For most (if not all) bloggers, one of the key metrics on how their blog has grown comes from how many readers it has.

These don’t necessarily have to be subscribers, either, although I’m a fan of subscribers being more a metric than readers for success, since these are folks that are investing their inboxes with you. But I digress…

But as any blogger knows, wanting more readers and getting more readers can be two wildly separate entities. It’s a big blogging world out there, and people can be sparing with their time and where to invest it.

The good news is, there is a way you can attract more readers to your blog, and that’s through content syndication. The bad news, you may have to give up some control. So what are the benefits and how do you get syndicated?

A Quick Introduction to Content Syndication

Before we look at how you can get your blog in front of the eyes of more readers, let’s just take a quick look at what content syndication means. The easiest way to compare it is to local news journalists and major newsrooms.

For most local journalists, your stories are mainly read by the local township. There’s nothing wrong with this, and it’s a solid enough career. However, now and again you might write a human interest story that gets picked up by the nationals, and your piece is quoted in the New York Times or on CNN.

That kind of exposure can lead to bigger gigs and paychecks, as you’re approached to provide stories (or images) for these bigger outlets, as well as your local publication where it all started. This is the journalism version of content syndication.

Now, take that back to your blog. That’s the local publication, and the bigger newsrooms might be Mashable, or ReadWriteWeb, or Techcrunch, or Technorati – basically, anywhere that might be in your niche but has an audience hundreds of thousands of times bigger than yours.

If you could get your content into their feeds, then the sky is the limit to where you can go as a blogger. So how do you get out there, and what are the best options for you?

The Do-It-Yourself Guide to Content Syndication

The simplest way to have your content syndicated is to do it yourself.

Yes, it’s also the most time-consuming, as you have to do all the legwork and find the sites in your niche that accept blog feeds to be shared. But until you have the good fortune to be noticed by other websites for your blog content, getting yourself out there in syndication land is the only way to go for now.

To help you make this process a little quicker, here are some of the best (and most widely-read) syndication sites and options currently out there, regardless of your blog’s niche:

• Alltop: Although Alltop gets a lot of stick from many people, it can still act as a great library of blogs and bloggers. With a complete A-Z of topics and syndication as easy as submitting your blog details, it’s a great way to get your blog in front of a new set of readers.

• Networked Blogs: Primarily a great way to share your blog posts on Facebook, Networked Blogs also has a library of blog topics to submit your blog to. The cool thing about Networked Blogs is if you can get enough of your Facebook friends and colleagues to follow your blog via their Facebook app, you can rise to the top of the topic list and get even more readers.

• Scribnia: From my friend David Spinks, Scribnia has become a great resource for finding quality new blogs due to their voting system. People can show their approval (or disapproval, so make sure your quality is good!) of your blog with a vote and description and, like Networked Blogs, this helps you rise in the ranks until your content is in front of thousands. Again, submitting your blog is straightforward.

These are just three options you can begin submitting your content to for syndication. There are more (and this is where Google is your friend), but I chose these for the width of topics and audience size.

As a way of potentially growing your readership, syndication offers the best “bang for your buck” when it comes to the number of new readers you could attract. However, it does have some downsides.

I Get a Whole Bunch of New Readers – So What’s the Problem?

While syndication can get you new readers, by its very nature it can also be a limited amount of new readers. If you take a look at the three options I highlighted above, you’ll see that there are hundreds (thousands) of other bloggers syndicated there too.

So, to make sure your blog stands out, you have to know how to best use each network for promotion. A widget on your blog (Alltop, Networked Blogs and Scribnia all offer this) is a start. As is adding the syndicated feed to your email signature, or other online destinations.

Additionally, syndication often means losing control of your content. For instance, instead of people sharing your blog post on Twitter, Facebook, etc, they share the syndicated feed. So, your work is read but readers still aren’t necessarily coming to your site versus the syndicated one.

Just a couple of things to keep in mind before going down the syndication route. There’s no doubt it can work – just make sure you’re ready to do the work to make it work.

