Working From The Basement

When Diana and I started this blog it was pretty much for shits and giggles, well almost.  After attending Podcamp in Boston this year we wanted to try publishing content centered on small and micro-businesses.  Initially promoting the site just using the Social Media skills we had acquired in the past year also seemed like a good idea.  Since I already had this domain name registered it was just a matter of installing WordPress on one of my servers and setting up email.   If you ask me I don’t even remember registering this domain name, but the name fit and we where off to the races.

Our goal was to create a collaborative site; the reason for this is that both of us had gone very spotty on our independent blogs.  Writing one or two posts a week isn’t as hard as writing the three or four a week which is what I believe is the minimum you need for an independent blog site.  Still with our busy schedules it is still fairly difficult to maintain the pace, but we did it.  This will be our twentieth post in a month’s time which is right in line with what we wanted.

A funny thing happened though – I don’t think Diana and I have written very many articles from our original lists.  This is because we picked a really broad subject area to write about based on our everyday experiences and interactions from which we get fresh ideas. A lot of these ideas come from the comments left by our readers; these outnumber the articles 3 to 1, when you consider all the Social Media postings. The feedback we get when we attend networking events has also helped drive and motivate us like we never imagined.  So what started as a cathartic release on the joys and frustrations of the small business owner has became something bigger.

I included a chart at the beginning of the article to depict our traffic patterns using WordPress statistics which show some predicable results.  When we tweet and link the articles on Facebook, traffic is double or triple what it is if we don’t do anything.  Our rise in Google rankings is also helped by our frequent updates and posts linking us to other sites.  So anyone thinking of a way to drive traffic to their blog or website needs to post frequently and share the information using Social Media techniques.  Diana’s articles also usually rank higher than mine when we measure direct links back to the posts. This may be because I tend to promote Diana’s posts more than mine or she is just more popular, either way it is an interesting phenomenon.

We intend to expand the blog over the next few months to include podcasts and video to keep it fresh and interesting.  We really appreciate everyone’s feedback and comments both good and bad, and if you want to contribute please let us know.  We are particularly interested in expanding WFTB beyond Connecticut so if anyone is interested in covering events in different States please contact us.  Thanks again everyone for a great first month and for reading what Diana and I quietly refer to as the Seinfeld of blogs (it’s about nothing and everything, but it’s always entertaining).

WFTB – Michael Lawson, Diana Bartolotta

Original post here:  http://www.michaellawson.com/?p=218

by Michael Lawson

Here in the northeast it has seemed like we haven’t had a summer yet so this is probably as close as it gets.  Podcamp this year focused on the use of social media and how it was being used.  Being focused on the business aspects, I learned a few things that I think will help my clients and customers which are reinforced by my own experiences.  The number one lesson is that while companies are recognizing social media as a buzz word they need help utilizing it.   Just twittering the special of the day may work for one business but not another.  A game plan for using Social Media has to be developed for companies based on their individual goals and expectations.   The value and pricing of these services by both parties seem to be all over the map.  Leveraging your existing relationships and skill sets may help you in setting up a model that works for you.

Social Media currently seems to be a generalized area where specialization hasn’t occurred yet, this became obvious in the discussion on the future of work session.  The early adopters are just beginning to get rewarded for their pioneering efforts in educating businesses in the use of a more developed community based online presence.   It is still clear that no experts really exist in this field but a lot of bright people are making different aspects work.  Companies are looking for people with Social Media skills but assuming this to be a single person.

Tracking your social engagements still seems to be in its infancy, much like tracking Internet metrics was 10 years ago.  The difference is that the industry has grown up and a lot of what we learned in the past should be able to be transitioned.

Video is playing an increasingly important role and should not be ignored;  webinars and short information messages are replacing older voice only podcasting.  The Hubspot people did a great presentation on how to produce videos without much editing.  Keeping videos short and less than 2 minutes seems to keep people’s interest longer.

On a latter note I will say that Apple IPhones and Macbooks seemed to be required appendages.  While hyper local got redefined for me when somebody tweeted for toilet paper while in the first stall of the ladies room.

Most of my insight as advertised did come for the interactions in the hallways and impromptu sessions on the lawn.  I’m already missing podcamp and all my new friends…

WFTB – Michael Lawson