Disruption Tour --- Run To Survive

PR Secrets for Startups

techcrunch.com

At a time when anyone can broadcast their opinions about your startup to the world, public relations requires a new level of engagement on the part of companies and entrepreneurs. But what are the new rules of PR? Guest author Brian Solis, who earlier this month wrote a post for us on the evolution of the press release, explains how public relations has changed and offers up 12 secrets of PR for startups. Warning: This a lengthy post. Its intent is to help companies navigate through the rough seas of traditional PR as its struggles, forcibly, to evolve and adapt to the new rules set forth by the Web (regardless of version number) . Solis is the Principal of FutureWorks, a PR and New Media agency in Silicon Valley and also blogs at PR 2.0. Along with Geoff Livingston, Solis recently co-authored Now is Gone, a book that helps businesses learn how to leverage new and social media. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I’ve been overwhelmed with requests from executives and PR professionals to explain how this new media (r)evolution applies to them specifically and how they can make PR more effective and personal during these interesting times. I recently discussed it here and have been doing so for a long, long time. But since conversations and attention is discontinuous and distributed, I asked if I could bring this discussion to a more prominent online epicenter to help reach a wider array of those looking for answers. The Long Road Back to Public Relations Public Relations is experiencing a long overdue renaissance and its forcing PR stereotypes out from behind the curtain where they operated comfortably for far too many decades. It didn’t begin this transformation because of Web 2.0 or the latest Social Media wave, but instead in the 90’s when the Web gained mass adoption. Yes, it’s taken that long and it will continue to evolve over the next decade as communications professionals struggle with putting the public back in public relations. Regardless of what we think we know about PR and the New Media or Social Media revolution, the truth is that we actually may know less about everything than we care to believe. These are times where we can lead and learn in order to improve an industry long plagued by misconceptions and the lack of PR for itself. PR is now more than ever, something more capable and influential than simply writing and sending press releases to contacts generated by media databases. The media landscape has been completely blown open to not only include traditional media, but also bloggers and most importantly the very people we want to reach, our customers. PR 1.0 About 100 years ago, Ivy Lee and Edward Bernays created and defined the art and science of modern-day PR. Believe it or not, their philosophies and contributions can still be used to further evolve PR today – especially when it comes to Social Sciences. Over the years, the PR 1.0 publicity machine lost its way and its spark. We got caught up in hype, spin, buzzwords, and spam, and forgot that PR was supposed to be about Public Relations. But, its still how many companies continue to approach PR today. Enter Social Media and the democratization of the Web and content. Now media and content producers are pushing back, demanding a more targeted and relevant form of outreach. For those who confuse Social Media with online marketing, Social Media is anything that uses the Internet to facilitate conversations between people – it is not the practice of social marketing. I say people, because it humanizes the process of communications when you think about conversations instead of companies marketing at audiences. PR 2.0 = Conversational PR The Web changed everything and this ongoing reinvention of PR has been dubbed PR 2.0 or New PR. PR 2.0, as I defined it many years ago, is the realization that the Web changed everything, inserting people equally into the process of traditional influence. Suddenly we were presented with the opportunity to not only reach our audiences through media gatekeepers, but also use the online channels where they publish and share information to communicate more directly and genuinely. At the very least, PR 2.0 is going back to the roots of PR to bring back relating to the public back into the process. Now it’s about listening and, in turn, engaging influencers and stakeholders on their level. It forces PR to stop broadcasting and start connecting. It is a chance to not only work with traditional journalists, but also engage directly with a new set of accidental influencers, and, it is also our ability to talk with customers directly. No BS. No hype. It’s an understanding of markets, the needs of people, and how to reach them at the street level—without insulting everyone along the way. Conversational PR is becoming a hybrid of communications, customer service, evangelism, and Web marketing. The evolution from PR 1.0 to PR 2.0 will result in more informed, effective, and meaningful Public Relations, without a version number. It’ll just be good PR. So what does this mean for you? It means you have to start thinking about things more intelligently, differently, and personally. The Secrets Maybe you’re an entrepreneur with a recently funded company in need of users, or perhaps you’re bootstrapped and actively seeking financing and you need a little something that will land you a more attractive term sheet. Every VC, as well as every successful entrepreneur, will tell you that great PR can make you, whereas bad or mediocre PR can stifle your growth and possibly damage existing and prospective relationships. And, they all have ideas on how you should proceed. But right now, the main thing that stands between you and success is getting those customers – and good press (traditional and new media) builds the bridge between you and them. In order to get to the next level, you need to know the secrets of effective PR, especially in today’s competitive Web 2.0 world. These are critical times for your business and you can’t simply entrust the future of your brand to anyone who knows how to write a press release, place it on the wire, and send it via email. Secret #1 Understand You’re Not the Only Story in Town Bloggers and reporters are some of the busiest people you could possibly hope to meet. They’re actively looking for the most interesting, relevant, and linkable stories out there, preferably before anyone else can run with it. But truthfully, they spend most of their time hacking through the weeds of generic or over-the-top inbound emails, press releases, Facebook messages, Skypes, SMSes, Tweets, and IMs. It’s almost a small miracle that anyone can ever get their story told. At the end of the day, you’re not the only company with a great story. Just because your story is new doesn’t make it newsworthy. Bloggers and journalists are interested in good stories and the more time you spend developing that story up front, for each person you’re trying to reach, the more you can help them help you. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily

