real/brilliant has evolved.

Not only do we serve small businesses with blogging, strategy, and coaching (a refresher on that next week), but we also have recently signed on several authors. Our offering to authors is a bit different; we’ve developed Social Media Packs: Starter Pack, Coaching Pack, and Mastery Pack. It’s a way for us to “productize” our services so that authors (who are overwhelmed by their publishing schedules already) can pick a Pack and get the same amazing service as always. Plus, authors know how to write, so they don’t need much help in that area. They just need someone to introduce them to social media, a bit of coaching on how to approach social media, and then an action plan of what to do next and when.

Our brilliant products page highlights these packs, but I’ll pull much of the information out here as well. Contact us if you’re interested or go visit our web site for more information.

1. Our Starter Pack is real/brilliant‘s mantra for authors: visibility online. You must be a search result for your book’s platform so that when people search for your subject (or you) in Google, they find you and your information first. Thus, you need a blog, a Twitter account, and a subscriber list. Our Starter Pack is a launch kit for authors, basically step one.

2. Our Coaching Pack is real/brilliant‘s goal to help authors make their online interactions authentic. An author must learn their personal mission with social media, and it’s not just to build a tribe, it’s to attract readers that “get” you and want to keep up with what you write. Thus, you must customize your blog and Twitter and create useful infoproducts for your audience. Our Coaching Pack is habit creation and step two.

3. Our Mastery Pack highlights real/brilliant‘s desire to help authors sustain a social media tribe for growth. Authors need to learn sustainable best practices for social media that fit their schedule and goals. Our Mastery Pack is a growth kit and step three.

We are excited by these new products and having a great time helping authors build their platform and tribe! We’d love to talk to you if you are an author struggling with social media. We offer a free 30-minute initial consultation. Just contact us and we’ll set up a time to chat!

real/brilliant, inc. finally has a web site up specifically for authors! Check it out here.

It seems a bit stuffy on first glance, but many well-published literary authors look askance at blogging. To them, it’s hack writing. It’s not thoughtful, it’s not publishable, it’s not something to spend a lot of time on.

1. It’s the print versus digital divide. Years ago, I had to trick myself when I read something in print. As an editor, my job was to “doubt it all” and our brains have convinced themselves that if it’s in print, it’s final, set in stone, perfect. Now that we’re digital, we’re having the reverse problem. We’re doubting too much. We think that just because anyone can put up a web site, that most of what’s online is garbage. I hear the point and I agree; there is garbage online. But just because the format reminds your brain of garbage doesn’t mean it is, just as words in print do not mean they are correct. We have to get over this. Many authors and writers have to just get over this.

2. Let go of some control. Great revolutions happen when established cultures resist losing control. Just as the Boomers enjoyed their years of ignoring the constraints of their parents and their parents’ society, the next generational divide is happening. The Millennials/Generation Y are trying new things with communications, news, publishing, journalism, advertising, sales, literature, books, magazines, newspapers, anything that was set in stone with print is being attacked. A lot of “print” purists are freaking out, JUST like another set of purists freaked out during the 1960s and 1970s. This is the current revolution. Let go. Just let go. Trust the next generation. It’s their world too.

3. Embrace change. 2010 has positioned itself as the battlefield for ebook rights, ebook readers, ebook everything. Publishing stands once again on the precipice, just like it did when the printing press was developed. It’s good. It’s going to be just fine. It will be bumpy, just like back then (during King Henry VIII’s reign; alas!), but it will be just fine.

So, are blogs hack writing? Yes and no. I know a good many people writing blogs that are authentic and real, much better than the hackneyed fakeness of much of print journalism in the past thirty years, much better written than the horrific nineteenth-century newspaper headlines that screamed false news from every street corner. Newspapers can be just as much hack writing.

How to not exhibit hack writing on your blog?

1. Be thoughtful. Really think through what you’re writing. Test it out, revise, edit. Sleep on the first draft. Remember that if you can’t back it up, you can’t call it fact. But you can call it opinion. A great tutorial on writing op-eds is here, gleaned from the Huffington Post’s Guide to Blogging.

2. Be authentic. When you write truth, no one can call it hack writing. When you write from your heart, it’s yours. I don’t think the critics of blogs mean we must have these literary tomes as blogs (no one would read them), but we must not glaze over human emotion like a lot of people do when they write quickly (I certainly do).

