BusinessBlogAngel

Fire Ceremony & Growing Your Tribe Online

So 21 days into 2010 and already so much good stuff going on… On Wednesday night I joined the Inner Journey tribe for a Native American Indian New Year’s Fire Ceremony. Led by Jules Steinson, our animal spirit guides for the evening (mine was ‘the swan’) and The Great Spirit, we drummed and chanted and danced our way through an ancient ritual, culminating in our calling out to Great Spirit what was ‘to die’ and ‘be born’ in us. We sealed our intentions by setting fire to pieces of paper on which we’d written whatever words had come to us during the dance. The biggest gift of the evening for me was a chant which went, “Ground my body, water my blood, air my breath and fire my spirit.” Beautifully simple and totally uplifting. Ho!

The Inner Journey tribe is a spiritual group which meets every Wednesday night here in Penarth. I would love to post a link to their website here, but they don’t have one!! I know! BUT… they soon will, as Jules is one of the people who’ve been pestering me into running a workshop to show therapists, healers, earth angels and lightworkers how to simply and painlessly create an online presence, build your ‘tribe’ and ultimately increase your income using the internet and social media – all without feeling like you are selling or being pushy. I have finally set the date and booked the venue and am just finalising the agenda. Once that’s done, I’ll pop a page up here and invite you to book yourself on. There are only 10 spaces available so if you don’t want to miss out, subscribe to this blog feed to hear about it first. So the details so far are:

Personally speaking... getting back in the blogging saddle (again!)

Regular readers will know that I can be erratic with my 'posting frequency'. It's usually because I'm so busy with other peoples' blogs, but sometimes its because I'm in a fug of some kind. It always passes - eventually - and I've learnt over my 3 4+ years providing business blogging help and advice that the best way to get back in the blogging saddle is to 'just do it'.

Having said that, I often feel the need to explain myself. This isn't an entirely self-indulgent or cathartic need, it's also because when I blog, I aim to address each and every reader as an individual or a friend - rather than a group - and so there's a sense of 'owing' you an explanation out of respect. So, here goes...

Since my last post I have been through some major upheavals. I've moved house, ended my relationship of 2 years and given up 'custody' of my gorgeous canine 'son' Tallis. Oh - and launched a new venture Universal Growth - a kind of alternative to Alternatives in Cardiff!

As Denis Campbell of @UKProgressive commented,

"Other than that Mrs. Kennedy how was your trip to Dallas?"

Writing with confidence - project confident writing (reprise)

In my last post, I mentioned that I'd been thinking about Joanna Young... Coincidentally, I had an email that same morning from Karen Swim of Words For Hire with a secret mission all to do with that same amazing lady...

Joanna has just moved house to the west coast of Scotland. As a result, she's been offline for some time. As Karen pointed out, for a prolific blogger like Joanna, a week or so offline must feel like an eternity - and Brad Shorr along with Karen and fellow blogging/Twitter friends Robert Hruzek and Daniel Smith came up with a lovely idea: to welcome Joanna back to the blogosphere with a collection of posts on her various friends' blogs featuring our favourite posts from her Confident Writing blog. I've raved about Joanna on this blog several times and clearly I'm not alone in recognising her greatness. It speaks volumes that virtual friends want to do this for her.

Anyway, I've had a good rummage around her blog and, continuing the 'confident writing' theme, have opted to highlight a 'round up' post she did earlier this month which features a whopping 8 posts from the archives all about what to write when you're feeling stuck. So...

"Welcome back Joanna - we've missed you - we love you - you are the mutt's nuts!"

8 From The Archives To Help You Free Your Words by Joanna Young  at Confident Writing

5 Good Reasons To Link Out In Your Business Blog Posts

I've got a post coming up in the 'Showing Off Your Content' series on how to format links, but before we get on to the how it's maybe worth spending a few minutes on the why.

I know a lot of people feel awkward about linking out when they first start to blog.  And at first glance it does seem kind of counter-intuitive. 

You want internet visitors to stick around on your site: to read about your business, learn more about what you do and what you're about.

You want to position yourself as the 'go to' expert in your niche.  So surely the last thing you'd want to do is provide links that point away from your business blog, towards the work of other people? Right?

Business blog benefits - can social media work for ALL businesses?

Most business owners and managers I speak to are quick to recognise the benefits and huge potential that a 'social media marketing' and 'business blogging' strategy can offer.  But occasionally, I'll meet someone who whilst 'getting' the theory, simply cannot imagine what on earth they'd write about. Certainly, some businesses might have an easier time of it than others, but I truly believe that there's a solution for everyone.  Proof, it it were needed, might be this business blog from UK wide skip hire business TopSkips.com which I discovered yesterday.   