Blogger Insecurity

From PRBlogger.com

In this post Chris Guillebeau from The Art of Nonconformity examines the topic of blogger insecurity.

Here’s a confession: every time I post a new essay on my site, I experience a brief moment of panic. At first, the panic is the same feeling I get when sending an email or turning in an important memo.

“Did I just commit a horrible grammar crime?” I wonder. “Did I misspell something obvious?”

But even after the momentary panic passes as I proofread the post yet again, a deeper, more serious feeling sets in. The questions I ask myself shift from grammar concerns to fears about what I’ve actually written.

“What if the readers don’t like it… or worse, what if they just don’t care?”

That’s my confession—I am a highly insecure blogger. I worry a lot about what people think, even though I fully realize that this fear is not always rational and certainly not optimal for good writing.

In talking with other bloggers recently, I’ve begun to suspect that I’m not alone in my insecurity. Many of us struggle with the same emotional issue of learning to overcome fear and insecurity in presenting ideas to the blogosphere.

At least for me, the fear of presenting free ideas for the world’s benefit is much greater than the fear of presenting commercial projects for personal profit.

I’ve produced about 20 commercial websites and consulted on a lot more. But none of them have caused me as much anxiety—or as much fulfillment—as my new personal site. I’m not entirely sure why this is true, but I do know that I feel much more personally invested in my writing project than in any for-profit venture I’ve been involved in.

When I write, I think about the fact that these ideas are originally my own, but my greatest hope is that they will go out into the world and help others. Throughout the writing and publishing process, I experience these fears:

• The world is so crowded… how will I break through all the noise?
• What if I can’t stick to my publication schedule?
• What if no one notices?
• What if people notice and they don’t like it?

Countering these fears, the medium of blogging presents a number of opportunities that will help you overcome the insecurity and get your ideas to the people who need to hear.

4 Great Things about Presenting Your Ideas through Blogging

1. The gatekeepers aren’t in charge anymore. Perhaps the greatest thing about the blogging revolution is the increased democratization of information. People can decide not to pay attention to your ideas, but no one can hinder your ability to put them on the table.

2. You’ll receive instant feedback that is usually positive. Eventually, all bloggers who gain a significant audience of fans will also attract their share of critics. You need a strategy to deal with the critics, but in most cases, the fans will greatly outnumber the critics. While you probably shouldn’t present big ideas in anticipation of being praised, the positive feedback will help you break through the moments of insecurity.

3. Thanks to archives, your ideas will always be available. With traditional forms of communicating big ideas, such as public speaking, your ideas are more limited in distribution. Contrast this to blog posts and other online content, where a good idea can last a long time after you first publish it.

4. You can change your mind. If the passing of time or the availability of new information causes you to change your mind about the original position you took, that’s OK. You can either write a new post explaining the change, or simply modify the original article. Some people will object to this, but remember—it’s your blog. You are ultimately responsible for the ideas you present, so you also have the freedom to change your mind.

My Own Story

In my own quest to visit every country in the world and lead the crusade against conventional thinking, I spent nearly a full year outlining and writing initial content before I started the Art of Nonconformity site.

I devoted hours to learning from the masters here at Problogger and other authority sites. I actively followed other bloggers I admired, especially those who were able to quickly establish a following. I solicited—and paid attention to—good advice from those who have gone before.

