Social media – maximum reach with minimum costs
So what are some of the key characteristics for blog stickiness? Well, as I can attest, scandal is always in. Take for example the incident involving international, hip hop superstar Akon who danced an overly sexual, if not almost brutal dance with a 15-year-old girl at Club Zen in Trinidad last week. I wrote a post about the incident and Universal’s speedy request for YouTube to pull the video (which YouTube did, however the video is still available on other sites and continues to travel through thousands of e-mail boxes). I posted that article on Friday April 20, and within four days over 5,000 people had clicked through my site, staying predictably on the page about the Akon incident, then out clicking to other sites I had linked within the post. Even after I deleted the post – since I was upset about the horrendous comments about the girl, and decided the poor girl had had way too much international criticism, and stated such – the hits kept coming in. Why? Well my post was headlined Akon in Trinidad, which was and still is one of the most highly used search terms for the incident. Additionally, people had already posted my blog address on message boards. Yahoo had it, as did Technorati, among other search engines. In the process of checking referrals, I learnt about several other new sites, and interacted with a few other bloggers.
Now, this would be a marketer’s dream to have that many people visiting their site in droves, and doing all the viral marketing work for them. Yet my blog is not a visual masterpiece. It’s visually acceptable. Plus, with Blogger I don’t have that many design options, which brings me back to my friend and I and our differing views about what a blog looks like. To her design has a lot to do with her brand, and indeed her brand is a very vibrant one, personality-wise and visually. Now, I’m not against a fantastically designed blog, I welcome it. However, having been in the blogosphere for a while, I know about sites that are very aesthetically pleasing, but are still trying to figure out how to get people to come, stick and stay.
So here are some of my thoughts on some of the features a blog needs to have, in no particular order:
1. Keywords, links, anchoring text etc. How else do you expect search engines to find you?
2. Let the keywords match the content; a reader will definitely leave if he or she discovers that your article has nothing to do with what he or she was looking for.
3. An author who seems real; someone they can relate to on some level. I mean, who wants to be friends with a fake?
4. Content that’s interesting and adds value in some way. Do I need to explain this? Just joking.
5. Decent writing; you don’t have to be all perfect, but please, please, please be understandable. A conversational style also helps to engage your audience.
6. Visuals/ images; these offer variation and engages the senses. Plus who doesn’t like flicking through some nice photos or videos?
7. Easy navigation, for example can I find your archives easily?
Like I said, these are just some of them, and these relate particularly to getting someone to actually read your site once they’ve visited it. Getting them to the site is a totally different story. It requires networking through technology, and knowing how to translate an image of you into something that people can relate to and thus form a relationship with so they keep coming back for more. For example, over at the
Barbados Free Press Blog, George, Clive and the rest of the crew seem like affable, straightforward guys who aren’t taking us for a ride - quite opposite from the politicians they cover. People post comments, knowing that they will get a response and so the conversation continues.You can form relationships online at minimum costs with maximum reach once you do it right. For me, one of the beauties of social media is that you have the option to get some tools and publicity free, and then you can get some that are just darn affordable. I choose to not use the really expensive ones.
In the new media environment, I like being one of the guys as opposed to the big, corporate giant who is trying to win you over with high tech stuff. It’s kind of like choosing the guy who makes you laugh over the one who can give you the Mercedes Benz and the diamond ring, if you know what I mean. Though I won’t quarrel over getting a Toyota Hilux truck or the new Mazda 323, which is what I really want!
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Comments
I really do not think your friend should pay a company to set-up and design her blog. Seeing that blogger is free. And simple always works. People sometimes rarely ever look at the beauty and fancy of design layout. They rather have easy navigation and quick info that they can go read in seconds. Hopefully she rethinks her descision and try it herself or have a friend who is good at it. When starting a small business its always good to spend smart and learn to network and barter.
Trini… Well her firm is small in the sense of number of employees etc, but it’s been around 8 years now and is successful.
