I’m honored to be included for the third year as a presenter for the Women Who Tech Telesummit on September 15. I’ll be giving one of the 10-minute Lightning Talks that kicks off the event. My session, described below, is a sneak preview of what Jennifer Wojcik and I will present at Blogworld and New Media Expo in October.

Each year I’ve been impressed with the great roster of presenters that Allyson Kapin and the WWT team puts together for the Telesummit. The cost is only $20 for seven hours’ worth of information from top women — and, yes, a few men — who are technology change makers. Click the link below for the full lineup of speakers and to register.

How to Survive an Online Snark Attack – How do you deal with negative comments, verbal snipers and the inevitable trolls? As women entreprenuers and techies, are we held to a different standard in responding online? Are we afraid of being labeled a bitch? Connie Reece, Founder Every Dot Connects and Co-Founder of Social Media Club International has seen it all and will discuss the best tactics to take on these snark attacks so we will no longer fear “but what if they say something negative?”

via Women Who Tech | 2010 Panels.

In case you haven’t noticed, I let this blog grow stale following my illness last fall. As I recovered, I started using my Tumblr blog, conniereece.com, to curate content for clients or those who are new to social media. I’m continuing that practice but intend to occasionally post longer pieces here on Every Dot Connects, like this one today: Cause Marketing: H2Orange bottled water launch.

I invite you to check out my Tumblr blog as well. Each day I pick a few items out of the dozens (sometimes 100+) that I read and post them using the Tumblr bookmarklet (probably my favorite social media tool ever). Several people have told me they find this blog helpful for getting up-to-date with the ever-changing world of social media and social networking, without spending hours and hours searching and reading.

Many thanks to those who have wondered where I was and to those who have poked and prodded me to get back to “serious” blogging. I heard you; I’m just stubborn and take my own sweet time doing things.

More from Every Dot Connects

• Our Team
• Our Advisors
• Twitter Welcome

Welcome to the May 21, 2009 edition of the Social Media Blog Carnival. Thanks very much to the carnival “owner,” New Media Labs, for asking us to host.

Next week’s host is Social Media Wiz, so send ‘em in.

For this carnival, the host reviews all the submissions and then picks the post that he/she thinks is the best combination of original, useful social media-related information AND presentation.

This week’s winner is….Tim’s post The SEO and Social Media Mix at Search Engine Optimisation.

Runner-up is Steven Leung’s post Defining Integrated Marketing at Integrated Marketing Experts, saying, “At the intersection between Web 2.0, social media and traditional marketing is integrated marketing. Business owners need to know how this impacts the way they publicize their business online.”

Some carnivals don’t show you the other submissions (we all have a different style) but I thought you’d like to see what else came in, so it’s listed below.

Angel presents Fallen Sword Web Based RPG Guide posted at Burn a Brain.

Patricia Turner presents 100 Online Brainstorming Tools to Help You Think Outside the Box posted at Forensic Science Technician.

Anthony McCune presents Tweets From Capitol Hill – Members of the United States Congress On Twitter posted at The Lives and Times… of Anthony McCune.

ivan presents How To Increase Your Feeds Subscribers posted at PC Hacks, saying, “If you ask any blogger what metric they would like to increase on their blog, it’s likely that their first answer will be feed subscribers.”

Jeremy Smith presents Best in Social Media – May 11, 2009 posted at Social Marketing by Michelle MacPhearson.

That concludes this edition, and thanks for participating.

Please submit your (one, non-spammy) blog post to the next edition of the social media blog carnival using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

More from Every Dot Connects

• Travel and Tourism Meet Social Media
• Podcast: Connie and Sheila talk social media
• Blogging Basics: Getting traffic, readers and attention for your blog

I discussed writing good content and posting consistently for a decent amount of time in the first Every Dot Connects Blogging Basics post – How to start a blog, and whether you’ll ever make money from it.

The next obvious question is, “How do I get anyone to read my blog?”

It may surprise you to learn that marketing and publicizing a blog’s content (thereby increasing traffic if the content is good) doesn’t happen on the blog.