But finally, I could wait no longer. With the help of a great designer, I set up my site and started publishing on a regular schedule.

The time to start presenting your big ideas is when you can no longer keep them to yourself in good conscience.

When you reach that same point, and when you’re willing to sacrifice for it, nothing can stop you. Some of the best advice I heard came from John Wesley at PicktheBrain.com. John told me that the turning point for his site was when it went from being about what he wanted to what the readers wanted.

I really liked that perspective, and we’ve been doing some redesigning over the past couple of weeks to focus more on what our own readers have shared through site comments and email messages.

Do you have big ideas of your own to share with the world? In the end, you may find that any insecurity you experience will be worth it. Despite the challenges, there is a great deal of freedom in knowing that you have the courage to come out of hiding and share your ideas with anyone who cares to listen.

Chris Guillebeau is a social entrepreneur who writes at The Art of Nonconformity. Over the next five years he will be traveling to every country in the world.

A Secret to Blogging Success - Build Upon What You Build

Problogger.com

This week we’ve been looking at how to reach our potential by overcoming Blogger Inferiority Complex - a condition that cripples many bloggers.

Yesterday I suggested two steps to overcome this problem:

1. Identify What You Have - don’t focus one what you don’t have but instead focus upon what is at your fingertips that can be the foundation on what your future lies. I suggested 11 questions to ask yourself as a blogger to help you work out what you have.
2. Build Upon What You Have - starting with what you’ve got - begin to build from that place rather than being distracted by what others are building in their blogging.

Today I want to suggest a final step - one that comes out of my own experience as a blogger and from watching others succeed in blogging also.

3. Build upon what you Build

Here’s a ’secret’ that I think sets highly successful people apart (in all walks of life) from the rest of us. They don’t just take what they’ve got and build upon it. They then build upon what they’ve built upon and then build again upon that…. and so on.

Many people get to a point with what they do where they become satisfied, content and where complacency sets in. They rest upon their laurels and stop pushing forward. I’ve seen this with a number of bloggers who quickly rose through the ‘ranks’ of blogging to build blogs that began to get attention and notoriety. But then they began to get comfortable and lost some of the drive that they may have previously had and pull back on the level of work that they were putting in - content just to enjoy the success they’d already had rather than to push into new ground.

The key is to push forward and ask some of the above questions on a regular basis. Here’s how it worked for me (this builds upon what I shared of my own story in yesterday’s post):

After six of so months of blogging on my first photography blog I sat down and looked at what I’d built. I realized that despite making some mistakes I’d covered some ground and what I DID have had grown.

I remember making a list of what I’d achieved at that point. The list included:

• I had a blog on photography that was paying me enough to start to think about going full time on the project.
• I had a new laptop that didn’t crash every hour (I was still on dial-up)
• I had gathered some knowledge and experience of making money with blogs
• I had some new blogger friends in my niche (and outside it) - some were beginning to talk about working together
• I had a little more profile in blogging
• I had the possibility of a little extra time on my hands as I’d completed my study

I looked at what I’d built and decided to bounce off that in a couple of directions. Firstly I decided to put my extra time into blogging more on the photography blog. I also decided to start a few other blogs on technology related to cameras. In a sense I used what I’d already build as a springboard or leverage to the next thing.

I also decided to take my experience of making money from blogs and start blogging on that topic (at first on my personal blog).

Then began another phase of grow and building.

After another 6 or so months I made a similar list of what I’d achieved and progressed to have.

Out of doing that I decided to shift all my archives on blogging about blogging from my personal blog to a new blog here at ProBlogger.

The process has continued over the last couple of years (ie every 6 or so months pausing to identify what I’ve got and where the energy was and then building on that). This resulted in a number of new things and continued growth of existing projects.

For example:

• out of having built a little credibility and profile with ProBlogger I was joined with other bloggers to build b5media
• out of 2 years of blogging on digital cameras and growing an audience in that field I decided to launch Digital Photography School
• out of reaching a point where I earned six figures in a year from blogging I joined with another blogger to launch Six Figure Blogging
• out of all of these experiences I took the decision to write the ProBlogger Book with Chris Garrett.

Now I don’t want to use my story here beat my chest and grow my ego but as an example of the principles that I’m talking about.

