“What’s the most common mistake made by new bloggers? How can we avoid it?“ - asked on Twitter by @alisonkerr.

Here are a few quick mistakes that I see new bloggers making (some of which mistakes I made myself). They’re listed in no particular order and I’d love for you to continue the list in comments below:

1. Giving up too early - blogs take time to take off
2. Putting off starting a blog - waiting until everything is just right before launching can mean you never do it
3. Echoing what everyone else is talking about - say something unique and share your opinion
4. Not blogging on your own domain - I know some swear by using hosted blogs but if you want ultimate control of your blog it is best to do it on your own domain and hosting.
5. Irregular Posting - you don’t have to post every day but try to establish a regular rhythm of posting
6. Being too apologetic - ’sorry I haven’t written for a while’ can end up being the most common type of post on a blog - yes apologize if you’ve messed up but don’t be too hard on yourself - keep investing your time into building your blog up rather than highlighting it’s problems.
7. Focusing more upon Quick Traffic than Loyal Readers - there’s nothing wrong with a big rush of traffic from social media or another blog - but just as important as that is building reader loyalty. Sometimes growing one reader at a time is more fruitful than getting spikes of traffic that never returns.
8. Clutter - too many buttons, widgets, navigation elements
9. Great Posts but Terrible Titles - don’t short change yourself by investing hours into writing great content only to slap a mediocre headline/title onto it.
10. Not Defining a Topic - the most successful blogs have a well defined topic/niche (or they target a certain demographic)
11. Choosing a Topic you have no Interest in - for your blog to be successful you’ll need to blog regularly on your topic for years - if you want to sustain it choose something you have an interest in or love for or you’ll run out of steam.
12. Too many Ads - I don’t have a problem with ads on a blog from Day #1 but when they overpower the content and push it down the page too far they hurt your chances of building a loyal readership.
13. Being too Insular/Expecting Readers to come to You - many bloggers starting out fail to realize that the more you put yourself out there and interact with other bloggers the more chance you have of being read.
14. Blogging about Making Money Blogging (as a first blog) - I’ve lost count of how many bloggers I’ve seen start blogs on the topic of blogging for money when they’ve never made money blogging. Start with something you know.
15. Not Being Useful - blogs that meet needs and solve problems are blogs that people will keep coming back to and which they’ll spread news of to their network.
16. Writing for Search Engines Before Humans - you can always tell when a blogger discovers Search Engine Optimization for the first time. Suddenly titles don’t make sense, keywords appear in posts for no real reason, links to other pages on the blog that are irrelevant to the post keep being used. Learn SEO - but keep your readers as your #1 priority.
17. Becoming a Stats-a-holic - the lure of checking your stats is understandable and common to new (and older) bloggers - but it can become an unhealthy obsession that leads to distraction and depression.
18. Link Baiting with Personal Attack - taking pot shots at other bloggers might get you some quick traffic - but hate breeds hate and the type of readers you attract and the culture it’ll breed on your blog could come back to bite you. Plus you’ll get a reputation that you might not want to live with.
19. Not Knowing Why You’re Blogging - while most of us don’t really know what we’re doing at the start - the faster you can work out what the purpose of your blog is the sooner you’ll start moving toward achieving that purpose.
20. Not Selling Yourself - one thing I don’t think many bloggers get is the power of blogs to sell yourself as a blogger. There’s nothing wrong with monetizing a blog with ads - but maybe a better long term strategy is to use a blog to advertise who you are and what you can offer readers.
21. Thinking You Have to Know it All - one of the best things about blogs is that they’re a great medium for involving your readers in the process of learning. Leave space for others to interact, share what they know and contribute.

There’s A LOT more to be said on this topic - what mistakes do you see new (and older) bloggers making?

by Fern Richardson of Life on the Balcony - Follow her @LOTB

As Fredrickus mentioned the other day, there are many reasons why someone will follow you on Twitter. Many revolve around the fact that you followed them first. But what if there is a sizable discrepancy between the people you follow and the people who have followed you back? Assuming that you are publishing great tweets on a regular basis (and thus there isn’t a good reason for the lack of reciprocation), one tool you should check out is Less Friends, by the awesome Ruby on Rails developers at Less Everything.