3. Read it twice before posting. That catches grammar and punctuation errors, thought process errors, and perhaps even shows you when you need more time to process. And above all, write! Don’t just write when you’re at a computer, write constantly.

We’ll talk more about blogs and writing and the fears of social media taking over the writing industry in upcoming posts.

Yes, I still miss Hawaii. Can you tell?

My word for 2010 (each year I choose one word to focus on for the next twelve months) is real.

Or as we’ve been talking about on the blog, authentic.

I had such big plans for this blog in 2009. These plans fell to the side because of a too-busy schedule, oh yeah, I went to Europe!

In 2010, I’m making decisions about what I absolutely MUST spend my time on to get to the goals I’ve set for 2010. I waver back and forth whether or not continuing to develop this blog is worth it. I think I’ve decided that it really isn’t a priority for me this year.

Don’t panic!

I’ll still update this blog, but on a less-regular basis. I’ll pop in with interesting tidbits that I find. I will finish an ebook on authenticity (that is on my list for this year) and you’ll be the first to know about it. I will create a blogger-author press kit and you will have first access to it as well. I am not in the mood to charge hundreds of dollars for these products. I like seven dollar ebooks, don’t you? So these will be seven dollars. Yes, 7 dollars.

I’ll be developing a book on blog content this year and you’ll get the benefit of my latest, zaniest thoughts on that. Plus you’ll watch as I attempt to sell a book based on a blog. And I may change my mind and come back here and really just churn out the content. Who knows?

For now, I’m focusing on doing the two things each day that will bring me the closest to my goals this year: writing 2500 non-blog-related words a day and marketing constantly to find top-notch clients for my editing, writing, blogging business. I really believe in marketing, even if you’re maxed out with work. We must market MORE. That is the name of the game in business for 2010.

I have some deeper thoughts about that and I’ll share them as my marketing gets underway this year. In the meantime, what two activities should you be doing instead of reading this blog? I’m serious.

The two greatest things to bring you the closet to your goals this year. What brings you the most results in the least amount of time? Expand your time. What brings you the least amount of results but takes the greatest amount of time? Downgrade the time you spend on those worthless tasks.

Read this article and tell me you will follow Ramit’s and my advice in 2010.

No reason to keep pushing as we near the holidays. Seriously. What’s the point? These days should be used to hunker down, to plan for 2010, to think about next year, to rest, to spend time with family and friends, to enjoy the results of your hard work in 2009, to really soak up the spirit of the season.

Some ideas:

1. Sit down, ignore the Internet, and read an empowering book. Read something that blows your mind, like Seth Godin’s new free ebook. Download it here (Michael Hyatt is one of the writers featured in the ebook).

2. Watch a good movie. Amazing how letting your brain rest actually inspires it. I like anything Christmas-related, but even something silly, like The Hangover, I hear, works.

3. Talk it up. Meet a colleague or fellow entrepreneur for coffee. Amazing how talking about your ideas for 2010 can flower into something amazing. I’ve been doing this lately (I’ve got one scheduled for this week too!) and it really kick starts my planning ability. It gets me excited about the new possibilities for the next year.

Every blogger I know at one time did not realize how much work a blog requires. It’s like raising an electronic pet. You get tired or distracted or even too busy and suddenly you realize you haven’t updated your blog in weeks and you don’t even know what to say anymore. What hasn’t been said already?

Never fear. It’s called burnout. Everyone gets it, everyone is afraid of it (thus claiming they DON’T get it), and everyone can overcome it.

1. Cut out the chaff. Are you trying to do too much with your blog? Must you write lengthy posts every time? Must you be pithy and humorous and wise beyond your years all the time? Is that really you anyway? I’m not pithy every freaking second of my life, so why would we represent ourselves that way? It’s not real. Cut it out.

2. Get your priorities right. Could you have someone else write the blog for you? Must you write it by yourself? There are fabulous blog experts out there that can take the load off your shoulders, just type into Google “blog expert” and you can find them. Or email me. I write blogs for hire.

3. Unplug. Bloggers cannot get fresh ideas or innovations by always reading someone else’s innovations. Get offline, read poetry, read books in your niche, talk to people (clients! clients! clients!) for the ideas you desperately need.

