happykatie :: katie rocks out the interwebs

Blogging for Business - Sweeter than cupcakes?

Blogging for Business - Sweet for all sizes

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: business small)

This is a recent presentation I did for an Internet Marketing for Small Business class at the UHSBDC last week.  It's always a challenge to know exactly what a varied audience is looking for when discussing Blogging for Business 101, so this presentation gave a wide overview of companies making a success of it in different ways and the tools they use to get there.

This particular presentation has a few general points on defining a Blog's success (the message primarily being that you need to be creative, pro-active and diligent in finding a definition of success and measuring it - lots of pre-launch evaluation action):

• What are you specifically telling your visitors to do?
  • Eyeball those driven hits to specific areas of your Blog, your services/products page, a special landing page on your main Web site, etc.
• Action in your comments area
  • Try www.intensedebate.com for a more social approach to commenting
• Are you getting talked about, linked to or visited by Influencers?
  • Prolific Bloggers vs. Influential Bloggers - use Technorati or IceRocket rankings to determine who is who influence-wise (you want Influential btw)
• Pick your reader's brains with polls (like www.polldaddy.com)
• Get people signing up for your newsletter (www.mailchimp.com)
• Raise funds (www.chipin.com) and track your campaign goals

Not a comprehensive list, of course - but a basic starting-out kind of thing.  I look forward to running classes where the Social Media training is more hands one versus example-driven and theoretical.  Fun to really get your hands dirty, whether with clients or passionate marketers diving into the Social Media world.

noneck shines the light on China with Qik / live video streaming

Continuing on the power of Qik motif (see Congressman Culberson's live video activity here), Noel Hidalgo (aka:  @noneck) has been off changing the world again, this time stirring up trouble (in all the best ways) in China during the Olympics.

He and John Hocevar (founder of Students for a Free Tibet) were interviewed by Amy Goodman on Democracy Now about their experiences as citizen journalists during the Olympics in Beijing -- and their consequent deportation:

AMY GOODMAN: And when did the authorities catch you, deport you? Or did they stop you each time, at each protest?

NOEL HIDALGO: I was not stopped. I was actually—I was harassed by local Chinese every single time. I was told that I was a demon, I was a devil, for showing China in this particular light, because they saw me capturing this footage. On the third protest, where the students unfurled their banner at the ticket office where John and I were both detained, I just happened to have a high-definition consumer camera, and I was thrown up against the wall, my arm was twisted behind my back, and I was subsequently detained for being a Westerner who was capturing this footage. I wanted to show the rest of the world what exactly was going on in China.   

Also, be sure to check out Noel's live video of a Free Tibet protest in Tianamen Square.  I heart Social Media.

Thanks AMA Houston Tech SIG for the Business Blogging conversation

The AMA Houston Tech SIG hosted a great Blog Forward presentation today with 3 panelists of various Blogging heritages including myself (www.happykatie.com and Schipul), Greg Price (of PKF and www.fromgregshead.com) and Michael Berry (of Ops Manager at Clear Channel and of KTRH blogs).

Many thanks to Rob Roberts and the AMA Tech SIG crew for hosting the event.  I'm hoping that participants walked away with some actionable Blogging ideas for their own business online marketing adventures.   Scroll to the end of this post to view my presentation slides or visit me on Slideshare here.

In the end, it's all about the right people and the right content.  Once you have those right, the possibilities are limitless.  Recruit from within, grow your peoples' personal brands and BLOG!!  I highly recommend checking out this article by Ed Schipul on what to do when starting a Social Media program for additional background.

