when are online social networks NOT time-suckers?

When you use them strategically for your business. Simply put, we participate in online social networks to connect to others. For your company or work, this connection parlays into new clients, new ideas, new business. So, how do you do it? How do you use Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn…and so many more, as a real marketing tool and not as a time-sucker?

1. Define time-sucking. Realize that to use these networks effectively, you have to spend some time on them. At the beginning you need to set up and personalize your account, connect to people and then continually communicate with them. This time spent is markedly different than time spent playing Scrabulous, tweeting about your lunch, etc. Though I’m sure you deserve a little bit of this mind-numbing, fun time every day as well. (no judgement)

2. Set up your profile to showcase your business. When people friend you or link to you or view your profile, make sure they can see who you are and what you do. If you can syndicate your blog on your profile, do it; if you can add images, do it. If you can add links, do it. And, show us your pretty face, do it.

3. Syndicate your work. Blogs fit in nicely here. When you put up a post, tell your network about it and give them the easy link. Blogs are an instant introduction to your personality and your expertise. If a project you just worked on went live, tell us about that too…showcase yourself. And, won’t your clients be thrilled.

4.  Broadcast events, success, interesting news. Literally shout it out from the rooftops, you never know when someone will be looking for exactly what you’ve got.

5. Realize the breadth of your network. It’s not just the people you are linked to. It’s also the people they are linked to and beyond. Be interesting and use the words that are key to your business, company, industry…these things are searchable, you know, if you want them to be. They can also be viral. If you broadcast something that your network thinks others will find interesting, they will share it.

6. Participate. If I’ve said it once…Seriously, why should anyone listen to you, visit your link or syndicate your info if you aren’t doing the same. Your participation demonstrates to others that there is something in it for them as well. Don’t make it all about you….even if it is.

7. Network with your network. When it comes right down to it, this is good, old-fashioned networking. Talk to people, find out about them, see where your common interests are…suggest ways to move forward.

Some days will be more beneficial than others…that’s life. But on those really good days - the days when you make an incredible connection or strike a golden deal, any time-suckage will have been worth it….and so will the good karma you sent to a friend on Facebook.

what happens when technology fails

I don’t cry very often. I can count the times I’ve cried so far this year on one hand - in March when my brother told me he had to give his dog away, in June as the credits rolled on the Sex & the City movie (who am I kidding? I cried through the entire movie) and yesterday when my email wouldn’t work. Yes, I cried like a baby when I could neither send or receive email on my computer.

I’m a little bit ashamed, not so much by the tears, but because of my rabid dependence on the internet. I was frozen, paralyzed by my inability to email. It was suggested to me that I ‘use the time to get some writing done’ which sounds romantic and all, but when I’m done writing, my email will still be down.

Ahhh, and we’re back to the freelancer’s dilemma. I can’t call IT and tell them to deal with this while I work. So I sat on the phone with some young, and fairly rude, guys from Bluehost for over an hour. They told me that they had done all that they could, that no one on their team ‘knew Macs’ and that this was obviously a Mac problem, not a server problem. Really? Because when I signed up for Bluehost, it didn’t say ‘We do not support or service Mac users.” That’s when I started to cry: my life had ended and my precious work day was slipping away.

And then I remembered 1-800-275-2273, otherwise known as Apple Care, otherwise known as manna from heaven. I talked to Stefanie, and she was so nice to me, sincerely kind - even though I was crying and lunatical. She walked me through everything - even through checking my mail via the Bluehost webmail page to make sure it wasn’t a server issue - and let me assure you that she did this even though she doesn’t ‘know Bluehost’. My ports had ‘reset’ themselves to the wrong numbers overnight - something that I find rather creepy and rude. But, now I know where the ports are and I know the numbers they like - I even wrote it all down so I wouldn’t have to go through this next time.

I lost two hours yesterday, and it wasn’t completely world-ending. I’m not thrilled with Bluehost (usually their customer service is so good and so not 16 year-old, smart-ass & boy-like). I am thrilled with Apple and have been since the day I walked into the store to by my Macbook (note: I haven’t purchased a new iPhone or engaged MobileMe). And a big THANKS to my techie angel, Stefanie.