Then again, isn’t that how all blogging growth really happens?

This post originally appeared on For Bloggers By Bloggers. For more blogging tips on how to grow your blog, you can subscribe here.

image: Google Libraries

How to Get More Blog Readers By Having Your Content Syndicated originally appeared on Danny Brown | Social Media Marketing Blog - The Human Side of Media and the Social Side of Marketing under a Creative Commons license.

If you follow any brand news in social media, you’re probably aware of the criticism Toyota has been receiving over its Superbowl Twitter campaign.

If you haven’t heard about it, Toyota wanted to promote its new Camry range, so it started numerous Twitter accounts to send tweets to people about the car.

Now, there’s no doubt that having multiple accounts sending out random messages into hashtag conversations is spam. Heck, I’ve written about that here before, and it’s always a big no-no in any of our campaigns at Jugnoo.

It’s pre-Permission Marketing at its worst. And yet…

I can’t help but feel that we’re blaming the wrong people. While Toyota’s team may have been the ones behind the campaign, generally for brands that size it’s an external agency that handles promotions like this.

Sure, Toyota would have had to have signed off on the proposal, but at the end of the day, the expertise and best practices lie with the agency.

I’ve worked on accounts for Ford Canada, RIM, LG and more, and while these companies took the plaudits for the success of their campaigns, it was the agency that conceived, conceptualized and implemented – not the brand itself.

Because of the nature of the client/vendor relationship, it’s very rare that the talent behind a campaign is publicly acknowledged. And that’s how it should be, because you’re generally on a contractual status, nothing more.

So before we start shooting brands for a faux pas (perceived or actual), let’s just take a minute and be sure who the blame should be targeted at, before we scare away brands altogether when we should be encouraging them to be more active.

It’s the only way we’ll truly encourage brands to continue to experiment, and be where their customers increasingly are. And we all win when that happens…

It Isn’t Always the Brands to Blame for Social Media Screw Ups originally appeared on Danny Brown | Social Media Marketing Blog - The Human Side of Media and the Social Side of Marketing under a Creative Commons license.

Hey there! So I really wanted to add the Something Borrowed option too, but couldn’t think of anything, so the three in the title will have to do. So…

It’s been a little quiet here last week, since Kevin Green’s great guest post about LinkedIn (and if you haven’t read it yet, you’re missing a great ongoing discussion in the comments). But there’s a good reason for that, which is where the Something New and Something Old part comes in. And yes, I’m the something old part in the image at the start of this post…

Last Thursday, February 2nd at 11.52am, my wife Jacki gave birth to our second child, this time a daughter to join her brother Ewan, who showed his excitement at the news by offering back-up vocals to his favourite Thomas the Tank song.

This post contains a video. If you can\'t see it displayed properly in your feed, click here to view it directly.

Salem McKellan Brown weighed in at 6lbs and 15oz, and both mama and daughter are well (they came home on Saturday morning). She’s a cute little tyke, and very wriggly – fun when it comes to diaper time!

So, obviously, my energies have been elsewhere. Normal service will be resumed shortly. In the meantime, you can hop over to Sarah Robinson’s blog where I guest as part of her 28 Days… series. This month, she’s looking at how you can encourage fierce loyalty from your community.

My post is titled If You Want Fierce Loyalty, You Need to Be Fiercely Loyal First. I kind of cuss a few times and talk about dog poo. Hence the Something Blue reference. Check it out if you have time, and make sure to check the rest of the series out too, there are some wicked smart people in it.

Cheers, have a great week and see you soon!

Something Old, Something New, Something Blue originally appeared on Danny Brown | Social Media Marketing Blog - The Human Side of Media and the Social Side of Marketing under a Creative Commons license.

This is a guest post by Kevin Green.

Would anyone be really upset if LinkedIn’s .com destination up and disappeared tomorrow?

It’s safe to assume that recruiters scouring the site for new talent and current shareholders would be pretty peeved, even if the stock (LNKD) is trading at half price from the IPO. But how would the lack of an online destination really impact everyday users?

