Publicity | I'm Just Sharing

How Can You Get Noticed On Other Blogs?

Posted by Mitch Mitchell on Nov 8, 2010

I’ve talked about two things on this blog often enough. One is that I want to be known as a big time blogger, or whatever; I just want to be big (and I don’t mean ‘body’). Two, that there are always ways to find inspiration for things to write about if you just pay attention.

Links
by Penelope Billington

In this case there were two different blog posts I visited that gave me a little bit of inspiration to write this one. The first was from a guy named Dragos (I’m trying to remember where I found him first), who wrote a post titled 5 Unusual Ways To Measure Your Online Reputation, where he talks about how he started to learn that he might be successful. One of his points was being quoted on other, non-related blogs.

The second was from a guy named Mitch Joel, who writes a weekly post along the lines of this one that begins with Six Links…; this particular post is his 20th. He doesn’t just pop up links to blogs he’s visited, but websites as well.

My thought on both of these is just what is it that makes people quote worthy, let alone link worthy? And how do we all capture that? Kristi of Kikolani has her weekly Fetching Friday series, which I’ve made a couple of times here and there, but hers are all topic related; if the topic is WordPress then she puts up 5 links that talked about something related to that. So even though it’s nice when you make it, you’re never going to be listed there “just because.”

I read a lot of blogs. One thing I’ve noticed I do that not as many other people do is link to a lot of other blogs, as well as my own blog, in my posts. I like acknowledging other people when I’m talking about a particular subject, even if it ends up not actually being what I’m writing about, if it inspired me in some fashion. And I’ve been known to link to someone else’s blog if I mention their name on this one as well.

Overall, what makes one link worthy to others? Is there a magic formula for success in that area or is it always just a roll of the dice? People who join blog communities think of it as visiting other blogs and leaving comments, but I think that kind of thought is limiting because commenting isn’t the only thing that helps uplift others. I mean, for what it’s worth, I just gave the two people above some serious link love, whether they care or not. And over the last few weeks I’ve visited blogs and seen people commenting that I had never seen on those blogs before, mentioning they had seen me mention them and wanted to see what those blogs were all about. I can’t tell you how good it feels to have helped bring someone else’s blog into the eyes of folks who visit here all the time.

Unfortunately, this time I don’t have a formula or even an idea. It’s just something I wanted to talk about to see if anyone else has thoughts on it all. Yeah, I know, that’s a lot to think about for a Monday. But think about how it might make the rest of your week go so much easier.

Blogging | 40 Comments

Writing A Press Release

Posted by Mitch Mitchell on Aug 14, 2010

Okay, by now everyone should know that I’m putting on a social media workshop on Thursday with Renée Scherer. Well, at least you’d think that. What I found out just after the last one is that no matter how many times I put the link out on Twitter, people seemed to miss it. I mean, what the hey? This included people I talked to often on Twitter; that was discouraging, and of course if people don’t know about it, they’re not coming.

This led me to considering the idea of writing a press release for this one and seeing if the newspaper would put it in. Of course, one can have a press release go to many other outlets as well, but there’s only one main newspaper in town, and I know the rules for writing a press release, which is pretty much only one main rule; make it sound like a news story and not an advertisement.

Having said that, there are some basic rules for writing up a press release; here they are:

1. You need to make sure there’s contact information in it

2. You need to indicate what the press release is for, hopefully giving them a title they might be able to use. I did that within the article, and I told what the event was up front.

3. You should have someone quoted in it. That’s not quite a necessity, but it helps to have a quote or two.

4. It needs to be in 3rd person. No “I’s” or anything like that unless it’s contained in the quote.

5. It needs to look “newsy”. In other words, it should read like it’s a story in the newspaper, even if it’s a short one.

I created the press release and I passed it by one of my Twitter friends who also happens to work at the newspaper. She said it was perfect, and that she’d give it to the powers that be. This isn’t my first press release, by the way. I’ve had two others put into the newspaper, one in 2004 when I was giving my Keys To Leadership seminars, and another when I was promoting a customer service workshop in 2005. So, it had been awhile, but my hope was that I hadn’t lost the skill of putting one together.

