from doing the keyword research to finding additional keywords to monitor to actually building it. It has lots of screenshots and good actionable information that you can get started with today.
• A Common Search Reputation Management Timeline (Search Cowboys): To summarize this post, if you don’t act to prevent reputation management issues, you’re doomed in the search world.
• Be Proactive With Your Reputation Management (Vertical Measures): My book talks about how maintaining social media profiles can help you with your reputation management issues. This post echoes that sentiment and provides specific social networks that you should establish your presence on.
• How Companies Should Respond to Negative Reviews (Outspoken Media): You shouldn’t always let criticism sit.  Sometimes you can respond.  What would you respond to, though?  How should you do it?
• The Dos and Don’ts of Online Reputation Management (Search Engine Journal): This article is a simple easy list to follow for reputation management issues. Yes, you can push down negative search engine results, but you need a plan. You can get some direction on that plan by reading this article.
• 5 Ways Negative Reviews are Good for Business (Small Business SEM): Matt McGee explains why negative reviews aren’t too bad after all. Just make sure you don’t get mentioned on Consumerist or Boing Boing. (Of course, if you get there, it’s probably because your customers exhausted all avenues, which you should’ve been abreast of earlier!)
• Online Reputation Management in the Future (WebProNews): Chris Crum interviews several experts about the possible diminishing impact of reputation management services — that is, when everyone has a reputation management issue, is it going to be less of a concern?
• The Online Reputation Management Guide (Outspoken Media): Outspoken Media has produced an incredible online reputation guide. Rhea Drysdale talks about the nuances of assessing, building, tracking, and monitoring your reputation online.

Content Development/Marketing

• Writing Content for the Buyer’s Decision Journey (Conversation Agent): Valeria Maltoni talks about the buying funnel and gives good examples of companies that do it well.
• 10 Secrets for Creating Viral Content (The Buzz Bin): It’s all about others — NOT yourself.
• The Doctor McCoy Guide to Healing Sick Content (Copyblogger): What do Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy of Star Trek and good writers have in common? Mark Dykeman offers a few parallels that just might get you thinking of your article-writing (or blogging) strategy.
• Beyond Headlines: How to Get Your Audience to Read Every Word (Copyblogger): Dave Navarro’s article on Copyblogger explains how to entice an audience and force them to read every word. The idea is to communicate similar tastes, triggering a sense of need, and promising valuable information.
• 30 Simple Ways of Improving Bounce Rate and Conversion Rate (SEOptimise): This article has some great ways to convert visitors into members, buyers, or regular users of your site. Are you listening?
• 12 Types of Content Strategies SEOs Should Know and Use (Search Engine People): If you want to build traffic and links to your site, you might want to get some ideas from Jeff Quipp. Hint: this type of post is in the article, but that’s not really why I do it. At the end of the day, it’s great to provide a valuable resource for me and for you!
• 9 Strategies for Finding Incredible Content (Search Engine Journal): This post on Search Engine Journal actually proposes some pretty unknown sites that you can leverage for article content inspiration.
• Practical Guide to Finding Link Bait Inspiration (SEO Smarty): Ann Smarty presents a pretty good guide for content inspiration, but not just any type of content: her guide gives you ideas on finding great link bait topics.
• The Psychology of a Linkbait (Search Engine Journal): Loren Baker paraphrases this article by saying, “You can increase your chances of linking success by remembering one simple rule : the best links come from real human beings. Here are ways to appeal to those real human emotions in linkbaiting.”
• Why Most Get Content Marketing Wrong (The Future Buzz): It’s a matter of formatting your content properly. If you miss the ball, you will fail.
• Top 10 Reasons Why Your Content Marketing Strategy Fails (Conversation Agent): Might as well try to get it right, right? Let Valeria help.
• The 10 Commandments of Content Marketing (Social Media Explorer): I like Kat French. She explains why your content marketing strategy might just not work in a nice list format with good descriptions.
• 49 Creative Ways You Can Profit from Content Marketing (Copyblogger): To be ahead of the game, you should be creative about it. Here are 49 things you can think about right now.

