When it comes to networking, I have personal definitions of three different kinds:

• Social Networking: Using social-networking sites like Facebook and Twitter for mainly social (read: personal) reasons
• Professional Networking: Using either social-networking sites that have more of a professional bent (I’m thinking LinkedIn and others of its kind here; Twitter counts here, too), as well as professional networks (like Sibdu, one of my clients, that does commercial real-estate professional networking)
• Handshake Networking: Getting out to events (whether they be local meetings or chamber gatherings, mixers at conventions, etc.) and “pressing the flesh,” as it were

I’m building my business on the first two points. After a BNI meeting I had today, though, I realize that there’s still a lot of value in this kind of networking — even with the rush to use the online varieties. Since I’m an old salt at the handshake variety, I’m hoping I can convince you that the third can be just as important as the first two.

Remember the good ol’ days? I know whenever I read that line, I always cringe. I think, “oh no, it’s another story of how things used to be before the Internet, e-mail, cell phones, Twitter, etc. I don’t care; it’s a much better world nowadays!”

Well, that may be true in a lot of ways. But I’m convinced that all of our electronics and tech mumbo jumbo have caused us to lose touch … literally. I’m talking about getting away from the desk, out of client calls and meetings (where you know everyone anyways) off of LinkedIn and Twitter, and into a situation where you may or may not know anyone — at the beginning, anyways.

When I was in commercial real-estate brokerage, it surprised me that more commercial brokers and agents didn’t go to chambers of commerce meetings, BNI-esque meetings, etc. Were all of these brokers too busy to go out and meet the people who could lead them to new customers? Did they not want to explore vendor relations that could also get them referrals in the process? Heck, didn’t they just want to meet new people?

I always met all kinds of residential agents (which was a good thing for me; I’ll explain why it can be for you in a sec). But hardly any commercial people were there; which was great for me, because I’d walk out with all kinds of cards with people who may have needed space down the road. If I were still in brokerage, I’d be following up with those people to this day.

I think the problem a lot of business professionals have with handshake or face-to-face (F2F) networking events is that they’re looking for the immediate “big bang” out of them. To put it in commercial real-estate terms, they want to walk out of a mixer with a hot lead on a tenant-rep deal for 25,000 SF, or a listing for leasing an entire office building in the hottest area of town. I’m sure you can plug in your own scenarios for your kind of business.

Guess what? It very, very likely ain’t gonna happen. I’m not saying it’ll never happen, but it likely won’t.

What you will find, though, are people who know other people who — again, in CRE terms — may be willing to get you in front of people who need 25,000 SF, or who own that office building and have had it up to friggin’ here with their current leasing agent.

That’s why you need to: a) go to events, and maybe even join a chamber or two; b) continue to go to meetings to be well-known and build your brand; and c) practice proper etiquette. Because after all, you want to be known as that great gal/guy who (for example) leases/sells commercial real estate, not that guy/gal who reminds people of the stereotypical used-car sales lizard.

I had referred to residential agents earlier. For some reason, a lot of commercial real-estate types don’t see residential people on the same level as them. Residential agents get treated like the underclass. My experience with residential agents was always positive, because I made it a positive experience. I always treated them nicely, listened to them, and genuinely cared about what they thought and said. About 80% of the time, I’d usually get their card and a commitment that they’d send me any commercial referrals, since they generally didn’t know any commercial people. And I ended up getting referrals, too.

I’m willing to bet there’s similar types of situations in your business. Even if there isn’t, the person you meet at a business mixer or event can be your next partner. Plus, always keep in mind this one point: You never know who knows whom. So the next time you want to blow off anyone at a networking function, keep this story in mind.

Here’s two articles I’ve written in the past that will help you with your handshake networking efforts:

• Follow Up for Success – Tips and suggestions you can use to follow up with the right people following a networking event
• When a Call or Voicemail Just Won’t Do – Talks about the lost art of the written note, and how you can stand out from the crowd by sinking a little time and money into this attention-grabbing vehicle — especially after a networking event.

