Plugins are to WordPress what apps are to smartphones…  They optimize and extend performance beyond your imagination, they’re constantly improving and they’re just plain awesome!

To that end, I’d like to revisit a previous post that addressed the question, Which plugins should I use and add to that list a few I recently discovered (with the help of my friends – thanks Gerry!):

• WPtouch – tranforms your blog into a smartphone app
• WP-Optimize – cleans up your WordPress database
• Blackbird Pie – adds embedded tweets into your posts
• LinkedIn Share Button -  allows quick and easy sharing via LinkedIn

What great plugins have you found?

When looking for blog inspiration, I turn to other marketing sites for relevant topics (naturally;-) In doing so, I stumbled upon this: Blog Commenting as a Powerful Marketing Strategy. What some bloggers may not realize is that writing a post is only part of the equation; The Golden Rule of Blogging, “Do unto others [blogs] as you would have others do unto you[r blog].”

After posting my first entry, I couldn’t WAIT to read all the insightful comments from my droves of adoring fans (alas, all I heard were crickets…) But what I didn’t realize then was how important it is to be an active participant in the blogging community as a whole, rather than just posting to my own site. As David explains (he’s actually a guest blogger on this site, ironically – another great way to generate interest in your own blog!) “Engaging in blog commenting is one of the best ways in [which to] increase your visibility to online readers interested in your niche.” He also outlines some very helpful hints to get people to comment on your blog as well as creating comments yourself. The full post is definitely worth a read but here are some highlights:

1. Find five or six blogs in which to post valuable comments rather than trying to remark on every industry-related blog you discover.
2. The content of your comment is more important than the act itself.
3. Elaborate on your reasons for commenting rather than a one-dimensional reply (great post, thanks for this, etc..)
4. Post first (if possible.)
5. Always respond to comments and do so promptly.

Furthermore, comments can actually be the best part of a post (or at least the most entertaining;-) So go ahead and speak your mind, your blog is sure to thank you!

(And so will I, please post a comment below:-)

If you’ve been keeping up with our “5 Steps” series, you now know the steps for twitter, facebook and your own blog. Now, we are moving onto the 5 steps to using other blogs more effectively!

Read other blogs in the same industry.

You are not the only one who has great content, and it is pretty much guaranteed that there is at least one person who has a different perspective than you do on any given topic. I can’t count the times that I have learned something new, gotten a new look into a tool or a complete change of opinion within my own industry from reading other people’s content. This will also help with days that you are stuck on content and need some help.

Read blogs in other industries.

Just because you are in one industry, doesn’t mean that there aren’t writers in other industries that can’t teach you a thing or two. I’ve picked up ideas from everywhere – mommy bloggers to foodies and even a triathalete’s blog. Insight into life, business and the world isn’t just reserved to your industry. Step out and see what you can capture.

Leave comments!

Once you’ve started reading blogs, one of the easiest ways to help yourself is to add comments to other peoples blogs (in your industry and in other industries). Adding a comment does quite a few things – first, it tells people that you’re interested in what they have to say. Second, it is good for your own search engine optimization. Adding a link to your site tied to the right content means that you will be more easily searched on those terms. One note though, make sure that the comments you are leaving are quality comments. Don’t just tell them “good job, like the post”, explain what you liked, add another thought or perspective and make sure to contribute to the conversation in a productive manner.

Share and promote good content.

Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Digg, Stumbleupon, Email…I don’t care how you share it, just share it! There is so much junk out there in the world, that when good content exists, it needs to be shared often and a lot. Remember though, when you share it, it is always more helpful to share the content and explain why you shared it. The blogger can share it with the post title and the link – but you need should re-share it with a reason. Not only does this tell the writer that you actually read their content but it tells others why they should be reading the content!

Feel free to re-use good content (as long as you credit the source)

Stuck for blog content? Next time you read an awesome blog post that you want to add a really indepth content on, save it and turn it into your own blog post. Link it back to the original post, and credit the author. This will kill two birds with one stone: you have a great blog post and you’ve showed the author how much you liked their content by re-sharing it.

Last month, we gave you the 5 steps to use twitter, and the 5 steps to use facebook more effectively. This month, we are moving on to blogging and blog posts. Blogging is what you do daily – blog posts is those articles written by others. Today, we’ll start with your blog – and how to use it more effectively.

Determine to whom you are writing.

Figuring out who reads your work is almost as important as the content itself. If you don’t know the type of audience (Professionals? Tech guys? VP’s? Children?) how are you going to know the voice, tone and language to use? If you are unsure who you are writing to and you’ve already been writing awhile, the best thing you can do is ask for some participation from the audience – ask them to introduce themselves. This should give you a chance to meet your readers. If you haven’t started writing, then it is up to you to determine the audience you want to attract.

Create a blog calendar for next month.

