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Brewing a Fresh Cup of Content

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For those who love coffee, a fresh pot of the black gold will get your day started. Others might choose tea or exercise to get their day started but the same idea of fresh tealeaves or a fresh new pair of running sneaks can all be thought of as a start to an awesome day.

Just like a fresh cup of coffee, fresh and exciting content is becoming scarce. In previous posts we’ve written about plagiarism on a national and local level. The individuals have the pressure of writing by themselves and this is in no way an excuse for what they did. But when you can bounce ideas off of a team member or group, it is a lot easier.

Writing as a Team

Writing as a Team can also become challenging but it sure does help when two or three brains are brainstorming about what topics to write about. Using a white board in your office or meeting room can certainly help a team of people come up with topics to write about and how to organize the content. In team discussions there might be even three or four topics to write about with even more content to elaborate on.

But if you are one person or a two person company writing various blogs, the best times to think of topics is when you talk to someone else over a meal or cup of coffee or road trips. We come up with a topic or several to write about when we are on road trips to visit family or out doing errands. One comment or idea can spark an in depth conversation about a possible topic for anyone of our blogs.

Tools to help with writing

I use both technology and paper and pen to write things down. Raul uses various tools such as Omm Writer and provides a detailed outline here of what else he uses to create blog posts. I also use Mind Node and Word for my blog entries. One cool thing that Raul has been doing lately is writing all his ideas on sticky notes, posting them to a wall, and then arranging them into categories where the ideas start forming into common themes.

There isn’t one way to do things as long as they are efficient for you, the company, and clients. The most important thing about writing a blog post is that you are highlighting these key factors:

How your company provides a service

How your company works with clients to resolve their issues and needs while building long lasting relationships

and most importantly how your company makes clients successful

What is your company doing to create fresh, new, and original content?

 

The Plagiarizing Professor

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Gary Poppins as opposed to Mary Poppins

In a previous post, I ‘d written about a well-known journalist plagiarizing content from a blogger. And it got me thinking about the basics of writing. In school you are taught the alphabet and as you become proficient in writing, you arrange those 26 letters into words, sentences, paragraphs, a blog post, article, research paper, and even a book. The ideas and content are individual and unique. We are not going to arrange the words in the exact same order. We might have the same topic in mind, but the execution of the content written, the arrangement and the paragraphs are never the same. Unless, you plagiarize someone else’s content word for word, paragraph by paragraph.

Such was the case in the last week when we were made aware of a local plagiarizing incident involving a university professor. If you are a PhD I expect for you to know that plagiarism is not ethical or moral. When your students hand in research papers, you do your due diligence to make sure they have not plagiarized content with out giving credit to the original author. If a student is caught doing this, it is considered unethical and can lead to expulsion or worse.

 The Plagiarizing Professor

Too make a long story short, (you can go to the person’s blog post and see the many entries she made regarding this issue and how she reached out to various organizations in Puerto Rico) the person who had their content stolen had written her thesis several years ago about publicity titled, “Publicidad 3.0.”  Recently she was going to start research on a similar topic. What she found was that in July of this year, a Professor who writes for a local newspaper, had plagiarized content from her thesis. (The blog post is in Spanish) Upon further research and gathering evidence of what happened to her, the blogger then wrote about this incident in her blog. She put links to his social profiles, personal blog, and newspaper article that was plagiarized with the same exact title as her thesis. She made the editors of the newspaper aware via emails, posting messages on Facebook on the newspaper’s page, and even tweeting to them.

When I started searching for information about the professor, someone (more than likely the professor or his lawyer) had deleted all of his social profiles. The newspaper also deleted the article in question and various other articles written by this professor from their digital newspaper but forgot that Google cached a copy of the article under the same title as the blogger’s thesis.  During my research I came upon an article in the same newspaper that talked about plagiarism in the press and in blogs. Perhaps the professor should have read what his colleague learned at a local bloggers event concerning plagiarism. I also found a copy on Scribd of the original article that was not erased. When I went to search on the professor’s blog, it had also been deleted.

Do you see where I am going with this?