Users that are tethered to their mobile phones and enamored by the promise of applications, innovation and integration?

Of the top 10 most trafficked social networking sites, LinkedIn is a bit of an anomaly. Its success is not dependent on status updates, games or rich media content, but on connecting individuals around professional interests and capabilities.

Even with 135 million registered users, LinkedIn has (not surprisingly) had difficulty keeping the attention of its user base – with members spending an average of only8 minutes per visit (source: Google DoubleClick Ad Planner).

Compare that to the new social media darling, Pinterest.com. Traffic to Pinterest has grown a whopping 40% in the last 6 months – and its 13 Million users are spending an average time spent of 15 minutes and 40 seconds on the site – nearly double time spent on LinkedIn.com.

With numbers like these you can’t help but wonder how LinkedIn will compete for mindshare when interest-based social networks are cropping up everywhere and stealing bigger pieces of the consumer engagement pie?

If I was Reid Hoffman, I’d A) – be a lot wealthier, and B) – try a new approach that liberated LinkedIn from its .com chains, and focus more on applications and integration.

From a pure functionality standpoint, the standalone LinkedIn.com destination doesn’t offer anything that can’t be found or easily deployed within Facebook or Google+.  However, as a brand, LinkedIn has established a lot of credibility with business professionals around the world and has become the de facto standard in online CVs.

But there is only so long LinkedIn can maintain that credibility without innovating to better meet user needs – because it’s only a matter of time before someone does “LinkedIn” better.

Opportunities and Competitive Challenges

Facebook’s Open Graph applications present an interesting opportunity and risk for LinkedIn.

Of the initial 80+ applications within the Timeline Apps catalogue, Monster Worldwide managed to squeeze in the LinkedIn competitor Branch Out. Although the application struggled initially, the feature set is nearly identical to what is offered by LinkedIn, and deeper alignment with Facebook could gain significantly more interest.

• Note – Alison Hillman of BranchOut offered a correction the the comparison Brian makes. You can find more information here.

Considering Facebook’s 800+ million global user base and the staggering amount of time users spend on the social network per visit on average (23 minutes and 20 seconds), Monster’s move to integrate Branch Out deeper into the Facebook ecosystem presents significant risk to LinkedIn’s externally-focused strategy.

To date, LinkedIn has focused more attention on bringing users from Twitter, Facebook and Google+ deeper into its social network.  Users have linked accounts to share their activity in these more populated destinations rather than participate within the LinkedIn destination itself (we’ll see what happens when users realize the Tweets application is no longer supported as of January 31, 2012).

The result has been a redundancy in content and value.  While some of the LinkedIn Groups are thriving, many times it’s still not enough to warrant a separate destination as participation is infrequent and the feature is not dramatically differentiated from circles in Google+ or Facebook Groups.

LinkedIn has traditionally held the user base close to their vest and been strict about third party application development and sharing information. However, the opportunity to bring down some of those walls, innovate and integrate is now. While Branch Out may not be a true competitor in the long run, it’s only a matter of time before someone approaches the professional audience and delivers a more seamless experience with a unique feature set.

With such a powerful brand presence, LinkedIn has the opportunity to own the professional dialogue and connectivity across social networks, and not just on LinkedIn.com.

Time for LinkedIn to Re-Engage

As it’s become such a trusted resource in finding, evaluating and hiring employees, the LinkedIn “Seal of Approval” carries weight and should be amplified to encourage more connections, more conversation and more action.  It’s not a new concept, LinkedIn tried back in 2010 to deploy an application in Facebook, but it failed miserably (9,000 likes compared to 398,347 for Branch Out).  Why LinkedIn chose not to continue its integration with Facebook is a bit of a mystery, but it’s time to re-engage.

The development of a robust application could dramatically increase interaction and time spent among LinkedIn’s core user base.  It also creates an opportunity to gather more data about members and enhance their targeted advertising around interests and behaviors.

