New Social Media Book Helps Me Upgrade My Blog

It seems like I’ve been working weeks on making my blog better with minimal improvement. I have been researching extras, installing (or at least trying to install) widgets, and otherwise making writing and using my blog a better experience.

Fortunately, I recently purchased a new book which helps clarify a lot of the clutter and makes sound recommendations to upgrade my blog. I haven’t finished it yet but the book contains all types of social media recommendations including how to improve your Facebook page, how to Twitter effectively, etc.

The book is called “Everything You Want To Know About Social Media” by Hilary Topper. Hilary is a marketing and social media expert and her blog (which garners 15,000 hits a month) was even nominated for a Stevie last year. This is a great read for anyone interested in social media (beginner or experienced).

Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Social Media

I will discuss here some great blogging things that I learned (but the book contains much more).

The first tip I want to discuss is a program called Zemanta. This application makes it easier to locate and include images, links and related article links to your post. It also supposedly enhances your search-engine friendliness for Google, Yahoo, etc. Once installed (it works with most blog sites), you just click on various suggestions that Zemanta provides.

Hilary uses and now I do too. I honestly didn’t like the images which were suggested (and therefore added my own). There give you 32 suggestions but, in my view, it is “hit or miss” regarding whether they capture the essence of what your blog is about.

I was impressed by the tagging and related article suggestion features. Zemanta suggests tags and related articles to include and you can add each one with just one click. What do you think?

I also followed Hilary’s recommendation and added a stat counter to receive more metrics about my blog than WordPress currently provides. Other than a stat counter tag, I made these metrics only viewable on the administrative side.

Finally, the easiest and potentially most impactful addition I made was using Pingomatic which updates various search engines that your blog has been updated. By “pinging”, you get greater exposure for your blog.

Thanks Hilary for all the great tips.

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Time To Take The Training Wheels Off

Remove Those Training Wheels

I’ve been blogging for a little over 6 months now and have enjoyed sharing news and tips relating to traffic and vehicle and traffic law.

My good friend Hilary Topper (a Stevie Award nominee for her blog) likes “Confessions Of A Traffic Lawyer” but described it as “too standoffish”. She advise for me to loosen up. Be more person. The content is good but sprinkle it with more stories about you and your travails. Hilary is a social media expert and often uses her HJMT blog to discuss personal issues.

Well today I take my training wheels off and give it a shot. I have created a new category called “Personal” where I will share what I am doing, general musings and other fun or useful information. I have also added a Facebook badge (which hyper links to my Facebook page) and my Twitter status updates to the right-hand side colum (for those of you who want to get to know me even more). I hope my readers like the additional, more personal content, and welcome your feedback. But don’t worry you’ll still also get great tips and information relating to driving and traffic.

I also added a category called “Social Media”. I figured since I spend 2 to 4 hours a day reading and writing social media content that I might as well blog about it too.

Anyway, tonight I am going to the HARO Happy Hour. For those of you who don’t know HARO, shame on you. HARO stands for Help A Reporter Out and essentially and, when you sign up (it’s 100% free), you receive 3x a day an email with a list of stories from journalists asking for help with their story. If you meet the reporter’s specs, you may reply directly to that reporter about how you can help. It is a great way to get PR for yourself or business and did I mention it is totally free.

Anyway, Peter Shankman, Founder Of Haro, is having a happy hour in Manhattan and was lucky enough to RSVP before it sold out. Looking forward to meeting a bunch of new and interesting people as well as seeing who I will bump into. If I am lucky I’ll even get a HARO T-shirt. Stay tuned.

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