Radium

Today it’s easier than ever to launch a blog. With so many free and easy to use blogging platforms available you can have a new site up and running in no time at all. Best of all, most of the functionality comes right out of the box. But with that standard functionality comes standard settings. And if you want your blog to stand out in a crowded space, you may want to rethink those defaults.

Here are 5 default blog settings worth changing.

1. Remove extraneous links
By default most blogs automatically link to categories, tags, comments, post dates and authors. Sometimes these links can be helpful to readers but many times they’re unnecessary and can create duplicate content issues for search engines. Every link on your website should add value for the reader. If you have links that don’t add value, remove them. Your readers will appreciate it and search engines will reward you.

Social media makes it possible for small businesses to compete with Fortune 500 companies. In the same way that David took on Goliath, you can compete with your largest competitor…and win. Social media has been hailed as the great leveler, but is it really that simple?

Before social media came along, advertising budgets often limited small business growth. Now, companies can reach thousands of potential customers for a fraction of the cost of traditional advertising. With social media costing nothing to use, the best offerings would rise to the top and easily be found by consumers.

So has social media leveled the field?
The assumption behind the argument is that social media removes media spend from the equation. And without media spend, the field is leveled.

Developing unique and interesting content is hard work. Let me repeat – Developing unique and interesting content is hard work. Don’t believe me? Try and knock out a couple of blog posts. Better yet, do it in your spare time. In between all of the other work demands you have, try and craft an entertaining piece of content targeted to your audience.

I’m not trying to turn off anyone from launching a blog or spending time crafting great content. Quite the contrary – I believe the value you generate from developing great work is tremendous. But not everyone has time to develop their own content or publish a blog on a regular basis. How can these people get their message out?

Now, before you curse me out and tell me that social media isn’t free – relax, I’m in agreement with you. Investing in social media has a very real cost and it’s definitely not free. But most of the tools to conduct social media are free to use (facebook, twitter, blogs, etc.).

Because these tools are free, many companies treat them as such and make no real investment in them. They don’t bother putting together a strategy, mapping out goals or defining metrics and when things get too busy, they simply walk away from them altogether.

So what if more social media sites had a cost assigned to them? What if companies had to pay to create a facebook page or a twitter account? Would this ensure they stuck with it? Would it make the content more relevant to users? Would anything change?

Being a good listener is fundamental for social media success, but listening alone isn’t enough – you need to engage people. If you work for a big company or operate within a large industry, this can mean thousands of conversations a day. So what happens if you miss just one of them?

To answer that question I’ll tell you a short story.

Recently, I noticed my twitterfeed account wasn’t sending blog posts to twitter. I tried to troubleshoot the issue but ended up creating a support ticket on the company’s forum. An employee was quick to resolve the issue (2 days) and I thought I was all set, but now it seemed I had a different problem.

Twitterfeed was working too good. It was double posting every blog post. I went back to the support forum and tried a couple of the common fixes but nothing seemed to work. I was really frustrated but, at the time, I was too busy to look into the issue. So, I simply posted a tweet exclaiming my frustration. (Please disregard the typo.)

Listen up all you social media guru’s and experts. A new year is upon us and 2010 is sure to bring about some changes in the social media landscape. The biggest change? Companies will start demanding that their social media investments drive revenues and not just simple web metrics. Page views, site traffic and increased followers aren’t going to be enough to justify a continued investment in social media – you need to link your efforts to sales and conversions.

A recent survey of global CMO’s conducted by Bazzarvoice highlighted that “81% of respondents expect to link their annual revenues to their social media investment in 2010, up from just 44% of CMOs in 2009.”

The study also went on to show that “53% of respondents are unsure about their return on Twitter; 50% are unsure about the direct value of LinkedIn; and 50% are not sure how to measure the impact of industry blogs on business metrics.”

If you’re like most bloggers your probably rely on a Retweet button to help push your content out to others. But if you simply installed the default code, you may not be getting the credit you deserve. To make sure that you’re not missing out on potential followers take a minute to ensure your buttons are configured correctly.

This post will cover four of the more popular Retweet buttons; tweetmeme, Retweet, Topsy and the tweetcount widget by backtype.

I’m not going to spend this blog post convincing you that your business can benefit from a well thought out social media strategy. I think you already know that. In fact, most companies now realize that social media isn’t a fad and can provide some serious results. I’m simply going to ask you one question: do you have time for social media?

Another popular form of this question is “who is going to do all this stuff?” While it may seem funny, it’s one of the most important questions to ask before diving into a new campaign. Unlike some other forms of marketing, social media requires a constant investment of time and effort.

How much time does social media take?
It’s less “Build it and they will come” and more “Build it, take care of it, staff it, ensure it has all of the proper resources and then they will come.” Building a successful social media presence is like establishing a friendship. It’s not going to happen over night and it’s going to take a lot of effort on your part to develop.

Forecasting your time investment
I don’t know if there is an absolute way to quantify the time requirement but the considerations below should help you estimate the level of time needed to properly manage your campaign.

Facebook, twitter, YouTube, FriendFeed, Wordpress, Blogger, Digg, Delicious, Reddit, Flickr, Stumbleupon…

I could fill an entire blog post with all of the available social media sites and tools that you can use to promote your business on the web. But the fact is, it’s not about the tools.

With all of the press these companies receive it’s easy to forget about this and focus on the delivery method.

Interested in accumulating half a million fans on facebook? Wondering how to do it? The answer is easy, give away free hamburgers. That’s what food chain T. G. I. Friday’s is doing. Their new Ad campaign “Fan Woody” promises to give every fan a free burger if they can accumulate 500,000 fans by September 30th. As I write this they have already surpassed that number by about 12k. It would seem they could have set their sites a little bit higher, maybe a million fans.

Good work T. G. I. Friday’s. Now where’s my burger?