If the core functionality of LinkedIn was more portable, then the role of the LinkedIn.com destination moves away from being a standard social network that requires daily participation, to a distributed presence that can more easily integrate with highly trafficked and engaging social networks and eventually, permeate corporate websites.

Just think about how LinkedIn community engagement would change if it was effectively integrated with Facebook, where 81% of users log in at least weekly (in comparison to the 14% of users that log in to LinkedIn)? (Source: Mintel “Use of leading social networks, June 2011”)

In my opinion, LinkedIn as a social network is too valuable and useful to disappear entirely, but without some strategic adjustments, it faces the biggest challenge from competitors and entrepreneurs.  Segregating itself from others and facilitating fringe connections with Twitter and others is a missed opportunity.

That said, if there was one social network to watch over the next two years, I’d place my bets on LinkedIn, if it strives to innovate and integrate.  Otherwise, LinkedIn could become the MySpace of professional social networking.

About the author: Kevin M. Green is the Vice President, Strategy at Digital Influence Group, a full service digital marketing agency located in the Boston, Massachusetts area.  He blogs regularly at Green Matter Thoughts and can be reached on Twitter @kevinmgreen.  For more on his professional background, you can visit Kevin’s LinkedIn profile.

If LinkedIn.com Fails in the Social Network Forest, Will It Make a Sound? originally appeared on Danny Brown | Social Media Marketing Blog - The Human Side of Media and the Social Side of Marketing under a Creative Commons license.

As children, we have unbridled aspirations.

We dream to be astronauts. We dream to be explorers. We dream to be princesses. We dream to be the world’s greatest sports star. We dream.

Looking back at our childhood dreams, we rarely feel we failed because we didn’t become the astronaut. Or marry the prince. Or found new lands. Or had stadiums cheering our name.

Instead, we look back and remember a time when dreams had no limits, and anything was possible, even if (in reality) it never was.

Yet we never use the fail word. Because, in truth, we never failed.

Just because something didn’t happen doesn’t mean it’s a failure. Far from it.

That failed astronaut? Perhaps he became a doctor and found a cure for cancer.

That failed princess? Perhaps she became a politician and ended global hunger.

That failed sports star? Perhaps he became an author and wrote the book that changed the world forever.

Failure is simply a word. A perception of what might have been versus what is. Another path on an ongoing journey. Something that only exists because we allow it to.

And if we allow failure to exist, then we can also disallow it. And if we disallow it, then we can think the way we did as children. Where one dream not realized becomes another dream still to happen.

Because if something can still happen, then it hasn’t failed. And if failure hasn’t yet happened? Then perhaps it never will.

image: JoePhilipson

Because We Never Failed originally appeared on Danny Brown | Social Media Marketing Blog - The Human Side of Media and the Social Side of Marketing under a Creative Commons license.

I’ve been thinking a lot about collaborative marketing lately, and how we can turn co-existing businesses more into partners and less about missed opportunities. I think there’s a great untapped market for someone that really wants to grab collaborative marketing and run with it.

For example – imagine you’re going on a trip. You have to fly to get there, so there are a few processes you need to go through before, during and after:

• Buying your ticket.
• Driving to the airport.
• In-flight activities.
• Hotel or accommodation when you land.
• Rental car.

These are just the basics – I’m sure there are a lot more depending on what your individual needs are.

Now.

Instead of doing this all separately, there was some form of collaborative marketing behind it to make your life easier? I don’t know about you, but I know when my own life is made easy, I’m inclined to use the same service or product again. So.

Imagine if, when you buy your ticket (online or offline), the airline has a deal with all the major car hire firms like Hertz, Enterprise, Avis, etc. So, you buy your ticket and you have an option to hire your car at the same time. The rental firm then comes out and drops your car off. Or, better still, the airliner has a deal with airport cab firms to pick you up and take you to your flight.

