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.

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?!!   )

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.

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!

As a customer this means that I have direct contact with the company. It’s very powerful! And the personal touch means a lot to me.

Who are actively using Twitter?

• @MarketingProfs,@BulldogSolut (Bulldog marketing), @evernote
• people representing indeed.com, radian6 and many more!

The other part of this is monitoring what people are saying on Twitter about your brand. I use tweetscan.com in the same way that I have GoogleAlerts set up: a daily report on @cbenson, @cbensen, acdsee and ‘community manager’

@jowyang recently listed a number of helpful Twitter app’s.

And if you’re wondering what Twitter is – Lee LeFever of CommonCraft has a video on it:

If you’re not on Twitter yet, sign up & follow me @cbensen

Connect with me on Facebook (link under my photo on left – works for Twitter too!) & I’ll be glad to help you with Twitter.

*update* 2 more corporations found me today: @HRBlock & @carnivalcruises

And I shouldn’t have forgotten my friends at @batchblue & also @perkettpr

*update* here’s an excellent article on why Companies Should Use Twitter

• 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?

Well with that kind of peer pressure…(can you feel the magnet of social media pulling me in?) I saw the note about the MicroMedia Meetup?! Now I don’t do any MicroMedia other than Twitter, so I had to get with it & quick! So you get TWO Utterz! In them I reveal secrets. And now you know the rest of the story! *grin*

I added a new category for this – micromedia. My friend, Jeremiah O, coined the term. And I must say that hearing a person’s voice adds a new dimension to the blogging experience.

(Hey sister Heidi, you’re pretty good at those videos, but what do you think of this,eh?!)

I’ve been encouraging some to try it, but it’s difficult to explain. I’d like to share my perspective. When I first registered, I admit to not seeing the point. You need to become involved in the conversation to realize it’s worth.

Just reading there is going to be boring. People’s ‘tweet’s are going to seem disjointed. And if they’re twittering @others, and you can only see their side of the conversation it will be even more surreal.

For me: Twitter = Interaction

Morning news – people post links to the latest news – it’s great reading. Ann Handley of MarketingProfs is doing a great job of using Twitter to expand their blog’s reach. jowyang always has informative links.

Personally interacting with people – Twitter gives you personal insight into to other’s worlds. People express what & why they’re doing things. I enjoy chrisbrogan’s provoking questions. Sass is in social media rehab. Definitely worth a smile!

And as so many have said, it’s a water cooler to check in with friends. Because you get to know these people on a more personal level. It’s not invasive, because you check in when it’s convenient for you. People offer advice if you ask for it & are very generous. I’ve even seen impromptu job postings blip thru! Can you tell that I’m addicted?!

My rule is that if people follow me, I follow them. But if their stream is too noisy & doesn’t provide me with value, then I unfollow them. It’s interesting to note that people I’ve met on Twitter have extended to befriending on Facebook! I think that says a lot.

If’ you’d like to try it, create a Twitter account & choose a short username. Add the people above to get started (I provided links). Add me, cbensen, & I’ll be glad to help you.

Jeremiah Owyang outlines how to use it for your org. & Ann Handley provided 7 reasons why marketers should use it.

There are 3 main things to get started:

1. ‘tweets’ are limited to 140 characters, but you can tweet multiple ones to finish a thought. Posting your blog post is another way to express yourself too.

2. Use @UserName to direct it to someone specifically (but everyone sees it)

3. Direct message allows you to send a private message (but only if they’re following you).

Questions? Let me know & I’ll be glad to help. See you on Twitter!

Two things prompted this post:

A reference type question from Suzy, a new friend with a very fun blog (check out that post!)! Librarians LOVE reference questions! so please ask whatever you’d like here on my blog!

Hi Connie
Am writing magazine article on Women & Social Networking with short deadline. Any stats/articles/blogs I can research you know about…?
Readers will be well educated, many professional women interested in alternative views on parenting, but not necessarily confident or informed about the value of social networking for them in their busy lives……
Ideas and research information welcomed!!!

Jeremiah’s timely post on what a librarian from Toronto is teaching jogged my memory!

She was instructing at the University of Toronto, The Social Networking Tools: Hands on Learning, a class designed for librarians and library administrators who want and need to learn how social media, social computing is impacting their world.

I’m going to put my answer to her here because my sense from previous comments on this blog is that people are sharing resources with coworkers. That’s a goal of this blog as with my other one – the open sharing of resources (see? I’ll always be a librarian at heart!).

Librarians have been involved with Web 2.0 for quite awhile & I’m going to share the best resources in case your organization is interested in exploring social media &networking tools. Maybe it’s your job to teach others about these resources?

An entry point: Learning 2.0 – 23 things List from The Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County. Their description: a discovery learning program designed to encourage staff to explore new technologies and reward them for doing 23 Things. Since the program’s launched, it has fostered Learning 2.0 programs all over the world.

If you’re a seasoned in Web 2.0 then I have two prolific bloggers to introduce you to. I have heard both of them speak in person! and they are truly inspirational. They were my introduction to Web 2.0.

• Michael Stephens Tame the Web is a prolific blogger & thought leader. He blends Flickr nicely & has great ideas on marketing with a focus on customer friendly.
• Stephen Abrams – Stephens Lighthouse has great ideas for engaging Gen X & Gen Y’ers, but overall he’s on the cutting edge & his ideas are invaluable for non-profits & education but apply to the enterprise as well because he speaks in terms of Customers.

And I can’t end this without putting in a pitch! Have you been to your public library lately? and checked out all they have to offer! I bet you’d be surprised at the offerings & the new technology. And if you pay taxes, you’ve already paid for the services, so why not use them?

Keep the questions coming! Feel free to ask them here or message me at Facebook. There’s a link to my profile under my photo.