Friday Link Love @ ProStylus: The Blog

Friday Link Love

Posted on August 14th, 2009 Dan M. Comments

Photo credit: Nganguyen

There was a lot of good content on the blogosphere this week, and it was all I could do just to keep current on my reading. (Busy work week here.)

The news on newspapers
I managed some brief comments here and there, but the only post that still has me thinking was Leo Babauta’s “8 Valuable Lessons Newspapers Must Learn from Bloggers to Survive.” Part of the reason the post resonated with me was because I learned this week that our local paper now charges $250 for an obituary. Obits used to be a free service that newspapers provided – sort of like, you know, news.

Personally, I feel any newspaper that charges $250 to announce the death of a local loved one deserves whatever obsolescence is coming to it. It’s a parasitical business model. Blogs aren’t killing newspapers. Newspapers are killing newspapers.

Writing on writing
Other recommended reading includes Kickbutt Writing Skills Still One of the Most Effective Marketing Strategies, on Peter Bowerman’s seminal Well-Fed Writer Blog. The title is self-explanatory and if I had had more time, I might have argued that kickbutt self-marketing skills come before kickbutt writing skills – except I’m pretty sure Peter already knows that. Also, kickbutt writing gets you noticed only insomuch as an absence of mistakes gets you noticed. Good writing is really a sort of passive virtue compared to saving clients time, money and brain cells.

Blogging on blogging
Sonia Simone of Copyblogger.com offers some genuinely good reminders of bad blogging habits in The 7 Deadly Sins of Blogging. One omission under Boorishness is abusing other bloggers for self-righteous criticism, like this new blogger did.

Conversation about conversation
And lastly, I’m am not a big fan of the celebrity interview – and Danny Brown is sort of a social media celebrity – but blogger Jay Baer does a pretty good Q&A that reveals, among other things, that Mr. Brown recommends spending 20% posting on your own blog and 80% commenting on others. Sounds like someone I know…

There was a lot of good content on the blogosphere this week, and it was all I could do just to keep current on my reading. (Busy work week here.)

The news on newspapers

I managed some brief comments here and there, but the only post that still has me thinking was Leo Babauta’s “8 Valuable Lessons Newspapers Must Learn from Bloggers to Survive.” Part of the reason the post resonated with me was because I learned this week that our local paper now charges $250 for an obituary. Obits used to be a free service that newspapers provided – sort of like, you know, news.

Personally, I feel any newspaper that charges $250 to announce the death of a local loved one deserves whatever obsolescence is coming to it. It’s a parasitical business model. Blogs aren’t killing newspapers. Newspapers are killing newspapers.

Writing on writing

Other recommended reading includes Kickbutt Writing Skills Still One of the Most Effective Marketing Strategies, on Peter Bowerman’s seminal Well-Fed Writer Blog. The title is self-explanatory and if I had had more time, I might have argued that kickbutt self-marketing skills come before kickbutt writing skills – except I’m pretty sure Peter already knows that. Also, kickbutt writing gets you noticed only insomuch as an absence of mistakes gets you noticed. Good writing is really a sort of passive virtue compared to saving clients time, money and brain cells.

Blogging on blogging

Sonia Simone of Copyblogger.com offers some genuinely good reminders of bad blogging habits in The 7 Deadly Sins of Blogging. One omission under Boorishness is using other bloggers for self-righteous criticism, like this new blogger did. What an idiot…

Conversation about conversation

And lastly, I’m am not a big fan of the celebrity interview – and Danny Brown is sort of a social media celebrity – but blogger Jay Baer does a pretty good Q&A that reveals among other things that Mr. Brown recommends spending 20% posting on your own blog and 80% commenting on others.

Blogging, Copywriting, Social Media
- Corey Freeman
  
  Thanks for the awesome links! There's a lot of good information to read here. I guess I'll have to make bigger and better posts to keep getting mentioned on your site. ;)
- prostylus
  
  Jay, Danny,
  
  Oof, did I imply that I dislike interviews? I really meant to say I dislike fluff, and celebrity interviews are often just that.
  
  Sample question: Where you always this amazing?
  
  In fact, I LOVE a good interview. I just think it requires an interviewer who is as interesting and engaging as the interviewee.
  
  And, yeah, I thought Jay delivered on both (and yes, Jay, I also went back and read some of your other interviews. In addition to the ones you recommended, I also liked Beth Harte.)
  
