The Future of Blogging: Market your Blog

There's been discussion of my fellow classmates looking to take what they've learned from this social media/internet for PR class and using it after the semester ends by launching their own blogs. I sincerely hope that there are some great new blogs coming out of this class as we pair our interests with our new web 2.0-ness. Today, I'd like to offer a great page of resources from ProBlogger that lists all of the great articles that resulted from their "31 Days to Building a Better Blog" project.

This page, and ProBlogger in general, is a great one-stop shop for blogging resources - especially for those interested in gaining more readers and publicity for your blog (and who isn't?).

If you think you'd like to take this a step further and turn blogging into a job, then check out ProBlogger's Job Board, which lists companies who are looking for bloggers to write about a specific topic or industry.

Who out there is starting their own blog after this semester? I know Aisa is.

Web Video Class Project: Religious Tolerance

For our final group project of the semester, each group had to make a video about a social issue they were passionate about. We used Flickr images to make a video collage about religious tolerance by showing different religions' takes on "the golden rule". Even though each religion practices differently - the message of respect is the same.

The song is "Wisdom" by Delerium.

Religions in order of appearance: Judaism, Hinduism, Sikhism, Native American Spirituality, Islam, Wicca, and Christianity.

And speaking of getting caught by your "social" life...

Check out this article from Valleywag about an intern who said he had a "family emergency" but then submits his Halloween party pics on Facebook from the night he was supposed to work.

This article features his original email, the reply, then the office-wide email sent with his lovely Halloween picture.

Super Cool: User-Generated Greatness = Suzi Blu + To-Do List blog

Most of you know about the run-away success of blogs like PostSecret, which just won the 2007 Weblog Award for Best Blog, but I wanted to share two of my favorite user-generated successes that are under the radar that exemplify the humanness of web 2.0 - isn't that what this is all about?

Suzi Blu's How To Keep an Art Journal (YouTube Series)

My rejuvenated artistic side and my love for Moleskine notebooks has brought me to Suzi Blu's endearing web series. Along with keeping a weekly vlog video, she has a little mini-series called "How to Keep an Art Journal" that was inspiring and charming. Suzi is sweet and very encouraging, and I found her own artwork and mentality about art and life inspiring. Check out her website (where she links to her eBay auctions of her original works) and her blog.

To-Do List (Blog)

Similar to PostSecret in that viewers can submit their own work, this blog features scanned hand-written to-do lists about anything and everything from groceries to "should I ask her out?" pros and cons. The submitted works are addicting to read (usually a marker of a web success) and now the creator of the blog (hosted by Blogger and featured in their "Blogs of Note"), Sasha Cagen, has published a collection of these lists in a book a-la-PostSecret. Sasha has also been featured on NBC as a result of her work.

Who are the web 2.0 stars in your eyes?

Case Study Update: Whole Foods Top Exec Banned from Forums

Remember the case study we discussed about the Whole Foods incident? I found the latest update from Social TNT: the top exec has been banned from participating in forums.

According to the Wall Street Journal article "Whole Foods Bars Executives From Web Forums":

Whole Foods Market Inc.'s board, reacting to Internet postings by its chief executive, amended the company's code of business conduct last week to sharply restrict online activities by the grocer's officials.

The new code bars top executives and directors from posting messages about Whole Foods, its competitors or vendors on Internet forums that aren't sponsored by the natural-foods chain.

This seems a bit of a delayed reaction, and a pretty obvious one at this point. Whole Foods had to make some sort of announcement about a policy change, but you'd think they would've done this earlier.

Social Media Resume: show off your mad 2.0 skillz

I had starred this post from Marcom Blog as a favorite last month, but now it's particularly pertinent since our next assignment is a social media press release about ourselves - a social media resume.

Classmates, check out the post link above for some examples of other's social media resumes and maybe they can inspire you for your own assignment.

Check out the source of Marcom's entry: a post entitled Die, resume! Die! Die! Die! by Bryan Person, where Bryan details his reasoning in support of the SMR and goes over a list of what you should include in your own.

another example (if a bit too much for our needs, but definitely the right idea): Rohit Bhargava's Social Media Bio

A Lil' Bit of LinkLove

Though these sorts of posts aren't the most exciting reads, at least I can point my readers in the direction of some interesting articles I've harvested from my prolific RSS feed that I just can't keep up with. Here's some of the articles I actually stopped to read:

Technology:

Microsoft happy with Vista, despite adoption- (Ars Technica) Seems that Vista is proving profitable in that sales are up (because XP is no longer an option) and the corporate world is starting to slowly adopt it. Personally, I don't think there should be any rush for businesses to adopt Vista unless they're already planning on upgrading their computers as well.

RSPlug.A Mac OS X trojan: a new threat, but the sky is not falling- (Ars Technica) You will cry too when it happens to you. Just because getting a virus on a Mac is very unlikely doesn't mean you shouldn't be wary. At least wear protection and get an anti-virus program on.

Public Relations:

PR-Squared's Social Media Tactics Series: Blogger Relations- (PR Squared) Todd puts out another public service. This one is in the form of a bookmark about blogger relations.

No need for media relations — not when you make the blacklist!- (Tough Sledding) Bloggers are quickly coming up with their own "Do not spam" lists concerning poorly distributed press releases and pitches. A wrong move, an agency blacklisted. Get out those bookmarks!

Everything I Needed to Know about PR I learned from Office Space- (Technosailor) Just for fun. Movie clips that exemplify PR 101.