New Media Interchange

April 25, 2013 • 8:11 pm 0

New Media Prescription: Your blog’s editorial calendar starts with your personal calendar

In my New Media Consulting business, I am often asked, “How do I get started? What should I blog about? When should I do it?” With most clients, the first place to start in developing some sort of editorial calendar for a blog begins with their very own personal calendar. The milestones in your calendar — those important events — are the beginning of any great blog.

While most people see their calendar as a reminder of upcoming events, each item on your calendar can and should drive various new media activities, as well. There are blog posts to be written and published weeks or even months ahead of the event itself. With such a ready supply of “content” for your blog, why not start here?

Both readers and search engines love a regular flow of content from blogs, podcasts and YouTube Channels. It will make them return again and again. It will lead them to subscribe to your mailing lists, RSS Feeds and Channels. When they do this, they are giving you permission to enter into their lives whenever you have something interesting to say. Do not abuse this permission, but also do not ignore their desire for new information, new content, new videos, etc.

The Calendar Blog Process

If you want to get started with your blog — or add more content to an existing blog — here is a process I use. It all begins with my calendar.

Find the next immediate event on your calendar that you want to share with others. For this event, and subsequent events, do most or all of these steps.

Look back 1 month, 1 week and 1 day before the event and place calendar reminders to post event information to your blog on these days.
Create blog posts noting these events. Included further information as it becomes available closer to the event

If possible, pre-write your blog posts and schedule them to automatically post on the appropriate day.
If the event is a ticketed/RSVP event, note when ticket sales and registration begin

It is as important to post this information, at this time, as the information/date of the actual event, as people may need to purchase tickets/RSVP quickly.
Create a blog post describing the event and linking to the Ticket/RSVP page
Post (or schedule the post) to appear on your blog 1 day before tickets go on sale or the RSVP list opens. (Watch this blog for an upcoming video on how to schedule posts for WordPress and Blogger blogs)

If your event is not ticketed, publish your first post about the event at least 1 month ahead or sooner if possible.

Typically this post is in the form of a “Save the Date” post with as many details as you can provide ahead of time.

Share photos, video and links from previous similar events, if you attended in the past

Remember to collect as much content as possible during each event, so that you have plenty of content to include for subsequent occurrences

Repeat this for every event in your calendar, creating a constant schedule of calendar items to drive regular posts on your blog and promote your activities.

Make a point of including these blog posting dates (1 month, 1 week, 1 day before) for each event as you add it to your calendar.
“Working in Reverse” will insure that you do not “forget” to promote your events in the future.

Schedule Followup Posts

Add an event to your calendar NO MORE THAN 1 WEEK, after. Post photos, videos and a recap of the event for those that could not attend.

General Rule: The longer photos and video stay in your camera, the LESS LIKELY you will be to post them
Followup recaps are, in some ways, even more important than the pre-event announcements, as they contain information and content for those who could not attend the actual event, as well as reminders of the information for those that did.
Recaps allow attendees to easily share your content with their audience. This allows you to effect an even wider audience.

Further Notes:

A badly promoted event is a waste of time for you and everyone involved

This is especially true if you are not being paid for the event. In these cases, promotion of yourself and your work may be the only payment you receive. Don’t squander this opportunity by failing to promote well.
Sometimes you may need to do the majority of the promotion if the event organizers do not promote it fully. It is in your own best interest to do so, even though it is extra work. Don’t rely on organizers.

Promote your events and activities — even if the public cannot attend — so that your blog readers can at least see and hear about your work

Post photos, video and notes about these events/share as much as you can
Give your readers a look “behind the scenes” whenever you can. This is very popular content for most readers.

Promote your colleagues and friends events using these methods and ask them to do the same with yours

When someone shares your content, they are willingly providing you access to their entire network. This often includes people who are unfamiliar with your work.
Everyone involved with an event should make a point to promote everyone else involved in that event. It greatly expands the audience exposed to your promotion.
Create pre-written blog posts, social media messages that people can cut and paste, ReTweet or Share. Reducing the work/friction involved in sharing makes it more likely that people will share your message.

It should be obvious that events are time sensitive. Do not miss the opportunity to fully promote your events. Put your promotion milestones in your calendar with as much importance as the event itself. Otherwise you may find yourself putting out great effort for very little reward.

Use this link for more posts in the New Media Prescription series

Filed under: Blogging, New Media, New Media Prescription, Social

February 14, 2013 • 5:27 pm 0

New Media Vocabulary: Facebook Page

New Media Vocabulary: Facebook Page

Pages are a fairly recent addition to the Facebook features, but I think they were a natural — and important progression — in the service once it opened up to business use as well as the typical “friending” of individuals. Pages allow anyone to setup — what I describe as — a public facing account on Facebook. Before pages, if a business of any size wanted to connect with customers and interested people, they had to make everyone a “friend.” The trouble being, though, that in order to let these friends see your status updates and other content, you were also forced to see all of their status updates. This could quickly render most Facebook feeds useless as they were filled with other, non-related information from customers and other friends.