Web Development

• The “Just Create Compelling and Useful Content” Lie (Sebastian’s Pamphlets): Sebastian highlights the elements of a successful website. Hint: it’s not just great content alone.
• Things to Ask Before You Redo Your Website (Seth Godin): Seth asks thought-provoking questions that are to be considered in your next website redesign.

Video

• Online Video for Business: The Three Types of Business Video (ReelSEO): We’ve heard about viral videos, but that’s only one type of business video. There are two other types of videos, according to Daniel Sevitt. He goes into each type by explaining what they are and providing metrics for success.
• How to Succeed on YouTube (Search Engine Marketing Group): If you’ve been looking for some good ideas for how to achieve viral success on YouTube, read what Sheena Melwani says from experience.
• 5 Important Web Video Lessons for Small Business Owners (Mashable/OPEN Forum): How are you going to make your video stick? Josh Catone highlights 5 videos and explains the lessons learned.
• How Video Promotion Launched a Rap Career: A Complete Guide (Shoemoney): This article might be specific to a rapper’s evolving career, but there are general video promotion ideas in here as well.
• 34 Ways to Use YouTube for Business (WebWorkerDaily): These tips are broken down into expertise, advertising, and customer service.

SEO: Strategy

• The SEM Toolbox: 79 Tools and Tips Every Search Marketer Should Have (SEO Contrarian): Ari Ozick provides a list of the best tools ever needed to do your job as a search engine marketer. Categories include backup tools, backlink discovery tools, link management tools, competitive research tools, keyword tools, domain tools, and a whole lot more.
• SEO Hierarchy of Needs (Bruce Clay Blog): What step are you on when it comes to your SEO needs? What must you do next? This article by Virginia Nussey features a graphic that mimics Maslow’s hierarchy with an SEO spin.
• Search Engine Ranking Factors (SEOmoz): Every year, SEOmoz comes out with a list of search engine ranking factors, which is incredibly valuable if you do anything remotely related to SEO or search engine marketing. Of course, it’s not perfect since the algorithm is kept under wraps, but this information has been guesstimated by trial and error.
• Big List of Search Engine Ranking Factors (Huomah): David Harry revisits the discussion of the factors that he believes affects search engine rankings. And since he just came out with the recent training course SEO Dojo, which has been an incredible success, it’s a good idea to read this and listen.
• What Aspects of SEO Should You Be Spending Most of Your Time On? (SEO Book): Peter Da Vanzo gives a good beginner’s guide for how to get into SEO for your new website.
• Google is the Other Woman: The Relationship Algorithm (Foot in Mouth): This article uses an interesting parallel to judge how Google judges your site for algorithmic preference, but I actually would contend that all search engines typically follow the same rules of thumb. I love the analogies!
• Future-Proof Your SEO (Huomah): Here’s an article which will actually likely be outdated in a few years, but I thought it was still good enough for the purposes of understanding the search landscape today with regards to what works and what doesn’t in search engine optimization.
• The 100+ Ranking Variables Google Uses, and Why You Shouldn’t Care (SEO Book): In January, Aaron Wall predicted that search marketing success will come from engaging people. This is absolutely starting to take hold, especially as people actually talk about their favorite websites and search engines respond in kind. Twitter integration in search results, anyone?
• Big Project, Small Budget: Where to Begin Your SEO Campaign (Search Engine Guide): If you are trying to SEO your site, you may want to start thinking about the areas you should put more emphasis on–perhaps because your budget constraints may limit you to only one of these areas.
• 12 Easy Mistakes that Plague Newcomers to the SEO Field (SEOmoz): Even though this is a basic article on SEO, sometimes even seasoned professionals lose sight of this stuff. You can count on the “reciprocal linking” (read: link exchanges) to be a big mishap in “established SEO firms” from the amount of emails I get with that request daily across all my blogs. UGH
• SEO for Large eCommerce Sites (AudetteMedia): Adam Audette is the SEO for Zappos. That means he knows a fair bit about optimizing billion-dollar business websites. He explores the techniques he uses for his big client in this article.
• Creating a Sweet High Value Keyword List in 5 Minutes (SEO Book): Aaron Wall shows you how to create a high-value keyword research list in 5 minutes, then features a video on how to actually see what you just did.
• 5 Free SEO Tools You’re Probably Not Using Yet (Search Engine Marketing Group): Here’s my question. Have you even heard of these yet?
• How to Optimize for Conversion in Organic Search Results (Search Engine Land): SEO should be ROI-centric. If that’s not on your agenda, read this article and start thinking along the lines of driving real conversions.
• 7 Rules for Writing URLs (Small Business SEM): If you do anything related to search engine marketing, understanding the URL structure and how to actually optimize it is important. Matt McGee offers tips on how to do this.
• How Using Google AdWords Can Be the Best SEO Tool in Your Arsenal (RedFly Marketing): Dave Davis presents some pretty invaluable information on the potential for Google AdWords to be an incredible asset for search engine optimization. Yes, you read that right.
• How to Up Your SEO Income by a Factor of 10 (SEO Book): Ari Ozick’s guest post for SEO Book is a darn good one – you won’t know until you test. It’s really that simple.
• SEO Best Practices: New Policies Based on Updated Correlation Data (SEOmoz): It’s time to start reevaluating your SEO tactics. SEOmoz has looked at what works and reported on their findings.
• 5 SEO Essentials: Charting Effective Search Engine Optimization (Online Marketing Blog): Dana Larson’s approach toward effective SEO is great. Most people forget about that in such a social media centric world.
• 6 Key Tactics for Organic Success (Search Engine Guide): Jen Laycock provides six great tactics for organic success: keywords, content, code, optimization, links, and patience. Yes, patience is a big one!

