How a Blog is Born

Last week, Keri, a student from the Savannah College of Art and Design, reached out to me with a few questions on social media. Keri is pursuing a MFA in advertising design and she is researching new media and blogs in particular. Her inquiry came at a time when I was leaping onto deadlines so I recommended the posts at The Blog Herald as a start.

As serendipitous things go, this weekend I had a pretty lengthy conversation with Seni Thomas about the future of advertising and marketing education in general. Seni is a graduate of NYU and a very astute marketer with a practical business sense and an already impressive array of hands on experience. Our discussion's backdrop was the MoMA visit of "Design and the Plastic Mind" during Blogger Social '08.

In our conversation we touched upon the lack of a contemporary reality check for advertising students. You may recall that about a month ago I visited with the students of the Minneapolis College of Art and Design as a guest of Tim Brunelle. As Seni, Tim feels that nothing beats practical executions, especially those that involve how we interact with products and services through social media.

Many of the discussions at the blogger dinner Saturday night revolved around the use of social media and why it matters understanding it. When Keri sent me a thank you note yesterday I had the opportunity to think about her specific questions one more time and thought it would be a beneficial conversation to have here. Here are Keri's questions (in bold) and my answers:

How did your blog gain the readership that you have? Did you “launch” the site in some way? Did you send an email blast or hire a publicist? I’m just trying to figure out how a blog is born.

How was your blog born?

Is also the question I answered many times this weekend in New York. It was August 2006 and I had just completed a full personal brand assessment to plan the next learning opportunities I should seek. I tend to be quite disciplined that way. As those things go, I was probably a late adopter - the time felt right for me to start publishing online.

The brand conversation

Given that what I do is launch new brands and develop mature brands to take them to the next level, in some cases to an exit strategy, it was appropriate to execute social media on my personal brand. Conversation Agent was born out of the idea that I have always been a connector - someone at the intersection of ideas and people, marketing and public relations, academia and practicums with participation as my contribution. In other words, the idea was to express marketing, communications and participation as one. That is the conversation part. Agent stands for (Lat.) effective, expressive - it's an action verb. It's a matter of language: I am talking about connection vs. transaction. Big difference.

The launch without fanfare

I did not send any email blasts - the site went live on September 1, 2006 and nothing happened. That's right, what happened in the intervening weeks and months was the result of a commitment to social media - through comments, guest posts, helping others connect, building a community of shared thinking, and in general giving time and attention to my colleagues online.

Readership finds you

That's how individual bloggers found me. Through trackbacks and links, comments to their posts and consistent content here. Your content is the value you provide your community. A blog, in other words, is born from a commitment to put your content out there, listen, and participate actively. We know that third party endorsement works best in recommending anything. With social media, this is amplified.

What did you do to prepare your site for launch? Do you have any tips you can share?

Got content?

At first I was worried that I would have nothing to write about. From the feedback I received this weekend I think I need not worry about running out of ideas. The trick for you is to discover what lights you up. What are you passionate about? Why are you publishing in the first place? That energy will be your best friend on slow content days.

Examples

There are two amazing bloggers who have delivered consistently on their promise without ever compromising quality: Rebecca Thorman and Tiffany Monhollon. There are many more, of course. I am suggesting you connect with them as they are Gen Y writers who may be wrestling with many of your same issues.

Preparation

Before going live and publicizing my URL to friends and colleagues I went ahead and wrote several posts to give myself a head start. That also gave me some back up confidence that I would be able to keep to a regular schedule until I figured out how long it would take me to write and post. I also wanted to test my "voice" and style in posts - I had been reading and commenting at other blogs for several months by then.

What effect do link buttons have on the popularity of your site? (i.e. Digg, Technorati, del.icio.us, etc.)

RSS

The point is not how you can push the content out, the point is providing a way for people to pull your content, if they so choose. By far the most important button you may have on your blog is the RSS feed. The sole provider of RSS feeds in alternative to hosting the traffic on your network is FeedBurner, which also provides an email option. As I wrote recently, RSS stands for really simple syndication. Steve Roesler suggested that it can also mean relationships, style, and substance.

Other social media bookmarks

Bottom line, if your content deserves attention, it will get it. Technorati tags will allow you to highlight the topics you are writing about so people can find you. It is also a source to find who links to you so you can learn more about your fans. I cross reference Technorati with Google Alerts because sometimes the links take weeks to be indexed or do not show up at all on Technorati. Remember also that Technorati links have an expiration date - 6 months.