I hope it shows up in the newspaper, but there are never any guarantees. Actually, I’m writing this days ahead of time, so if you see this line then it probably won’t make it in time. In either case, another friend of mine in media said I should put it on my website to make sure it’s at least seen by someone. I decided to share it here:

Press Release:

Social Media Marketing Workshop
Hope Lake Lodge, August 19th, 2010

Following up on a successful first presentation on July 22nd, Mitch Mitchell of SEO Xcellence and Renée Scherer of Presentations Plus are putting on a second workshop on the topic of social media marketing. Titled “Make A Splash With Social Media Marketing”, they put on a 5 hour workshop that talks about social media strategies that have been used by many companies across the United States to enhance their business profiles and interact with customers.

“Smaller companies found out first how successful they could interact with current clients and grow their client base by using social media marketing, and now bigger companies have hopped on the bandwagon and establishing themselves as players in the game as well,” said Mitch Mitchell, who’s been working with clients on social media marketing strategies for 3 years now. “Anyone who hasn’t figured out that they need to embrace at least some aspects of social media marketing are going to fall behind, and it’s not going to be easy to catch up.”

Since both Mitchell and Scherer are from the Syracuse area, why start at Hope Lake Lodge? “I’m a skier and I love Greek Peak,” stated Scherer. “Once I realized how much more they had and that they’d love finding ways to help promote the new Cascades Water Park it seemed like it would be a nice marriage.”

They are working on setting up a workshop some time in September in the Syracuse area, then hoping for at least one more presentation at Cascades Water Park before deciding where to take it next. “I’d love to take it on the road, as it’s become a very hot topic”, said Mitchell.

To find out more about the presentation, you can call Renée Scherer at 315-863-9011 or visit http://www.seoxcellence.com/SMMregistration.html.

For confirmation:

Mitch Mitchell, SEO Xcellence, 315-622-5922 or mitch@seoxcellence.com
Renée Scherer, Presentations Plus, 315-863-9011 or renee@presentations-plus.biz

So, what do you think?

Marketing | 11 Comments

BlogInterviewer.Com

Posted by Mitch Mitchell on Apr 15, 2010

Am I narcissistic or what? Actually, I don’t think so, but I’ve participated in another interview for a blog called, nicely enough, BlogInterview.com. It’s a blog where the owners get recommendations for people they should talk to, and they have a series of questions that they ask every participant to respond to.

I have no idea who passed my name on, but hey, it’s all about publicity, right? My interview was fun and interesting, and if I say so much I feel like I’m the first one who answered the questions in the proper manner. You know, sometimes I think many people just don’t know how to answer certain types of questions because it’s beyond their purview. I remember years ago, during a leadership training session, where a group of nurses were asked specific questions about how they’d handle a brand new employee. Thing is, the questions didn’t pertain to anything any nurse with any sense at all would do, so they all got confused, instead of seeing it as an exercise into one’s thinking process.

Now, here’s the next part, which is another reason I’m mentioning this. I guess people who stop by get to vote on your interview, and the top vote getter for the month earns money of some kind. They pay out around $950 total to the top 18 rated bloggers. I have no idea what first place is, but hey, I’m as competitive as the next person, so I’d like to encourage y’all to follow that link and give me a thumbs up, or however it all works. Help make me some money; doesn’t cost you anything except clicking on a link, then clicking on this little button at the top left of the post that says “vote now”; I had to go look for it myself.

Oh yeah; I’ll also be featured on my friend Beverly Mahone’s internet radio show Passions the next two weeks, and they’ll be the last two weeks because she’s landed a real radio show in the North Carolina area; how’s that for being special? Congrats to Beverly for that, and who knows, maybe I’ll find a way to get on real radio as well.