Warning: social rant, not about writing or marketing!

Pissed Off Mother Alert. If you visit this blog to learn about writing, blogging or marketing, move on to the next post - this is about none of those things and shouts a very strong opinion.

I just saw a horrible snippet from The View where Whoopi, of all people, and Joy Behar were talking about how ‘disgusting’ it is that women are ‘cross nursing’. Cross nursing means that you nurse someone else’s baby and vice versa. Oddly enough, Elisabeth Hasselback was okay with it.

Grow up, ladies. Or maybe ‘go back’ is more appropos. Women used to raise their children in communities - the women supported each other and worked together…I’ve no doubt in my mind that this didn’t include cross nursing.

Breast milk is the absolute best thing in the world for babies. It provides antibodies, builds their immune system, has the perfect ratio of protein, carbs, fat, is full of essential, developmental vitamins and minerals and delivers enzymes and good bacteria that builds the intestinal flora - all in a perfectly, literally, digestible fluid. The act of breastfeeding promotes bonding, social and emotional development, helps develop clear communication, reduces crying and aids sleep. Being close to another loving body actually teaches the baby’s system how to breathe and survive. I could go on for days.

In today’s world, women are literally forced to choose between being mothers and having a life outside the home; being with their children and having financial and social independence. If a woman has a community of women that she feels safe with, and can ask them to nurse their child while she is at work or simply taking a walk by herself - this is a godsend; if you’ve raised children, you know the value of this sharing. If my child is inconsolable or hurt and my friend’s breast will soothe her, what a lifesaver. What about the mother who can not physically nurse, but understands the importance of breast milk for her baby? What about the orphaned infant or the infant rescued from a dangerous situation now in the arms of a foster family?

When my daughter was born early at 2lbs., she couldn’t nurse immediately because her intake had to be monitored, so I pumped and froze gallons of milk until I could nurse her completely. I figured we would use it someday, but we didn’t. We heard, through a friend, about a baby living in our town with foster parents - she had been taken from her crack-addicted mother. And we gave her my milk - something I was so thrilled to be able to do. There are milk banks springing up around the world to help these types of situations.

Women are most often mistreated in the name of mysoginy, sexism…and beyond. Our ability to produce milk that sustains and builds life is a super power. A SUPER POWER. The sisterhood is strong and sharing our milk is a positive way that we build this women’s world of solidarity and support. Do you really not see that women were virtually separated from each other when we started living in separate homes while our husbands went off to work? And, that we need to work hard to band together?

Whoopi and Joy - you should know better. Don’t bow down to the rant that breast feeding is gross or sexual. Don’t jump to that place where cross nursing is ‘disgusting’. This is a woman thing, and a gift to us, don’t paint it any other way.

Update: Please cross nurse responsibly. Make sure that the health status, diet, body care products and moral code of the person who generously nurses your baby for you, if the situation calls for it, is to your liking.  And know that the birth mother’s milk is the absolute best choice for the baby - it was created specifically to support that baby by the body that made that baby.

can a mentee fall in love with their mentor?

I find my blog stats wildly interesting. Through my own, I found that someone landed on my site after searching this question: ‘can a mentee be infatuated with their mentor?’ Presumably, I came up in the search results because I have written about mentors and mentees, though I haven’t tackled this particular situation. But, it’s an interesting question…

And the answer is yes.

You may or may not know this, but I hold over 500 hours of yoga training and teacher certification. Incidentally, this training provided me with quite a bit of information on this issue. Because be it mentor/mentee, teacher/student, doctor/patient, etc…this is a real issue for many people.

It’s natural for the mentee to imagine themselves or to actually become in love with their mentor. This mentor, afterall, has all of the information, has found success, is living the life the mentee yearns for and exerts a sense of omniscience, power and control - over all situations.

Because the mentor holds the power, I believe it is the mentor’s responsibility to maintain the boundary, not abuse their position, and act like a real person. There is a wonderful book called Ethics of Caring: Honoring the Web of Life in Our Professional Healing Relationships by Kylea Taylor, featuring a Foreword by Jack Kornfield, that I highly recommend. Yes, I realize that it say’s ‘Healing’ Relationships…and they are speaking to yoga teachers, doctors, healers, therapists. But sometimes I am all of those things to my clients. Marketing your business and self-promotion are intense, they require growth, risk-taking and a real and internal look. Maybe they don’t define ‘healing’, but they do incorporate critical points in the process of transformation and development. Anyway, my point is this book will be helpful if you’re in the ‘mentor’ roll.