I didn’t start out to build what I’ve built - I started out, looking at what I had and determining to build upon that. That’s all I wanted to do at every step along the journey.

If I’d looked at the big picture too early or compared my meagre efforts with others in my early days I would have become overwhelmed and disillusioned.

Instead I focused upon what I had and what I could do and grew from there. Then I’d repeat the process.

The results have been an evolutionary growth in my own personal development as a blogger and that of my business.

Let’s Revise

1. Don’t define yourself by what you’re not
2. Start with what you have
3. Build upon what you have
4. Build upon what you build

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Castles, Towns, and Missionaries

Web Strategy by Jeremiah

I’m meeting more and more corporate marketers who understand the value of social media, but don’t know how to use it. I’m seeing a trend of at least 3 different adoption strategies, listed out below. Often they want to repurpose their corporate marketing brochures, videos, and pass them on to social channels –without understand that content, often has to change. Corporate “top-down” content doesn’t do well on YouTube, brochures and press releases don’t do well on blogs, and a marcom’s product announcement on a podcast is going to have limited traction. Corporations are adopting at least one of the three styles of Social Media Marketing: Locked in the Castle Keeping the good stuff close to your domain. Example: Creating videos, audio, and blog posts, but keeping them behind registration, or for clients only. I’m seeing a handful of corporations in the past year, require registration for videos and podcasts that limit people from accessing them. The risks include: limiting the organic spread of your hard earned content, and not benefiting by the natural word of mouth network. Of course, the flip side is that those that do register are truly hungry for the content, and self-selecting themselves further down the funnel. Building roads to Towns Reach adjacent towns by enticing them with content, and provide them with links (roads) back to your land. Example: Creating brand related images, publishing in flickr, and providing a link in the image notes back to the corporate domain Some marketers are realizing that they can put a great deal of product and company content on social media tools for free, but by providing links back to the corproate site in comments, in the post-roll of a video, or mentioning a call to action at the end of a podcast extends their reach. By providing these ‘hooks’ to content, you can hope to entice people, who will embed, share, or consume your content, and then eventually click on the links to move closer to your corporate website. Traveling Missionaries Missionaries spread to new communities. Example: Creating campaigns in social networks (like Facebook) where communities already exist, but with no links back to the corporate domain, and no blatant advertising. The truly savvy marketers are learning to find communities where they exist, becoming that community, and not worry about ‘driving traffic’ back to the corporate website as a measure of success. I’ve a few clients that have figured out how to experiment with ‘off domain’ success. There are risks too, this strategy could give up complete control to the members, and could result in a brand backlash or few people caring about a brand’s products. When it comes to social media marketing, which style is your corporation going to adopt? each has a strength –and weakness –so it’s best you understand the elements and benefits of each.

how do you establish trust online?

Written by ProBlogger.com

I’ve touched on this with a few of my other answers this weekend but let me share three thoughts:

1. It’s not something that happens quickly - I wrote a post a while back titled ‘Do you kiss on the first date? The Art of Courting as a Blogger‘ that explores how you need to work up to taking your relationships with readers to the next level. Trust takes time to build and you should see every post you make as a way to grow the relationship.
2. It is something that is earned - you’ve got to put the runs on the board somehow with your readers to show that you’re worthy of trust. This includes blogging for the long haul, showing that you know what you’re talking about, demonstrating your transparency, going the extra mile for readers etc.
3. The recommendations of others are really important - while I can tell you why you should trust me you’re far more likely to actually trust me if someone else tells you that they trust me and recommend that you do too.

Read more on this topic with a series that I wrote on Blogger Credibility.

4 Tips for Social Media Toddlers

From ProBlogger.com

The post takes a look at 4 lessons that I’ve learned from my son (that’s he and I pictured left) and what they teach me about social media (Twitter particularly). I hope you enjoy it!

From ProBloggers.com

Why does Hillary Clinton follow 0 people on Twitter?

Business Week click here for more of the article...

Posted by: Stephen Baker on April 16

When I first saw that Barack Obama “followed” more than 23,000 people’s Twitters and Hillary Clinton followed 0, I thought it was simply bad PR on Hillary’s part. Like Obama, she probably should pretend she’s listening to all those people, even though neither has the time for it.

