Just Heather
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Back to School = Back on Track
Aug 25, 2009 | Filed Under: Calendar Girl, Living Montessori
And then there was one (who still requires a backpack and insists on being in the picture)

And then there was one (who still requires a backpack and insists on being in the picture)

I don’t make traditional New Year’s resolutions because they just aren’t fun. Plus, Back to School time is the real reset in our household. Brand new backpacks, sparkling lunchboxes, newly sharpened pencils and clean, white notebooks—it all just feels so fresh to me. I use an academic year calendar so I can start August with clean, white pages.

It won’t last long—Brenia’s first Brownie meeting was earlier this afternoon. Stacia’s Girl Scout meetings begin next week and my dance class starts the week after that. The calendar hasn’t even arrived yet (of course, it would help if I ordered it!) and already we’re filling it up. School events, Scout meetings, dance class and whatever else the girls will decide to do this season are quickly filling our days.

It’s time to get back on track after slacking off all summer. The first thing I need to do is get back to planning a menu. Chaos has reined for the last several months. I do better with a menu plan and I’m making an official School Year’s Eve Resolution to restart the process. Step 1: Go grocery shopping! Yeah, I’ve been slacking off a lot there too. On the upside, our expenses have been greatly reduced but it will be nice to start having some food around here.

While the girls are at school tomorrow, Lorelai and I are setting out for a series of errands, with a trip to the grocery store at the top of our list. I think I’m going to take a cue from a few of the great gals in the new Inexpensively network and jump on board with Menu Plan Monday. That should provide both a productive use of my blog and proper motivation. Besides, everyone else is doing it!

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Girls Love Football Too
Aug 24, 2009 | Filed Under: Go Team!, Making Connections

In the small town where I grew up, Friday nights were spent at the football field in the fall, the basketball court in the winter and the baseball diamond the rest of the year. You might think that were responsible for my love of sports, but it’s really not. Sports from my childhood through high school was all about the social experience. I played on little league teams because my friends did (because we all know it had nothing to do with athletic skill), I sat through swim & track meets to chat with friends and went to ballgames to flirt with boys.

In college, the game was pretty much the same. Only I was older, wiser and learned that if I really wanted to attract the boys’ attention I should probably learn how the game was played. I went to volleyball games, basketball games and football—which was the only one I just couldn’t seem to get. That was a really large field and I kept getting distracted yet again by the crowd in the stands. I did appreciate more of the excitement around the game. I may not have heard of a play action or known what a running back was, but I knew the incredible feeling of watching my favorite team score a touchdown.

Once I set my mind to learning, it didn’t really take long. I am lucky enough to have a very patient hubby who could see the long term value in ruining an entire season to teach me. (Though, I guess having your favorite team go 3-13 means it was probably ruined already.) Now that I’ve spent a few years following not only the Colts but most of the league, I’m ready to try my hand at fantasy football. My new friend Queen of Free is putting together a Twitter Babes Fantasy league. I’m super excited to be playing with some of my very favorite online gals and make a few new friends along the way.

I’m thrilled that my first fantasy sports experience is with fellow females. I love sports, but I am still a girl. I will occasionally select my favorite players based on looks and giggle when they say tight end (btw, Dallas Clark is great at both. And, he has dimples!) Thus, a large part of my sports experience will always focus on this:

Photo by Angie Six

Photo by Angie Six of Just Like the Number


(Although my tastes run more to number 87 than 18—Angie can keep him!)

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20. Get a manicure.
Aug 19, 2009 | Filed Under: 40x40, Fashion Disaster

Today’s 40×40 accomplishment brought to you by Wordless Wednesday:

My first manicure...

My first manicure...


And the pedicure MFJ talked me into.

And the pedicure MFJ talked me into.

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40. Learn to walk in heels.
Aug 17, 2009 | Filed Under: 40x40, Fashion Disaster, Part-Time Geek

It took me about a year and half to actually finish writing my 40×40 list. I wouldn’t stoop to the hubby’s level and cheat (#1. Put 40 items on my 40×40 list.), though. As I got more involved in working towards my goals, I found that the subject came up a lot with my friends, especially MFJ. During one GNO, we window shopped at a mall and saw the cutest shoes. With heels. I commented that I could never wear them because I can’t walk in heels. She stopped in her tracks and told me I absolutely had to learn and she could help. It became #40 on the list.

