Stay tuned for next week’s installment, and in the meantime visit Ewan at his blog!

Stay tuned for next week’s installment, and in the meantime visit Ewan at his blog!

This week’s photo is from Kevin Blalock:

Social media was a little unfamiliar to me and I never really got a good grasp of it until I attended the BlogWorld Expo in 2008 for the first time. I had heard about social media here and there, and had seen the buzz online. I even registered an account on Twitter, yet I still couldn’t figure it out.

This first trip to BlogWorld was a great experience for me as I wandered around the floor. I watched people connecting, learning about each others business, and hearing tips and tricks about social media in general and how it can be used in a positive way.

The key piece of knowledge for me was learning about blogging. Blogging was another buzz term that I figured only artists and poets used to document their daily life or something. To my excitement, asking many silly questions resulted in many very helpful answers from the other attendees and exhibitors. I quickly learned what exactly all this social media and blogging stuff was all about!

The experience this first year made me want to learn more and get involved myself. Now, I will be the first to say I am not the best at keeping my blog up to date on a regular basis, but I am working on it. I have a new project/business that gives me a reason to blog now, other than just the things I have been up to in my personal life.

Because of what I have learned by attending BlogWorld Expo, not only do I know how to leverage the tools of social media such as blogging; I can now share what I have learned and hopefully teach others as the wonderful people of BlogWorld have done for me.

Part of the BlogWorld experience is getting to meet many great people. One such person is the man who took the time to allow me to take a photo of himself and Charnell Lucich, Chris Brogan. Since leaving BlogWorld 2008, I started following him on Twitter and keeping up with his social media presence.

To my delight, Chris was once again at BlogWorld 2009 and was signing his then new book release titled “Trust Agents”. One minute, I was with Charnell Lucich who keeps up with Chris religiously, and is one of his biggest fans. The next minute she was in front of his table talking with him. So, I ran over to say hi as well since it is very rare that you do not see him surrounded by fans!

This brings me to the greatest part about BlogWorld. We all know who Chris Brogan is; and to be honest with you, I was expecting a better than thou attitude. Let me tell you, Chris is one of the most down to earth people I have ever met. He sat there looking us in the eyes talking to us, focused on the conversation and really made me feel that he was truly interested in our conversation.

I am really looking forward to attending BlogWorld 2010 in October. I look forward to seeing the friends I have made over the past two years as well as making new ones. To me, this is what BlogWorld is all about.

Kevin Blalock
Blalock Photography
Email: kevin@blalockphotography.com
Twitter: @kevinblalock

If your blog is mainly about travel, you’d better develop a system for keeping it alive while you’re traveling or you may want to rethink the whole “having a blog” thing. But what if your blog isn’t focused solely on travel, but you happen to like traveling and like the idea of blogging about it while you’re out and about? If you’re not used to blogging while traveling, it can be a difficult adjustment. Here are five tips to help make sure that your blog doesn’t completely stagnate while you’re on the move.

1. Go Old School

Remember paper? Get reacquainted with it. Even if you’re bringing a netbook or other device for writing blog entries, it won’t always be convenient to (a) have it with you, and (b) get it out to write on. Bring at least a pocket-sized paper notebook and a pen you like (if you hate the way it writes, you won’t use it – and if you aren’t using it, what’s the point?). Personally, I love pretty much everything Moleskine makes, but choose the notebook that works best for you. If you’ll be doing any longer-form writing by hand, bring a bigger notebook as well.

And then – here’s the critical part – use them. Take copious notes. Write down stuff you think you’ll remember (you won’t). Jot down quick messages to trigger your memory later, but elaborate on those quick messages before you get to the point when you can no longer read your own code. With all of these notes, you’ll have ample material for writing actual blog posts whenever you have the time to sit down and write them (most likely, for weeks or months to come).

2. Photograph Everything

You’re traveling, so it’s likely you’re already snapping photos here and there, but your camera can also be a note-taking tool. In fact, the best tool a lazy note-taker can carry is a digital camera. A plaque on the wall explaining why that cool building is important? Get a picture of the plaque after you’ve gotten your shot of the building. Planning to write a more travel guide-y piece on your favorite museum? Get a photo of the sign with the museum’s hours and ticket prices before you leave.