If one is innocent of plagiarism or copying content from someone else, why go to great lengths to try and erase your digital footprint, articles, and blog? Check the blog versus the article posted in the newspaper and you can come to a conclusion about this matter.

How can we help you with writing original content?

As I have pointed out previously, we write original content for several blogs and have done it for clients. As recently as March, we have been using original photos on all our blogs instead of going to Flickr Creative Commons, where some people who take photos allow other’s to use their images as long as credit is giving to them.

If you want peace of mind when it comes to following the rules of publishing online content for blogs, especially if you or your company want to start a company blog, we can coach you or offer training around this topic.

By brining you back to the basics of writing, we can then translate that into what is technologically acceptable and what is not. We can guide you through the many elements of the online eco-system. We will write a follow-up post about the basics of writing a blog post and how you should credit other sources including photos.

What do you think of this professor? Absent minded or just plain lazy?

For updates on this matter, you can go to the person’s blog to see how this plays out. We commend this person for bringing her case to light. (The blog is in Spanish)

Thanks to @BiancaEst for sharing the original information and post with us this past Saturday.

Original Content versus Plagiarisim

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The news that a well-known writer for CNN and Times Magazine was confronted by another news source for plagiarizing someone else’s content has been an important topic of conversation amongst bloggers and journalists within the last several weeks. You can look at an article about his apology here and what he did.

Mass Quantities of Information

These days I am seeing people consuming mass quantities of information and the writers of blogs, newspapers, and digital newspaper as the people who are trying to entertain the masses with whatever they can find and trying to be the first at it exposing anything that will bring more traffic. We also see how companies approve controversial content for the sake of traffic, comments, and a little notoriety for the employee; this lets the company know that they are moving the masses even if the content can be hurtful to a large group or community of people already in the spotlight.

Writing controversial content for your business blog can backfire on you and the company. It can provoke a swarm of bees at any moment that will sting and hurt your company’s efforts, have your current customers leave you, and persuade possible clients to go to your competitors.

 How does one come up with new, fresh, and original content for your blog without looking towards pre-written content on the web about the same subject?

Writing is a Team Effort at CIMA

At CIMA writing becomes a team effort. I might bounce off an idea to Raul and we might have the same ideas or different ones. We write out drafts, have the other person edit, and ask to provide more detail than what was originally written. One of the most fun exercises we did was putting together this post about original content and comparing that to homemade onion rings for Raul’s blog .

We also make sure that we credit other writers and even clients if we need to use them as an example in our posts. Running multiple blogs can be challenging especially when the CIMA team is committed to writing fresh, original content all of the time.

On few occasions we summarize an already written post or provide our perspective on a current event on our blogs. One of our most highly viewed posts for PapaHeroes was written because of news about a tragic shooting in Puerto Rico just minutes after celebrating the New Year this year. I saw a picture of the parent slumped over in a chair waiting outside his daughter’s room in one of the local digital newspapers. I wrote about how I would feel as a parent if something that tragic happened to me. Unbeknownst to us, that same day the parents decided to stop all medical interventions and their daughter died. Raul noticed a spike in visitors on the parenting blog and people were looking for information about the girl from all over the globe. Till this day, people still search for information on the young girl and the tragic event that took her life.

We know that the more content we write, the chances of us landing a client are greater than if we just sit and wait for someone to call for our services. Last year we landed a new client because of the content we wrote and we showed our ability to resolve a potential clients’ issues. We wrote about an alternative to open tables reservations system for a former client who was in the restaurant business.

The content did several things for the person reading it and searching for information online.

  1. It showed CIMA IT had an expertise in working with restaurants.
  2. We used our established client as a concrete example of how they were successful at using the tool we created for them.
  3. Solved an issue he was having for his twenty restaurants and their reservation system.

We spoke to the client about what he needed in more detail once he contacted us and since then we have been able to resolve other issues for him. As a small company, writing original content for the business blog continuously opens the door for new clients. Plagiarizing someone else’s content won’t show your expertise. It will set you and your business up for failure if you can’t deliver what you wrote about or promised in the article.

In our next post we will write about the tools we use to come up with content in order to show our expertise, highlight the work we have done for clients, and build our company portfolio.