Enter BlogHer. The one and only professional conference that’s all about the shoes. When celebrity guests include Tim Gunn and Carson Kressley, fashion is definitely at the forefront. MFJ informed me that I would absolutely be wearing heels with my pretty dresses for the BlogHer cocktail parties. She was determined to teach me.

img_2811-medium

After a week of walking around the house on my tippy toes, we planned one of our infamous girls’ night in. It happened to be National Pina Colada Day so, naturally, that was our beverage of choice. We began with dinner, then moved onto pina coladas (including virgins for the littles). After the pineapple-coconut slushies were consumed, we sent the girls upstairs for their sleepover portion of the evening. After a few quick lessons, I was suddenly circling the house in heels (gotta love an open floor plan). We spent another hour or so walking and talking (and, okay, drinking pina coladas) before she deemed me sufficiently able to walk in heels and we collapsed on the couch.

Yet, I didn’t cross it off the list. I wanted to prove that I could actually wear them regularly. And, let’s face it, I want to be able to graduate to some serious stripper heels. Otherwise, what’s really the point? I wore casual, baby heels during the day at BlogHer, then donned my shiny new black heels each evening when I got to wear the pretty, pretty cocktail dresses. I survived the weekend rather well, I think, but I still didn’t cross it off the list. A few hours each evening just didn’t have me convinced. For BlogIndiana, I rocked the heels all day long.

That should have been good enough. I never tripped, never toppled and never kicked them off (as that would have meant losing their power). I should have stopped there. There really was no need to cavort around downtown Indy, amidst the freaks and geeks. Oh, yeah—stormtroopers! Who spends GenCon weekend in downtown Indy and doesn’t get to see stormtroopers? Not me! It was an absolutely fabulous time hanging with people I adore, great bloggers I’d never met in real life and all new friends, documented much more efficiently by fabulous people who are not me.

All while crossing an item off the list. I have officially learned to walk in heels. And I have the blisters to prove it.

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Blog Indiana Day 2: Internet Advertising & Blog Revenue
Aug 14, 2009 | Filed Under: Hectic Holidays, Making Connections

Live Blogging Session #4

Shawn Smith, Netstuffers & IndyMojo

Making Money Formula
Blog + Engaged Users = Money

Growth of Media: Advertising is contracting, but it is still in power
Internet advertising is out there and you can be a part of it!

How Online Advertising Works

Types of Advertising
Most Common: Banner ads

  • Mostly unobtrusive—no worse or better than ads in newspapers
  • Easy to install or maintain
  • Easy to track—you know exactly how many times someone has clicked on an ad
  • Can be built into the layout of your site so it isn’t bothering people
  • Dynamic or Static
  • Widely available
  • Regulated a bit by IAB
  • Con—can be turned off by a user’s browser

Other kinds of online ads:

  • Text links
  • Sponsored Sections
  • Interstitials—breaks into the page a user is heading towards and presents a full page ad
  • Peel Aways
  • Backgrounds—MySpace takeovers are a good example
  • Sponsored Articles—product reviews, etc. (Transparency is key; people should know it is paid content.)
  • Vertical Markets—allowing a company to sponsor a particular section of your website; created pages on your site that are run by a company as opposed to actual website content
  • Pop-Ups—everyone now knows pop-ups are evil

Ad Networks
Gorilla Nation, Quigo, AdBrite, Yahoo, Vibrant, Google, Value Click
You serve their ads—ad networks are middle men:
+Easy to Setup
+Automatic (Kinda)—when you setup a position on your website and they serve the ads to you.
+Lots of Choices
+Great Start

-If users don’t interact, you don’t earn
-take a lot of effort
-low value

As Terminology/Models
CPC – cost per click:
+Based on click through average, so sites with little traffic can still earn
+Most networks still use CPC model
-Earnings are spotty and depend heavily on placement and content
-Awful for discussion forums or comment boards
-Advertisers love them—feel like their getting something out of it
-Needs effort to earn a lot of money