If you are in the mentee, student or patient roll and you are struggling with feelings for your ‘mentor’ or if you feel that your ‘mentor’ is being inappropriate in any way, please get help and support. Talk to someone that you can trust or call the RAINN hotline: 800-656-HOPE (4673). 

julie roads: total geek

This post is an open invitation for you to jeer, throw tomatoes, laugh, ridicule….or join me. This weekend I had three separate opportunities to tell people I was just meeting about my business and this industry of marketing, social media, copywriting and blogging.

I start by saying that I’m a writer. That I write for a diverse range of clients and that I specialize in blogging, blog marketing, social media participation - both production and consulting. And as I say the word marketing, I see the tangible attitude shift. The wonder inspired by of the word ‘writer’ fades, and the ‘ewww, a sleazy salesman’ judgement falls like a red velvet curtain - heavy and fast.

But, I don’t let it stop me, not even for a second. I start talking about permission and relationship marketing - and their power. About the fact that I’ve made a commitment to myself and my clients that I will never send spam, buy a list or force a product or service on the people. About the amazing things that happen because of my social media participation. About how my client’s have grown through their blogs. About the fact that I can’t wait to see what happens every day.

And here comes the geek part. Every time this happened, every single time, I got massive goose bumps. It’s like my whole self lights up like a Christmas tree. My work makes me so happy.

Go ahead, take your best shot…

the interview swap: MEAGAN FRANCIS

In the spirit of all things Web 2.0, I followed an enticing link I received in my Google Alerts, and landed on a fantastic article by a woman named Meagan Francis. I then followed the links at the bottom of the article back to Meagan’s website only to find a gifted author, blogger and community-activated mother of a gazillion kids - all boys, mind you. We started to chat, found some common ground, became ‘web’ friends and decided to shake things up a bit on our blogs.

Because we liked each other’s work so very much, we wanted to share our new finds with our readers. We had many ideas about how to do this, but landed on this one: We interviewed each other and we’re posting the interviews on each other’s blog. Below you will find Meagan’s wonderful and insightful answers to questions about writing, being a freelancer & a mom, blogging for business and more. To read my answers, you’ll have to journey over to Meagan’s blog…and I encourage you to check her out, because she is truly a gem. Most recently? She and a small group of mommy bloggers blogged their way live across the country to BlogHer ‘08, roadtrip style - Katie Couric even took notice. Pretty cool. Here’s Meagan:

1. Who are you?
I am Meagan Francis, a writer, author, blogger, mom of four boys and wife of Jon the Geek. I love traveling (with or without my family), showtunes, and walks on the beach. Oh wait, Julie already used that one.

2. What do you do?
I write about pregnancy, birth, family life and motherhood as well as travel, lifestyle and mind/body wellness for national magazines like Natural Health, Parenting, and Pregnancy and regional publications like Michigan BLUE and AAA Living. I also blog for sites like www.chicagomomsblog.com. I’ve written a newspaper parenting column for over four years, and have two parenting books under my belt: Table for Eight and The Everything Guide to Postpartum Care.

3. What kind of writing do you do?
Mainly consumer writing, which means I write for the people who buy magazines and newspapers (or the people who buy the products featured on the ads on websites and blogs). I do a lot of “service” writing, which is the how-to variety, but also write a fair number of first-person essays and columns.

4. What kind of writing do you wish you could spend all of your time doing?
Hmm. Actually, I’m really glad that I don’t have to spend all my time doing any one kind of writing! One of the things I love most about my work is that while there is a constant theme (I’m writing all the time), the topics, audiences and approaches are always changing up. It keeps me on my toes, provides a challenge and is just plain fun. Once in a while, I get tired of doing a certain type of story, but when that happens I can usually just move in a different direction until it passes—which doesn’t take long.

