Richard Telofski

on "Irregular Competition"

Archive for category Blogs

Don’t Be a Wallflower – Converse on Related Blogs

Jun 6

Posted by Richard Telofski in Blogs | No Comments

One of the more popular ways people find blogs that they like, and then read regularly, is by reading comments left on blogs. It works like this.

Bloggers become involved with their own blogs. But they shouldn’t live and blog in a vacuum. To become good bloggers, bloggers need to become involved with blogs other than their own. By visiting blogs about topics complementary to your blog topics, you can strike up a “conversation” with other bloggers through the comments that you leave. Those other bloggers will appreciate the comments, and may even visit your blog and comment in return. If you’re really lucky, they may even trackback on one of your posts.

Through all this cross-pollinating commenting and tracking back, readers of these other blogs will notice that you’re a “player” in your topic area. That status will encourage them to visit your blog and perhaps become a loyal reader.

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An Inconvenient Medium?

Apr 23

Posted by Richard Telofski in Blogs, Contrarian | No Comments

Social media can be a pain in the butt from which to get anything worthwhile. Surprised that I, a social media consultant, would say that? Don’t be. I’m a realist.

A super article I read the other day got me thinking more about a subject that’s been bugging me for a while. Time involvement with social media. In Social Media’s Inconvenient Truth, Drama 2.0 (yes, that’s the author’s nom de blog.) riffed off another article by Sarah Perez (wow, an actual real name) wherein she theorized that “real people don’t have time for social media.” I think she may have something there. But apparently Drama 2.0 didn’t quite agree. He went a bit deeper (kudos for that) and reasoned that the average “real” person spends less time in social media per week than the average person spends watching television daily. And why is that?

Drama says social media requires involvement, participation, or what Marshall Mc Luhan described as a “cool” medium. Cool media require work to derive more information or satisfaction from and that describes social media to a “T.” Mc Luhan defined TV as a “cool” medium also, but relative to social media TV is “hot.” Why? Because TV has a lot more upfront information than does social media. Hot media require less participation, or less filling in of the blanks through which to derive some satisfaction.

So, as Drama theorizes, after a long day in the trenches of work, where your mind has been on overdrive since 8AM, where are you going to put your mind at 8PM? In a cool medium like social media, one requiring some extra thought, or in a cool, time-to-veg-out-and-relax medium like TV? I know what my answer is, and it’s probably the same as that of most average people. But to say definitely? More research is needed.

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Time, Squidoo, Blogs, and Eating

Apr 16

Posted by Richard Telofski in Blogs | No Comments

For work I’ve been reviewing how some professionals use social media in the promotion of their services. Professionals. You know. Doctors, lawyers, accountants, consultants (not quite like me, though), financial planners. Those kinds of folks.

Here’s one finding that’s quite remarkable. While, I was reviewing one financial planner’s social media strategy it occurred to be that this woman may not get enough time to sleep or eat, or do other quotidian tasks for that matter. She’s got a blog, quite a good one at that. She’s a tweeter. Very active. I’ve been following her on Twitter. And judging by her tweets, she’s been buried by a lot of work. Good for her. Must be that her social media strategy is paying off.

And if that isn’t enough, she’s got about ten lenses on Squidoo. Most of those lenses are fully configured, lots of content, not much of it overlaps either. Gosharooney. When does this woman find time to sleep, eat, feed her cat, take a breath?

Kudos to those professionals applying social media to their practices at the fullest extent! Looks like you’ve got a clock with more hours than mine.

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Breakdown Your Posts, Please!

Apr 14

Posted by Richard Telofski in Blogs | No Comments

After I recommend to my clients that they should post blog articles everyday, they often whine, “But I don’t have the time.  I have too much to do. I can’t post EVERY day.”

Well, do you want your business blog to be effective or not? I retort. After which I usually take a short look at their blog and discover that it’s anything but short. Meaning, their posts are just too dang long. How long? Try 1000 words plus. Often the content is rich, but the length is just too, too, too much.

Now, I’m well aware that there are two schools of thought on this issue. Long, interesting, detailed posts vs. short, less detailed posts. I’m in the latter camp. But that doesn’t mean that I’m against rich, interesting, deeply detailed content. A blogger can have it all. Frequent and short posts with richly detailed content. Here’s how.

Break your posts into smaller pieces.

Did you hear a heavenly choir resound a Halelujah when you read that last sentence?

After reviewing my client blogs and finding long, long, long posts, but with interesting content, I simply advise my clients to keep doing what they’re doing. But instead of posting one ginormous article per week, I say break it down into smaller pieces. No more than about 300 words should do it. Liberal use of the “In Series” WordPress plug-in, or one compatible with your blogging platform, should do the trick. By using a plug-in like this, you’ll be able to break down long posts into a series of connected, easily navigated articles.

In doing this you’ll get the best of both posting schools of thought: short, easily read posts that are rich and deep in subject matter. AND you’ll save time!

Perfecto.

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Health Food Companies – Blogless?

Apr 11

Posted by Richard Telofski in Blogs | No Comments

In my work I’m currently taking a look at health food companies, checking the state of social media usage in that industry, particularly blogs. Hooo boy. It’s not good.

Very, very few use any kind of social media at all. You’d think in an market where many consumers are fanatics about what they eat, that at least many, instead of hardly any, health food companies would be jumping on the band wagon. But not so.

And to make it even more disappointing, several of the health food company blogs that I have seen are just downright embarrassing. So much so that I’m not even going to mention their names here. But one in particular stands out in my mind like something that I wish I could forget.

Again, no names because it’s just way too embarrassing, even though I am tempted. The owners of this company have their daughter blog for the company. Okay. But their daughter is in college and, judging from the content of the posts, evidently has little to do with company operations. It’s a nice blog, but it’s about a college student and her trials and tribulations in trying to pass calculus. Not about the company, its products, the inner workings of the company, how and why the products are made as they are, where new product ideas come from, who makes the decision to put more fiber in the products and why, yadda, yadda, yadda. All the stuff that health food nuts would like to discuss until the organically raised corn is harvested. And when I think of how much free market feedback this company is foregoing, it makes my head spin.

Well, at least they’re getting great feedback about how their daughter should tackle first derivatives.

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Only 38 Accounting Firm Blogs?

Apr 10

Posted by Richard Telofski in Blogs | No Comments

I’ve been following Michelle Golden’s blog for a while now. She’s a marketing consultant in the area of professional practices marketing.

Recently she posted that there are 38 accounting firm blogs. She defines these blogs as those written by properly certified accounting professionals and targeted at defined customer segments. In other words, I suppose her tally does not include accounting blogs that are written for other accountants wherein they discuss the newest methods and the idiosyncrasies and nuances of counting accrued bean cash method fund accounting assets. So. Only 38, huh?

That’s hard to believe. Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not questioning the number. I’m sure Michelle has her tally correct here. She is an expert in this area, after all. But that only 38 accounting firms would see the value in business blogging just boggles my mind. Probably amazes her, too. I found a similar seemingly unbelievable discovery in recent study I completed about chiropractor blogs. You may read about that on my company’s site at KahunaContent.com.

Blogging is custom-made for individuals wanting to establish themselves as experts. There aren’t a whole lot of other jobs where more expertise is required than in accounting. And it’s a profession where expertise is actively sought by those wanting to hire the service.

What better way to display it than through a blog?

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