Skellie wrote more eloquently than I could about Digg - do take the time to read the comments, too. Do Diggs grow your subscriber list? In other words, does a short burst in traffic converts to increased RSS and email subscriber counts? Skellie might know better - I rarely get dugg. Many of my readers prefer to use Stumble, which has a much longer tail: it drives traffic over time.

You can learn more about Del-icio.us from the Wikipedia entry. 

What’s the best way to encourage relevant comments on your blog vs. random rants?

Lead by example

Be present and listen to your readers. They will know if you're just putting content up vs. intend to engage in the conversation with them. Lead the way by example. I read more than 100 feeds and I find that the most popular bloggers tend to respond to comments and care for their community of readers. It is less likely that those bloggers will receive rants.

Relationships trump quantity

Having said that, there are occasions when you might be linked by a popular site or get on the front page of Digg, when you will need to stay strong and weather a few rants. The best way to encourage productive conversations is to focus on the readers who are loyal to you - those you already have engaged with. Relationships trump quantity.

What are the most useful tools available for blogs – things that make it more engaging for the reader?

Make it personal, it is

Asking questions, participating, caring for your readers' experience and giving them a seat at the  conversation are all ways to provide value in addition to writing things they are interested in learning. I've observed that the more personal posts earn more interaction. That's because in social media the point is not perfection - the point is getting to know each other.

How important is it to link to other blogs on your blog and how does this affect traffic?

Be generous

My philosophy on linking is quite simple - be generous, highlight good content produced by others. I tend to do that in a couple of ways: (1) by incorporating it directly in my posts, in the flow, like I did here; (2) by linking to it at the bottom as further reading, a recent example is the discussion on Starbucks; (3) by listing contributors to a specific project, like The Age of Conversation.

Whenever you link to someone, you are telling your loyal readers you recommend their content. The same happens when others link to you. If someone who writes a blog that gets a lot of traffic links to you, you may receive a nice traffic spike. I have also seen focused traffic from newer blogs. I would not get hung up too much on who links to you. Focus on the relationships.

Any other comments that you would like to share with me on creating a successful blog?

I will let my readers kick off the conversation on that one.

Comments

[Steve Bannister]

Valeria,

Great post with lots of info.!

As a fairly new blogger, I have found my biggest challenges were the ones you mentioned, namely:
- getting out of an "article" voice into a more personal voice,
- disciplining myself to blog consistently (my plan is to blog something everyday),
- taking time to comment on other blogs. I was all consumed in my blogging at the start and I have finally reached a comfort level with my blogging to the point that I can look to comment on peoples posts more often.

The best piece of advice I received from numerous bloggers was to be patient.

Cheers,
Steve

[Derrick Kwa]

Good post. One think I did actually, was to email the authors of a few blogs that I read (Chris Brogan, Ilker from the Thinking Blog were a couple). Not to ask for links, but to get their thoughts and advice on how I could improve and do better. It really helped for me. And to top it all off, Chris even blogged about my blog after that and linked to it (unexpectedly), which kind of brought my first group of readers.

So yeah, one thing you could do is get to know the leading people in your field. But don't do it as advertising your blog, do it as a way to get advice and opinions from them.

[Michelle Kostya]

Great post and some fantastic pointers. I have been blogging for about a year now, and recently moved my blog from Blogger to Wordpress...so once again I am trying to build traffic after losing a few subscribers to the move - and I thank you for your ideas on that topic.
I find one way to generate conversation and comments is by asking your readers questions. Whenever I can I try to end the post with a question, a request for input from my readers.

[Lauren Vargas]

I'll second the notion of being patient. Also, I cannot stress how important it is to link to your peers and extend the conversation. Learn of and participate in the back channels. One major lesson I learned the first year was to rid self of the chip on my shoulder.

[Valeria Maltoni]

@Steve - what a great insight about getting out of the "article" voice! Being patient pays off. I remember the days I had 5 readers ;-) I wrote for those individuals with the same passion and dedication one might think of having for thousands. I see you talk about foresight. May I suggest the book "Get There Early", which is linked to here on the sidebar? It's a fabulous read.

@Derrick - You are showing your true colors. What a compelling message and brand design! I'm so glad you visited. Twitter is not quite enough to get a conversation going and I consider my blog the space where I can give individuals plenty of space to shine. Glad you took the time to come in and share from your experience.

[Valeria Maltoni]

@Michelle - I love individuals with ideas and opinions because I love learning and believe in approaching everything as an opportunity to learn. Today for example I had an extensive conversation off line with a corporate blogger in Italy. We had a misunderstanding and she took the time to write directly. That is valuable feedback. Sometimes posts are also a departure for deeper conversations.

@Lauren - I say it often in my day job that copy and writing get better over time. So patience is warranted there, too, along with permission to come in as we are at the moment.