But you know with business, image or really identity - who they are to others- is a major concern. Yet, the thing is average Joes like us don’t really care how fancy it is, once, as you said, we can easily navigate the site.
A good option for small firms is using blogger, which is free, and hosting their blog on their own domain (read it in Blogger, and that’s what http://www.themanicoureport.com did). People can also try typepad or wordpress. I tried it, and did a fab design, just grumpy because they won’t give me full sitemeter analytics. So if anyone knows of a stats counter I can use for a wordpress blog that will tell me exactly which url people came from and how much time they spent on the site etc, email me (caribbeanprblog@yahoo.com) or just post a comment. Who needs to pay a company to tell you how to do things on the web when you have a network of bloggers who can, and often do, help each other out.
Good to hear that she’s been in business for 8 yrs and doing well. So its all about image and identity.
Karol is it ok if I put your link on my blog?
Dimitrios - they’re a free, blog provider just like blogspot, just you won’t be able to utilise all Sitemeter’s functions using wordpress, which is really a pain. Check them out at http://www.wordpress.com.
Trini - Yeah you put a link if you wish. I have no say in what you do with your blog 
Generally, for my blog I put communications and social media related links.
Dimitrios - they’re a free, blog provider just like blogspot, just you won’t be able to utilise all Sitemeter’s functions using wordpress, which is really a pain. Check them out at http://www.wordpress.com.
Trini - Yeah you put a link if you wish. I have no say in what you do with your blog
Generally, for my blog I put communications and social media related links.
I used to use Blogger back in the day. It’s slightly better now, but Wordpress is the preferred platform of the semi-pro blogging community because it’s a whole lot more extensible than Blogger. Add to the fact that Wordpress can be made much more search-friendly. I wouldn’t touch a free Blogger blog for a business either. I’d register a domain and get hosting for a Wordpress blog. There are many beautiful themes available for free that can be adjusted to suit. It’ll cost around US$100/year for domain name + hosting. As for statistics, Wordpress.com has built-in stats. http://wordpress.com/features/stats Oh, and remember there’s a difference between Wordpress.com and Wordpress.org. The .com is the free hosted version.
Hey Sherwin. I think it comes down to personal needs. Plus, each provider has different pros and cons. It depends on how you can swing it to match your needs and those of your readers.
For me, a major concern is getting very specific statistics on readership. I’m not just concerned about hits; I’m also concerned about where they’re coming from, how long they’re staying on a page, are readers only new ones who randomly land on my site or are they repeat readers, who are my frequent referrers etc. Wordpress.com’s basic stats don’t give you that much detail for measuring your relationships online. So it becomes a situation where like blogger, you’ve got to add things from external providers.
So, it comes back to what do you need, and what can you do with your blog. Regardless of the provider you use, blogger, typepad, or wordpress, it’s up to you to drive online networking and to attract readership, forming relationships.
You’ve got tonnes of opinions out there and what you’ve got to do is sort them through and take what you want from them to customise your own solution.
Readers don’t discriminate on you based on who you’re blogging with. I mean, you come to my blogspot address don’t you? And what you come for is content rather than how I look or how my blog looks. Blogger is also easy for readers who aren’t savvy. A blog that might be easy for you to navigate mightn’t be so easy for another person. Now please note, it’s not that I’m bigging up blogger. I’m just saying it all depends.
For example, wordpress gives you the ability to create categories, as does typepad I believe. But when your blog gets really large, and if you regularly blog, it will, sometimes these very categories become a blog of their own in a way and create problems for some people to navigate.
Then you have typepad, which is good, but it may not suit someone’s design tastes.
There are tonnes of ways to customise blogs. There are tonnes of opinions out there. Experiment with the technology, and if your experiment works but it doesn’t conform to the guru’s take on it, it doesn’t mean you can’s use it. It’s all up to how you work it. Like they say, it’s not the size of the ship…
I just checked out wordpress, and I love it. Was able to create a great design.