Well-crafted, relevancy-rich blogs are like gourmet meals: they’re served up in stages.

Attention spans are short. Demand for relevancy is high, and everyone needs a bit of time to digest one course before going on to the next one.

The best blogs are short and intellectually or emotionally nutritious. Just enough, ruthlessly edited for readability and comprehension.  Here’s an example from Seth Godin’s Blog.

When you think you have a lot to say, say it – then edit it down by half. If it’s still more than three or four short paragraphs, break it into a series of posts, spaced a few days apart.

Just like a gourmet meal.

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Did you Know?

The Write Concept offers blog writing and other social media programs for entrepreneurs, small business, and nonprofit organizations.

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© 2011 Linda Angér & The Write Concept, Inc.

Did you know that 25% of the addresses on your email list will “expire” each year?

Watch the slideshow for more.

And when you’re done, read the poem below. I wrote it in 1997 after reading an article on water in a Zen magazine. It was first published in Touchstone Journal, and earned an honorable mention in Current Magazine’s fiction & poetry contest.

Fluid Circle from Sherpas Cinema on Vimeo.

ICED WATER WITH A TWIST OF TIME

This drink,
iced and purified,
once touched the lips of
Australopithecus Afarensis –
Lucy in her first bipedal steps –
3 million years ago in Ethiopia.

Drawn from lakes, released
from faucets, evaporated, rained,
recorded, invoked –
billions of gallons,
rivers of thought,
around and around
in endless recycle.

This same water was sipped
from Buddha’s cupped hands
along the Ganges, cleansed wounds
on the beaches of Normandy,
fed cornfields in Kansas.

The quiet pond at my center
knows what Lucy knew;
the fluid touch and
illusion of time,
life’s undertow and current.

Like water, I roll down crooked paths,
drop to the depths of myself
and swallow,
a ripple in liquid history.

© 1997 Linda C. Angér. All Rights Reserved. First published in Touchstone Journal, February 1997. Honorable Mention, Current Magazine Fiction & Poetry Contest.

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Did you Know?

The Write Concept offers blog writing and other social media programs for entrepreneurs, small business, and nonprofit organizations.

Follow us on Twitter  and Facebook

© 2011 Linda Angér & The Write Concept, Inc.

The Best Time to Publish Your Blog

credit: Designzzz.com

• Posts published 10 – 11 a.m. get the most views from subscribers.
• Highest retweet rate is on posts shared on Twitter around 4 p.m.
• Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday are the highest view & click-through days.
• Posts published on weekends get more comments, especially on Saturday.

These tips on blogging are from Dan Zarella’s The Science of Blogging Webinar.  The hour+long webinar is loaded with relevant info on blog content and timing.

That grey-out string of characters at the top of this page?  I’m having my blog certified as my own through Technorati. Once they verify I am who I say I am, that line will go away. I apologize if it annoys you.

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Did you Know?

The Write Concept blog and social media programs help entrepreneurs, small businesses, and nonprofit organizations stay relevant to their audience.

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© 2011 Linda Angér & The Write Concept, Inc.

But Content isn’t Everything.

The visual side of your blog is important, too. Here are 5 Tips for Beautiful Blogs:

1. Choose and stick with a single font face, or at most, two complimentary fonts.  Use a sans serif font (like Arial) for headlines and sub-heads, and a serif font (like Times) for body text. Too many fonts and colors are visually disturbing.
2. Use images to enhance your content, and set them to work proportionally with  and enhance your content. Clutter is nasty, balance is beautiful.
3. Use simple, bold headlines to make your point. Edit down to 5 words or less.
4. Keep your content short and informative. Anything beyond 300 words becomes a chore to read on the fly. If you have more to say, break it into multiple posts.
5. Make your subject line enticing. If it’s not, the chances of people clicking through go way, way down.

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Did you Know?

The Write Concept offers blog writing and other social media programs for entrepreneurs, small business, and nonprofit organizations.

Follow us on Twitter  and Facebook

© 2011 Linda Angér & The Write Concept, Inc.

Owner of a small consulting business and responsible for “everything,” Sharon echoed a sentiment I hear almost daily: Blogging is a piece of the success pie, and it has become a huge challenge for those not trained as communicators.

What can you do to make your blog better for your readers AND better for you as the producer?  Here are three tips to get you back on track:

1)  Focus on the Goal of your Blog.  Is your intent simply to keep your name Top of Mind with your customers and prospects?  Are you focused on Lead Generation, website traffic, or building your reputation as an information hub?

