As a writer, I’m cautious to use proper terminology. When I describe my company, in person or on paper, I’m careful to call it a communications firm, rather than better-understood terms such as a marketing firm, or a PR firm.

What does a communications firm do?

A communications firm helps companies hone and communicate their message, better reaching the target market for their products and services. In the case of this company, SpeakWell Communications, we focus almost exclusively on online communications.

How is a communications firm different than a marketing firm?

While a communications firm works to hone and communicate a company’s message, it rarely does the foundational work to establish where in the marketplace a company fits, or exactly who (and how) it aims to reach. These tasks — often done in the formation phases of a company — are best assigned to a marketing firm.

A marketing firm holds the expertise and resources to do extensive research, thorough competitive analysis, and complete business and marketing plan construction. While a communications firm can help clarify these concepts as needed — such as editing the content of a business plan — they most often come into the picture only when the plan is in place, and ready to execute.

How is a communications firm different than a PR firm?

While a marketing firm can lay the foundation for a company’s marketing outreach, and a communications firm can produce the content and drive for this outreach, a PR firm most often comes into play to provide the promotion and publicity to disseminate the content.

PR firms excel at tasks such as creating and maintain press and influencer relationships, distributing and promoting produced content, improving customer relations, and doing damage control. While a PR firm, in other words, acts as an ideal megaphone for the work of marketing firms and communications firms, PR firms do not replace the value they provide.

Do I need a communications firm?

The simple answer is yes; you do need the help of a communications firm if you want to reach your target market(s) as effectively as possible. However, you probably also need a marketing and PR firm, for the individual value they provide. In ideal cases, you can afford for the three to work in concert, combining to define your product and market, form and communicate your message, then disseminate and promote your message.

However, in the real world, if your name isn’t General Electric, you can probably only afford one of these, and ask them to do their best to fill in the gaps. While you might find this approach limiting, there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with it. The main challenge becomes finding the right firm, and having a productive ongoing discussion about their limitations (as well as their value).

If you’re unsure of how to proceed, or still require clarification about what a particular firm is best able to provide, contacting a reputable representative of one is a good first step.

Personal blogs, developed for personal branding outside a company or organization, are becoming increasingly popular. The people who develop them are finding that the increased name-recognition, online popularity, and search engine optimization benefits can actually be helpful for their business goals. Notable examples include: www.tammycamp.com, www.gwenbell.com, and www.andrewhy.de.

This article covers 5 things you should do if you’re considering building a personal blog, or want to improve the one you already have. It’s not intended to be a step-by-step guide — there’s much I won’t cover here — and other points will be covered in later posts.

1. Find a design that suits you

It’s important that personal blogs be well-designed, both for aesthetics and to make it easy for visitors to find and use the content you produce. It’s important also for your design to reflect you the person, as it’s the first impression many people will get of your personal brand.

I prefer Wordpress as a blogging platform, and with a eaily-customizable theme like Thesis, it’s relatively simple to modify your blog with your own pictures, colors, and layouts. Only moderate skill in HTML/CSS is required.

2. Make your contact info accessible

In ideal cases, visitors to your personal blog will want to reach out, and extend their contact with you — whether it’s to propose a project, exchange an idea, or just to say hello.

By making your contact info invisible, or nearly impossible to find, you make it hard for them to take this step, and lose out on the benefits of a possible connection. Instead, feature your contact info in an accessible place, and make it as easy to find as possible.

I usually recommend that contact info be put somewhere on the front page of a personal blog, as well as be put in a separate ‘CONTACT’ page.

3. Be consistent with your posting

It goes without saying that a personal blog needs great content in order to thrive. What people often overlook, however, is the consistency with which content is published. It’s important to establish clear patterns of posting so visitors know what to expect, and have a reason to check back on a regular basis.

The actual timing and amount of posts will vary from blog to blog, and should be determined with what best fits your schedule and goals. Though some bloggers recommend up to 2-3 posts/week, I think 1 post/week is sufficient in most cases.

4. Integrate your social media profiles

Personal blogs work best when they act as portals to your other personalities and profiles online. A personal blog should be linked with your social media presence(s), receiving traffic from places like Twitter and Facebook, and directing traffic out to the same places. The interactions that happen around your blog, thus, can carry over and grow in other places.

The easiest way to integrate your social media profiles on your blog is with customizeable ‘buttons,’ that lead back to your profiles. A wide variety of these buttons can be found at www.mysocialbuttons.com.

