What’s Up Bloggers! Friday Roundup #1

Hesham has come up with a new series that will introduce bloggers to more of their peers in the blogosphere and likely offer new opportunities to make friends, build collaborations, and get more traffic for your own blog. Famous Bloggers Roundup #1 kicks off the “What’s Up, Bloggers!” series.

Every Friday at Noon, get a taste of what our blogging buddies have been up to. We’ll be answering these questions and sharing what we find with you, our blogging audience.

• What did they discover?
• What did they reveal?
• What problem did they solve?
• Any new collaborations?
• What new tool gets the nod and deserves a look-see?
• What bites the dust?
• What cool experiment took place?
• Who had some unexpected results this past week?
• Who got a nice (or nasty!) surprise in the last 7 days?
• Any new reviews of new or old technology?
• Were any of our blogging buddies featured in mainstream media?
• Who got an award?
• Who’s sponsoring a giveaway?
• What business tips were offered?

And more!

Of course, today’s Roundup could have been titled, “Who’s writing about Google?” because so many things pertaining to the many Google properties are on the minds of bloggers around the world and being written about almost daily.

Special section, culled from the “Community News” area

Hey, we’re out there looking around but it would be nice if you helped target our laser beam. One way that can happen is by submitting current articles and blog posts to the Community News section.

Okay! So what did you and your blogging peers write about over the last week or so?

Buzzwords

We’ll start off with a phrase that has become the new buzzword: Content Marketing.

First up is Matt Mansfield, a recognized expert in online business and the President of Matt About Business where he helps entrepreneurs and Fortune 500 companies design and implement web content and e-mail marketing strategies. I read Matt’s newsletter every few days and have to admit, he offers up some solid advice and actionable tips, every time! [Twitter: @MattSMansfield]

The post highlighted here is by a guest writer on Matt’s blog, Susan Peyton: Why Press Releases Should Be Part of Your Content Marketing Strategy. This is my first time encountering Ms. Peyton, hailed as an internet marketing expert.

In addition to reading her post on Matt’s blog, be sure to pick up her free business resource, “How to Create a Press Release.” [Twitter: @eggmarketing]

You probably know entrepreneur Valentine Belonwu from his wildly popular service, JustRetweet, which he built from the ground up (now under new management). Also one of the moderators over at BizSugar, Valentine blogs about business-related matters at Business Gross Income.

His advice to fellow bloggers: “Drum up interest by writing about relevant, topical news which will excite your target audience.”

In this article, 5 Vital Aspects of Content Marketing in 2013, Valentine includes a tip on how to inject a little character into your business while focusing on what else your users need. [Twitter: @BigMoneyWeb]

Putting Your Best Foot Forward

Want to look good, sound good, smell good on the blogging front? Well, these two bloggers share a bit about how to come up smelling like roses! Dealing with vocabulary and presentations . . .

Beverly Mahone says, “I’m a Bobcat—not a Buckeye, although come football and basketball time I root for BOTH!” In addition to being an avid sports fan, she’s a fan of small business owners and one of their biggest cheerleaders “who wants to help others shine in the media spotlight.”

As a PR specialist and media coach, Bev shares public relations and press release tips on her Beverly Mahone Media Trainer blog. Her recent article, 100 Words Every Expert Author Should Know, also points you in the right direction for beefing up your vocabulary. [Twitter: @BevMahone]

TJ McCue, a contributor to the blogs at Forbes Magazine, writes about “makers and inventors and creators.” In Why Infographics Rule, TJ reminds us how much we (and our blog readers) like to see a visual representation of what we’re learning about and shares one source for creating infographics that I’ve never seen or heard of.

“Sure, we’ll share something that’s written: a blog post or tweet or status update, but how many times have you heard of one of those going viral? Mostly, you hear about funny or compelling photos or videos catching fire. If you can’t create one of those, then you may want to look into creating an infographic.”

Share Your Graphics and Infographics with Your Visitors with Piktochart, make infographics

Social Media, Influence, Engagement

Working the social media scene and garnering engagement from a busy global population requires a better strategy than rolling the dice in a Monopoly(TM) game; still, before you can influence anyone on the social (media) scene, you might have to get out of jail . . .

Fellow blogger Lisa Buben (of Inspire to Thrive) tells us not to panic if we find ourselves behind Twitter bars because this has happened to some of the best of the breed! “It can happen to the best of us as Ana Hoffman found out a while back. That made me feel better.”

According to her About Me page, Lisa’s been in the newspaper business since she was 14 years old, in online business for the past 3 years, and blogs on numerous platforms. As her favorite social media venue is Twitter, you can imagine her surprise when she discovered herself in Twitter Jail For 48 Hours. [Twitter: @Lisapatb]

Adam Connell is the founder of Blogging Wizard and operations manager at a marketing consultancy based in the UK. Marketer by day, blogger by night Adam lives and breathes SEO. Adam is also a guitarist, fan of Firefly and Chinese takeaways.

His latest experiment is a group interview with some of the most popular, engaged bloggers on the planet — 33 of them — all about how you, as a blogger, “can improve engagement with readers on your own site”.