But could the Twitters of thousands of followers could be valuable data? Perhaps analytics companies like Umbria or BuzzMetrics could rake through those tweets and give the candidates charts about shifting attitudes and responses to speeches. Costly? Not much more than a few TV ads in Philadelphia. Is it worth it for candidates to mine Twitter?

Just Because Content Is Free Doesn't Mean It's Worthless

techdirt.com

by Michael Masnick from the let's-try-this-again dept

A few folks have asked me to comment on a recent post by Jonathan Handel, an entertainment industry lawyer, bemoaning the idea that content has become "worthless." If this sounds familiar, it's because he's merely the latest in a long line of folks to confuse price and value. That's unfortunate, too, because the piece starts off really solidly, with an extremely accurate understanding of the basic economics impacting the content industry. He notes, as we have time and time again here, the reason that price is getting driven to zero. His mistake, though, is equating price with value. He gets really close to recognizing this in his fifth point, where he notes that: "Computers, web services, and consumer electronic devices are more valuable when more content is available." In other words, that content does have value, it's just not reflected in the price (due to the infinite supply).

What's really unfortunate, though, is he then comes to exactly the wrong conclusion out of all of this. Rather than recognizing that the fact that content increases the value of so many other things opens up a ton of new business models, he goes off and makes a bunch of statements that simply aren't true about what's happening in the content industry. First, he claims that there's now less money to be made today in content creation. That's simply untrue. There's a lot more money being made in content creation than ever before -- but it's much more dispersed. It's no longer all being made by a few big content companies. Then he says (and this is almost laughable): "Another effect is that the market for professional content is becoming more concentrated and less diverse." That's simply not true at all. The number of people producing content for money is larger than at any time in history.

The problem seems to be that Handel only considers content made by big content companies as legitimate professional content. This isn't just elitist, it's wrong. What these new models have done is created legitimate ways for totally new forms of professional (and, yes, it is professional) content creation. Professional content is coming from many sources these days, and while that may be a threat to the old infrastructure -- it's not a threat to professional content, which has actually become less concentrated and significantly more diverse. Anyone who thinks there's less diverse content available these days isn't looking very hard.

Finally, he claims, oddly, that "audiences are shifting more of their spending to hit properties" which pretty much goes against everything that most of us are seeing online with "the long tail" and such things. Since Handel seems to only define media as big media and assumes that all content that is free is "worthless" it's no surprise that he'd ignore it in his calculation. But, the simple fact is that he's wrong about what's happening. Content may be becoming free, but that's opening up tremendous value (which drives more content creations) and that content is coming from a much longer tail of diverse and varied content producers. It may be troublesome for the big entertainment infrastructure he's used to dealing with, but it's hardly bad for the real content industry.

20 Types of Pages that Every Blogger Should Consider

problogger.net

When you use WordPress you’re given the choice when publishing between doing it as a ‘post’ or as a ‘page‘. Posts go up on your blog while ‘pages’ are static pages that you can publish without it having to go up on your blog.

There’s a lot of reasons why you might choose a post over a page or a page over a post (that’s for another post) - but today I thought I’d highlight a few ‘pages’ that I have here on ProBlogger as examples of pages that bloggers might want to develop to promote their blog to different groups of people. Some are more essential in my mind than others but all have been helpful in the development of my own blogs.

1. About Page - perhaps one of the most common uses of the ‘page’ function on WP is the good old ‘about page’. Having an about page is essential in my mind as it gives new readers to your blog a snapshot of who you are and why they should subscribe to your blog. This is the page that I go to every time I hit a new blog - if they don’t have one it decreases my chances of subscribing significantly. Read more on adding an about page to your blog.

2. Contact Page - I’m amazed how many bloggers don’t have any way of contacting them on their blog. While I understand the temptation not to have one you could be missing out of wonderful opportunities by not giving readers, potential partners, press, other bloggers a way of contacting you. Read more on Why your blog’s readers should be able to contact you.

3. Press Page - I don’t promote this page heavily (although do mention it on my ‘About Page‘) but use it more when interacting with journalists and mainstream media outlets. The way I use it is to show journalists what others have written about me. I find that in providing a list of previous articles in mainstream media you gain a little credibility and give journalists a head start in finding an angle to pursue for their own potential articles about you. It’s also handy to be able to provide this page to anyone else that you’re attempting to build credibility with that may not be that ‘new media savvy’. It’s amazing how a mention in mainstream media will open doors for some.