After entering your Twitter user name and password, Less Friends will compare the people you are following to the people who are following you and divide everyone up into three groups:

• People who follow you but you don’t follow back (”they follow you”)
• People who you follow but who don’t follow you back (”you follow them”)
• People who you follow and also follow you back (”mutual following”)

You can use this data in a number of ways, but I want to highlight a way to use it to convert green “you follow them” people into blue “mutual following” people. It’s pretty simple. Click on the user IDs of “you follow them” people and read their recent tweets. See if they asked a question you can respond to, or maybe you know of a resource that would be helpful to them. Start replying to their tweets. Retweet their good tweets. More likely than not, they’ll notice how helpful you are and start following you.

The logic is pretty simple. You get what you give. And if someone has forgotten how good what you give is, give them the opportunity to remember. It is really important to not spam people though. That will have the opposite reaction you want from your “targets.” Just like everything you do in new media, the key to success is providing something useful.

Once you’ve converted someone you’re following into a follower, don’t stop once you’ve gained a new follower. Keep on providing useful and helpful a tweets! But since you’re reading TwiTip, I assume you already knew that, right?

© 2008 TwiTip Twitter Tips.

by Bradford Shimp of All Biz Answers - follow him @bradfordshimp

image credit: Joel Olives

We all hear so much about how to get more followers on Twitter and how to use it to make money. Those things are well and good, but Twitter is a two way conversation. It is just as much about following as it is about getting followers.

Choose Who You Follow For the Right Reasons

Being a good follower starts with why you choose to follow someone on Twitter. I recently watched a video that presented a strategy of following random people to see who would follow you back. The sole purpose of this strategy was to get more followers.

I personally would rather follow one person who actively engages with me and who provides interesting and useful content than one thousand who will follow me back but who will not engage or be interesting. Take a minute to think about value. What is the value of one new follower who follows you back? It is one. Now, what is the value of following a person who provides a constant stream of interesting content? The amount of enjoyment and education you get out of following that person is immeasurable. Why would you trade that for just one follow? In other words, it shouldn’t matter if a person follows you back or not. The only thing that should matter to you is whether the person you are following provides you with great content.

Pass Along Quality Tweets

Once you find someone to follow who provides good content, don’t keep them to yourself. If you read a tweet that resonates with you, be sure to pass it on. In Twitterworld, this is generally called a retweet. You simply copy and paste the message into your tweet box, add RT and the @username of the person who originally sent the tweet, and send it on to your followers. You may also want to rewrite the tweet, but be sure to give the originator all the credit.

When you pass along good tweets, you are accomplishing several things. You are helping the originator get her tweet out to a much larger audience. At the same time, you are validating the tweet, saying that you agree with it and that is is worth reading. You also are increasing the tweet’s life span. If it gets retweeted by you, you have doubled the chance that someone will see it, because it has now gone on the Twitter stream twice. Finally, you are promoting the author of the tweet to your followers, and they may choose to follow as well.

Let Them Know You Are There

Everyone likes a little feedback. One of the best things you can do as a follower is to send out some affirmation from time to time. If you enjoy someone’s tweets, let them know about it. You can do this directly by sending a reply or a direct message. Or you can talk about how great the person is in a tweet. Be sure to use their username with an @ symbol in front of it so that they will be sure to see it. If you want to be sure all of your followers see your tweet about the person, do not lead with it. Twitter treats this as a reply and in some cases your followers who are not already following that person will not see it. Just add their @username later in your tweet.
Even the most prolific and well known twitterers can burn out from time to time. Nothing validates someone as much as a heartfelt shout out or thank you. Be that follower, and you will earn a lot of gratitude.

Follow More Closely

The more you use Twitter, you will likely follow more and more people. Without a plan, it will be hard for you to follow anyone closely. If you are just skimming over random tweets, you are not being a very good follower. You can vastly improve this by using any number of tools available to  help you keep track of the twitterers that you are following.

I personally use TweetDeck, a free tool that you can download to your desktop. It gives you the option to set up groups and place twitterers in these groups. This is essential if you are following a large number of people and you want to follow some of them more closely. You can’t follow every tweet of every person, but you can read a fair number of tweets from your favorite people if you use the right tools. There a many other choices besides TweetDeck, including TweetGrid and Seesmic. If you prefer not using any tools, you can also manually read the tweet streams of your favorite people to see what they have been saying. You do this by going to twitter.com and adding /username of the person whose stream you want to read, ie. twitter.com/username.
If someone is providing interesting and useful tweets, it makes sense for you to follow them more closely. A good follower doesn’t want to miss out on anything that is being shared.

