Every blogger should read this eBook by Hunter Nuttall, The Zen of Blogging (PDF).  Whether you’re just getting started or you are an experienced blogger looking for a new perspective to kick-start your motivation, I think you’ll enjoy this thoroughly.

Via:  ProBlogger

Chris Brogan shares some tips on building community around your blog.  As we all know, it takes a lot of time, focus, and energy.  Chris has some great tips in here.  If you’re not familiar with his blog, I highly recommend it for regular inspirational blogging/community tips.  He’s also one of the more prolific Twitterers I’ve met yet!

Read:  Free Tips For Your Blog

Though I haven’t been blogging here as often as I should be, I’ve been more active lately on some other sites I contribute to. As any of you who blog surely know, it can take a lot of energy and creativity to consistently come up with new content to post. But, as you also know, frequent blogging is critical to maintain a healthy level of readership.

Mining for Content with Online Services

• Technorati - This is one of my top idea generators. I subscribe to RSS feeds for key words related to my niche sites and view them daily (sometimes multiple times per day) to find new blog posts related to those topics.
• flickr - flickr also lets you create RSS feeds for keyword searches. This is a great way to discover new people who are interested in your niche. flickr is also a fantastic community site in and of itself!
• Twitter - Rapid fire mini blogging, stream of conscious texting, all around fun
• StumbleUpon - Tell it a little about what you like by clicking “I like it” buttons on your favorite sites and StumbleUpon helps you find new sites that other people with the same interest have shared.
• Subscribing to other related niche blogs - Pick your favorite news aggregator and subscribe to newsfeeds directly. The benefit of this over sites like Technorati is that there can be a delay of days sometimes between when authors publish stories and when centralized aggregators pick them up. If you wire up the feeds in your own desktop newsreader software, you can control exactly when you check for updates.

I also get a lot of tips and ideas from my readers. Not only does this make my job easier, but it also gives me an opportunity to thank one of our community members with a public nod on the main newsfeed:

• Bubbling up forum posts to the news feed - If you see a particularly interesting post or thread happening in your site’s forums, why not give it exposure on your news feed? It’s a great way to drive new eyes to your forums and get other members to chime in with their opinions.
• Sharing good news about a community member - If something good happens to one of your community members, such as a birthday, a promotion, winning a contest, etc. share it with other members by posting it to your newsfeed. A community is as strong as the bonds between its members, and giving them something to cheer each other on about only helps. Note, be sensitive to privacy. You might want to ask your members if they mind being under the spotlight on your main news feed - some people just don’t like public exposure under any circumstances.
• Tips shared from readers - Make sure your site has an easy to find way for readers to submit blog tips. This could be an online form, a forum dedicated to tips, or even posting an e-mail address on your page (but be careful about spam). The bottom line is, if your readers have something to share, then make it as easy as possible for them to share. Also, it is critical that you read every submission in a timely fashion (i.e. same day), and thank your readers even if you don’t end up using their tip.

So those are some of my tips for finding ideas to blog about. What other techniques do you use? Do you know of any other great news tools I should be using?

Lots of great content out there around building successful community sites lately!  I thought I’d share a quick list I’ve scanned but haven’t read thoroughly yet.  Be sure to let me know if you’ve seen anything else lately you think our readers would find useful!

• A Strategy for Building Niche Focused Blog Networks (ProBlogger)
• How to Come Up with Topics to Write About On Your Blog (ProBlogger)
• Community Lessons from Heather Champ (CommunityGuy)

Happy weekend!

Not 30 minutes after I’d added him to my follow list, Aaron Strout from Citizen Marketer pointed me to a great article he wrote on really getting started with Twitter as a social networking tool.  The more I use Twitter, the more I like it.  I can easily see how it will be useful for building critical mass around this and other blogs I run, for example.

…remember that like with community, it’s a two way street. People are more inclined to pay attention to your message if you share other people’s posts and reciprocate when they post.

If you’re new to Twitter too, be sure to give this gem a read!

Thanks Aaron!

For those of you like me who don’t want to pay $10/month for unlimited SMS messaging, now there’s TinyTwitter - a free application for Windows Mobile and Java-enabled phones.

TinyTwitter is also a tiny app, so it won’t take up much valuable space your device.  It loads quickly, which makes it convenient for rapid stream of consciousness tweeting.  You can configure it to update at a variety of intervals, including manually.  It will also notify you of any direct @replies.

I’m slowly getting into the whole Twitter thing, obviously being one of the last to the party.  If you haven’t gotten started yet, you’re not alone.  Maybe TinyTwitter will finally win you over?

You can follow my own Twitterings at http://twitter.com/communiteer. 

Via:  MobilityToday

Here’s a great tool for the busy blogger!  When you come across a website or blog post you want to make sure you digest later, you can either add it to your favorites and then ignore it (like I tend to do), or you can add a quick button to your browser toolbar to save the page for reading later. 

Note, adding a link to the toolbar in IE7 proved challenging for me.  I ended up creating a new link to a random page, then right-clicking on it and editing its properties to paste in the javascript code for Instapaper’s “read later” button.  I then added a second link to my Instapaper.com account so I can always quickly go see what I have to read.

Try it!  Instapaper.com  (via WordPress Planet)

Meebo announced today they will make their APIs for chat rooms available for websites to embed at a much more fundamental level than ever before.  In addition, they’re creating a new service to display ads in chat rooms and split proceeds from clicks with site owners.

“The power of Meebo Rooms is that they let anyone create live conversations on their site by aggregating people with similar interests from other sites.”

That’s big for you and me.  Not only can you serve ads to your own community, but also to members of other similar communities too. 

I haven’t incorporated Meebo into any of my communities yet.  Have you?  Do you feel like it helps with communiteering?

Link:  Meebo Turns Chat Rooms Into a Web Service (TechCrunch.com)

HigherTrustMarketing asks, “How much selling should you do from your blog?”.  As with everything, I think the answer varies quite a bit on the type of community you have.  They offer some good tips, such as making sure the type of thing or service you’re pushing is actually of interest to your readers.  Otherwise, you run the significant risk of upsetting your members and driving them away from your site.  The best approach in many cases is to make your users feel like they are gaining something by reading your blog full of product links.  For example, through in depth product reviews, links to coupons/discounts, new product announcements, etc. are all great ways to serve your community without making them feel like you’re shoving product down their throats.

On all my communities, I take a “passive” approach and try not to force-feed products on my users.  I’ll provide thoughts, comments, and the occasional link to specific products here and there, but I’ve found that engaging in a conversation with my members as opposed to simply broadcasting deals to them generates many more return visitors, and buyers!

Link:  Selling On Your Blog - Should You Do It?  (HigherTrustMarketing.com)

Jeremiah Owyang has a super list of tools available to market your online community.  I really like how he goes well beyond the basics to include creative options like widget marketing and massive multiplayer online games.  His blog is slanted more towards the corporate reader, but the tips listed here could be useful to businesses large and small.