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!

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, what’s the point?

Is it to influence your market to:

• buy something?
• request a sales contact?
• request more information?
• download an informational white paper?
• download product specs?

OR

Is it for you to:

• create awareness of a new product?
• renew awareness of an existing product?
• identify new prospect?
• inform existing customers of an upgrade?
• create or alter a brand image?
• counteract negative publicity?
• deposition a competitor?
• generate advertising revenue?
• raise awareness with investors?
• raise awareness with the media?

Each of these reasons to blog as a business requires a slightly different content strategy. Your blog is a very effective way to build a platform for your brand or product, however, it may not work very well as a sales page. It depends on your market and your niche.

So, where do you start to figure out how to do it?

1. Pick the reason(s) above that fit your overall marketing strategy in social media. Pick two at the most (sometimes the reasons above can be handled with one approach; raising awareness with investors and the media, for instance).

2. Begin to think of yourself as a publisher. No matter if you’re selling toilet plungers, the purpose of social media is to support those toilet plunger sales with information that makes your clients trust YOU as the go-to person in the world for the best information about toilet plungers. Even if you only sell products, you have to be the expert. So, begin looking at your blog as a publishing venture. What sort of things should you be writing and publishing that support your efforts in the toilet plunging niche?

3. Interact, but don’t hard sell. Blogs are not the place to try and get folks to buy (unless that’s your number one reason for the blog; as we talked about before, in many markets, blogs are not the place to hard sell; they are the place to talk to your market). Be interesting and don’t try to squeeze your info into a commercial or a advertising page. Go long if you have to. Build a following, a tribe, without selling one thing.

This is Thanksgiving week, so our social media strategies will be power-packed! What are some things you as a business owner are interested in about social media? How to harness that blog? How to begin? I’m on Twitter or you can leave a comment. Ask away! I’ll do my best to answer.

So, I have a lot of plans for this blog, but this is my moonlighting entrepreneur job, mind you. Today, I am stressed. Between filing my tax returns (on extension) and in-depth discussions with my CPA firm, I feel as if I just got buried in a pile of IRS regulation boulders.

Running a moonlighting business is no piece of cake, I will grant you this. It’s hard work. Between figuring out what work you want, marketing for the work, landing the work, doing the work, finalizing the work, getting paid for the work, I’m often exhausted. Then comes the accounting, payroll, marketing, office admin details, and before I know it, I’m ready to just throw in the towel.

So why do I do it? Why the compulsion to run a business after my work hours?

I wish I could tell you. I’m an entrepreneur. I have a great day job that I took in 2007 because I was tired of full-time freelancing. I thought long and hard about taking a full-time job (I telecommute from my home office; separate work stations and everything). I wondered if I would regret it. I don’t. And it’s been over 2 years now. I regret not being realistic about how much work keeping the freelancing would be. True, its moonlighting, and it’s fun stuff. I write, I blog, I sell info products, I do affiliate programs in my Internet marketing business, but I didn’t realize that having the safety of a day job would wear me out so much.

So today, I’m feeling a bit burdened. What will I do to fix that feeling? I need to realize it’s not as bad as it looks. I’ve still got plenty of good stuff (glass three-fourths full) to focus on. I just need to refocus a bit.

1. Make a wish list. What do I want to do more of? What do I not like to do? I’m still working on an outsourcing program and this is one of their steps. It’s a direction I need to just take. I resist and resist and then am miserable. I try to do TOO MUCH MYSELF!

2. Let go of other wishes. Sometimes, you can’t have everything. Sometimes you don’t get to do everything you have on your to-do list. I’m going to have to let a few things go. <sigh>

3. Don’t let small thinking overtake you. On Tuesday, I reviewed Michael Port’s book and wow, am I in the middle of a test. My test is “Are you going to think small when things get tough?” Sure, it’s easy to think big when things are going well and you haven’t faced resistance yet. Another story when you kinda feel like throwing in the towel.

So there you have it, a from the gut confession that this moonlighting entrepreneur has hit a wall (mentally; physically, I’m fine). And I’m going to have to work my way through it.

Anybody else have any other ideas on how to work through times like this? I’d appreciate the advice. Thank you!

Need to jumpstart a writing project? Try a quick scratch outline.

1, 2, 3, list your goals, list your three ideas, list three things you need to include, list three action steps. Just three! That is enough to get down on paper what you’re trying to accomplish.

It may seem like nothing, but it clears the mind a bit and helps you formulate a next action AND it prompts you to begin to ask questions about what you’re going to write.

I rely very heavily on scratch outlines for everything from blog posts to book projects. How do you know where you are going with a piece of writing if you don’t at least give yourself some sort of map first?

There ya go.

Creating content in a business can be oppressive. Last week we discussed planning your writing. Now we’ll talk about actually creating that content.

1. Just start. It may seem rather ridiculous to those who think I’m going to have them jump through hoops, but the sooner you start, the better you’ll feel. That said, your first step may not be actual writing.

2. Start by thinking. Last week we talked about thinking seriously about every piece of writing you’re attempting to write. If you’ve already done that and jotted some notes or jotted an outline, go to step 3. If not, reread last week’s post and spend some time thinking about what you’re trying to accomplish. Also, I suggested giving yourself two options to choose from. So, jot down two possible approaches to each piece of writing. Once your brain starts to consider which one to choose, you’re actively thinking about how to begin. At this stage, I’d begin.

3. Do you know what to write? If you need to take some time to read some background material or to do some research, go for it. However, by this stage, you should be using some jotted notes to guide you. The best way is to have a question you’re trying to answer. It can be as simple as “What should be our company’s drug and alcohol policy?” Or a bigger project, as in R&D, “Can we develop a model for this business in order to replicate it 5,000 times?”

4. Once you’ve found some information, I’d start using the double-entry method of note-taking. You get a notebook and take notes about the research and then on the other side of the page, you can start drawing conclusions about what you’re taking notes about. This is a brainstorming method, drawing connections, circling this, underlining that. Make it into a workbook. This step may not take long at all, so don’t get caught up in it.

5. Write a first draft. How long does it have to be? What major points must you make? Did you answer your question? Think of those major points as you write. Later on you can fine-tune it, but for now, just get it down on the page.