You can use these two articles for follow-ups to your online networking efforts, too. In practice, you should be using online and offline networking equally.

Contact Bob Woods at Infonitum.

When it comes to enterprise use — as opposed to individual use — of social-media tools like Twitter, there’s issues surrounding compliance and security, as well as overall policy. To put it simply, your company may not want you to tweet (140 character posts to the Twitter site) because of whatever internal or external policies or laws to which it must adhere.

But what if your company had a way to enable employees to tweet, which in turn helps your company to better communicate with its client base and … yes … even make money? No toolset currently exists that can help out those organizations, right? Well, that’s about to change.

OnTargetTweet is a service that’s so brand new, we’re still developing it. To put it succinctly:

OnTargetTweet is the easiest way for your company or organization to make sure that messages sent by your employees to the massively popular Twitter service are on target with your marketing campaign or mission.

With our platform, you or someone in your organization now has the power to approve on-target “tweets,” or messages intended for the Twitter audience. If a message is off-target, it can easily be sent back to the employee with suggestions on how to put it right back on target.

As you can see from the both tagline and the above statement, we also envision OnTargetTweet to be a means to keep messages being tweeted from an organization’s employees. After all, there’s no better way to wreck a great marketing campaign or message by having it contradicted by workers or contractors.

There’s also a third market; one with which I personally am very familiar: news organizations. From my 15+ years of involvement with various aspects of journalism, I can definitely see how a tweet with unchecked or inaccurate information from a reporter out in the field can quickly ruin a newspaper, TV station, etc. OnTargetTweet gives editors, producers and others at a managerial level the same level of control on Twitter messages they already have, when it comes to publishing stories (newsprint, Web, TV, or radio).

In short, we enivision OnTargetTweet for three audiences:

1. Companies and other organizations that have compliance or policy issues, in regards to Twitter use
   1. Banks
   2. Financial-services firms
   3. Health and medical
   4. Many others
2. Companies and other organizations that want to emphasize specific messages to a Twitter audience
   1. Corporations with sales forces
   2. Organizations with active social-media participants
   3. Many others
3. News/editorial organizations that want editor control over what field or newsroom-based employees tweet out on Twitter
   1. Radio
   2. TV
   3. Newspapers
   4. Web-based news organizations
   5. Many others

We’re hoping we’ll be finished with the development of OnTargetTweet in a week or two, and then opening a free beta-testing period. While our initial outbound marketing campaign will focus on associations/non-profits and the news media, we’ll be accepting any kind of organization that fits into these categories. Heck, we’ll speak with any organization that sees a potential for using the OnTargetTweet platform — it doesn’t have to conform to those three areas.

If you know of a company or organization that wants to use the power of Twitter. but needs to have control of tweets before they actually hit their Twitter stream, please let me know. Or better yet, have them go to the OnTargetTweet.com site and sign up for our upcoming beta period (FREE!). There’s a short video there that explains OnTargetTweet’s objectives as well.

You can also follow OnTargetTweet at (where else?) — Twitter. We’re @OnTargetTweet.

One other thing before I hit “Publish” on this post. After we first established our outpost on Twitter, we were mentioned in this tweet:

gillyarcht new player @ontargettweet #security #twitter #technology @twitter welcome–force for good we hope!

I’m sure we’re going to get our share of detractors. They’re going to claim we’re bad for social media. That we discourage the free-flow of ideas and thoughts that social media was specifically designed for.

I’ll be following up on this idea directly at the OnTargetTweet Blog — probably in a week or so. For now, though, I’m only going to say that we are definitely a “force for good” as @gillyarcht put it. We see our tool as a good way for many more “voices” to participate in social media, and Twitter is probably the place to be anymore in social media. Without this tool, there won’t be as many companies out there talking to — and listening to — their audiences. In a lot of cases, it’s because of compliance and policy issues that organizations may not have anything to do with. OnTargetTweet gives them a crucial tool with which to use Twitter while at the same time adhering to their policies.