In case your geekery meter hasn't overloaded yet, here are some links that I shared while on stage:

Blogging Tools

1. Typepad (which Schipul uses and I use for 2 blogs):  www.typepad.com
2. Wordpress (a great free blog platform that I use for 1 blog):  www.wordpress.com
3. Movable Type (a little more complex, but great for group blogs):  www.movabletype.com
4. Blogger (free, but I'm not a huge fan):  www.blogger.com

Blog Analytics Tools

1. Google Analytics (free and greatly improved!):  www.google.com/analytics
2. Feedburner (free tool to track your RSS feed #s):  www.feedburner.com
3. Stat Counter (another freebie):  www.statcounter.com

Link Grab Bag

1. Flickr (online photography community):  www.flickr.com
2. Slideshare (like YouTube but for Powerpoints):  www.slideshare.net
3. Technorati (a search engine for Blogs):  www.technorati.com
4. Del.icio.us (social bookmarking site that rocks):  http://del.icio.us

Thanks to all who participated - I look forward to seeing you on the Blogosphere :)  And, of course, feel free to drop me a line sometime:  happykatie at gmail.com.  Photo thanks to Ed Schipul - click here for more AMA Houston pics!

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SxSWi 2008 was awesome (aka: pimping)

SXSW Interactive Festival 2008 was super, as always.  While the quality of panel content wasn't as consistent as I would've hoped, the people, events and general camaraderie  were outstanding.  As were the beer, wine, Nuclear Tacos and the 400 times we ate at Iron Cactus.  Also as were (if that even makes sense), the awesome fuzzy pimp hats and bling we indulged in for Ed Schipul's 'Pimp My NonProfit' panel.

I live blogged several panels and updated them this evening with photos, better descriptions and general grammatical edits so as not to appear a complete lame-o poster.  Specifically:

1.  Weird Turn Pro panel with Derek Powazek
2.  Henry Jenkins opening remarks
3. High-Tech Craft session moderated by Natalie Zee Drieu

Feel like you missed out?  Some ideas on getting your SXSWi 2008 fix: Flickr, Technorati,  re-visit Meebo chats or check out Pulse SXSW for video clips.

To all of the friendly new faces I came in contact with, you really made this a special weekend.  Thanks for the giggles, jokes, advice and brilliant ideas - I'm constantly inspired by every single one of you.

Find the above SXSWi 2008 mosaic in my Flickr stream here - also thanks to CC loving Flickr photogs techslut and wangjy!

A good start to 2008: tethered-happykatie

So I'm not going to lie, I feel sad that this is the first real post I have written in 2008.  But no worries, this isn't going to be one of the apology lame-a** posts.  Instead, I have some beautiful things to share with you:

** Currently I am quite blissfully happy looking at photos taken at Avant Garden of a beautiful show, NeoFormalism1.  Ed Schipul took some beautiful photos (please see above) that are posted to his Flickr account.  Rose and Olive were there of course and I got to meet painter Terrell James, Jenny-Beck (of Nova Arts Project) and Varina (of Arts Houston), as well as hang out with my fave office neighbor / morning commute stalker pal Jonti.

** Today, not only did I get to hang out with Jenny the Bloggess and Laura (aka: The Queso) but I also got to meet Karen (of Chookooloonks) for the very first time.  She was awesome and is now pretty much Ella's favorite new person :)  I love being with intelligent, fierce Blogging chicas!

** NetSquared is going to be amazing this month on Tuesday, Jan. 8th with Kelly McCann of the AIDS Houston Foundation.  Free booze and amazing conversation - RSVP online here!

**  My cheeky new art club, Houston Dr. Sketchy, is holding its first event next Sunday, January 13th from 2-5pm at Avant Garden.  It's  an awesome art geek gathering with a killer DJ (Low End Theory), fun contests and a different life model every month (this time we get a little Burlesque with Ann Berlin).

** Houston is getting its very first Social Media conference on Jan. 17th with the Got Social Media? event.  There are some great speakers (Ed, Laura, Erica and Kelsey among them!) and is one more awesome way that the Houston tech community is growing in leaps and bounds.

Things have started out crazy-busy, but very good, in 2008 - I'm looking forward to starting at Boston University early this year, Adam is about to move into some great studio space at his ceramics shop and (absolutely, 100% most importantly) Ella/happykiddo is blossoming into an even more beautiful and hilarious little sparklette. 

Hope your year has started out smashingly well :) Drop me a line and let me know what you're up to!

