While guest blogging is a perfectly valid method of marketing, it is also a popular technique for affiliate marketers. An affiliate marketer is a blogger that is primarily looking to sell their readers something. For everything they sell on their website, they get a small affiliate percentage payback. Amazon, Apple, and thousands of other companies have affiliate arrangements available for their products. There is nothing wrong with affiliate marketing in general and I do affiliate marketing myself, however, the marketing tactics of some affiliate marketers leaves much to be desired. An affiliate marketer wants to guest blog on your site primarily for the back-link. This link back to their site is of great value to them because it can cause them to rise in Google search rankings. For that, they give you content, but that content may or may not be of the highest quality or even relevant to your site at all.

Recently I received a request for a gust blog post that was so wrong, I feel compelled to write about it. First of all, the email was poorly formatted and generally looked sloppy. If you are serious about your business, and make so mistake this is a business proposal, neatness and professionalism are paramount. The email said they found my site “enchanting”. I like what I have done with this website and I think it’s a strong company site, but enchanting it is not. This kind of misplaced, over the top compliment makes you look silly. Two strikes.

They proposed a blog post about beading. Boy would I love to know what beading has to do with social media and marketing. This is completely out of the blue and has nothing to do with the content or tenor of my website. To add insult to injury, they offered me $40 for the lifetime of the blog post. Lastly, the entire email included some broken and otherwise poorly written english.

So here are your rules for guest blogging:

• Do your homework. Seek out sites that may be a good fit for the content you propose to write. Read the blog and understand the tone of the posts. Read the comments and understand the audience. If you really want to go the extra mile, join the community and add your own comments. This way, you get on the blog author’s radar and they can get to know you and your perspective.
• When you write to propose an article or writing for a site in general, make sure your email is neat and well written. Approach it like you are applying for a job, because in a way you are. People running high quality sites are very protective of their content and will not let just anyone post.
• Propose content that is highly relevant to the website and it’s audience. If you have done your homework, this should be easy. Find a way you can add real value to the site. You are thinking more here about what you can give to the site than what writing on the site will give to you.
• Asking to pay for your post because you want to insert a link is generally not a good idea outside of the deliberate affiliate marketing space. If you want to outright buy a link, there are some sites that will have a sidebar section with paid links or even display ads. If this is what you really want, don’t beat around the bush, you’re asking for paid advertising. Otherwise, when you guest post, most often there will be a byline in the article and that will often link back to your main website. This is already highly valuable for you as readers will clearly see this and it adds to your Google ranking because of the back-link. Don’t push it, you’ve already won.

Social media is all about content. Creating and publishing great content is the primary factor in social media success. Fortunately that content already lives right inside of your company. The trick is getting it out. Great content might not even be where you think it is and I’m sorry to say it’s most likely not going to come out of your marketing department. Your best content is more likely found down the org chart with the girls and guys grinding it out everyday on front lines. These people have stories to tell and valuable insights about how the product really works and what customers think. Your road warriors, the sales team also can give you great case studies and interesting new ways your customers are getting value from your product.

It’s also important not to stifle content. Legal departments will wring their hands about the risks of uncontrolled content creation and corporate marketing will gripe about not being able to control the message. There may be a good deal of pressure, especially in larger companies, to retain the status quo. This will make everyone feel more comfortable but will get you nowhere in your social media marketing efforts. It’s not to say there are not valid concerns from the legal department and content creation does need guidelines. Most larger companies have adopted a social media or blogging policy which, when written well, balances security and legal concerns with enough openness and trust in employees as to not completely neuter the message.

By leveraging your internal knowledge, you will put yourself a big step ahead of your competition. One of the best differentiating factors between you and your competition is your employees and their knowledge. Don’t be afraid to show what you know and let certain key people step out and be a star. People inherently don’t trust companies but they do trust other people. Building trust in social media is key and it can only be done with real, authentic individuals. You have lots of these authentic people in your company and they have an important part to play in your social media business strategy.

First of all, every “F” sound on the site is replaced with a “ph” which is incredibly annoying and amateurish. I’m sure it was as cute idea in some board room or living room or where ever this thing was conceived but in practice it just doesn’t fly. Second of all, I don’t know why it was built on a Twitter-like platform. Twitter is the hot technology of the moment but that doesn’t mean it’s the answer for everything. The site wants to be about community, but there are actually very few real community features on it. Twitter, in and of itself, is not a community. If they wanted more of a real community a much better choice would have been Ning, which allows you to build real community based sites easily. Ning sites can have message boards, video, audio and chat.

Another odd thing is the prominent message in the top logo that says the site is “A gift from Kirstie Alley”. Well, thank you Kirstie for your generosity.  Usually it’s classier to be more humble about such things. She didn’t exactly cure cancer or anything.

People are so infatuated with Twitter, microblogging and 140 characters but you must realize, there is nothing magical about 140 characters. It is not the path to enlightenment nor the key to the fountain of youth. It’s just another technology, good for some things, not good for others. I am hearing a little too much Twitter is everything, Twitter is all I need. Blogging and RSS are dead. Please, stop it already. Twitter is great, I love it and use it daily, but some things cannot be expressed in 140 characters. Some things deserve a longer, more thoughtful treatment. If you are not blogging as much because you’re Twittering so much, I would say you have it backward. Blogging should be the main course, Twitter the appetizer. Keep things in perspective and remember when you Twitter your Tweets go into the Twittersphere. When you blog, your posts live on your site, forever. It’s content that helps your SEO and brings perspective customers, partners and employees to you. Never forget, the sale is always made on your site, not on a social network. Your primary objective is to drive traffic to your site and blogging is the most effective way to do that. Twitter, yes, but dont’ forget to blog.

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