Even after hearing that, though, we’ll probably still have detractors — and that’s okay. That’s because while they’re out there dissing us, we’ll be helping organizations to be on Twitter. A pretty good trade-off, in our opinion.

Contact Bob Woods at Infonitum.

If you have the budget, then … sure, go for a big, glitzy production. But even the spots that have high-quality graphics, audio, music and so on in them can fail miserably, because they don’t have the right kind of actual content. It’s that idea that is very easy to bring to video, and it can be done inexpensively as well.

I recently found a video that exemplifies this concept. This gentleman has picked up on how to very effectively use video to build his brand and his status as an expert in his market. You can see what I’m talking about after the jump.

He takes a very simple idea, a “word/phrase of the week,” and defines it. It’s just him and a camera (I’m guessing a camera that’s built into his monitor). He’s using these elements to build his brand as an expert in commercial real estate:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Sure, this isn’t exactly your garden-variety viral video. Not even close, actually. Yet it builds Mr. Allison’s reputation as a knowledgeable, informed commercial real-estate professional. And thanks to all of today’s Internet technologies, he can spread that idea far and wide. Besides distributing on YouTube and other video-sharing sites, he can put this video in his own blog or Web site, and even call attention to it in a Twitter stream (assuming he’s on Twitter).

Plus, if he decides to make this a weekly feature (and I hope he does), he has a wealth of material to use in these little spots.

I’m sure you can find a way to take just one term or concept that’s found in your business area and explain it … every week. It wouldn’t be difficult to do at all. And it’s all done without any of the “extras” you may see in other videos. And that’s the point.

But wait, there’s more! If he’s researched and entered in his keywords right, he’s getting mad search-engine optimization results for whatever market he’s trying to attract. And that’s the other huge reason why you want to do these kinds of videos – SEO. Read more about SEO here (scroll half-way down the page for it).

Mr. Allison’s idea is a brilliant one — and brilliant in its simplicity, too. I hope he makes a killing off of it.

About the only thing I’d suggest for him to do is to somehow put his name and Web site address actually in the video. Because he’s distributing this via YouTube, there’s going to be places where this video plays that won’t have the descriptive text that’s on his YouTube video page. So having his name and Web site address appear in the video as part of the program is pretty important. I’m assuming he has an iMovie-type of program where he can do this pretty easily. If he owns a PC, he can buy all kinds of programs that will do this for him, too — or he can even use some of the video programs built into Windows. The graphics themselves don’t need to be complicated; in fact, glitzy graphics would detract from this particular video, becuase it is so simple in nature.

Do you think you could do something like this? What, if anything, would hold you back? Discuss in the Comments section.

Contact Bob Woods at Infonitum.

So it’s with pleasure that I’m announcing that Infonitum has officially become a Business Partner with Constant Contact. There’s other e-mail marketing platforms out there, but Constant Contact is one of the “biggies” in this arena. It’s probably the best-known provider as well.

Between all of its features — too many to list here, but they’re all good — and my familiarity with the platform, I felt that a partnership with them was a no-brainer. I’m glad they agreed.

I’ll be issuing a press release on this (as well as one on the full launch of Infonitum) in two weeks or so, as it needs to be approved by the powers that be at CC before I can run with it. I can promote and integrate their services into my offerings in the meantime, though, and I’ve already heard from several acquaintances of mine who either know of people who need e-mail marketing assistance, or who have themselves indicated an interest in using Infonitum’s/Constant Contact’s services.

If you’d like to view all of the services we provide, check out our E-Mail page. You’ll also be hearing more about Infonitum and all of our services in the days and weeks ahead. In the meantime, feel free to explore the site by using the tabs above. The site is about 90% built out, so the information is pretty much complete and done.

Have a good weekend.

Contact Bob Woods at Infonitum.

While our use of the WordPress blog and content-management system makes this site very easy to update — and it will be constantly updated, just like any good Web site is — the “foundation” of the site is largely done.