Pages allow you to contain the business-related discussions to an area outside of your own personal Facebook Timeline, allowing you follow those people and other Pages that are most important to you, without polluting your Timeline and making it unusable. Pages also allow people to add themselves (Like) your page without any further action on your part. They can also leave a page any time they desire. This helps to cut down on the amount of administration you have to do, especially if you were “friending” each person individually.

Pages also allow you to appoint multiple administrators for a page so that various members of a group can perform page tasks like moderating, banning spammers and posting new content from their own Facebook accounts instead of having to use one Facebook login shared among a group.

For more information on Facebook Pages:

Previously on New Media Vocabulary:

Filed under: New Media, New Media Vocabulary, Social

November 24, 2009 • 8:14 pm 0

New Media Chat Transcript – November 24, 2009

douglaswelch: Welcome to New Media Chat sponsored by New Media Interchange at http://newmediainterchange.com.
douglaswelch: The conversation continues 24/7 on the New Media Interchange Community site at http://community.newmediainterchange.com. Post your questions and comments there in the days between these chats.
douglaswelch: With that said, the chat room is open for your questions, and comments. How is everyone tonight?
guest-13678 entered the room
junglejenny: excellent!
guest-13678 changed nickname to meganenloe
rockwanderer: thumbs up
douglaswelch: Things seem to be settling down/getting crazy as the holiday approaches
meganenloe: A little?
douglaswelch: If you didn’t get a chance to watch/participate in Fabulous Find Fridays this week, I invite you to check things out on the NMI Community site
michaelcuetta: is this show still happening?
douglaswelch: Start collecting your favorite finds for this coming Friday
douglaswelch: This is just a text chat tonight Michael
junglejenny: I have a question, who uses worpress?
douglaswelch: Ooo Ooo ME Me…but you already knew that
meganenloe: I do but I’m always lost on it.
junglejenny: Doug, your a god, thanks for helping me the other night.
rockwanderer: is there a benifit to using wordpress over blogger?
douglaswelch: Glad to help. I got a great post for Careers in New Media from your quandry
michaelcuetta: is there a top blogs link for wordpress?
junglejenny: I’m using wordpress as my website actually.
douglaswelch: @michael Somrthing that shows the top links on the given blog?
michaelcuetta: of the wordpress blogs, the most read
douglaswelch: @rockwanderer these days I lean towards WordPress for a couple of reasons but I still have 3 blogs on Blogger which were created years ago
junglejenny: not sure.
douglaswelch: @michael I think that the WordPress.com home page http://wordpress.com has a list of the top blogs hosted there, since they can see all the stats from these hosted blogs
guest-13837 entered the room
douglaswelch: @rockwanderer I like that WordPress blogs can start on wordpress.com and then migrate up to a self-hosted WordPress blog pretty easily
guest-13837 changed nickname to tracypattin
douglaswelch: Also, you can only get all the features of blogger now if you host on Blogspot. My Blogger blogs are actually hosted on my web site using the old fto method
douglaswelch: Hey Tracy!
tracypattin: hey doug!
tracypattin: been busy dealing with my FTP site and thinking up Qs for the chat
douglaswelch: WordPress is powerful and with that power comes a complexity which can be intimidating
douglaswelch: @Tracy Cool
guest-13874 entered the room
guest-13874 changed nickname to facebook_user
douglaswelch: The plugin interface of WordPress also allows you to easily add features with little fuss

Read the rest of this entry »

Filed under: Chat, Events, Live, Meeting, New Media, New Media Tips, Social, Tips

March 30, 2009 • 7:33 pm 6

What’s the differences between a Facebook Group and a Fan Page?

: Image via Wikipedia

I was looking for the answer to this question for both myself and the many people who ask me about the differences. I know a few of the differences, but it is nice to have it all laid out in a concise fashion. Thanks to Chuck Reynolds and Jacob Burke of the PodCampAZ organizing group for pointing me in the right direction for this info.

How are Pages different than Facebook Groups?

Pages can only be created to represent a real public figure, artist, brand or organization, and may only be created by an official representative of that entity. Groups can be created by any user and about any topic, as a space for users to share their opinions and interest in that subject. Pages can be customized with rich media and interactive applications to engage Page visitors. Applications can’t be added to groups.

Pages are designed to allow Page admins to maintain a personal/professional distinction on Facebook, while groups are a part of your personal Facebook experience. If you’re a group admin, your name will appear on that group, while Pages will never display their admins’ names. Additionally, when you take actions on your group, such as posting on your group’s wall, these actions will appear to come from you as an individual. However, if you post or take other actions on a Page you own, it will appear to come from the Page.

As long as a group is under 5000 members, group admins can send messages to the group members that will appear in their inboxes. If the group exceeds 5000, admins can’t send messages to all members. Page admins can send updates to fans through the Page, and these updates will appear in the “Updates” section of fans’ inboxes. There is no limit on how many fans you may send an update to, or how many total fans a Page can have. It’s also possible to restrict access to a group, so that new members have to be approved, but access to a Page can only be restricted by certain ages and locations.

Filed under: Elsewhere, News, Social, Facebook, Online Communities, Social network

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