Connie Bensen

Whenever I get a request to speak, I’m always humbled and honored by the invitation. But when I found out that the audience was crafters, I was thrilled because this is the very group that I was part of when I started on the path to my present career.

I thoroughly enjoyed creating a niche community at DigiScrapInfo.com for digital scrapbookers to assist them in organizing their supplies & photos. For three years I translated digital marketing techniques for this very passionate group of entrepreneurs that are also busy moms and grandmas.

Jess from BlogHer had requested a class on intermediate SEO and technology. In the spirit of crafting I realized that optimizing a blog is like adding bling to it. What is bling? My definition is anything that makes it sparkle and attracts attention. And who doesn’t want the attention of Search Engines?

A personal frustration that I have had with many of the SEO sessions I’ve attended is that they talk in general terms, and I came away only with concepts rather than actionable items. So I have put in specific steps for using the various tools mentioned.

Here are some additions that were a result of the questions during and after the session:

1. If you are blogging for fun, family & friends then using a platform such as Typepad, Blogger, WordPress.com, etc is fine. Some of the tools may be helpful if you’re looking for things to write about. (They aren’t the best for building top rank in SEO. If you want that then it’s best to get a URL and host your own blog. WordPress is a recommended choice.)
2. I had assumed that everyone knew about Feedburner and so didn’t include it. (My apologies as I consider Feedburner as a basic part of blogging.) http://feedburner.google.com
3. Learn more about using Feedburner here

We had so many questions that I didn’t have time to give the most important piece of advice and that is that blogging should be fun. It’s about sharing ideas. Yes, keywords are important, but if you’re consistent in sharing your passion for a topic then you’ll build that coveted organic SEO over time. These tools can help spur new ideas for content and help you focus on a niche that isn’t as competitive.

A huge thanks to BlogHer for inviting me to join the event yesterday! Crafting is a perfect cottage industry for the internet and I’m glad that we could have a day to focus on digital marketing.

I never want to be too far behind Jeremiah Owyang, so last Saturday I installed Google’s Sidewiki. Piece of cake! but I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how to claim my blog.

Everyone needs to stake their claim online for a number of reasons. In this case it allows you to post a comment that stays at the top. My guess is that more functionality may come. Best practice in branding says you should own your own domain & all related.

On Saturday I spent 2 hrs fighting with it to get that green box to show up. I installed Sidewiki in Flock. Then in Firefox. It was so frustrating! I am very stubborn when it comes to technology. I was almost ready to ask my sister even! (she maintains my blog – don’t EVEN assume that I do!).

So tonite I invested another half hour. And I found the answer! The instructions that I was reading left out one *ahem* major point. And it’s my duty to save you the time & pain.

1. Install Google Sidewiki if you haven’t.
2. Install Google Webmaster Tools if you haven’t previously done so. (yes, you need to put code in your blog*, but I was able to figure it out, so just do it.)
3. Open your blog/site, click on the Sidewiki icon and there you go! The option to claim your site! I see that you can add up to 1,000 sites That link provides examples. I’m going to add other pages on my site.
4. The last step is to write a note there for future Sidewiki users. Bill Hartzer has a couple nice examples (but his instr’s leave out step 2).

And I’m quite pleased now. I asked my Twitterati to test it. We all like comments, huh? Now you can gather Sidewiki comments too!

* If you’re using WordPress, click on Editor on left & then click on Header on right.

Look! It works!!

(Sister, Heidi & @SecretSushi – are you guys shocked & amazed?!!   )

Communities have various ways of encouraging participation. At the DeFrag conference there was much discussion about leader boards for internal communities. Personally I prefer featuring those that are adding value to the community rather than just those that are the most vocal. This allows you to highlight contributors for a variety of reasons rather than limiting your own incentivization program. (is that a word? It looks good though). I met someone who leads a community that does this very well. And the best thing is that it’s a community for those of us that specialize in social media!

It was a total pleasure to meet Robin Fray Carey, CEO & Co-Founder of SocialMediaToday at the Social Media Strategies Conference in San Francisco last week. It’s always inspiring to meet women who are making a difference in the social media world.

SocialMediaToday.com is a unique community that offers bloggers a great springboard to share our thoughts & ideas. Here is why I love it: It aggregates them all in one place allowing us to read each others work, vote on it & comment. I have met new friends there & keep up with old ones. The value that it brings me is that my blog is syndicated there where it is exposed to new readers. They can click thru & explore my blog more fully because permalinks are offered. And they’re doing it in such a way that search engines don’t see it as a duplication & frown on it for SEO purposes.

I have been evangelizing SocialMediaToday for quite some time. I included it in my guest post on Problogger as a great way to take your blog to a new community. It really does give your blog legs! And if your focus is small business then you can syndicate your blog in their sister site, MyVenturePad.com. They have recently launched a new site for marketing specialists called TheCustomerCollective And I see that they have TheEnergyCollective too.

How can you add your blog & join the community? (I highly recommend it)

• Register for a profile
• Follow the instructions
• Your blog’s RSS is fed in & their fabulous Community Manager/Editor Jerry Bowles reviews the posts & chooses which to display.
• Sign up for their weekly newsletter – it rocks! by highlighting news & popular posts

Here’s my post from last week on using Twitter for Business that has been on SocialMediaToday. To date it’s had 524 views! And they kindly highlighted a link in the newsletter.

A huge thank you to Robin & Jerry for providing us with a place to aggregate our collective knowledge. It’s a rich source of information for those aspiring to learn & share our knowledge.

I happened upon a meme-like post at social media snackers. And just yesterday someone asked about Evernote on Twitter so it must be time to talk about my favorite social media tools again.

My top 10 tools & platforms are:

• Livewriter (am blogging in it as I type!) — update on Livewriter features
• Evernote – the most awesome desktop organizational tool ever! I live by it
• Facebook – my networking lifeline (I have a profile/resume in LinkedIn but…Facebook is far more useful)
• Twitter – where I have ‘face-to-face’ conversations with my friends
• Skype is becoming more important
• Copernic – desktop search tool allows me to find email & files fast
• WordPress brings you this blog
• Digsby is a great chat aggregator – love talking to Facebook friends!
• Snag-it totally rocks for screenshots! & blogging
• Google alerts for brand monitoring

What are your favorite 10 social media tools/platforms?

Connect with me on Facebook & Twitter if you aren’t already. I’ll be glad to share more info on these app’s that save me time!