Now, let’s also say that when you’re buying your ticket, you have the option of logging onto the booking site via Facebook Connect. If you’ve filled out your Movies and Music preferences on Facebook, the airline sees this. They then load this information into the media options available to your flight using something like iTunes. You can then watch your type of movies (if there’s a screen on the back of the seat in front of you), or your favourite music via an iTunes console.

With regards the hotel or accommodation, if you have to look after it and your company isn’t paying for it, again the airline has a partnership with hotels, motels, bed and breakfasts and more, and not just the big ones but of all sizes. You fill out a short cheat sheet when buying your ticket and the three most suitable accommodations pop up.

And the rental firm that started it all off?

They’re there (obviously) at the other end. But what they’ve done when you booked initially is ask what type of trip you’re having, and the kind of things you like to do when relaxing. So, when you pick up your car at the other side, the GPS is loaded with some destinations you might enjoy. And they’re tied in with local businesses that are part of the collaborative marketing approach of all the above.

Now, this is a pretty simple take on basic marketing 101. Yet, as an example of true collaborative marketing, it’s a start.

But it’s got to be better than a non-starter, no?

image: Ranjith Shenoy

Collaborative Marketing and the Natural Progression to Real Customer Satisfaction originally appeared on Danny Brown | Social Media Marketing Blog - The Human Side of Media and the Social Side of Marketing under a Creative Commons license.

I’m a little tired. Not physically. I could always do with a little more sleep, but then so can everyone.

No.

I’m more tired about the constant “The End of PR”, “The End of Marketing”, “The End of Print” and “The End of Advertising” missives  that seem to be flying about at the minute.

I can’t open my email subscriptions without the latest link shouting out “The end of…. Where now for Industry X?”.

I’m an avid blog reader and use Alltop regularly to find interesting stories from my industry and beyond. Yet it seems that there’s an “End of…” blog post for every *normal* one at the minute.

Why?

Why do we have to bang the nails into the coffin of industries that are still very much alive? Why do we have to look at an industry that’s been around for years as “ending”, just because there are new tools available? Is there really such a thing as an ending, anyway?

End or Mend?

Instead of saying an industry is ending, how about we say it’s mending instead? If an industry is really viewed as being broken, should we be closing the door on it or helping it back on its feet?

If your pet breaks its leg in an accident, do you immediately want to  put it to sleep or do you love it back to health? If you break the point on your trusty pencil, do you sharpen it or throw it in the bin? Even when that pencil eventually writes its last word, you don’t stop using pencils – you start afresh. But it’s still with the same type of pencil.

When you’ve taken your last step on a particular journey, it doesn’t mean your travels are over – it simply means there’s a new journey to  begin.

It’s easy to say something is finished – you don’t have to worry about it anymore as it heads for that big garbage bag of irrelevance. The harder part is making irrelevant into relevant.

It’s not easy, but if there are solid enough foundations already there, isn’t it better than starting again?

image: Black Glenn

The Only Thing That’s Dead Is Your Crappy “Everything Is Dead” Meme originally appeared on Danny Brown | Social Media Marketing Blog - The Human Side of Media and the Social Side of Marketing under a Creative Commons license.

We buy products and services every day.

Some we need, some we don’t. But we’ve heard good things about them so we buy them.

Who have we heard good things from?

Our friends. Our family. Our colleagues.

People we trust.

Why do we trust them? Because they’re not a mystery to us.

They don’t wear masks. They don’t hide behind veils. They don’t try and fool us with trickery.

They simply are.

You’re in business. You have a blog. You have a podcast. You want to be popular. You want people to like you; connect with you; follow you.

You want people to trust you.

We will. Just don’t wear a mask. Be yourself. Be true. Be honest.

We know you need to occasionally have your professional head on. Your business head. But does that mean you need to trick us? Does it mean you need to be the person you’re not, the business you’re not, the people we’re not?

No.

So wear the mask, but make it transparent. Wear the hat but make it your own. Pull the veil down but let us know it’s still you underneath. Make us trust you. Let us know who you are and that it’s you each time we talk.

