All Posts By

Marijean

Marijean Oldham (Jaggers), a social media specialist and public relations professional, is president and CEO of Jaggers Communications LLC, a strategic communications firm based in Charlottesville, Va.

Dec 07
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8 Ways to Be a Better Blogger

By Social Media

It’s hard to be a blogger. It’s especially difficult if you are blogging for business, and not personal reasons. Here are a few tips to help the process, re-energize you and your content and improve your life as a business blogger.

  1. Read a lot of content (blogs) outside of your industry for inspiration.
  2. Make a list of what you see on other blogs that you like. Is there a technique, a style or a format you find especially appealing?
  3. Share a link to a blog post you have published and are particularly proud of, to a select group of trusted friends and advisers. Ask for honest feedback — a review, if you will — and ideas for how you can improve.
  4. If you don’t already have this in place, work with someone to provide a “second pair of eyes” on your content, to eliminate distracting grammatical errors and typos.
  5. Brainstorm an “editorial calendar” of topics to get you through the next dozen posts. Don’t do it alone — invite a group to help you think out loud over lunch.
  6. Write a post for someone else’s blog — sometimes stepping off of your own web page can provide unexpected inspiration.
  7. Strive for consistency in publishing. It doesn’t matter when you write; it matters when you publish. Select days and times and stick to them, to meet your community’s expectations.
  8. Regularly review your analytics. Is your content trending the way it should? Are people finding your content because of appropriate search terms?  Paying attention to what’s popular and, if it’s on target, replicating that success will help you build your online community.

What other tips can you offer to business bloggers?

Dec 06
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Happy Winter Holidays Season Nonspecific Non-Religious Greetings!

By Communications

In business communications, it’s standard practice to apply politically correct behavior and go with the standard Happy Holidays or Season’s Greetings — the all-encompassing, non-specific reference to the season in which many religions celebrate in their own unique ways. In addition, the non-religious also celebrate, and sometimes, we all celebrate in pretty much the same way. (Pass the nog, please.)

The Jaggers Communications holiday cards are in production and we’ve gone with a pretty neutral “winter” theme — preview on the right. (Cute, right? Thanks to Watermark Design!) We think it’s important to send greetings commemorating the end of the year and to share our appreciation for clients, referral sources and friends. We also enjoy getting cards that celebrate life in a variety of ways.

How does your business handle the greetings of the season? 

Dec 03
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Five Signs You’re Not Going to Get a New Job Using Social Media

By Communications, Social Media

It seems to go in cycles, the influx of my friends seeking jobs; new, replacement or otherwise. At a peak right now, I’m spending much of my spare time forwarding job descriptions, thinking about opportunities and connections I can help facilitate, and what advice to impart (when and only when they ask and are ready to hear it). For the people who think finding a new job via social media is as easy as booting up a laptop, a few thoughts on what’s not going to do it.

Five Signs Social Media Won’t Help you Land a New Job

  1. You haven’t spent years cultivating a broad social network with deep relationships.
  2. When people search for you online, they discover incomplete profiles or less-than-professional (or even embarrassing) content.
  3. You haven’t been publishing content to position yourself as a thought leader in your industry.
  4. Your use of social platforms has only been casually, and on a personal level. Your professional experience has never gotten any online “air time”.
  5. You aren’t willing to invest the time it’s going to take to engage, connect, publish and monitor for opportunities. Patience and persistence is necessary.

Good luck. Be persistent. Be aggressive. And don’t be afraid to ask for connections.

Dec 01
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Business Blogging: Are you Overthinking it?

By Communications, Social Media

Blogging for and about your business is more important now than ever. And yet, businesses are still struggling not only with the execution, but the concept. 

Here are some of the hangups I hear from clients roadblocked by blogging fear or misunderstanding:

  • We don’t have a consumer project, so it doesn’t seem like anyone would be interested in reading what we have to share.
  • Doesn’t it have to be personal? We don’t really want to share our dirty laundry online.
  • What if we are boring?

Telling the story about your business and what you do is valuable to your community, no matter what that community is. They self-select into your content, so don’t pre-judge by saying that people who read blogs are only interested in consumer products. You may discover much more about your audience and your business by the community that emerges around the content you share.

Being personal doesn’t mean airing dirty laundry. Being personal means being a real person, using language that is down-to-earth and spin-free, sharing a bit of yourself that underscores the fact that you are a real human being behind the brand. (Someone just walked past me wearing swishy — snow?– pants and those awful Five Fingers shoes. Distracting! — See? I’m a real person with really distracting co-workers, just like you.)

 

You can’t be boring if you’re not boring yourself. If YOU find your business and what it offers exciting and you share your passion for your topics, that will be evident to your audience. Feel free to mix it up now and again — be creative — be funny — but above all, be yourself, and quit overthinking it.

 

Where do you blog? Please feel free to share your blog in the comments for the Change the Conversation audience to enjoy.

Nov 29
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Social Media: Providing Valuable Content or Just Over-sharing?

By Communications, Social Media

It’s a really fine line sometimes, the balance between over-sharing company news and content on social platforms and making sure you’re providing value to your audience. It’s the difference, I think, between selling and telling your company story. It’s hard for a lot of individuals representing organizations to make this distinction. One way to keep this practice in check is to constantly ask yourself what value you’re providing your audience with the information you choose to share.

Your content may be leaning to the “too self-promotional” side if every link you share is to content of your own creation. Try to share others’ content at least a third of the time. Another self-check is to see how often your tweets are @ replies or RTs. Ask yourself a few questions:

  1. Are you engaging in conversation with your readers by replying to comments or tweets?
  2. Are you commenting on others’ blog posts?
  3. Are you facilitating introductions within your network to help others build business or find opportunities?
  4. Are you teaching a skill or sharing information to others’ benefit?

It’s easy to slip into the habit of traditional marketing tactics and resort to selling . . . focus on providing value, instead and watch relationship development grow and improve.

(Thanks to Rusty Speidel for the inspiration for today’s post. Read Rusty’s thoughts on social media fatigue, and what communications professionals should do about it.)

What are some ways you keep your commitment to providing value, rather than just self-promotional content, to your audience?