SEO: Information

• Small Business SEO: Costs, Expectations, Realities (Small Business SEM): This isn’t a “SEO how to” article. We always see enough of those. What this is is a good article by Matt McGee on what you should expect when you actually buy SEO consulting.
• 5 Tips for Avoiding Deceptive SEO Companies (Small Business Trends): Since we’re talking about SEO, we might as well tell you what to look for so that you do NOT do business with some of these companies. Look for reputable companies if you ever need to focus on search engine optimization. Your rankings depend on it.
• Setting Up an SEO Shop Overnight! (High Rankings): Jill Whalen rants about the “SEO shops” that give SEO the snake oil bad name. There actually are good SEOs out there.
• 8 Short Steps to Forecast and Estimate SEO ROI (SEO ROI): Want ROI for your SEO efforts? Gab Goldenberg offers 8 steps on how exactly that can be achieved.
• You Don’t Need SEO to Rank in Google (Sugarrae): Rae explains that SEO by itself simply isn’t the key to high rankings. Good content and marketing is really the key; SEO is just a secondary requirement.

Link Building

• Get Your Link Building Requests Answered (Dream Systems Media): Matt Siltala writes an incredibly valuable article that answers how to get people to link to you once they’ve already established rapport with your competitors. He also brings in four experts who weigh in on the question.
• Why Link Building May Not Work (Best SEO Blog): Sometimes your link building practices won’t work. Michael Martinez explains why beginning about 1/3 of the way down in this article.
• How to Get Backlinks (Internet Marketing Techniques and Theories): Leo calls this post “very long.” I think I agree with him.
• Secrets of How to Escape the Link Building Trap Now (SEO Theory): If you don’t want to build links, you might pursue these other opportunities to build links that don’t violate any guidelines. There’s also a service review in here for a link building program run by a pretty well known guy in the SEO space.
• Buy Text Link Ads with these 101 Sneaky Tips (Search Engine Journal): Gab Goldenberg tries to stay under the radar when buying text links with 101 ideas that hopefully won’t get you caught.
• Indispensable Link Building Applications (Wiep.net): Wiep Knol has a toolbox filled to the brim of great link building applications. If you do any link building at all, make sure to familiarize yourself with these applications.
• Link Building Techniques, Interactive Agency Approach (Zeta Interactive): I get about 4-5 link building requests across multiple web properties a day. When reading this article, I realize that for 99.9% of these requests, none of these techniques (personalized requests, transparency, knowing the target website, etc.) are employed at all. Is that really so difficult? I guess it is when you outsource link building to interns.
• A Big Bunch of Link Building Ideas (Search Engine Land): Debra Mastaler is a link building genius and when she talks, I always listen. In this article, she explores the consequences of actually linking out to other websites and what you can do to build other types of links.
• Link Building from A to Z (SEOmoz): Wiep Knol is one of the foremost link building experts and has covered an entire alphabet of ways to get new links.
• 10 Goals for Link Building Campaigns: Moving Beyond “Get More Links” (Search Engine Land): Garrett French writes a great in-depth guide on how you can build links, suggesting countless tactics and link prospect sources.
• Link Building Evaluation Journal (Search Engine Journal): Building links to a website? How could you enhance your link portfolio? Dave Snyder suggests different ideas for different metrics of the link, be them the age of a domain, the anchor text, or the relevant authority of the link page.
• 10 Link Building and Tracking Tools for SEO (Online Marketing Blog): Got links? Start testing them. This Top Rank Marketing blog post explores ten possible tools from which to do this.
• 11 Effective, Efficient Ways to Use Limited Time to Build Links (Search Engine Land): If you’re tasked with building links but yet do not know how to manage your time, you might want to read this and follow Debra Mastaler’s suggestions.
• Link Mixology: The 12 Kinds of Links Your Site Needs (Michelle MacPhearson): Michelle MacPhearson writes a good point on what kinds of links you should be getting if you intend to market your website.
• 21 Link Builders Share Advanced Link Building Queries (Search Engine Land): Not all link building tips and tricks have to be Link Building 101. Here are 21 great advanced tactics that can help you get a little more out of link building.