We have just a few other things to add to a few pages (mainly audio and video), but we’re pretty much there.

Thanks for your patience. Fortunately, we’re at a place in our development where we have active projects happening at the same time we’re starting business. That’s good for us, but it has meant that development of this site has been a bit slower than we’d like.

We expect it to be fully complete by early next week.

Contact Bob Woods at Infonitum.

Frankly, I’m not sure why. In my recommendations for a sound social-media strategy, I always evangelize about blogging. Why? It’s pretty simple. You almost always have to point people to something when you’re using most of these other technologies. If you tweet on Twitter, you should be pushing your readers to a blog post. You should also be posting your audio and video material to your blog … even if you distribute via channels like YouTube and iTunes.

So … let’s say you’re just starting a blog, and your head is swimming over all of the things you think you should do to make it successful. What if I were to tell you there’s just 10 things you need to do to make your blog successful?

These 10 things aren’t exactly the easiest things to do, but they’re not overly difficult, either. It’s just like an old supervisor of mine used to say, “You asked for work when you came here, right?”

That’s why I’m referring you to this article, with the list of 10 things you should do — and I’d say must do — to build an audience for your blog. Why should you perform these steps? Because you don’t want to write to an audience of one — namely, yourself — do you?

If I were writing this one myself, I would have come up with most of them. The one point that I think is pretty brilliant, though, is this one:

2. Submit your articles to EzineArticles.com.

This is another tip that doesn’t bring in hundreds of new visitors immediately (although it can if you keep doing it) but it’s worthwhile because you simply leverage what you already have – your pillar articles. Once a week or so take one of your pillar articles and submit it to EzineArticles. Your article then becomes available to other people who can republish your article on their website or in their newsletter.

How you benefit is through what is called your “Resource Box.” You create your own resource box which is like a signature file where you include one to two sentences and link back to your website (or blog in this case). Anyone who publishes your article has to include your resource box so you get incoming links. If someone with a large newsletter publishes your article you can get a lot of new readers at once.

One of my upcoming articles is going to be on article publishing, and how it can help you really build your brand so that you’re thought of as “the expert” in whatever field you’re in. The one thing I didn’t think of, though, is publishing your pillar articles (explained in the list) in the article-publishing sites. Pretty good idea, and it’s now in my own repertoire.

There’s several different article-submission sites out there. EzineArticles, the one that’s mentioned above, is a free site. There are others, though, that are pay sites (meaning that you pay to be in them). I’ve found that EzineArticles’ free basic membership is more than fine for me at the stage I’m at.

By the way, here’s examples of what your articles may look like at EzineArticles, based on what I’ve submitted to them:

Follow Up for Success
When a Call or Voicemail Just Won’t Do

I’d also suggest that you read these for their content, as they’re good business-building suggestions.

Do you have other suggestions for beginning bloggers? Have you used free and/or pay article-submission pay sites, and have thoughts about them? Please share, share alike in the Comments section below.

Contact Bob Woods at Infonitum.

Meantime, here’s a video to get you in the mood:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Many people think that being an expert in whatever it is they do will help them succeed. And they’re right. After all, who would you hire, work with, or take advice from … just someone you know. or a person who is an expert?

If you want to be considered a true “guru” in whatever your little corner is of our planet, there’s two things you should do … and two you shouldn’t … that can help you be the expert everyone will flock to when they need help. Or when they want to hire someone for whatever it is they are looking for.

Want to be the gal or the guy? Read on.

Since I like to end blog posts on an “up” note, I’ll start with the negative things:

#1: Watch What You Call Yourself
Never, and I mean never, call yourself a “guru,” “expert,” “ninja,” “sensei,” or anything like that at all. Not in your promotional material. Not on your business card. Not anywhere. It sounds cheesy to call yourself an expert. I equate it to calling yourself a great lover. You may think so, but what about others? And yes, I mean those others.

