To recap ideas 1-3:

1. Find your muse
2. Control environmental factors
3. Clear your must-do’s

Now on to the rest!

4. Write in Bursts

I’ve already admitted that I’m an extrovert and you probably assume this means I’m a social butterfly. I am when I’m in a small, intimate group, but online–communication is super hard! Extroverts recognize that what we say is often fleeting, because we’re thinking through our problems aloud. By contrast, an introvert knows exactly what they want to say and it’s why I believe introverts thrive in social media and on blogs. They’re thoughtful and well-spoken whereas I waffle and question how you’re going to interpret each word. It scares me that someone might not understand the message I’m trying to convey. So I write and I rewrite until I have seven pages that could equal six blog posts, but I can’t commit to any of them. Holy productivity freeze Batman!

You know what helps? Write in bursts.

Get your idea down and walk away. Come back and create your outline then walk away. Finish that bullet and walk away. Finish the first draft and walk away. You get the picture.

Do this at each phase of the blogging process and you will get through it. Trust me. It took three weeks, but this post finally came together through small, deadline-driven sprints. This is so important if you’re an extrovert, because there’s a very real chance that you won’t like (or even agree with) your first draft. Brainstorm, outline, draft, completion. Write in bursts and you’ll feel far more inspired to finally write for that blog!

5. Start Offline

If you start typing online, you’re going to have distractions–IMs, Facebook messages, Google+ notifications, email alerts, etc. Disconnect. Your brain will thank you. Here’s what the first draft of this post looked like:

It’s messy and yet super productive. I’m a visual learner and I need the full picture in front of me, so it helped to visualize how the pieces fit together. What’s your creative process like? Do you have meticulously perfect handwriting in a Moleskine notebook? Do you whiteboard your ideas or use flashcards? Whatever your process, do it without interruption:

6. Collect Ideas

Create a database of ideas. This can be cloud-hosted on something like Pinterest or Evernote, saved on your desktop, saved in a notepad on your phone, or a physical folder of ideas.

Wherever you set it up, store your ideas by topic. You’ll start to see the trends emerge. What do you love writing about? Maybe there’s a bigger idea and analysis forming from the things that inspire you. Maybe it’s just going to be inspiration to see everything in one place and know that you are awesome, because you came up with those! Most important, when you’re struggling for a topic, you have a place to turn to versus trying to rack your brain the day a post is due.

Here are two useful, but lesser known sites that can make it simple and fun to organize your blog ideas for later.

Springpad

Use Springpad as an idea repository. It’s like Pinterest, but with sharing capabilities, which makes it ten times cooler in my world:

Instapaper

Use Instapaper to store and categorize articles/posts for future reading:

TIP: Get news delivered to your door!
If you hate forgetting to refresh apps before you hop on the subway or take off for a cross country flight (you know, the most convenient times to actually think about blogging!) then take note–Instapaper and News.me (mentioned later) both offer geofencing. This means that once you add specific locations like “home” and “work,” whenever you leave those areas, the app will automatically refresh. Now your latest news is saved for future reading in case you drop out of service. Yeah, that’s cool.

Other apps worth taking a look at: Pocket, Diigo, and Pinboard (“The introvert’s Pinterest”).

7. Automate News Discovery

You know why it’s really difficult to write a blog post?

Because we have nothing new to write about!

It’s time to fix that. Get off your butt and read the news. Those who blog the most typically consume a large amount of news and content from other bloggers. Why? They get that if they want something to say, they have to know what’s going on in their industry.

“But Rhea, I don’t have time to read the news everyday!”

I get it! I feel the same way. So, let’s be smart about this. Automate news discovery and it will be much easier to consume the news that is relevant to you. It’s easy enough to set up Google Alerts, but those are also a little buggy and cumbersome. There’s also RSS, but it’s dying. Instead, check out the following:

Twitter Summary Emails

Recently, Twitter released summary emails. These include popular tweets from users, as well as, popular links shared by your network:

News.me

If you have an iPhone, News.me is my favorite personalized social news app. There are some great features within the app and I get a daily email summary that looks like this:

SEO Gadget’s Content Strategy Generator

This tool has been mentioned before specifically for generating content ideas. Use the SEO Gadget tool for news discovery as well:

Customize News Apps

Create alerts through the individual news apps for industry-specific topics like “Google:”

Wikipedia

Did you know that Wikipedia has a daily news summary? Yeah, they do. It’s a super short snapshot of everything major that happened in the world on that day (turn your CNN alerts off:

8. Crowdsource Topics

In the early creation of this post, I asked Twitter to tell me how they get their news. They had some fantastic suggestions and I know that when I really need help, my tweeple are there for me whether it’s fashion advice or filtering ISAPI rewrites. Hat tip to Chris Winfield for really pioneering this in the early days of SEOs on Twitter:

@rhea Relying on pulse.me more, but still use RSS reader and Twitter.

— amy mengel (@amymengel) July 4, 2012

@rhea Blogs.

— Angelos Tzelepis (@AngelosTzelepis) July 4, 2012

@rhea Twitter and NY Times app for news

— Matthew T. Grant (@MattTGrant) July 4, 2012

@rhea G+ now =) twitter is google integrated.. =)

— dj ʎǝlsıɐd ɐqǝoɯɐ(@djpaisley) July 4, 2012

@rhea It was Storify, which I miss dearly. Now I sort peeps into Twitter lists, and most recently started using strawberryj.am

— Lauren Hall-Stigerts (@lstigerts) July 4, 2012

@rhea – I have a reader but pretty much get everything from Twitter.

— Casie Gillette (@Casieg) July 4, 2012

@rhea twitter. It’s my new best friend.

— Mackenzie Fogelson (@mackfogelson) July 4, 2012

9. Gain a New Perspective

One of the biggest challenges to blog inspiration is simply feeling inspired enough to write. We’re people–HUMAN BEINGS! Get out and live your life and you will find inspiration. My most inspirational moments don’t come from sitting on my ball chair staring at a computer screen. They come from living and hearing stories from others.

Watch a TED talk:

Read an amazing book:

Head to your local cafe with a fresh Moleskine notebook and your thoughts:

Jump into someone else’s mind (like Wil Reynold’s):

There are three more blog inspiration tips, but with everything mentioned above, I want you to start playing with these first. Seriously, do just one of these and let me know how it goes. I’ll release the final tips (and they’re good!) when I feel like you’re ready for them. ;)

Why is that?

