September, 2009

Interview with Chris Brogan

Chrish Brogan’s blog is ranked by Technorati as one of the top 100 blogs in the world.
Advertising Age’s Power 150 ranks him in the top 15. He has been blogging since 1998. He is also co-founder of PodCamp and part of many other online projects. He works with large and mid-sized companies to improve online business communications like marketing and PR through the use of social software, community platforms, and other emerging web and mobile technologies.

Chris is co-author of the book Trust Agents, with Julien Smith, which was recently released. If you run a company/organization, then please get a copy of this book, spend some time to read and understand it and order some more copies for your employees/members/co-workers if you think its of use for them.

Interview:

1. Do you think using your real name (or surname) in your Twitter ID (or any other profile ID) is good or using your company/brand name is good?

I believe you should use your real name. People want to connect with humans for the most part, not just brands. That is, unless your brand is widely known, and then you should manage two accounts. I think that having @coke *and* @bobjones is smart, because you can be the big brand, and/or you can be offduty.

2. With all the efforts to earn the Trust(for the sake of trust), when our blog readers/customers give bad personal comments, how does it feel about the trust that we have built?

Bad comments are golden. Value these like you value nothing else. They are moments where you must reflect on the value of what your customers have told you, and decide what you must improve, or whether it’s just someone complaining. In either case, thank them. They’ve taken the time to voice their concern.

3. Do you think having a forum helps in building the “Army”? As we can interact with the blog readers at a personal level in the forum. Do you think the time spent in the forum is well worth or is there any other more efficient methods to connect with our readers?

I think you can connect with blog readers on a blog, so I think forums are a way to “share the stage.” They’re a way for others to be able to start threads and be the host of a storyline. They don’t improve or diminish the ability to build an army, except insofar as the content they provide.

4. What components do you think makes a blog successful

Equipping your community for success makes your blog successful. Be helpful. Be consistent. Be mindful of people’s time. Give them unique ideas and your best thinking. Give away your secrets (you’ll make more). Provide them links to materials and ideas that others have done that will improve their learning. Comment frequently and reply to the people who speak with you (as often as you can).

5. Your advice for new bloggers

Write from the most unique possible perspective that you can. Writing a me-too blog is wasteful. Others have already done the work. See if you can find a unique voice and vision, and get that done. There’s so much more left to cover.

6. Your advice for students. We read in the book about how we can play the role of “Trust Agent” in a company, now would love to know, how students(who are studying in university ) can apply it.

Students can learn about trust and how to use these new tools to build relationships in ways that will improve their connectedness coming out of school. Building networks of passionate collaborators is a powerful way to apply what trust agents do, and will be beneficial to students who often need these networks for jobs and more after they’ve left school.

7. What have you learnt with the release of your co-authored book “Trust Agents”.

I learned that what people relate to the most is that we’ve written a book about common sense for the Internet age. It’s like 7 habits meets the web. I’m really passionate about the fact that common sense seems to have gone missing in business, so maybe that’s what people need right now.

8. What do you feel about Google Adsense? Do you think adsense ads make a blog look unprofessional? And what do you feel about the over all blogging for money concept.

I use Adsense for RSS with my RSS feed. I get about beer money worth of value. I think that blogs that stripe themselves with Adsense end up looking like NASCAR vehicles and not useful content. I love blogging for money, though. I think there’s nothing wrong with it. I’m certainly not part of the kumbaya crowd.

9. What do you think about Twitter(In general and for business purpose). How bloggers can use it the best.

Twitter brings me quite a lot of business. I love it.

10. What were the 3 major mistakes you did on your blog?

In the old days, I talked about me. Now I equip others. In the old days, I wrote a lot more. Now I write brief pieces. In the old days, I got really snippy. Now I try to keep it professional (though with a personality).

11. What were the 3 major mistakes you did while learning about Social Media?

None really come to mind. Not that I’m perfect, but nothing major.

12. Do you think that a hard cover book is worth more than a ebook?

No. I think a useful book is worth more than fluff.

13. How many hours do you dedicate to blogging? How did you manage time for writing the book? Please share about the records made by your book at some of the places, like Wall Street Journal, New York Times etc. And please share about, monetizing the blog with your own product rather than 3rd party advertising. How do you manage sponsors on your blog. How has this book added to it etc.

I write about two hours a day, though not all of it is for blogging. I wrote 1000-2000 words a day with Julien Smith. Writing’s my #1 business, basically, when it all gets said and done: writing and thinking.