5. Interact with other blogs

Personal blogs work best not as singular points of information in a vast Internet universe — these usually come off as narcissistic — but rather as pieces that contribute to a whole. Personal blogs work best when the author plugs themselves into other blogging communities, and regularly puts energy into building outside relationships.

This can be done by guest posting on other blogs, writing posts that are part of a series with other authors, commenting on other blogs, or linking to content from your blog and social media profiles. Mix up these approaches for the best results.

Conclusion

There is no silver-bullet to building a great personal blog. The most successful approaches integrate blog building and posting best practices, and allow ample time for the blog to grow slowly over time. Remember that the biggest benefits might come months, if not years, down the road.

Articles can be great additions to any online content creation campaign. Well written articles — hosted on your website or distributed around the web with your brand attached — can deliver information pertinent to your customers, and build your reputation as an expert source within your industry.

When writing articles, it’s important to follow a pre-determined process. This process keeps you focused and moving forward, both minimizing your time input, and improving the final quality of your articles. Though the process people follow to write articles may vary from author to author, here is the 4-step process we use:

1. Plan and construct an outline (approx. 15 min)

The structure of an article, created before you start writing, goes a long way to determine the quality of your finished product. It’s important that you define a specific subject at this point, as well as how you’re going to explore it.

We usually construct a specific outline in this step, detailing each individual section and the content it will cover, but I don’t believe one is necessary in every case. Each writer should find what system works best for them.

2. Create a first draft (approx. 30-60 min)

The next step is to create a first draft of your article. The better your planning and outline, the quicker this step will go. When writing a first draft, the goal is to get most of the article’s content onto paper. It doesn’t have to be, and probably even shouldn’t be, perfect.

While writing your first draft, try to avoid any rewriting or editing as you go, even if you make spelling errors or typos. There will be plenty of time to go back and fix them later. If you find this to be difficult, try taping a piece of blank paper over your screen.

3. Write a second draft (approx. 15-30 min)

The next step is to write a second draft of your article. View the second draft as an opportunity to revisit the content of your article, establishing and honing the ideas presented in each section, and ensuring they fit into the larger context of the piece.

Begin your second draft by reading the article straight through, from start to finish. You’ll likely see errors, typos, or sections you’d like to change, but try not to stop and edit them. Reading the article in one bite will give you a broader view of what its strengths and weaknesses are, before tackling the specifics.

After you’re done with this, you can start to make revisions. Feel free to fix any glaring typos or errors you see at this point, but try to keep focused on the ideas. Edit each section until you feel that it communicates what it needs to, and then move on. Try to stick to the approximate time limit above — you’ll get another chance to revisit everything in the third draft.

4. Write a 3rd draft (approx. 15 min)

The next step is to create a third and final draft of your article. With the format and content mostly set, the goal of this step is to create a polished and professional-quality product. The edits in the third draft should deal with elements like sentence structure, word choice, word order, punctuation, and so on.

Begin your third draft by reading the article out loud. Hearing your writing lets you experience the article as a first-time reader would, and it clearly highlights the words and sentences you need to fix. When you stumble (or cringe) on a section while reading, that’s a sure sign it needs attention.

After reading, edit your third draft paragraph-by-paragraph. Spend as long as it takes so each one sounds as you’d like, but not longer. When you feel each section, and thus the whole article is sufficiently polished, call it a final product, and walk away. There’s certainly such a thing as over editing, and going beyond a reasonable stopping point is both time-inefficient and detrimental to the quality of your writing.

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Once you have a well-planned, written, and polished article — one you’re proud to show — you can distribute it throughout your network, as well as on third-party online sites. In turn, it will become a tool to attract valuable target customers, and provide long-term benefit to your marketing plan.

Many businesses are realizing the benefits of creating and maintaining a profile on the popular networking site, Twitter. For a relatively small time-input, business owners are able to interact directly with their target customers, exhibiting their personality while simultaneously enhancing their credibility. Twitter is currently regarded as the best place to build online communities, allowing you to grow brand loyalty among a sea of competition.

While posting and interacting on twitter is relatively simple, it may be intimidating to build your own account. Here is a step-by-step guide for establishing your own twitter profile, and customizing it for business use.

Step 1. Establishing your profile

Navigate your browser (Safari, Firefox, etc.) to http://www.twitter.com. On the righthand side of the page, highlighted in neon green, is the SIGN UP NOW button. Click it.

Now enter your information as asked. Enter your first and last name in the first field. This can be the actual name of the person running the account, or it can be your business name.

Next, pick and enter a USERNAME. It should be something unique to you, preferably a variation of your name (for personal-focused accounts), or your business name (for professional accounts). In general, it’s recommended that your username be between 5-12 characters.