The Skip Hire Blog is maintained by TopSkips' MD Mark Attwood and is a great business blog example. The content is fun, relevant and useful. The tone is, as it should be, light and conversational.  The varied use of media - audio, video and text - all adds to the visitor experience.  But perhaps most importantly, Mark clearly understands the power of key words.  Many of us struggle to identify the best keywords for our business - not so here; Mark is wisely keeping it simple with just the one term - 'skip hire' - which he then uses in the post title, in the post body and in the tags - lovely. 

What else could Mark be doing to drive traffic and Google ranking?

Cardinal Business Blogging Sins - is writing off-topic a no-no?

OK... so what excuse can I find to post a picture of our new puppy on my blog... um... tricky...

You see, the majority of visitors to this blog are here to find out about blogging for business or social media marketing - not to see pictures of puppies - no matter how cute.  Puppies are off-topic.  So does that mean I shouldn't post the picture?  Well, you tell me...

Is off-topic content always a cardinal sin?  Or are personal posts ok?  Does it depend on other factors? If so, what are they?

While you ponder these questions, enjoy the above pic of Sgt. Pepper - a super-charged, 19wk old Heinz 57 rescue pup who 'came home' to us just last night.  (Click to enlarge it.) I'm not a mum, but boy do I feel like one today - knackered, sleep deprived and totally blissed out!

5 blogging mistakes that are so last year

           

Prologue: We don't claim to be blogging saints round here (though Claire is, of course, a blogging angel).  Although this post was drafted a little while ago we couldn't post it until we'd done a little bit of blog housekeeping ourselves... Well one thing we do believe in is being willing to take our own blog medicine:-)

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It's a funny thing about the New Year, isn't it?  A few weeks into January and suddenly 2007 seems like an eternity ago.  A time that's over.  Things that we've let go.

And all of a sudden things that are dated 2007 can look just that: dated, tired and over.

And yes, that includes your business blog.

This is the perfect time to make sure your business blog is bang up to date - and that you're avoiding these 5 blogging mistakes that can keep you stuck in last year.

Chris Cree's Back In The Saddle - Yee Ha!

If you visit regularly, you will know that I'm a bit of an erratic blogger. I have no shortage of things I want to share with you - in fact, I have a really exciting list I keep - but sometimes, I either just can't face it (being too 'blogged out') or I'm just too plain busy - with other people's blogs!

Well, today - I have found the perfect therapy for this condition - courtesy of another fantastic business blog consultant Chris Cree over at SuccessCREEations.com. In his post 'Back In The Saddle' Chris says,

"Like getting thrown from a horse you have to climb back aboard at the soonest available opportunity. The longer you wait, the harder it becomes. Our minds have this weird ability to build up these huge mental barriers to getting started sometimes."

As I said in my comment on said post - I need to print that one out and pin it to my wall!  How reassuring to know that I am in good company with this issue and how wonderful that Chris is so open and honest about it. Truly inspiring. Thanks Chris. :o)

Comment spam on blogs - how do you handle it?

Some months ago, the issue of malicious and/or spam commenting on blogs was raised by Linda Fox, a regular visitor to this blog. She told me the story of Kathy Sierra, a female blogger who received some pretty nasty spam comments - so nasty in fact that she cancelled all public engagements for fear of actual, physical attack and she hasn't posted on her blog since April 6th.

At the time, I have to admit to thinking that her reaction was emotional and extreme and - if like I do, you believe in the Universal Laws - her stance was simply creating more nastiness.  But then I was not standing in her shoes, and I'm not sure we can ever know for sure how we would react in a given situation until we are in it.  Then just a few days later, I started to get a few spam comments of my own.  Not of the same ilk, but personal, off-topic and, to my mind, slightly disturbing.  Some of the comments were made using the names of other regular commenters or people to which I had referred in previous posts, but I could see from the IP address that they were not the same people at all. 

So what to do about it?

Blogphobias - what worries you about business blogging

Dagnabbit! Not doing to well on the posting every day thing am I? Anyway... an interesting conversation yesterday and a Trackback I received today highlighted a topic I probably don't address enough on this blog - Blogphobias or business blogging fears and concerns...

First the trackback - which came from Margaret Collins of www.TheGrowthZone.com. She was talking on her blog about customer service and mentioned the recent challenges I'd experienced.  Now, if you read Margaret's blog, you'll see she's not been blogging long, so the fact that she has mastered Trackbacks so early on is impressive. Not only that, but she configured her blog herself and it looks fantastic. Trackbacking and Commenting and designing your blog to work harder for you are all invaluable activities when it comes to business blog marketing.