Look at me; guest blogging, interviews… now if I can only start making some money from all of it! lol

Interview | 18 Comments

Different Degrees Of Gaming The System

Posted by Mitch Mitchell on Mar 31, 2010

Suffice it to say, many of us write our blogs and hope to find a loyal audience. To get a portion of that loyal audience, something else we do is visit each other’s blogs and, when we can, we write comments on those blogs. It not only helps us in potentially getting people to follow the link back to you, but it helps them because not only are you contributing to the community, but you’re also helping their community grow. It seems that people love commenting on blogs that show some kind of activity.

If you wanted to, you could say that’s a way to “game the system”. I don’t necessarily believe it, but the truth is that it’s nice knowing there are some people who have your back from time to time.

However, I’m betting most of us can’t compare to what’s been reported about the Chinese government. It seems that China wants to change its reputation around the world in the worst way (so many ways to go on this one). So what they’ve done is hired 280,000 people to write good things about the country. Not only on their own blog, but on other websites that even mention China:vacation sites, political sites, product sites… you name it.

This isn’t new, really. How many folks remember the tale of Belkin, a company that was caught having its own employees review their products in many places, including eBay and Amazon, favorably, until someone found an internal memo and leaked it? It’s that sort of thing that brought about the FCC’s new policy on disclosure.

At the same time, who can compete with 280,000 people being paid to say nice things about you, other than India? That’s really gaming the system, and that’s just not right. I mean, almost no one here would be upset to get that kind of great press for their blogs or websites, but at the end of the day, it’s disingenuous, false, and no one benefits from it, including the person being talked about.

How do you feel about this one? Am I wrong?

Business | 14 Comments

Some Random Sunday Things

Posted by Mitch Mitchell on Jan 24, 2010

I’ve been on quite a clip lately in writing this blog, my other blogs, other people’s blogs and all the articles I’ve been writing as well. I could have taken today off, and I kind of am because this is a quick hitter to mention a few things that have entertained or mentioned me lately.

The first is another online radio interview I did with Beverly Mahone of Boomer Diva Nation, the same group that named me as one of the top Baby Boomer Men of 2010. I thank her for that, and I hope to be able to live up to it for the year. Here’s the interview, which you can download as a MP3.

The second is both an honor and some confusion, I guess. I was listed on Not A Pro Blog by Jordan Cooper as one of the 20 Bloggers To Watch Out For In A Back Alley (at least I was; seems the actual Problogger bought this particular blog in April 2010, so the rest of this paragraph makes little sense, but I’m leaving it here anyway). There’s a video that picks on 20 of us guys, but when he gets to me he compares me to Magilla Gorilla. I missed the reference, my wife isn’t happy for some reason (probably that “equating a black man with a gorilla thing), but I like that I got a mention anyway. I’d have commented on his blog but he has Disqus, and you know how I feel about that, so I figure he’ll see the trackback. His blog is pretty good, and I subscribe to it, so go ahead and check it out.

The third is just a bit of funny that I saw that I wanted to pop up here, though I’m not sure I’m really allowed to do. If I’m contacted, I’ll take it back down, but I’ll get a bit of fun out of it first. This is how you take someone’s power away when they don’t really have it to begin with. I wish I could have thought of saying stuff like this back to people when I was a kid; now I don’t have to deal with such things. I bring you Get Fuzzy:

Finally, some quick football picks. I’m obviously not the best guy at picking games, but I’ll have my fun with it anyway. In the AFC, I expect Indianapolis to win big, but I’m pulling for the NY Jets. They have to be the emotional pick in this game, and all week we’ve been evoking the memories of Broadway Joe here in NY state. In the NFC, man, I really don’t care since my Cowboys lost, but since I have to make a pick I’m going with New Orleans, though for no particular reason. Indianapolis versus Minnesota would have way more back stories to tell, and the networks would love the Manning vs. Favre comparisons, and of course that game would easily draw in more visitors and make more money than a Jets versus Saints Super Bowl, but most of the world will watch no matter who’s playing, and I’ll have a legitimate betting interest in the game then (Scott, get ready!). By the way, the Jets prove why you play these games rather than just anoint the teams that should be there. No one saw the Jets making it this far with a rookie QB and new coach; fantastic stuff.

That’s it; a “short post” that ended up being more than 500 words anyway. Enjoy your Sunday y’all!