Blogher 2008 - DIY Content Syndication and Promotion
This Blogher 2008 session is part of the 'What We Do' break-out sessions, entitled 'DIY Content Syndication and Promotion' with panelists:
- Moderator Krista Neher
- Gwen Bell
- Anne-Marie Nichols
- Esther Brady (aka faintstarlite)
The magical world of the interwebs makes it a snap to create, post and promote content - whether it's video, audio or Blog posts. This panel touched on a variety of ways to create content, push it out online and promote it to the masses.
Anne-Marie is very interested in social bookmarking sites and likes to explore the SEO aspects of these different -- wants to be able to find people to help promote your stuff, whether they are Bloggers, people on social networks or just people who consume content. In a way, 'gaming the system' and helping folks who you like (and vice versa) Also uses StumbleUpon to 'thumbs up' different sites and content, but still trying to figure out the best way to submit your submitted content and promote it.
At first, you get an enormous jump in traffic when you start using it -- but can't figure out why it slacks off so quickly afterwards. Do you stop 'Stumbling Upon' your own content periodically and promote only others'? There are nuances and changes in social sites like this you must just try out. One such niche site is HealthRanker - easy-to-use social bookmarking for health and fitness niche.
Posting and sharing the video content love online
Esther has experimented with over 2 dozen video platform sites, trying to gauge what works, what's important and what helps her community. YouTube is still the 'premiere' video site for traffic -- always post on YouTube even if you intend to post elsewhere.
Important to not just rely on tags for videos, you must build community by video responding to other people -- not just always pushing your own original content. Some of Esther's favorite video sites:
1. Bliptv -- great for episodic content that gives you lots of freedom in their terms of service, meaning they won't pull you content if a DCMA (if someone says you have content they own -- even if it's not proven, just filed, it gets pulled) gets filed against you, etc.
2. Brightcove -- great for customizable video player, but don't get any revenue sharing and paid subscription version is incredibly expensive (so best for large corporations). Always super great for search engines.
3. Vimeo -- high quality video, has much better compression rate... actually HD streaming quality which is very important to video artists
4. TubeMogul -- simultaneously post on a variety of social video sites and keep track of your stats (as well as watch other video blogger stats)
Playing with social networks to grow your community
Gwen Bell is a brand evangelist and active blogger that uses a variety of social networks and sites to post content and engage her audience.
Where should someone who is new to using a tool start and what are the rules of engagment?
Twitter is a matter of jumping on and becoming part of the real conversation, versus jumping into CEO mode and pumping out info. Some companies have done this with tremendous success: Zappos and JetBlue are good examples to look at for best practices.
To start with a tool like this, you just have to jump in and watch the dialogue and how things are said and just go. Summize and Tweetstory are two tools to use for Twitter campaigns. There's been much discussion between Plurk vs Twitter -- Plurk is a little more fun and interactive, but aggregation is an issue. Not a networking or community building tool the way that Twitter is. But again, you have to sometimes experiment to find this out yourself.
Kirtsy is great way to share things that you love using the Digg model. There are many other similar niche social sites, like PhotographyVoter, that utilize same set-ups and technologies but target different people. You have to figure out what is best for you to tap into and how.
Ideas on social media submission workflow:
As a Blogger, you have to visit different sites and experiment with different sites to
see what niche works best for you. Start a Yahoo Group with online
friends to help promote your community's stuff. It is pretty time
consuming, and depending on what you are doing can have an adverse effect in Google search rankings (if
they are looking at your submission time stamps, etc.) and you must spend
time fleshing out your profiles and commenting on other content. It's all an experiment but there are some short cuts.
- Web2Submitter
- MyBlogLog - helps grow community just by connecting with the people coming to read your content.
Analyze your traffic and see what people are already finding you from and what's already working. Don't try every new thing that comes out, see what's already working.
For complete blogging beginners, must start with regular great content, post in multiple places (don't always have to post just to your Blog, update your Flickr and other profiles and link them all together), comment on other Blogs and use trackbacks. Also consider using a commenting system like IntenseDebate and Disqus.
Collaboration is also a great way to get started - do projects together with another blogger or video blogger. Also, build on what others have done -- find great video and use their relevant tags and format and build on it. This way, like on YouTube, if you have a relevant video to a very popular video, your's might end up being shown immediately next to a very popular video.
Beth Kanter uses other social sites to help with her blogging - she uses Twitter to ask questions to help flesh out blog posts and other content. This helps to include different audience members in different aspects of her social media contribution -- networking weaving.
Great idea to get on Twitter now at Blogher to ensure that you connect and grow your network with like-minded individuals immediately. This grows your sphere of influence and helps you to connect as never before.
Free stuff is good, people respond incredibly well to it. Companies are increasingly looking to passionate bloggers to be brand influencers. Does your audience like a particular kind of product or brand? Consider contacting the company and asking if they'd like to give something away.
Use Friendfeed to search for your company and product name to track what people are saying about you. It gives you an opportunity to engage another blogger and grow your community that much more across multiple platforms (Krista uses Summize, Friendfeed and Google Blog Search).