Threadbangers - DIY with love from YouTube

I'm so in crafty-love with Threadbangers - a killer online DIY network full of how-to crafty videos, forums and brain candy for those that want to re-fashionize their wardrobe and look fah-bulous doing so. 

There are oh-so-many dedicated crafty and DIY fashion sites out there right now, both for selling/purchasing handcrafted goods (or gleaning ideas and inspiration from) and for learning how to make them yourself. 

Here are just a few of my fave Crafty/DIY sites (don't hate me if I left you off - this is seriously off the top of me noggin):

• Etsy (www.etsy.com)
• Get Crafty (www.getcrafty.com)
• Burda style (www.burdastyle.com)
• The Anti Craft (www.theanticraft.com)
• Not Martha (www.notmartha.org)
• Fitz Patterns (www.fitzpatterns.myshopify.com/collections/free)
• Pink of Perfection (www.pinkofperfection.com)
• Craft Sanity (www.craftsanity.com)
• Shana Logic - formerly PixelGirl (www.shanalogic.com)

How to customize your Typepad design (even when you're a slacker like me)

I have to brag on my company's Creative Director Tim Newton, as he has pumped out a couple of really killer tutorials in the last week.

First it was How to Design Email Newsletters for Outlook 2007 and more recently he threw up a super-easy Typepad Blog design customization tutorial.  As long as I have been using Typepad (since back in 7/2003... how the years do fly) I have consistently gone the easy route and used the standard layout with a random happykatie header.

Actually, I kept the exact same look and happykatie header for years and years and years - you remember the one, the 50's diner-esque with hipster kids in cool sneakers hanging out?  Good times.  Now I'm stuck with 2006's autumn theme (my plan was to change seasonally like the always adorable ljc and other fave blogs), but my how seasonal I look now!!  Right?  Right?  Anyone?

Sooo...  check out Tim's great Typepad design tutorial.  And don't judge me for last year's Fall colors.   Mmmmkay?

IntenseDebate brings commenting to the next level

I love being on sites and online communities that have really active comments and forums - it's such an interesting way to see people interact with each other and a great way to get extra links and tidbits.

That being said, comments are normally disappointingly one-dimensional - sometimes you get to subscribe to comment updates, but on the whole it's an unsatisfying way to connect with people across other networks and sites.

So that's where IntenseDebate comes in, providing a full service kind of commenting system:

• It makes it super-simple to track comment updates on a particular post -- but also lets you track your friends' commenting activity across all sites.   
• You can create IntenseDebate profiles so that your social profiles info and avatar is always visible (branding anyone?).
• Just to make sure you're not a jerkface, IntenseDebate lets other users vote your comments up or down -- giving you a commenting reputation of sorts -- and also moving the more popular comments up in rank.  Trolls beware...
• They've also got handy badges/widgets to let you showcase your commenting community that much more
• And they're OpenID friendly - it doesn't get much better than that

Do check it out -- and leave some comments so we can try this puppy out for real already :)

Artful Blogging - getting purdy in the blogosphere

I splurged a little bit today and bought a cool Canadian magazine called Artful Blogging.

It is a beautifully designed magazine with an eye out on the blogosphere looking for talented bloggers and crafty types.  Do give it a read through.

Meet Heliomag - my favorite corporate Blog

So you've probably noticed that I'm a pretty big Helio fan these days.  My Helio Ocean is great, my customer service experience with them has been fantastic and now I'm hooked on their blog:  Heliomag.

Talk about a company doing that Social Media hat dance right - Heliomag is actually a place that real people like to visit and doesn't try to bore me to death with thinly veiled corporate policy blahblah and other ridiculousness.

Heliomag gives you cool interviews, sweet art exhibit and creative news, tips and tricks for your Helio,  music reviews and oh yes -- a link to the DVORAK zine. dOOd.  In short, their company Blog is a universally interesting place that offers regularly updated unique content, which in turn makes Helio look cool and informed, which in turn makes me - the consumer - feel cool and smart for giving them my money.

I like feeling cool and smart - how about you?