My most common reason excuse for not blogging is that I’m too busy. While I am busy, I’m not too busy to love and invest in the growth of this company, the team, our clients, and you, our community. The truth is I usually just don’t know what there is to say, have the ability to share it (client NDAs), or know how to say it. I know the value blogging brings to our business. But the self-defeating noise in my brain whenever I sit down to type a blog post can be paralyzing.

Maybe I’m alone in that, but I’m pretty sure my problem isn’t unique. I also believe bigger issues are at play.

Years ago I learned that when I feel anxious, it’s usually because I haven’t thought through something, and if I took the time to sit down and truly think through various strategies, I felt calmer. I knew what the options were even if I didn’t always know the outcome—I’d mapped my way to a clearer mind. I think blogging is the same way. We want to feel inspired to blog as if it comes out of this magical land in our brains, and a post will suddenly materialize if we just sit around long enough.

Guess what? We have to work at inspiration just like we do anything else. And, I think the reasons we usually don’t feel inspired to blog are because we don’t:

…know who our audience is.
…see what we bring to the table.
…understand the business case for blogging.
…believe in the company or blog’s vision.
…look beyond our incestuous little networks.

Over the next four weeks, on each Friday, I will share three strategies that can help you find blog inspiration. Hopefully, in breaking these up, you will be able to apply them in real-time and see results. Please let me know if you do!

I want to know if this is useful, because as much as I need inspiration, my entire team does, our clients do, and I’m sure you could always use a little more. We don’t have to be master wordsmiths, technical geniuses, analytical gurus, or incredible wits to write something strong. We just have to recognize what we know and the unique experiences we’ve had. Our personalities and perspectives take those and weave them into something that will appeal to a reader. The right reader—the one who will relate to you.

So, take a minute to skim the following and let me know if you feel inspired. I found my inspiration in the research and writing of this post. In sharing the topic with someone, they told me nothing I’ve shared here is rocket science, but at the same time, there was one morsel that struck them on such a personal level that they’ve altered how they manage their daily work. I hope these tips can help you as well, even if in the smallest way.

1. Find Your Muse

Sometimes it’s difficult to find blog inspiration because we don’t know who we’re talking to (or marketing to). In those moments, we can turn to data to paint a demographic or psychographic picture of our target market, but there’s still something very inhuman about the results.

Knowing our audience might be 30- to 40-year-old professionals with an average income of $80,000 who consider themselves foodies does not give them a face. You may as well put them on a conveyor belt à la Pink Floyd’s The Wall. Crunching big data sounds sexy and can be vital to our business decisions, but I don’t expect a writer to be inspired to write for the faceless masses. I know I wouldn’t feel inspired.

How do we solve the most basic hurdle to inspiration—finding our muse?

Debbie Weil quoted Warren Buffet in The Corporate Blogging Book when discussing the need to write well and be conversational. Here are Warren’s words:

“Write with a specific person in mind. When writing Berkshire Hathaway’s annual report, I pretend that I’m talking to my sisters. I have no trouble picturing them: Though highly intelligent, they are not experts in accounting or finance. They will understand plain English, but jargon may puzzle them. My goal is simply to give them the information I would wish them to supply me if our positions were reversed. To succeed, I don’t need to be Shakespeare; I must, though, have a sincere desire to inform.”

My takeaway from Warren’s words was that I needed a muse, not to improve my writing style, but to simply feel inspired enough to put words into this blog post. This got me thinking. Who am I motivated by? Who do I respect so much that I would want to write to them? Who do I know that’s smart, but in a different field?

I’m a Daddy’s girl, so the answer was as clear as day. My father is where my motivation comes from. More than any potential client, industry expert, or monetary goal, I am inspired to succeed because of my father. This intrinsic motivation is stronger than any target market data can define, so, from now on, no matter how technical the post may be, I know who I’m writing to. I have a face and a name, and if the content strikes a chord with you, I’m thrilled, but I’m not going to be offended if it doesn’t appeal to everyone, because it will appeal to my hero even when I’m talking about something as mundane as SEO strategy.

In our industries (mostly marketing and search), I think that most of us struggle with our muse because we’re trying to write for potential clients, while also keeping existing clients in mind, as well as our coworkers, our industry peers, experts we respect, and then there’s this unknown mass of people on social networks who may or may not share what we write. There’s pressure to say something original, insightful, humorous or controversial. We don’t allow ourselves to just write for the sake of writing. We want to be great! We want to break the story. We want to be better than some other arbitrary voice or blog. Stop seeking external validation and challenge yourself. Find your muse and it will be a much easier and more enjoyable challenge.

Do you have a muse? If not, who do you write for?

2. Control Environmental Factors

Exercise

Exercise isn’t just a mental break from our technology loops, it’s a positive drug for our brains. Exercise improves cognition, memory, and mood. Writing when we feel physically, emotionally, and mentally tapped can feel like trying to run a marathon without any training. However, if you go run a marathon, it may be easier to write that blog post!

Get off your butt and go for a walk outside to stimulate your senses, hit a local trail, go for a swim, or organize an impromptu office dance party. Whatever you do, break a sweat and have fun doing it. Also, make sure you read the exercise equipment instructions—I’ve been told that this is not how I should use my ball chair.

Regulate Your Body

In addition to exercise, other physical factors make it difficult to find blog inspiration if we don’t regulate them—food and sleep. These are among the most fundamental human needs, and yet how often do we give our bodies the right amounts of either to keep us not just fueled, but energized?

Respect your body! Seriously. It drives me insane when I see people (cough, me included, cough) ignoring their own health for the sake of work. Nothing is worth that, trust me. Be healthy, and you will find it much easier to not just get inspired, but to stay awake while writing your blog posts. This extends to anything you do, not just blog inspiration. Eating healthy and getting sufficient sleep means you won’t have painful sleep deprivation headaches, zombie eyes, or over-caffeinated shaky-mouse syndrome (technical name?).

I get it though—life is hard. Sleep is for wimps. You’re more driven than anyone else because you only sleep three hours a night. You can pull a 19-hour day! OMFG I am a WORK GOD! Calm down. You’re going to die entirely too soon. Maybe that’s the cusp of my 30th birthday talking, but this year has been about resetting my priorities. As a result, I am a more confident, fresh, and rested writer.