Sure, outbound links to other sites from your blog posts are seen by those sites as inbound links/backlinks, and their authors may click back through to see what you’re saying and what you’re all about. That’s why it is important to pay attention to who links to you, and respond.

In that sense, you are publicizing your writing directly from your own blog, but that is only part of the battle.

Blog publicity happens via a whole ecosystem of online and face-to-face interaction.

• It happens via Facebook, because a blog post link that you put on your Wall or in your status is seen on the Home pages of everyone in your network.
• It happens via LinkedIn the same way, through your network’s Home pages.
• It happens via your comments on other people’s blogs or in an online forum, because usually your name on a comment is a hyperlink back to your blog (so think before you comment. Ever wonder why more readers don’t comment?)
• It happens via Twitter, both because your blog URL should be listed in your bio, and from the occasional post URL of your own that you tweet. You don’t just auto-post everything onto your Twitter stream, do you?  Good; didn’t think so.
• It happens via StumbleUpon, which is especially nice when someone Stumbles one of your posts. Give back;  Stumble other people’s good content.
• It happens when you bookmark on Delicious.
• It happens when you do any of the above and it shows up in your FriendFeed.
• It happens via Flickr photo – I try to remember to put applicable links in the description of photos that I put online. Here’s one of my Chicago photos with links, as an example.
• It happens via YouTube videos; put links in the description of those, too.
• It happens via email – when people see your blog’s hyperlinked URL in your email signature line.
• It happens when people see your blog’s URL on your business card.
• And finally, it happens when you go “Old School” and meet people in person at conferences and networking events, and you mention your blog if it is appropriate.

Be everywhere, representing your writing.

Be ubiquitous, along with your content.

Marketing happens OFF of the blog.

More from Every Dot Connects

• Blogging Basics: How to start a blog, and whether you’ll ever make money from it
• 6 ways to improve your destination marketing (and why you’re toast if you don’t)
• Social Media Blog Carnival – Your Best Shots

Thinking of starting a blog? Already started one and wondering when you’ll rake in the Big Bucks?

I’m going to lay it out for you….

Here’s some advice I gave to a journalist who wanted to start a parenting blog, but since people ask me the same questions all the time, I thought I’d back up from relative esoterica  –  like how business communicators should respond to negative blog reviews –  and give you my standard answer to two common questions:

1. How do I decide what to write about, and then get started?
2. Can you actually make money blogging?

My basic advice for beginning bloggers is this  –  go to Aussie Darren Rowse’s ProBlogger site, and read everything. That’s not meant to be a cop-out, but seriously, you can’t do any better than Darren for great starter advice. At the bottom of the front page of his site is a box, Best of Problogger, so click the tab For Beginners and just start reading. That’s exactly what I did when I started.

After that, read Liz Strauss’ Successful Blog and Chris Brogan’s blog for how to nurture your blog’s community and grow visibility and readership.

In between reading the three sites above….

• Write good content
• Post reasonably frequently (2-4 times a week)
• Keep at it for at least 4-6 months, which is about how much time a blog usually needs to gain traffic and attention traction.

That’s it, really. But do you see the problem? Anyone toting a keyboard can start a blog – it’s keeping one going month after month, year after year that’s the hard part.

Key for my journalist questioner: there are thousands of parenting blogs out there, and that’s probably underestimating. What’s her special angle?

What’s your special angle? What will make yours particularly unique? What is your blog’s “elevator speech?” Hone in on that and work the bejeebus out of it to bring value to your readers.  I assure you, there’s no simpler answer.

Now, on to the money round….

I know very few people who make much money directly from blogging (myself included.) Most people’s blogs are simply part of their writing portfolio, or a storefront to/demonstration of their expertise. You have to have a really specific, lucrative niche (or a big presence) to have enough traffic to live off of blog-generated ad revenue.

Two examples of success -

1. Heather Armstrong’s dooce (longevity, quality and HUGE traffic) and
2. Darren Rowse’s other site, his Digital Photography School (longevity, quality and camera equipment-related affiliate sales plus ads.)

Right now, I do get paid a combined US$100-$200 a month for my work on the BootsnAll Family Travel Logue and for the Perceptive Travel Blog. They are largely ad-supported.

