Box Scores: Aug. 30 – Sept. 6 – “Vampire Words, Windshield Cracks & More”
It may be Labor Day, but that doesn’t mean we won’t give you eager readers some Box Scores to help kick off your week. We’ve got some great posts from the blogosphere, ranging from just flat-out cool to valuable (not voluble) insight.
We’re going to kick things off with the “flat-out cool” we mentioned way back in the previous paragraph. Enjoy (and tell us what you think once you’re done reading by leaving a comment).
-“HOW TO: Find the Name of That Song”
This post from Mashable lists some ways to – you guessed it – find the name of that song. Although some of them are obvious (Google searching), the Midomi search engine Mashable highlights is totally worth checking out and testing. You just sing or hum a few seconds’ worth of whatever song you’re looking for and the search engine (typically) recognizes it. It worked for us and it’s great to see how we as humans are constantly developing awesome technology.
This post from Todd Defren on the PR-Squared blog discusses how creating valuable content is a much more effective way to reach customers than providing a substantial amount of average content. In his words, “Focus on being valuable: what types of content get shared (downloaded, re-tweeted, shared on Facebook, etc.) most often amongst your prospects and customers? Figure that out and spend more energy making that type of content…”
**To add more sauce to “the great content and marketing” discussion, Darren Rowse at Problogger has some thoughts on how, no matter how much we’d like it to, great content isn’t all it takes to have an impact. In his words, “The reality is that many blogs produce quality content that doesn’t get read. The reason isn’t that the blog’s not worth reading – but in many cases it’s because nobody knows to go read it.” His post, “The Myth of ‘Great Content’ Marketing Itself,” is certainly worth the read as well.
-“Do Long Blog Posts Scare Away Readers?”
This is a question that, if you blog, you’ve probably asked yourself more than once. Coppyblogger’s Jon Morrow tackles the question with a pretty common sense answer. In two easy steps, Jon explains it this way:
Here’s what matters:
1. Writing something that’s interesting
2. Taking out everything that’s not interesting
That’s it.
What do you think of Jon’s assessment? Let us know in the comments section below.
-“Are Vampire Words Sucking the Life Out of Your Writing?”
We’re hitting you with a 1-2 Copyblogger punch courtesy of this solid post from Ali Hale. Ali explains how vampire words (“quite,” “fairly,” “often,” etc.) can kill your writing if you don’t kill them first. The logic is solid and worth making a note of if you are interested in taking your writing to the next level. It’s quite a fairly good solution that may be worth reading if you often feel the need to write. Or, as Ali would put it, read it and become a better writer.
-“STATS: Young People Are Flocking To Twitter”
A second Mashable post invades Box Scores this week. This one from Adam Ostrow discusses a shift in the Twitter mindset of “teens don’t tweet” due to more and more teenagers joining the online conversation of Twitter. What do you think about the increase in teenagers using Twitter? Good, bad, both or neither? Do you think it will change how companies engage on Twitter or do you think the rising number of teens will have no effect on Twitter as it is?
This is simply one of those “read and be inspired” posts coming from one of the blogosphere’s best, Christopher S. Penn. The post is about realizing what you can achieve once you have some confidence, and it’s certainly worth the read. As Christopher puts it, “Whatever your limitations are, know that once you make even the tiniest crack in them, as long as you keep driving, momentum will be on your side, and your barriers can be shattered.” The post makes that point even clearer, but it is still worth the read, so read up, be inspired, and achieve something great. Whether you have the confidence to do it or not.
And so, on this fine Labor Day, we wrap up Box Scores and anxiously await your thoughts and comments. Do you have an opinion on the content marketing discussion? Let us know. Have you experienced a “crack in the glass” experience? Tell us your story in the comments below. Or, you can always hit us up on that Twitter thing or that Facebook we keep hearing about.
Photo by ocean yamaha.