4. Disclaimer Page - I need to update this page but for the interests of transparency have it linked to on every page on my blog to show readers what I get out of this blog - ie that I make money from it and use affiliate programs. I also use this page to dispel some of the myths and untrue assumptions that people have about me and this blog by sharing some of the ‘costs’ of this blog. I find that this balanced ‘disclaimer’ works quite well.

5. FAQ Page - this page was written with a very selfish motive - to cut down my workload. I get asked a lot of question, many of them repeatedly. As an attempt to answer some of these frequently asked questions I put together some answers for them. I still get asked the questions but being able to point to this page helps. I also have it linked to prominently from my Contact Page.

6. Subscribe Page - having a page dedicated to how people can subscribe to your blog can be very useful. I don’t link to this from my sidebar any more (like I do at DPS) but do link to it from within posts at times. I find that having a page like this can be useful as some readers don’t understand the idea of RSS or can be worried about issues of privacy or what it means to ’subscribe’. Sometimes having a page dedicated to walking people through the process can pay off.

7. Advertise with Us Page - looking to sell advertising on your blog? An ‘Advertise’ page is an important part of attracting new advertisers and a well written one can cut down a lot of work for you as it’ll help to filter out people by giving them information that helps them to know if your site is right for them. Further Reading: Finding Advertisers for Your Blog.

8. Series Page - Compilation - I’ve used ‘pages’ in two ways when it comes to series of posts. The first way is to put together a compilation page of all of the posts in a series. I don’t do this that regularly but in the example linked to put together the content from all 25 posts on my series on Battling Bloggers Block. I found that some readers really appreciated having the series all in the one place.

9. Series Page - Central Page - the other approach to managing a series of posts with a ‘page’ is to use one as a ‘central links page’ that you update with a link to each post in your series over time. This is what I did in my 31 Days to Building a Better Blog Series last August. The beauty of this approach over the ‘compilation page’ is that it can drive a lot more page views as readers are ’sneezed’ in multiple directions into your blog. It’s also good because it allows readers to be more selective about which posts in a series they want to read rather than reading the full thing.

10. Affiliate Pre-Sell Pages - having a dedicated page for an affiliate program that you’re running can be a very smart move. If you refer to a product that you’re promoting regularly in your posts - rather than linking to the affiliate program link to a ‘pre-sell’ page on your own blog. This allows you to ‘pre-sell’ the product more with a personal message. This is what I do on my AdSense page here at ProBlogger. This doesn’t work for every affiliate program but I find with AdSense that it works well as their landing page can be a little off putting to new potential users of it. It also gives me a little more flexibility with how I mention AdSense in my posts as their Referrals program doesn’t allow html linking. Further Reading: 5 Tips for Improving AdSense Referral Earnings.

11. Services Pages - If you offer services to readers then develop a dedicated sales page for yourself and link to it prominently on your blog. The example here is my Consulting page - a page I used to point to regularly. These days I don’t offer these services any more (due to workload) so have not promoted it for a while. I find that when you have a dedicated page to selling your services you can sell yourself much more expansively than just a quick mention elsewhere on your blog.

12. Key Information Pages - Do you have information that you’re constantly providing to people over and over again (whether in blog posts, via email or in other ways)? Make a page about it and keep the link handy. That’s what I did with my b5media page and have found it to help me cut down my workload in answering questions about the network. I also link to it in my navigational bar here on ProBlogger and it’s lead to some great opportunities. You could do this with any business or product that you’re associated with.

13. Landing Pages - this page is an example of one over at DPS that I used last year as a landing page for an ad campaign that I ran. If you do choose to run an ad campaign to promote your blog then it’s much wiser to link your ads to a dedicated landing page than the front page of your blog. Read more on Advertising Your Blog and on Landing Pages.

14. Sneeze Pages - one great way to propel people deep within your blog is to develop a Sneeze Page or a ‘Best of’ page that highlights some of the better articles on your blog around a particular theme. Put links to these pages on your sidebar or refer to them in posts and you’ll see your page impressions per visit statistics go up.

15. Testimonial Pages - if you’re selling something (even if it’s yourself) to have some sort of a testimonial page can be very worthwhile. People base buying decisions increasingly upon the opinions of others - so capture some of these opinions and present them.

