How to Quench the New Media Thirst?
I’ve got street cred talking about adolescent boys — mine are 17 and 20. So believe me, when it comes to technology, I’m like an adolescent boy learning how to deal with hormones; my ego swells and deflates according to the company I keep.
Last week I addressed a business networking group of small business owners and solo-preneurs. Their program director asked me to speak on e-newsletter marketing, but they wanted to know EVERYTHING about social marketing, from blogs to the proper form for declining a Facebook or LinkedIn invitation without offending.
Since nothing they asked stumped me, my head swelled . Like an adolescent boy, it doesn’t take much.
Getting the job done
Half an hour for Q&A was insufficient; books have been written on each question!
As marketing and media become more granular and everyone’s expected to publish SOMETHING, even a 140-character tweet, there’s an audience for what I have to say about effective business communications and plenty of opportunities to ghostwrite. But I’m a Business Person who writes like an English Major, not a new media guru.
Fortunately for us all there are technology scouts out ahead charting the best path to success. Given the thirst for new media information, I’m going to address the specific unanswered questions of the Charlotte Professional Saleswomen and Entrepreneurs through a series of posts and invite the REAL GENIUSES out there to comment on and enhance what I have to say.
Blog versus Newsletter: what’s the difference?
I love open source technologies, and I love WordPress.
The word “blog” is truncated from web log. Remember Star Trek, with “captain’s log” entries? Well, a blog is a web-based log of thoughts, activities, articles, and whatever else the author publishes in a “post” (as opposed to a web page). Lots of great (and free) software makes publishing a blog easy.
A newsletter can contain the same kind of materials that are published on blogs. Newsletters can be published electronically or on paper, but the blog is called a “blog” because it’s a web log.
If you publish both a blog and newsletter, they should reinforce each other. Your blog should be updated more often than you publish newsletters, so refer to blog posts that take the reader further down the knowledge path of the articles and topics in the newsletter. For example, in my recent newsletter I referred to six blog posts on how to keep your e-newsletters out of the SPAM filters. No need to condense six blog posts in the e-newsletter!
OK, that’s enough from me on this particular question. If you have further questions or want to elaborate on my answer, have at it — floor’s open.
