MackCollier.com

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Pro Blogger will be co-hosting #Blogchat Sun nite!

This Sunday nite, I’m thrilled that @ProBlogger (Darren Rowse) will be joining us to co-host #Blogchat at 8pm Central.  Darren’s topic will be helping us learn how to monetize our blogs, and the schedule will break down like this:

From 8:00-8:30 PM Central – How to create blog content that can be monetized.  We’ll talk about how you decide what to sell (ads on your blog?  sponsored posts?), and whats your strategy for creating this content.  So if you’ve got questions about deciding what type of content to try to sell, this is when we’ll be discussing it.

From 8:30-9:00 PM Central – We’ll talk about ideas for selling existing content, such as, how do you create an ebook from existing posts, or repurposing existing content in new forms in order to sell it.  So if this is more what you are interested in, make sure you get your questions in here.

Darren will stay as long as he can, but as you can imagine, this #Blogchat should be extremely busy, and could be our most active ever.  So Darren will get to as many questions as he can, but won’t be able to get to everyone’s questions.  So my advice is if Darren doesn’t answer your question the 1st time you ask it, to try again after 9pm,  when the crowd thins out a bit.

And please make sure you are following Darren on Twitter, and subscribed to his blog, if you aren’t already.

Hope to see you all on Sunday nite!

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#Blogchat Schedule for November

New to #Blogchat and want to figure out what the deal is with the hottest chat on Twitter?  Then click here.

After a stellar October lineup we’re going to start November off with a bang with another awesome co-host!

November 7th – Darren Rowse (@ProBlogger) co-hosting on “How to Monetize Your Blog”.  Darren will discuss ways we can monetize our blogging efforts, and also give us ideas for creating content that can be monetized.  The topic of ‘how do I make money off my blog?’ is one that #Blogchat regulars have constantly asked about, and I wanted to make sure we could get Darren to co-host this topic, as he’s probably the best person on the planet to help us in this area!  There will be a followup post here on Friday with more information about Darren’s session this Sunday, so please check back for that!

November 14th – Sponsored #Blogchat.  The second #Blogchat for this month will be reserved for sponsors, however, if a suitable one hasn’t been found by the 8th (Next Monday), then well have a ‘normal’ #Blogchat.  So if your company wants to pitch for sponsoring this slot, please email me with your topic ideas ASAP.  If you want to learn more about how the #Blogchat sponsorships work, click here.

November 21st – Topic TBA

November 28th – OPEN MIC #Blogchat! There still seems to be a bit of confusion from some people, especially those new to #Blogchat, over exactly what the OPEN MIC nites are about.  The last Sunday of every month is an OPEN MIC #Blogchat.  What that means is that there is NO set topic.  Everyone comes and discusses whatever blogging topic they want.  It sounds like it would be complete chaos, but it’s actually a lot of fun, and these are probably the most popular #Blogchats over the last 20 months.  So if you keep pitching a certain topic for #Blogchat that we aren’t covering, then come to OPEN MIC and get a conversation started around this topic!

Finally, if you aren’t already, please follow me on Twitter.  As the topics for the 2nd and 3rd weeks are set, I’ll be tweeting information out on those weeks, plus I always share links to the transcripts and other info about #Blogchat.  Hope to see you this Sunday!

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Don’t miss #Blogchat Sun nite with special co-host Shannon Paul!

Got a company blog?  Not sure how to effectively manage and respond to the comments you get there?  Well Sunday nite’s #Blogchat is just what you need!  We’ll be joined by the amazing @ShannonPaul who will be educating us on “How to Respond to Comments on Your Company Blog”.  The #blogchat with Shannon will start at our regular time of 8pm Central, 9pm Eastern!

If you will be joining us, please read this post Shannon wrote on how to respond to comments on your company blog.  It will be a HUGE help for you.

As for the structure of this chat, there’s two areas Shannon will be hitting on:

1 – For the 1st 30 minutes up till 8:30, we will be discussing the basics of effectively managing and responding to comments on your company blog.  Such as, should you respond to every comment, should you moderate, who should respond, etc.

2 – For the 2nd 30 mins starting at 8:30, we will discuss how to handle negative comments on your blog.  This is an area where so many companies have problems with and worry about, so we wanted to devote a lot of time to covering it.

And please make sure you follow Shannon on Twitter, and also subscribe to her blog.  When it comes to experience handling/managing social media initiatives in a corporate setting, Shannon is really in a class by herself.  She handled the social media efforts of the Detroit Red Wings and PEAK6 Online, before taking on her current role as Social Media Manager for Blue Cross – Blue Shield of Michigan.  She’s a gem, and a helluva good person to boot!

And if you are new to #Blogchat (Welcome!)  and want to now what the deal is, here you go!

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#Blogchat 10-10-10 with @GrantGriffiths Recap

Last nite @GrantGriffiths from Headway Themes joined us for the 1st ever sponsored #Blogchat.  Headway is a premium blog theme, and the topic for last nite’s #Blogchat was How to Choose a Blog Theme/Template.

