Blog More, Facebook Less

Issue #805 April 1, 2014
Publisher: Joan Stewart

“Tips, Tricks and Tools for Free Publicity”

In This Issue

Blog More, Facebook Less
Danger: Guest Blog Post Links
Lots of Help for My Slogan
Hound Video of the Week

This Week in the Hound House:

I’m telling everybody in town about the newest addition to our spring farmer’s market. It’s Marne, a red-tailed hawk. A local guy brought the owl as entertainment on Saturday, and he was even letting little kids hold it on their arms. Here’s a short video I shot of Marne flapping her wings. That’s violin music you hear in the background. My farmer’s market even has a local music group that plays as we shop. I love where I live!

1. Blog More, Facebook Less

Facebook users, the media, and some of the most influential social media experts are hammering Facebook for its greedy pay-to-play rules and the skimpy exposure that your company’s status updates are getting.

This was the headline on a story Saturday on Time magazine’s blog: “The Free-Marketing Gravy Train Is Over on Facebook.” It said that right now, only 6 percent of a company’s followers see its posts but that Facebook is planning to eventually dial down that number to 1 to 2 percent. Ouch!

Just a few days before, at the prestigious Social Media Success Summit, host Michael Stelzner who published one of the most well-respected blogs on social media, delivered the message to blog more and Facebook less.

I wasn’t there. But Ryan Henley was.

“I was stunned,” Henley writes at his blog. “Facebook, the social media juggernaut, minimized at the largest social media marketing conference in the world, in the opening keynote no less.”

Henley’s Takeaway: “You don’t own the media unless you own the property. It’s that simple. Everything else you create everywhere else can be taken away from you.” In other words, don’t build your business on someone else’s land.

More major trends Henley spotted:

–Every brand needs to be on Google+. Now. See my directions on how to create an impressive Google+ Hovercard in 7 easy steps.

–If you don’t view your business as a media company that produces content like articles and videos, you’re toast, regardless of what product or service you sell.

–Podcasting and video are essential because they provide a deeper look at the human side of your business.

–The most powerful content you can create is answering your customers’ questions.

–All of this is damn hard work.

Read his entire post here.

2. Danger: Guest Blog Post Links

If you accept guest blog posts at your blog, like I do, beware of links the writer uses within the post, particularly those in the author resource box.

If the writer, a sales expert, links the words “sales expert” to her website, you can end up in Google’s penalty box, particularly if your blog has nothing to do with sales. That means your blog might not appear in Google search results.

In January, Google started cracking down on guest blog posts, especially those that people write just to get a link back to their website. That’s when we started hearing that guest blogging is dead.

It isn’t dead. You just have to be careful to abide by Google’s sometimes arbitrary rules.

This confusing mess is driving bloggers crazy.

What this means to you: Make all outbound links from a guest blog post to other people’s sites “no follow” by inserting a few characters into the HTML code. That tells Google, “Don’t give the other website credit for this link.” The same goes for press releases. Make all links “no follow.”

If you don’t know how to do this, watch the five-minute video I created for you.

Or buy the entire webinar replay of “Google’s New Rules for Press Release Links.”

3. Lots of Help for My Slogan

Publicity Hounds are casting their votes in my slogan survey.

If you haven’t weighed in yet, please do. Choose from among the 10 slogans I’m considering, or tell me if I should keep “Tips, tricks and tools for free publicity,” my current slogan. To thank you, you’ll get a coupon good for $10 off any order at my website, valid until April 15.

Or if you have a better slogan, let me know. If I’m doggone wild about it, you could win $100.

The survey will take only a minute or two. Take the survey here.

4. Hound Video of the Week

Thanks to Publicity Hound Pat Sabiston of Panama City, FL, for this one of the world famous Duncan Lou Who, the two-legged Boxer puppy that goes to the beach for the first time. This perky pup has snagged free publicity worldwide.