Guest blogging is one of the best ways to get a blog or website known and target new audiences, we all agree with that. Welcoming guest posters is also a great way to provide fresh content to your readers and target the crowds the invited author already appealed to. By analyzing these two sides of the guest blogging scene, you can easily tell this is a win-win promotion practice.

No wonder it has spread throughout the blogosphere and it has created a need for the proper tools! A while back I wrote about the launch of My Blog Guest, a place where guest posters and blog owners could meet, connect and see how they could help each other out. It looked promising and I decided to try out Ann Smarty’s project and see for myself how it worked.

I started by asking for guest posts for Words of a Broken Mirror, the very PR and marketing blog you’re currently reading. Except for a couple of offers, most were spot on, with suggestions of articles that fit my blog perfectly. Even it the case of those whose ideas were not a perfect match, we managed to reach common ground and come up with a blog post idea that would work. After the initial hype around my form post on MyBlogGuest, which got me plenty of guest posts, some of the authors wanted to write more while new ones kept approaching me after finding my profile.

With TravelTweaks.com, I tried a different approach. Rather than waiting for people to come up with topics that I could approve, I used MyBlogGuest’s Article Gallery. This is a section where premium users post their latest articles. Bloggers accepting guest posts can then place an offer with an estimated publishing times, and the author chooses the outlet the fits best. In a few months I have published several dozen guest posts this way. I can do that with Travel Tweaks without looking like I have abandoned it only guest authors write there because this particular travel news site publishes 4-5 stories per day, features exploring certain destinations and the latest news in the travel and tourism world.

MyBlogGuest has a great system to get great guest posters the recognition they need – a voting system for those publishing their work. You can thumb up or down a certain author, letting future blog owners know just how good they are. To filter out one time users that only want to trash someone or vote for them just for fun, this system is restricted to users that are active on the MyBlogGuest forums.

Other than providing the obvious gathering place for those in need of content and authors of guest posts, MyBlogGuest also encourages members to connect on social networks and help each other promote their blogs and posts. It is also a great resource for guest blogging tips and best practices, helping newbies and experienced bloggers alike.

What I particularly like about the MyBlogGuest community is the willingness of members to help and how open Ann and her team are to suggestions, answering to questions and tips faster than I would have expected.

I strongly recommend it to blog owners in search for fresh views from new authors and to bloggers wanting to make a name for themselves and getting their blog news to guest posting.

Have you tried guest posting so far, from either end of the deal? How has it worked for you so far and what tools are you using?

Yes, common sense! What we should really take for granted is becoming as rare as miracles. People are so hasty in pushing their own agenda that there’s no time for courtesy, for being nice instead of completely selfish and oblivious of the fact you’re addressing a human being.

Never mind the poor texts sent through email, blog comments and all other channels. Never mind the “what’s in it for me part”! That’s a whole other level of refinement. I really mean the basics of social interaction. Like saying hello, using someone’s name, saying thank you and goodbye. Yes, I am talking about making that other person feel a bit more valuable than just a blog name and an email address you’ve just ticked on a long xls file.

This is becoming so rare, it scares me. OK, you have no time to look for my name, although you can see it on every post I publish. I get the pressure of long to-do lists. But use a ” Hello” or a “Hi” or just “Good morning”! Thank me for allotting 5 minutes of my time to your email or message, then drop a copy/paste line such as “Best regards” or “Have a great afternoon!”.

Either PR people lack all common courtesy skills, or they think bloggers are vane, sub-human creatures that don’t need hellos, but need their ego-boosting pat on the back. Something like saying you chose them because they rank well on some fairly popular site. By the way, try to use a site they actually show up as top dogs on!

I tend to believe it’s the first theory, because such thoughtless messages are also sent to journalists, business partners, customers and whoever else they might come in contact with, not just to bloggers! I understand the fast-paced, Internet-bound world we’re living in has turned us into creatures talking in text message and instant messaging slang. But even on Twitter and messenger we stop to say hello!

Let’s return to the basics! Let’s be nice and thoughtful, act like human beings and have a tidbit of common sense! It’s good PR

…be smart about how you try again!

I don’t really understand why some PR and marketing professionals are off to a good start and then mess it all up in the end! Let’s say you have a cool security product to promote. You wander around the blogosphere, looking for relevant blogs. You find them, you make sure they have covered a certain story, one presenting a problem your product can easily solve. You send a nice email to the author of the blog, showing that you’ve read it, understood who they target and only then contacted them.

All great! You get no reply for a couple of days. And you ask yourself: “Shouldn’t I remind them of my initial email?” And then you blow it! Instead of writing a short follow up email, you resend the same email, completely disregarding the fact you’ve already sent it again. If you take the time to try again, why not do it right?

What I think you shouldn’t have missed last week…

Welcome to a new edition of our almost-weekly reading roundup. First of all, I’d like to wish you Happy Monday! Hope your week is as bright as today’s sun, keep busy but don’t stress out, but before anything else, try reading the posts I’ve run across!

Tanya Maslach, guest writer on Women on Business gives businesses a new perspective: a few great lessons they could learn from Hollywood.

