40 Days of Bed Head - Day 16

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We’re in the middle of my 40 Days of Bed Head project.

Yep. That’s exactly how I feel this morning. It’s too early and there’s too much to do.

Feel free to add captions in the comments section.

Bed Head Day 15 | Bed Head Day 17

MyBlogLog Going Steadily Downhill

I’ve been a fan of MyBlogLog since before they were purchased by Yahoo! But they are steadily going downhill.

I have proof.

The Salad Days

There was a time when I considered MyBlogLog a wonderful thing. Back say nearly a year and a half ago I posted about a problem with the MyBlogLog widget that I had. Eric Marcoullier, one of the founders of MyBlogLog, stopped by and commented to help out.

That was a pretty good day.

Then there was meeting Robyn Tippins at SOBCon last year. She’s a sharp lady and was the MyBlogLog Community Manager at the time. Too bad for us she’s moved on to another position at Yahoo. But that was a good day too.

Those were sorta the salad days of MyBlogLog.

We had this nice little widget in the side bar that showed the avitars of all the MBL members who stopped by. It even put the images in the comments. And you could do a little networking on their site too. Mingle with other bloggers and get find other great blogs.

But then something happened. Or more correctly, then not much of anything happened.

MyBlogLog has sorta stayed exactly the same since their peak shortly after the Yahoo purchase. There’s been a lot of talk lately about the lameness of MyBlogLog.

Read more

40 Days of Bed Head - Day 15

We’re in the middle of my 40 Days of Bed Head project.

I spent a bunch of time wrestling with uncooperative servers this morning. Grrr.

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Bed Head Day 14 | Bed Head Day 16

Comment Policy Formalized

Well, after giving it some more thought I’ve decided to implement the formal Comment Policy that we talked about last week.

Basically we’re going to use it as is for now. If we see a need to adjust down the road we’ll adapt it as required.

We’ve got a Comment Policy Page in place. And I’ve placed a link to it under the comment box so that anyone who may be unsure can refer to it prior to submitting their comment.

It stinks to have to make “formal rules” but unfortunately too many abusers were attempting to mess things up.

Does your blog have a comment policy spelled out?

Hillary Clinton’s Approach to Social Media Killed Her Campaign

Hillary Clinton campaigned for president using a traditional approach to media. I call it the Push & Spin Approach. At this point that outdated approach to media, along with the rest of her campaign, seems to have failed miserably.

Push & Spin

The traditional approach to media is all about control. Build relationships with the key media influencers so that they are willing to listen to your side of things when you “push” your message out to the public through them.

The goal is to get news about you (and your organization, business, etc.) presented to the public in a favorable light or positive spin. Hopefully once the message starts going in your favor it will keep moving in that direction just like a spinning object holds a straighter trajectory than one that isn’t spinning.

Wikipedia has this to say about PR Spin:

In public relations, spin is a usually pejorative term signifying a heavily biased portrayal in one’s own favor of an event or situation. While traditional public relations may also rely on creative presentation of the facts, “spin” often, though not always, implies disingenuous, deceptive and/or highly manipulative tactics. Politicians are often accused of spin by their political opponents.

The Clintons have long been masters of this traditional push & spin approach to media. Read more

40 Days of Bed Head - Day 14

We’re in the middle of my 40 Days of Bed Head project.

Some mornings are just plain too early.

Feel free to add captions in the comments section.

Bed Head Day 13 | Bed Head Day 15

40 Days of Bed Head - Day 13

We’re in the middle of my 40 Days of Bed Head project.

Looks like I’ve got a varmint on my head today.

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Bed Head Day 12 | Bed Head Day 14

Knowledgeable Expert or Shameless Profiteer?

I’ve know blogging associate Mike DeWitt for quite a while now. We first met at Open Comment Night over on Successful-Blog way back when.

So far Mike has commented on every single one of my Bed Head posts. (We’re on Day 12 of 40 right now. I went back through and checked. He hasn’t missed one yet.)

Well no one can comment on my blog everyday for nearly two weeks straight and not expect me to check out their own blog. Of course I went poking about Mike’s. And of course I found something noteworthy.

Back in January Mike wrote a post called A Moron I Want To Learn From.

The moron Mike is referring to is Mark Joyner (and moron is how Mark describes himself when he says, “I’m an official blogging moron.”) Read more

Should You Be Worried When Your Competition Starts Blogging?

So you just noticed that one of your competitors has started a blog. Should you be worried?

The answer to that question really depends.

If the only web presence your business has right now is a traditional static web site, then yes you probably have some cause for concern.

Implemented well, their blog may very well give them a leg up as they increase their web presence, move up in the search engine rankings, interact with potential customers and generally put a human face on their business while opening another avenue to engage the marketplace.

However if your business has been blogging for a while (and doing it well) then having a competitor jump into blogging may very well be a good thing for you.

The Law of the Tide

Competition is a good thing. For example, have you ever noticed how often McDonald’s and Burger King’s are located right next to each other?

Or the way car dealerships seem to usually be concentrated in the same part of town?

Those businesses are in direct competition with one another yet they tend to group together. You might think it would be better for all of them to be as far from their competitors as possible.

But it’s not.

Because of what I call the Law of the Tide.

A rising tide raises all the ships in the harbor.

Looking at that photo above it’s obvious that as the tide comes in the shrimp boats will be raised just the same as the bigger cargo ship. The idea that the tide would affect one vessel differently than another just because they are different sizes might seem logical.

But the reality is they’ll all rise up exactly the same amount.

Blogging & Tides

How does the Law of the Tide relate to business blogging?

Well if your competition starts blogging too it will add to your efforts to raise awareness about your industry.

But even beyond that having a little competition can help spur you on to take your blogging to the next level. I think Jim Cronin over at The Real Estate Tomato goes a little overboard when he says that your blogging peers are not your competition. Competition is still competition whether they are blogging or not.

However I do agree with the gist of his article in that you shouldn’t overly worry about it. Jim makes a good point about competition in general.

Competition keeps you sharp and keeps you driven.
But, most importantly, it keeps the audience interested.
Imagine running a race, by yourself.
Now imagine that same race with a few others breathing down your neck.
You run harder, they run harder, and the crowd shares in the emotion.

The rising tide of increased competition will improve your blogging along with theirs. And your combined audiences get the benefit of your improvement.

It’s a win all around. So don’t worry. Keep blogging.

Photo by: SunsetSailorWU

40 Days of Bed Head - Day 12

We’re in the middle of my 40 Days of Bed Head project.

Is is just me, or is my resemblance to Reverend Jim this morning a little on the creepy side?

And as long as we’re on the subject, treat yourself to 3 minutes of classic humor when Jim takes his driver’s test. It had me giggling first thing this morning.

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Bed Head Day 11 | Bed Head Day 13

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