Yes, taking this many pictures means you’ll fill up your memory card more quickly. If you’re concerned about that you can either change the settings on your camera to a lower resolution whenever you’re going to take one of those “memory trigger” pictures (just don’t forget to re-set it), or you can go through your photos each day when you’ve got more time and write down the information on those signs (in that handy notebook you’re carrying) and then delete the files altogether. Or, if you’re like me and seriously snap-happy, there’s no harm in carrying extra memory cards.

3. Embrace the Twitter

I’m not one of the people who thinks “microblogging” is an accurate description of Twitter, but I do think it’s one of the things Twitter can be used for. Sometimes when I’m traveling, quick updates to Twitter about what I’m doing bridge the gap nicely between blog posts. And your readers don’t have to be on Twitter to get those updates, either. There are plug-ins for every blogging platform that allow you to set it up so that your Twitter account feeds right onto your blog, so all you have to do is write a quick post that tells regular readers to check the Twitter updates section on your blog to see what you’re up to now.

Now, using Twitter is obviously easier in some parts of the world than in others. Smartphone users who are traveling to places that don’t require roaming or who have unlimited data packages have it made, but if that doesn’t apply to you don’t fret. Twitter can also be updated via text message, and there are several countries with Twitter numbers – including the UK, India, New Zealand, and Indonesia. With a cheap mobile phone and SIM card you buy wherever you are you can send Twitter updates via texts with ease. (There’s a list of the Twitter numbers around the world for texting on the Twitter support site.)

4. Get Ahead of Yourself

When you finally do have time to sit down and really write – a long train or plane ride, a day you’ve reserved for travel R&R, a bout with insomnia after too many vodka/Red Bull combos at the nightclub – then make the most of it. Assuming you’re traveling with a laptop, get as many posts as you can written and then use your blogging platform’s handy-dandy scheduling feature to have them publish over the next few days when you’re on the road again. (Or hungover. Hey, it’s your trip.)

Don’t worry that your readers will be hearing about your escapades of a week ago even as you’re on to another city – if you’re typically the kind of blogger who posts daily about exactly what happened that day you might have to learn to let go of that kind of schedule while you’re traveling. Let your readers know – they’ll be fine. Besides, so long as you eventually do return with tales of your travels, I’d be willing to bet they’ll forgive you for your blogging irregularities.

5. Prioritize Properly

This final note isn’t a tip about keeping up a blog while traveling, and could even be construed as the opposite. I just can’t in good conscience end this article without saying that travel is a gift. It’s a privilege – a glorious privilege – and if you have to choose between having a travel experience or blogging, I sincerely hope you’ll choose the former. You cannot, after all, write much of a travel blog if you’ve spent more time writing than you have traveling, can you?

Step away from the screen (bring your Moleskine, of course) and enjoy the moment. Your blog posts, when you get back to them, will be richer for it.

>> Need some inspiration? Here are 8 great spots to write in a travel journal.

About the Author:
Jessica Spiegel is the Italy expert at the BootsnAll Travel Network, the woman behind BootsnAll’s WhyGo Italy travel guide and @italylogue on Twitter. She’s happy to answer all kinds of Italy travel questions, from how to find cheap airfare to Italy to whether to buy an Italy rail pass to how to spend two weeks in Italy.

Image Credit: Flickr

“What can I do for you” commits you to action. The word “do” implies that you’re willing to work with the person – not just tell them that about tools and very general concepts. It implies that you’re willing to sit with the person face-to-face, show them how to set up a Hootsuite account, and then show them what the best possible way to garner a following for their niche industry is. And then – show them how you maintain a schedule for that routine. It implies you’re willing to put some skin in the game.

Here are some things you can do to break the ice for yourself and really truly do something for someone:

Find a business and give them a free business analysis

If you’re like me – you see the world with a Layar showing opportunity here and opportunity there. Why not take that to the next level? Is there a sandwich shop in town that uses Twitter but really can’t run a promotion? Give them an idea. Reach out and ask them if they considered offering their mayor on Foursquare a promotion? You know – something small that helps them. Don’t do it obnoxiously as an expert – do it as a friend helping a friend.

I remember, Matt Pinfield wrote something like “send in your requests” on Twitter – I went to his stream and realized he’d never @replied to anyone almost ever. So instead of writing him a tweet saying “I’m a tweeting expert and you’re doing it wrong” – I simply said what I felt – which was that I wanted to tweet @him, but it seems he doesn’t get back to anyone. The response was amazing – “well that’s going to change!”

