CNN - User generated content at its best?

At the heart of blogging is what some people may call "user generated content" (UGC). That is providing the ability for every day people to have their say. You could say that Blogger is a massive user generated content platform that provides Google with a tremendous amount of marketshare in the blog space. CNN has jumped on the UGC train as well with its new CNN Exchange.

CNN Exchange is a simple concept - it allows you to have your say or "vision" by allowing you to post your own pictures. We'll see if this works or not but for a "news hungry" world, this is something that should really take off. UGC has three main goals:

• Encourages continued web traffic by providing an interactive medium for consumers.
  I beleive that consumers want to be both empowered and celebrity like and UGC provides this opportunity
• Provides images and views that could not have been optained previously. Going back to the days when only the prviledged could read, information was only distributed to the elite. UGC procides a way for everyone to have their say and be heard. CNN benefits by getting these never seen/heard stories and images.
• Makes CNN more human. CNN has this machine like persona rather then a human face. People like Anderson Cooper and his 360 blog provide that human voice for CNN but this is not a regular voice - it's a CNN reporter. user generated content typcailly comes straight from the heart and is from their readers/viewers - not CNN itself (let's hope).
  

The one thing to caution everyone is that it requires a lot of work to administer. This concept is not new - bulletin boards and forums have been around for years. However, this is a new format and approach by one of the largest news agency. I hope that it takes off becuase it will not only be good for CNN and its blogging/UGC community but should also reflect well on how this concept can survive and prosper for the rest of the wired world.

My only issue is that I found CNN's Exchange extremely difficult to use. It's easy to post content (which is probably what they want) but I found very difficult to search and browse by categories. I would click on a title link and instead of showing me other pictures, it would be a landing page to submit a picture. In addition, hey CNN, have you heard of Flicker??? Why wouldn't you use the same type of taxonomy (user generated tags) that they do so people could actually find something once they submit it!! Hopefully you'll iron this out becuase I really like the concept. You;ve got the user generated content down, you need to work on the user organized content.

Thoughts? opinions?

Chad H.

Technorati tags: CNN, CNN exchange, User generated content

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Social Networking - New tool called Bookmark It

I found this new tool over at Bookmark it! that allows you to more easily submit articls and posts to all of the major social network repositories.

Bookmark It! claims:

Instead of having a seperate 'submit this!' button for del.icio.us, Digg, Tailrank, and every other bookmarking site on the planet... you only need one link to bookmarkit.org.

This site will redirect you to your preferred bookmarking site based on settings stored in cookies. One link: no fuss, no muss for web masters.

It seems to work (I tested it out). This may really simplifythings. However, Socilaizer (which I use) still seems to have more sites to submit too. Have you used this tool?

Chad H.

PS - Today's tip: If a blogging idea comes into your head, create a draft post with a title and some notes, save it as a draft and come back to it later in the week rather than starying up into the middle of the night. :)
PPS - Does anyone know how to post-date a blog post in Blogger so I can publish it but not have it appear live until it reaches the specific date I gave it? I'm going to put this in the the things I hate about Blogger.

Technorati tags: social networking, social networks, social bookmarks, digg, del.icio.us, bookmarkit, backlinks, blog tools

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Business Blogs - Should they be part of your main domain or separate?

As I'm about to embark on creating a more professional blog, I'm facing a big question - do I add the blog as a subdomain to my website or do I create a new domain all together for my blog.

I guess it all depends on the goals of your blog. The team over at HitTail believes that your blog should be part of your main domain (eg: www.mysite.com/blog) as your blog will drive traffic and increase the weight you pull in the search engines. This works if you plan to fully integrate your blog with your website and are mainly concerned with driving any type of traffic to your website.

However, do you want your blog to be directly associated with your corporate website? Many companies use blogs to blog about their industry rather then their company. For example, there is Eloqua's sponsored blog, The Innovative Marketer. This blog focuses on demand generation rather then on the companty itself. In this way, the blog is indirectly driving traffic to the corporate website using a different domain. Yes, it may be harder at first to get the web traffic but remember it all comes back to your goals. If your objective is to get quality web traffic and not just Joe Schmo off of Google, this may be the better way to go.

What are your thoughts? What are you currently doing and what do you recommend?

Chad H.

Technorati tags: Hittail, domain, SEO, business blogs

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Looking for some helpful business blogs?

It's the end of the month so here is my monthly blog roll or blogtipping as Easton calls it.

These blogs will:

• Help you improve your search ranking
• Improve your blog copy (content)
  
• Provide eternal life. Ok - no one has written a blog about that yet (at least that I know of).
  

Here they are:

• 3 Ways to Immediately Increase Search Engine Traffic
  Written by Nick Wilson at Performancing, this post was simple and easy to follow. Check it out
• How to Write a Killer “How To” Post That Gets Attention
  This great blog called Copyblogger that has some great tips on writing blog posts. Awesome job!
  
• Business Blog Consulting - This contains auuthors from some of the biggest and best out there. I've read Jeremy Wright's book, Blog Marketing, which I highly recommend. I will write a thorough review soon.
  

Hope you like them!

Chad H.

PS: I did find an interesting blog post on eternal life on a blog called A for Blog :)

If you want eternal life
don’t be a human
or an intranet.

Be
a sea
anenome.

Things that make you go hmmm....

Technorati tags: SEO, search, networking

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10 Reasons why I like Blogger - Part I

Thinking about switching your blog platform? You'll need to consider many factors such as your blogging goals as well as your technical abilities.

