Do you have a website?  Y/N

If N… you can stop reading

If Y… do you have a favicon?

What, you ask, is a favicon?  It is a little tiny icon that goes in the tab of the browser… look at this:

These are *some* of the tabs I have open right now… do you recognize any of the sites I am on?

1. gmail, always in the first place
2. a blog post that is hosted on blogger… something I liked and will blog about later.
3. the third tab I’m on. Because I’m on this tab the favicon doesn’t show up.
4. Looky looky…!  A blank page.  This is a BUSINESS’ S website… with NO favicon.  See how it sticks out like a sore thumb?  I can’t tell what it is until I click on it.  IF YOU HAVE A WEBSITE, DO A FAVICON!  IT IS EASY!
5. Twitter… for a person I’m trying to network into.
6. Google Calendar.
7. VJC – my competition – they have a great blog post that I’m reading.
8. blank page … I don’t know, and THEY miss a branding opportunity!
9. Some association page.
10. Southwest airlines as I get ready for some trips.
11. KSL – local news.
12. Twitter – another person I’m trying to network into.
13. Huffington Post article about unemployment.
14. blank page – I don’t know!
15. Job-Hunt.org post on avoiding job boards that I need to read.
16. A google search.

If YOUR page was open, would I see a blank page or a nice little favicon?

Here’s a search on favicon to help you get started.  This can really take just a few minutes to do.

I was prepping for an advanced LinkedIn session and found this article by Jeff Bullas:

5 Key Steps To Mastering The Social Media Marketing Landscape

It is a pretty good post… made me think of some beginner/intermediate stuff.  It’s really short, but there really is lots to think about there… my only input is that this is a superficial approach to mastering the landscape… to really master it you have to go into significant depth on each of these areas.

What do you like about about the post (it’s provides a good, almost complete framework), what needs to be improved (it seems to not go deep enough, even for an overview)?

Note: I have had this open in my browser for a while, I like it enough I want to come back to it (hence, this post). By no means am I slamming Jeff…

I came across an article in the online San Francisco Chronicle titled 20 habits of highly effective job seekers.  This was written based on Ford Myers stuff… I have met Ford a few times at conferences and we’ve communicated outside of that.  Nice guy.

I didn’t read his article (too long for my attention span), but I skimmed it to see if he mentioned JibberJobber again (that would have been cool!).  He didn’t

I was interested in the 60+ comments the article got, though… they were… scathing!  Hardly anything good from those comments!  From accusations of being self-serving to “utter twaddle,” from BS to ”worst article I ever read in my life…”

I’ve felt for a long time that getting comments from a newpaper article compared to comments on a blog is night and day… I don’t know who is reading and commenting on the regular articles but if you read it too long you’ll lose all faith in humanity.  These people are mean, and cruel, and unforgiving.

And, they can provide an opportunity for growth as a blogger.

From the feedback I see in Ford’s article I see a grand opportunity to tighten the writing and message.  Instead of 20 points, how about go with Covey’s example and do 7 habits?

Instead of calling these “strategies,” maybe they should be called mindsets (many have to do with attitude), or tactics?

How about drilling down on some of them and going into more depth, instead of just presenting them at a high level?

As blogs become more commonplace, and bloggers get their material in more traditional media, you better:

1. Be ready for scathing, hateful, unintelligent comments and feedback (and a few nasty stalkers),
2. Figure out how to improve the quality of your writing (grammar, spelling, word choice, etc.),
3. Ensure the message is high quality,
4. Figure out how to not be self-promotional… or not overdo it.

What do you think?  Do bloggers need to step up (especially when not writing on their own blog)?

This is one of the most interesting reads I’ve seen on being an author and the publishing industry.

I’m working on my third book (Eight Lunches) and have a fourth on the back burner. I’m addicted to writing books, I guess.

Check out Thom Singer’s experience and learning from a publishing industry conference: The Changing Faeces of the Publishing Industry.