Adopt a new service

It’s easy to be an expert awesomesauce human-follower when you’re the one-hundred-thousandth user of a service. But Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace were startups, too. Every startup needs to hit some sort of stride to stay afloat, and if a startup is worth anything – why not be a part of its beginnings? Scout out new awesome tools, new games, new ways of communicating. It won’t only do you good to be ahead of the curve. It will help startups and companies. They need you. They need you to tell them what you need from them. They need you to tell your friends that this great tool/service/site exists. Otherwise no company, no matter how great – can survive.

Be Useful – not “Inspiring”

I know a guy who’s name, for anonymity’s sake, will be Joe. Joe seems like a nice enough guy. He also has a big following on Twitter. But something I realized about Joe is that he’s not doing anything for anyone. What he’s doing is tweeting what he calls #Joeisms – tweets of inspiration he thought of while taking a shower. I spoke with Joe on the on the phone (see “Take it Offline”.) He’s full of himself. Now you might think that’s obvious, but when I saw his tweets at first I thought he was an amazingly smart and full-of-life-experience kind of guy. After speaking with him and listening to run-on sentences frequently dotted with “Me’s,” my switch was turned off. Don’t be that guy.

Take it offline

The Internet rocks my socks. And if you’re on the Blogworld blog reading this – it rocks yours too. But it’s no secret that the Internet makes things less personal. You can say lots without consequence, you can put on a persona, and you can fool everybody. Get offline. Go out for coffee with a potential client. Get to know the neighborhood of a local business you’re consulting for to understand what people in the area are talking about. Our jobs, no matter how geeky, are never always online. Even the most isolated programmer working on something all on his own has to pick up the phone to someone once in a while. So certainly you, as a blogger, marketer, or as a person have lots that you’re missing out on if you’re not getting up out of your chair and going outside. Meet face-to-face.

I really don’t think it takes a rocket scientist to understand the four principals above. But I do hope that for some it opened their eyes to what it means to be productive. In my experience, the most productive people I know use Twitter to tweet out their own blog posts and ones they find interesting, as well as interact with other friends. But for the most part – they’re not on Twitter. They’re … working!

Clearly I’ve left stuff out. There are so many other ways to actually help people. I’d love to hear what other ideas you have!

Itamar Kestenbaum is a blogger and Community Manager. He is currently Community Manager for Moishe’s Moving & Storage in NYC as well as Blogworld Expo. You can follow Itamar on Twitter@tweetamar or read his blog: ItamarKestenbaum.com.

“What can I do for you” commits you to action. The word “do” implies that you’re willing to work with the person – not just tell them that about tools and very general concepts. It implies that you’re willing to sit with the person face-to-face, show them how to set up a Hootsuite account, and then show them what the best possible way to garner a following for their niche industry is. And then – show them how you maintain a schedule for that routine. It implies you’re willing to put some skin in the game.

Here are some things you can do to break the ice for yourself and really truly do something for someone:

Find a business and give them a free business analysis

If you’re like me – you see the world with a Layar showing opportunity here and opportunity there. Why not take that to the next level? Is there a sandwich shop in town that uses Twitter but really can’t run a promotion? Give them an idea. Reach out and ask them if they considered offering their mayor on Foursquare a promotion? You know – something small that helps them. Don’t do it obnoxiously as an expert – do it as a friend helping a friend.

I remember, Matt Pinfield wrote something like “send in your requests” on Twitter – I went to his stream and realized he’d never @replied to anyone almost ever. So instead of writing him a tweet saying “I’m a tweeting expert and you’re doing it wrong” – I simply said what I felt – which was that I wanted to tweet @him, but it seems he doesn’t get back to anyone. The response was amazing – “well that’s going to change!”

Adopt a new service

It’s easy to be an expert awesomesauce human-follower when you’re the one-hundred-thousandth user of a service. But Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace were startups, too. Every startup needs to hit some sort of stride to stay afloat, and if a startup is worth anything – why not be a part of its beginnings? Scout out new awesome tools, new games, new ways of communicating. It won’t only do you good to be ahead of the curve. It will help startups and companies. They need you. They need you to tell them what you need from them. They need you to tell your friends that this great tool/service/site exists. Otherwise no company, no matter how great – can survive.