Set the Mood

Feeling inspired to blog doesn’t happen very often for the majority of us, especially if we’re trying to do it during work hours or in the middle of a busy household. Constant distractions from well-intentioned coworkers, family, pets, and repetitive noises from virtually anything (maybe that’s just me) make it impossible to concentrate. To truly feel inspired to blog, you have to find the environment that works best for you.

Not sure what that looks like? Here are some questions to guide you:

• Is it difficult or easier to blog with music playing?
• Is it difficult or easier to blog when listening to music with words?
• Is it difficult or easier to blog when there are others in the same room?
• Is it difficult or easier to blog when I’m in a public location like a café?
• Is it difficult or easier to blog in the morning?
• Is it difficult or easier to blog in the evening?
• Is it difficult or easier to blog outdoors?
• Is it difficult or easier to blog with a glass of wine in my hand? (ok, maybe this one is just me)

Take your answers and schedule a date with yourself that will meet those environmental factors. Pair those with a good night’s rest, a healthy meal prior, and some exercise, and you will find your blog inspiration. Here was my setting for writing the first part of this series:

3. Clear Your Must-Do’s

If you’re anything like me, you will never be inspired to blog as long as there is a laundry list of must-do’s hanging over your head. The problem is—there are always things to do!

Hi, my name is Rhea and I am a workaholic. Yes, I know that I just went on a rant above about people who work too much and don’t take care of themselves, but that’s me. I am a self-aware hypocrite and I’m working on it. That’s the human condition, right? Trying to better ourselves.

Getting back to that list of to-do’s, how do you ever give yourself PERMISSION to blog?

• Step away from the computer. Seriously, do not look at the computer.
• Turn off the sound, so you won’t get pinged by alerts and turn your phone upside down so you won’t see alerts flash on the screen.
• Now sit down for ten minutes with a pad of paper and pen and write out all of your must-do’s for today. This may be a long list or short. Frankly, I’m in a position as the CEO of Outspoken Media where I will never get through my day, because there will always be just one forty more things I can and should be doing. You may or may not be the CEO of a company, but I guarantee that you have things weighing on you right now that are making you feel guilty for not doing them. Jot those down.
• Now prioritize those to-do’s. What MUST get done today? Tomorrow? This week? Next week? Bucket your to-do’s into these deadlines.
• Now ignore everything but the today stuff. Take that list and determine if you honestly have time in your day to tackle those. If you do, get back to your computer and do them as quickly and intelligently as possible.

Once you’re done with them, you will feel a huge weight lift off of your brain because you now feel accomplished, and you have given yourself permission to spend the rest of your time blogging. Everything else can be done tomorrow, later this week or next week—you already told yourself that so don’t go tricking yourself into doing something else to get ahead. Spend this time brainstorming a blog topic, drafting a blog post, or reviewing the pile of half-finished posts you’ve been accruing for months.

Those are the first three strategies for finding blog inspiration! Check back each Friday for the next four weeks, and I’ll have three more tips. Some are technical and crazy, but the aforementioned are the simplest and most important. Have a muse, control your environmental and give yourself permission to blog by clearing today’s must-do’s.

Good luck and please share your inspirations!

So where are these fast-moving companies moving to? Shinier pastures, of course.

• 74 percent of companies are maintaining a Facebook page
• 73 percent are using LinkedIn.
• 64 percent are using Twitter

Naturally, much of the blogosphere took the headline of the UMass report and ran with it all the way to the linkbait bank.

Is blogging really plummeting? Probably not.
Is it declining slightly? Maybe. People have more options.

And if it is declining, let it. You hear me? Let your blog be the last blog standing because while sites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn may be effective and sexy all in their own right, they don’t hold a candle to the sexiness and superpowers possessed by your blog.

Don’t believe me?

Below are just ten things your BLOG can do that your FACEBOOK (or Twitter. Or LinkedIn. Or other social networking sites) cannot.

1. Stand as your social media hub

Regardless of what you do elsewhere in social media, your blog is your home base. It’s the hub of all your other social interaction because it’s the one place on the Web that you own, that you can control the context, and that you can use to get out your complete message. Yes, engage on Twitter, on LinkedIn, on Facebook, and wherever else your audience is hanging out online. But when you’re done chatting with them on these satellite networks, make sure you’re directing them back to your blog to finish their transaction (even if it’s an information transaction) with you. All of your other activity should point back to the one social media portal your own – your corporate blog. If you’re not directing your social media relationships back here, you’re wasting your time.

2. Acts as a central knowledge repository

Your corporate blog gives you the opportunity to answer your customer’s most common questions, concerns, issues, fears, hopes, and dreams and then call on that information when someone else asks the same question three weeks later. It creates a central knowledge repository that you can direct people to – whether it’s to answer a question, show expertise, or give a client more insight into what you offer. Having this information on your site makes you a resource of knowledge and it gives prospective customers something to read and look at when they’re evaluating vendors, long before they ever call you or get in touch.

3. Gives you room to establish expertise

You know what’s really difficult to do? Have an intelligent, in-depth conversation on Twitter. Either you end up fragmenting your messages between five different tweets or you start typing like a tween, ignoring proper spelling and punctuation like it’s a Justin Bieber song. It’s not always easy to go in-depth on social channels, but your blog opens up that opportunity. You have all the room you need to dig into an issue from all different angles, share stories, give insight, and make your case.

4. Blogging improves how you speak to customers

Blogging is great practice for learning how to talk to your customers in THEIR language and in how to refer to your products/services the same way they do. It improves your communication skills with customers by re-introducing you to their language. That language you stopped using when you became such a skillful expert. It also keeps you forever exposed to their pain points, their issues, who they want to be like, what they’re looking for, etc. Once you know these things you can address them in your marketing to your customers. By being an SMB who blogs you become an SMB who understand how to communicate with the people they’re trying to reach.

5. Helps you reach a larger audience

There isn’t a week that goes by that a new friend I haven’t met yet emails me in response to someone in our community forwarded them a post we’ve written (thanks for that, BTW). It happens all the time and you probably wouldn’t expect it. But blog content is easily shareable. We share it on Twitter, we share it to the company intranet, we share it with friends who we think may find the information helpful. And when your blog content is shared, your audience increases. It helps to cast that net wider than it would naturally be on its own. Do people share Tweets and Facebook photos? Yeah, they do. But they don’t have the staying power that a full blog post does in terms of making an impact and creating trust.