When I first started blogging I wanted to jump in with both feet and not look back. Now I've started to look over my shoulder at the rest of the blogosphere and want to decide if it's time to switch blog platforms. Besides Blogger, I've used Wordpress.com and MSN Spaces (my fun blog). I'm also getting questions from people as to which blogging platform they should use. This is the first in a series in which I will look at:

1. What I like about Blogger
2. What I don't like about Blogger
3. Should I move blog platforms to Wordpress or Typepad

For now, I will look at why I like Blogger:

• It's free - no sign up fees or hosting fees (for now).
  
• It's owned by Google I - This means that Google is indexing your blog and promoting it as it's part of their overall offerings and to their advantage - especially if you use adsense.
• Easy to get up and running - It took me 5 minutes to get my blog up and running.
  
• Great support - there's a whole support group out there to help you out
• It's owned by Google II - This means that you don't need to worry about your blog disappearing as I don't expect Google to go out of business any time soon
• I don't host it - I don't need to worry about a database or bandwith etc... as Blogger hosts it
  
• Good Add-ons - There are actually some good ones like the poll add-on below as well as some Blogger hacks. I use the "XBlog This" feature which helps me create Technorati tags.
  
• Available templates - There are many templates to choose from when you're getting started. I'll leave it at that.
  
• Adsense integration - Blogger makes adding adsense very easy. This doesn't mean you'll make money, it just means it's easy to setup.
• Interesting features - There really isn't anything that other blog platforms don't have but you have the basics and hey, it's free. If you know HTML you can also add new features pretty easily like a blogroll and co-comment. Any features that I missed (probably not)?
  

If you're a small company looking to get a blog up and running quickly or someone who justs wants to record their daily rants about George Bush, Blogger may be right for you. Before you go and choose blogger, stay tuned for my next post in which I will discuss why I don't like Blogger (It should be a long post).

Chad

PS - Let me know if there are any advantages I missed
PS - please fill out my poll below.

Which blog platform are you using?
	Blogger
	Typepad
	Wordpress.com (hosted)
	Wordpress.org
	Movable Type
	Textpattern
	MSN Spaces
	ExpressionEngine
	Other
Free polls from Pollhost.com

Technorati tags: blogger, blogging platforms

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Linking blogs and newsletters together Part II (Lead Nurturing)

As a business blogger, one thing that probably won't work too well is to include in every post some sort of call to action to buy your products or services. If you don't believe me, I challenge you or Microsoft or IBM to include a post with the title "BUY NOW! BUY NOW! BUY NOW!". At least it will generate a few comments. :)

However, this is not what the blogging community wants to hear about. This type of mentality is what really pissed me off when I found Nike's Basketball blog. However, this is perhaps what male teenagers (their target audience) want to see.

While knowing what products and services you offer is important, it's even more significant that customers and prospects know what the business challenge is that is affecting them that would cause them to consider your company. For example, a large business that has a tough time amalgamating all of it's customer data may not realize that there are people out there that can help them. What they don't want to hear is "Call us now for a quote on how we can help you fix your CRM". Some may not know what they want to hear or know that they actually have a CRM (I'm serious). This is where marketing comes in. A blog post that demonstrates that 60% of companies are losing money as they can't manage their customer data properly may be a good start. A follow up article demonstrating the ROI success of a clean database would be another great approach. A even better one is "Are you staying late at night fixing your customer data?" It's all about building yourself up as the trusted advisor as described by Brian Carrol in his B2B Lead Generation blog

This whole concept dawned on me as I was reading through a B2B Online article by Karen J. Bannan regarding "Keeping Newsletter Readers Engaged". Blogs are not that much different from newsletters in many ways. Instead of using your e-newsletter as a selling piece, use it as a nurturing or matuation channel to ensure that your readers know about what problems are out there and that they are not alone. Blogs can be used in conjunction for this purpose. The difference? There are many.

The main differences are timing and style. B2B Newsletters ussually come out once a month or quarter as you don't want to push too much content at a prospect or customer for fear of the nasty "unsbubscribe". With blogs, people who are subscribing to your feeds are they're saying "I like what you're blogging about". The tone is different too as newsletters are mostly sappy marketing crap (no offense offense). Blogs can be more creative and personal.

Remember to use blogs as another piece of the marketing pie to keep your prospects and customers engaged and keep the name of your company at the top of their mind.

Chad H

Technorati tags: newsletters, enewsletters, email, blog, emarketing

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Don't blog too close to home

Blogging is fun and informative but watch what you blog about, when you blog and who you blog about. It may come back to bite your bloggy ass. For personal blogs, this could mean not to blog about your family (or at least mention their names), friends, coworkers or the company you work for. This has resulted in countless examples of people being fired from their jobs, and family problems.

The same goes for business blogs. Write respectively about your competitors and fellow bloggers as they will see what you write. If you're mean and degrading to others, you will probably cause a firestorm. This includes including derogatory images, podcasts and interviews. For example, you may even offend customers by interviewing one of their competitors. Your best bet is to have a clearly laid out blog blue print and policy that you are your team can easily follow. It should clearly state what you can cannot blog about.

The power of blogs can work against you as easily as it can work for you. While you may get some short term gain by "stirring the shit", you will tarnish your name, your company and lose all respect in the eyes of your customers. Remember that you have the power of the mouse - use it wisely.

Chad H.

PS - That post was a bunch of BS (except for having a basic blog plan). Write about everything and anything that appeals to you and generate the most web traffic that you can. How else are you going to get noticed if you don't push the envelope? Be creative and keep having fun!
PPS - McDonalds food is shit. Don't you agree?
PPPS - What are your thoughts on blogger ethics?

Technorati tags: blogging, McDonalds

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