Be Useful – not “Inspiring”

I know a guy who’s name, for anonymity’s sake, will be Joe. Joe seems like a nice enough guy. He also has a big following on Twitter. But something I realized about Joe is that he’s not doing anything for anyone. What he’s doing is tweeting what he calls #Joeisms – tweets of inspiration he thought of while taking a shower. I spoke with Joe on the on the phone (see “Take it Offline”.) He’s full of himself. Now you might think that’s obvious, but when I saw his tweets at first I thought he was an amazingly smart and full-of-life-experience kind of guy. After speaking with him and listening to run-on sentences frequently dotted with “Me’s,” my switch was turned off. Don’t be that guy.

Take it offline

The Internet rocks my socks. And if you’re on the Blogworld blog reading this – it rocks yours too. But it’s no secret that the Internet makes things less personal. You can say lots without consequence, you can put on a persona, and you can fool everybody. Get offline. Go out for coffee with a potential client. Get to know the neighborhood of a local business you’re consulting for to understand what people in the area are talking about. Our jobs, no matter how geeky, are never always online. Even the most isolated programmer working on something all on his own has to pick up the phone to someone once in a while. So certainly you, as a blogger, marketer, or as a person have lots that you’re missing out on if you’re not getting up out of your chair and going outside. Meet face-to-face.

I really don’t think it takes a rocket scientist to understand the four principals above. But I do hope that for some it opened their eyes to what it means to be productive. In my experience, the most productive people I know use Twitter to tweet out their own blog posts and ones they find interesting, as well as interact with other friends. But for the most part – they’re not on Twitter. They’re … working!

Clearly I’ve left stuff out. There are so many other ways to actually help people. I’d love to hear what other ideas you have!

Itamar Kestenbaum is a blogger and Community Manager. He is currently Community Manager for Moishe’s Moving & Storage in NYC as well as Blogworld Expo. You can follow Itamar on Twitter@tweetamar or read his blog: ItamarKestenbaum.com.

Justin McHood

I know, I know — there are plenty of people speaking at BlogWorld about how to develop the best blog in the world. You know, one that is engaging, interactive, informative  and possibly even (do I dare say it?)  profitable.

But unless you are going to have a blog about bacon, starting a blog about something that could potentially lead to profits (either online or offline) just seems like a lot of work to me.

So if you are going to start a blog about mortgages (or anything else), get ready to turn it into a labor of love.

Spend your free time learning CSS, obsessing over what kinds of calls-to-action  you could possibly have to get more of your readers to join your subscription list and spend so much time thinking about your blog that you actually run the risk of becoming addicted to improving your blog.

Or…

Take a short cut.

Go find someone with a great blog who has an interest or profession that is similar to yours and ask them if you can be a contributor.

If you can put a 4 paragraph essay together that is at least half-way engaging and informative, chances are that the blog owner will at least give you a shot.

How do I know this?

Shhh. I am going to tell you a little secret.

I just agreed to a deal with Zillow.com to be their National Mortgage Commentator to just that — go and provide valuable, mortgage-related content to Real Estate sites.  Where the blog owners are most likely addicted to their blogs but they just can’t get enough (or any) mortgage content.

And the deal was only possible because someone here locally that happened to be into Phoenix Real Estate started letting me put my mortgage commentary on his blog.

And I get business from providing that content.

So when you come to BlogWorld in October and you see someone stand up to the microphone and ask the question: “how do I generate business from blogging?”

Consider the possibility of an answer to that question being:

Go ask someone if you can be their guest blogger.

Justin is a nationally published mortgage expert and is constantly looking for someone to listen to him talk about mortgages. If you are addicted to your Real Estate blog and can’t find a loan officer who can put together mortgage information that is intelligent, informative and engaging you are not alone. He claims many other Real Estate sites are reporting the same problem. The solution? Talk with Justin. It’s free.
Twitter: @jmchood
Website: justinmchood.com

Justin McHood

I know, I know — there are plenty of people speaking at BlogWorld about how to develop the best blog in the world. You know, one that is engaging, interactive, informative  and possibly even (do I dare say it?)  profitable.

But unless you are going to have a blog about bacon, starting a blog about something that could potentially lead to profits (either online or offline) just seems like a lot of work to me.

So if you are going to start a blog about mortgages (or anything else), get ready to turn it into a labor of love.

Spend your free time learning CSS, obsessing over what kinds of calls-to-action  you could possibly have to get more of your readers to join your subscription list and spend so much time thinking about your blog that you actually run the risk of becoming addicted to improving your blog.