6. Is something you own, control and have a say in

Let’s a play game for a second, yes?

Imagine you’re kind of a big deal. Got that picture ready? I’m sure you do. Okay, now because you’re a big deal, you have not only own a house in Santa Monica, CA but you rent a crash pad apartment in New York City. Now which one are you going to spend time renovating, getting attached to, and giving out the address for? If you’re smart, you’ll focus most of your energy on the house. Because you own the house and you know that someone won’t be coming out of the woodwork in six months to take it away from you. It’s the same thing when we’re talking about your blog and Facebook.

You own your blog. You do not own Facebook. So while it may be beneficial to your company to rent a Facebook presence, you absolutely need to build the infrastructure for your Forever Home. This is the place where you’ll be able to build a family, weather hard storms, and rearrange to your liking so that your guests are cozy. The other sites? Not so much. In a few months Facebook’s going to go public. Then what? You have no idea. But you do know what will happen to your blog in a few months because you’re the one steering the ship.

7. Contributes to additional search engine rankings

Why do so many SEOs and social media companies encourage businesses to create blogs? It’s not because we enjoy watching you pull your hair out trying to come up with at daily content. It’s because having a b log allows business owners to focus on creating keyword-rich content that attracts links, sharing and search engine rankings. You’re probably not going to get your Twitter account to rank for your industry’s money terms. However, through strategic content development, you can get your blog to rank for it. And in the battle of search dominance, that’s what matters when it comes to increasing conversions.

8. Gives you centralized content

You’re producing blog post. You’re creating photos. You’re putting together infographics. You’re make videos. You’re uploading presentations to SlideShare. Your brand is now associated with a virual menagerie of content. Wouldn’t it be nice if you had one central place where you could post about it all to make it findable to your customers?
Oh, wait? There is one central place. It’s called your blog. Use it.

9. Is a link magnet

When you say something smart on your blog, people are going to link to your site and talk about you. When you say something dumb on your blog, people are also going to link to your site and talk about you. These links then help increase your site’s overall authority, earn you higher rankings, and help people to find your site when they’re looking for the types of information that you offer. When you say something smart on Facebook, people are going to Like the status update. And then move on. Not nearly the same effect.

10. Is measureable

Your blog is attached to your analytics. That means if anyone does anything on your site, you’re going to know about it. You’re going to know where people are visitng your blog from, how they got there, who sent them there, how long they stayed, where they left, and a host of other information you can’t get from a social media site that you do not own. With data and metrics comes the opportunity to make improvements and work in the light instead of the pitch dark.

Is it true that corporate blogs are dying? I don’t believe so. But if they were. Awesome. Let everyone else leave. It just makes your voice and footprint louder.

When I’m creating recommendations for those blogs, below are a few of the features I keep an eye out for. While there’s obviously way more things that go into constructing a great blog, the ones mentioned below have a high bang-for-the-buck ratio.

1. A Prominent Subscribe Button

I mean, it makes sense to start here, right? If you’re spending time to create a blog, you’re doing so because you want people to find, share and love the content that you’re putting out. For that to happen, people need to know that new context exists. One of the easiest ways to provide this information is by encouraging readers to subscribe to your blog via a prominent call to action. Do not hide that thing at the bottom of your page. Put it front and center so that people trip over it when they land on your site.

And don’t be a discriminating jerk – make sure you’re also allowing people the option to subscribe via email. Not everyone lives inside their RSS reader. Some people can’t even spell RSS.  I like how Jay Baer does it over at Convince & Convert.

2. Links To Your Other Social Profiles

Like most girls my age, I am a very good stalker. I can find information about you online that would make your poor mother weep. But all the same, why make me work for it? Right below your icon to Subscribe, I want to see all the different ways I can find you in social media. I want your Twitter, your Facebook, your LinkedIn, your YouTube, and whatever other social profiles you want to hawk. And I want it easily visible and accessible. If you’re active somewhere, I want to see it. Just because I can find it on my own, doesn’t mean you should make me. The more ways we can hook up, the better.

For example, I muchly appreciate it when people like Erika Napoletano not only give me the stalking materials I need, but they don’t judge me for it.

3. Post-Level Social Sharing Icons

Don’t forget to include the sharing options on the post-level, as well. You don’t need to include a link to every site you have a presence on, but take a look at your analytics and see which sites you get traffic from and where your community is already hanging out. These are the icons you’ll want to include so that readers can submit and share your content while they’re deep inside it.

For example, if you’re blogging about killer handbags (like cool ones, not ones that murder people…) you want to add a Twitter button, the option to share on Facebook, to pin it on Pinterest, etc. Don’t NASCAR things up, but do pick the ones that make sense for your community. Sharing starts post-level.

4. Category Pages

No one is reading through your archives by date. It’s not a natural search function to spend a couple minutes (hours?) checking out what your favorite blog had to say in March of 2007. It’s a lot more likely that someone will be interested in checking out everything you’ve posted about online reputation management. Or zebras. Or the benefits of self-publishing. We search by topic. We do it by category. Why not get more from your archives and build out category pages to search as topic-specific landing pages?

If you’ve spent much time browsing the Outspoken Media blog, you may already know we use Thesis to create user-friendly category pages. If you’ve never peaked, here’s a snapshot of our blogging category lander:

From a user standpoint, they help introduce a topic, provider resources, and list out everything we have to offer on that subject. Of course, from a search standpoint, they give us something else to build links to and help rank. And people seem to like them.

5. Popular/Most Recent Posts Displayed

It doesn’t matter to me whether you choose to display your most popular posts, your most recent posts, the posts with the most active comment discussions or just a series of random posts you came up while sleeping – I just want to see that you’re giving users something. I want to have instant access to a life point on your site. Somewhere I can go to get a taste of what you have to offer and posts that others have found valuable. It gives me a taste of what you’re about, what riles up your community, and a reason to want to get to know you better. It also immediately inserts me into your site’s conversation. Once I get in, I may never leave. You do want to keep people on your site for longer, yes?

6. Feature Box

You’re always up to something, aren’t you? Whether it’s a new eBook, a new training series, a new list of events you’re getting ready to attend – there’s always stuff going on that you want to highlight. Creating a feature box where you’re able to call attention to these types of things can be really effective.

Chris Garrett does it in the form of a “free gift”

But it doesn’t have to be a gift or free. Selling something? Let it spend some time prominently featured on your blog. We like it when you give us a little tease.