UPDATE BELOW…

Taking a quick break from my book thingy…

I have migrated over to Gmail and Google Apps (which allows me to have gmail functionality on my business email) completely … and I have one major beef that would be simple to fix.

In Outlook, when I start a new email, or reply, my EMAIL SIGNATURE is put at the top of the message, no matter how long the message was (in other words, even if I’m replying to a message it is at the top, NOT the bottom).

In Gmail, if I reply to a message my EMAIL SIGNATURE is put at the BOTTOM of the entire thread… which means I have to go to the bottom, cut the sig, go back to the top and paste it.  It’s a pretty lame way of doing it… and I’m guessing just an oversite… but seriously, you’d make my life 10 times easier if you just put the signature at the top of the email on all messages (new and replies)…

What do ya think – can you do that for me?  Pretty please?

UPDATE: Twitter works!  Gmail didn’t necessarily fix it because of Twitter, but I got my solution from Julius Solaris:

That link is a step-by-step description of how to accomplish what I want using Google Labs – it’s basically another setting I just had to turn on…. THANK YOU Julius – and Gmail – get that out of labs

After my video guy did the first edition of the What is JibberJobber intro I asked my Twitter people for feedback.  Karin Hermans responded with links to two resources… THANK YOU KARIN!

Here’s a link to Octane’s video, which she really liked.

Here’s a link to a blog post titled The Key to Effective Communications – Scope vs. Detail.  Great stuff there.

And here’s the second edition of the video we created:

This is brilliant.

Many sites grow “virally” by tricking you into “inviting” your contacts to join.  The idea is an invitation from you is probably something your contacts can trust… companies count on that trust to get eyeballs and signups from your (inadvertent) actions.

This caught my attention this morning… a user of one of those systems knew what was happening and wrote a brilliant “don’t do it!’ piece – check it out:

Please disregard this invitation because they did it automatically and I don’t know how to undo it… so here’s some word of mouth – DON’T SIGN UP FOR THIS SYSTEM.

I really appreciate that my contact saw this before he blasted it out to his entire network – in my eyes his credibility shot up 10-fold.

Imagine if websites didn’t do this type of thing.

I have a buddy who is looking at developing a very cool new business offering and wanted to see if JibberJobber, as a CRM,  was good enough to be a part of the offering.  After spending hours on the system this is what he wrote to me:

Even though I have played with JibberJobber for quite a while, I never really dug deep into how I could use it to grow my biz. I just used it as a place to store contacts – but now that I have a focus of how I should be using it, I have to say that you have done an incredible job with it.  I just played with the quick add from Twitter function which is way cool.

What a super compliment.

And a great testimonial.

This just came from him after he’s spent hours on MY product.  He’s known me for years, he’s known about JibberJober for years, and he’s even had an account for a while.

But he was playing around with it, not serious, not understanding how it could meet his needs (not really understanding his “needs,” until recently).

It made me wonder: how many of the people we know, who know us, really know what we do and what we offer, and have an appreciation for our services?

I bet it’s less than 5% or 10%.

How to get that number higher?  Well, maybe it is in your communication. Maybe it is just a matter of time, and waiting until the sun (your product), the moon (their needs), and the stars (their understanding of your offering) align.

When it does align take the sweet opportunity to ask, like I did: can I use that as a testimonial?

Yes, they’ll say, and they are happy to help you because you’ve made them happy by providing them a terrific solution.

I love these types of testimonials.

There are probably a million ideas on how to write, and how to write a blog post, and how to write a freaking awesome blog post.

I’ll share just one… since it’s on my mind. I don’t remember where I heard this but it made a ton of sense to me.  Before I share it I want to say why I think it is brilliant.

One reason I write is to develop a community. One measure of community is the discussion.  A way to gauge the discussion is by the comments.  A “comments” metric is “Number of comments.”

I think blogs that have comments show they have (a) readers and (b) a community.

So, how do you write a blog post that gets comments (perhaps that should have been the title of this post, which really should become a series)?

WRITE ONLY 80% OF THE POST.

Let your readers finish the other 20% in the comments.