The important thing is to not lose sight of why you use Twitter in the first place. Its about finding and building quality relationships. Those relationships can lead to many places, including friendships, business opportunities, and even income. But it all starts with a conversation.
Today, spend some of your Twitter time being a better follower. Promote some good tweets. Send some encouragement. Follow someone because you like what they have to say. Being a good follower is just as important as broadcasting your own quality content.

© 2008 TwiTip Twitter Tips.

by Tim Bursch - Follow him @timbursch

Isn’t Twitter just for tweeting? Mainstream media thinks Twitter is fluttering. Can you really listen to hundreds of people? How?

SOME TIPS ON TWITTER:

• Ask a question and then listen.
• Group people on TweetDeck and help filter the noise (See bonus tip below)
• Follow your favorite blog authors on Twitter
• Check out chats and discussions on things you care about here.
• Take a day off of tweeting and just watch the stream go by. Notice people. Who catches your eye? Who and what do you seem to pay attention to?
• Acknowledge people. If someone says they are grabbing coffee, ask for one too. : )
• Watch how other tweeps engage. If someone re-tweets you they are probably paying attention.
• Set up alerts on topics or people using Twitter Search.
• Use favorites to save tweets and tweeps you want to pay attention to.
• Focus. When you are having a conversation on Twitter it probably helps to stop checking email and writing comments on a blog. (working on it)
• Use open-ended questions. How, what, why?
• Don’t pre-judge. Don’t instantly “unfollow” people if they are not like you. Great idea from Aliza Sherman (@alizasherman)- go look at the person’s profile and recent tweets. You might change your mind.
• Notice when people are absent. Pay attention to who is being quiet too.

BONUS TIP: GROUPING IN TWEETDECK

I created a conversation group made up of people that I am listening to and want to engage in discussion. I start by reading this group first and then filter through other tweets. When you find new tweeps you want to pay attention to, just add them.

Sit back, relax, and enjoy the conversation.

© 2008 TwiTip Twitter Tips.

Five ways to look like you make a lot of money without spending a lot.
By Scott Gerber

In today’s cluttered, hypercompetitive marketplace your business can’t afford to make a poor first impression. Every touch point that leads to your company needs to impress, motivate and inspire a prospective customer. You may have a great product or service, but to be taken seriously, clients need to believe that you’re on the same playing field as the bigger guys. Even if you’re a consultant that works from a home office, you’ll need to position your company as a polished brand that touts confidence, experience and quality. Fear not. Here are five simple tips for branding your business to create the illusion that it is a global corporation with an army at the ready — all without breaking the bank.

1. Website
   Your website is the center of your brand universe. Simplicity is the key to looking like a big fish. Less is more. A clean, easy-to-navigate two-page site with useful content will make your company look far more established than a cluttered 20-page site with long-winded fluff. Design your site with the needs of your user in mind, not your ego. Sites that try to be everything to everyone will often become nothing to anyone.

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While customers’ in-boxes are overflowing, here are some tips to get them interested in your company’s e-mail newsletters

By Carmine Gallo | Businessweek.com

I recently received an e-mail that had me riveted from start to finish. It contained a true story about two men aboard US Airways flight 1549—the one that crash-landed into the Hudson River. Both passengers had regularly backed up their critical computer data. One did this by transferring info from his hard drive to a second computer, but he had taken both laptops on the plane. The other passenger had used an online backup service called Mozy (owned by EMC). I read their stories in the monthly Mozy newsletter, which I chose to receive when I signed up for Mozy myself. It’s full of fun, interesting, and valuable stories and tips.

During a recent interview, Dave Robinson, Mozy’s vice-president of marketing, explained how any business owner can make an e-mail newsletter more compelling. I also spoke with Janine Popick, chief executive of VerticalResponse, an e-mail and direct marketing provider for small businesses. Here’s their advice on how to get customers to read your e-mail newsletters.

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It’s no secret that LinkedIn is a great place to network professionally, post and find jobs, and answer questions and build thought leadership. But if you’re using LinkedIn solely as a place to maintain an online resume, you’re missing out on a great opportunity to reach and engage with potential customers — LinkedIn groups.