4. Grow up. Realize that what worked for your blog last year may not work this year. A blog is not a static marketing machine. It has to change with your business and with your goals. What do YOU need to do to shake things up? Overhaul? Redesign? Outsource content or design? New focus? New theme? Do it. Do it now.

5. Relax. Yeah, oxymoron alert. But seriously, relax. The blog is not supposed to be stressful. It’s more organic than that. It’s intuitive, so let it shape and form and then if you need to nip it here and there, do so. Relax. You’re doing fine.

So I’ve been reading The Huffington Post Complete Guide to Blogging this week. Very interesting. My writing teacher and client (I’m her editorial assistant) just pitched a blog idea to them (she’s so good at op-ed) and I wanted to try it myself. Where better to look for this information than from Arianna Huffington and her blog editors directly?

In their chapter, Finding Your Voice, HuffPo’s editors recommend these steps to writing a successful op-ed post:

What is your point? How would you explain your point to a batty, slightly deaf relative in one sentence? Write that sentence down. This is the gist of your piece.

Clear some space above that main point. Now think up a story that illustrates the point. This “anecdotal lede” is a staple of newspaper and magazine journalism. Reporters like anecdotes because they tend to give a human-interest perspective on the story and tend to draw readers in. If the story happened to you, great. If you put in the proper links and cite the source, you can retell a story from another newssource. You may have to write a transition sentence or two between the anecdote and your point.

Now clear some space under your main point. Give a short history of the debate.

Next, argue your point from the evidence. What makes you think you are right? Throw in two or three quotes, statistics, or stories that back you up.

Now think about who might disagree with you. Why might this person or organization think you’re wrong? Maybe it’s because they’re total idiots, but you’ll write a better blog post if you address their strongest points rather than call them names.

Write a good walk-off line. Or if you can’t think of one, write something like “I’ll be following this story and will post again when I learn more.”

Interesting, eh? I thought so. I’m working on several op-ed posts right now and am going to apply these guidelines to see if I can’t improve my own craft. And perhaps land a blog post on HuffPo! Fingers crossed.

I’m going to upset the purists out there, but I really don’t believe blogging requires a lot of work or forethought. I don’t tend to think a lot before I blog, but I do read piles of books and it filters into my brain and I formulate my blog posts by agreeing or disagreeing with what I read. Several clients have had issues lately thinking too much about what they are blogging and I wanted to throw up a few quick tips on how to blog better.

1. Just blog. Don’t worry if someone can poke holes in your theories or will make fun of your ideas. It’s your blog, it’s not a glossy magazine (remember, most of those glossies are now bankrupt, so it didn’t work for them either).

2. Not perfect, good enough. Just make sure you’ve got your basic facts right, that you don’t make spelling mistakes (like I do on occasion), and you’re good to go! Remember, the biggest blogs started as a way of recording life happenings. Don’t overthink it.

3. You are not going to save the world with your blog. You’ll start a conversation though. And that’s the point.

4. If you’re too controlled, you’ll never let your clients see the real you. That’s what they’re reading the blog for. They want to know stuff that you may not be comfortable letting out in the open. Just let it go. But remember, it stays on the Internet for infinity and beyond. So no naked pics, please.

5. Whatever you have the toughest time talking about may be the one thing that folks want to read about. This is not tabloid material, this is being authentic. I started talking about my religious fundamentalist upbringing on my other blog and everyone is glued to it. I beat around the bush for two years though. I didn’t want to talk about it. Another friend is talking about how she has tried to stay off medication for her lifelong depression. She has avoided this since she started writing professionally, but you know what, it’s real. As soon as we both started to talk about the real stuff, our blogs took off and we were part of a conversation. For a business blog, those examples may not quite fit, but just think about it for a minute. And then see how it can apply to your business blogging.

So, don’t fret if your blogging takes all day long or you agonize over everything, just slowly start letting go of the control as you blog. Before you know it, you’ll be flying and blogging will be just like typing an email to your friends. That’s how it is for me.

News travels fast on social media. You can just look on Twitter (for me, Tweetie) and instantly be drawn into the ongoing dialogue happening in the world. You can plug into your Facebook’s live feed and know what all your friends are doing, will do, are thinking about, working on, or eating.

