Blogging: Misconception 01 (Ep.02 – SL20070512)

Feature: Episode #2 introduces a 7 part series titled ’7 Misconceptions of Blogging’, and reveals Misconception #1: "Aren’t blogs just diaries?".

Sherman exposes this misconception and provides examples of sectors and organizations that have embraced blogging to connect with their audience, extend their reach, forward their causes, deploy guerilla marketing, attract the search engines for findability, increase subscribers, sales and profits.

Tips: Sherman’s tips from this episode expand on publishing multimedia on blogs as mentioned in "Misconception #1". Listen to this podcast as 5 companies are showcased as services to use for hosting your audio and video, either for free or rather inexpensively.

 

Transcript

[Music]
Announcer:  ShermanLive.com: Simplifying and demystifying technology so you can profit from it. Welcome to ShermanLive.com, presenting time-saving tips, shortcuts, how-tos, bleeding-edge techniques and money generating strategies. Here’s Sherman Hu.

[Music]
Sherman Hu:  Hello and welcome to episode number two of ShermanLive.com. This is your host, Sherman Hu, and we have a seven part episode coming up for you on ShermanLive.com podcasts. It’s titled "The Seven Misconceptions About Blogging".

Here are the seven misconceptions, and then we’ll drill down into misconception number one for this episode.

Misconception number one  "Isn’t that just a diary?"

Misconception number two  "I’m totally inept at that geeky stuff."

Misconception number three  "I don’t know what to blog about."

Misconception number four  "I’m running X business. How can blogging help? Can blogging really help?"

Misconception number five  "Don’t I have to blog all the time to get results?"

Misconception number six  "Can I actually use a blog as a website?"

And number seven  "You can’t get good search engine rankings with a blog."

And there you are – the seven misconceptions. And let’s drill down to misconception number one.

Announcer:  You’re tuned in to ShermanLive.com. It’s simple for you.

Sherman:  So, misconception number one  I’m not sure if you’ve received this comment before, if you’re in a cocktail party or a family gathering, where you’re talking about blogging and some family member or friend says, "Isn’t that just a diary?"

Well [laughs] that’s how it started, and still to this day you’ll have bloggers and publishers who wax poetic on their blogs, and they write about anything and everything under the sun, which is fine. They treat it as a journal, which is great.

Now today, however, blogging has exploded. It has matured; people have taken it to the next level, where you have publishers from all sorts of companies and organizations, and people from all walks of life, who have really embraced blogging for business. So if you look at Fortune 500 companies, all the way to educational institutions, medical organizations, religious sectors, not-for-profit organizations, sports teams, even small business and entrepreneurs, and the list goes on and on.

You’ll find that a lot of people are publishing, doing blogs from these type of companies. Because they know the power of the published word. In fact they’re actually publishing multimedia now to the blogs, so you can add audio and video very easily.

The power also comes in the speed at which you can actually publish your thoughts to your blog. So for example, you can take a concept that you have,  an idea, a brainstorm that you might have and market it.

For example, you have a brainstorm right now; you can take it to market in seconds by simply pushing your thoughts to your blog. It’s ready for your readership and for the World Wide Web to read, and to feedback on, and to begin a dialogue about what you just published.

Let me give you an example. I mentioned several companies just a moment ago. Let me share with you some of how they’re using blogging to advance their vision or their purposes.

Take the Fortune 500 Company, for example. They’re blogging to reach their customers and prospects, and some of them actually are using a personal voice, which is very good. Blogs are typically written with a very personal voice. But some bigger companies are forced to take a personal voice, and it allows them to drop the corporate speak or the big business facade, if you will, and to listen and dialogue with their audience about the customers’ wants, the customers’ needs and how best to serve them.

Let’s take teachers and professors in educational institutions. They are blogging to advance the distance learning process, and also to further homebased education by using blogs and webinars, and even podcasting.

Now, let’s move on to the religious sectors. They are publishing their messages as Godcasts, which is a slang for podcasting a religious message. And they are publishing to their blogs for existing members and visitors to listen and share.

One such example I’ve helped in the past is a church in the Langley, British Columbia, Canada region called CreeksideOnline.org. They have a blog; the entire site is a blog. They have messages that date back a couple of years where the pastor would have the message recorded, and it would be pushed to the blog. And I had set up an iTunes feed for them so they actually have a channel in the religious category at iTunes, which is really hot.

The other church that I helped out with is AbbyFree.com. Now, we’re just starting the foundation right now to get the messages consistently up on the blog, and in time I’ll set up an iTunes feed for them too. So as you can tell that this is also a way for religious organizations to move their messages forward.

Now, let’s talk about not-for-profit organizations. They are using blogs to keep their donors and members up to date with their vision, their mission critical objectives, their values, accomplishments and case studies of victories. And as a result, membership increases and donors continue giving to their causes. So as you can tell, it’s been a wonderful benefit for not-for-profit organizations to blog.

Now let’s talk about sports teams. If you own a sports team, you can publish your calendars, your scores of past games, your upcoming games in advance, even highlight key players. And of course, highlight your sponsors, feature them on the blog.

Small business owners and entrepreneurs… I have an affinity with this group. They’ve really embraced blogging as a platform for easy content publishing, along with attracting the search engines to their blogs. This is something we’ll cover in deeper context in future episodes, in regards to blogging for the search engines.

