My friends at Point To Point in Cleveland invited me to guest post and it just went live. The post, titled, “Playing the name game when it comes to online reputation management” comes with a back story.

You see, in February 2007 I was contacted by their president, also named Mark Goren, to discuss our “Google problem.” Since that first chat, we’ve become friends, done a little work together, and continue to serve as each others’ mentor.

The guest post talks about the importance of filtering out bad information from social media monitoring to collect results that are most relevant to your search strategy. Using the example of our name, I illustrate how to do so through simple search.

Why does this relate to planting seeds? Because the more content you produce through different social networks or the more you’re being written about, it’s vital to know where conversations are taking place if you want to manage your reputation online. In some cases, it may even make you want to distinguish your name somehow, to help make it easier to search for. Cleveland’s Mark Goren did so by using his middle initial, which you can see on the right sidebar on P2P’s blog.

Mark is a great guy and the team at Point To Point is at the top of their game. I encourage you to learn a little bit about them, their award-winning work and their unique charity, Change for $20, which they launched last year for the holidays.

To learn about how Mark and I met, read this old post.

To read today’s guest post, head on over to P2P’s blog.

To check out Change for $20 (which is probably the first thing you should do), visit the site.

As I wrote in the original post, and still believe very strongly today:

The world is smaller than ever. People are meeting new people and making new friends every day. It’s all about reaching out, connecting and making meaningful relationships. Last night’s chat was just one more powerful example.

And so is today’s guest post.

Here’s a new “Post from the Past“. This, one, titled, “Behind your back”, was originally posted on June 29, 2007.

It’s all about listening, which is a major topic over on this blog - and will be increasing in focus as we move on.

Would love to get your thoughts on this line of thinking. Comment lines are open!

BEHIND YOUR BACK
29 June 2007, 1:18 pm

People are talking behind your back. All the time. Online. In conversations that never die.

What’s so interesting about this? To me, it’s seeing who’s listening. And there are ways to see who’s listening (just visit the Social Media Wiki to find out how). After listening, though, comes responding. Letting people know that you hear what they’re saying. Whether it’s positive or negative.

In the past week or so, I’ve seen examples of good and bad listeners.

First the good. Hats off to Tom Abbott over at Warwick University. In a comment I left over at Shel Israel’s blog, I linked to Warwick as an example of a school that’s doing well with social media programs. Tom, head of the podcasting program at Warwick, responded to the comment over at Shel’s and sent me a personal email. In it, he offered his time, letting me know that he’d share more information with me if I was interested.

His response felt good. Made me feel valued, listened to.

Now the bad. As a customer of the TD Bank, I’m not sure they have an online pulse. I’ve written about the service (negatively) at a branch several times. I know they saw what I wrote - I know it with 100% certainty, thanks to Google Analytics - but nothing. No “We hear you”. Nothing.

This makes me feel shut out, roped off, ignored.

Companies are going to have to make online monitoring and responding a given. A natural. A job title. These are the conversations that will live on forever - with a gaping void right down the middle of them if they never respond. And, thanks to search engines, they’ll live on and on and on and on. Like zombies, they’ll come back from the dead to haunt until they’re addressed.

It plays right into the Give + Take attitude. In fact, it’s just a common courtesy to respond to someone who’s talking to you - or about you. Even if it’s behind your back.

What are some examples of times when you’ve felt roped off, ignored? Conversely, if you have positive stories of companies that listened and responded well, I’d love to hear those too.

Every now and then I’ll pull an old post from my original blog and repost it here. There are new readers here, people who are just getting to know me. I’d like to share some of my original thinking with you, so you can see where the Planting Seeds analogy originated and how my thinking has shaped.

So, here’s the first Post from the Past. Originally posted on May 2, 2007, you’ll see how the 4 Ps of Blogging evolved into the LRI model I discuss here.

Looking forward to your new thoughts on this topic!

I’ve been trying to come up with a simple and easy way to explain to someone who’s never blogged before how to get into it in the right way. And, while I hate to add to the pile of 4P theories that have been knocked into our heads since college, this still remains an easy-to-remember device.

THE 4Ps TO STARTING A BLOG

1. Participate

For people coming in from out in the cold, participation is the key to understanding how the culture of blogging works. Potential bloggers need to visit other sites, read, comment and connect with the writers. The purpose of the participation phase is two-fold:

• To understand what’s involved, gain a sense of the commitment and help the potential blogger develop their own style, which happens by reading a variety of other blogs.
• Participating is also like raising a flag to other bloggers to tell them you’re in the game. Essentially, you’re developing a network to connect with and lean on when you start, which is also good for loading up your blogroll when the time comes.

2. Plan

Now that you visited other blogs and see how they’re organized, it’s time to start thinking about your own blog. This is the strategy phase. What will your blog be called? What URL will you secure? Which platform will you use - WordPress, Typepad, other? Start thinking about the tone of your blog. Consider your design, categories, tagline - everything that goes into developing a professional presence. Start writing your “about” page and your inaugural post.

At this stage, for the less technical, you’ll want to consult with a designer who can help you create the look and feel you’re after. Remember, your blog is a key element to developing a personal brand. Content is one thing, how it’s presented is quite another.

3. Practice

Once your plan is laid out, start practising. Become familiar with the blogging platform you’ll be using. Learn how to add categories, create links, edit, upload photos, import photos, and fix the little problems that come up from time to time. If you don’t know what those problems are, find a blogger on the same platform and ask. (Don’t worry, all this sounds more difficult than it really is.)

Start writing some posts and have someone critique them for you. And then keep writing. The more you write, the more your style will develop. You’ll also find your blogger’s mindset, so you can hit the ground running when you launch. In addition, you’ll have a bank of posts to choose from when you’re blogging.

4. Post

You’ve launched your blog. All the elements are in place. Now it’s time to get posting. Develop a schedule, decide on a minimum number of posts to make every week and try to stick to it. Then, once you’re in the flow of things, increase your frequency as you gain comfort.

The most important thing to note as you go through these four steps is that once you pass into the next P, the others never stop. You’ll always participate, plan and practice, even when you’ve moved into the posting phase. Blogging is an ongoing process at all levels, so while you have to start at the beginning, don’t think of it as graduating to the next step - it’s more like you’re building in a new step when you’re ready.

And these, good readers, are the 4Ps of starting a blog: Participate, plan, practice, post.

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What are your thoughts on the 4 Ps? How do you see Listening, Responding + Initiating Conversations fitting in?