So, what do you do? Let other people call you an expert or guru. If you absolutely want to see those words in your promo copy, directly attribute them to the person who said it … or better yet, get permission to use a quote as a direct recommendation. Being called an “expert” carries so much more weight when someone else says it about you. Whenever I see someone calling themselves an expert, I only have one thought: Pullleezze.

#2: Don’t be Obnoxious
Whether we’re talking about spam, continuing to call people who have told you in no uncertain terms to buzz off, acting like a self-absorbed ass during a networking event, and so on — just don’t do it. I once tried to emulate a sales guy I know who was very self-absorbed, in your face, obnoxious, etc., and I almost destroyed my reputation because of it. It was only after I left the employ of his company that I found out he had done a lot of damage to his own reputation, too.

Stomp out your obnoxious tendencies. Listen to people — and I mean really listen to them. Don’t be one of those people who listen to others only long enough to size them up as potential prospects. And if someone doesn’t want to hear from you again, don’t call him/her. Pretty simple stuff here.

Now, for the good stuff. Here’s two things you can do to be a top-of-mind expert in the minds of people with whom you want to do business:

#1: Build Relationships
This dovetails nicely off of the “don’t be obnoxious” point above. Seek out new relationships. Build on current ones. Don’t be influenced by the number of contacts you have in Outlook/Address Book, the number of followers or connections you have on Twitter or LinkedIn, etc. That stuff is nice, but don’t think success is all about “keeping score.”

You need to talk (whether live, via phone or the electronic word) with people. You need to understand how your contacts think. Most important, you should be offering to help them out however you can, and then follow through with the help.

If you fancy yourself as a “guru,” the concept of helping people is part of the definition of the word. When you don’t actually help people, you’re not a guru. You’re a broadcaster. And we all know where broadcasting is going in our new era of social, interactive media. So interact. Help people. Build relationships. And be the expert.

#2: Educate Yourself
I think the biggest danger in thinking of yourself as an “expert” is that you may be tempted to close yourself off to any new thinking or learning in whatever field you’re in. For myself, I consider myself a “student” at best, when it comes to the areas that interest me (social media/networking, marketing and sales). That’s why I absorb as much as I can about those areas, and especially when they intersect with one another.

Ideally, you’re the same about your chosen field and areas, too. If nothing else, you should keep up with the “new” ideas in your field because others definitely are. You don’t want to be left out of any conversations because of your ignorance, do you?

Following these points do not guarantee success, of course. But they’ll definitely help you in your efforts to have others see you as an expert.

If you have other suggestions, or other “don’t do these” items, please share the wealth in the Comments section.

(Tip of the hat to Mike Mueller and his 2 Things that Dont Make a Social-Media Guru, which was the inspiration for this post.)

Contact Bob Woods at Infonitum.

Pringle’s banner ad (opens in a new window)

Also, keep an eye on the Pringle’s guy in the bottom right corner. He’ll comment on what’s going on in the ad.

It’s an absolutely brilliant ad, especially because it takes the format of the banner ad into territory I’ve never seen before. Does it very successfully, too.

… and yes, I do (and did) remember that this is a Pringle’s ad. Want to know why? The darn can on her hand. Pringle’s used its rather unique selling point (USP) — the can — as the initial focal point of the ad. And it works, too.

While this is a B2C (business-to-consumer) ad — usually out of the purview of this blog, which deals with B2B (business-to-business)-related communication — we can learn from it. Do something unexpected. Take a current, accepted format in advertising and marketing (banner ad, video, white paper, case study, etc.) and take it in a fresh, interesting direction. And if it is appropriate for your business, be funny.

Talk about the ad in the Comments section below. I definitely want to hear what you think of it. Is this the best banner ad … ever?

**Although I can’t tell if they’re still using the “once you pop, you can’t stop” tagline. I hope they are, because it definitely works here.

Contact Bob Woods at Infonitum.

What happens when I just don’t have anything to write about?

Ahhh, the dreaded writer’s block — and if you’re a blogger, you’re a writer too. No matter what those true writing snobs say.