 

6 Ideas to Create Content for Your Corporate Blog

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It still amazes me on how many people don’t see the purpose in writing a corporate blog. On many occasions someone wants to establish their online presence and they just want a static page. When I ask business owners why there is only a static page, their answer is that they don’t know what to write about on their corporate blog, or even worse that they don’t have time to be online.

When individuals are so resistant to set up a corporate blog it is obvious that they don’t see the value in establishing one. But maybe if they could get an idea of what they can write about it might sound more appealing to them.

5 Suggestions on what to write about in your corporate Blog that can save you time and money:

1. Answering the FAQ’s of your prospective clients

It is great to have a FAQ page on your site but if you can also use your blog to clear answers with more detail, I can guarantee that in the long run it will be useful for you. It can even save time because instead of writing an explanation you can just point them towards the details on your blog.

For example, we answered the question in our blog regarding what music you can play on a website. Thankfully the post has been viewed by many people and in researching the topic, have come in though Google which can be converted into clients.

2. Client or Customer Accomplishments

In our case, customer accomplishments are very important. So if we can find a way to congratulate our customers it might be a good idea to write a few paragraphs about their accomplishment and how that client is tied to you. If the outcome or accomplishment is directly tied to any of your team’s efforts it makes it even more important for you to include a post regarding your client.

Example: When we launched Food Truck Freak a few months ago for a client they received good press coverage andwe highlighted their accomplishment by writing:

“CIMA goes along for the ride with Food Truck Freak in Chicago”.

3. New Products or Services

If you are launching a new product or adding services it is a good idea for you to let your customers know via your blog. Communicating things via your blog can help you reach your audience directly and also clear any questions that your prospective customers might have at a faster pace than publishing a Press Release or any printed material.

Example: We announced how we started our translation services and also changed our website into a Bilingual One.

4. Previous Comments

Make sure your posts have an area to comment. This is another source for future posts. Based on what your audience is asking via the comments area or conversations that are going on in that area, you can generate future blog posts. If you can answer the question quickly answer it in the comments section. If the answer is complex or detailed, I recommend writing a follow up post so your answer can clear the questions of others.

Example: Based on previous questions we had in our comments when @margieclayman offered to write a guest post for us we  took the opportunity to have her straight to the point post on ” Five Keys to Look For When Searching for a Website Development Partner“

5. Partnerships

If you join up with another organization it is great that you share the great news of the new partnership. This not only shows your new partners that you are excited about the relationship, it also allows your clients and customers to know who you are aligning with to serve them better.

Example: Soon we will share more insight into our partnership with our business partners Chris Brogan, Rob Hatch and the rest of the Human Business Works Team. (News & Press area).

6. Tutorials

Similar to answering questions, you can create a post with a tutorial of a process in order to further educate your customers. Instead of running them through the process in an email, you can create a resources section in your blog that is available for everyone to review and understand.

Example: We love to learn from other blogs so we make sure every once in a while we add a tutorial or answer questions that might be useful to our readers like  “Exchanging your LinkedIn Info via QR Code” and “3 Ways To Make Your Keywords Useful On Twitter“

Do you have any other suggestions on what things you can write about on your blog?

photo credit by Keith Williamson

Thanks and Welcome @LatinaMomBlogs to the CIMA IT Family!

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We are excited to add @LatinaMomBlogs, a service of Latina Moms Media, LLC, to our list of clients.

 

@LatinaMomBloggers

 

The site is a collaboration between Manny Ruiz, co-founder of Hispanicize and Latina bloggers, Piera Jolly of JollyMom and Eva Smith of Tech.Food.Life .

 

Eva Smith & Pierra Jolly

 

According to the Hispanicize platform:

” A service of Latina Moms Media, LLC and sister company of Hispanicize, Latina Mom Bloggers (www.LatinaMomBloggers.com) features the industry’s most comprehensive Word of Mouth marketing services targeting influential Latina moms, the most sought after purchase decision-makers in the fast growing $1 trillion Hispanic market.”

Feel free to visit the site and read content relevant to Latina mom bloggers

 

@LatinaMomBloggers

 

Follow them on Facebook and Twitter !