PPC

• PPC Advertising Pitfalls: Don’t Just Do What Simon Says (Search Cowboys): Lisa Myers talks about the common pitfalls when engaging in a Google AdWords PPC campaign and explains that most people fall into these because Google AdWords is so easy to set up that many business owners waste money every day.
• The Golden Rules of Keyword Research (SEOptimise): Choosing keywords for PPC should not be too difficult, as long as your keywords are relevant, specific, local, smart, sneaky, and flexible. Explanations within.
• Top 5 Mistakes Made by PPC Newcomers (Latitude Group): Maybe you’ve decided to go into PPC marketing. If you do, don’t make these mistakes in Google AdWords.
• When Pay Per Click is NOT Right for You (Search Engine Journal): PPC? What’s that all about? Brian Carter explains why PPC is an asset and why it might be detrimental for you. If you have no idea what this is and might consider trying it, read this article first.
• How to Write PPC Ad Copy (Search Engine People): If you’ve ever done Google AdWords or any other PPC, you know that the best copy is important to drive clickthroughs. Just HOW to optimize those messages is the subject of this article.
• 6 Habits of Highly Effective PPC Managers (NVI Solutions): If you do any Pay Per Click, you should possess these six traits at the minimum, which include the desire to test and tweak, leveraging your web analytics, and staying informed of policy updates.
• Writing Your Best PPC Ads (Search Cowboys): If you’ve ever done Pay Per Click marketing, you might want to follow some of the tips Kate Morris offers on this post.
• SEM Training Strategy: Overcoming Common Mistakes (SEO Book): Aaron Wall explains how to maximize your PPC and SEO campaigns.
• How to Prevent Competitors from Seeing Your AdWords Ads (Jennifer Slegg): If you are really the competitive type and don’t want your competitors to see your Google AdWords ads, take Jen’s advice and lock ‘em out!
• 9 Tips to Write Effective Google AdWords Copy (Search Engine Journal): Saad Kamal knows his Google AdWords. Do you?
• 7 Incredibly Valuable but Underused Free Tools for PPC Marketers (Search Engine Land): Brad Geddes talks about some of the most useful tools to help boost your Pay Per Click campaigns.

Affiliate Marketing

• Cut the Fat: Some Quick Tips to Instantly Gain Profit (Jonathan Volk): Jonathan Volk’s gives affiliate marketing tips based on his own trial and error.
• Are You Ready for an Affiliate Program? (NVI Solutions): I usually talk about affiliate marketing on the hows of setting it up. But what if you’re a merchant who is considering it? Then read this and see if you’re ready.
• The Most Powerful Way to Presell Any Product or Service (Dosh Dosh): Dosh Dosh discusses the way to lure potential buyers into buying your product like all affiliate marketers should really be doing.
• PPC Affiliate Marketing 101 (Jonathan Volk): In case you were new to the affiliate game, here’s what you can do to get started with affiliate marketing using Pay Per Click.
• Interview with Rae Hoffman AKA Sugarrae (SEO Book): Rae Hoffman talks to Aaron Wall about her success as an affiliate marketer. This interview is pretty damn good.

