Bye-Bye Facebook: Changes in the World of Social Media

Copyblogger is saying good-bye to its Facebook page and account. According to Erika Napoletano, brought in by Brian Clark to clean up and reengerize their Facebook page: See, Copyblogger’s main focus is serving its audience. And if that audience wasn’t engaging on Facebook, then there was no real reason for us to pour energy into […]

Blog Exercises: Expanding Your Social Web Connections

“I’m following you because you are a Doctor Who fan.” I was stunned at those words. Yes, I’m a Doctor Who fan. I’m a fan of science fiction in general, but this year is an exceptional one for Doctor Who fans. It’s the 50th Anniversary of the first episode, a legendary event in television history. […]

Blog Exercises: Creating Influential Connections

In “Why a Link Post Should Be Like Mingling at a Party,” my friend Jan of Circular Communication described it this way. Imagine you are at a party. You mingle and meet someone you know. You do not know her well, but well enough to appreciate her. You also have an idea what interests her, […]

Blog Exercises: How to Respond to a Copyright Violation

While I know that you would never violate anyone’s copyright and publish other people’s content without proper citation or permission, there are hundreds of thousands who think that if it is on the web, it’s free to use and abuse. Accusations of copyright violations are big deals. Some top journalists, writers, photographers, musicians, software developers, […]

Blog Exercises: Blog Your Mistakes

Some say that Dr. Brian Goldman helped to change the medical industry with his Ted Talk about how doctors make mistakes, taking a huge risk exposing one of the most known and rarely discussed topics: how doctors make mistakes and kill patients. When was the last time you heard somebody talk about failure after failure […]

Blog Exercises: Blog Your Hobby

The following blog exercise is inspired by Janet Williams of Janet’s Notebook and her post on “Unique British post boxes: share your hobby.” Who would have thought that an article on UK post boxes would bring post box enthusiasts and historians out of the woodwork to her blog? My interaction with Ruby brings me to […]

Blog Exercises: A Few of My Favorite Things

Like the song says, “Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens…these are a few of my favorite things.” In this blog exercise, you challenge is to write a “favorite things” post. We all have favorite things. For a reader, it is one or more books, a series, or an author. For a knitter, it could […]

Blog Exercises: Identify the Life Suckers

My friend, Terry Starbucker, is a blogger who specializes in motivating and inspiring others to live and work their passion. He’s also founder of SOBCon, the must-attend conference for online business people that takes this spirit to a higher level. In 2008, he published “Every Passion Has Its Destiny – An Olympic Inspiration” about Billy […]

Blog Exercises: Building Blogger Relationships

During many of these Blog Exercises I’ve talked about the power of linking across the web, especially with bloggers. This blog exercise is dedicated to helping you make the connection you want and need come true. Do you have a blogging mentor, a blogger you wish to get to know better, feel a connection with, […]

Blog Exercises: Who Changed Your Life?

This is one of the special Blog Exercises this year, a chance to really celebrate who you are and those who helped make you. As we travel through life, people change our lives on a daily basis as well as for a lifetime. Today’s exercise is focused on those who stepped in your path and […]

Blog Exercises: Comments Policy

We started with the Bloggers Code of Ethics in our blog exercises on site policies, starting you off on the right foot by knowing where you will draw your lines in the sand when it comes to your rights and responsibilities as a blogger. In this Blog Exercise, we are going to tackle the next […]

Blog Exercises: The Search for Like Minds

I tat. My 95 year old grandmother-in-law taught me almost 20 years ago. Tatting is 17th century lace making based upon island and coastal women looking for something to do besides fixing fishing nets for the men of the village. They got creative with their netting shuttles to make fine lace doilies, scarfs, edging, table […]

Blog Exercises: Backlinks

Known as incoming links or referrer links, backlinks are links pointing from an external site to your site, directing their readers to you as a resource. Timethief of “one cool site blogging tips” describes backlinks as: Backlinks to your content are like votes for your blog. The more backlinks your blog receives the higher it […]