The discussion was broken into two areas; the 1st 30 minutes or so was devoted to a general discussion of what to look for when picking a blog theme/template.  The second 30 minutes focused on the difference between free blog themes, and premium ones.  Here’s some of the main points that we covered:

When picking a theme, look for the following features:

1 – Themes should be simple, with fonts and sizes easily readable for all ages – @abbisiler

2 – Consider your audience and what features would appeal to them – @prosperitygal

3 – Does the theme allow your content to be easily shared on social sites? – @galactic

4 – When picking a theme, remember that a light background for the text will make it easier for printing your posts – @abbisiler

5 – Look for themes that are SEO friendly, that have good code, and that offer support – @GrantGriffiths

6 – A reader-friendly layout is more important than cutesy colors and designs – @sueyoungmedia

7 – Also consider how much coding you’ll need to know to modify the theme, is it compatible with WordPress 3.0 and widget ready? – @GrantGriffiths

8 –  @BCarroll7 asked about going with a 2 or 3-column theme.  Seemed most people preferred 2-columns as they are less cluttered and have less code involved.

Next we moved to a discussion of free vs premium themes.  Most people were of the mindset that if you can afford it and are serious about your blog, that it’s worth the money to invest in a premium theme, and most are under $100 for a one-time fee.  Obviously since Grant is with Headway, it was a very popular choice among #Blogchat participants as a premium theme.  Others that were mentioned repeatedly included Thesis (this site runs on Thesis) as well as Genesis and Woo.

My take is this: If your blog is just for your own personal enjoyment, then you will likely be just fine with a free theme.  But if you are using your blog for business or think you might at some point, I would invest in a premium theme.

Now as you might expect, the majority of the rest of the #Blogchat discussion focused on premium themes, and especially the Headway Theme.  That was by design, as I wanted to make sure that there was a section of #Blogchat where y’all could learn more about Headway, since Grant was sponsoring #Blogchat last nite.

And as I said above, this site runs on Thesis.  My personal take on Thesis is this:  It’s a very good theme.  For me, the big problem I have with Thesis is the upgrading process.  Even though Thesis offers from lifetime upgrades, the upgrading process involves going into your site’s file structure and manually adding some files, removing others, changing the permissions on some, etc.  IOW, if you are an idiot like me, there’s about 100 opportunities to break something during the upgrade process.  That’s why I am stuck on Thesis 1.5, when I think the latest version is 1.8.  I am scared to upgrade because I am afraid I will break something.

One thing I loved hearing from Grant was that Headway will offer automatic upgrading with it’s new 2.0 version coming out later this month.  That alone will guarantee that I will give it a closer look.  From everything I heard last nite, it seems like Headway is better if you want to do less coding (which is most of us), and I think Thesis is better if you are a total coding geek and love getting your hands dirty.  That’s just what I think based on using Thesis, plus talking to everyone last nite.

Grant was kind enough to also offer us a 20% discount off Headway for the next 2 days.  The regular price for Headway is $87 for a personal license, and $164 for a developer license.  If you want to use the discount, go to this link and use code ‘hwblogchat’.

Thanks again to Grant for joining us last nite.  He did a great job, and everyone seemed to love the topic and what they learned.  Last nite was the first attempt at a sponsored #Blogchat, and if you would like to learn more about how you could sponsor a future #Blogchat, click here.  If you have any questions, including how much a #Blogchat sponsorship would cost, please email me.

And finally, if you have ANY comments/suggestions/ideas about last nite’s #Blogchat, please either leave me a comment here, or email me.  I definitely want to hear your feedback on having a sponsor, and have already taken some of your comments into consideration for how future sponsors will be handled.

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Join us this Sunday to discuss How to Choose a Blog Template at #Blogchat!

I’m proud to announce that this Sunday will mark the 1st sponsored #Blogchat!  Joining us will be Grant Griffiths, who is the co-founder of the Headway premium blog theme.  Grant will be discussing How to Choose a Blog Template with us, and he’ll also be answering our questions about the Headway Theme.

Here’s how the format for this #Blogchat will run:

1 – We’ll start at our normal time of 8:00 PM Central.  For the 1st 30 mins, we’ll be talking about the elements and features that you should be looking for when choosing a blog theme/template.  So if you are a new blogger that’s ready to start blogging, this is probably where you will want to go for getting the most help.

2 – At 8:30 PM, we’ll shift the conversation to discussing if you should choose a free or premium template.  This is where you should probably go if you have any questions about Headway in particular.  Grant will be happy to help explain Headway’s many features and answer any questions you have about Headway.  BTW if you are interested in the Headway theme then it might be a good idea to check it out on their website before #Blogchat starts, then you can ask Grant any specific questions you have when you get to #Blogchat.  And we’ll both help answer any questions about you might have about whether you should be going with a free or premium theme.

So if you have general questions about picking a blog theme/template, you’ll probably want to pay more attention to the 8:00-8:30 PM block.  If you have more specific questions about free vs premium themes and especially about Headway, then you’ll want to pay more attention to the 8:30-9:00 PM slot.  And as we always do, we’ll be chatting after 9:00PM for a bit, I just know that some of you have to leave at 9:00PM.

Sound good?  If you have any questions, please leave a comment or email me.   As I said this will be the first sponsored #Blogchat, but I think you can see that the topics and format should be consistent with what you’ve seen every week from #Blogchat.  BTW if your company or organization would like to sponsor a future #Blogchat, you can learn more about #Blogchat sponsorships here.

Thanks guys, see you Sunday at 8pm Central!