Think about that – if you write enough of the post, but leave it open for discussion, as opposed to making a super-tight conclusion, you don’t give your readers much to comment about.

When I heard this I thought it was absolutely brilliant.  It takes skill to write that 80% and not sound aloof… and I think by nature we want to complete things, but if you want to generate discussion and create community, make sure you don’t say all that should be said.

I’m wrapping it up here – tell me in the comments what YOU think a FREAKING AWESOME blog post entails

I pick up a little side work as a social marketing consultant here and there.  Today I was working on a project looking for relevant bloggers to network with in a niche space. I went to alltop to find the blogs they have listed for this topic and opened all of them in tabs so I could see if I liked them.

I was specifically looking for people who had street cred as a blogger in that space.  I found a bunch that I liked. I was also reminded of things I hate.  Here’s my hate list:

1. Very dark background, very light font. Think black background, white font.  IT SUCKS.  I hate this. I have bad eyes, and I’m in front of a computer about 10 hours a day.  When I get to a site that has black background with white font I find my eyes hurting pretty quickly and I just have to go away.  (surprisingly, many people have this sucky color scheme on their Twitter bio area.  Do they not realize it SUCKS?)
2. Funky font.  Bright colors. Really big text.  Different font types throughout a post.  Look, I get it… you want to somehow accentuate something, right?  Bring out a big idea, or whisper or something… my heavens, don’t do it by making the font 8 times bigger than what it should be.
3. Too many linked distractions. I like to read blogs without a lot of noise.  Don’t have dozens of links all over the place. Here’s an example – don’t put a link to a community or forum unless you have enough people (that is: more than you) in that community and forum.  Work up to it, but don’t lead me all over your site to places that have tiny bits of information, but none of them have any real substance.
4. Too little information. I want to know about YOU or the topic.  Don’t doodle in blah blah blah.  I’m amazed at the contrast between a very strong, on-topic blogger compared to a blogger that wanders all over Boringville and never makes a relevant point.
5. Lots of off-topic posts. I know you like your kitty cat.  I know you like your spuds, flowers, car, favorite pair of jeans, etc.  But if you have a topical blog (that is, not a personal here’s-what-i-ate-for-lunch-this-last-month blog, then severely  restrict your off-topic posts.  If you want to have a following for your topic and you talk too much about junk you’ll lose people.
6. Cussing. You are a big boy or a big girl, I get that.  But the more strong language you use on your blog the more you are going to turn people off.  Or maybe you don’t care… that’s fine.  Your blog is more about venting your feelings than about developing an audience and a community – that’s fine.  But I can’t follow you much if you are constantly offending me.  Prude, I know.
7. Link bait, or dropping a lot of keyword searchable words. I don’t want to read your blog because I’m a search engine, I want to read it because I’m a human being.  It’s okay to put the link stuff in there, and put keywords in there, but can you at least work it into proper grammar and have it relevant to what you are writing?
8. Widgets. Kill most of them.  If you are widget crazy I won’t even wait the three minutes it takes for your blog to come up… I’ll just close the tab and not come back.  Seriously, don’t YOU have something more value-add on your blog than 18 widgets?  You are better than that (I hope).  Don’t distract me with useless crap.
9. Google Ads, if you are a legitimate business/blogger. I’m amazed at the sites that have Google ads on their site.  I’m quite biased against google ads because the goofballs at Google shut down my ad program (lame story).  But here’s why I don’t recommend it: (a) it is a distraction that you can’t really control, (b) if I click on the ad, I GO AWAY from your site, and (c) I wonder why a business or legit blogger would ever sell valuable real estate on their blog for $18/month (what I’m guessing most bloggers are getting).  Seriously, figure out something more value-ad to give to your audience.  Google ads to me says “I don’t care to build a community, I’m just hoping the brainless drone who happens to come to my site will be dumb enough to realize I don’t have any value for him/her and they’ll click on the Google ad so I can make five cents.”
10. ______________________________________. What’s the thing you hate to see on a blog?