5. How do you manage your business and your family and yourself?
This is a toughy. It’s hard not to work all the time when you work from home around your kids. You have to be really disciplined about picking a time to turn the computer OFF and sticking to it. Since I started seriously freelancing in 2003, I’ve had two babies (plus the two olders I already had) and have had to learn to work quickly and efficiently in order to take advantage of small bits of time as they present themselves. It does get easier as kids get older and can entertain themselves for a while or spend more time away from Mom, but there’s no doubt about it, balancing is hard. And the older I get, the harder it seems for me to work late into the night like I used to do regularly.

I deal by making sure that the time I spend on the computer really counts (so I’ve had to do away with a lot of time-wasters, like checking silly websites or watching videos on YouTube all day…) and outsourcing what I can. Like housecleaning. It would take me three times as long as it takes a good housecleaner to do things like mop the floors and scrub the bathtub. It makes a lot more financial sense to hire somebody to do a better job than I would anyway, and then spend the time I’ve saved working.

6. Do you ever get writer’s block?
Not really. Once in a while I get blocked on a specific story, but it’s often related to something OTHER than writing. Like say I’m stressed out about having too much on my plate—I transfer all of that stress into an upcoming deadline, and it becomes this big THING and I find myself avoiding it. After a while it’s just silly…for all the time I waste avoiding the assignment, I could have written the thing four or five times over. I hardly ever get blocked when I’m on a tight deadline (adrenaline snaps me out of it) but strangely, sometimes when I give myself too much time to work on a story, I have a hard time getting started.

7. What do you do when this happens?
I’ve gotten pretty good at recognizing when I’m throwing roadblocks in my own way, and can get around it by walking away from the assignment for a while and doing something to deal with the other stressors in my life. Also, if I’m having a really hard time getting started on a story, I’ll use little tricks like picking out my favorite quotes from interviews, pasting them on to a page and writing the story around them. Or I start with the middle or end of the story and write backward. Sometimes just a small shift in perception can help. If the problem is that I’m starting so far in advance that I don’t have the incentive of a deadline, I try doing little parts of the process that don’t actually involve a lot of writing—printing out research, creating a source list for my editors, outlining the story. Then I’m getting something done, even if I’m not ready to really dig in to the writing yet.

8. What did having a website do for your business inititally?
I’ve had a site since 2003, and it’s always been essential for my business. I do almost all of my querying via e-mail, and having a site gives me credibility and a place to showcase my work. Now that I’m doing more than magazine stories—I have my books, TV appearances, interviews, etc—my website gives me a professional place to display everything I’ve got going on.

9. What is the purpose of your blog?
My blog has gone through a lot of transformation! I initially started blogging in 2000 or 2001, when it was still a relatively unknown thing. Since I wasn’t writing professionally yet, I blogged anonymously under my first name and wrote very frankly about personal things going on in my life. Since then, I’ve definitely scaled back the personal nature of my blog and use it more as a way for my readers to get to know me (but not TOO much about me) and to get to know my readers and other bloggers. It also gives me a great opportunity to write about things I’m interested in but that may not be a good fit for any of my other outlets.

10. What have you gotten from your blog that you didn’t intend to get - good and bad?
Good—practice, discipline (it’s hard to keep adding content regularly that people might actually want to read!) and the opportunity to participate in a larger community. Bad—confusion. I’m always wondering if I should take my blog in a different direction, get more personal, more professional, start a new blog, etc.

11. Is your blog the primary vehicle for selling your work?
Not so far. I mostly sell my work through query letters/pitches and referrals. But, I have noticed an increasing number of editors have found me through my blog, or editors who already know me have read my blog and then come to me with a story idea based on something I’ve blogged about. So it’s a useful tool for getting work, even if it’s not the primary tool…yet.

12. What advice would you give to someone thinking about maybe, possibly, sort of starting a blog and/or a website for their business?
Do it now. Seriously, I am always baffled when I see a writer’s byline and then find that they have no internet presence whatsoever. I really believe that the era of a website being optional is almost over, if it’s not over already. No matter who’s looking for you or for what reason—to comment on something you’ve written, offer you more work, or offer you publicity for your work; chances are good they’re going to look online first…and if they don’t find you, they may move on.

