Tuesday, November 13, 2007 , the wee hours

Blog World Expo:  helpful tips for bloggers

I promised I’d write an entry about the good stuff, so here ya go.

The convention was great for networking.  I’ve been trying to get a job with a new-ish Internet startup for the last couple of months, but they don’t want to hire me because I’d have to telecommute.  I was able to meet up with some employees of the company at Blog World, and I think I’ve got a 95% chance of getting a part-time job.  I don’t want to count my chickens, of course, but the folks I met all want to hire me, so it’s just up to them to convince the big boss.  I’m really excited about working for a company with really nice employees, and a really cool product (you’ll all want to use it), and I hope to have a definitive answer within the week.

I was also able to make connections with four different people who hire bloggers for corporate writing jobs.  That’s something I really want to do, so I gave my business card to all of them, and talked a bit about my experience.  All seemed thrilled that I was looking for more work, and at one of them talked to me about needing a blogger for a very, very large company, so I hope those meetings will also lead to good opportunities.  Flippy and I were supposed to go to a session called, “Building Relationships with Bloggers”, but at the last minute we switched to a session called, “Hiring Bloggers/Bloggers for Hire” (Tris Hussey and Jim Turner), and it ended up being a great decision.

Other sessions we attended were “Blogging & Profit Potential” with Jim Kukral, “How Online Conversations Change Markets” with Paul Gillin, “Maximizing the Benefits of Small Business Blogs” with Scott Allen, and “Using Social Media to Drive Traffic to your Blog” with Robyn Tippins and Larry Bailin.  We were supposed to go to a session on Friday morning, but it would have made our day last about 10 hours, and that’s just too long for us to leave the animals (specifically, the dogs), locked up.  One session we almost switched to was called “New Media Revenue Opportunities with YouTube, Second Life, Podcasting and more”, because I’m becoming intrigued by getting involved with more audio and video online.  I kind of miss being a radio news announcer, and figure I could set up a small at-home studio if there was any profit to it.  The instructor for the session, Leesa Barnes, was sick and didn’t show up, so the idea of switching was moot.

I don’t know if anyone who regularly reads here is interested in the concept of blogging for profit, or blogging as a profession.  I’m going to share a few tips I jotted down at the sessions we attended, and maybe they’ll be of interest to someone.  I’m happy to get into more detail about these sorts of things if you want to know more, so feel free to contact me by email if there’s anything about professional blogging you’d like to discuss.  It’s interesting, but not as gripping as pictures of newborn kittens smile

In bullet points, here are some tips I picked up from Blog World Expo:

  • The most successful blogs do one of two things: they entertain, or they provide answers.  If your blog isn’t around for entertainment purposes, then consider picking a niche topic and writing about it in an informative way (product reviews, tips, etc.).  An example which was given was “shoe repair” - there would be value in having the best blog about shoe repair.  It would be a blog that shoe owners could consult, and that other shoe professionals could read.

  • Read sites like ProBlogger.net on a regular basis, as it’s got a huge inventory of articles about blogging.

  • There are a number of different blog advertising networks, so you can use ads other than Google’s AdSense.  For profit purposes, your blog should contain at least six ads, but not so many that it ends up looking like Times Square.  You can also advertise by using ad programs which automatically hyperlink certain words in your blog, and there are now ways to monetize your RSS feeds (Google and Yahoo both have programs, but I think they’re in beta).  If you decide to put ads in your feed, make sure you have a full text feed, or you’ll just annoy people.

  • If you only want to have a little bit of advertising, the best place to put it is on your “permalink” pages, i.e., the pages which contain just a single blog entry.  Those pages are the ones which are generally served as a search engine result. 

  • There will soon be large amounts of money to be made on YouTube.  There are already lots of people earning their entire incomes from YouTube, but soon the little person, like me, will be able to make money as YouTube inserts ads into videos.  They’ll share ad revenue with the person who uploaded the video, so keep adding your good videos.  People love cute pet videos, of course, but they also love instructional stuff.  Consider making a video the next time you make a chocolate souffle, if that’s something you’re good at.  Your video will show up in Google, along with conventional sites, when people do searches for things like, “How to make a chocolate souffle”.

  • Try to have your blog on your own domain name, rather than using myblog.blogspot.com.  It’s important to brand yourself.