Having at least one full month worth of blog content prepared and ready to go will help when you have those tough days. It isn’t always possible to find time to write when you want – don’t let that be an excuse. We all have extra time every once in a while (whether it is during TV time or just a slow day). When you get the content written, put it into the calendar. The more preparation you have, the better your content will be. But of course, don’t be afraid to move posts around and change your calendar if the moods suits you!

Narrow your categories to your 6-8 priorities.

Often, blogs get overwhelmed with categories. Every time there is a new post it seems a new category pops up. This can be problematic for both yourself and your readers. If you have too many categories, you can never write enough to fill them all with quality content – which means that your readers can feel like they are missing something. 6-8 categories is the average ideal. If you can get it down to that range, it will be easier to manage and keep fresh content in all categories.

Make subscribing easier and clearer.

This one is simple: if it is hard to get your content, the readers will stop reading. Make it easy, make it one or two steps max and make it obvious. Don’t make your readers hunt to subscribe.

Promote it through your social channels.

Having a blog is great, but if no one can find it, you’ll never get participation. Sharing your content through facebook, linkedin and twitter are great places to start. With both facebook and linkedin, there are ways to auto update your status with the post. That can be done once a day, and will have a great chance of getting noticed. Because twitter moves so rapidly, we recommend sharing the link to the post 3 times during the day (morning, afternoon and evening) in a solid mix with the other tweets you are sending out.

What other problems do you face with your blog?

Multitaskers rejoice! You can email, facebook, tweet, text, and blog all while talking on the phone and driving… OK, so hopefully by now you don’t ACTUALLY drive while doing any of those things (let’s not forget the fate of Heidi Montag’s plastic surgeon…) but in this digital age, there’s nothing you CAN’T do – unless you choose not to. Which is the topic of a recent LA Times article about a book called “Super Sad True Love Story” by Gary Shteyngart. It poses this question:  Is the creative stream of consciousness being adversely affected by our affinity for technology?

The author purchased an iPhone in order to research this novel and quickly became addicted (or perhaps you’re more familiar with the ‘crackberry’….) He actually had to set “quiet time” aside so as not to be distracted from his thoughts. As any smart phone user will tell you, it becomes like an appendage – Who’s on Facebook? What’s the score of the Chargers game? Where is “The Social Network” playing? – And all at the touch of a button. But is this REALLY a good thing? Or have we taken technology too far?

Personally, I’m all for it. Tweet, text, blog – whatever grinds your gears but there’s a time and a place, not to mention a limit to the amount of bytes and bits our brains can and should process. In our all-tech, all-the-time society, we need to remember the creative process requires our undivided attention. Having distractions is a good way to break up the monotony but when you become so distracted you can’t focus on the task at hand – it might be time to set up the sleep-timer on your computer. So grab a friend and enjoy a meal (phone-free.) Yes you, you can do it!! Put down the Droid and step away from the Mac – but bbm me later!

Digital distractions… Friend or foe?

I can’t count the number of people I talk to daily that have a blog. They create great content, and share it through some social media channels. But, their twitter, facebook, and linkedin are not actuallyconnected to the blog.

What do I mean?

I mean that when you post a blog post – it should automatically send to twitter, facebook and linkedin for you. You should never have to actually post it on any other site.

Why?

Well in addition to saving you time from having to go to all the different sites…it also means that you’ll never forget to post it onto the other sites.

Okay, so how do you do it?

Facebook:

• Login to your facebook account
• Click into your main page
• Click on the “notes” tab
• On the right hand side, select to import your blog
• Paste the url to your blog (http://www.yourwebsite.com/blog) into the box
• Click import…and you’re done!

Twitter:

• Login to your blog
• Click on plugins
• Click install new plugins
• Type “wordtwit” into the search box
• The top result will be the one you want, click install
• Once it installs, click activate
• Then, on the left side, click settings and then click Wordtwit
• Sync your twitter account with wordtwit
• Now, every time you post, it will automatically send to wordtwit.

LinkedIn: LinkedIn can be connected two ways, you can either do it through twitter or through linkedin itself. I prefer it though twitter so I am going to walk through that.

• In your blog, you should already have installed WordTwit (as per twitter steps).
• Go into the settings of wordtwit through your blog
• Where its ays tweet message, copy and paste: [title] – [link] #in
• Now, login to your linkedin account
• Click on settings in the top right
• Click on Twitter Settings under your Profile Settings
• Authorize your twitter to be connected
• This will mean that every time you post a blog, it will send to twitter and then to your linkedin status update

Now that you have your blog connected everywhere, you will have an easier time getting people to come to your site!

I tried foursquare. Then I left foursquare. And after a lot of thought and cajoling by a few friends, I decided to go back to foursquare…

Why?

Because although I don’t feel it is quite there for the individual, it will be. Businesses will start getting it better and the functionality will improve (at least I hope!). I see huge potential with foursquare and I regret not joining twitter sooner, so I don’t want to make the same mistake here. The biggest concern I have is privacy, but with how much information is available already about me, I figure this can’t really much worse.