I used to be paid for my Fast Machines drag racing posts, but the editor can’t afford it anymore, so I’m wrestling with whether I can continue that, although I certainly want to. As a benchmark, I’ve been paid US $20-$50 per post when I’m paid by the post on that site and others.

I’m not paid directly for my Every Dot Connects posts, but Connie Reece, Jennifer Navarrete and I make money doing consulting, corporate training and workshops about social media, so the EDC blog is simply another entry into that work for our prospective customers.

If I didn’t have a military pension and wasn’t married to someone with a steady income (my husband is a high school math teacher) I’d never make it, frankly. I still do print work that pays much better (Texas Highways is one of my favorite clients, and so is National Geographic Traveler) but I haven’t pitched article ideas to them lately because I’m busy with online work. I’d kill to blog for them at per-word print rates, but their business models won’t support that yet.

Bottom line  –  the vast majority of us won’t make much money any time soon from blogging. Where we CAN make money is having the critical skill set of being able to create good online content and understand how the online ecosystem works (including eventually mobile content, which will be huge, in my opinion.)

WHEN will that make you money? As soon as more value shifts from dying print work to burgeoning online/mobile work.

And when will that be? Well, if I knew that, I’d be rich myself by now!

We simply don’t know yet, but sitting around waiting for magic answers is not a good idea.  Content is shifting to the Web and to mobile; just because a good pay structure isn’t there yet doesn’t mean you can ignore it.

You’ll have competition – there are a ton of writers and journalists finally figuring out that they’d better know this stuff.  I thought I was late to the game when I started my family travel blog in Feb 2006, on the advice of this smart journalist. Now, I have a three-year head start, and don’t you think I’m not very grateful for that.

For writers and journalists, in the end, the winners will be the ones who can deliver quality content anywhere, including online.

Congratulations to those of you who are starting a blog, and it’s OK if your purpose is simply to teach yourself how the social Web works, not necessarily to make income.

It’s still a smart move.

Related Posts:

• Blogging Basics: Getting traffic, readers and attention for your blog

More from Every Dot Connects

• 6 ways to improve your destination marketing (and why you’re toast if you don’t)
• Today’s lesson: your private conversations ain’t so private
• Blogging Basics: Getting traffic, readers and attention for your blog

For a few weeks now, Mack Collier, author of one of my favorite marketing blogs, The Viral Garden, has been hosting a “chat” on Twitter using the hashtag #blogchat.

My favorite way to follow the conversation is to use TweetChat, a tool developed by Brooks Bennett. TweetChat turns a hashtag into a chat room, separating out and displaying all the tweets with the hashtag for a particular “room.” TweetChat auto-refreshes, and you can also post directly from TweetChat; the app will automatically append the hashtag for you.

In addition, Brooks has enabled a print format so you can save a transcript of the chat session. It’s a fast-moving conversation, so the transcripts are lengthy (71 pages for a 2-hour period tonight). But there is a wealth of information if you care to dig it out.

Mack kicked off the session with a question about how to measure the effectiveness of your blog.

Blogchat: Sunday nights from 9:00 to 11:00 p.m. EDT

Download this week’s transcript: Blogchat 04-26-09.pdf

Note: remember that, like Twitter, the transcript prints in reverse chronological order. Scroll to the end to find the beginning of the chat.

More from Every Dot Connects

• On vacation
• Twitter Welcome
• Connie Reece interview on FIR

I see it over and over again.

In between the squawking about how blogs are already passe and how Twitter is going mainstream, there is a fundamental Old School operating concept of the Web and social media that is routinely ignored by many organizations, mostly through what I suspect is simple lack of knowledge and fear of a netiquette misstep.

Here it is  –  they fail to acknowledge the link.

If a blog links to your business/organization/nonprofit/product/service, the simplest way to acknowledge is to leave a comment on the blog post that linked to you.

If someone links to you in their Twitter stream, then acknowledge with a return tweet.

If someone writes on your business Facebook page Wall or uploads a great fan photo, write something back.