CPM – cost per thousand impressions
+Good for sites with lots of traffic
+Low risk, little effort
+Good for brand awareness
-Little guarantee of success for advertisers (works best for companies that are interested in branding)
-hard to find networks that use it

CPA – cost per action
+very high payout for little response
+advertisers see the ROI for this as very high and are often open to negotiations
-viewed as annoying by some users
-lose banner space in the hopes that someone follows through

eCPM – average

How to Make Money
Do it yourself—you can do much better than ad networks (use them to fill space when you haven’t sold advertising)
To Attract National, you’ll need many uniques
To attract local, you have to have a local niche
To attract both, know your audience.

Key Selling Stats and Terms
Location of your viewers
Visits
Unique visitors
Pageviews
Pageviews per user (how many pages are your visitors seeing when they come?)
Time on Site
ROI—can you guarantee a good return on investment because your users are engaged?

Track your users for yourself
Ask information via optional profile questions when people register
Items of interest: age, job status, relationship status, education level, race, favorite brands, sex
Gives you marketability with potential advertisers
Opens the door to targeted ads

Additional Selling Points
User Loyalty
User level of engagement
Consistent Exposure
Tracking clicks and hits

If something isn’t performing well, be honest with your advertisers. Come up with ideas that may help.

Know Your Potential Client
National vs. Local—start with local ads until your traffic is high enough to dive into the national realm
Relevancy to your content
Timely or brand building—is it an event promotion or just brand awareness?
Big pockets or little pockets? Be aware of the budget for the clients you approach

Be prepared to hear “Prove It”—share stats, provide Google Analytic screen shots, offer a free trial

Due Diligence
You’ll have to put in the time and effort, but you’ll see a return.

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Blog Indiana Day 2: Syndication Strategies
Aug 14, 2009 | Filed Under: Making Connections

Live Blogging Session #3

Marcia Taylor, Newstex

Blurring of Mass Media:
Mainstream journalists who vblog
Bloggers have moved to media outlets
Corporations are blogging
Twitter is breaking news before CNN.
Blogs are now mainstream.
Newspapers are now providing more material on their blogs than in their print medium.

Syndication—when things have a life outside of itself.
Blogs –>RSS, Email newsletters, ???

Types of Syndication
Free or Bartered—no monetary payment, but blogs can find benefit from added exposure
Ad-Supported—paid a percentage of revenue from the websites where your content appears
Licensed—distributed with copyright, licensing, royalties

The rest of this session was basically a sales presentation on her company. This is where I zoned out and played on Twitter & Facebook instead. Why can’t I remember to click Uno when I’m playing on Facebook? I am never going to win this game.

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Blog Indiana Day 2: Speaker Q&A
Aug 14, 2009 | Filed Under: Making Connections

Live Blogging Speaker/Twitter Panel Q&A

Chris Brogan
Amy Stark
Krista Neher
Chris Baggott
Chris Lucas

This appears to be the official Chris panel, but they are also very fascinating tweeps. Clearly, I’ll have to label their answers by last name. Looking forward to hearing what they have to say. I’m not sure I’ll be able to capture it well in this format, but I’ll certainly try. This is not at all a full transcript, nor is it word for word because I’m not a stenographer. I’ve tried to capture the best quotes on the questions that most interested me.

Q. (BradJWard): Blogging is dead? The conversation has left the blogosphere? Discuss.
Brogan: “Knitting is not dead 100 years later, nor is blogging 8 years later.”
Baggott: Companies are trying to get more human.
Lucas: As marketers, you get tired of your stuff long before the market does. People are willing to write things off as dead before they see the real impact. You can’t get bored with a tool before you have conquered it.
Neher: The key to a successful campaign is to integrate all the tools. A blog can be a really great centerpiece to a good campaign.
Stark: Blogging is great for marketing, but it’s really customer service. Too often we put social media in the PR/Marketing department when it really should be in customer service.

Q. (audience): Chris Brogan, on your earlier keynote you mentioned sharing information and rolodex. For the sake of argument, if I have Senators and supermodels, I should really just give those out?
Brogan: Not everybody should know everybody, but you should share contacts with people who need to have them. If you know someone who could benefit or should have the ear of a senator and you know one, please share.

