E L S U A ~ A KM Blog Thinking Outside The Inbox by Luis Suarez

10 Tips for Becoming a Great Corporate Blogger

Just this morning, and while checking my RSS Newsfeeds, I have bumped into a particularly interesting weblog post by Ted Demopoulos over at Blogging for Business around the subject on 10 Tips for Becoming a Great Corporate Blogger and which references another superb article from Scout on this very same subject. A pretty good and must-read post for everyone who may want to get started not just with their own corporate weblog but with weblogging in general.

Indeed, I feel that most of the different tips that are mentioned over at 10 Tips for Becoming a Great Corporate Blogger would be applicable to weblogging in general, whether it is done on a personal level or on a business / corporate like levels. In fact, I have been weblogging in my Intranet weblog for over two years now and every now and then I still get questions from people who would want to know how to make it as a successful corporate weblogger. And this particular article just seems to fit in the profile so nicely that I decided to weblog about it in my Intranet weblog earlier on this morning.

However, I thought that this time around, while I do realise that this is, yet again, another metablogging post in elsua, I decided to create a cross link over here but instead of just reference it I will try to add a brief commentary on each of the tips to share with your folks my two cents worth of comments in order to be able to add further into the conversation.

To get us started and positioned into the right mood here is a superb quote that I am sure would demonstrate the value of weblogging showing that in most cases it is not about being the best writer, nor the most prolific, but:

“Being a successful blogger is about creating a connection with an audience by providing relevant content, nurturing that relationship with comments and links and keeping the dialogue flowing. Here are ten tips to get you started.” (Emphasis mine)

With that introduction, and as a teaser including my commentary, here you have got a little taste of what the article is all about:

1. Understanding the fundamentals of Blogger Relations: I never thought about it this way but the article has got a point. If you want to get out there and connect with others you would need to work on your Blogger Relations, indeed, perhaps at the same level if not more (Because of the remoteness) than the traditional PR. And perhaps being shy may not help a lot.
2. Create value: Indeed, this is one of the reasons why I primarily created all of my weblogs. To be able to add further into the conversation(s) my two cents worth of comments on the topics that I have got a passion for, because after all, it is all down to how passionate you are about the topics you want to discuss in order to be able to create that sustainable value.
3. Grow and sustain your audience by providing real analysis: Spot on! Otherwise why would you want to reference on something if you are going to be able to read in the original resource. What is the point? We can all read the original article by ourselves. In my case, I just want to know people’s opinions about that piece of news. For the rest I can get the details myself. That is where I think the power of weblogging is; in augmenting the original conversation(s).
4. Report on community opinion: This is a very powerful option since it would allow to build further up on that sense of belonging to the group or the community with which you can start creating multiple connections at multiple levels and make it all a very worth while discussion where everyone provides their share on establishing the connection.
5. Respond with comments to build relationships and traffic: This is one of those tips that I cannot but stress how important it is. I am one of those lucky folks whose Internet weblog is not very popular. Yes, to me, that is a good thing ! It has got a good share of readers who get to comment every now and then and I am just very delighted that I can dedicate the time to respond to them the way they deserve for coming back over and over again and sharing their thoughts. That is, to me, what differentiates a good weblogger from a mediocre one just looking to have their traffic increased so that they rank higher. Waste of time.
6. Track your conversations: This is also another tip that I have been employing from the very beginning since I started weblogging away. I have even weblogged myself about it elsewhere when I provided an overview about coComment and how I am currently using myself BlinkList  to keep track of all of the comments I share out there in the Blogosphere. Yes, indeed, it is all about the conversations so you might as well go ahead and keep track of them.
7. Don’t be afraid of criticism: No, indeed, don’t be afraid of it because that is actually what is going to give character to your weblog and what will make people stick together with you. Believe it or not, you will be able to attract some more traffic through that criticism than just talking to yourself. It is just so much more entertaining and engaging, specially if you would want to be part of the conversations.
8. Conduct interviews to generate content and ideas: Great tip ! Something I haven’t exploited myself yet for any of my weblogs I maintain but perhaps something that I may be able to use some time in the future. Does anybody out there from you folks fancy doing an interview to talk about KM, Communities of Practice, Social Networking and the like? Let me know
9. Promote your weblog: Yes, in principle, I agree with giving some more promotion to your own weblogs, like I have mentioned elsewhere in another weblog posts, but I have also indicated that you should probably not overdo it in detriment of providing that value that is mentioned above. I think they could both walk hand in hand to provide some good balance. Sometimes it is not about getting the word out and about all over the place, but getting the right word out and about. That is, to me, what really matters. The rest is circumstantial. Check this other weblog post from Steve Rubel on the subject and its subsequent commentary (I will talk about it more in detail at a later time, not to worry; one metablog post at a time) for some additional reading on the topic.
10. Monitor the web for brand names and references: As far as I can see anybody who may not have been doing this for quite some time now, even if you do not have a weblog, I feel that they just do not want to be part of the conversations taking place out there and therefore become an integral part of them. Thus, if you haven’t done so yet, get involved ! We will all be much better off if you do so.