  • If you have a business, put up a blog about it!  If you make your blog entertaining and/or informative, people will link to it.  The stats given in one Blog World session said that a link to your company from a blog is worth more, in terms of publicity, than ten thousand emails to a mailing list.  Foster relationships with bloggers and give them a (positive) reason to talk about you.  If you have a business blog, make sure you allow comments, even if the comments are sometimes negative.  Make sure you respond to a selection of the comments, good and bad.  Customers like to know a company is listening to what they have to say.

  • Of all the social media sites out there, StumbleUpon.com was repeatedly mentioned as the place where you can build up longterm traffic.  Someone else said that if you’re an expert on a particular topic, join a Yahoo Group on that topic.  If you’re a “star” in the Yahoo Group, you’ll build a lot of traffic back to your blog.  I’d imagine that would only work with a popular topic, and in a group with lots of members.

  • When you label things, whether it be a blog entry or a video, give it a title which corresponds to how the average person would search for the subject.  For example, when Dante had a lump on his ear, I titled the entry “canine cutaneous histiocytoma”, and that entry gets tons of traffic.  I also could have labeled it, “Our dog has a large pink lump in his ear” (I obviously get the searchers after they’ve come home from seeing the vet!).  If you want search engine traffic, or just to help others with advice, don’t call your entry, “Oh no, not again” or “How much is this going to cost?” I know I’m guilty of doing those things on occasion, but I’d might as well not give those entries titles if I’m going to make them so uninformative.

  • Regarding social media, MySpace is still the most highly-trafficked site, but Facebook seems to have a higher percentage of adults and/or consumers.  Businesses doing social media should make sure they’re represented on both sites.

  • If you have a podcast on your blog, try to call it something other than a podcast.  Or, make sure the title is informative so that people who don’t know what a podcast is can still find it. 

  • Make your blog, or website, easy to navigate.  Make sure it’s logical and not overcrowded.  I know I’m verging on the latter, and wish I could make more space on the page.  It might be time for me to kill my Flickr button, or to put my “About Me” on a separate page.

  • Finally, you will be judged by the company that you keep, so remember that items on your blogroll can reflect back on you.  Not a big deal on a personal blog, but it could be an issue if you use your blog when looking for work. 

One interesting concept which Scott Allen raised was “blog tipping”.  On the first day of each month, pick three blogs and list three things you like, and one area where you’d like to see improvement.  It’s appreciated by the blogs you link to, and it’s a nice way to build relationships.  The “criticism” doesn’t have to be anything horrible—you could say that you’d like the blogger to write more often, or you’d like to see more photos, or that you’d like to see more blog entries about a specific topic.

I’ve got pages and pages more about writing business/corporate blogs, so if that topic interests you, let me know and I’ll write more about it in an email.  I came home really enthused about my work with IFAW, VertexHost, et al, because I’ve got a lot of new ideas and I’m anxious to try them out.

I’ll write one more Blog World Expo post, about the companies who had exhibit booths.  There were some new companies with products you might want to use, so I’ll make a list of them with descriptions and post it in the next day or two.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 11/13 at 01:41 AM
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Monday, November 12, 2007 , terribly early in the morning

My gripes about Blog World Expo

Sorry I’ve been so slow to write about Blog World Expo.  So much stuff happened, and we met so many people, that the topic seemed almost overwhelming!

I’m going to start with one complaint, in hopes that if the BWE organizers ever see this entry, they’ll read enough to get my criticism.  There were two different entry passes you could buy for BWE.  Flippy and I bought the $75 pass, which gave us access to all the exhibitors, and also gave us our choice of six, one hour educational sessions.  In addition, there were a few open keynote speaker sessions we could attend if we wanted.  The other level of pass cost $695, and it allowed you to attend any/all of the one hour sessions we had access to (I’d guess there were about 30 to choose from), plus it gave you access to an entire day of sessions we couldn’t attend, and a number of special panels with speakers like Arianna Huffington.  Some of the educational sessions available to people with the $695 pass sounded amazing, and I got the feeling that the cheap pass holders got “overview” sessions, while the $695 pass people were given specific hints and advice about successful blogging.  It felt like a case of “the rich get richer”, because instead of sharing information with everyone, only people who could afford the expensive entry fee were given access to the really coveted information.

There were two high-level sessions I really, really wanted to attend because they’d help me with my job, but I couldn’t afford $695.  There was no option for me to buy access to sessions individually; it was all or nothing.  I don’t mind if there are two or more levels of access fees, that’s pretty normal for a convention, but the difference in price between the two was just outrageous.  All bloggers are fighting for credibility, to be taken seriously, to be paid a fair wage, etc., yet the very first convention for bloggers was priced so that bloggers were divided against each other.