[Seni Thomas]

@Valeria

Appreciate the shout out. The broken state of marketing education stems from the educational paradox during times of change. Quite simply education can only teach what has been done (and approved). You can never teach for the future; however, you can provide students with the tools to be able to prosper in these moments of paradigm shifts. (read "Innovator's Dilemma" for further insight)

Now, the biggest hurdle here is that students are quite simply complacent. I met some fantastic, very smart young bloggers at the Blogger Social over the weekend, but they are not a reflection of norm. Most students dig into their text books to pass the next test (like grades matter in marketing...), because they have a false sense of security in the fact that college is "supposed" to prepare them.

The technology industry's rapid innovation and adoption of technologies stems from the close relationship between research institutions like Stanford and MIT with industry. Well I attended NYU, and have many friends that attended marketing programs throughout NYC (The media center of the world) and the level of communication between agencies and ivory tower educational institutions is basically zip.

Agencies are complaining about less then qualified new hires and industry brain drain. Well it's time to do something about it and work together with educational institutions to create more relevant and forward thinking curriculum.

[Carolyn Ann]

I liked your commentary, Valeria!

I think the first thing any would-be blogger has to decide is why they want to blog. The answer to that will drive most of the other decisions. Including how important readership counts are!

The other factor that most (seem to?) forget is their proficiency with the language - so many bloggers demonstrate two things: a lack of original thinking, and a lackadaisical attitude to English. (I can't comment on other languages, as I can barely pass muster in this one!) Colloquial is all perfectly fine if you don't mind not being understood. Despite the immediacy of blogging, a bloggers' words have a tendency to be around for a lot longer than is maybe desired! Yes, some do improve their writing - but it does take effort. Laziness with language is a pet peeve of mine, as you might gather!

The old journalists' adage still applies, though: the writer has to make me want to read their words.

Carolyn Ann

PS One thing that I sometimes wonder about: where have all the clarions, calling for the end of blogging, gone? And why did they all seem to predict the demise of blogging in their blogs? :-)

[Carolyn Ann]

Oops. A sentence made it in to the "published" comment - the thing about words being around for a long time should have been deleted; I guess I missed the "delete" key. Sorry! /CA

[Valeria Maltoni]

@Seni - what is interesting is that your "Quite simply education can only teach what has been done (and approved)." is also valid for business. Certain companies become very good at what was. I started reading Rohit's book "Personality Not Included" and already found lots of useful bits. Organizations lack personality on purpose because (1) being ordinary is still profitable; (2) they tend to focus on policy rather than logic; (3) they silence employees. I may have to do a post on what you say about learning - your education and your career are your responsibility, nobody else's. Not the teachers', not the companies you work for. Once you get that, it's smooth sailing. Thank you for weighing in. This is an important conversation to have.

@Carolyn Ann - I'm sure some think that my posts linger in the 'sphere too long ;-) So you made a point, too by saying that the delete key is your friend. In writing quality trumps quantity, many have said it better before me. The one thing with predictions is that they rarely are foresights that lead to insights. Plus, we all know that the brain doesn't understand the word "no" and what we focus on is what gets done and grows. Saying that blogs will disappear is still talking about blogs and highlighting their importance.

[Seni Thomas]

Best book ever on why companies have such a hard time during times of disruption:

Innovator's Dilemma:
By Clayton M. Christensen

http://tinyurl.com/2d4g85

[Website Design]

I think everyone should have a section "How this blog was born" on their website. It's really interesting to learn how different websites came into existence and what the original intentions were vs. the outcome.

Great post.

[Vivek]

Interesting chart: Gives ideas for my presentation on social media marketing. Gratsi!

I’ve gotten hooked like many other readers to your blog. I’ve been wanting to blog on digital marketing for a while. However, three key impediments have stopped me: 1) I write fairly well but lack literary flair of successful bloggers. 2) Will I have enough content and time (disciple) 3) Why would readers be interested in what I have to say (traffic build up)?

I think your post today addressed all my concerns and beyond. As a starting point I’m going to dedicate an hour a day to read blogs that I like and comment based on my perspectives on these blogs. Ciao!

[Valeria Maltoni]

@Seni - I do not know why I haven't picked up that book yet. Of course!

@Alfred - You are in the Web site design business and I'm sure you understand that part of the design is personality. In blogs that is probably the top reason why people read you - to get to know the person behind the post.

@Vivek - as to your points, you do not need to imitate someone else, just develop your own style and voice. Discipline is a tough one. I'm a long distance runner and I apply that to many aspects of my life. With a caveat, that you need to enjoy the journey as you focus on the end goal. As you are unique, I am sure you have something original to say that nobody else has experienced like you. It sounds like you already have a plan!