Following his enlightening discussion with the group, he tabulated answers, wrote it all up, and is sharing it with us over on Blogging Wizard. Check out 33 Experts Share Their Secrets For Improving Reader Engagement. [Twitter: @Adamjayc]

HOT Topic: G+ Comments vs. WP Native Comments with CommentLuv

These bloggers, along with many others, weigh in on the burning hot topic of whether or not you should add GooglePlus (G+) comments to your blog — and if you do, whether it is better to let G+ steal the show or share the stage with WordPress’s native commenting system. To add fuel to the fire, discussion is ongoing about leaving CommentLuv turned on, turning it off, or removing it altogether. Oh my!

Blogger Susan Brown is a serial entrepreneur and business and finance writer. After running and owning several small businesses, she decided to use her experiences to help other small and home-based business owners better manage their resources and get through those first tentative years of operation.

Susan says business bloggers must consider their audiences and declares: “Just Who is On Google+? [Many people are missing the big picture and that’s the key that puts this whole issue into perspective.” People Are Missing the Point with Google+ Blog Comments [Twitter: @growbizco ]

Kevin Muldoon writes some of the best tutorials and reviews I’ve ever read. He is an experienced blogger who has been working online actively since 2000, using his blog to share advice, tips and experiences with the world. Weighing in on the G+ commenting dialog, he has this to say:

“I am strongly against this as it divides the discussion into two parts. I would rather use an external commenting system such as LiveFyre or Disqus tha[n] split the discussion into two parts.” Get his full opinion on Google+ for Comments Growing in Popularity. [Twitter: @KevinMuldoon]

Meet MaAnna Stephenson who writes at and manages BlogAid. MaAnna is a geek who can still speak in plain English and helps small businesses and solopreneurs be successful and profitable through comprehensive site consultation and training including WordPress, SEO, content and conversion analysis.

If you are so inclined to add Google+ comments to your blog, MaAnna has pulled together 10 G+ Plugins for WordPress Comments and Imports. She’s divided them up into “five plugins for adding comments, and five plugins for import/export of your blog posts to G+ or G+ …”. [Twitter: @BlogAid]

The Human Touch: Two Videos

Here are two bloggers focusing on the human side of blogging, using video to help tell the story: one highlights the possibilities of using a new technology on a global scale for the good of mankind, the other remembers the man who most dearly touched his life.

Social media scientist Daniel Zeevi is writer and founder of DashBurst. He calls himself a “full-time futurist and part-time content curator, always on the hunt for disruptive new technology.” In keeping with those words, Zeevi highlights Project Loon, a Google project that uses a ring of balloons to provide internet access to remote, rural and under-served areas.

Check out the video on Daniel’s blog in Google Introduces Project Loon: Hoping to Give Balloon-Powered Internet Access to All. [Twitter: @DanielZeevi]

Mitch Mitchell is a health care management consultant, social media aficionado, and expert blogger holding forth at I’m Just Sharing. For the first time, he’s sharing a video tribute to his father (who passed away 11 years ago on Father’s Day).

“I’ve never talked about it out loud, never done a video before, and, well, there’s something new I added that, in retrospect, puts a very interesting light on the day that I hadn’t thought about before until I did the video.”

Join in with him as he remembers the man who most dearly touched his life. [Twitter: @Mitch_M]

Encouraging Words

And finally, don’t be an idiot . . .

Whoa! Just kidding … That’s what Connor says in his guest post over at Tweak Your Biz . . .

“Opinions my own and they may offend (not intentionally of course)”

Connor Keppel writes some humorous blog posts! In his Monster List Of 30 REALLY DUMB Online Personality Disorders, Keppel will have you in stitches as you vigorously nod your head in agreement. Co-authored by his colleague, Elish Bul-Godley, they’ve hit the nail on the head: “Social Media Golden Rule: Do not do unto others online what you would not want done unto you in the real world.”

Connor is a Marketing Manager and co-founder of FobaJob.com. And he admits to being a social media junkie![Twitter: @Con_Keppel ]

. . . Instead, Be a Superhero!

And from the vaults of ShoutMeLoud emerges one Kunal Ganglani from KGTricks who encourages bloggers to Don’t Let your Blog Fail like Superman’s Krypton.

Better than a movie review of the latest big-screen Superman(TM) episode, Ganglani takes the best concepts of the movie and extrapolates them upon the blogging community. Over on KG Tricks (http://www.kgtricks.com), Kunal publishes tools, tips, tricks and reviews of the latest, greatest gadgets and technologies including Facebook, Windows, and mobile gear. [Twitter: @KGTricks]

Wrapping Up the RoundUP

We hope this new series, What’s Up, Bloggers! will introduce you to bloggers you haven’t met before whose articles, research, experiments, advice, and opinions will give you new opportunities to make friends, build collaborations, and get more traffic for your own blog. Pick a few, go over and say hello!

Got any ideas for categories of bloggers we should feature or types of questions we should answer? Let us know in the comments below.

Thanks for reading!

Credits Photos and quotes taken from the featured bloggers articles, guest posts and/or About Me pages on their websites. Vintage Typewriter for Morgue Files in public domain.