13. Do you run your blog all by yourself (widgets, design, plugins) or does someone help you with that sort of thing?
I hired a designer to set up my site for me. I knew that I wanted it to be run within Wordpress so that I could customize different parts easily myself without having to change the whole site, and so I could have different parts of the site integrated together on the front page. But I didn’t have the skills to do what I wanted to have done, nor the available time to learn (remember what I said about outsourcing?) It was definitely a worthwhile investment.

Check out Meagan’s Website: www.meaganfrancis.com

To read my answers to these questions (and because her blog is a smart, informative and entertaining read) visit Meagan’s Blog: www.meaganfrancis.com/blog

Meagan’s Books: Table for Eight: Raising a Large Family in a Small-Family World (Alpha/Penguin, 2007)
The Everything Health Guide to Postpartum Care (Adams Media, 2007)

We will be hosting a cross-blog Q&A soon to answer any additional questions that you all might have for us! Just leave them in comments or send us an email.

using your blog as your portfolio or case study display, part 2

I can’t stop thinking about this ideas of using your blog as your portfolio. I’ve run it by some folks - and the excitement and possibilities are building. One of my clients whom I’m consulting as she begins her work as a freelancer realized that with this idea she could save thousands of dollars, and weeks of site-build time, she could start tonight. And she will.

Here, so far, is the best part. As Gem mentioned, why wait until the project is done? Why not document the entire project, Case Study-like on your blog? If you go back to my post on case studies, you’ll see that one of the benefits of this platform is that you’re allowing people to see your process, what it will be like to work with you and how good you are on the job. It’s transparency at its best, right?

That said, you have to have the right attitude because this calls for a fair amount of reveal. You can’t really hide the little man behind the curtain.

To use your blog to display case studies, here’s what you need to do:

1. Pick a project that is not top secret, of course.
2. Clear it with the client. Make sure you explain to them that this is free publicity that will last forever.
3. Choose a project that you feel uber-confident about. (you do want to look good here, afterall)
4. If snafus or issues arise, use them to your advantage. We are all learning here, and part of your skill is being able to handle whatever comes along and make it work in light of the fact that things have a habit of getting messy.
5. Depending on your industry, use print, audio, images, even video to capture the process.
6. Engage your audience. Give them a voice, literally. If you have 3 taglines you’re choosing from, why not let the people help you decide. Use the internet as a testing ground - so many people do it wisely and to their benefit.
7. Share your pride, enthusiasm and talent. Never under-estimate or under-promote your hard work or yourself.

Final piece for now (why do I have the feeling that I’ll have more to say on this topic?): I’m a Wordpress girl. And Brian Clark over at Copyblogger, with his partner, Chris Pearson, have developed a stunning, productive, dare I say, brilliant Wordpress theme called Thesis. Just one of the zillions of components it features? A customizable, rotating image box at the top of the page - the perfect showcase for your blog portfolio images, the perfect showcase. Don’t be surprised if my blog has a whole new look sometime soon. Click here to try Thesis for yourself.

using your blog as your portfolio or case study display, part 1

I recently wrote about the power of using case studies instead of a portfolio of finished work. And, I’ve realized that it’s almost the equivalent of a blog versus a static site. The portfolio pieces are static end products, while the case study is action, progress, collaboration, solution, process. Then Gem from The Lady Programmer dropped by with a comment about not needing to wait until projects were finished in order to display them via case studies. And, this made my mind just spin.

For instance, maybe you don’t need an official portfolio on your static site. In terms of cost (if you have to hire your web designer or master to make changes or if you use an intricate program to make it pretty or flashy), it would be much more effective to just post the finished projects, or better, the work in progress (case study style) on your blog, wouldn’t it?

Why do I feel like I’ve just discovered the electric orange juicer?

• You can instantly upload projects - keeping your readers and the world abreast of your latest and greatest achievements.
• The content, keywords and tags for each project and the industry it represents will bring in a whole new audience to your site.
• You have total control of when you post, including edits and updates.
• You can create a PORTFOLIO place on the blog, so everything is available on one page. This could be a static page on the blog with links out to each post or simply a new category.
• You direct people from your website (if you have a brochure site attached to your blog) to the PORTFOLIO section of your blog with a link and some copy.