When someone links to you, particularly in a two-way conversation tool like a blog, that is the blog author’s way of saying “I acknowledge you and find you link-worthy.” Someone is talking about you with that link. It may be good. It may be bad. The important thing is that they’re digitally waving at you.

If I were a real, live person standing in front of you waving, would you ignore me, or would you engage and talk about your business/organization/nonprofit/product/service?

Of course, you’d engage….unless you don’t care, in which case, you’re on the wrong blog and there’s nothing for you here at Every Dot Connects.  (Go watch old Van Halen videos, maybe?)

You should acknowledge because people behind keyboards are real, too, and links are important.

Links are the coin of the realm online.  They are a “vote of trust.” They drive Google authority. They are a powerful “communication path.” They provide helpful background information.

Most wonderfully, they can shed light on hidden gems that might otherwise be lost in the Webby flood. Through a well-placed link, an influential blogger or wired journalist can bring millions of people’s attention to worthy Susan Boyle-like businesses or services that would otherwise labor in obscurity.

Sure, if you’re a big business with lots of Web traffic (or a small organization with a tiny staff, or a one-person organization like me who writes for more than one blog) it’s tough to keep up with all the inbound links. I discussed this issue on Twitter with the ebullient Dell online community guy Richard Binhammer, who said that while he and his company certainly keep track of who is linking to Dell and its blogs, they only go back and provide “commentary when warranted.”

Well, sure. Some conversations in real life are ignored when appropriate, some just get a cursory nod or “hey, thanks” and others elicit a more active exchange. It’s the same online.

This assumes that there is a mechanism in your business or organization that TELLS you when there’s an inbound link, and from whom.

I think that half the battle with lack of response to links is that the right people….

1. Don’t even see data about links or Web traffic or Facebook business page commentary, and
2. Don’t know what to do with the data if they get it.

The answer is to:

1. Get an internal communications system set up so that you see, immediately, when people link to you (to start, here’s how to see when someone links to your site and where to set up a Google Alert for your URL.)  Then….
2. Recognize the value and acknowledge the link.

As a travel writer and tourism consultant, I link to travel-related and state/county/city tourism organizations all the time.  Usually, I am trying to highlight a place in a positive way because I love and support travel.

The only way I can ever get a comment response to those links in my blog post is to send an email to the linkee, saying, “Hey, I linked to you. Come say hello!”

Um, I’ll wait here while y’all think about the absurdity of that.

Don’t be “that guy” online  –  acknowledge the link.

I’m getting ready to leave on a press/media trip to Hutchinson, Kansas;  several of the city’s public relations and marketing folks decided that bloggers and wired writers offer a different way to get the word out about their destination.

My travel-related posts will be over on my Family Travel blog and the Perceptive Travel blog, but there’s an online angle here that’s intriguing. Some in Hutchinson have already impressed me with their Web connections – over 1,100 in the WhatsUpHutch.com Facebook group. Go, small town social media!

I don’t know that everyone I’ll encounter will be quite as plugged in, however.  Something that I noticed on the China 2.0 Tour was bouncing around in my head this morning, and as I was getting ready to send an email to one of the trip organizers about dealing with wired writers, it occurred to me that I should write a blog post instead.

That’s because someone like me thinks a bit differently than a mostly-print writer. We’d rather write a blog post to reach many than an email to reach only one, and we’d rather do it NOW.

Public. Rapid. Sharing.

That’s why we’re different, and for people who are used to dealing with print writers and journalists, there are a few other things you should know:

• We may be talking about your organization or destination before we even get there. We talk about it on Twitter and on Facebook. Our TripIt widget on our LinkedIn profile says we’re coming your way, and we’re bookmarking Web sites using StumbleUpon or Delicious for some advance research. Can you hear us?  Do you have rudimentary Google Alerts set up? Do you know how to search Twitter?
• We’re immediate, or at least pretty darn quick. You’re used to seeing print articles a few weeks to a few months after a journalist visit, but bloggers are different. Many of us are blogging while we’re still hearing briefings or touring attractions. We’re posting videos on YouTube. We’re uploading photos of your destination on Flickr.  We might be talking about lunch and dinner on Yelp. We’re uploading photos and comments to our Facebook page.  Constantly.
• Where are you on the Web? Does your organization have a blog? A Flickr pool? A video channel? Are you on Twitter? Where’s your Facebook page or group? Not to be dismissive of people’s efforts, but you’re not knocking anyone’s socks off these days simply by having a Web site.  A Web site is a given, like a phone number. Please tell us where you are – if we like your stuff, we’ll be linking to it and talking about it.  Do you see our links coming in? Come on over and comment on whatever we’ve posted.
• Everything is on the record and recorded unless you say otherwise, right up front.  Our style with speakers is a little different   –  for presenters or PR folks who aren’t used to geeks, it’s like a digital Normandy invasion. We all arrive in some conference/briefing room and swing into action. We’re crawling under tables looking for electrical outlets to plug in our stuff, we’re opening laptops, we’re aligning our Web cams to live-stream your presentation to the Web as it happens, we’re firing up to live-tweet on Twitter using our iPhone, we’re holding up our Flip video cameras to start shooting, we’re snapping photos and uploading them right then.  You’re ON, not only to the bloggers, but to everyone outside the walls who is in the blogger’s many networks (and questions will come in via Twitter and video chat boxes from those who are watching and listening outside the conference room.)  Don’t be alarmed. You want reach, you got reach!

For organizations who are used to a lot of “control” and one-way broadcast of their message, it’s a bit disconcerting to look at people who all seem to have data streams coming out of their bodies, going who knows where.

In my experience, wired writers and bloggers are generally a pretty sharing, friendly group although our communications techniques may be different than what you’re used to.  We’re big on authenticity and transparency, and we talk about things that we like.

Be the one we talk about. Be ready to engage.

More from Every Dot Connects

• Blogging Basics: How to start a blog, and whether you’ll ever make money from it
• 6 ways to improve your destination marketing (and why you’re toast if you don’t)
• Today’s lesson: your private conversations ain’t so private

I’m doing some writing and marketing work for the travel site UpTake; in addition to hosting my Carnival of Cities blog carnival periodically on their Attractions blog, I’ll be covering travel industry social media topics on the UpTake Travel Industry blog.

To get started with a bit of a bang, I wrote two posts this week that Every Dot Connects readers might enjoy….

• A “wake up out there!” manifesto asking when the tourism businesses and CVBs (Convention and Visitor’s Bureaus) are going to “back off on printing brochures and rejiggering their Web sites (again) and really engage with the Web 2.0/social media world.” Assuming that my semi-rant results in the tourism industry wanting to know what to do next, I followed up with….

• Helpful hints on how to get social media traction for your tourism blog.  It has entry-level guidance for any blogger, such as, “Is your number of blog content subscribers (by RSS or email) moving in an upward direction?  Do you make it easy to subscribe and is it obvious how to do so on your site?  Do you periodically encourage subscription in your posts?”

Both UpTake posts sprang from my experiences as a blogger attending a recent travel industry conference; most of my impressions are unfortunately corroborated by others like Darren Cronian, who writes the UK’s Travel Rants.  Even today, there is a surprising lack of tourism folks who are really out in front trying to use Web 2.0 tools to promote their destinations in an effective manner.

When I started blogging in February 2006, I thought I was “late to the game,” but I hustled to learn everything I could. Now in 2009, it’s safe to say that any professional communicators worth their salt had better have more than a passing acquaintance with social media.

How blunt do I need to be – if you don’t understand this stuff right now, you are behind. That is all there is to it.

I am pained to find such fear and ignorance when as an avid traveler, it is obvious to me that this is an excellent communications vehicle to publicize tourism offerings.  It is not the ONLY communications vehicle (there is still a place for your printed brochures down in the lobby of the local Hampton Inn) but it is not something happening in the future – it is the way the world is right now.

(I wish they’d stop calling it “new media,” already.)

I mentioned in the second UpTake post that the next big bite to chew is mobile content and interaction. Any tourism organization that is still head-scratching about “whether we should use social media” is going to get their PR and marketing clocks cleaned within the next two years, as mobile activity combines with social networking and they simply cannot handle the steep learning curve of the whole package.

