3 posts to help cure bloggage

by Susan Cato on June 25, 2010 · 0 comments

I have been suffering from some serious ‘bloggage’ -  a term commonly used to describe one’s inability to find the inspiration or time to blog regularly.

I dug into my arsenal of links and recovered the following three posts about blogging.

These posts provide practical ideas and techniques to come up with ideas for topics and approaches for writing posts:

Share your resources here!

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Social Media, Social Networking & You

by Susan Cato on May 3, 2010 · 0 comments

If your organization is using social media and social networks and you are wondering where you fit in - this post is for you.  The problem is, most people don’t understand what this is, are not sure why we need to do it or can’t see how it fits in to the bigger picture, and many think only their web and social media folks get to use it.

Well, not really…

Think of yourself at a reception at one of your events.  When you are asked to mingle and network with event attendees, we nurture relationships through conversation, make connections and share ideas, which ultimately strengthens customer loyalty and engagement.

This is what social networking is all about.  Social media simply refers to the tools we use to communicate and talk about it.

Successful organizations adopt this social approach as part of their culture – and that is where you want to be.  It is customer service, marketing, sales, member outreach and networking all rolled in to one.  For many of us, it is (or should be) part of what we do every day.

We have a challenge and an opportunity

Our challenge is to step outside of our comfort zone and learn how to use these new tools.  Our opportunity is to take our organizations to the next level using social media and social networks in innovative and creative ways – engaging our members, customers and partners beyond what we currently do.

Whether it’s customer service, communications, marketing, or general outreach – we should all be using these social tools to share information, participate in conversations, answer questions, and communicate information about everything you do.

Here are a few things you can do:

  • Participate in conversations and share links in your social networks on LinkedIn and/or Facebook.
  • Start reading industry blogs and start leaving comments and engaging in conversations.
  • Start using Twitter – search Twitter every day for your organizations name and see what people are saying.
  • Share ideas for blog posts and/or podcasts with the appropriate folks in your organization.

Let me know what you are doing to get involved!

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Social media strategy and content strategy: like peas and carrots

December 16, 2009

If I have said it once, I have said it a thousand times. Developing a content strategy and plan is extremely critical for a successful social media strategy.
You can’t invite folks to dinner without offering them a meal.
And why does everything come back to food, anyway? or shoes - oh yeah, that’s another post.
Back to [...]

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Dell, the value of social media, and shoes

December 10, 2009

Manish Mehta, Vice President, Social Media and Community for Dell recently wrote about the value of social media in the Huffington Post.
Mehta cites that sound business strategies are “rooted in developing, maintaining and strengthening relationships with customers.” Social media enables us to do just that - if managed in the right way. Mehta goes on [...]

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The coolest presentation tool ever - Prezi.com

October 5, 2009

A brilliant co-worker shared this with me. Between using Poll Everywhere and Prezi - my next presentation is sure to be the coolest on the block.
Go check it out: http://www.prezi.com

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Engage your audience with interactive presentations

September 11, 2009

Looking for ways to better engage your audience at your live, in-person events or education sessions? How about polling your audience and discussing the results in real-time during the presentation?
Use Poll Everywhere to engage your audience. Poll Everywhere enables people to answer via text (sms) message, twitter, or the web and can display results real-time [...]

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More Twitter Tutorial: Twitter Networking Tips from TwiTip

September 10, 2009

Another great resource (while I am on a Twitter-roll):  8 Twitter Networking Tips: From Online to In-the-Flesh is an excellent post on how to use Twitter for networking, shameless self-promotion, and doing good things. Combine this with what you just learned from Lowrider Librarian - and you will be a Twitter star.

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Best Twitter Tutorial Ever

September 10, 2009

I recently stumbled upon the blog Lowrider Librarian (you gotta love that name) while doing some research about Twitter use within organizations.  In a recent post, Twitter for Organizations, he provides a very simple, clear tutorial about what Twitter is and how to use it.
It is by far the best Twitter explanation I have found. [...]

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Text Messaging, Marketing, and Education

September 3, 2009

My 17 year old son sent over 4,000 text messages last month. Call me old skool, but I cannot even fathom communicating that much via texts (I have trouble sending one in under 20 minutes). After a lengthy “talking to” it dawned on me that he doesn’t really ever actually talk on the phone anymore [...]

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Using tags for collecting, organizing and publishing content

September 2, 2009

Strategic content tagging is one the most overlooked practices online today. Using them strategically not only helps others find your stuff, but it helps you repackage and repurpose content easily and in very targeted ways.
If the basic concept of tagging confuses you - check out this “Tagging 101″ tutorial from ZDnet:

Many people associate tagging with [...]

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