Analytics

• 6 Tools Every Google Analytics User Should Have (Unofficial Google Analytics Blog): I’ve never heard of any of these Google Analytics tools before!
• Google Analytics Mega Post: 23 Google Analytics Tips and Tweaks (Search Engine People): Google Analytics out of the box is a powerful package. You can tweak output even further, though. To get started, read this article.
• The Complete Google Analytics Power User Guide (VKI Studios): This is the most in-depth Google Analytics user guide that I’ve ever seen.
• Using Analytics to Measure SEO Success (Search Engine Land): Jill Whalen explains that rankings aren’t good success metrics. Instead, focus on your analytics. Here’s how.
• Google Analytics for Local Search (seOverflow):  This is how you can use Google Analytics for some great local optimization.  This article is choc full of great detail, and while it’s local-focused, there’s good actionable insight for anyone using Google Analytics in some way.

Usability

• Is Your Website Easy to Buy From? Tips You Can Test to Improve Your Site’s Checkout Process (Conversion Room): Want to make sales on your website? You better hope it’s usable. Here are some areas you can test to find out if your site is good for the average buyer.
• Are You Guilty of Crimes Against Usability? Let the Jury Decide (Search Engine Guide): In this usability blog post, Stoney deGeyter equates your customers with the jury. Business owners should study those juries to find out what judgments they are passing on your site.
• Why Usability and SEO Go Hand in Hand (Search Engine Land): Search engines like usable websites, just like people do. It’s in your best interest to appreciate the value of this.

Landing Pages

• 9 Effective Tips for a Better Landing Page (Search Engine Journal): Saad Kamal offers good tips for great landing pages.
• 30+ Principles to a Better Landing Page Design (Landing Page Optimization): You’ve read about the types of landing pages, but how do you actually design one? You can follow the tactics tried by people who already have found success.
• Landing Page Types (Lyris HQ): This article presents a concise list of landing page types, from PPC landing pages to transactional landing pages.
• 7 Tips to Increasing Landing Page Conversions (Search Engine Journal): Lauren Vaccarello explains how to craft the content on your landing page to actually see conversions. One great tip: avoid marketing speak and use simple English instead.

Local/Mobile Search

• Mobile Search Guide (cellphones.org): Now more and more people are using their cell phones and searching on their favorite search engine. My phone is old as heck but even I do it. But if you’re a website creator, have you optimized for mobile search? If not, perhaps you should, since your visitors might end up going elsewhere.
• Local Search Ranking Factors (David Mihm): Just like there are SEO ranking factors, there are also local search ranking factors.  David Mihm gives you an exhaustive list of them for your perusal.
• A Closer Look at the Local Search Data Providers (getListed.org): Any local business presence will want to make sure its information is accurate online.  Take a look at the providers listed to figure out where your information needs to be updated.
• Blocking and Tackling: 10 Fundamentals of Local SEO (Search Engine Land): David Mihm, our resident local expert, provides a basic list of what you should do as a local business to get ranked in search engines.

Personal Branding

• How to Start or Start Over Building Your Personal Brand (Skelliewag): Skellie talks about why a brand is important and how you can do it.
• How to Build Your Personal Brand on YouTube (Mashable): Dan Schawbel is a personal branding expert and shows you how to build a strong YouTube brand. Really, this is a pretty good general YouTube how-to article, but he ties it into the personal branding element, which works for me.
• SEO Tips for Building Your Personal Brand (Search Engine Land): I don’t really consider these “SEO” tips, as they’re more social media centric. But they’re great for building your brand, that’s for sure.
• 7 Ways to Land Great Consulting Work While in Between Jobs (Personal Branding Blog): How to build your brand when finding a job, according to Monica O’Brien!
• What a Personal Brand is NOT (Tom Peters): It is NOT a perk, among other things. You have the privilege of a personal brand. What are you going to make of it?
• 50 Ways to Make Limoncello When You’ve Been Laid Off (Conversation Agent): Valeria Maltoni highlights an incredibly inspirational video and gives you some great ideas to build your brand when you’ve been laid off — and I’ll add when you’re not. You should always be building your personal brand.

