entrepreneurship tips

Social Media is the term used for the tools and platforms people use to publish, communicate, and share content on-line. These tools include blogs, wikis, podcasts, and sites to share photos and bookmark. So let’s take a look at these media and understand what they all mean.

Blogging – what is a blog?
It is a frequently updated website involving reverse-chronological ‘posts’ or short opinions, news, or gossip updates, with a collaborative interface…websites with dated items of content in reverse-chronological order, self-published by bloggers. Sample websites, or developer-hosted platforms are WordPress and Blogger. More platforms are listed below.

Blogs can also run using blog software or on regular web hosting services.

Developer-hosted platforms
Software services operated by the developer, requiring no software installation for the weblog author:

* Blogger; Gandi; LiveJournal; MySpace; Open Diary; Skyrock; Tumblr; TypePad; Typo; Vox; Windows Live Spaces; WordPress.com; Xanga

I would recommend setting up an account with either Blogger or WordPress. Blogger has a simple to use format and structure and great for promoting your business. WordPress is great for the beginner and allows a lot of flexibility with its themes and plugins. One word of CAUTION – Do not deliberately promote your business or product as they will delete your blog.

The wiki definition is as follows…
A blog (a contraction of the term “weblog”) is a type of website, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order. “Blog” can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.

Many blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject; others function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, Web pages, and other media related to its topic. The ability for readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of many blogs. Most blogs are primarily textual, although some focus on art (artlog), photographs (photoblog), sketches (sketchblog), videos (vlog), music (MP3 blog), and audio (podcasting). Micro-blogging is another type of blogging, featuring very short posts.

Types of Blogs
Personal – private reflection of your dreams, your goals, your experiences
Corporate – internal corporate communication or external corporate marketing, branding and public relation purposes
By Genre – political, travel, fashion, art, music…to name a few
By Media Type – video=vlog, comprised of links=linklog
By Device – PDA = moblog

Do’s and Don’ts of Blog Posting- Whether for Business or Personal

* Ensure you provide value to your blogs. It should not be a full-fledged sales pitch.
* Use the 80/20 rule – 80% content, 20% sales pitch
* No plagiarism
* Provide Fresh Content
* Be original
* Do share your opinion
* Always be yourself
* Don’t be afraid to debate ideas with people and back up your opinion with evidence
* Don’t be defensive if people post opinionated comments on your blog. Be open to joining the conversation and backing up your opinion in an intelligent way.
* Always respond to your readers. If someone makes a comment, say “Thanks! Come back soon!”
* Not all of your posts need to be 100% grammatically correct. Sometimes your post is just about getting your quick thoughts down.
* When sharing opinions, always frame things as if you COULD be wrong. For example, “Here’s what I’m thinking right now” sounds much more friendly and open than “I am right, you are wrong.”
* One of the best ways to get an idea of the style of writing that works on blogs, is to checkout other peoples’ blogs.
* Do include a photo of yourself in the my profile set-up
* Do include information of your business in the my profile set-up

Blogger’s Code of Conduct
Proposed by Tim O’Reilly for bloggers to enforce civility on their blogs.Take responsibility not just for your own words, but for the comments you allow on your blog.

1. Label your tolerance level for abusive comments.
2. Consider eliminating anonymous comments.
3. Ignore the trolls.
4. Take the conversation offline, and talk directly, or find an intermediary who can do so.
5. If you know someone who is behaving badly, tell them so.
6. Don’t say anything online that you wouldn’t say in person.

Step-By-Step Account Setup

I. Sign up for WordPress and/or Blogger and following the directions on-site. There is a difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org.

a. WordPress.com hosts the blogs for you, it is simple, quick and easy but has less flexibility
b. WordPress.org is for the more advanced business owner looking to drive traffic

II. Make A Blog Post

III. Ping It!

When you “ping” your blog, you are notifying the search engines that you have new content on your blog.
* Go to http://www.pingomatic.com
* Enter the name of your blog and the proper URL
* Click all blog services to Ping
* Make sure you ping every time you enter content.

Make sure you have a way for your readers to subscribe to your blog. The most common way to do this is to have a Subscribe feature on your blog (Technorati is a favorite here). It comes standard on Blogger, and you can add it to your WordPress.com blog with little problem. Once people subscribe to your blog, they can get notification of new posts and become loyal followers.

Let your fingers do the blogging….GOOD LUCK!

About the Author

Holding several senior management positions, and with over 15 years experience in the pharmaceutical industry, Wendy brings a wealth of knowledge to her business relationships.
Progressive roles in project management, advertising services, medical education, facilitation, supplier negotiations, account management, and new business development gave way to develop new skills in navigating the internet.