Anyone have any good examples of people doing this already??? I’d love to hear about them.
(A little shout out to my tireless, award winning and phenomenal designer, Leslie Tane, who is at this very moment redoing my portfolio page, reading this post and thinking, ‘finally, Julie can handle this herself and is going to stop bothering me!’)

Coming tomorrow: Building a case study portfolio on your blog. How to do it.

starting a blog? ask these questions first…and a CONTEST.

When you decide to blog, you need to ask several preliminary questions. For the bloggers that are publishing a blog for the purposes of growing their business, establishing themselves as an expert, selling products, promoting services, etc…certain questions must be asked first - before you begin - in order to reach your goals. Here’s the list:

1. Why are you blogging? What is your goal, your mission, your raison d’etre?
2. Who is your audience? You will write, I hope, different kinds of posts if you’re communicating with 12 year-olds vs. electricians.
3. What is your audience looking for? This will influence your post topics, your keywords and your tone.
4. What do you know? Please only write about things you know - we look to many bloggers as sources of quality information, add to the trend.
5. Who knows what you don’t know? Interviewing experts offers vital information to your readers and it rounds out the information. I know, I know - I think I know everything too…but I don’t!
6.  What does your schedule look like? It is best to pick regular blog publishing days and stick with them. We are all creatures of habit and we tend to expect our blogs to air at their usual times - like our favorite TV shows.
7. Can you commit? The biggest blogging pitfall is not following through. If you can’t commit, pay someone to. If you recognize blogging as a powerful marketing tool for your business, it’s worth it.
8. Can you write? Valuable information that is captured in quality prose raises your levels of professionalism, engagement, return visitors, joint partners and respect. Hire a writer to help you if this isn’t your forte.
9. Does blogging make sense for your industry? Is the Pope Catholic? Sorry, I’m biased. I’m hard pressed to find a business that wouldn’t benefit in some way from a member’s establishing themselves as an expert, driving qualified traffic to their website, spreading the word, etc. But, if you can think of one, send it along. Let’s see if you can stump me. The gauntlet has been thrown. I’m giving away:

• 2 quality links from my blog to your blog or site AND
• a Blogging Roads post featuring your business
  

(unless it is mean, dirty distasteful or unfriendly, according to me). Just comment below or email me directly: julie(at)writingroads(dot)com

why we are so important: The Groundswell

One of my favorite bloggers, Ron Miller, who I unabashedly write about from time to time, has written another stunning post that happens to align directly with my current goings-on. His post illustrates one of the things that I love about Web 2.0: you just never know where the day or your interactions will take you. Ron was interviewing Brent Leary, a partner at CRM Essentials, about something completely different, and Brent mentioned that if your vendors aren’t supporting you the way they should be, you can just go to Twitter for help…help from the people, all of us regular Joes and Jolenes.

I just so happen to be reading a fantastic book by the likes of Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff called Groundswell: Winning in a World Tranformed by Social Technologies. It’s a bestseller, a must-read and a must-understand kind of book. And, it speaks to Brent’s comment above precisely.

The ‘groundswell’ is us - you and me, the people who are on social networking sites like Facebook, YouTube and MySpace; the people who use digg, de.licio.us and hugg; people talking on forums, in chatgroups, and on listserves; bloggers; blog readers; websurfers….people on Twitter who are ready to provide guidance.

We are beyond powerful. Through our online communication, our listening, our sharing, our reading, our participation, we have figured out ways to work around big companies. Not only do we not need them so much (are they here for us anyway?), but we can tell them about how to improve their product, services, company. Companies/people can be smacked down by the groundswell, ie. when they try to fight it by trying to get something taken off-line which creates an instant fervor to spread the item far and wide, or they can find incredible success by listening to the groundswell and participating themselves - ultimately by respecting the groundswell, ie. all of us.

I could talk about Groundswell all day long, but I won’t! Go read it…especially if:

• You think this Web 2.0 stuff is going to kill you, meanwhile, you have no idea what it is or even if it’s a good idea.
• You know this Web2.0 stuff is critical for your business, but you have no idea how to do it or you think you know exactly how to do it.
• You are a writer, designer, marketer, etc…and want to serve your clients in the best way possible.