If you are ready to launch a successful company blog, this post is written for you. Focus on these three areas to  achieve your business goals:

1. Build your platform.

2. Build your content.

3. Build your community.

Build your platform.

WordPress.com or WordPress.org? (Answer: WordPress.org) Remarkablogger says:“For business marketing, you want to use WordPress on your own server, which means WordPress.org…But, with great freedom comes great responsibility…; you are responsible for managing everything and keeping it updated.”

Thanks to my friend and colleague Willie Jackson, @willieljackson , for guest posting the next section.  Take it away, Willie.

Willie Jackson:

”The pros and cons have been well-outlined by creators of the platform, but here are four reasons why you should consider a “self-hosted” WordPress.org blog:

1. Search Engine Optimization – Google loves WordPress. It allows you to rank competitively using a completely uncustomized blog or website. To get the absolute best SEO performance from your blog, however, consider one or more plugins that add additional benefits such as the All in One SEO Pack,Automatic SEO Links, and Google XML Sitemaps. [JKS: Thanks to @ChrisBrogan for more on “Build Passport Accounts and Plugins.]
2. Credibility – You are an authority in your field and your blog reflects this expertise. The self-hosted version of WordPress is almost required for credibility.
3. Flexibility – WordPress Frameworks like Thesis and Reptile add another layer of powerful flexibility such as layout changes, color adjustments, font, and color customizations. These Frameworks allow users with very little technical experience the ability to customize blogs with the confidence of an experienced website administrator.
4. Room to grow – While there is a chance that you might outgrow the limitations of the WordPress.com platform, it is highly unlikely that you will ever outgrow a self-hosted WordPress.org site. A self-hosted WordPress website offers you virtually unlimited customization possibilities. Want to work with a designer to bring your vision into life? Easy. Want to give your users the ability to share your posts across the web with a single click? Piece of cake.”

Thank you, Willie.

Build your content (it will evolve).

First, determine your business purpose.  “A business blog helps the business fulfill its purpose.”

1. What is your goal?
2. Who is your ideal reader?
3. What do you want your reader to do and feel?

Next, determine your categories and keywords, which will be used as tags.

Third, determine your strategy and for that I like Brian Clark’s three-step blog launch blueprint on Copyblogger:

1. Cornerstone articles – Assuming you have already researched your keywords, these are the main search terms you will use in search engine optimizing your blog.  They are the reason people will consistently read you.  They are what your blog is about.  Consider writing five cornerstone articles (also called flagship content or pillar articles) as you launch, 500 to 700 words each,  and collect them on a landing page.  Before your launch, also write the “About” post.
2. Networking – create awareness and build relationships.
3. Attraction – a single piece of content that gets people linking to your blog.

And finally:

1. Include keywords, variations of keywords and synonyms in your writing, H1 and H2 title tags and related paragraphs, links and landing pages. Remember, search engines must find you.
2. Decide how often to post; a minimum of two to three times a week for the first year.
3. Determine how long.  200 to 500 words per post.
4. Create an editorial calendar. You can develop multi-part tutorials or pick a theme for each month (“How to revitalize your company.”) and let your multiple authors interpret the theme.  I like to learn from others; again, thanks @ChrisBrogan for “50 Blog Topics for Marketers”
5. Use photos and video.  Spice it up.  Design Sponge is a soothing extreme.
6. Include your personality.  It’s you people care about.
7. Soft launch before you publicize your blog, instead of backdating content.

Build your community (it will also evolve).

Your tools are links, plug ins, and the social media micro-blogging trio: Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

For example, we’ve added

• “Share this”
• Follow us on Twitter
• Digg and
• del.icio.us plugins to our blog, and created link-worthy content.

I will write more strategy in future posts on how to build your community; in the meantime, again, thanks to @ChrisBrogan for the best post I’ve seen to date on this subject: “25 Ways to Build Your Community.”

And here are some of my favorite articles on blogging: http://delicious.com/Juliesquires/Blogging

‘Bye for now and bonne chance blogging.