As I said a worth while read if you are interested in trying out not just corporate weblogging but also for your own personal weblogging efforts and not just because of the hype or because everyone is doing it but more because you feel it may well the right medium for you to get out, connect, share and collaborate with others. Good read, indeed !

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QumanaXP – My New Default Weblogging Tool

You would remember how in the past I have been weblogging a number of different times about what my experience with QumanaXP has been all along ever since it went into a public beta. Initially there were some issues that were addressed and fixed in the second beta release, but not all of them. In fact, there was a single one that prevented me from moving away from everything else and then get to use QumanaXP extensively, which was the inability to talk to my Intranet Roller Weblogger weblog. Well, folks, that is about to change.

I am not sure what has happened or who may have been doing some fixing up at what end, but the thing is that earlier on this afternoon I went and gave a good try to QumanaXP and see if I could configure it with my Roller weblog and not only have I been able to configure it successfully I am even capable of selecting multiple categories to post to and when doing a test weblog entry it all went really well and it posted it successfully the way I wanted using the MetaWeblog API.

Only thing that didn’t seem to be working was the couple of trackbacks I set up to see if those would work. And, like w.bloggar, it seems to have some kind of hiccup with that weblogging feature because it didn’t seem to be working. But that is fine with me, because, pretty much like I got used to doing that with w.bloggar, I can certainly continue doing it with QumanaXP. The good news is that it all seems to be working just fine and I quite delighted to indicate that from now on my default weblogging tool for all of my different weblogs is QumanaXP.

Certainly, a lot more user friendly than w.bloggar. Performancing for FireFox does not seem to be working for Flock 0.5.12, now my default web browser, and Flock’s weblogging component is something that I will still use every now and then, specially for that lovely integration with Flickr. But for the time being, I am quite content with QumanaXP and will probably stick with it for a little while now, since all of my weblogs are working quite all right with it. It is good to finally have one weblogging tool out there that doesn’t feel to me like I need to focus on the technical aspects of the weblogging environment but more just focus on the content itself. Quite an achievement !

Tags: Metablogging, QumanaXP, w.bloggar, Performancing, Flock, Roller

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The Fortress – La Fortaleza

I am sure that you would agree with me that there are times where we could all do with some unwinding from everything else that is currently happening around us so that we could go back and look at things into perspective and fix whatever issues that may be at hand and that would need some taking care of. Call it striking that work / life balance. Call it a break from work, from our busy lives, from everything around us that we need to think but just fail to come across loud and clear. You name it. Where would you go ? What would you do ?

Well, to me I have got the perfect opportunity discovering locations in Gran Canaria, the place where I currently live. This time around I have been sharing a number of pictures in my Flickr account from a place I went to not long ago. It is called La Fortaleza – The Fortress, and supposingly it was one of the latest strongholds from the local Guanches while fighting the Godos a few centuries back. I am sure that after checking out the pictures I have included below you will figure out why it was one of the last strongholds in the island.

Today though it is one of the most remarkable places from Gran Canaria where you can find lots of peace and quiet to do some serious thinking while contemplating some stunning landscapes all over the place through its many viewpoints. Something very distinct from the typical image the island has endured for the last few decades. Thus here you go with the pictures. Hope you enjoy them just as much as I did taking them.

 

 

 

Oh, and before I get to post this weblog post, I would like to bring to your attention a superb little application that you could use to help populate your Windows desktop with pictures from your Flickr account (Or from a particular folder in your computer) on a more or less regular basis (Hourly, daily, etc.) and displaying them to cover the entire desktop. The tool itself is called John’s Background Switcher and it is just so cool that I have been using it ever since I discovered it a couple of weeks back. So now I am getting all the different pictures from my Flickr account directly into my desktop and without any effort. You gotta love going through your favourite pictures every now and then to give you that little extra break from everything else. Worth while installing it for sure. Highly recommended.

 Tags: Gran Canaria, La Fortaleza, The Fortress

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