Now, ‘scuse me while I go see if my blogs appear OK on an iPhone display….

Our client Homeaway is sponsoring a Getaway contest, a dream vacation worth up to $5,000, to the blogger, videographer or photographer who creates the most compelling answer to this question: Why do you need a getaway, and where would you like to spend it?

Oy, I wish I could enter this contest. The whole time Sheila Scarborough and I have been helping the HomeAway team put this contest together, my imagination has run wild. Travel is something I rarely get to do–for pleasure, that is; I’ve done a fair bit of travel this year to speak at conferences.

But a real vacation? The kind without succumbing to the tuneful ring of a cell phone or squelching the urge to check email every hour? Haven’t had one of those in five long years. A day off here and there, maybe a long weekend, that’s it.

Oh, and sick days. Had quite a few of those. 2008 has been a year of struggle health-wise: I’ve battled an antibiotic-resistant staph infection, undiagnosed autoimmune disorder, and a back injury. Then there was selling the family homestead and moving my mom out of the house where she’d lived for 38 years into a house with me and my sister. Combining 3 households took 2 estate sales, 2 garage sales, and trips to auction houses and consignment stores as well as donations to the Salvation Army.

How’s that for a sob story for why I need a getaway? Well, at least you can understand why I’ve been daydreaming about where I’d go for my dream vacation.

First choice: a sweet little château in the south of France.

I studied at the Université de Clermont-Ferrand the summer between my freshman and sophomore years in college, and I have always wanted to go back to France someday. Here’s a lovely place I found on the HomeAway site–a charming little castle (in fact, that’s its name) with 7 bedrooms and 5 baths. (Not too big; I wouldn’t want to appear pretentious!)

The Chateau de Charme is a 12th-century castle. Totally restored and modernized, it offers luxury accomodation, inlcuding a private swimming pool. Situated in a rural hilly area where the famous ‘Charolais beef’ is bred and offering panoramic views, the château is 5 minutes away from the medieval village of Charlieu. Many vineyards are nearby–the Beaujolais region is just 30 minutes by car. The local wine is Les Côtes Roannaises.

Second choice: a stylish San Francisco house with panoramic views

A U.S. city I’ve always wanted to visit is San Francisco. HomeAway’s site features vacation rentals from Nob Hill homes to Victorian apartments in Pacific Heights and even a Sausalito houseboat. But the one that captured my eye was this stylish, 3-story, architect-designed house with two killer features: panoramic views of downtown San Francisco as well as the Bay, and a Steinway grand piano in the living room. A Steinway grand–hello!

This home, high on Potrero Hill, would be a perfect spot for a writer’s retreat. I feel creative just looking at the photos! The owner, who lives here when not traveling, says: “There are sweeping views of downtown San Francisco and the Bay from almost every room. The large, open living room has a dramatic marble fireplace, an award-winning staircase, antique Japanese furniture, original art and sculpture, a Steinway grand piano, and a soaring cathedral ceiling with sunlight streaming through the two double French doors, and a huge skylight. The master bedroom, which occupies the entire third floor, has a Japanese-style bath, a wall of glass framing a magnificent view of San Francisco, and a private redwood deck.”

It even has wireless Internet throughout the house. And, this vacation rental is under $3,000 per week–which means that HomeAway would give me $2,000 cash to cover travel expenses!

Oh, wait. I can’t enter the contest. *big sigh*

But you can. Where do you want to go on your dream vacation? You’ve got 120,000+ vacation rental properties to choose from.

I hope you’ll give it a try with a blog post (350 words); a YouTube video (two minutes); or a set of photos on Flickr (up to 10 photos w/ captions of less than 20 words each). You can find more information here: How to Enter the Contest. Just tell us (and the world) why you need a getaway, and where you’d like to spend it. Entries will be accepted through January 7 and voting begins January 8.

If you win, all I ask is that you send me a postcard so I can live vicariously.

More from Every Dot Connects

• Blogging Basics: How to start a blog, and whether you’ll ever make money from it
• 6 ways to improve your destination marketing (and why you’re toast if you don’t)
• Why this travel writer is going on a tech tour in China