Writer’s block affects us all, believe me. Sometimes you feel like you’ve written so much, you can’t write another thing. Then there’s days when you feel like a deer looking into headlights when you realize you have a blog post to write. Other times, that “Add New Post” page just looks too intimidating to fill.

Then I remembered a post on the subject of being “dry” when it comes to specifically writing blog posts. It’s another one of those “wish I’d thought of that” kinds of things. This can be used when you’re in a situation like mine, or when you just have proverbial writer’s block, when it comes to subjects for your blog. Or if you are a beginning blogger and need a slight kick in the pants to get going. For any and all of those situations, help is on the way.

Rather than ripping off the post, I’ll just point you to it (Opens in a new window). After you’re done reading it, come back for a bit of analysis.

Back? Good.

First off, I like this post because it specifically addresses the business side of blogging. If you’re reading this blog, chances are you write just for business and not for pleasure. You see blogging as a way to communicate with your customers, prospects and even employees, contractors and/or partners in an efficient way. And that’s all good — that’s what business blogs are for, after all.

I also like this point:

If you truly feel you have nothing to write about, tell people why you have nothing to write about. If your business is subject to vicious seasonality, you can talk about that. If your entire industry is experiencing a downturn, you can talk about that.

I definitely know that people in a lot of business areas can relate to the last sentence there (unfortunately, believe me). But if you’re one of those professionals who are doing well in our downturn, write about that, and tell about how and why you’re doing well. Heck, split it up into a two- or three-part post, and you’ll have at least a week’s worth of posts — if your goal is posting two times a week.

The only thing I’d add to the list presented at the other blog is to do what I’m doing right now: Find a great blog post, news article, or Web site that’s not yours, and point to it. You don’t have to write a lot about it, either — unless you have a strong opinion about the other post. Believe me, if the original post is good enough (and it should be, if you’re calling attention to it), it’ll stand on its own.

Plus don’t worry about not looking like an “expert” in your field if you do what I’m doing in this post; in other words, relying on someone else’s idea to generate your own content. If anything, a post like this reinforces the whole “expert” aspect of blogging, because you are showing that you are keeping on top of what is happening in your chosen field. It also shows you have opinions on other topics within your industry.

In addition, you’re expanding the audience for a (hopefully) really great blog post — after all, us bloggers have to stick together. And you’re fulfilling your goal for blogging frequency. Like I’ve suggested before — twice a week.

And with that, I’ve reached my goal of blogging twice a week for this week! Easy, eh? It didn’t take all that long to crank out this puppy, either. I wouldn’t suggest doing this for every post at your blog — or even every other post. But it works in a pinch.

How do you deal with writer’s block? Please share with us in the Comments section below.

Contact Bob Woods at Infonitum.

I’m leaving very early tomorrow morning, to go to a conference for a client of mine. I’ll be back very late Wednesday. With all of the follow-up I’ll have to do afterwards, I probably won’t be back at this blog until next week.

In the meantime, I’ve got some stuff autoposting tomorrow and Thursday. So check back for that. Or, you can just subscribe to the RSS feed here, and the new content will magically appear in your fave RSS feeder. You can also subscribe via e-mail.

Thanks, and see you soon.

Contact Bob Woods at Infonitum.

Click here to view the embedded video.

… otherwise, we’ll go nuts. Have a Happy Friday and a great weekend, everyone.

Contact Bob Woods at Infonitum.

This is Part II of a three-part series.

If you’ve read Part I of this series (and gosh, I hope you have), you know that I don’t necessarily advocate that a businessperson or other working professional post an entry (or multiple entries) every day. It’s one thing if you’re trying to make a living from just blogging. When you have that kind of time, you’d better either be blogging or ordering your third latte at the Starbucks or whatever coffee shop you’re at. (And yes, I’d kill to have a life like that).

It’s another, though, if you’re the audience that this blog (and Infonitum) wants to attract: Businesspeople, association executives and government officials who want to use social media and blogging — and know they really should make the effort to blog — but don’t want to treat their blog like a second job.

