You would have never guessed that I was nervous wreck about my first post (July 22, 2010), here at WeBlogBetter.  Well, my blogging confidence was at an all time low right after the post went live. Read more »

In The Experience Economy, Joseph Pine and James Gilmore argued that in an era when consumers were more sophisticated than ever before, it was no longer enough to meet their needs with commodities, goods, or services.  They argued that to compete in the modern era, you had to make their interaction with your business an experience, compelling enough to be memorable such that the memory itself becomes the product.  They relied heavily (and convincingly, in 1999 anyway) on examples from Disney, Starbucks, and Nordstrom to make their case. Read more »

There’s nothing like the warm, comfortable feeling of knowing that you’ve mastered your subject matter.  Whether you’re blogging about it or presenting to a room full of people, it sure feels great to have all the answers.  But after a time, doesn’t it seem like you’re starting to cover some of the same material over and over again?  I know it does to me.  Here’s my idea for fixing that: Every now and again I’m going to blog about stuff I know almost nothing about. Read more »

Ms. Ileane Speaks wrote this great informative guest post highlighting a great Google Chrome plug-in. I hope you will take a moment to watch the video as she briefly shows you how Zemanta can save you time and help you blog more efficiently.

Zemanta Extension for Google Chrome

Guest post by Ms. Ileane Speaks

Google Chrome is one of the hottest new offerings from Google. Because of its lightening fast speed and extensive library of Google Chrome plugins (also called extensions) many users are making Chrome their browser of choice.

I decided to send out a Tweet to see what some of my followers favorite extensions are. Read more »

We Blog Better has afforded me a pretty amazing journey up to this point. It’s provided a wonderful outlet for expressing many of my thoughts about blogging and social media. But the time has come for me to turn it over to someone whom I specifically sought out for the role of owning and editing this blog.

I began We Blog Better when I was writing only occasionally for Fuel Your Blogging and had far too many thoughts to share there. But with some recent developments in my own life, I’ve felt the need to regain focus and concentrate more energy on fewer projects. In particular, I’m going to be pouring more effort into Fuel Your Blogging and reviving the blog section of my web and logo design site as well.

I have loved getting to know the community of bloggers that surrounds this site. I’ve appreciated your feedback and support along the way and am grateful for the trust of We Blog Better’s subscribers and regular readers. I believe that you’re going to love Kiesha!

Kiesha Easley currently blogs personally at Highly Favored. She holds a Master of Arts in English. She is a graduate of the University of Toledo and has been published on Twitip.com, Examiner.com, Associate Programs, EzineArticles.com and other sites, as well as guest posting for Fuel Your Blogging.

I do have to tell the story here of what caught my attention about Kiesha. I had emailed her asking for a guest post for Fuel Your Blogging. I mentioned that something about her writing had “peaked” my interest. Her response was kind and engaging and she happened to correct my spelling (it should have been “piqued”) but never drew attention to my error. This struck me as cool. One of the things I value highly in blogging is a commitment to excellent writing, and Kiesha fits the bill.

I hope you’ll lend your ear and your support as Kiesha takes the reins and makes this blog her own. She’s going to do a fantastic job and I’m going to be around for a long time to promote her work here.

Thanks again for reading and supporting We Blog Better – you guys are all the best!

Hint: It’s not to “make money online.”

It’s because blogging represents a much larger principle – that people and organizations have the power to publish content into the stream of all that people consume. Whether you have a divine or humanitarian message to proclaim or a product to market, online publishing is the future.

Mitch Joel agrees…

Read more »

For the past few days, I’ve been offering some video posts here about the cloud that surrounds content consumers today…

• Get Your Content Into the Cloud
• Infiltrating the Cloud In Which People Breathe
• Decrease the Distance by Growing Your Network

Today, I want to get a bit more specific about how to understand the cloud and begin to infiltrate it. The secret boils down to shifting your thinking. Your site doesn’t exist to consume users, it exists to feed users where they hang out.

And here’s the Youtube link to Your Site Is Just a Launching Pad Into the Cloud.

People who are active online have determined the size of the cloud in which they consume content and have a tendency not to venture outside of it. How then do you connect with them? By growing your own network and decreasing the distance of separation.

Here’s a Youtube link to Decrease the Distance by Growing Your Network

Today’s challenge is simple: reach out. Find a new blogger with whom you haven’t connected before and visit their site. Subscribe, comment, or send them an encouraging note. In my next post, I’d like to talk about optimizing your blog for getting your content into the cloud.

If you are a content provider, you have to stop thinking about how to get people to arrive at your website and start asking how you can get your content integrated into the cloud in which people live their daily lives.

This is what I discuss in this video, but I’ll be breaking this idea down in future posts to talk about some of the specifics.

Here’s a link to the YouTube version of Get Your Content Into the Cloud.

Also check out my new Better Blogging Vimeo channel.

“Social media marketing” is a fad, a trend, and it’s raging with popularity right now. Will it last? Absolutely, but not as we know it today. Some of the buzz words will eventually be dropped and social media marketing will finally be seen for what it is – a very effective single prong of a multi-faceted way of sharing news about a person, product, or organization. But it still won’t reach my grandmother.

Read more »