Building a Brand/Brand Evangelism

• Checklist: Develop a Successful Advocacy Program (Web Strategist): Jeremiah covers some of the other aspects of a brand ambassador program, detailing the nuances and the like.
• 19 Presence Management Chores You Could Do Every Day (Chris Brogan): Chris Brogan shows how you can be involved in the conversations around you — tangibly.
• What Do You Love? (Cranial Soup): This article is about marketing coming from the perspective of the consumer. Consumers have a duty to market their favorite products or risk losing them from store shelves. Marketers should do this for their favorite products for free. I would. (Call it brand evangelism if you will.)
• How to Create Advocates for Your Business (Logic+Emotion): Brand evangelism. Customer Advocacy. It’s all the same. Now how do you actually get there?

Public Relations

• The State of PR, Marketing, and Communications: You are the Future (Brian Solis): This is the longest “blog post” in the history of the world but it is one of the most brilliant things I have read in all of 2009.
• PR Gone Bad: How to Anger Bloggers and Hose Your Client (Jonathan Fields): This story by Jonathan was so good that I even wrote a story about it which was published to Brian Solis’s blog as well.
• Shift Your PR from Push to Pull (The Future Buzz): Why should you move to a pull PR strategy? Adam Singer gives you the lowdown.
• 3 Steps for Effectively Using Social Media for PR (Online Marketing Blog): Social is everywhere, and you can use it in your public relations efforts. In fact, you really should.
• 25 Questions to Ask Before Hiring a PR Firm (Idea Grove): These questions test competency, prioritization, cost-efficiency, and compatibility.
• How to Use Social Media in Your PR Pitch (Mashable): Interaction is key, according to Susan Payton.
• The Art of the Pitch (Jonathan Volk): Want to pitch a busy blogger? Follow these steps. This is a short read with good insights.
• How to Woo a Blogger (and get coverage) (Outspoken Media): This is an excellent guidebook into what you should to in order to get a blogger to talk about you.  If the proposed content fits the blogger’s audience and you follow these rules, you very well may see more mentions of your clients’ products/services in blog posts.
• How to Write Effective Press Releases in the Age of Twitter (OPEN Forum): It’s not really just the “age of Twitter” – it’s the “age of social.” That said, where’s your multimedia? Is it in your pitch?
• A Poor Man’s Guide to Finding Influencers (The Buzz Bin): If you’re not going to buy a Cision subscription to find the bloggers and people interested in talking about you, try this guide to get you to locating who to reach out to.

Community Management/Engagement

• 5 Myths of Community Management (Altitude Branding): This is a great post on what a community manager REALLY does. Newsflash: it’s not only about walking the halls of social media sites.
• Community Manager Responsibilities and Goals (Connie Bensen): Connie writes a great post about community management (revised from July 2008).
• Social Media Community Manager Job Description (aimClear): Here’s an “official description” for a social media community manager.
• Community Engagement (The Buzz Bin): Geoff Livingston talks about engagement as discussed in his book, Now is Gone, and how it has evolved in the last 1.5 years.
• How to Kick Start a Community: An Ongoing List (Web Strategist): Jeremiah suggests some great ways to build a real online community in your little neck of the woods.
• 10 Rules for Increasing Community Engagement (Mashable): A big point that Leah Betancourt makes here is the emphasis on user generated content (UGC). Other important points are identifying and nurturing power users and welcoming newbies.

