Connie Bensen

Like that question has never been answered before! So why am I addressing it? Well, someone asked my opinion & after coming up with 5 steps & prioritizing them I thought the process should be shared.

Here is my advice for starting a blog along with some resources to get you started.

1. Branding

• Who are you & what makes you memorable? I have my photo…
• What is your message? You may not have your voice yet, but that’s ok.

2. Choose a theme & someone to build it if you’re technically challenged like me

• Find a theme that reflects your personality
• SEO is huge & widget-ready will make it fun for you
• Google Analytics & Feedburner are important
• choose a blogging platform that is user friendly
• I really like WordPress & my sister builds great blogs

3. Start writing and find your voice

• I don’t believe you need content in advance because I’ve started 3 – cold
• After 2-3 months you’ll be comfortable & will have found your voice
• During this time read & post comments on other’s blogs
• ‘Gently’ link to your relevant blog posts.

4. Go thru your posts & redo the categories at 3 months or so

• Now that you have your voice, you’ll know what you’re writing about!
• Categorize them for your readers please (it’s the librarian coming out in me)

5. Be consistent in your posting & grow your blog

• Check your stat’s & interpret them
• What searches are hitting your blog?
• Follow links back (using Technorati) and thank them for linking to you

Bonus idea – I did say 5 up there.

6. Repurpose questions that people ask or that you see multiple times.

• If one or a few people have them, then chances are the lurkers do too (which is 95% or so people).

What did I miss? It should be a fun process. If it’s work you probably won’t do it (please don’t contribute to the massive number of abandoned blogs). It will take effort, but it will be rewarding! enjoy!

Blogging gets easier with time. After awhile the self conscious feeling fades & it becomes more natural. Give yourself time to grow with it!

Twitter is a bird of many colors. I’ve seen it used in many creative ways:

• Job vacancies are posted that I doubt ever hit traditional boards
• requests for sightseeing & restaurant recommendations
• tweet-ups (people meet at a certain place when attending an event)

Recently I had won an iPhone. AT&T doesn’t offer service in my area so I blogged about it & posted a link on Twitter. My readers came up with a number of ideas & offered empathy. It seems that the iTouch better suited my needs . I really didn’t want to test AT&T to see if they would notice an out of range account & disconnect me.

I called Apple & they were willing to return it, but the credit would go to the original purchaser which was the Wetpaint Wiki company. Then they would have had to order a new one & it just seemed like an unfair hassle for them. Apple had free shipping on Friday, so I posted my Twitter ad.

need an iPhone? at $299? I won one, I can’t get service & an iTouch is better – Apple has free shipping today… DM me if you’re interested

In 5 minutes I had 2 responses. In an hour the third one came in that actually purchased it. We used Paypal to transfer the funds. Ebay has taught me how easy Paypal is to use.

My iPhone has a home where it can be used for more than a paperweight! YAY! And my iTouch will be delivered by Friday. (I won’t be home so it’ll be a week before I can play with my new toy.). My sister-in-law is taking delivery.

What creative ways do you see Twitter being used?

It’s interesting how many people that I’ve gotten to know are shifting to positions in social media. Following the evolution of the industry is also fascinating. Two have become social media specialists in advertising/PR firms. I’m not sure what Chris Brogan’s new title is? And most recently another friend is pressing his exec’s to add the Community Manager role to his company. This is indicative of a trend.

People need resources to explain & justify the role. Where should they begin? What does this position look like & what type of person is best suits it? What information are you looking for?

Today Jeremiah Owyang published the Four Tenets of the Community Manager:

• Community Advocate
• Brand Evangelist
• Savvy Communication Skills, Shapes Editorial
• Gathers Community Input for Future Product and Services

I have referenced resources on his Web Strategy blog many times because it’s a treasure trove of information definitely worth mining.

If you or your company is interested in this role, you may be interested in joining the International Online Community Management Association. Sascha Carlin started the mindmap below & it is a collaborative effort. It offers a nice visual. (Click on it to go to the original).

Sascha’s call embodies the spirit of the role of Community Manager:

This call is intended to gather professional community managers and community builders working in the field of online communities.

We are working in a field that has many different aspects. Community professionals have varying backgrounds, work in different industries and aim to fulfill different business goals. We work with all kinds of communities, all sizes of them and different topics and missions.

Since the take-off of Web 2.0 and with it user generated content the term community was enlarged to nearly all ventures on the web. Publishers, producers, service providers, more or less everyone who sells something, strive into creating communities.

Online Community Management is a challenging profession. It involves facilitation and moderation, selling the community idea within the company as well as to its customers. We depend on our superiors to grant us resources. We need to convince other departments to work with us. We need to evangelize where the community idea is new and to join efforts where it already is.

In fact, we are a product managers. But of a special kind. There is not a boxed product called community which you put on the shelves. We have a potential audience of millions. We have to know how to reach these people, what services to offer to them, how to get them involved in our companies’ business goals. It is about business and brand. Brands carry emotions, and what is a community other than people having emotions.

Until now, we were scattered. We sought help in the little literature that exists about online communities. We searched the web and found single pieces of information. We ventured into psychology and communication sciences, play theory, marketing and advertising.

But we missed something essentially. A place to go to when all else has failed. A place where we can find people who are in the same position as we are, who we can ask for guidance, best practices and ideas, who understand us.

There are more reasons yet to be addressed: education guidelines, lobbying and many more.

These are the reasons why we need something like IOCMA – International Online Community Management Association.

IOCMA seeks to become that one place. It’s time to engage.

Join us if you’re interested in contributing & building a professional organization for Community Managers. It may be an excellent way to bring together resources & make them available to everyone. That just gave me a great idea! (The Community Manager position is all about ideas – and that’s one of the things I love about it!)

What information are you looking for?

Last night Twitter was taken down for a bit. There was a warning sign & some of us hung around just to see what would happen… What would happen to all those people addicted to Twitter? That was the question.

I suggested that we take the conversation to IM, but I saw some Pownce usernames tossed about. Ok then! I am functional in most social networks. And I had signed up for Pownce long ago (that was a tough invite to get!). I have 26 invites now if anyone needs/wants, I just need your email.

It didn’t take long & there was quite a number of us convening & suggesting people add usernames. I received a random invite from Christopher Penn. In the past I’ve followed links posted by Chris Brogan so I knew his name – now we’re connected on Pownce, Twitter & Facebook. (Christopher & I had 22 common friends on Facebook – so it was about time that we connected apparently!)  Great to meet you Christopher & all of my new friends on Pownce!

Pownce is similar to Twitter & Facebook & yet different:

• Similar to Twitter – no character limitations
• different in able to see messages in email
• Similar to Facebook in that you can send file links
• different in able to send files
• Great functionality to find ‘friends of friends’.like in Facebook

While I was there I set up my profile more fully because my new friends weren’t aware of my blog address.

It was interesting to watch the conversation & the traffic shift as Twitter went down. Later when it came back up people shifted over to it. Some of us continued to post to Pownce and Twitter at the same time. (I was chatting at the same time too.) Now we have an emergency plan for future Twit-outages!

If you’re on Pownce, feel free to add me. I’m also on Twitter & Facebook & welcome new friends! Where did you go when Twitter was down? Or did you read Geoff Livingston’s new book? Now is Gone