Since I’m trying it again, here are the things I am hoping to see:

1. Benefits for a first time checkin from the business. “It’s your first time here, enjoy 5% off”. Giving someone a benefit at their first trip will increase the likelihood they come back and you’ll have more repeat customers.
2. Reward people for bringing people. Multiple checkin’s for one person who brings in first timers with them? They’re doing marketing for you, reward them!
3. On the mobile app – links to the companies website, twitter or facebook to connect them in other ways. This will help the companies to build a stronger network.
4. Something between first time and mayorship…maybe rewarding people at different levels, 5 checkins, 3 in a week, etc…
5. The ability to checkin at a place without claiming location to everyone. For example, it would be great to be able to checkin at Starbucks and have the exact location know where you are but not send the exact location to your friends, just that you are at a Starbucks.

All in all, I am holding out to see results, and am willing to go with it for a little longer. What can it hurt?

What would you like to see improve with foursquare? Have you found benefits for the individual?

There are a lot of items that I see pass through my twitter stream and I wish that there was more information. I love the start of the idea, but am disappointed when there is nothing more than 140 characters. on the other hand, I also see quite a few blog posts that would have been better as a simple question on twitter, and left off of the blog entirely. So how do you know if a tweet is blogworthy? Or if a blog posts idea should just be a tweet?

First, a tweet has a limit of characters (140, 120 if you want it easily re-tweetable) whereas a blog post can be as long as it needs to be (however, I suggest no more than 750 words per). This means that topics which require a lot of explanation before opening them up for discussion should be done as a blog post. Topics that can start conversation off of one simple (short) question work well as tweets. Second, a blog allows for people to follow the whole conversation easily whereas tweets and replies can get lost. The last thing you want to see happening is the train of a conversation to miss a track and then lose it’s purpose. Third, If you have a topic that will possibly get heated or need a lot of space for responses, this should be done as a blog post. Tweets are short burst, which can be dangerous for tough topics. Blogs give both the writer and the responder the space they need for a strong argument and clear thoughts.

Overall, the biggest difference and determining factor is whether or not you need room to run. Blogs give you as much as you need, while tweets restrict your text.

What other ways do you decide whether to tweet it or blog it?

Everyone around you seems to have a blog. They are all writing furiously about whatever they deem important. You’re wondering if you need one too but are unsure how to decide. Here are 5 steps to know you’re ready to have a blog:

1. Think about what you want to write about. Do you have a specific area of expertise? Do you want to write a generic blog? Who would the speaker be – employee, manager, ceo? What tone of voice would you want to write in? Determining all the pieces to the puzzle will let you know where you have holes and what questions need answering before you can start.
2. Research other bloggers in your topic. While there is nothing wrong with writing about a topic that is already being written about (because more than likely, you will have different thoughts) it is still good to know your competition. Read what they write, how they write and how they are received. This is also a great place to start commenting on blogs, so that when you do start writing, you have someone already paying attention.
3. Write for a month, every day, just in a word document. At the end of the month, count how many of your notes could be actual content that you would want to share with people. Are there at least 12? Then you can consider blogging. Blogging needs consistency, and knowing that if you write for a month that you can come up with at least 3 posts per week that are good content means that you will be able to maintain your writing.
4. Schedule your blog. Can you stick to a schedule? Can you force yourself to write, even when you don’t want to? Being able to add blogging into your schedule like you would a meeting or a phone call means that you have the desire and drive to stick with it. The biggest issue for most beginning bloggers is being willing to set aside time for it.
5. D0 you have a network built? I always suggest that the best bloggers are ones that already have a network of friends and followers built through twitter and facebook first. If you have a group of people who are already interested in what you say, it is more likely that they will read your blog and add comments, making it successful more quickly.

If you can follow all of these steps, you will have a good chance of being successful when you start a blog.

Your brand relies on its customers and consumers. One of the quickest ways to lose these consumers and risk the strength of your brand is to ignore social media. Knowing what is being said about you is the first step towards making a change and improving your business. While not all brands will take the jump into participation, all brands need to be monitoring.  Here are 5 places you need to monitor your brand:

1. Forums: Is there a forum about your industry? It’s easy to find out, just do a quick Google search. Find out the biggest ones and search through for your brand.
2. Twitter: Even if you don’t use your account very often, at least set one up so that you can run searches for keywords in your industry and your own brand name.
3. Facebook: You’d be surprised how many “I hate X Company” groups and fan pages there are. Make sure that yours isn’t one of them. Also, you may want to make sure that the employees aren’t taking to the social media sphere to bash your brand either!
4. Search engines: Google Alerts allow you to set up keyword searches for your business name, executives in the company and even long phrases. Make sure you know every time your company is mentioned on the web.
5. Blogs: Just like forums, almost all industries have 5-10 top blogs that cover the products and companies. Make sure you know who they are and what they are saying about you.

What else can you monitor to protect your brand in the online world?