That’s the way you’ll get our business. Our eyes on your blog. Our acceptance on Twitter. Our recommendations to our friends.

If you want us to believe, then make us believe in you. It’s not that hard.

Is it?

Image: GALERIEopWEG

Before We Believe You originally appeared on Danny Brown | Social Media Marketing Blog - The Human Side of Media and the Social Side of Marketing under a Creative Commons license.

Back at the end of 2008, I had an idea for doing something through social media to help charities.

Thanks to some amazing friends and people like you that supported with your time and donations, that idea turned into a great example of how we can all make change if we really want to.

The 12for12k project has raised over $100,000 for various charities to date – an amazing figure, given the “buy-in” was deliberately low, and the project took an enforced absence during most of 2010 and 2011.

The reason for its success? You, and the power of the crowd when there’s something to believe in. Your support; ideas; donations; awareness and more were crucial in all that 12for12k achieved, and if anything was ever a true team effort, 12for12k was it.

And now I’d love for you to take part again.

I’m currently writing Hope, Change, Belief – The 12for12k Story and the Lessons Non-Profits Can Take From It to Succceed in Social Media, and I’d love for your contributions to help shape it.

Because it will be a story that’s geared towards helping non-profits understand social media and how they can really benefit from it, the book will share the failures of 12for12k as much as it’ll share the successes. After all, we only grow from our mistakes and how we react to them.

To that end, I’d love for your thoughts on what worked and what didn’t work. What did 12for12k do right, and where did it go wrong? What was your overall experience with 12for12k, and what are your memories of the project overall?

Drop me your thoughts via the form below, and I’ll choose a bunch to add to the book’s chapters and upcoming addition to the 12for12k website, with full accreditation. Also, those chosen will receive a free copy when published later this year, and everyone else will receive a special discount code for taking the time to share their thoughts.

I’d really love for Hope, Change, Belief to act as a soundboard and guideline on how to really make the most of social media in the non-profit field, and with your thoughts and honest opinion, I think we can do that.

Thanks, guys, and look forward to reading your words.

PS – And look out for a new goal for 12for12k later this year, it’s going to be fun!

Hope, Change, Belief – The 12for12k Story and How You Can Be a Part of It originally appeared on Danny Brown | Social Media Marketing Blog - The Human Side of Media and the Social Side of Marketing under a Creative Commons license.

Over at Jugnoo, our goal is to help educate business owners on the social web, and really help them both understand and improve their visibilty on it.

Part of our approach is to offer resources that will act as a go-to for news, best practices, tips and awareness for all the various parts that make up today’s business scene.

Recently, we launched the first salvo in this in the form of Social CRM Insider.

A blog dedicated to the increasingly important area of customer relationship management in the social media space, Social CRM Insider will show why this is such a key part of any company’s strategy, especially online. From the About Page:

Every week, we’ll share our insights, best practices, case studies and more on how to run an effective customer relationship program in the social media landscape, and build brand loyalty around your business in the process.

We’ll strip away the guesswork and provide you with real-world examples of who’s doing it right, and how you can adapt these methods to your own business. And we’ll do it in a way that you can understand – no industry jargon or buzzwords here.

Social media has always been about the relationship to the sale for business owners and their customers. Consumers have known this for a while; now it’s time for you to understand better too.

To help us with our goal, we’ve employed awesome social media and business blogger Joey Strawn as our blogger-in-residence and, while I’m biased, he’s already knocking the content out of the park, with a great amount of interest and feedback coming in.

As I mentioned at the start, we’re just beginning to ramp up our activities, and the Social CRM Insider is something we’re really looking forward to grow as we help businesses understand this space we play in.

I’d love for you to check the Social CRM Insider blog out when you have time, and if you have any kind of customer-centric needs for your own business, blog, store or more, you might just find it’s the ideal new blog to subscribe to.

Cheers!

Introducing Social CRM Insider originally appeared on Danny Brown | Social Media Marketing Blog - The Human Side of Media and the Social Side of Marketing under a Creative Commons license.