7. Thanks For Commenting Pages

Do I often come across this? No. Which is why YOU SHOULD DO IT! I’ve written about how we use our Thanks for Commenting page to shock and awe people and the truth is, it really does. It’s such a simple, simple thing and it drives people bananas with gratitude that we’ve taken the time to acknowledge them and say hello.

Like I said, the blog audits we produce for clients are obviously far more in-depth than this quick rundown, but the above are all features that will give business bloggers some quick bang for their buck.

• Stage 1: I love dogs! OMG, do I love dogs! If only there was a Web community to connect with others who love dogs. I’ll start one!
• Stage 2: Must. Get. Word out about my new dog community. Must host many constructive/ intelligent conversations, unlike those OTHER sites about dogs where users just howl and whine. We will be different. TELL YOUR FRIENDS! Send everyone!
• Stage 3: Dude, people are joining! Operation: Let’s Talk About Dogs is becoming a success! I am so smart! Floodgates open!
• Stage 4: People really are talking about dogs! They love dogs! They love my site! Community rules!
• Stage 5: People are talking about EVERYTHING, not just dogs! YEY! Harmony! Bliss! UNICORN FAIRY!
• Stage 6: Hmm. People…people are starting to fight. It’s okay, just some light infighting. Established users are being territorial and new users are snarky. It’ll sort itself out.
• Stage 7: Or…not. The fighting’s really bad now. Name-calling and stuff. I’m losing control of my comments.
• Stage 8: WHY WON’T EVERYONE STOP FIGHTING AND TALK ABOUT DOGS?
• Stage 9: :(
• Stage 10: Community For Sale. Reason? Community acts like animals.

But you don’t have to go down like that!

Sure, left unintended, your very well-intentioned Web community may end up becoming a haven for everything you hate – trolls, infighting and “your mom” nastiness – but you can set the tone early for the type of community you’re looking to build and to inspire the right kind of actions in your users. It just takes a little work. Actually, it takes a lot of work.

Start here.

1. Create & Enforce House Rules

I’m going to slaughter some bunnies here and just say it: Your community is not a free-for-all. This is your house and it belongs to you. And just like with any home, there are house rules. Rules that everyone is expected to follow or they can get the heck out.

Your job as moderator is to set the tone early for your community by creating your house rules, making them widely known, and then sticking to them even when it’s hard or you fear looking like the bad guy. Yes, the Constitution affords people the right to free speech, but no one said that free speech had to happen in the comments of YOUR blog. If you don’t want people talking to you like that (or to each other) tell them to stop. And if they don’t, show them the door.

Here are Outspoken’s rules of conduct. You break them, I have no problem kicking you out, deleting your comment, and tweeting bad things about you. It’s not like you haven’t been warned.

2. Show Your Face

The biggest detriment to trolls and general nastiness is to develop an active presence on your own site. Be there to respond to comments, to enforce your code of conduct, to help steer conversations, and to show people that throwing trash on your lawn will not be tolerated. Said simpler: Show up.

You created this community for a reason, right? Well then hang out there and make sure your vision is coming to life. No, you can’t control how your community grows, but you can sure as hell help it along. Be part of the conversations that are taking place. That’s what people want to see. They want to see you.

3. Encourage Established Members to Welcome N00bs

No one is more passionate about your community than those who got in on the ground floor. People who found you BEFORE you were even worth finding. Once you’re in Stage 3-4 and those new voices are coming in, reach out to your established members and ask if they’d help keep an eye out for new people and welcome them into the fold. Maybe even give them a fancy title or badge under their name when they comment for doing so. This will help established members to feel more invested in your growth, and it will also help newcomers to feel welcome and get the lay of the land faster. As a totally unintentional side effect it can also ward off New Baby Syndrome where established members ice out newcomers and purposely try to make them feel unwelcome. Not that that happens in Web communities.

Nope. Not at all. People are always very nice.

4. Encourage Dissent

If you’re not publishing content that takes a hard stand and forces people to reevaluate their beliefs, you should be. And when you do, encourage people to come and disagree with you. Let them know it’s okay for share a dissenting opinion. And don’t act like a douche when they do. Be a grown up. Have an intelligent debate and THANK THEM for coming all the way to your blog to tell you that you’re wrong. Because it’s a huge sign of respect. It’s a huge sign that people trust your community enough to call you out or to offer an opposing viewpoint. Because if they didn’t care they’d simply call you an idiot quietly and move on. Dissenters are necessary if you want to grow a healthy, non-koolaid-filled community. Love your dissenters. Email them privately to say thank you. You are nothing without them.

A community where everyone believes exactly the same thing isn’t really a community. It’s a cult. And those rarely end well.

5. Follow Where Your Community Takes You

It may be your forum but that doesn’t mean you’ll be the one always steering the ship. Sometimes it’s in your best interest to shut up and listen for a second.

• What do your community members want?
• Are they hacking your system to make it work better for them?
• Are they using your community in a way you didn’t expect?

If so, listen. Your audience will tell you exactly what it needs and what will improve the experience. When they do, adapt to that. Don’t isolate your community because you think you know best. Maybe you do…and maybe they’re right.

6. Don’t Allow Bullying

Yes, I know I already told you to enforce house rules, but I meant it. If you don’t want to see people infighting or acting like jerks, stop them when they do. The first time. Regardless of who it is that’s doing the bullying.

7. Encourage Member Communication

Want to grow a thriving community that will eventually outgrow its diapers? Don’t act like a helicopter mom. While, yes, you want to be active in your community and allow people to see you…you also want to give your community members room to get in the habit of helping one another. These kinds of actions are huge health indicators for your community and are behaviors that should be encouraged, so stop hovering. When someone in your community asks a question, don’t immediately jump in to respond. Tweet it out to your community or see if anyone naturally asserts themselves to answer it. You don’t always have to be Santa to your elves. You want community members to get in the habit of helping and supporting one another. Let them do it. Encourage them to do it.

We all start communities with the best of intentions. We want to be “better than” what’s out there and all the sites that came before us, however, many communities end up suffering the same fate. But you don’t have to let it. Stay active in your community, encourage members to support one another, and let people know what is and is not tolerated and you can grow a community that not only stands the test of time, but that creates something worthy raving about.

Don’t let the Internet win.

