Comment Policy

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A big part of the reason the blog exists here at SuccessCREEations, Inc. is to stimulate discussion in the areas of Social Media and Business Blogging. We appreciate and encourage your comments here.

In order to encourage meaningful conversation by everyone we’ve got the following comment guidelines in place. Failure to follow these guidelines will likely cause us to take some action. We reserve the right to edit or delete any comment made on our site as we find necessary to facilitate ongoing discussion by all.

Keep in mind this is our house. You have the privilege of determining whether you will be considered a welcomed guest or not.

If you follow these guidelines you will probably do just fine.

Be Nice

Treat others as you’d like them to treat you. You can disagree with anything found here. Just don’t be rude about it or use personal attacks. If you are unsure how a comment may be interpreted by the person it is aimed at then you probably should consider re-wording it before you hit “Submit Comment”.

No Profanity

Foul language will either be edited out of your comment or may even cause your comment to be deleted. Our mothers have been known to read our blog and we don’t want to scandalize them.

Please use English

SuccessCREEations, Inc. is an English language blog. In order for everyone to see the value in your comment we ask that you keep to English for most of your commenting here.

Don’t Spam

Spam is the scourge of the internet and will not be tolerated here in it’s many forms. We show our appreciation for folks commenting by removing the “nofollow” tag from comment links. We ask in return that your comment adds value to the discussion and is relevant to the post at hand. If you obviously comment here just to get a link back to your site without engaging in conversation you run the risk of your comment being removed or marked as spam.

Names are Preferred

We value you as a person. Therefore it is preferred that you use a name or pseudonym when signing comments rather than business names or SEO type anchor text. We assume you are commenting primarily to engage in discussion and it is harder to talk to Fire Town, Natural Health, Technology, Money Earner, supersmoker, voipBlogger, or Guru (all actual commenters here) than it is a person. While this is not an absolute requirement, perceived abuse may be dealt with accordingly.

Refrain from Gratuitous Spammy Links

Because your comment will be getting a link in the signature block please refrain from adding another link at the end of your comment. The extra link is unnecessarily redundant, a bit tacky and may get removed. However we do encourage links to relevant content on other sites that add value to the discussion.

Link Responsibly

Please don’t link to nastiness. Remember Mom sometimes reads sometimes and we don’t want to send her to some offensive web page. In fact, we don’t want to go there ourselves. So just leave it out.

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

Finding Something to Write About

We all get there from time to time.

If our business site has a blog, we know we should post something every so often. Can’t have it getting stagnant. Gotta keep the content fresh.

But what to write?

Maybe there’s nothing happening in our business that we can share at the moment. Perhaps your creative zone is a little overwhelmed with the stress of day to day business?

Well here are some ideas which might help get your creative juices flowing.

Look Around Your Life

This is my personal favorite. Life happens. All around us. By keeping a sharp eye on what is going on around us we can often come up with things to write about.

For example, maybe you just had a surprising light bulb moment that you could share (sort of).

Do you have pets? Did you find your Cats in the Dog House this morning? Sure your pest have nothing to do with your business. But people like cute pictures. And it shows a bit of the human side of your business. Me, I put most of my cat blogs on my personal blog. But they do inspire me from time to time.

Are you active on any social media sites? Perhaps you see something there that eventually grow into something like Visionary Cat Herding Princes of Execution.

Maybe a YouTube video helped you see some Lessons at the Watering Hole. If you learned from it chances are someone else will too.

Maybe life is happening to you right now. Sometimes it’s OK to tell people that It’s Cold in Here. Letting folks know there are real live people at your business is not a bad thing. Not at all. Read more

Still Breathing

I was poking around the place last night, cleaning up spam and such, and I realized that it’s been over a month since I posted here.

No wonder folks are starting to contact me with questions like “How are you doing?” “Haven’t heard from you in a while.” “Just checking in to see if everything is OK on your end.”

While I’ve got my reasons for not posting (yes I know, they sound remarkably like excuses) consider the last month or so here a good example of how not to blog for your business.

Sure I’ve had a lot going on here. The number of surveyors at our office dropped to two (from our normal staffing of four). I worked a personal record amount of overtime for that job in October. I’ve been working on on the business plan for SuccessCREEations. I’m building out sites for clients and teaching them how to use them. I’m writing up proposals and submitting them to prospective clients.

Oh, and I seem to have a powerful need to sleep nearly every night. Read more

Some Rules Were Meant to be Broken

It is easy to get distracted, loose focus, and squander precious resources as a result. Too much time doing just the things we like, or that we know we do well (or that are easy) can keep us from other more critical tasks and ultimately mean the difference between the success or failure of our business.

I see this happen all the time.

Say someone takes over a new job at the office. If they are generally a neat person, they probably want to clean things up a bit so they can get off to a fresh start. There is nothing wrong with that - especially if it looked like this when they started. But, if three weeks later they are still spending the majority of their time looking for things to throw away instead of doing more productive work, then there is a problem.

Spending all day flipping through file folders and moving sticky notes around our desks can sink our business in a hurry.

Don’t get me wrong. The extra things that happen in the course of business are important. Many a business has failed because the owner knew how to provide a service but neglected everything else that comes with being a business owner.

Just be sure that when it comes to your business you understand what it is that makes you money. Concentrate on those things. Let the rest fill in later. Read more

Old Media Powerhouse Learns New Media Lesson

There has long been friction between the traditional old media providers which include print and television, and new media information sources which are overwhelmingly Internet based.