Liz Strauss, in her “Visible Authenticity” series, identifies 10 blogger best practices we should use when extending our reach.

We’ve all heard of sucessful blogger pitches, of results and of how we should adapt our message to each of the persons we contact. If you really want to see how it’s done, Tod Defren of PR Squared has published a great case study showing how exactly one should write to fit the profile and background of each blogger they contact.

Regardless of their field, ailing businesses have some common issues. Karen Swim of Words for Hire has identified 5 of the common problems businesses on a falling trend seem to be caught up in.

Mary Schmidt, a guest author on Lip-Sticking, has come up with a funny list of things to do when you want your emailes automatically ignored.

And to finish this week’s roundup on a funny note, I recommend Ian Lurie’s Geek Guide to Problem Solving, or otherwise put, 10 ways to think for yourself.

What did I miss? No matter how hard I try, I definitely can’t read all the great posts published in a week. So please tell me what you’ve come across and let’s all share our findings!

Have a lovely week!

What I think you shouldn’t have missed last week…

Welcome to the 14th editon of WOBM’s reading roundup! Hope you enjoy it and find something useful to help 2009 will be the year of increased interaction between brands and their targets. This is what Shannon Nelson of Pierce Mattie Public Relations believes will happen in next year’s business world.

Marketing and Sales, two deparments for which lots of virtual ink has flown, especially when it comes to them collaborating more effectively. Kyle Flaherty of EngageInPR has published an interesting article on what marketing should learn from sales.

There’s been quite a lot said on bad blogger pitches and they still happen. Here’s a nice list of the biggest 5 mistakes ever made when approaching a blogger, from the other side of the email – PR Meets Marketing. I’m guilty for more than half, not necessarily with bloggers.

Chris Brogan, just like yours truly, is not a big fan of Facebook. Yet he wrote an amazing guide on how not to be a jerk over there.

Our education is something we need to keep improving. Here are 5 free ways to do just that spotted by Women on Business.

What do do if your clients don’t read blogs? And a lot of people don’t or don’t know what they’re reading is a blog. Telling them won’t help, as they might get irritated. So here are five ways to approach those who are not blog lovers from Michael Martine of Remarkablogger.

If you’re wondering which are the do’s and don’ts of video, Benjamin Wayne has published a extremely insightful guest post on this topic on Drew’s Marketing Minute.

And to end this week’s edition in a cheerful way, here’s a funny and easy html guide for copywriters from Conversational Marketing.

Did I miss something really important? Please share it in the comment box!

Company X Romania is a well respected company on the domestic market. It’s been around for a while and would not for the life of me yield the “beginner marketer” idea in my head. Yet I got this spammy comment (yes, I always double-check Akismet) promoting one of their not so recent announcements. The comment was made by a guy linking to an internet marketing site of exactly one page. No link to company X whatsoever, just the info on them…

Now, there are a few issues to consider:

• Is X paying these guys or testing what they can do? Well, then, they are doing a pretty bad job, they don’t even use spammy links to X. And why would the company’s Romanian branch benefit from traffic from foreign sites when it clearly targets Romania?
• Are they trying to impress X Romania on their own, trying to get a contract signed? Really bad strategy then.
• Is this company trying to show off their web exposure skills and traffic increasing strategy to other bloggers? Even worse strategy…
• Are they harvesting links to their site with randomly picked news excerpts based on a blogger’s country of origin? Possible. Again, poor strategy! They promote their internet marketing services, I am sure there are quite a few posts here they could have chosen for a legitimate comment and a link (do follow one even)

If X Romania is actually paying these guys to generate traffic to their site, worse choice ever!

If X Romania is in no way affiliated with these spammers, how can they protect their image? Hope this is a one-time offense? Read this post and contact the guys? They have a one page site and two email addresses as contacts, is there any real chance to get them to stop? Hope everyone will understand it’s the last issue I pointed to and no one will think X=SPAM?

What can you really do when a bogus “internet marketing guru” is using your brand to spam others? Disclose it and hope for some good online coverage? Warn said company and hope they’ll stop. Ignore them and pray this goes away without an image crisis? What do you think?

Guest post by Alex Cristache

The list of blogs and online magazines offering tips and advice has been growing exponentially every year. Even I am the founder of one such “blogging tips” blog.

With all the hype created around this type of blogs and the (in)famous “make money online” blogs, people seem to overlook one significant thing: these blogs offer tips and advice, but encourage you to experiment.

Experiments – Trial and error

The keyword in the phrase above is “experiment”, which is something that too many start-up bloggers understand as a step-by-step implementation of the tips provided by the multitude of “Simon says” blogs out there.

Bloggers are human, and just as in the real life, you won’t find two bloggers that will react the same way in similar situations. Tips should be always passed through your own filter and compared to past events from your own online experience.

To experiment around tips means to elaborate on them, to select not simply the working solution, but the best working solution. To achieve that, you’re likely to pass through a few unsuccessful steps, each telling you where you did wrong and what can still be improved. But you know the old saying: “No pain, no gain”.

