Posts tagged blogging
Adding blog posts from Seattle Guanxi
Apr 2nd
My last Beijing Duck blog post was in October. This is a bit embarrassing, but I have been posting content online consistently since then, which I’m making sure to add here.
First, I briefly, co-founded, blogged and tweeted Seattle Guanxi, with the idea that I would maintain both this blog and that. Actually, I maintained neither, and am now adding all my Seattle Guanxi posts to this blog because I hope to integrate the blog’s topics, content for Seattleites who are interested in both public relations and China, into this blog.
Another excuse for lack of Beijing Duck activity is within a month of launching Seattle Guanxi, I worked on the Washington United for Marriage launch, which is currently in the running for a national public relations award, a Holmes Report Gold SABRE Award. I contributed many of the @WA4Marriage tweets and Washington United for Marriage Facebook posts in November 2011.
Lastly, at the beginning of January 2012, I took over managing strategy and execution for my employer Nyhus Communications’ blog, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, on top of my existing client work.
I’m planning to restart blogging here, outside of work, but in the meantime, enjoy my Seattle Guanxi posts. Maintaining a personal blog and strategic social media presence has benefited me enormously both personally and professionally; I get great joy when people who live the distance of a long airplane flight from me email me out of the blue asking for advice on working in public relations or art in China as a result of reading my blog. I really admire the people who work a standard public relations agency work week then take the time to actively maintain an online personal brand.
Make Yourself Copy and Paste-able
Jun 5th
The past couple of weeks I’ve had a crash course in the importance of easily copy and paste-able online “about” sections for both companies and people. I helped compile a document on 35+ executives who are attending a client event, and for each person, I included: name, title, employer(s), photo, bio, and about the employer. I compile this kind of information frequently, and I’m sure journalists and bloggers do, too, when obtaining content about spokespeople for publication.
In my opinion, these criteria make an “about” section easiest to copy and paste:
- Third person
- Full sentences
- 50-100 words and easy to turn into 1-2 paragraphs
- Free of grammatical errors
- Clearly explains what you do
Additionally, I love it when someone’s name, title, employer(s), high quality photo, and copy and paste-able bio are all available on his or her LinkedIn profile, and his or her company has a LinkedIn page with a copy and paste-able “about” section. A close second is if all this is easy to find through searching on the company website.
Strong examples, which I found through LinkedIn searching:
From Liz Herbert’s LinkedIn profile:
“Liz, who is based in Cambridge, Mass., serves Sourcing & Vendor Management professionals. Her key research areas include software-as-a-service (SaaS) and ERP implementation with a focus on SAP and Oracle implementation. In the SaaS space, Liz helps clients evaluate the SaaS model, including SaaS pricing and licensing; best practices for contract negotiation, benefits, and tradeoffs of SaaS deployment; and strategies and considerations for maximizing the value of SaaS investments. In the ERP implementation space, Liz helps clients understand the ERP implementation provider landscape as well as best practices for provider selection, RFPs for implementation projects, and provider governance models.”
[The only thing I would change is "Sourcing & Vendor Management" to "sourcing and vendor management."]
From Forrester Research’s LinkedIn page:
“Forrester Research, Inc. (Nasdaq: FORR) is an independent research company that provides pragmatic and forward-thinking advice to global leaders in business and technology. Forrester works with professionals in 19 key roles at major companies providing proprietary research, customer insight, consulting, events, and peer-to-peer executive programs. For more than 27 years, Forrester has been making IT, marketing, and technology industry leaders successful every day. For more information, visit www.forrester.com.”
Additionally, I discovered today a blog post on the importance of bios and tips for writing good ones, The Resume is Dead, The Bio is King. I commented on it because I’m having trouble deciding on where to post my copy and paste-able bio and where to keep my content first person and customized to the social network. As an interim fix, I added my copy and paste-able bio to the top of this blog’s About Beth page and kept the detailed about second I developed based on Bob Dunn‘s excellent advice in his Wordcamp Seattle presentation below the new bio. The standardization of my bio online is a lot less important that that of a popular company spokesperson, though.
What trends and problems have you encountered in copying and pasting bios and “about” sections or writing your own? Do you agree with my criteria for copy and paste-able? Do you have any thoughts on how I can improve my copy and paste-able bio? Let me know in the comments.
Apologies for Formatting Change Issues
Mar 18th
WordPress’ most recent update has made it really difficult for me to figure out how to customize my blog posts in many of my usual ways, such as making sure that links open in a new browser tab and formatting bullets. I’m sure most of you haven’t noticed, but for those of you who have, know that it’s driving me crazy, too.
This has made me feel like I’m instantly two generations older than my actual age because I never have this trouble figuring out how to use websites or software.
China Blog Posts as of Late
Aug 18th
I’ve been in Seattle and Maine for about a month and a half now and have been a little lazy about blogging. I have some post ideas that require actual work to put together, but in the meantime, I will share a short list of blog posts from others in China that I found particularly worth reading. I think this post is pretty ironic considering the second link down.
Beyond Law Enforcement. Integrating Migrants from Collective Responsibility
Sinica Podcast: The Death of the China Blog via Imagethief
Social Media: Chinese Love to Engage [with embedded presentation] via Thomas Crampton
Why Do Students Give? [specifically Chinese students] from Collective Responsiblity
African Boots – soft launch from Danwei
Also, I just learned from Thomas Crampton’s blog about Herdict, where you can see what sites are blocked in a country of your choice. Apparently we can add Foursquare to this (long) list (of highly popular-in-the-U.S.) sites in China. I’d appreciate any other good sites that monitor the GFW in the comments.
Blogging in China for the Clueless
Apr 21st
I’ve known for a while that I should make my blog accessible in China and give it a unique URL. I want to share my process with those who are in my situation and equally clueless about the technicalities of blogging. These three blog posts made it possible for me (in addition to my Web designer friend who helped me with step #2).
1. How to unblock your website in China
2. How to Install WordPress
Note: Because I’m using ICDsoft, the host recommended in #1, my hostname in Step 6 is localhost:/tmp/mysql.sock and my root directory in Step 7 is /www/www. It took both my friend and I quite a few mistakes to figure those two things out.
3. Migrate Your Blog from Blogger to WordPress with all the Google Juice
Note: These instructions solidly covered my most important concerns like keeping subscribers and redirecting my Blogspot URL but I lost most of my widgets including blogroll in the process.
Update 04/27/10: When you migrate from a URL/blog host blocked in China to an unblocked one, all image links will appear broken to users who aren’t using a VPN (like in Google Image search results). I’m currently working on replacing my images one by one. :(
The Best Post I’ve Read on the Google/China Fiasco So Far
Apr 2nd
One of the bloggers in my blogroll, Imagethief (also known as Will Moss), published a post last week that includes what he calls “A handy cheat sheet for interpreting the Google China story.” The cheat sheet succinctly summarizes opinions of multiple groups of people throughout the main steps of the fiasco. (Is fiasco too strong a word? I don’t think so, but tell me in the comments if you disagree.) His analysis from a public relations standpoint is also insightful.
If you are interested in reading English-language blogs on China, I highly suggest you subscribe to Imagethief. That blog is one of the best I’ve found in that category.
Recent Comments