When you begin down the corporate blogging road, there are a few things you’ll have to quickly decide on. What kind of content will you publish? How will the blog help you attract leads? What in the world are you going to blog about all the time? But one the most important questions to ask is who will be doing the blogging – will it be a team (multi-author) or a specific person (single-author)?

What strategy will be most valuable to the business?

Ultimately, the type of blog you create will depend on what you’re trying to accomplish. However, here are some PROs and CONs to consider when deciding whether your corporate blogging strategy will build the blog or the blogger.

Single-Author Blogs

PROs

Personal connection: The power of the single-author blog comes from the strong personal connection the author is able to create with readers. When it’s a single voice people are hearing, they learn to trust it, to relate to it, and to recognize it. As the brand behind it, you benefit from that karma and from the star power that your blogger builds up. They become your public face. If you can position the person in the right way and they’re comfortable leading from that role, it can be a really powerful combination. Last month Ari Herzog asked do you read blogs or bloggers, which did a good job highlighting the power of these personal connections and how we start to recognize blogs by the people behind them.

Unified voice: Where many corporate blogs royally fall on their face is in their inability to develop a unified voice. A voice that speaks for the company, but also speaks to readers. When there’s a single author on the blog and that person has been handpicked for their voice, you start to develop a presence that is recognizable to your audience. This is what will keep them coming back and what brands your blog.

Total ownership: When there’s one person responsible for your blogs success, it helps keep them motivated and determined to make it a success. Because if the blog fails, then they failed. With multi-author blogs, it’s sometimes easy for to ignore that editorial calendar and start phoning in their efforts because no one feels responsible for the blog’s success.

CONs

Limited posting: When just one person at the wheel, it’s pretty impossible to think you’ll be able to keep up with the posting schedule of a multi-author blog. Blogging isn’t typically anyone’s sole responsibility, which means they’ll have to fit in with client projects, internal projects, and whatever else is on their plate. One person, two hands, limited time for blogging.

Limited expertise: It doesn’t matter how skilled that one person is – they can’t possibly be an expert on everything. That means your blog is going to be limited in the number of topics that you can authoritatively cover.

Won’t get in Google News: If you want to be included in the News results, one of the big sticking points is that you have multiple authors on your team to help you earn the needed street cred. One author? You’re probably not going to accepted for inclusion. Depending on your blogging goals, this may or may not be something you’re concerned with.

Multi-Author Blogs

PROs

Build a team of experts: With a team of bloggers dedicated to sharing their expertise, you’re able to cover a lot more ground and brand specific people as the go-to person for that topic. If it’s an Internet marketing blog, you can separate people cover your cover competencies (SEO, PPC, Social Media, Email Marketing, Link Building, etc). This approach helps the company to look more robust and shows off the true depth of your services, instead of just highlighting one area.

More people for readers to relate to: If your blogger is snarky and outspoken, a segment of your audience will dislike her and immediately declare her rude, arrogant and elitist. If your blogger is well-mannered and polite to everyone, a different segment of your audience will label him gutless and without opinion. With one person blogging, you can’t win. But by opening your blog to many authors, you can find different writing styles that will speak to different segments of your audience.

More hands on deck: More writers means your blog doesn’t go silent just because someone got sick, got married, went on vacation, or are simply swamped in client To Dos. Instead of panicking or finding someone new to blog that day, you can just insert another writer who your audience is already familiar with.

CONs

Work harder to create that personal touch: It’s my opinion that it’s more difficult to create as strong of a personal relationship with your audience with a multi-author blog than with a single-author. Multi-author blogs create a different vibe. It becomes more focused on the knowledge of the brand than the specific person. And while that’s not a bad thing (at all), it does cut out some of that personality and intimacy of forming a relationship with a single person. As a result, it may take longer for people to come to trust and feel connected to your blog. With so many voices, it’s hard to get to know any one of them intimately.

Finding good writers: Too many cooks in the kitchen have a tendency to spoil the meal, especially if some of those cools can barely boil water on their own. Finding competent bloggers – people who can not only WRITE authoritatively but who can make people give a damn – is a difficult task, especially in corporate blogging. You don’t need to do much more than read all the crappy, make-your-eyes-bleed blogs to understand that. More voices can sometimes lead to uneven quality if you don’t have multiple people on your team who know how to connect with people.

Weaker internal linking: You know when it’s really easy to reference or promote something that’s already been published on your blog or site? When you’re the person who wrote it. When you know that this piece of content actually exists. With many authors, sometimes you won’t know that there’s a post in your archives that perfectly explains what you’re trying to sum up. And that can lead to loss opportunities for exposure and/or ranking.

So which do you pick?

That’s for you to evaluate your resources, your goals, and the type of blog you want to create. However, I’m actually a pretty big fan of multi-author blogs because I think they give businesses the most bang for their buck in terms of investing in content production, branding, and ability to court leads. I think the success of last week’s Blogger Birthday Bash, which introduced everyone to the talent behind Outspoken Media, also served as a pretty good testament to that.

But what are your thoughts? Do you read blogs or bloggers?  Who do you prefer to read – one person or a team of folks wearing the same jersey?

But no one said fresh content had to be a 900-word blog post.

Or another badly-crafted infographic. Or anything else that is about exciting to a user as sitting in post-fireworks July 4th traffic.

When coming up with this month’s editorial calendar or putting together your content creation goals, why not consider some additional content types? Content that will help you better attract your audience by rescuing them from the same chicken and rice they ate last night and giving them something more tasty to consume.

Below are 12 NEW content flavors to help you attract your audience. How can you work them into what you’re already doing?

1. Video

If a picture tells a thousand words, a video tells ten thousand. Incorporating video into your content marketing strategy allows you to educate, entertain, and inspire your audience with more personality than many of us can evoke through words. Because you’re not hiding behind WordPress, you give your audience the chance to see you, to hear the tone in your voice, and to create a more intimate relationship with you than through a traditional blog post. Adding video around product pages can even help increase sales by up to 30 percent.

Over the years, SEOmoz has done a great job with its Whiteboard Friday’s, posting a video each week digging into a certain aspect of SEO with a more personal touch. We not only get the information, but we get to learn about the talented members of the SEOmoz team.

SEOmoz Whitebeard Friday – Give and Ye Shall Receive from SEOmoz on Vimeo.