Last quarter I said I would explore “how to monetize yourself” in the next quarterly Marketing Snacks, so here goes – with this caveat:  Since I have not yet monetized myself, I can only share with you theories and research, not experience.  By “monetize,” I mean actually making scalable income from me as a microbrand, or from me as a scalable bright idea. The word that interests me is “scalable.”

Me as a microbrand may be – for now – the most common form of online personal monetization, if I use Jeff Jarvis, Chris Brogan and Pam Slim as examples.  The blog-book-consulting-teaching route seems to work if you:

• Monetize what you know best.
• Work like hell.
• Map to your strengths.
• Stay tuned to your wellness.

Jeff Jarvis (synthesizer), author of What Would Google Do? and the BuzzMachine blog,  made $13,855 in 2007 from ad revenue on his blog.  In his words,

“But Buzzmachine is what got me appointed as a journalism professor at the City University of New York Graduate School of Journalism (worth not quite six figures a year) and consulting and speaking gigs (worth a few times that in good times) and the contract for this book (worth about double those gigs).  So over a few years, my weblog is easily worth seven figures.  My cost:  $327 a year for deluxe internet hosting.“ What Would Google Do?, page 55-56

Chris Brogan (media maker) “speaks, blogs, writes articles, and makes media of all kinds at [top ranked] [chrisbrogan.com]… He is co-author of the book Trust Agents.”

He’s also really easy to absorb and maps to his top strength (he hinted on his blog):  Woo: ”Woo stands for winning others over.  You enjoy the challenge of meeting new people and getting them to like you.” His schedule proves it,  see?  I have no idea how to quantify monetization of his microbrand, but if money is energy (which it is), he’s paid a pretty penny.  (And who cares if the rumor mill hints companies pay him to blog?  Let Freedom Ring, especially for someone who gives as much as Chris does.)

I was fortunate to meet coach, blogger and author Pam Slim (A healer. Helps people get out of their cubicles and into their dreams.) during an Atlanta workshop. Her blog, Escape from Cubicle Nation, is “one of the top career and marketing blogs on the web,” and her book by that name was just published.  Again, I have no idea how to quantify monetization of Pam’s microbrand but she’s a delightful example of the blog-book-consulting me as microbrand.

For me as a bright idea-success, a friend (A niche marketer: shallow oil wells.) in West Texas wins the race.  He owns an oil well service company and scaled his monetization like this:

When the price of oil was low, he and the bank bought groups of shallow, capped oil wells.  He then uncapped the wells and serviced them with his existing business.  He now realizes multiple, small income streams and saves $200,000 a month in the business against a rainy day (such as the new energy legislation).

He gives away copies of Robert Scheinfeld’s book Busting Loose From The Money Game, with its idea that we each create our own hologram.  You might enjoy the read; I did.

That’s all I know for now on how to monetize yourself  – except to remind myself that monetization needs to be tied to finding your higher purpose (thank you Tara Hunt, author of The Whuffie Factor).  What’s yours?

Writer Anne Morrow Lindbergh, in her 1955 classic Gift from the Sea: An answer to the conflicts in our lives, talks about the delicate Argonauta, the paper nautilus.  A rare and feather light egg case – not a shell at all, it is a “cradle for the young, held in the arms of the mother argonaut who floats with it to the surface, where the eggs hatch and the young swim away.”  Then the mother argonaut leaves her shell and starts another life.  Mrs. Lindbergh talks about “the freedom of the nautilus who has left its shell for the open seas.”

Are we not in an “open seas” time in history?  I believe we are.  Some would call it chaotic. How are we to thrive within it, build trust and navigate successfully?  Perhaps by each building and maintaining his or her own personal craft: The delicate but indispensable vessel of Wellness.

One write up by Dan Costa of the iconoclastic South by Southwest music, film, and interactive conference and festival says that “You are your own global microbrand.”  All the more reason to put your sustainable best foot forward through personal wellness.

