Hey Everybody,

This morning as I checked my favorite nooks and crannies of the Web, I found this:

Brian Solis and Jesse Thomas created this image (the Conversation Prizm) to update Scoble’s Social Media Starfish from last year. It does a great job of sorting all of the social media services out there into categories.

I have been reading a lot of articles and posts lately from others in the PR/Marketing/Advertising industries about social media confusion and how it is actually hurting them. Many have cited that the overwhelming number of services offered has made it difficult to sell any of them to clients. In response to that, I would say that we need to stop being lazy. More choices are not hurting the sale, your lack of knowledge about this field is. More choices, the greater chance that the right niche service is out there for your specific need.

If you don’t know anything about this area, but want to sell in it, hire a social media person at your firm or a freelancer to consult on that project. If you want to learn, but the task seems to daunting, just pick out one or two from the Prizm that you might wanna try or have heard about and just start using them. That is how everyone else who is in the know got to know.

And if you are really stuck on something and need advice, just ask! All of these offerings are social, which means you are free to just ask questions in most of them. Or you can check and see if someone else has already asked. When I have a question, I use LinkedIn Questions or Ehow.com. But there are many more.

Good luck in your learning, If you want to ask me a question. Hit the comments or @ me on Twitter. My handle is swept14.

Best Wishes,

Will Flavell

Hey everyone,

The Scobleizer (at FastCompany) recently interviewed Mitch Grasso, CEO of Sliderocket. I don’t know about you guys, but I am really excited for a social networking version of powerpoint. It is gonna be great. I hate powerpoint and all its limitations. I can’t wait till they go public beta, I have been on the list for months. I am going to give a class on social media and I would love to present it in a social media medium.

Here is Scoble’s

You’ve seen Microsoft’s PowerPoint. But you’ve never seen an Internet-enabled, collaborative presentation tool like Sliderocket — until now. Here Mitch Grasso, CEO and founder, tells us about Sliderocket the company and then shows us a demo. 

WordPress won’t let me embed the video interview, but watch it here: http://www.fastcompany.tv/video/sliderocket-empowers-a-new-kind-presentation.

Hope you enjoy,

Will Flavell

Hey everybody,

This question comes up a lot and I don’t see a lot of good answers out there. So I thought that I would take a swing at it. Hope it is helpful.

11 Tips on How to Blog

1. Get Found Easily: Choose a blog name, and tagline that can let people in your niche find you easily through search engines. Use the most effective keywords for you blog and post titles.
2. Follow the Conversation: Read a bunch of blogs and add comments to them before you start your own and as you are writing your own. Try to establish a conversation with other peer leaders in your category. Use blog searching and ranking sites to find out what the most popular themes in your category are at the time and address those. This will also help you get story ideas.
3. Keep it Simple, Keep it Focused: Each post should contain just one idea or one set of links.
4. Demonstrate Passion: Post often, post about what you care about. Take a position on issues.
5. Demonstrate Authority: Blog about what you know. Be generous with what information you give out.
6. Allow Comments: A good blog is a conversation, not a one-way channel so let others make comments back to you.
7. Be Accessible: Make it easy for people to contact you through your blog either through an e-mail or phone number posting. This includes being honest and open with who you are. No lies or misleading.
8. Tell a Story: Tell your story – a compelling story helps entice people to read on. A personal story makes you seem more human. Even your set backs and defeats make you likeable.
9. Be Linky:  By directing your readers to other sites, even competitors, you become their absolute best resource and they, in turn, will reward you with lots of inbound links. These links increase your search ranking and credibility online.
10. Get Out In the Real World: Nothing beats face-to-face meetings. To build relationships you should go out and meet the people you are speaking with in your blog. Invite others to visit you.
11. Use your referrer log: The Referrer Log tracks who’s linking to your site and how much traffic those sites are sending you. Read them often to know what people are saying about you.

An Additional Note on Blog Advice:

These are really the standard recognized rules of blogging. They were originally laid down by Robert Scoble and Shel Israel in their book Naked Conversations. These guidelines have always served me well. The one important factor that I would like to touch on beyond their recommendations is the importance of personality. It seems to me that there are a lot of corporate blogs flooding cyberspace these days, but the ones that we remember – no matter what their category – are those written by people with character. Out of the supposed 60 million active blogs out there, I can only think of about 50 or so that I really enjoy reading. A family story or a disappointing turn of events on a business deal make great blog posts too. It isn’t just about bragging or even conversations, it is about appearing human enough to seem approachable.

If you want anything more in-depth, just let me know. Just send me a comment and I will try to answer. I work in social media and would be glad to give advice.

Thanks,

William Flavell

Hey Everybody,

As you probably know, I blog for several companies beyond this personal blog. As a new media guy working in an agency I often run into fears from different members of our clients’ companies concerning open posting of comments.

Open comments is the best way to handle your blog. First, recognize that these negative comments will be going on with or without your approval somewhere else. At least on your blog you can see the comments and try to reason with them. It will give you an idea of where you need to go with the posts. Think of it as constructive criticism.

It has been my experience that most of these worriers just want to know that you have a strategy for dealing with trolls (irrational negative commentors). That is when I tell the client that I will use the Living Room Rule. I am kinda borrowing a page from Naked Conversations here, but the living room rule works.

So, what is the living room rule. It goes kinda like this. My blogspace (whether that is personal or corporate) is like my living room. If you are interested in a conversation you are more than welcome to visit, but if you  are irrational and only want to argue or spam me, then I will kick you out of my living room. Most commentors like this rule, because it lets the conversation continue.

So, I hearby institute the Living Room Rule on this blog. Though, I don’t really need it cause all my posters are cool.

Thanks,

William Flavell

Picture 116

Originally uploaded by swept14

I got this photo of the Scobleizer at the Media Relations Summit. He was a really nice guy and very knowledgeable.

Check out an earlier post I wrote on him at the conference.