16. Event Specific Pages - speaking at an event? Create a ‘page’ specifically for those at it and mention that you’ve done so in your presentation. This way you can tailor a specific message to those visitors, their needs, your presentation and ’sell’ something to them (whether it be subscribing to your blog, buying a product, selling your services or getting them to read certain pages on your blog. The example I’ve given is from a conference I did this time last year. I also used to have a section on that page selling a product that I mentioned in the presentation and it converted quite well.

17. 404 Page - when people arrive on your blog to a page that has been deleted, follow a dead link etc and end up on a default error page on your blog you’ve got a wasted opportunity on your hands. Customize your error pages to help readers find what they’re looking for or at least find something else that might interest them. Further Reading: How to Create a Custom 404 Error Page for Your Blog.

18. Special Projects - Last year I participated in a charity event called (Movember). Rather than letting this event completely take over my blog for the month I created a dedicated page for the event that those who were interested in could follow my updates on.

19. Guest Blogger Page - I’ve never spoken publicly about this page on ProBlogger before but it’s a page that I provide to guest bloggers of ProBlogger with some guidelines on how to write for this blog. I’ve done the same thing for DPS and have found that it’s been very useful. I get more posts that are written in a format that I can use and it’s cut down a lot of work for me.

20. Archives Page - there are numerous ways that you can present that archives of your blog. It becomes more challenging the larger your blog grows to be able to direct people back to your best previous work and a dedicated page can be helpful in that process rather than just presenting a list of categories or dates on your site bar. What I’ve attempted to do with mine is to provide a page with dated archives but also categories with some suggested starting points.

Some of the above ‘pages’ can of course be created from ‘posts’ on your blog (and there might be some good reasons for doing so) however my preference is to make them ‘pages’. In most cases this is because I prefer these pages to not be date specific. The way I have my links set up here at ProBlogger posts have dates showing and in the link structure - but pages don’t. In many of the above examples I also didn’t want to page to show up in my blog’s RSS feed or categories - but preferred them to be standalone pages.

What page types would you add to the above list?

Update: Some great suggestions in comments so far. I agree that a privacy page is a good one, as is a comments policy (I have one of these but wrote it as a post - I think it’d be more appropriate as a page though). Another one that I should have included is a ‘resource’ page - a page that lists recommended resources, books, courses etc. Lastly - I should have included a ‘blog roll’ or ‘links’ page. Thanks for everyone’s suggestions - keep them coming.

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Nonprofits Outpace Businesses on Social Media

Posted: 15 Nov 2007 11:15 AM CST

Charities are often more savvy than businesses when it comes to using social media – especially blogging. The Center for Marketing Research looked at the top 200 largest US charities as defined by Forbes Magazine. They found that seventy-five percent of the charities are using some form of social media.

Social media specifically refers to blogging, podcasting, using message boards, social networking, video blogging and wikis. 46% of the charities report that social media is a key part of the organizations fund raising efforts (though they do not measure success by numbers - they seem to use the tools more for branding purposes).

Social media is an effective way to increase awareness of their missions and helps them connect with their constituencies. The research did not trace how this affected donations because the organizations mainly used it to build community and foster their online presence.

The findings came from the University of Massachusetts–Dartmouth Center for Marketing Research. They conducted a nationwide telephone survey of nonprofits named by Forbes Magazine to their list of the 200 largest US charities for 2006 under the direction of researchers Eric Mattson and Nora Ganim Barnes. Seventy-six of the charities gave detailed interviews.

The charities are especially outpacing businesses when it comes to podcasting and though less utilize video, the ones who are use it heavily. They are also blogging. Charities blog at a higher rate than businesses on the Fortune and Inc. 500 lists, with more than a third of the organizations. Compare that to just 8% of Fortune 500 businesses and 19% of businesses on the Inc. 500 list.

I did a little research myself and found that the number one charity (measured by revenue) is the Mayo Clinic which maintains two blogs—including a blog on stress. Maybe some of usought to add that to our list of RSS feeds ;).

The United Way has three blogs as well as blogs at regional offices I didn’t find blogs for the Salvation Army, American Red Cross, Catholic Charities, or Habitat for Humanity (however they do link to blogs written by others associated with their organization). The ones I looked at didn’t seem to be utilizing social bookmarking or advanced functionality on their blogs.

See the full report in part three of the three-part series: http://www.umassd.edu/cmr/studies/cmrblogstudy4.pdf