We made the New York Times Bestseller’s list in 2 days and the Wall Street Journal bestseller’s list in 2 weeks, which isn’t that shabby. I still want to hit the USA Today and the BusinessWeek bestseller lists, too.

I make very little money off my blog by contrast to my consulting and agency work. I make some money promoting Chris Pearson’s Thesis WordPress theme, and some from the occasional sponsored post, but that’s about it. I think that sponsors are great if you build relationships between the sponsors and the community. I can’t just take money from people. I say no to about 95% of the sponsor offers I get.

We had a great time talking to Chris Brogan, and learnt a lot with this interesting interview. Hope you all enjoyed it and learnt a thing or 2 from Chris Brogan. You may also like his book Trust Agents. If you read it, please tell us, what you liked and what you didn’t like in the book. I am sure, Chris will also be eager to know.
Thanks to Chris, for this fabulous interview.

The Ideal way: Migrating from Blogger to WordPress

Many people start the blog on a free blogging platform like blogger and WordPress. And after 6 months or 1 or 2 years time, if the person keeps on blogging, then he is almost certain to start feeling that he did a mistake! Mistake of starting the blog on a free blogging platform.

But do not think it as a mistake anymore. While starting a self hosted blog is a smart idea, but we know the fact that many blogs die within 1 to 6 months, so its good to start a blog on these blogging platform and invest some time to figure out whether blogging is for you or not. And it will be a good thing to learn the most basic things using those blogging platforms and then move or start a new self hosted blog.

Many people may advice to have a self hosted blog from day one, and we respect that idea too. If you can dedicate more time to learn and if you are commented enough for your blog and blogging, then either way you can start your blog.

Installing a self hosted WordPress is very easy and only takes minutes.

If you have a blog at blogger and want to transfer to your own self hosted WordPress blog, then here is a resource which will help you through the process.

For the text version of this tutorial you can follow this link labnol.org
And to be on safer side, do not forget to tell Google that you are moving your blog, at webmasters tool.

Trust Agents – by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith

Trust Agents – Using The Web To Build Influence, Improve Reputation, And Earn Trust.

I think Chris Brogan and Julien Smith are the people who don’t need an introduction. But still, if you don’t know, here is a small snippet:
Chrish Brogan’s blog is ranked by Technorati as one of the top 100 blogs in the world. Advertising Age’s Power 150 ranks him in the top 15. He has been blogging since 1998. He is also co-founder of PodCamp and part of many other online projects.

Julien Smith has been connected to computers since the age of 12. He helped run early BBSes. He was one of the first people on the web to use podcasting in 2004, as well as being one of the first web personalities to get broadcast by traditional radio. He has since worked with and been interviewed by numerous media organizations such as CNN, CBC, CTV– and a bunch of others.

Before reading my review, know the fact that, Trust Agents the Book, in its first month, hit:
– the New York Times bestseller list (#13)
– the Wall Street Journal bestseller list (#8)
– the Amazon top 100 list (#30)

Trust Agents is a book which has 261 pages + some pages in the introduction part. And contains 8 chapters:

Introduction: Hey, I know You. Have We Met?
1. Trust, Social Capital, and Media.
2. Make Your Own Game.
3. One of Us.
4. Archimedes Principle.
5. Agent Zero.
6. Human Artist.
7. Build an Army.
8. The Trust Agent.

Index

In the first chapter, it starts with ringing the bell — “We read articles about how the person beside us at the bar ordering the Miller Genuine Draft is actually a paid buzz generator.” Shaking the Trust! and showing how this Trust factor can also be used to deceive people.

The book contains stories and examples of different kind of people, from mafia to gaming and wine shows and to Microsoft etc….a lot actually, and it connects all of them to the topic Trust Agent.
( Its a great idea to take a peak into their knowledge and years of experience, by just paying $16.47 )

There are some action tips in each chapter, which are packed with Chris Brogan and Julien Smith’s experience, with the web(and humans) all these years.

Some lines from the book:

Communities don’t want to be managed: They want to be cared for.

Those who succeed tend to be the ones who allow themselves to fail.

Be there, before the sale.

The Book also warns – By the end of this book, you’ll probably be a trust agent, too. Just don’t call yourself one.

One of Us:
Chris Brogan and Julien Smith have shared their story, of how they made the mistakes — and I must say, they showed a good example to be “One of Us“.
And reminds us to use the 3 A’s, when things go wrong – Acknowledge, Apologize, Act.