[Apologies to Rand for using the vid of him in a Santa beard. I just couldn’t help myself. ;) ]

2. Webinars

If authority and brand recognition is what you’re after, then webinars are a good way to achieve that with an interactive flair. It doesn’t take much more than the GoToMeeting software to get you up, running, and offering live educational seminars from the convenience of your office. Or your couch. Or that secret vacation you don’t want people to know you’re on. Webinars have become increasingly popular as of late because marketers can use them to build their email list or to attach a product offer, bringing in another revenue stream.

One company that’s currently rocking the marketing webinars is Hubspot.  They’re constantly offering their community fresh tips via a live format.  It helps turn your content into an event, not just a blog post.

3. Long-form content

If you’ve been blogging for any length of time, I challenge you to go through your archives and see what you’ve put out. You probably have ten different blog posts on different aspects of the same topic. For example, a long-standing photography blog is sure to have posts on:

• How to choose a camera
• The best types of lenses
• How to set up the perfect shot
• The best editing software
• How to take advantage of Creative Commons
• How to use Flickr to get links to your site

By reworking that content a bit and putting it together, you now have a photography eBook or guide that a user can download as a PDF. It goes from becoming a blog post lost in your archives to a cohesive piece of content marketing that your audience can not only use as a reference, but that they can share.

The nice folks over at Radian6 are experts at this, putting out a monthly eBook on a new social media-related topic. Each one digs deeper into a particular topic than a single blog post could and attracts more users.

4. Q&A Content

Not all the content you create is going to sit on your Web site. Part of fishing where the fish are and reaching people how they want to be reached, means getting off your island. One of the ways I like to do this is by participating in Q&A forums like LinkedIn Answers, Quora or niche-specific sites. By participating you’re able to show off your brand’s skill set and expertise, while also forming relationships with people who could become customers and media contacts looking to gain insight on that particular area.

If you’re an Internet marketing that specializes in SMB clients – what an opportunity to show off how you could help someone with their business.  The more information you give, the more readers realize how tangled the process is and how it would just be so much easier for them to hire you to do it for them. ;)

5. Case Studies

Instead of writing another How To post on the best ways to set up your Facebook page or how to gain more followers on Twitter…create a case study of how you’ve actually done it for yourself. Or how you’ve helped someone else to do it. More often, this is the content that your audience most wants to see because it not only provides them with valuable tips they can apply to their own business, but it shows them that you know what you’re talking about because you’ve accomplished it. You’re not just talking about it. Whatever your particular business, you should be working case studies into your process – both in terms of sharing them and in collecting them.

6. White Papers

According to Google (define: white paper), a white paper is an authoritative report giving information or proposals on an issue. Said simpler, it’s a guide with a slightly more pretentious name that consumers eat up. And they can be fantastic marketing tools.

As an example, the folks at SEOptomise offer a great Business Guide for Blogging to their audience.

7. Podcasts

When you feel like you’ve written all that you can write, say it instead. Podcasting allows you to present information via an oral conversation between either you and your audience OR you and a feature guest. One of the benefits of using podcasts in your content marketing strategy is how portable the medium is. Users aren’t tied to their desktop or even their cell phone scrolling through your words. All they have to do is download your podcast on their way out and then can listen to it from wherever they want – whether it’s their car stereo or via their iPod while at the gym.

One of my favorite marketing podcasts was SEM Synergy, which is out by our friends at Bruce Clay, Inc. Many of us were sad when the show when on hiatus, but now that Virginia Nussey is back where she belongs, look for it to start up again.

8. Online & Offline Events

If the content well is getting a little dry helping you attract people, why not throw a party? Whether it’s an online Twitter Party or an offline event in-store, hitting the streets and interacting with people one-on-one can help bring back the lovin’ feeling that is gone, gone, gone from your blog. And if it’s an offline event, you’ll soon have new images or videos to post on your blog as content. One stone, many birds.

9. Presentations

Did you speak at your local Chamber of Commerce last month? Did you host a meetup where you gave a small talk? Did you keynote a major industry conference where thousands and thousands of people attended? If you said yes to any of the following, post the slides to your presentation and let your audience relive the experience from home. Let them know what the subject was, who you spoke with, how great the experience was, and then share your slides.

Below is Rhea’s presentation from the SEOmoz NYC meetup that happened a few months ago.

You don’t even have to share the entire presentation (if you’re bashful), pick out some of your main data points and share them.

10. Apps & Tools

Okay, I haven’t seen a great example of a business using apps to help with their content marketing but every day I watch the @NikeGetFit taunt me with good information I have to think there’s a way. The 2011 Women’s World Cup is going on right now. Where’s the app that offers me scores, but also tells me about the players, their workouts, their fitness routines, and how I can be the next Hope Solo? Nike’s not a sponsor of the World Cup, but Adidas is. Where’s that tie in? Maybe there is one, but if so, I haven’t found it.

11. Blog with Google+

This is another one I’m not totally familiar with yet, but Chris Brogan is already all over it. You know what they say – DWBD (Do What Brogan Does).

12. Newsletters

I don’t love writing corporate newsletters, but I do enjoy reading them. Newsletters are still an effective way for engaging your audience because you’re able to hit them where they’re more apt to trust – in their inbox. For example, I read the Problogger email newsletter every morning. Sure, I subscribe to the blog and I may see the content that way, but I don’t really read it until it comes to my inbox. That’s just how I prefer to experience it. And depending on your audience and their likes/dislikes/quirks, they may follow a similar pattern.

Those are just 12 different content flavors you can use to attract your audience. Stop limiting yourself by thinking there’s only one. The trick is to develop a content strategy that incorporates a number of different flavors and highlight the ones that work best for your audience.

I hope so.

Tonight I’m flattered to be the featured guest on #SocialChat where the topic will be The Social Side of Corporate Blogging.

I know a few things about corporate blogging, starting my career as the voice of the Bruce Clay, Inc. blog and now helping clients to build corporate blog strategies and keep the content flowing as Chief Branding Officer at Outspoken Media. According to HubSpot, 65 percent of businesses are blogging. That means there are officially MORE companies blogging than not. With more voices in the market and an increased importance in blogging, it means you not only have to be maintaining a corporate blog, but that you need to be using it effectively. And that’s the conversation will focus on tonight.

How can you get in on the action? Easy.

Grab a drink and join the #SocialChat room tonight, Monday, June 20 at 9pm Eastern and have a conversation with me. It’s sure to be a good time and I can’t think of a better way to spend a Monday night than with you guys. Hope to see you there.