5 Tips When Creating a LinkedIn Group

There are still a lot of industries or groups of professionals not yet represented in LinkedIn groups. If no one has created a group for your industry, go create one. A few tips as you get started:

• Your name is important! Consider which keywords your target members will search for. Make sure your group name is clear and includes these keywords.
• Create a group for your industry, not your company. People are more likely to join a group when it’s not simply for fans of your company.
• Design the group logo to fit the small standard logo size. The group logos that are displayed will actually be quite small - keep this in mind, and don’t cram lots of hard-to-read-text into the small image.
• Create a custom webpage for the group on your website. When we created the ProMarketers group on LinkedIn, we bought the URL www.ProMarketers.com and redirected it to a page on our site with more information about the group. This type of page will provide more context, engagement and visibility for your group. It can have as much or as little information as you like.
• Display the group in the Group Directory and on members’ profiles. Take advantage of the functionality already in place on LinkedIn to help your group get more visibility.

5 Tips for Promoting a LinkedIn Group

• Invite coworkers, past colleagues, and customers to join and start discussions. Leverage your existing network to get your group started. After all, who wants to join a group with no members?
• Promote the group on your website, blog, email newsletter, and social media networks. Make sure people know that you have a group and how to join.
• Invite key industry experts to join and engage. If there are some heavy-hitters in your industry, invite them to engage with the community.
• Cross-market to related groups that you manage on different networks. Create a similar group or Page on Facebook and invite members of each network to join the group on the other network.
• Integrate LinkedIn into all of your marketing efforts. Every time you do a webinar or go to a conference, notify your group and invite those you meet to join the group as well.

5 Tips for Managing a LinkedIn Group

• Add discussions, news and jobs. The more opportunities for interaction you add to your group, the more valuable your group will be to the community. All of these features are standard for LinkedIn groups. Unfortunately, it’s an all-or-nothing deal — to add discussions, you must also add news.
• Use featured discussions to highlight particular content or offers. The group discussions can quickly get overrun and it can be hard to get your discussion thread noticed. But, as a manager of your group, you can mark a discussion as featured and this will pin your thread at the top of the discussion board. You can also unpin it at any time.
• Send announcements. Announcements are emails sent by you through LinkedIn to your group members. The benefit of sending these announcements through LinkedIn is that your recipients — and their ISPs — are more likely to recognize the email as trustworthy and your deliverability may be higher than if you had sent the email yourself. Announcements will also get added as a discussion thread for your group, and you also have the option to mark this thread as a featured discussion for extra visibility. Announcements are text-only, and have no analytics, so if you want to track clicks, use a URL shortener with analytics to measure the response to your announcement.
• Import your blog RSS feed. If you write a blog that’s relevant to the group, you can import your articles automatically to the News section. Go to News -> Manage news feeds and add the RSS feed for your blog.
• Make your own LinkedIn analytics. LinkedIn is still catching up to Facebook in terms of a lot of its advanced functionality. One major piece that’s still missing is analytics. So, if you want to track the success of your group, you’ll need to make your own LinkedIn analytics. To track the growth of your group, check the number of members every week and keep track of the group size in a spreadsheet. To track the click through rate of links in your announcements, use a URL shortener with analytics like bit.ly. And, of course, be sure to measure the traffic, leads, and customers you get from LinkedIn over time. Hopefully, your group will help drive people back to your business.

If you want to check out a LinkedIn group in action, and want to connect with other marketers on LinkedIn, check out the Pro Marketers group on LinkedIn (and the Pro Marketers group on Facebook, too).

by Travis Campbell

A lot has been made of Twitter as its popularity grows (significantly, I might add), so have the reasons for having a solid Twitter marketing strategy.  In this post you’ll learn the three rules every online and small business entrepreneur should know when using Twitter for business, and why.  Without these in place, your experience with Twitter will be of minimal value, and can even hurt your business altogether.

3 Rules of Using Twitter for Business

Ok, so you have heard of Twitter by now, but many questions remain.  Why should I use this service?  How can it help my business?  Let me encourage you to watch how others are successfully using it and follow their lead.  Here are three things I’ve observed others doing successfully, and am patterning my own profile after as well.  These are general and open ended rules, feel free to comment at the end of the post and add to the conversation.

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