Day 1 of Trust Agents: How to Fail/Succeed at Blogging

I had the pleasure (for the first time) of hearing the Trust Agents Chris Brogan and Julien Smith together on the same stage during the Women Tech Council meeting last week. During the Q&A Session, I captured some video (I’m a writer not a videographer) on their responses to questions from the audience. These are relevant topics for the event industry as well as the business community in general. Here’s what they said about blogging failure and success and some other tidbits for you to think about.

In the video, Julien mentions a blog post he did about the “Six Pixels of Separation” blog by Mitch Joel (another excellent speaker at the conference). It illustrates Julien’s approach toward blogging and growing a large community. As the blog comments indicate, this approach isn’t for everyone but it’s something for event organizers and event technology developers to think about if “more qualified eyeballs” is a goal for your blogs.

Chris Brogan offers some more good advice in the video like:

• Make sure you have a great “About Me” page
• Use a real picture (no cartoons or Simpsons’ likenesses)
• Be sure to include a call to action in your post
• Make your posts “meaty” but brief
• Don’t write about your products
• Write about subjects that can help people

Here are some other things to think about:

Joyce McKee of the Lets Talk Trade Shows blog developed a Webinar called “Is There a Blog in Your Future?” It is an excellent tutorial on blogging. Joyce also recommends grading your blog using Alexa rankings and the free information you can get from grader.com. “My blog score was in the 30’s a while back and now is 95.26 – not bad!  And that was due to posting more frequently,” she says.

At Fork in the Road, I’ve learned a couple of helpful things about good content, increasing my search engine rankings, and what I have observed from really good blogs like Midcourse Corrections, Engage 365, Event Coup, Social Fishing, McCurry’s Corner, Interactive Meeting Technology, Corbin Ball’s Tech Talk, and several others and in our industry such as:

• Don’t hire an intern to blog for you unless they are technically good writers AND know your industry. I would rather read great content than great writing.
• If you’re going to moderate comments (which I highly recommend) be quick about approving the good ones. People that comment want to see the fruits of their labors right away.
• Always comment back to those who comment on your blog. It’s a dialogue.
• Tie your blog electronically into your Twitter and Face Book accounts so you get automatic updates there.
• Interlink to other posts in your blog. Google really likes this.
• Put Google Analytics code in your blog for a fun and free way to see whether you’re getting traction with your community.
• Write for a particular audience. In the writing world, we call them “personas.” Create a typical reader profile (Joe is a 38 year-old event organizer who loves reading about social media but doesn’t have the expertise to put it into practice, etc.). Refer to your profile when you are writing. If Joe would find it interesting, it’s probably a winning post.
• Don’t blog just to talk out loud and grab search engine love. Plan your posts. Make them relevant and add a little humor.

There is lot’s more content coming from the Trust Agents.What do you event industry bloggers think? What has worked for you?