To give one specific example of how unfortunately the conference was arranged… we had a nice talk with Jalali Hartman, the CEO of a new site called Yovia.com, and he invited us to attend his session about social media, and his vision of “Web 3.0”.  We told him we didn’t have access to his session, so he went to talk to someone “in charge” about getting us access to his talk.  We went with him, and we heard him tell the woman he was speaking to that he wanted to invite us to his session.  The woman told him there was absolutely no way we could attend unless our passes were upgraded to the $695 pass.  It’s pretty ridiculous that a speaker can’t even invite their own guest to their session.  He told us he paid $3000 just to have an Internet connection at his exhibit booth, yet the convention organizers wouldn’t let him invite two guests to a lecture he was giving.  I was really frustrated by that, because I have a feeling that anything Jalali Hartman wants to teach you is good to know.  Go check out Yovia.com, by the way… they’ll pay you to write blog content, but in a different way than Pay-Per-Post, so you should check them out if you’re interested in extra income.

I hope the entrance fees will be changed for Blog World Expo 2008, which is already planned for September 19 and 20.  I think there should be an “exhibits only” pass.  There should be a limited pass, like the one we had, and an all-access pass, like the one we couldn’t afford.  There should also be the ability to buy sessions individually.  Obviously Flippy and I got our money’s worth, if only from the stuff we won, but I wanted to learn more.  I want to be a better blogger, I want to help my employers, like IFAW, be successful, etc.  I hope we’ll have more opportunities to learn in 2008.

I’ll write about the good stuff in my next entry!

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 11/12 at 03:03 AM
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Sunday, November 11, 2007 , early afternoon

Buy a cat calendar, save the world

The lovely Yoshi of Von Krankipantzen’s blog is featured in a 2008 calendar tribute to “iconic women”.  The photos I’ve seen from the calendar are hilarious (and inspiring, of course), so I’d like to encourage you to take a peek at it by going to Urban Beast.  All proceeds from the calendar are going to the SPCA of British Columbia.  I’m going to buy a copy just so I can have a larger version of Yoshi Kennedy.  Even if I wasn’t already a Yoshi fan, I’d be impressed at the sight of any cat wearing clothing.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 11/11 at 02:31 PM
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Woolite P.O.D.

We love a gadget, especially one that only costs a few bucks, which is why we purchased the new Woolite Portable Oxy Deep (aka, P.O.D.).  The Woolite website says that the P.O.D. for pet stains isn’t available yet, but that’s the one we purchased at the grocery store.  I tried it on a few old cat vomit stains in the guest bedroom, and it actually worked really well.  I was skeptical, because you just rub the solution into the stain and let it dry—you don’t sop it up with a towel or anything, like you do with OxyClean.  When I went back into the bedroom the day after cleaning, however, the stains were definitely gone.  I can’t say for sure that they’re 100% gone, because the lighting in the room isn’t the best, but I can say that the stains were very prominent, and now I can’t see them at all.

The P.O.D. isn’t very large, so it won’t last very long if you have a lot of big stains to clean up.  It’s unfortunately not refillable, which really bugs me, but it’s supposedly recyclable.  That’s great, except that a new P.O.D. will cost you about $5 or $6.  I’d much rather refill the one I have than pay all that money every time we need a new one.  I guess it’s less expensive than the Bissell SpotBot that I still don’t own, however, so that’s a plus.

I need to invoke my own BlogPound rating system for all the products I write about.  If I had one, and was rating on a scale of one to five, I’d rate the P.O.D. about a 4.  It can’t be a 5 because it’s non-refillable, and because it makes me get on my hands and knees to use.

woolite_pod_for_pet_stains

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 11/11 at 02:43 AM
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Saturday, November 10, 2007 , late at night

Quiet Saturday

While I can’t just continously blog about how tired I am, I still feel like doing it.  Today was a quiet day… slept until 5:30, ran out to Best Buy to look for product they don’t have in stock, run to grocery store for chicken, come home and try to hold eyelids open while watching hockey.  It’s my plan to do a detailed rundown of all the seminars I attended at BWE, but I guess it’s going to take longer than I thought.  I sadly did not get to the vet’s office… the office wasn’t even open when my eyes opened this afternoon.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 11/10 at 11:22 PM
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Friday, November 09, 2007 , late at night

BlogWorld - Day 2 (The gods of sweepstakes smile upon us)