Next, enter a PASSWORD that’s unique to you. It’s recommended that you don’t use any dictionary words, and that you include either a capital letter, a number, or both. These measures ensure your account stays secure — don’t share your password with anybody.

If you don’t want to receive promotional or informational emails from twitter (recommended), uncheck the box that reads: I want the inside scoop–please send me email updates!

Lastly, enter the security-code words you see in the box below (click get two new words if you can’t understand the original ones), and hit CREATE MY ACCOUNT.

If you entered all your information correctly, you’ll be forwarded to the SEE IF YOUR FRIENDS ARE ON TWITTER page. If you’d like twitter to search your email contact lists, click on the appropriate icon, and enter your information. If you’d just like to do this later, click on SKIP THIS STEP (at the bottom of page).

That will take you to a page with suggestions of people to follow. You can add more manually later, but for now, check 3 or 4 profiles that interest you. Following a few people to start will help you ‘get’ how twitter works. When you make your selections, press FOLLOW.

You now should be forwarded to your new homepage. And voila… you have yourself a twitter profile.

Congratulations! Have a lollipop, take a quick walk, or just raise your arms in celebration.

Step 2. Adding a profile picture

Adding a profile picture is the most important and easiest way to personalize your new account. Your profile picture is the first thing most people will look at deciding whether to “follow” you, and will be displayed next to each one of your updates.

For accounts with a primary person updating it, it’s alright to use a personal picture. It’s even encouraged. Just make sure it’s a closeup, because twitter only displays a small thumbnail. Strict business accounts can use your logo.

To add your profile picture, first click the PROFILE button, located in menu to the upper righthand side of the page.

Now, to the left of your username, there’s a space for a profile picture. To add one of your own, click on the green PLUS sign.

Once you’re on the add a picture page, click the CHOOSE FILE button. Select an image from somewhere on your computer — I use a Mac, and have all my photos stored in iPhoto. Once you’ve found a photo, click on it to select, and click CHOOSE (in the bottom righthand corner).

If your image is too big — the maximum allowed size is 700k — you have to resize it. You can do that in PhotoShop, if you have it, or online at http://mypictr.com.

Once you see that your picture has uploaded, click SAVE, and you should see it displayed next to your username.

If that worked, go back to HOME, and you should see your new profile pic. Sit back and admire it.

Step 3. Writing your bio

After a profile picture, your bio is the profile element that communicates the most about your business. For person-centered profiles, your bio might give readers an idea of what you do for work, what you do for fun, and what your personality is like. For business profiles, the bio should tell readers about your services, your identity, and perhaps one fun fact about your company.

Twitter bios should be written in sentence form (resist the urge just to make a list), and are only a few sentences long — the max is 160 characters. They can be challenging to write, so do so first in a word processing document.

When you have your bio finished, click on SETTINGS, and enter your text into the box that says: ONE LINE BIO.

While you’re at it, also include your website address (URL), and your business location. Even for Internet businesses that lack a true brick-and-mortar location, it’s advisable to enter something here. Saying you exist ‘on the Internet’ doesn’t give people much to connect to. Try to place yourself somewhere.

After you enter this information, hit SAVE. Then click on PROFILE, which will take you back to your page. Here, you can see the (awesome) results. It should look something like this:

Step 4. Customizing your profile

Just like each website has its own identity, you can now customize the look and feel of your twitter profile (recommended). Go to SETTINGS –> DESIGN, where you can choose a twitter background theme. The theme will be displayed on your homepage, behind the updates from your network, as well as behind your twitter profile page.

If you can’t find something you like, or just want a more-intricate background theme, visit http://www.tweetygotback.com, and pick out your own design. The website is linked directly to your twitter account, to make upgrades as easy as possible.

Because we’re from Boulder, we picked a mountain-themed background, and applied it to our account. It’s looking good. At this point, your page should look something like this:

Step 5. Start tweeting!

If you’ve completed steps 1-4, you now have a fully functional, personalized and customized twitter business profile. Now you’re ready to start using the service. You can post tweets, follow your friends or network contacts, respond to their updates, send direct messages, and more.

If you want information about how to use the features on twitter, or about how to maximize the brand awareness you get from twitter, I recommend you start with this YouTube video, this blog post, or the many more you can find all over the Internet.

Also, I’ll be writing more-detailed posts about the use of twitter as a marketing tool soon. So if you’re interested, make sure to stop back by this blog!

Please leave any questions you have in the comments section.

Happy Tweeting!