Here are three steps to wellness to consider:

1. Find your higher purpose, what is it that you – uniquely – have to give?
2. Live in health.
3. Monetize the value that you are.

1. Find your higher purpose, what is it that you – uniquely – have to give?

Tara Hunt, the energetic Canadian born author of The Whuffie Factor: Using the power of social networks to build your business, counts “higher purpose” as one of  five essential steps to build social capital:

1. Turn the bullhorn around and create continuous conversations with customers.
2. Become part of the community you serve.
3. Be notable: create amazing customer experiences.
4. Embrace the chaos.
5. Find your higher purpose.

American author John Steinbeck wrote, “The measure of a man is the quality of his gift.”  What is it that you uniquely have to give?

2. Live in health.

Three great rules for mental health are:

1. Know yourself,
2. Like yourself and
3. Be yourself.

Overnight singer sensation Susan Boyle is a great example of this:

http://tinyurl.com/dfb5pw or

Nature, music and effecting Change through Beauty are ways to nurture your sense of well being.Two outstanding examples of this are the art and work of James Hubbell and the Ilan Lael Foundation

And the New York Philharmonic Orchestra’s ground breaking 2008 performance in North Korea:

Our U.S. government is even encouraging more life/work balance: CIOs Urge More Telework and Get A Life:  Work life re-emerging?

Update 7.15.09:  More work/life balance in the U.S. government workplace:  “Improving Work-Life Balance”

Take care of yourself.

3. Monetize the value that you are.

Ah ha! If you read this one last, you are probably already thriving on wellness.  Monetization evolves out of the first two steps to wellness and will be the topic of my quarterly Marketing Snacks (free) video email in August 2009 [8.8.09  This will be in September '09 now].  Sign up now, if you want.

Until then, be well.

We went to view “The First Emperor: China’s Terracotta Army” exhibit this week at Atlanta’s High Museum, which was stunning, powerful and beautifully poetic. From Wikipedia: “Sima Qian, a Prefect of the Grand Scribes (太史令) of the Han Dynasty, wrote that the First Emperor (Qin Shi Huang) was buried with palaces, scenic towers, officials, valuable utensils and ‘wonderful objects,’ with 100 rivers fashioned in mercury and above this, heavenly bodies; below were ‘the features of the earth.’”  At the High Museum exhibit, an entire wall of one of the Terracotta exhibit rooms was covered in a representation of the night sky meant, I suppose,  to assimilate Qin Shi Huang’s heavenly bodied ceilings.  It was beautifully done.

The First Emperor: Terracotta Army

The First Emperor: Kneeling Archer

Rule #7 of the Networked Economy -”From Places to Spaces, …physical proximity (place) is replaced by multiple interactions with anything, anytime, anywhere (space)…,” – broadens us to understand cultures that are different from our own. Enjoy a look at China.

China Revealed Excerpt from The Discovery Channel:

If you are considering doing business in China, here are a few highlights:

• It is personal, not business. (Guanxi)
  • Relationships.
  • How well a person is connected.
  • Meant for the long term.
  • Seal the deal with a banquet.
• Oldest civilization in present day.
• 1.3 billion people.
• 7 different spoken languages; 80 dialects.
• One written language.
• Business follows the ethics of Confucius.

And from my colleague Wye Leng, Founding Director of Singapore-based LEAP Integrated Marketing Solutions, some pointers for conducting business in Asian markets:

• Each country in Asia is unique: the culture, tradition, mentality, business practice, and consumer behavior are different from country to country or even city to city. Observe and understand that difference and adapt your business model to the unique environment in which you choose to do business.
• Observe the importance of face value (mianzi). Always edify and give respect, prestige and dignity to all, especially the highly ranked, seniors, experts and veterans.
• Control your finances at all times. In any business dealings, be sure you are the one who is controlling the money.

China’s Economy, Excerpt from The Discovery Channel

Enjoy.

Xie xie.