2)  Remember What Drew You to Your Industry.  Way back when, on the day you started your company or made the decision to take a job in your current industry, you were excited about it. There was something that thrilled you, that satisfied you beyond just the paycheck. What was it? What emotion did it trigger? Find that energy again, and write from that place. It might be helpful to create a list of the reasons you started and the dreams you had about your career.

3) Tell stories. Stories pull the reader into an experience, and the more they see themselves in that experience, the more willing they will be to keep reading and remember you when they need your product or service.

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Did you Know? The Write Concept offers blog writing and other social media programs for entrepreneurs, small business, and nonprofit organizations.

Follow us on Twitter  and Facebook

© 2011 Linda Angér & The Write Concept, Inc.

Nestled within LinkedIn’s powerhouse of tools is the Group function. Here we can connect professionally with the like-minded on topics as diverse as cooking and aerospace engineering, and engage in useful discussion.

Over the years, I’ve made some great connections through LinkedIn Groups. One of my favorites is the WM Freelance Writers Connection, where I joined a discussion started by Vincent Frogameni, a freelancer in Springfield, Massachusetts, on the Top 3 Freelancing Mistakes.

Because of my responses in that forum, Vincent asked to interview me—a request to which I quickly, and gladly responded. The interview is posted on his blog.

This is good for Vincent’s business because every interview he does with other writers and marketers drives traffic to his website and links him, via perception or reality, to the experts in his field.

This is good for my business because being interviewed adds to the perception that I am an expert in my field, and also drives traffic to my website.

Get started with LI groups, if you haven’t already. Jump into existing discussions, or start one of your own. Then be proactive, like Vincent, using the relationships you build to boost someone’s business – and at the same time, your own.

My father used to say, “still waters run deep.” In the Big 3 of Social Media, LinkedIn is the “still waters,” and the Groups function one of the gems beneath the surface. Dive in!

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All comments are welcome. Foul or otherwise distasteful language is not.

Yes, boys and girls, there was a time when stamps had to be licked.

Greenstamps were the first “trading stamp” rewards program offered in America. Wikipedia says that in the 1960s, The Sperry & Hutchinson Company (S&H) issued more stamps than the U.S. Post Office, and they were available everywhere. In those long ago days, there were no credit cards or computerized cash registers, either. How ever did we survive?

It would take months to fill a book… longer to fill 10 or 30. And every month, Mom went  through the catalog to pick out her reward. When she made it, when she had to 10 or 30 books she needed to “win,” she’d take that stack of stamp books to the post office. Many weeks later, her prize—a breadbox, a carving knife, or a supply of 100% cotton kitchen towels—would arrive in our mailbox.

All these years later, I mention S&H Greenstamps to a pair of 30-somethings, and they look at me like I’m some sort of dinosaur speaking some sort of alien tongue. Being that I am a generation above them, that may very well be true, and there’s a lesson in that for me, I’m sure.

I Tweet this experience, and the next thing I know I’m being followed by @S&HGreenpoints… the 21st century incarnation of the company founded in 1896.

Here’s the point:

S&HGreenpoints is a 19th Century company with a 21st Century marketing mind, using social media to monitor what is being said about them and their products, good or bad.

We should all be doing the same. Set your dashboard (TweetDeck or Hootsuite) to show whenever your Twitter name is mentioned. Pay close attention, and follow up on everything. Thanks to the people that mention you favorably, and find out what you can do to change the dynamics with those whose mentions are not so good.

Then tweet about it, please.

And follow me on Twitter while you’re at it…. @TWCinMI.

Have a Twitter story? Please share it with us in the “Comment” area. Thanks!

Not so.
Every post on your websites, blogs, or social networking sites impacts your personal and business life.

Now, I am a writer, so maybe I’m hypersensitive. But from my perspective, messages containing spelling or uncommon usage errors cause me to question whether the writer pays attention to quality in other aspects of their business — particularly when I see similar errors across multiple messages.

Here are three examples I’ve seen in the last week. The improperly used/spelled words are in blue:

More homeowners choose us to market there properties then any other agency.

… those of you that have been apart of the community…

… few our harnessing the true power…

Maybe the people who wrote these posts were in a hurry. Or, maybe they don’t care if their message is misconstrued or they look foolish. But the world is watching, and judging.

Double check your emails – even your Tweets – before you hit “send.” Have someone else proofread your web content and articles before they go live.

Your reputation is at stake.

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© 2011 The Write Concept, Inc.  All Rights Reserved. Reprinted from “Voice and Vision,” an electronic newsletter proudly published by The Write Concept, Inc. since 2000.

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