Believe me, as a small business owner who has projects going at various stages, I feel the latter group’s pain. But I know that I have to make the effort to write some feature content twice a week, with “breaking news” content filling the rest, when appropriate (see Part I of this series for an explanation).

Now, I want to give you another opinion on this subject. It’s from a guy who feels kind of like me, but takes his feelings to the next degree.

DJ Francis at OnlineMarketerBlog.com wrote a really good post about his blogging frequency. Please read his article first (I’m sure he’d appreciate the page view), then come back for my take. Don’t worry, those links open in a new window, making the return trip here all that much the easier.

Back? So soon? Hopefully you’re read it all. Now, for my opinions:

I have to admit, I admire the guy’s fortitude. One to three posts a week, from a guy who (from everything I can tell) makes online  a big part of his business. I’d quibble about just one post a week, but like I’ve said, two posts that are of the feature variety are the best. Then link to and comment on breaking news — it can be pretty easy to do, if you’re the type of person who can give an opinion without writing a doctoral thesis. If you are that kind of person, stop it. Now.

Of his list of bullet points, I can understand his feelings on most of them. One point of his that has an easy solution is his “traveling” bullet. I don’t blog when I’m on vacation. But I do prepare for the trip by building up a few feature-related posts to autopopulate on dates while I’m gone — and usually the first day or two when I’m back, too. Having my aforementioned two-times a week schedule helps. And posting up a separate “I’m on vacation so I won’t be posting any news this week” entry helps to manage expectations from my readers, especially when the inevitable huge story pops up in my business/subject area, and I’m not around to talk about it.

The one idea of his I don’t agree with, though, is to not piggyback on someone else’s post by writing your own opinion. While I understand what he’s saying, I think that bringing other points of view into a blog  helps your readers broaden their understanding of whatever subject you’re writing about. Plus by giving your own opinion on the subject, it bolsters your credibility in your subject/business area. After all, that’s the real reason why we do this. It’s definitely not to get that computer-screen tan from sitting in front of your monitor while writing your posts.

Additionally, the whole “piggyback” thing is exactly what I’m doing here (and is also covered in Part III of this series, coming next week). I’m bringing up an alternate point, and giving my opinion on it. So DJ and I would probably tussle on that point; respectfully, of course.

I do admit I like his strategy to deal with not piggybacking — use his Twitter feed alone to point people to other blog posts he finds interesting. I do both, actually. I point people to the post first, then write about it in my blog. But I only comment on the other blog posts I find very interesting (remember – two times a week!).

Now after absorbing the first two parts of this series, and reading what DJ has to say, I really want to hear from you. How often do you post? Do you feel pressure to post more? Do you suffer withdrawal when you don’t post? What’s your opinion on all of this? Let me know in the Comments section below.

In Part I of this series (earlier this week), I examined a blogging strategy for business professionals that won’t break your spirit or fortitude. In Part III (next week), I’ll share a quick and easy way to create more blog posts — with no muss, no fuss and no messy clean-up.

Contact Bob Woods at Infonitum.

Unfortunately, I didn’t write it. It’s brilliant, believe me. I really wish I would have written it.

But I have no problem pointing you to it, because not only do I think it is brilliantly written, I agree with 99% of it. Here it is, at the ever-excellent ReadWriteWeb. Go read it (don’t worry – that link opens in a new window so you won’t lose this post), then come back here.

Of the five points made in this post, there’s only one that your company won’t be able to help (if it even falls in that category) — the first one on high-ticket businesses. With the others, if you can put your company/org/government agency in any one of these, you should:

1. Hang your head in shame
2. Work like heck to change the situation
3. After the situation is changed, get into social media

There is one exception – companies with compliance issues. We’re talking about insurance, financial firms, etc. While one can still probably have social media in those cases, it’s much more difficult to do.

The only line I disagree with in the post is:

Of course, having more Hollywood celebs sign up for Twitter couldn’t hurt either.