Many thanks to Debbie Reale, who generously shared with me her beautifully scripted presentation on China (created for her Master’s in Business Administration degree program – she is soon to graduate May 2009).

The Apollo Temple at Delphi.

Did you know there is something more interesting than the news, and it is You?  From “Know Thyself,” the ancient inscription over Apollo’s temple at Delphi, to Time Magazine’s Person of the Year in 2006,

it’s all about You.

Peter Drucker, the “man who invented management,” believed “The task of leadership is to create an alignment of strengths in ways that make the system’s weaknesses irrelevant.”

Tom Peters, business management guru and author of Talent: Develop It, Sell It, Be It, says “The reinvented you and the reinvented me will have no choice but to scramble and add value in some meaningful way.” A lot of us are trying to become more valuable.

With that in mind, our company’s Appreciative Inquiry management coach suggested the Gallup Organization’s StrengthsFinder 2.0 book by Tom Rath, which we used companywide; it is re-energizing the organization. In fact, in addition to our staff, I’ve given the book (20% discount at Barnes & Nobles) as gifts to grandmothers, college students, daughters and friends. In 20 minutes and for less than the cost of a dinner out, StrengthsFinder helps you get a handle on how to take better care of yourself, your colleagues, your family, your talents and your contribution to life – work and otherwise.  There is a companion book, Strengths Based Leadership, if that fits your position, and StrengthsExplorer for ages 10 to 14.

Click here for a New York Times review of StrengthsFinder 2.0.

Why does it work so well?  Because it is simple and easy to implement.

• Rath and the Gallup Organization divide human talents into 34 Strengths.
• You buy the book and receive an alphanumeric key to log in and take a 30-minute test.
• Click the send button and what arrives in your email is a listing and exploration of your top five Strengths (better yet, I now know my husband’s and daughter’s top five Strengths, and those of my day-to-day colleagues).

• I now ask our “Ideation” person to create new product packaging.
  
• The “Learners” on our staff like to get a 360 degree look at the info that goes into a project, so we have started in-house seminars.
• I no longer ask the “Adaptability” executive to do the planning (page 48 “Working with Others Who Have Adaptability.”).
• And with “Connectedness” as my number one Strength, I consciously make it a priority to get out of isolation mode at home and work.  I’m a lot happier these days.

StrengthsFinder is Relationship Tech, Rule #9 of the Networked Economy, at its best:

9) Relationship Tech. As the soft trumps the hard, the most powerful technologies are those that enhance, amplify, extend, augment, distill, recall, expand, and develop soft relationships of all types.

The book promises “You cannot be anything you want to be – but you can be a lot more of who you already are.” (page 9).

As you and I internalize that, we are Free To Soar.

I was privileged to share several days this week with 800+ bipartisan IT colleagues, friends and patriots at the annual government-industry Executive Leadership Conference in beautiful Williamsburg, Virginia (Let Freedom Ring.).

Pushing back from the dinner table the first night, I stood up in the banquet room as the Fife and Drum Corps beat and piped its shrill tones through the door.

For me personally, it was a true “hinge in history” moment.   I stood still while others moved upstairs towards the dessert gala.  We had just digested, with our ‘surf and turf’ meal, 45 minutes of a keynote delivered by the lovely and dynamic Amy Holmes, CNN political analyst and GenXer.  I experienced it as a rap about GenXers, delivered in escalating tones (she wore jeans, gray ruffled tube top and black cardigan sweater.)

Emcee Anne Altman, general manager of IBM System z, masterfully handled the chasm that started to open as the audience rumbled and growled with each other through the Q&A,and started to rise to its feet. It gives me courage to be in life with people like Anne Altman.

I was in awe to realize that right then –as the bright young men in the Fife and Drum beat their Colonial cadence -  I was standing IN a hinge of history.

The next day, keynoter Dr. Paul Light said, “[Regardless of which party wins the Presidency], this will be the hardest transition since Abraham Lincoln’s when seven states seceded from the Union between the day he was elected and his inauguration.”