Thanks to Alan K’necht for and Michelle Stinson Ross for putting this together and inviting me to be part of it.

What things, you ask? These things:

1. What do past customers say about you? Are there reviews or testimonials on-site that I can access? Do you showcase happy (and maybe unhappy) customers?
2. What if I hate it? What’s your return policy on goods purchased? If you’re a service-based business, what assurances do you offer?
3. Are you on Facebook? What about Twitter? What are you using it for? What types of conversations or promotions are happening there?
4. What’s your phone number? Where else can I reach you if something goes bad?
5. Why I should trust you?
6. I see an email newsletter sign up. Why should I give you my email address? What will you give me?
7. What does Google say about you? Are there mentions of scams, rip-offs or bad experiences associated with your brand?
8. What makes you different? How will my experience be better here than with one of your competitors?
9. Who are you? What does your staff look like? What does your building look like? How are the tables set up in your restaurant?
10. Why are you doing this? Why do you love your corner of the Web? Where did that passion come from?
11. Where do the quirky things you sell come from? Do you make them in-house? Do you get them from mom and pop shops? Have you sold your soul to foreign goods?
12. Where is your company and your industry going next? How will you continue to provide great service? What else can I expect down the road?
13. What do you think about [industry topic]? Are you for it? Against it? What is your stance rooted in? Are we aligned?
14. How do you do what you do and why do you do it that way?
15. What am I getting for my money?
16. What’s your company culture like? What do you value?
17. How do you treat your employees? Do they have voices? Do I believe them?
18. What don’t I know about your industry that would make me a more educated consumer?
19. What do I think I know that’s wrong?
20. Who have you worked with? Who wears your product? Do we have any common friends?
21. What will you be working on next?
22. What else can I do with this? Is it hackable? Are there unusual uses I wouldn’t have thought of for that thing you sell?
23. Who are you influenced by? What have you been taught? What do you still need to learn?

Oh look, now you have something to blog about over the next month or two. Look at that.

If you’re having a difficult time thinking up blog topics to fill out your editorial calendar let someone unfamiliar with your industry take a look at your site and give you their unedited thoughts. What would they need to know to feel comfortable starting a relationship with your brand? What things worry them? What’s cool about your site to highlight that you may not have thought of.

Their answers, and all the blog topics you’ll pull from them, may surprise you.

Kick yourself now.

Hard.

I don’t know Kris Roadruck on a personal level, but I’m inclined to really like him. He’s got an opinion, some snark and he doesn’t appear to take things too seriously – all attributes I look for in a guy a person. Kris wrote a post recently that got a lot of people up in arms by poking at a well-known (and well-argued) SEO industry hot topic; he called white hat SEO a joke. Clever, right? Naturally, people ran to Kris’ blog to tell him he was wrong, right, and to link to him nearly 300 times. Earlier this week Kris followed up that post with one titled the Efficacy of Negative-Emotion Link Bait. Here, Kris talks about the benefits of writing posts that intentionally piss people off, citing it as an effective blog-building strategy.

And it is. Unless that’s all you’re bringing.

Kris is right that negativity will almost always get people’s attention faster and more violently than something about hugs and puppies. If mainstream media and/or politics has taught us anything, it’s that nothing brings people together quite like sitting around and griping over a common enemy. You probably even have a friend or two in your life that you made solely because you both hated the same person or thing. Hate and violence brings people together almost as well as a yummy meal you didn’t have to make yourself.

Unless the purpose of your blog is to attract people to your business. If that’s the case, putting a heavy focus on negative linkbait pieces can kill your credibility before you even get off the ground.

Kris’ advice of using negativity to win eyes isn’t new. Plenty of new and legacy bloggers have made a career of it – people like Robert Scoble, Jason Calacanis, Michael Gray, Darren Slatten. They’re all known for being harsh critics of the world around them. The difference is, they also bring a hell of a lot of value to their non-rant conversations. That’s the key. And if you forget that very crucial part of the pie in your quest to piss off people (which is often what happens when you adopt a negativity link-building strategy), you’re going to fall on your face. You’re also going to isolate a whole segment of the population.

Negative attention may have gotten you friends in high school. In business, it just makes you the person no one wants to play with in the sandbox.

Being a yelling Negative Nancy all the time doesn’t work for a few reasons.

• It gets old to your readers.
• It’s hard for the writer to sustain that level of anger. (You’ll notice many people who market themselves on ‘negativity’ burn out and disappear quickly’)
• It doesn’t convert when you make that all you’re about.
• It’s distracting and takes your attention away from creating real, authoritative content.

Yes, yelling will make people take a look back to see what you’re yelling about, but that doesn’t mean they’re going to jump on your team. They’re going to use you for their amusement and then go to your competitor when they want serious work done. Do not confuse eyes with customers, nor yelling with value.

Instead of attracting people who can help grow your brand and your business, you attract the drama-hungry, the rubbernecks, the people who thrive on flame wars, the morons, the loudmouths, the people who had no friends in high school, folks who get their human contact solely via the Internet, etc.

Who you don’t attract is anyone with a budget they want to spend with you. Earning eyes is pretty easy on the Internet. It’s earning trust and authority that is not. Earning respect for your craft and what you bring.

Is there a place for using negativity and rants as part of your blog arsenal? Absolutely. Leverage negative press, flame wars and attacks when they come your way. Be controversial. But don’t make that all you are. Make your negative posts the exception, not the rule, and pick your battles wisely. You want to pick the fights that will help you to best attract new eyes and get people passing around your content (which is what Kris did). But there has to be something there to back it up – something that adds way more value than just a person being mad at one more thing. Because that’s too easy, there’s too much of it out there, and your negative posts are bringing people down and pushing people away.

Remember that your corporate blog is about building trust and lowering the bar needed for someone to do business with you. It’s hard to do that when you’re the guy standing on the corner screaming. Yes, people are more engaged when you take a strong stance, but what’s behind it?

Like I said up above, I’m inclined to like Kris Roadruck. I like him because he’s smart on Twitter, because he shares some good stuff and because of everything I mentioned above. That’s your meat and what will define you. Everything else about your blog is just seasoning and should be used as such.

I couldn’t publish this post without directing you to read Kathy Sierra’s post on angry/negative people, which shows how constantly dealing with negative people actually changes our brains to make us more negative in return. Just something else to think about on your Friday.