  I particularly found Danny’s comments on blogging to be very affirming, namely that he spends 80% of his time commenting on other blogs, and 20% on his own. That’s a practice I had already intuited, which helps explains why I started the Friday Link Love feature on my blog. I wanted credit for some of my best thinking, which happens in the comments section of other blogs. (This week was a little different: I only commented on one of the blogs I mentioned in the post.)
  
  That tactic led me to discover another one: pingbacks attract traffic, and often high caliber traffic. You two aren’t the only uber-media who responded to my post. Suddenly, the Link Love feature isn’t a toss-off. I’d better compose my Friday posts more thoughtfully in the future because clearly the people I link to will likely be reading me. Lesson learned.
  
  So, I give you both a lot of props for finding (and demonstrating) very clever ways to spin conversations out of your content. That, to me, is really the whole point of a blog – whatever it’s ultimate purpose. It’s nice to be read. But it’s even better to elicit a response.
  
  Thanks for commenting, and for modeling what blogging’s all about. Big fan here.
- Danny Brown
  
  Hey there Dan (GREAT first name, by the way!) ;-)
  
  As Jay mentioned, thanks for including our chat - hopefully you enjoyed it and it wasn't too much of a push (especially if you're not a fan of interviews to begin with!). I agree, Jay does a really good job at making it a little different from the norm as far as "interviewing" goes, and I like that you don't really get a chance to think about an answer, so hopefully it's a more authentic result.
  
  I'll be sure to check out the other links (Sonia's always a good read), and again, thanks for including Jay and myself here - cheers! :)
- jaybaer
  
  Thanks for much for including my interview with Danny Brown on your list of recommended reads.
  
  If you're anti-interview, this may not resonate, but I have 16 other live Twitter interview transcripts on my site at http://www.twitter20.com Lots of well-known social media types have participated. My favorites are probably Scott Monty, Amber Naslund, David Armano, and Valeria Maltoni. Danny was a fantastic addition to the group.
  
  The Twitter interview format has its advantages and drawbacks, but it certainly keeps interview subjects on their toes. Some great perspectives have come out of those interviews.
- prostylus
  
  Well, Peter, now you know why I generally take more time when commenting on blogs.
  
  You didn’t misunderstand at all where I was going with my comments. But please don’t assume, just because I’m willfully driving my wagon into a ditch, that I am myself. We all have off weeks when the words aren’t flowing, or the clients are slow to return calls, or the self-marketing doesn’t appear to be catching a spark.
  
  So, yeah, probably not the best mindset from which to dash off a comment on your blog – or on mine…
  
  That said, you score a very clear point by reminding me that good copy is defined by how well it makes the phones ring, increases traffic, etc. Under that definition, I agree, good copy is the supreme marketing tool - unless your clients begin to view you as their secret weapon.
  
  Either way, thanks for the reality check.
- peterbowerman
  
  Hi Dan,
  
  Thanks for the pingback to The Well-Fed Writer Blog. Appreciate it. And yes, I know that kickbutt marketing skills come before KB writing skills. That said, you can be the greatest marketer in the world but if your skills are mediocre, you won't grow your business.
  
  And I can't stay mute on your other comments... ;)
  
  You wrote: "Also, kickbutt writing gets you noticed only insomuch as an absence of mistakes gets you noticed."
  
  Not my experience at all. An absence of mistakes (or minimal mistakes, since we've all made them) is sort of a baseline requirement in building client loyalty, but it takes a lot more than that. And good writing - writing that gets the job done, gets the phones ringing, increases traffic, speaks powerfully to the target audience - that's worth infinitely more than just an absence of mistakes.
  
  Finally, you wrote: "Good writing is really a sort of passive virtue compared to saving clients time, money and brain cells."
  
  Dan. Really. Good writing IS the thing that saves clients time, money and brain cells. It's the thing that allows them to get projects done, not edit and re-edit and re-edit and finally have to find another writer to get what should've have been done right in the first place. And while it's a passive virtue in the sense that you don't have to do anything to get the benefits (IT does the heavy lifting), in a sense, for the same reason, it's an exceptionally active virtue in that good writing and the reputation it engenders (a reputation that indeed precedes you) leads to repeat business, introductions to other work, and "out-of-the-blue" referrals. I'm not sure what could be more active than that!
  
  Unless I misunderstood where you were going with all that! Thanks again...
  
  PB
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