This “news” has changed the face of the mainstream media and of course we all know that. However, what we may not yet understand is the demand that has intensified as social media grows and print media diminishes: the quest for authentic.

No more does it bode well for folks to slap up something and call it good. Sure, PR still works, but it’s a different approach. You can’t just leak a story and it follows the same traditional pathways. It goes underground now, seeps into the mindset, sears the consciousness, and then turns on you. No more will readers believe that these politicians write their own books; there is no use saying they do. Thus, Sarah Palin’s ghostwriter was reported early in the process. The game has changed.

However, what may not be registering is that people are determined to find out the hidden news. Climategate is a result of hackers. Discussions about what torture measures were used during the Bush/Cheney years are flying online, ignoring the media’s reporting of them. Google “Barack Obama ghostwriter” and you’ll see hundreds (or thousands) of folks trying to find out if it was Bill Ayres or not. Or not. I read the book and I don’t think it was ghostwritten. Perhaps I’ve been fooled, perhaps not.

But the game has changed significantly. And for the better. Yesterday’s post on Politico.com about Obama’s seven narratives drew fire from the White House and rightly so. All those narratives could be erased in one month’s time, especially if health care passes before the State of the Union address in January. Public perception does not hold still waiting for you to catch up.

So what does this mean for social media strategists?

1. Is your news the real deal? Are you fudging your numbers, your news? Make sure it’s the truth.

2. Find a place to plug it in. What market are you aiming for with your news? Did you just win best blog? Did you just develop a new version of your software? Did you just unveil the new clothing line for winter or spring? Really think about where your market is online. (If you don’t know yet, find out now.)

3. Be prepared to handle the backlash. Your big news won’t follow the same pathway as before. If someone doesn’t like that your blog was named “the best,” they’ll say it. Are you ready for that? If someone finds a bug in your new software version and broadcasts it? Can you deal? If no one likes the new clothing line and starts urging a boycott of your store? Can you handle it?

I think the most important piece of authenticity is the one thing that shows there’s a human being underneath all the branding and PR. I see it all the time on blogs. The minute someone decides to be authentic, they post something that feels like a new layer, as if they peeled back and for the first time, I saw the pulsing life below.

Whatcha gonna do next year for your biz? How are you going to expand into new areas? How are you going to develop a new product? Are you going to hire anyone to help? Are you going to open a physical location for your business?

All this is fodder for your yearly forecasting session. Everyone I know spends time forecasting their next year in December. Yes, even in the midst of busy holiday planning and parties.

Here’s what you do:

1. Get a planning notebook or planning paper that you can refer back to throughout the next year.

2. Make a list of your big goals and keep those big goals doable. (This is what I do badly; I put too many big goals in a calendar year; set one for each month or every two months or every three months.)

3. Break down those big goals into action steps and backtrack your schedule. How many months of little action steps will it take to get to the big goal? Put it on your schedule.

4. Be prepared to flex next year. You won’t get to do it just like you plan it; prepare yourself to flex when other opportunities arise.

5. Have fun. Dream big!

So much to be thankful for this year and so I’m going to try and give you one more thing to add to your list (this blog post!).

Ready?

1. Write for search. Think of headlines, blog content, multimedia content. If every single thing on your site is not tagged, the search engines can’t see it.

2. Update often. The more you update, even if it’s just a little teeny blog post, the more the search engines will be back to crawl your site. So update. Get it in your head that you’re a publisher and publish at least every other day, if not every day or multiple times a day.

3. File a site map. Sites with lots of pages can be absolutely confusing to visitors. If you can’t use your header to organize your pages, give readers a map of your site, with every page accounted for. Visitors will stay longer. If you register a site map (most web hosting and search engine providers offer information on how to do this), search engines will find all those pages you have on your site and that helps you.

4. Use tags. We talked about this above, but tagging everything you can on your site, including all content, headers, images, and other multimedia move your content up higher in the results. So use tags!

5. Choose tags carefully. Along with that, make sure the tags you’re using really do describe your content well. If your tags aren’t good descriptors of your content, you’ll end up being filed in the wrong category or the content aggregators will send the wrong visitors to your site.

And that’s it! Happy Thanksgiving! We’ll be back next week with more information for you on social media, blogging, and content creation!