I’ve got tons of interesting stuff to write about Blog World Expo.  I learned a lot, met many interesting people, and I’ll share the tips I jotting down in my notebook in case any of you can benefit from the info.  For now, I just want to tell a quick story.  There weren’t too many vendors at BWE, which was good, because there wasn’t much time to see the exhibits between the seminars.  Many vendors were giving away freebies in drawings - things like iPods, iPhones, XBoxes, and even the elusive Nintendo WII.  You had to be present for some of the drawings, which were held right at the end of the show.  Flippy and I were making our last pass through the floor before going to our final seminar, and as we walked, I won two 4GB iPod Nanos, and Flippy won an amazing 8GB iPod Touch.  Isn’t that just freakish luck?!  We haven’t decided what to do with them, although I’d be interested in trading one of the Nanos for a Flip Ultra Camcorder if there was someway I could do that.  PetFinder now allows video, so I’d love a way to take quick and easy video of the cats.  I’d also like to do some stuff for YouTube, like videos of bottle-feeding.

It would have felt nice to have won one thing, but three was unimaginable.  Money can’t buy happiness, but winning stuff can put a smile on your face!

Oh, a quick cat rescue update:  I called the vet today while we were driving down to the Convention Center, and the cats are doing well.  They’re not freaked out and they seem to be patiently, and in good humour, awaiting their grooming.  We’ll try to get down to see them tomorrow, if we can walk :p Thanks for the good name suggestions, too!  I love the idea of changing Pinto’s name to “Bean”, because my sister had a cat named that, and I thought it was a great name.  So, for now we’ll call him “Pinto Bean”, with emphasis on the “Bean” part.  I need to read over the suggestions for Shiner, because I can’t remember them all, but I know I saw a few I liked.  Keep ‘em coming!

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 11/09 at 11:19 PM
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The kitties need new names

As per Helena’s suggestion, I’d like to try to come up with new names for the two foster cats (the formerly known as “Pinto”, and “Shiner").  I don’t mind the name Pinto, but maybe these guys do need a fresh start.  Have any ideas for names?  Pinto is a longhaired male, with large black and white patches.  Shiner is a longhaired grey male… he looks a lot like Greg, Spiderman’s brother.  They’re both pretty large, but not fat (that I noticed).  One of them is 12, and the other is 14, but I don’t know which is which.  Their shelter paperwork said Pinto was 12, and Shiner was 10, and I don’t know if Shiner’s age is just wrong, or if both cats’ ages are off by two years.  That only matters if you wanted to rename Shiner something like “Quattordici”.

If you have any suggestions, please leave them in the comments!

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 11/09 at 09:28 AM
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Thursday, November 08, 2007 , late at night

CliqIn

CliqIn is a new service which allows you to create your own blogging communities.  You create a “Cliq”, give it a topic, and then invite existing blogs to join your Cliq.  You’re then given a widget to publish on your blog, and the widget will show you the headlines from the latest posts of bloggers in your Cliq.  Make sense?  I joined CliqIn after seeing their booth at Blog World Expo, and I thought I’d give the system a whirl by joining a group about “animal rescue” bloggers, or “cat bloggers”, or something, but there weren’t any!  So, I created my own group, just called “Pet Bloggers”.  I set it to “Private” so I’d have to approve memberships, only because I think the system is ripe to be used for spam or other nasty business.

If something like this interests you, please check it out.  If it really interests you, please tell me and I’ll give management of the group to you.  I really don’t need any more activities in my day, but wanted to join to see if the system had any social media marketing implications.  It might be fun to easily see what other pet bloggers are up to, however.  I kind of like the widget, but it’s sad with just me in it:

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Whoops, that won’t show up in a blog entry, as it’s Javascript.  I’ll put it in my sidebar, and then I’m going to bed!

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 11/08 at 11:49 PM
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Blog World Expo Day 1

Blog World Expo.  Am so tired.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 11/08 at 10:53 PM
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Wednesday, November 07, 2007 , late at night

Brief update on Operation Kitty Retrieval

I’m afraid I don’t have time to write much now… I have to get to bed because tomorrow is the first day of Blog World Expo.  Well, the first day for us folks in the cheap seats, anyway.  We had about three hours of sleep last night, and tonight isn’t lookin’ a whole lot better.  Whoops!  I’m hoping to do some “networking” at the conference, and perhaps pick up one or two more blogging jobs to round-out my work week.  I’ll be stumbling and slurring from lack of sleep, but at least the problem won’t be caused by booze.