General Online Marketing

• Definitive Guide to Word of Mouth Marketing (Samir Balwani): Samir Balwani writes an awesome guide on word of mouth marketing, broken down and categorized into sections (why it’s important, elements of WOMM, web influence, what elements facilitate sharing, campaign tracking, and more!)
• How to Send a Personal Email (Seth Godin): Seth Godin writes about email etiquette. My favorite? #14 (especially due to all the LinkedIn spammers who have been targeting me as of late).
• 6 Powerful Principles of Persuasion for Influential Internet Marketing (Winning the Web): In a post emphasizing the parallels of the book “Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion” by Robert Cialdini, Gyutae Park applies these principles to Internet Marketing and explains why you need to apply them in any online marketing campaign.
• 6 Buzzworthy Laws All Internet Marketers Should Understand (The Future Buzz): Do you know what the long tail means? Probably. How about Metcalfe’s Law or The Streisand Effect?
• 11 Ways to Influence People Online and Make Them Take Action (Dosh Dosh): If you’re marketing to individuals online, you should target your messaging to the three brains of the human body. Don’t understand what I just said? Read the article.
• 6 Fool-Proof Steps to Make More Money With Your Website (Dosh Dosh): Dosh Dosh wrote another great article on how to monetize your most popular web pages. This is great for anyone, from the affiliate marketer to the SEO to the small online shop.
• “Don’t Put Your Eggs in One Basket” is Bad Advice for Internet Marketers (Winning the Web): While I argue that you must not spread yourself too thin, I actually am going to take Gyutae’s advice on this one.
• 3 Reasons Why it Pays to Go Niche (Literally) (Winning the Web): Gyutae Park explains that some markets are saturated. You’ll be more successful if you focus on niche markets instead. (Good luck starting a brand new social media blog tomorrow!)
• 11 Internet Marketing Skills that Should be Second Nature (Conversation Marketing): Are you well versed in internet marketing? Being knowledgeable in social media doesn’t cut it. You should also know these 11 tips as suggested by Ian Lurie.
• Social Impacts Every Customer Touchpoint (Web Strategist): This article touches upon the different elements of online advertising (and then some) and highlights market maturity and brand impact.
• Internet Marketing Isn’t a Buffet: Why You Need Quality Traffic Over Quantity (Winning the Web): Quality is more important than quantity, and Gyutae explains why this is the case.
• 10 Things You Can Do in the Next 60 Days to Market Your Business and Close More Sales (Small Business Trends): This article was talking about how to end 2009, but since you’re probably reading it for the first time now, how about using these to begin 2010?

Everything Else Under the Sun

• Being Socially Aware: Because a Smile and Fast Talk Don’t Work on the Internet (ob81): For a successful marketing effort, the bottom line, according to Howard O’Berry, is that you need to be socially aware of your surroundings and know who to pitch to. He even refers to a case study that impacted him to drive this point home.
• 12 Steps to Upgrade Your Business (Small Business Trends): Here are some great ideas to upgrade your business, from being more approachable to learning a new web technology to NETWORKING! woo!
• Rage Against the Sales Letter (Jonathan Fields): The long sales letter is a tactic that you may not really appreciate, but some marketers swear by it. Read why Jonathan Fields considers long copy a must-have.
• Business Ethics & Mistakes You Should Avoid! (Tony Adam): Tony Adam explores some business ethics moves that you should avoid. Some include reporting your competitors, burning bridges, and more.
• Your Customers’ Hierarchy of Need (Ignite Social Media): Ignite Social Media writes a great post on how customers relate to brands using Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.
• How to Identify and Deal with Different Types of Clients (Smashing Magazine): If you’ve ever had a nitpicker or family friend as a client, what are you to do when issues arise? Smashing Magazine has your answer.
• 9 Reasons Your Online Business Will Fail (Shoemoney): Discipline and focus are two of the nine reasons.

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Closing Notes

The year 2009 was incredibly huge for me. I gave birth to my first child, a little boy, who is my pride and joy. I published a social media marketing book. I’ve made great relationships, big and small, and I’ve worked on some fantastic projects that I could have only dreamed of just a few years ago.

In the past decade, I’ve graduated college, married the love of my life, switched careers to find my passion, and now I live through it every day. Every morning, I wake up excited to see what the day will bring. I’m aiming higher for the next 10 years — let’s see if I can top this. I’m truly excited to see what next year will bring.

May you all have a happy, successful, and wonderful 2010.

[ Best Internet Marketing Posts of 2009 is a post written by Tamar Weinberg. ]

Read more about The New Community Rules: Marketing on the Social Web, a primer to social media marketing. Or you can subscribe to the Techipedia RSS feed.

