Prepare for the Future of Blogging Cheryl Contee - Fission Strategy (fissionstrategy.com) - @ch3ryl Angela Benton - Black Web Media (blackwebmedia.net) - @abenton/@blackweb20 Adam Conner - Facebook (facebook.com) - @adamconner ===== Adam - "One click is not just one click"; don't look at just doing your site in English; Facebook's largest audience is non-English; half of Facebook's audience comes back daily (2M+ users); you may see higher participation from your site with Facebook integration (referral traffic, comments via Facebook Connect, the "Like" button, etc.) Facebook's three main products: Facebook Profile, Facebook Pages, and Facebook Groups Tijuana Clifton - "Is there a way to really transition branding from a public profile to a Facebook page?" A: Not really; just let your friends know about your fan page and try to drive conversion that way. Angela - Black Web Media/Black Web 2.0 - BW 2.0 started about 3 yrs ago; process of building a network of sites (Black Web Media currently has four sites - BW 2.0, YBP Guide, Politic365, Vocay); try to become a Google News Source (http://www.blackweb20.com/2009/07/13/how-to-become-a-google-news-source) Adam Conner - "How did you become a Google news source?" A: http://www.blackweb20.com/2009/07/13/how-to-become-a-google-news-source; takes about a day or two for Google to review Cheryl - "How important is SEO for your web properties?" A: It's not really an option; it's done in the process of building a website; make sure your URLs are SEO friendly, discover your demographic and tailor keywords to that end. Tijuana Clifton - "Can you go more in-depth with SEO?" A: If using WordPress, you can change permalink structure in settings, as well as adding keywords and descriptions with plugins and such. Instead of using pronouns throughout a piece, you can use the full name; look at how terminology and search terms come up in search results; if using WordPress, you can use the "Truncate Title" plugin to shorten long titles (try to make them keyword rich). Cheryl - Google declined to be at BWB; use Google's Webmaster tools, as well as Google Insights (in other words, Google tools work!) Adam - beware of SEO consultants Angela - Also use Mint (haveamint.com) for some real-time analytics, as well as Google Analytics, also, don't just look at Google; Bing is gaining market share! Cheryl - JJP was keen to remain anonymous for protection purposes; had to move to WordPress because Blogger couldn't handle the comments; calls WordPress a more sustainable platform; also implemented Disqus for comments, which allows comments to go out via Twitter and Facebook to help foster conversation on other platforms; teens text message on avg 1000x a day; they also publish an e-mail digest, as well as syndicate content via RSS, content syndication and mobile integration help to spread the message on several media; also include a widget from Politico to show the President's calendar; look at ways to act *beyond* your blog; JJP's automated Twitter account has around 2000+ followers; LinkWithin (automatically goes through your posts and suggests other posts which are related); augmented reality (takes mobile to the next level by layering rich, contextual web-based information on top of maps) - also suggests using Layar (a mobile app) to give AR a spin; video content will get more interactive (http://www.youtube.com/nonprofits, Viddler, etc.) Angela - Take a step back; it's easy to get caught up in the tools instead of creating and iterating content Mark T. - White media wants more people of color there; Beth Novak (office of science and technology for us gov't); "it's hard to find the inboxes"; how do you get good ideas in the community ready to go and get them in the inboxes of people who can impact change on a large-scale level?; rules and policies don't sometimes translate to the local level; millions of dollars are available in stimulus money Adam - while citizens are able to contact government is greater ways than before, Congress is often understaffed and overworked to pay attention to these ideas; we have to give the government the ability to absorb and comment to that (Personal Democracy Forum) Cheryl - if you are a small business, go to sba.gov and apply to become an AA/minority-owned business; must be two years old; Ushahidi (allows anyone to gather distributed data via SMS, email or web and visualize it on a map or timeline) Adam - Don't ignore the clarity of your content! Angela - minorities at different conferences; we can do all the outreach and visibility as possible, but it's also the onus of conference organizers to seek out diversity; as a blogger, you are a new media business; references the newME conference (http://www.newmeconference.com) Trudy - user-generated content; how do you see it leveraging and changing your web property? Angela - the opportunity is wide-open for AAs; iReport, citizen journalism (maybe on a hyperlocal level); you are building a platform Cheryl - use Disqus to highlight and distribute comments; people also send us pitches; Elon James White's "This Week in Blackness" videos are syndicated there as well; Hip-Hop CNN; have also invited frequent commenters to post entries; you can "promote" members of your community and make them feel more invested in your brand; look for ways to integrate fans and followers into your blog's growth Adam - just because users can generate content doesn't mean that they will; there has to be a benefit for them; what's their motivation (WIIFM factor) Cheryl - you have to build a community first Angela - "The Pitch"; found that AAs don't really want to do video; try and see what works Anjuan - "Was it a strategic move for your site to not do multimedia content, or does your audience not want it?" Cheryl - an issue of capacity Angela - experimented with podcasts for a year (interviews); just became an issue of time; played around with video content like Webisodes Anjuan - It's hard to get to personal data on Facebook (comments, etc.); are there plans for Facebook to lose their walled garden so users can access their data? Adam - if using WordPress, Facebook integrates well; not all the content on Facebook is *your* content (commenters comments belong to them, not you); Facebook also offers APIs Lamar - what is Facebook doing to not become the next "MySpace"; check out MarriageFans.com (http://www.facebook.com/happilyeverafterthemovie) Cheryl - Some helpful links: Need Facebook Widgets? http://facebook.com/facebook-widgets Need Twitter Widgets? http://twitter.com/goodies/widgets "WP Touch Pro" and "MobilePress" help convert your site to a mobile theme; WidgetBox also has embeddable widgets There's also WordPress Mobile Pack - http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordpress-mobile-pack