I’d left a message with animal control last night, saying I wanted to adopt both cats if they were still around, and someone called me back first thing this morning!  I was impressed!  The woman said both cats were alive, but one was in the back and not on display because it was badly matted and needed to be shaved.  She could not hold the cats for me (I really think that policy is sort of silly, at least in the sense of “holding” an animal to prevent euthanization), but she put notes on both their cages saying that I would be coming in to pick them up.  She also couldn’t tell me how long the cats would have before being euthanized, because she “doesn’t make those decisions”.  Not surprisingly, I wasn’t permitted to speak to the person who does make the decisions.

That left us in a bind.  We live almost 30 miles away from the Henderson animal control, so we were looking at a long journey through the heart of Las Vegas, ending in rush hour.  We were literally travelling from the most northwest edge of town to the most southeast corner (where Vegas turns into a different city).  We’d hardly had any sleep (maybe 3 to 4 hours), and we knew we’d have to make a similar trip on Thursday and Friday when we attend Blog World Expo.  Flippy came up with a reasonable idea:  call the former owner of the cats, ask her to claim them, and keep them overnight.  We’d pick them up from her on our way home from BWE on Thursday, thus saving us a whole lot of bother.

The cats’ former owner was freakishly uncooperative!  There was no way she could go pick up the cats.  She had no carriers for them.  She didn’t know anyone who could take them overnight.  “If I’d known someone who could have taken them, then I wouldn’t have put the cats in the shelter!” (ah, silly me).  At this point I got a bit cranky nasty and said, “I’m only asking someone to look after the cats for one night, not for years and years.  You’re not listening to what I’m asking.  Don’t you have a daughter or a work friend who would watch the cats for one day until I could come and get them?” Her answer was always “no”.  She was living with her mother-in-law, and the MIL had supposedly said, “I don’t want cats anywhere near this house”.  (Then the MIL cackled and stirred her cauldron).  Even if it meant the cats would die, the MIL wouldn’t let them the cats sit in crates in a garage for 18 hours.  At this point I almost suggested that the cat’s former owner pick up the cats, and take them to a vet’s office and board them, but I knew she’d say no to that as well.  She tossed in a few, “my husband’s dying” anytime I got pissed up at her lack of cooperation.

The thing that was really odd was that the woman seemed to love her cats, but she refused to help save them. She kept talking about how wonderful they were, and begging me to save them, and she was even weeping, yet she couldn’t do the most simple tasks to make our lives a bit easier.  I ended the call by saying, “Tell your MIL law that some stranger is going to spend $200 of her own money to save your cats.  I work two and three jobs to afford to help cats, and I shouldn’t have to do this, but I’ll do it for the cats.” And the final words out of the woman’s mouth?  “If I had any money I’d send you some, but I don’t.”

Maybe I should forgive this woman on the basis of her having a temporarily mental/emotional disorder because of her husband’s illness.  I understand how that could happen.  I don’t understand how a reaction to impending loss of life is to create more loss of life. 

As a result of that frustrating phone conversation, Flippy and I took a 70 mile roundtrip to Henderson (we took a little unintended detour for unexpected sightseeing.  It happens!).  We used up all the gas we had left in our tank, and with gas over $3 per gallon here, we’ll spend $49 to fill it up tomorrow.  At animal control, we had to pay $55 each for the cats.  The cats looked miserable and terrified, not unlike our first experience with Chelsea and Jackson many years ago.  One even peed in fear as he was being carried out.  They were so confused and bewildered, and both of them were badly matted and in need of a bath.  It was starting to look a bit like the former owner may not have wanted to care for the cats any longer, but that’s just a guess.  The cats chatted a bit in the cat but were mostly silent, grossing out Flippy with the pee smell.

Now we’re getting to a bit of a happy ending to this first chapter.  Finally the day had guardian angels.  We drove to our regular vet’s office where we were going to board the cats overnight, and have them bathed and shaved.  I’d hoped to find a foster family there for the cats, but there were no bites.  However, the clinic is going to board the cats for free at least until Monday, and longer if needed (i.e., they’ll board the cats until someone in command notices, heh).  That’s such peace of mind for me, and it gives me the weekend to try to move Greg and Spiderman.  If we can move them, then these two new cats can come stay, but I may have to change their names slightly.  Their current names are Pinto and Shiner, and while I don’t mind Pinto, I think “Shiner” sounds like beer.  He needs a sophicated name, like Odin, or Bilbo Baggins, but I don’t want to confuse him too much.

I’m sorry this wasn’t slow.  My eyes are crossing and I misspelled a lot of worms, uh, words.  Forgive me… my pillow is calling…

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 11/07 at 11:42 PM
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