Sometimes you can’t tell the difference between a marketer and a blogger. A blogger might say that he wants to write for a specific publication, sending emails and instant messages asking, “Hey, I really like that you write for this publication. Can you get me a job too?” Marketing type folk, especially those representing a company’s service or product offerings, turn to blogs and ask to be mentioned in the blog. In both cases, the blogger and marketer will approach you when the timing is right for them and take advantage of these channels when they need to.

I don’t expect marketers or bloggers to have been reading specific blogs forever, but they should know about the blog’s culture before promoting themselves. There’s a pervasive theme that resonates with 99% of these email or IM requests: I expect marketers and bloggers to do a little more due diligence before they come pitching their product or themselves to a specific blog. In a nutshell, they should show that they know what the blog is about, and if they’re really looking for coverage or acknowledgments, they should be visible.

What does this mean? At the minimum, show that you’re genuinely interested in the blog and what is being discussed. Study those blogs to grasp the blog’s culture and why (or what criteria is used) to cover a specific product or service. Some blogs cover software only by being voted upon by the user, for example, and your press release won’t even fly for that category. Some blogs cover startups that meet a specific set of criteria. In general, if you send irrelevant pitches, your messaging isn’t going to go very far. And if you actually know and respect the blog you’re pitching to, it is in your best interest to follow that blog, its messaging, and the key players so that you know what kind of message to craft (does it fit their audience? If so, what is the existing post on site that made you think so?) and who the people are that are reading those messages.

Instead of emailing a blogger to include your company’s service in a specific blog post that has already been in the public arena for three years, comment on the post. Comment on other posts too, showing that you’re interested in the blog’s content. Let people know you exist. If the post does not allow commenting, send a relevant press release to the editorial team showing that you have done your research and understand what the blog is looking for. Don’t expect a blogger to change his posts from the past. Your service that launched in 2009 does not fit in a post that was written in 2006. You can’t alter history.

A few years ago, I had a friend who asked me about a possible guest blogging stint on a high profile blog. The problem: he was not at all active on the high profile blog and hadn’t written a single comment. Perhaps he was reading, but was he actually investing time or energy into the site itself but still wanted to write for the blog. With a readership on that blog in the millions and commenters in the thousands, there was no way he was going to stand out above the crowd.

The thing is: it’s not about you. It’s about us. It’s about growing our blog. Your visibility might be just a part of that. But if you haven’t participated and haven’t put in any effort to grow the blog, why should we be receptive to your pitch when it’s convenient for you? What about benefiting the blog you hope to be featured on? Wouldn’t you want to help it grow too?

If you genuinely believe that there are specific blogs that you want to involve yourself in or that your company should be featured in, you need to spend more than 5 minutes crafting a pitch as to why you or your company is good enough for the job. You actually need to involve yourself in the blog’s community, commenting and showing that at the minimum, you have a long term invested interest in the blog’s success, and not only when it’s beneficial for you.

In the real world, networking in person can also help. Go to trade show events or nighttime meetups. Don’t ignore the opportunities to leave a memorable impression on the bloggers who will talk about you. If they actually know you exist and see you’ve made the effort to haul yourself to an event where they’re present, they’ll keep that in mind when composing a piece about your software or startup or whatever other product you have to offer.

This is actually a lesson many marketers can benefit from in general. If you haven’t yet swam in the social media waters, it’s about time that you start. Even if everything is hunky dory at your company, it’s not in your best interest to wait until catastrophe strikes to immerse yourself in the vast ocean. Social media is all about community, and that community exists whether you need them or not. Why not get acquainted with the community now and before it’s too late? When it’s convenient for you to dig in, it might not be convenient for them. They might already be trash-talking you. Is it really in your best interest to do it then?

The point of this story is that it’s best to understand your surroundings: the communities, the blogs, the people, and to do this proactively. This is a process that needs to happen continually, or you should at least give the perception that you’re putting your heart into it. If you craft the right pitch and invest in the growth of the community over time, you’ll find that it’s really easy to get those job opportunities or blog mentions you’re seeking. And you’ll soon realize that it’s not such hard work after all.

[ The Blogger and Marketer’s Cheat Sheet to Getting High Profile Jobs and Blog Mentions is a post written by Tamar Weinberg. ]

Read more about The New Community Rules: Marketing on the Social Web, a primer to social media marketing. Or you can subscribe to the Techipedia RSS feed.