[Toad]

My path was about 180 degrees from yours.
I started blogging to explore the medium firsthand. Didn't expect anyone other than the 3 or 4 friends I told about it to actually read it. Didn't plan to go on with it for more than a month.
Took on a (rather ridiculous, in retrospect) anonymous nickname because I didn't know where I was going with this.
Immediately discovered I loved writing a blog.
Started to find an audience, mostly by posting comments on 2 or 3 blogs I liked.
Started to find a voice and a POV after a few months of fairly random posts.
Started to interact with other bloggers
Started to identify with other bloggers
Discovered a new calling as a social media "expert" (can't thing of a better word right now.)

I'd say the most important thing for any new blogger is to have a POV that makes me want to read you. And a passion for what you want to say.

Hope that helps.

[Rebecca]

Thanks for the kind words, Valeria! I usually dislike posts about blogging (Blogs about blogging? Quite silly in my book), but I truly did enjoy this one.

I think this is because you were so open and honest about your process of starting a blog. Most bloggers aren't. And that's what makes a blog successful isn't it? The transparency, authenticity and honesty...

[Valeria Maltoni]

@Toad - I like Tangerine Toad! You have a distinguishable point of view and a clear sense of where things stand in marketing, and in blogging. Thank you for adding to the conversation. It helps.

@Rebecca - I know, blogging about blogs, what a concept. Really what we are exploring are the dynamics of the medium more than the medium itself. And you have such a way with words, and photographs! Very expressive and personal, that's why people respond to you.

[Tiffany]

@ Rebecca - at first (you can go back to some of the original posts on my first blog) I thought blogging about blogging was pretty silly as well, but as Valeria points out, it's interesting to explore the different dynamics of the medium. And there are always more tools out there. To me it's important for people to be able to learn how to use them for a lot of different purposes - more than simply making money online which is what most "blogging" blogs tend to focus on.

Valeria - I love the relationships, style and substance spin on RSS! It's interesting to see the evolution of this medium. I think that's also why it's important for people to continue blogging about blogging in this way - because every day more and more people are signing up, and if people are going to evolve along with the medium in how they use it, there has to be a continual flow of other established bloggers being willing to cover just this type of post. This gets stumble filed under "required reading"!

[Valeria Maltoni]

Tiffany,

There is definitely an evolution in the medium, which impacts not only individuals. It also affects news organizations, as I will write about tomorrow (bit of preview). That is why personal PR is an important concept. It begins with grassroots efforts and may go all the way to media networks.

I had a conversation around brand experience at The Blog Herald this past week where someone suggested I am talking about relationships. Of course! With ideas, individuals, and communities. Even when we talk about marketing, context matters. What is context if not relationship between an object or concept and its uses or meaning?

[R. Walker]

Hi there,
I just have a couple of questions about this post. Both relate to your paragraph headlined "Launch without fanfare."

First, you refer to "guest posts." What do you mean by that exactly? Can you give an example of "guest posts" that you did -- for whom, and how they came to be, and when you did them?

Second, in that paragraph you say the site simply went live, there was no email blast. But later you refer to "publicizing my URL to friends and colleagues."

So ... which is it? Did you simply go live without telling anyone? Or did you launch and then email "friends and colleagues" alerting them that you had launched? How many "friends and colleagues"? Were any of them popular bloggers who in reaction to your email posted that you were now blogging?

I think it's pretty clear that I'm asking this in an honestly curious way, but I"ll just go out of my way to say that I'm being contrary or confrontational. I just wonder if maybe there's a middle ground between a random email blast to everyone in the world, and "just going live" with no email at all.

For example, if I launched a blog and told my friends, and one of my friends was Seth Godin , who happened to mention that in a post, it seems like it would make a difference.

No?

[Valeria Maltoni]

Hi there, R:

I went live, happened to talk to a couple of friends, asked me for the URL, I emailed it. No more complicated than that. And no, although Seth Godin is a friend, he never blogged about my blog. People and other bloggers discovered me from the comments I left in other blogs. I built my traffic over time, organically - still do. No email blasts.

I have no desire to be right so you can have that one ;-)

As for guest posts, I happened to be the 1,000 comment at the blog of someone I read who read my work. He asked me to guest post to celebrate. Something similar happened on another blog a few months later. I was interviewed on a couple of blogs. Nothing magic, just work.

[Mikej]

Great post. I have been blogging for a while not to really trying to drive any traffic as such. But I am about to launch one for my company and I guess I have to start taking it more seriously. So this could be really useful

thanks