As amazing as was that experience, it was not The Real Show in Williamsburg.  That was earlier in the day, during a lunch keynote by The Honorable David M. Walker:  “What Would the Founders Say?  How America Can Get Back on Track.” – or:

I.O.U.S.A. Watch the movie trailer.

Murmurs of “worth the whole price of admission” were overheard throughout the day.  I immediately thought of my large extended family and any other American who has children, knows children, or wants to have children.  I hope you’ll take some time to watch Walker’s webcast, or visit his company’s site, Peter G. Peterson Foundation, where you will learn that:

“Every American is now burdened, most of them unknowingly, with $175,000 in federal liabilities and unfunded government promises.”

[Updated Nov 11th: Click here for Hon. David Walker's preso at ELC; you have to sign in to view, very easy.]

Individual Action

As a patriot, it thrills me to find such an obvious connection between “what is good for my family is good for my country.”  Microsoft’s admirable federal government manager, Carolyn Brubaker, stood up during Walker’s Q&A and asked:

“There are many patriots in this room; what can we as individuals do?”

Here is what Walker’s company, The Peter G. Peterson Foundation, suggests in its pamphlet, “The State of the Union’s Finances”:

• Establish a personal budget and stick to it.
• Formulate a financial plan that considers the following questions:
  • What are my short-and long-term personal financial     objectives?
  • What major milestones do I need to prepare for (e.g., education, family, retirement)?
  • When do I see myself retiring and how much do I need to save and invest in order to retire at a comfortable level that can be maintained over time?
• Put that personal financial plan into immediate action.
• Become more responsible in decisions to spend and use credit, save for the future and invest savings wisely.
• Teach children the importance of planning, saving, budgeting, investing and making responsible use of credit.

As Dr. Paul Light said the next day: “David’s a sunshiney guy. After talking to him, I wait for the elevator and hope it doesn’t come so I can just jump into the pit!”  And when asked by an attendee: “What should the Presidential candidates be saying to the American people?”:

Dr. Light:  “They should be talking about sacrifice and hope…inspiration; not creating expectations that are too great.  They should ask for public service…a lifting from everyone.

And that, in my opinion, was The Real Show at the ELC.  I’m there.  We have some work to do folks, once the noise is over on election day, Nov 4th.

“Freedom isn’t free, but it’s the best bargain on earth.” - Win & Bill Sweet

Let Freedom Ring.

JKS: Update January 19, 2009:  Thanks @Timoreilly (Twitter handle) for pointing me to:  “Watch Out, World: Americans Are Saving Again.”

Last weekend, at a Fall festival in Atlanta,  a friend whipped out her small, white flip video and said, “How did we ever get along without these?”  I agree.  And it’s not just the hand held kind:  video in general, plus micro messaging, is connecting people, convincing prospects and sweeping us all into Rule #9 of the Networked Economy .

From AngelVision Technologies‘ strong selling Impact Movies, to Martin Lindstrom’s Advertising Age video blog,  plus eye-popping viral video series like Blendtec’s “Will It Blend?” and Tibco’s “Greg the Architect” – wherein each company pursued sales and relationships, respectively [Thank you, Charlene Li + Josh Bernoff in Groundswell, page 103] – video marketing is hip.  Or flip (from Pure Digital Technologies, Inc.) . And it’s fun.

There is a reason YouTube is the fourth busiest site on the Internet, and the New York Times called the flip recorder “one of the most significant electronic products of the year.”

Tools like the flip are making video – on websites or in emails – the expected way to reach out.  Breakthroughs in understanding and recall happen when people listen, watch and interact instead of just reading.  Relationships - whether friends, sales prospects or both – also thrive.

Next step?  Video Syndication.

[Updated Nov 3, 2008:  Terrific article on the Flip in Investor's Business Daily this weekend:   "Bigger Supply in Flip's Picture."   You can now personalize your Flip's plastic outer shell with your own image - for free!]