I made how I feel about celebs on Twitter pretty clear in this post. Read it only if you’re ready to see what I’m like when I get on a bit of a tear! There’s also a good lesson in the post for companies/organizations that are not using Twitter in the right way, either.

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On a completely different note, anyone who is in public relations should read this post on how PR is totally mucking it up, when it comes to social media. Since I know that several PR people read this blog, I’ll let this article stand on its own, without comment. Because I like it when those people buy me beer.

Plus I have to admit, I like the name of the blog: Flack Me.

This is the second in a series of re-purposed posts on social media, content generation and business building. A version of this post was originally published at Portalfuze Blog.

Contact Bob Woods at Infonitum.

One of the biggest questions you see a lot when it comes to the subjet of blogging — be it for personal or professional reasons — is, “Geez, do I hafta blog every day? And if not, how often should I blog?”

Of course, the quick answer to that question is, “no.” You can blog as little or as much as you want. Of course, you may not be as successful at whatever goals you want to achieve if you don’t blog a lot. Or even too much.

So now you’re saying, “Well, Bob, now you’re acting like a politician. You haven’t really answered all of my questions. So I don’t hafta blog every day. So how often should I blog?”

At the risk of sounding like a politician, I can only answer that question with, “It depends.”

For most anyone professional who wants to blog, but doesn’t want to:

1. … appear like they’re obsessed with blogging;
2. … look like they have a ton of time to blog (in other words, they don’t appear to have any business — a very bad perception indeed);
3. … set up an expectation that they’ll be able to keep up with an ungodly posting schedule;

… I have some advice for you.

Until recently, it seemed to me that the standard for professional blogging should be two to three posts a week. But after reading some other blogs as of late about blogging, I’ve somewhat shifted my thoughts on the subject. I’m now of the mind that businesspeople should post twice a week, unless “breaking news” (sorry, old journalism thoughts breaking through) necessitates more.

I’d think about it like this: write feature-type of posts — I’d call this post a “feature,” for example — twice a week. Most blog platforms have a feature where you can write something and then post it later, at a time when you want. So, for example, you can write two posts on a Sunday night and have them post the next Tuesday or Thursday.

Then write about that “breaking news” as it happens, or as soon as you’re able to link to those items and expand on them with your thoughts. If you’re in the type of industry (or even company) that has a lot of breaking news, you could conceivably cut back to one feature post a week. But if you are in a field where breaking news isn’t the norm, then I’d go with two. Nowadays, though, most areas you can think of have at least one breaking story a week.

Even better, use a tool like Twitter for those breaking-news tidbits, and then import your Twitter feed into your blog with a free tool like Feedfuze or a similar tool or plugin like the one I have on this blog (if you’re on WordPress). That way, you’ve got an immediate presence added to your twice-weekly blog. If you’d like to find out more about how to import Twitter into your blog, drop me an e-mail. I’d be happy to help.

Then as you build your Twitter base, you can reference your blog posts in that feed, which will drive even more traffic to your blog. Or, heck, start out with doing that and let your Twitter base build because of your cross-posts to Twitter.

Remember, blogging is all about building your expertise in the eyes of your target audience. In my blogging and Twittering for my various client projects, I’ve been able to build my “brand” as an expert in those fields. It takes time and work, and just like crops in a field, you need to take care of your brand and audience. It can be done, and is done by all different kinds of professionals in all kinds of jobs.

For myself, I need to “stock” this new blog up with some content, so I’ll probably be posting three times (and maybe even four times) a week. That’ll be for just the first couple of weeks, though. After that, I’ll cut back to the schedule I’ve indicated above. Since I’m the boss of this blog, I can make those kids of calls.

I have a nice boss.

In Part II of this series (later this week), I’ll bring you a somewhat opposing view to this from another blog. Then in Part III (next week), I’ll share a quick and easy way to create more blog posts, with no muss and no fuss. I really hope I didn’t sound like Billy Mays there.

Contact Bob Woods at Infonitum.