Practice Blogs – AKA Anonymous Blogging

by Judith on June 17, 2010

Think you want to blog but getting cold feet every time you almost do it?

Pop one up anonymously and then try it out. Work out your style and your pace and then see if you want a ‘for-real’ blog attached to your business.

I know this isn’t the usual advice from a marketing editor, but it occurs to me that this blogging-in-the-closet sort of method could help a lot of people who hesitate to jump into blogging. That ‘OMG – this has to be perfect because everyone’s watching’ feeling stops a lot of potential bloggers. But truth is, no one will be watching – or reading – your practice blog. Not unless you tell them about it.

With millions of blogs on the Internet, you’re pretty safe in assuming anonymity when you pop one up. In fact, a LOT of what I do is help people improve their blog SEO and get their blog OUT of that dark, lonely closet.

I usually suggest a more considered approach to starting a blog, and you’ve probably heard something similar: Brand the blog; make a list of at least 20 blog topics you can write about; write at least five; and then go public with the first one.

But what if you’re stuck at the edge of the cliff and just can’t jump? I say, try one out anonymously. Repurpose the content later if you fall in love with it; then pop it back up on a branded, optimized, for-real business blog.

Here’s a blog I put up one weekend for my niece. She was just trying it out. And doing a good job, I’d say!

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Don’t Blame the Connection; The Fault Lies in the Feed

Do you ever look at your LinkedIn status reports and see “updates” coming in from the same connection 5, 6, even 10 times in a row? And each status “update” is about their book, their event, their website — in short, about them?

And you want to blast back at them. Hey! Quiet down already. It’s not all about you! It’s about Me, too!

And you know you’re right because it IS about you. Supposedly. Partly. If a LinkedIn connection is appearing on your “Network Updates”, you accepted them into your world to connect, maybe even invited them. You probably didn’t say in your email, “Please spam me with every marketing zap you can think of all day, every day.”

But please don’t be too hard on the overwrought updaters.

Usually, The Annoyance is Due to a Twitter-to-LinkedIn Feed

A powerful Twitter strategy uses lots of quick blasts, zapped out over a short period of time. On Twitter, the feeds speed by, ever-faster as you increase the number you follow, so you need repetition. The strategy works on Twitter; in fact, it’s fun.

But when your connection shoots a feed of those same short blasts onto LinkedIn, it quickly begins to smell like spam. 

LinkedIn Strategy – Where the Roads Diverge

LinkedIn strategy is a virtual reflection of real-life networking. In Real Life, you walk into a Chamber of Commerce meeting, you exchange business cards, introduce each other, chat and connect. You’re not networking AT people; you’re networking WITH them. Same’s true for LinkedIn.

And that is why when it comes to feeds, I usually advise clients to feed FROM LinkedIn TO Twitter and/or Facebook and FROM Facebook TO Twitter, but if  going FROM Twitter TO LinkedIn and even Facebook, to use a controllable feed (those hashtags) and send some, not all tweets.

Bottom Line: Please don’t tweet me on LinkedIn and Facebook. I’ll begin to think you don’t want to connect, that it’s all about you. And I insist on thinking that my incoming has to be at least somewhat about me, too.

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Social Marketing – Consider the Power of the Hide Button

May 14, 2010

Social marketing is much like face-to-face networking, which is one reason we also call it relational marketing. The wonderful thing about social media marketing is that entering into one of its sites is a LOT like going to a trade show, convention, association lunch, or business conference. In fact, often it seems to me that [...]

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The No Name Bar and Your Web SEO

May 6, 2010

Back when I lived in San Francisco, I loved riding my bike to Sausalito and dropping in on the No Name Bar. It was a warm, old-fashioned bar with wood beams and chess games on the tables. Great Ramos fizzes, and a bike rack out front. As I rode down the street, I’d see the [...]

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Website Development is a Collaboration

April 21, 2010

Orange is not my favorite color, but branding is not about choosing your favorite color. Ask my colleague at Integris Marketing, Blair O’Neill. I did. We talked. And it’s out with the forest green, a color close to my heart because I love hiking in the forests. And in with orange. Orange? I like it. [...]

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Why Set Up a LinkedIn Profile? And Why Facebook?

April 16, 2010

I added a couple of pages to my Website recently in response to confusion and questions amongst business executives, managers and entrepreneurs who have been asking me about social marketing. One page is for small business owners, the other for executives, entrepreneurs, managers and individuals. You’ll find my social marketing services there, and here is [...]

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Web Copywriters – What Makes Us So Different?

March 24, 2010

What’s the difference between a Web copywriter and a print copywriter? That’s a question that comes up frequently in my professional writing life. There’s a wide gap between skills used in copy-writing for the Web and writing for book, print, broadcast and other media. Underlying all, though, is one of my core beliefs about writing: [...]

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Ghost-bloggers – Hire a Phantom? Why Not?

March 14, 2010

I don’t ghost blog. But I do ghostwrite, and some of what I write are blogs. Sound like an equivocation? It’s not. Honest. Ghost-blogging has been a controversial topic among professional writers for some time. Is it ethical? Is it real blogging? Is it kosher? Should there be a disclaimer? These are all good questions [...]

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The Big Business Blog Question

March 7, 2010

It would seem that yoga is a natural topic for a blog, yet just last week a yoga instructor interested in starting a blog asked the Big Blog Question: “But what would I SAY?” Mostly, I responded, you blog about the things you do, things your customers ask about, fun stories, updates on new insights [...]

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Starting a Blog – the Just Do It Approach

March 3, 2010

I was laughing along with a small business blogging client today about her over-abundance of preparation for starting a blog. She’s been gathering materials for almost a year. And today, she said, “Let’s not over-prepare. Let’s just do it.” We laughed. We both know we are way beyond the over-preparing line. We’ll get the blog [...]

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