Take it one step further

Before you start implementing new ideas, try to take your analysis one step beyond. THINK about the impact of what you’re about to do. Could what you estimate as the end result be in conflict with any of your existing achievements and targets? If so, in what way could you improve or adapt the new idea so that it will perfectly fit in your blog’s general line of evolution.

Don’t be afraid to experiment! Don’t do what “Simon says” or “Simon does”. Interpret and adapt.

Alex Cristache is 27 and has been working for top Romanian web design, development and consultancy companies for over 9 years. Quite impressive for his young age, don’t you agree?

He’s tried a lot up to now: web designer, senior web, print & logo designer, occasional copywriter, web & SEO consultant and project manager. Although he focuses on design, he’s also been working with PHP & MySQL on the side. He also fell in love with WordPress the moment it appeared on the market and changed our lives.

He currently blogs at Blogsessive.com and runs CREATIVEurope, a website bookmarking the best European creative portfolios available.

This entry will be part of a series of more, based on bad pitches I experience or hear of. Turning them into tips and tricks will probably help those pitching do a better job in the future.

Some blogs have moved, some are simply abandoned. Whatever the reason, the owners are clearly not interested in writing on them. So pitching to these people would be a waste of time and a full scale proof of lack of research skills or of not paying that much attention.

MyBlogLog, BlogCatalog, Google blog search, all are great at helping you find blogs writing on a certain topic. But everyone of them has to be visited and checked as profiles are sometimes rather old, blogs are misplaced in a certain category or their administrators have shut them down a gazillion months ago.

Let’s analyze an example. Someone found my profile on MyBlogLog. I rarely log on to MyBlogLog so my old blog is still on my profile. It’s been closed since January. The only post on the homepage is my goodbye post. There’s a link to my new blog in that post and in the header. So why would someone pitch and mention my old blog? Do they want any sorts of exposure? I don’t think so!

So my advice is, when pitching bloggers, stop worrying about a number of contacts you need to check on your daily list. Just think of results and try to maximize the return on your effort and time investment. There are millions of blogs out there and not all interest you , especially if they are no longer updated. Just take the time to do your homework and then click the Send button.

What I think you shouldn’t have missed last week…

A new week has just started and I hope it took off wonderfully for all of you. And I’ve got the perfect reading list to help you make your week a little better!

Janelle of Create Business Growth has written about freedom of speech and the lack of it in the online world. We should all think about this a little, as one of my early morning emails told the story of a censored Mixx entry.

Looking for a new way to increase sales? Why not try flagship content? Chris Garrett has just published an article teaching you everything you need to know.

Afraid of falling into a blogging rut? Michael Martine of Remarkablogger has just the tips to help you avoid one.

There’s been quite some debate regarding who should handle social media related tasks within a company. Should it be HR, PR, Marketing or should it be anyone with a genuine interest? The most comprehensive piece I’ve read on the subject is an article by Shel Hotlz of A Shel of My Former Self.

Naomi Dunford of IttyBiz has just revealed a golden rule of word of mouth marketing: not pissing people off and remembering there’s more than your primary target!

All the Marketing and PR professionals thinking of embracing the social media need a few tips and tricks. Chris Brogan has come up with a list with what they should know.

If you haven’t heard the “Content is King” phrase at least once last week, you haven’t been online much. Alex Cristache of Blogsessive shows us how important the kingdom is in the blogging equation.

I’m a proud member of the Generation Y. Not by choice, but by year of birth. And those borne a little before me are Gen Xers. These are the two gens I’ll be spending a lot of my life with, so any statistics on them are of interest. Especially when they are great statistics, like the ones David Wilson has just published on Social Media Optimization.

Hope you’ve found this week’s list helpful and you’ll join me for a fresh one next week!

Happy Monday,
Alina

I’ve read quite a few blog posts on how to get social media love. There are quite a bunch who go around the same old issues and try to rearrange the lists. For money making purposes and sometimes as a blogging tip, social media is trendy, it’s hype, it’s everything anyone is interested in these days.

One of the most common advices is not to submit your own content. OK, let’s assume for a moment we’ve all decided this practice is frowned upon. What’s the advice following this “don’t”? You’ll never guess: keep writing quality posts. Really?

It appears we all forget a basic rule of marketing: you might have the greatest content in the world, if no one knows about it, it has no effect. It’s like writing the perfect novel and never having it read by anyone. So what should you do? Optimize for search? Sure, but that would bring you search traffic, not necessarily social media attention.

So? What should you do. Well, here are a few quick and effective tips:

1. Decide what social media site or social bookmarking site you’re interested in getting traffic from
2. Create an account. If you want to be on more, start with two or three to make sure you give each site the needed attention.
3. Make sure you put links to your blog on your profiles to get social media visitors.
4. Start voting, commenting and making friends with common interests, while adding quality content, not your own.
5. Ask your friends to also take a look at your content, maybe they’ll submit it.

There it is. It’s not a big secret, as what to do in theory is easy. Putting it into practice is a bit harder But if you want some further advice, let me know, I’ll do my best to help you out.

And a note to my fellow bloggers. We never write everything we can on a subject. We keep some details for other posts and some for paid advice. But that does not mean we should give crappy advice, no matter how much online profits we have on public display.