Q. (audience): In light of the review issue and IZEA’s new sponsored tweets, how do you feel about disclosure?
Brogan: I’m all for it.
Stark: Full disclosure.
Brogan: Full frontal disclosure!
Stark: My brother owns Beef & Boards and they’re competing on RTV6 A-List. When I tweeted the link to vote, I stated that this is my brother, please vote for him.

Q. (indymojo): Lots of talk of twitter spam. Where is the line between spam and business/personal account with promotions?
Lucas: One thing you can do is have a personal account and a separate business account. Our biz account has a specific goal and its intent is to let people know what is going on with the company. You can integrate some of it on your personal account, but know your audience to know what level is too much.
Stark: Your work is part of who you are so it would be inauthentic to not share what you do.
Neher: If it’s not something you would do in the real world, don’t do it online. There’s a place for promoting your business, but it comes out overtime.
Brogan: The difference between spam and promoting business in relationships is when.

Q. (audience): Start doing anything well and the haters come out. Does that make your shit burn?
Brogan: People tend to see the internet as not human. I just ignore it.
Stark: I think the worst insult in social media is ignore. If you talk about the haters, you’re giving them power. Ignore!
Neher: I think it depends why they’re hating you. If it’s misinformation, you can correct that. If they just hate you because they want to, you can get upset about it or you can ignore it.

Live Tweet Wall Questions that went unanswered:

Q. (mooshinindy): Do you feel all blogs have some sort of intrinsic value? Or are some just douchebaggery?

Q. (mamacita): As an internet liason/social media team member for a business, what should my top priority be? What to do first each day?

Q. (rmpuckett): Where does this panel think twitter is going? I frequently hear folks predict that it will continue to exist “in some form.”

Read the comments.
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Blog Indiana Day 2: Website Analytics for Blogging
Aug 14, 2009 | Filed Under: Making Connections

Live Blogging Session #2

James Paden

What do Analytics tell us?
Visitors: unique, location, loyalty
Traffic sources: websites, keywords
Pages: views, times on page, bounce/exit rate (learn what pages are most engaging)
Goals: conversion rates, funnel
Usage: clicks, scrolling, mouse tracking (current technolgy allows you to track what users clicked on, where they move their mouse, what they looked at)

Bounce/Exit Rate—how many people leave before reading another post. (60% to 80% bounce rates are common, 20% to 40% is outstanding.)

Don’t worry about hits—look at page views and unique visitors.

Why Use it
Write more targeted, engaging content
Measure marketing effectiveness

Google Analytics
Free—if you don’t use this, install it now! It can’t backtrack, only analyzes since installation.
Industry standard
Advanced Segmentation
Limisted Customizability
No User-Identifiable Information
Social Media Metrics Plugin

Analyzing Data
If less than half your traffic comes from search engines, learn about driving search traffic.

Goals—setup specific things you want to track (Google allows 4 goals)

Woopra/Clicky
Free & Paid options
Real Time Stats
User-Identifiable information—allows you to track individual users; you can track how specific visitors use your site
Fancy/Rich interface
Woopra: Live chat with visitors
Clicky: Visitor tagging

Hit Traffic
Paid, 60-day trial
keyword tracking
to-do list
blogger/typepad integration

Crazy Egg
Paid
Click Heatmap & Overlays—tracks exactly where on a page people clicked

Click Tale
Paid
Interaction tracking
session videos— watch exactly how a user used a website

Chart Beat
Paid
Realtime dashboard
Analytics, interation and marketing

WordPress Stats
Won’t tell you anything more than Google analytics, but it’s a nice built-in basic solution

Alexa
Free
Publically available
traffic stats
low reliability for small sites (guesstimates some)
Useful for comparing to competitors

I asked: Is there any software that provides data on internal searches so you can track what people are looking for within your site?
A. Google analytics can do this if you provide it with your local search page and the search query.

With a few minutes to spare, he’s going into some advanced analytics examples. It’s fascinating, but visual. Also, since I’m new the concept of analytics there’s no way I can cover it properly.

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