Chris the Social Media Guy:
If you are looking for pure social media related things, and the tools that will help you in rapidly building your social media, then this is not the book you are looking for. This book contains, how to be humans in using social media. How to treat people(online) like humans. Giving social media a different touch.

The downside:
1. The Book uses a lot of names, who you may not know, so it becomes difficult to catchup with the stories, if you get distracted.
2. Personal opinion: The language could have been simplified.

Other than that, the book is awesome and worth your time and money.

I am going to order some more books to some of my friends address, who badly need this book!

If you run a company/organization, then please get a copy of this book, spend some time to read and understand it and order some more copies for your employees/members/co-workers if you think its of use for them.

While I was reading the book, I felt like, I am practicing many of these things all these years, unknowingly. But the book is really a inspirational and motivational thing. It quotes some of the best examples of Trust Agents, and how they attained that status and how we can be Trust Agents too.

I know you want to know more, you can get your copy of the book at Amazon($16.47). I am sure, you will not regret.

Still not convinced ? Then read this Testimonial:

“Wow! Every once in a while you find a book that is a sit up in your chair, take notes, tell your friends, change your life breakthrough. This is that book. No kidding, you can trust me.” — SETH GODIN

If you have read the book. Please share your thoughts about the book.

Google Confirms “Keywords meta tag not used in its web ranking” — What next ?

After a long time of discussion online and offline, finally Google came to the rescue and confirmed that Google does not use Keywords meta tag in web ranking.

Source: Webmasters Tool

What does this mean ?
Now you can stop worrying about the keywords that you insert in the meta tag. Stop worrying doesn’t actually mean, to stop using meta tags! To be in the safer side(as we don’t know how other search engines treat meta keywords), it doesn’t hurt at all to use proper meta keywords.
meta-tags-description
And Matt cuts has clearly indicated in the above video that meta description is still valid and Google considers it while showing the snippet of description, if its nicely/meaningfully done.

Avoid the Confusion
Do not confuse this with “using the proper keywords” in the article. Using keywords in the article will get you up in the search ranking(if done properly) — If not UP, your article will be shown for the keywords, that you are using in the article. But as always, play safe. Don’t try to inject irrelevant keywords into your article. This will do more harm then any help, in the future.
Do not believe in people who call you and tell that – they will get your website in the first place of Google search ranking. Many of these guys still think that Google use the keyword tags to assign ranking and that they can trick!

Whats your stand on meta keywords, meta description or meta tags in general ?

Does TRUST Play any Role in SEO ?

I don’t know, whether Trust is one of the factors in getting the results up in the Search Engine Results Page, but I certainly know that Trust will help you get more traffic even from Search Engines.

Benefits of building Trust
Building Trust helps in making people to act. The desired action might be:
1. To subscribe to your blog updates.
2. To subscribe to your News Letter.
3. To purchase your ebook or print book.
4. To make a sales (affiliate link or any other kind of sales).
5. To make them share the article link with their friends and family members.
6. To make them link to your article.
7. To make your brand name stick in their minds.
8. Build authority.
9. Show your passion.
10. Get their feedback and to get their opinion on any issues (make them comment on your blog and to learn from your visitors). Etc etc etc..

So with this Trust factor, you can build readership and you all probably know that, it brings in repeat visitors to our blog. Hence, increase in traffic.
But this Trust can boost Search Engine Traffic too. Its been working all these years, but most of us might not have noticed it. Here is how it works with me:
Google ranks websites based on its algorithm and no one outside Google probably know all about the algorithm.
Google is famous for its testing, like A/B split testing, change of background colour of Sponsored ads, change of width of Search result page and search box etc. And usually Google shares many of the test results with its users, in the form of reports.
And it is known to most of us that, the result shown in the first position of the result page gets more attention and click, than that present in 3rd, 4th, 5th and so on positions. And the results in the latter pages get least clicks.

But if you have seen a blog and Trust that blog, then you are more likely to click on it and go to that blog for information, then that ranking much higher.

Looking at the above image, you may be thinking Sony Ericsson is a bigger brand than fonearena. But if you have been reading fonearena for quite sometime, I bet you would click on it for reading the review before making a purchase.

So branding and Trust can increase the Search Engine visits too. You may be thinking it takes a lot of effort to get a small amount of traffic. Yes, it takes a lot of effort to build such Brand and Trust, but once done, you will get a lot of traffic. Its all about Trust, even if you are not a big brand yet, you can build the brand with the trust factor, which will have a long lasting effect on the minds of internet users.

Do you think, its late to join the bandwagon of building Trust? Might be a little late but better late than never 🙂