[Updated Nov 17, 2008:  Awesome video - collaboration between Grace Bonney's design*sponge + the New York Public Library.  Go Grace!]

That said, here are two of my favorite video samples for influencing behavior through entertainment; what are yours?

Disney productions teamed with the U.S. State Department to produce and release the below video, ”Welcome: Portraits of America”, to encourage international travel. (It includes no mention of Disney logos, products or attractions.) Already playing in Washington Dulles International Airport and Houston George Bush Intercontinental Airport, the seven-minute video will soon be released to other major international U.S. airports. Take a look, it’s stirring.

Microsoft’s New Media Video

Photo taken by the Phoenix Mars Lander, NASA

My Diva Marketing friend, Toby Bloomberg, and I were chatting about how companies are using new media options to reach their strategic objectives; case in point is the Cal Tech Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s use of podcasts, YouTube videos, blogging, Facebook and Twitter to connect with individuals interested in the Phoenix Mars Lander.

Check out coverage of their approach in the NY Times and Federal Computer Week.  JPL’s strategic objective may be “to communicate.” 

Enjoy.

Kalalau Lookout on the western side of Kauai

When I buckled my seatbelt low and tight recently on US Airways flight #146 to Hawaii and flipped open the in-flight magazine to an article by Dan Tynan on Twitter, I knew it was time to blog it. Two nights before, 100 other people and I packed into my friend Mike Schinkel’s buzzing Atlanta Web Entrepreneur’s meeting about…Twitter, including a video conference with Robert Scoble. For a Twitter tutorial, Mike’s slides are the best.

Twitter is a technique, an Instant Messenger-like micro-blog using 140 characters, a social networking platform, a birdsong. That said, concentrate on the relationships, not the technologies [thanks, Charlene Li in her book Groundswell, pg 18.].

Speaking of relationships, you might wonder: are your customers talking on Twitter without you? To find out, go to www.twitter.com and search for your company name.  Want to try out Twitter? Will it help your company reach its strategic objectives?  Set up a free account and keep these three things in mind:

1. Set your intention; why do you want to use Twitter?
2. Listen first.
3. Remember it is more important who you follow = where you’re getting your input, than who follows you [per Robert Scoble]
   

Thanks to my friend Desiree Scales for her 3-part blog series on “How to Make Twitter Work for You.”  Included is Darren Rowse’s “Twitter for Beginners–5 Things to do as a New Twitter User.”

Twitter rules in the Networked Economy, Rule #9, that is: 9) Relationship Tech. “As the soft trumps the hard, the most powerful technologies are those that enhance, amplify, extend, augment, distill, recall, expand, and develop soft relationships of all types.”

I have to be careful with all these new media options (remember the chameleon who crawled into a box of crayolas and exploded?); and for now have decided to join the conversation via FaceBook for family, Twitter (@Juliesquires) for business friends and this blog.

[Update:  Sept 5, Just received our copy of Federal Computer Week.  Cover story?  "What's the Buzz about Twitter?"  See Heather Hayes' story, "Psst!  Are You Twittering Yet?" ]

[Updated Oct 13, 2008:  Thanks, Debbie Reale, for pointing me to this blog "50 Ideas on Using Twitter for Business." Short and sweet.]

[Updated Dec 1, 2008:  Thanks to Tim O'Reilly who wrote, during Thanksgiving down time, "Why I love Twitter."    You remember Tim; he coined the "Web 2.0" phrase.]

[Updated Dec 13, 2008:  Twitter for Beginners. ]

[Updated Mar 9, 2009: The Washington Post's Kim Hart: "Firms Take to The Tweetable Business Model"]

[Updated Mar 12, 2009: Thanks Tammy Farley with The Rainmaker Group:“100 Twitter Tools to Help You Achieve All Your Goals"]

[Updated April 17, 2009:  Excellent article by my friend and colleague, Joab Jackson - senior technology editor with Government Compute News: Twitter Tools on the Rise. ]

Enjoy and Aloha.

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