If you look deep enough you can find some basic philosophical differences between the ways old media and new media approach information flow. Old media has traditionally provided information to folks who were willing to buy access to it. That access might be in the form of a magazine or newspaper subscription. Or that access might be purchased via a cable television package where some of that subscription money is passed on to the TV network supplying the cable company with content.

On the internet typically access to new media information is generally more freely available. It is closer to a radio model where the information is broadcast and the business supplying the information makes its money via advertising.

Where it gets interesting (and frustrating for some of us) is when old media providers apply traditional models to their forays into the new media realm.

One example is the New York Times. Roughly two years ago they launched their Times Select online service with much fanfare.

For a little under $8 a month or $50 a year you could get access to current op-eds and syndicated columns, and do special things like explore the NYT archives back to 1851 (but you could only access 100 articles a month or some such). Articles that were part of that service were annotated with a special orange ‘T’. I guess that was to make to make the readers feel special.

Well today this headline caught my eye:

New York Times to end paid Internet service

It seems even the venerable New York Times has finally figured out that hiding their content behind a subscription barrier is costing them money.

By allowing anyone access to their content they will are sure to get significantly more page views. Web traffic equals eyes on the page. And anytime you can produce a bunch of eyes looking in one place, advertisers are eager to pay a premium to put their add in that spot.

And that, my friends is a recipe for a sound revenue model.

Content X Traffic = Advertising Revenue Potential

Not only that, but the New York Times has determined that that model will be more profitable than hiding their content behind a subscription barrier. Kudos to the NYT!

Tagged with Joe’s Promise

I’ve been keeping a very low profile on the bloggosphere of late. I’ve my reasons. I’m keeping my eye on my priorities. All is well.

This morning Liz Strauss tagged me with Joe’s Promise.

You see, Joe had been keeping a low profile too. He explained what happened in his post about a week back when he wrote My Promise to the Blogging Community.

Joe’s Promise

• I will be sure to comment on other Blogs if I can add to the conversation.
• I will respond to comments on my own Blog.
• I will acknowledge any links to my Blog with a comment on the linker’s Blog.
• I will continue to link to other Blogs that are pertinent to a posts content.
• I will once again be a part of the Blogging Community.
• That is my promise to the Community as a whole, in part, and individually.

If you feel you are losing some of the interaction that is an integral part of Blogging, you may want to join me in this Promise to the Community.

It’s a good set of promises to keep, whether you are brand new to blogging, or whether you are an old hat that like me that has been focused elsewhere.

If that is you, then just pick up the words, post them on your blog, and link back to Joe’s post. Tag it “Joe’s Promise,” and pass it on.

And to do my part passing it on, how about we hear from April, Jesse, Jason, Troy, Rick, and Dawud.

Back in the Saddle

I don’t know how your life works. But there are times in my life when things happen that I have very little control over.

Most times it isn’t the big things that get in the way, but a myriad of little things that pile up and push aside those things that I really would rather be attending to. Like, say, my business blog here at SuccessCREEations.

In the current case the primary thing beyond my control was a coworker taking three weeks vacation and my having to pick up the slack. Basically my already busy workload on my day job has doubled.

Between that and keeping up with my clients there has been very little time or energy to do much of anything else.

Blog’s Still Here

One of the beauties of blogging is that your blog will still be there if you take a break for a little while.

Now I don’t recommend taking big breaks like that as a regular business practice. Your stats will drop off like buffalo being chased over a cliff and it will take time to re-build them to where you were before.

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.

I find more often than not that once I get started on something I’ve let my mind build up into this hard project it turns out to be much less an issue than I imagined. Go figure. Read more

Drawn to a Dustup like Moths to a Porch Light

We human beings are strange creatures. We seem to be hardwired to be compelled to slow down and look at conflict and carnage.

Remember in high school when a fight would break out how the kids would stand back and start cheering rather than try to break it up?

Or can you tell me why a car wreck on the highway will cause a traffic jam in the other direction as well while each car passing slows down enough to get the best look possible at the carnage?

When Rosie O’Donnell and Donald Trump have a silly ongoing argument it makes the national news for days.

Just Like Everyone Else

I guess I’m just like everyone else in that department.

I must be as morbidly entertained by a brouhaha as the next person because when a blogging friend of mine mentioned this one to me in a conversation we had over the weekend I put it on my list of things to check out when I got a chance.

This morning I got a chance to take a peek.

The Dustup

Apparently two guys I consider friends of SuccessCREEations, Blog Bloke and Darren Rowse, had a bit of a tiff in the comments section of the post More Pillars of Exceptional Blogs.

Read down through the comments of that post. I felt like I should have been munching on some popcorn while I read that thread. Read more

“Finding” Content is the Wrong Approach

Dawud Miracle asks an interesting question in this morning’s post: “Where do I Find Good Content?“.

Dawud’s steering the discussion over there in the direction of purchased content.

Can it be done? I suppose so. But the original questioner was looking for “GOOD” content. Good content is expensive. Writing is like anything else. You pretty much get what you pay for.

I’m thinking that looking for content is probably more time consuming, more expensive and will be far less effective in the long run than simply writing your own blog posts. Let them bubble up from your passion.

If you are blogging for your business, it should be a natural fit. Let your passion for your business spill over into your blogging.

On the other hand, if you aren’t passionate about your business you might want reconsider the whole deal.

I guess I rarely struggle with post ideas. They are constantly popping in my head.

My struggle is in another direction. Time. Finding time to write when there is so much that needs doing is a big challenge.

But it is a rewarding one.

What do you think? Is good content out there for the finding?

Or is good content created?

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