Or…

Take a short cut.

Go find someone with a great blog who has an interest or profession that is similar to yours and ask them if you can be a contributor.

If you can put a 4 paragraph essay together that is at least half-way engaging and informative, chances are that the blog owner will at least give you a shot.

How do I know this?

Shhh. I am going to tell you a little secret.

I just agreed to a deal with Zillow.com to be their National Mortgage Commentator to just that — go and provide valuable, mortgage-related content to Real Estate sites.  Where the blog owners are most likely addicted to their blogs but they just can’t get enough (or any) mortgage content.

And the deal was only possible because someone here locally that happened to be into Phoenix Real Estate started letting me put my mortgage commentary on his blog.

And I get business from providing that content.

So when you come to BlogWorld in October and you see someone stand up to the microphone and ask the question: “how do I generate business from blogging?”

Consider the possibility of an answer to that question being:

Go ask someone if you can be their guest blogger.

Justin is a nationally published mortgage expert and is constantly looking for someone to listen to him talk about mortgages. If you are addicted to your Real Estate blog and can’t find a loan officer who can put together mortgage information that is intelligent, informative and engaging you are not alone. He claims many other Real Estate sites are reporting the same problem. The solution? Talk with Justin. It’s free.
Twitter: @jmchood
Website: justinmchood.com

I’d like to tell you a story…

A year ago today, I was in Afghanistan, desperately trying to figure this “online thing” out. I’d spent nearly a year blogging, practicing Internet Marketing, and hanging out in blog comment sections, but I just couldn’t figure out how to make it over the hump.
So I started doing what the smart people told me to do, which is to submit guest posts and start networking…and I did.

I submitted guest posts to David Risley, Darren Rowse, and a few others (some of which aren’t blogging anymore) and started to get my feet wet.

Things were starting to pick up…slowly but surely.

Fast forward 6 months, and although I’m finally home and working on a very cool project with my pal, Mike CJ, I’m still not where I want to be.
At the time, I started hearing rumors of this thing they called BlogWorld Expo…which I had never heard of. I looked at the page for months, but couldn’t convince myself to take the leap.

But something about it kept nagging at me, and one night…on a whim, I decided that I’d spend a few hundred dollars that I didn’t have, to register for BlogWorld and reserve my flight to Vegas.

The Best Decision of My Life

I showed up to Vegas without any contacts really, except for a list of people that I wanted to meet. I didn’t really have any agenda, and I wasn’t even sure which sessions I wanted to attend, but I knew that this was my chance to make something happen.

I woke up on Thursday morning (the first day of sessions) and even though I was nervous as hell, I woke up early and walked straight into the main lobby to see who was hanging out.

Immediately, I recognized a small group of bloggers hanging out, many of which I knew by Twitter avatar more than anything, and walked over to introduce myself.

Everything changed from there.

It’s All about Making Friends

Turns out that popular bloggers are just regular dudes, but that’s not what did it for me.

Sure, I made some contacts that would turn out to be invaluable in helping Mike and I launch Beyond Blogging, but what BlogWorld really did for me was give me the confidence to know that I could become part of the game…not as an outsider, but as a member of this awesome community.

Thanks to that weekend in Vegas, I’ve made a lot of friends, created several parterships, and more than anything, realized that the only thing stopping me from becoming successful as a blogger…was myself.

I know it sounds cliche and overdramatic when I say this, but BlogWorld changed my life…and that was just year 1.

For me (and I’m not getting paid to say this), BlogWorld represents the principal opportunity that we all have to become titans of our industry. There’s so much energy, so much passion, and so much innovation, that’s it’s hard not to be inspired.

Sure, it’s cool to hang out with the cool cats, but what’s more important , is bringing out your own cool guy.

This year, I’m looking forward to the opportunity to hang out with an even bigger crowd, and continuing to make plans for world domination.

Who’s with me?

Nathan Hangen teaches people how to build digital empires, helps them rock through their workday, and works with small businesses to implement digital marketing campaigns.

Email: nathan@nathanhangen.com
Website: nathanhangen.com/blog
Twitter: @nhangen

Kevin was on BlogWorld Expo Radio at the show on October 17, 2009. Now I need to find a way to get an interview with the folks over at Blogging Badly. Apparently, they are launching something in 2010 and we will keep our eye out for them. Anyone that talks about Chad Vader’s junk is good with me!  Keep up the good work and keep blogging badly.