But, blogging can be deployed for next to nothing.

And, it’s also a great way for a small business owner, an entrepreneur, solopreneur, to deploy blogging as a guerilla marketing approach, or strategy, to increasing the business’ exposure, traffic, awareness of their product and service offerings to the general public.

So, a comment today, like at a cocktail party, or at a family gathering, a comment like: "Isn’t a blog a diary, or, aren’t blogs just diaries?" is like calling Tiger Woods just another golf player.

It’s not that any more. The bar has been raised. Blogging and bloggers have taken it to the next level.

It’s exploding on the scene, on the business side, and also on the personal side. Publishers in all sectors, all different organizations have embraced in taking the science and art of blogging to the next level.

So, that misconception is wiped out, and blogging is here to stay. And that is a good reason for you to embrace blogging if you’re not yet. And if you are, to feel confident, in knowing that you’re on the right track, a lot of organizations are taking it, kicking it to the next level, and there you be!

Announcer:  You’re tuned in, to ShermanLive.com. Keepin’ it simple for you!

Sherman:  OK. Here are some tips for you.

As I had referenced in Misconception #1 how bloggers are now adding multimedia, be it audio or video, to their blog post to support their message, I want to share with you how you can do this inexpensively, and at the same time, move forward your exposure to your blog.

So, for example, let’s take audio, to start.

There’s a company called OurMedia.org: OURMEDIA.org. It’s a free hosting website for your audio, your video, and your different pictures. It’s a grassroots movement that basically; they promise that they’ll be free forever. So, you can actually host your audio there. You would simply set up your account, upload your audio, take the code provided, embed it into your blog post, and you’re done.

Now, this link, this code that you put in your blog, will provide your readers with a link to download your MP3 file. But, they don’t provide you with a Play button for your readers to click on to listen to it. So, if you want to have this Audio Play button, and if you’re using a WordPress blog, then you’ll want to find a plugin.

Google for "1 Pixel Out", or Google for "WordPress Pod casting Plugin", and you’ll find a web site called "1PixelOut.net" that provides a plugin, it’s free, that you can download, and unzip it, and upload it to your WordPress blog on your host account. Activate the plugin, and it will provide you with a way to showcase this audio in your blog, with a Play Button, that when you when click "Play", it will start streaming on your blog. It’s really slick, it’s free. Check out not only the website OurMedia.org to host your audio, but also, for this plugin to make your audio stream from your blog.

Now, if we’re going to talk about video, then consider YouTube.com. They provide you with a way to host your videos there for free, and, it also, will boost your exposure, because there are a lot of people that check out the videos on YouTube, and you can actually on your YouTube account, or profile, or, on that specific video, link back to your blog, and you will get additional ‘eyeballs’, or traffic exposure, to your blog.

Now, all you would do is you set up an account, upload your video to it, take the code provided, embed it into your blog post, and there you have your video on your blog. Now you just have to click "Play", and it will actually stream the video on your blog, but the source of it comes from YouTube.

So, that’s another tip for you in regards to adding video to your blog.

Now, the other company that you’re going to consider is FreeIQ.com (FREEIQ.com).It’s a free service, kind of like a YouTube for consultants and intellectual property business owners, coaches, and business professionals of that sort, where you can set up an account, you can upload your audio and video files there, and of course, it’s free hosting, and, of course, increased exposure, and a great platform for you to build your subject matter expertise.

Two other companies to consider, and these are now paid services, and one is AudioAcrobat.com. Why do I recommend AudioAcrobat.com as one of them? It’s because it’s an all in one service. This is a service I would recommend to my clients or to contacts that inquire about a service that they can use. If they are a beginner, this is one I recommend them use, because not only can you upload your media files, in both audio and video, they also provide you with play buttons for that specific media piece, and it also offers you stats tracking, on how many visitors have clicked on the play button, how many of them have listened, or viewed your media in its entirety. It’s a great service. I believe it’s $19.95 a month for that service.

The other company that you want to consider is LibSyn.org. LibSyn is LIBSYN. Its short for liberated syndication and they offer a really unique model where you pay for storage space of your media, but not for the bandwidth. It’s incredible. I would recommend you check it out, and read up more about them. It’s inexpensive. They also offer tracking of your stats, and many top pod casters use LibSyn to host their audio pod casts.

So, there you have it. You have audio that can be hosted at OurMedia.org, and you could also host your video at YouTube.com, or even Google Video. And the other service to add your audio and video, that’s free, is FreeIQ.com.

And the two paid services are AudioAcrobat.com and LibSyn.org, and those are some incredible tips for you, and stuff that you can apply to your blog right away, today.

Well, that brings us to the end of this pod cast. Catch you in our next episode, where we reveal Misconception #2: "I’m totally inept at that geeky stuff."

Announcer:  You’ve been tuned into Sherman, on ShermanLive.com. Want to call Sherman, or send him some love, go to ShermanLive.com today!

 

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1. Blogging: Misconception 06 (Ep.07 – SL20070724)
2. Blogging: Misconception 02 (Ep.03 – SL20070514)
3. Blogging: Misconception 03 (Ep.04 – SL20070616)
4. Blogging: Misconception 04 (Ep.05 – SL20070709)
5. Blogging: Misconception 07 & Bonus (Ep.08 – SL20070828)