“It must be like therapy for you.” 

I get this comment a lot, and I admit, it baffles me.

Do you know how much therapists earn?  Do you know why?

Because it’s boring, listening to people’s problems.  It’s work.  For it to be an effective exercise, the listener has to have a great deal of training and expertise.

Blogging is not therapy.  And if it were?  — The blogger would not be the patient, she would be the caregiver. 

Blogging is for the reader.   (Unless you don’t want a devoted readership, in which case go ahead and therapy yourself away).

The conflict — the challenge as a writer and an artist — is that there is nothing more deadly-dull than a blogger with all the answers.  You have to draw a balance between giving your reader a plateful of problems and fistful of solutions.

The answer is questions.

When structuring a post for your reader, one good trick is to identify a question you are struggling with.

For example — Is blogging therapy?

And then write a post about your exploration of that question.  You can do it chronologically — “When I started blogging I struggled with the narcissism of personal writing, so I decided to read personal essays and determine the history of the form.  This led me to think about the difference betwen good writing and bad, and that good writing is always a gift to the reader.”  Or, you can do it in order of importance.  “Blogging is not therapy, here’s three reasons why not.”

Keep your post limited to one question, to an exploration of the question that raises ideas and supports those ideas with evidence (even if all of that comes in the form of a story.)   Remember to show your reader your struggle without burdening her with a litany of problems on top of her own.

And at the end?  Give her a takeaway.  Tell her what the purpose of the post was, why it was worth your time to write it and hers to read it. 

Tell her the moral of the story.

Because blogging is not therapy, and you are expected to come to the form with some refined thoughts about the questions you’re addressing.

What is a blog?

It’s a question I’ve been asked — and trying to answer — since I started writing one in 2004.   We know that blogs are regularly-updated websites.  We know that some blogs are written by individuals, some by companies, some by professionals or amateurs, but these days anyone can write one (and lots of people do).

And despite what some pundits may tell you, we know there are certain rules to blogging:

1)  Good blogs are a service to their reader.  They offer the reader something with each post, and the reader comes away fed (and therefore comes back);

2)  Not all good blogs are well-written — but like every journalistic form before it, the spelling, grammar, punctuation and basic structure of a blog are strong indicators of the quality of its content.  Given that it costs the same to read a professional blog as an amateur one, mastering these elements are an important part of drawing and maintaining a readership;

3)  Blogs are both artistic and technical endeavors.

It’s this last item I want to address — it is no longer possible to be a mainstream writer with no technical savvy.  Every heart-on-her-sleeve liberal arts major among us is having to master certain basics in order to enter the arena.  I can’t program a universal remote, but I can code basic HTML, and I’m able to dig my way through style sheets to find a typo on my side bar if I absolutely have to.

But I’m no coder, and I know it. 

To make my blog great, I need help.  I need a Word Press specialist, someone who can execute a punch list that looks like this:

• Move the top bar up so it is even with the letter “d” in the header;
• Add comment function to the top and bottom of each post;
• Collapse posts after the first four on the main page, but not on the archives;
• Add a tagline in the top right corner that changes on each refresh.

My blog is my creative face to the world, and it is my business and it has to hit my reader full in the face with humor, wit, energy, right on page load.  I know what it has to do … but I do not have the technical capacity to execute it.

Now, here’s the flip side of that coin:  most coders don’t have communications backgrounds.  They are experts at computer language and engineering, but they don’t have a long history of ordering information for maximum creative and emotional impact.

And what’s more? — Generally coders and journalists are not illustrators.   A great editor knows how to set art on the page to light up the content, and a great coder can place the artwork precisely.  But creating graphics and logos is the work of a visual artist and is almost always a completely different person than the other two.

So here’s the moral of the story:  a really great blog needs a team of three to make it great.  It needs an editor who knows how to order information and deliver a package of content for maximum impact.  It needs an artist to use color, form and design to deliver a visual story.  And it needs a programmer to pull all of those elements together and make it work quickly and cleanly every time.

If having a blog is important to you, if it’s worth doing more than signing up for a free account and pre-made template, then it is worth your time to consider the anatomy of  the blog.  Recognize that very few people are competent at more than one element of blog design, and you’ll need to put some thought into what matters to you before you decide who is best to help you.

Here is where I confess that I detest Facebook.

I resisted the craze for quite a while but before I knew it was seriously out of the loop — dinner conversation at family wedddings was going right over my head.

Who won what on Mafia Wars?  — And why were my brother and my husband’s brother in on it?  They live in different parts of the country and as far as I know met only once, eleven years ago at my wedding.  The only thing they have in common is my husband and me.

And some kind of serious smackdown over a failed bank heist.

That part of Facebook is great — it fosters relationships between extended family at a time when people increasingly no longer share a hometown with their relatives. 

But then it gets complicated.  For example, I am constantly sent friend invitations by my blog readers.  These people are real friends — I have known them for years, they have contributed to my blog, many have sent notes and gifts that have meant a lot.

But do I really want them having access to my daughter’s 2nd grade classroom mother’s list?

And about that  – the mothers all friend each other.  But is it a little weird to friend a dad?  And what about teachers? I get to read about their hobbies and their Sunday afternoons and that’s great. But then I worry — will my political views on gay marriage affect their view of my kid?

 Speaking of school, I get friend requests from my own students all the time and it weirds me out.   — When I was college one didn’t even e-mail a professor, you certainly didn’t endeavor to read status updates detailing her exploits with a sick cat. 

So along comes Facebook and you mix personal and private, and school and home all of which weirds me out … but nothing is weirder to me than the mixing of past and present.  The fifteenth reunion committee wants you to friend them and talk about plans for the big event.  And then you wonder — Do I really want to reengage in high school politics?  I mean, it’s one thing to do it for a night every couple of years.  But every day?

And how ungodly weird is it to read your middle school friend’s cervical updates leading up to the labor of her first child?

Speaking of children — I learned about three pregnancies and two marriages via Facebook.  This adds a new layer to the social hierarchy:  are you a phone-call-the-night-of relation?  An e-mail-in-the-morning relation?  Or an interpret-my-status relation?

I have three Facebook friends I don’t like, whose updates are offensive or worse, boring.  One friend I couldn’t identify in a lineup.  Seriously, every time she posts an update I look for clues as to how I know her.  We have lots of friends in common, but I have no idea who she is or how I even came to acquire her.  It must have been in the newborn haze.

Three people have “unfriended” me — one in a very dramatic breakup that involved inviting me out for coffee.

One friend solved the boundary problem by opening an account for her dog and posting her real thoughts in his name.  She was doing great until she accidentally posted as the dog to the PTA thread.

The number one problem with Facebook is that it obliterates boundaries.

Do you want your boss, your client, your nanny and your grandmother to all be getting the same communication from you every day? — You don’t.  No one does.

All of this is a prelude to the question I am asked a lot:

Should my business have a Facebook fan page?

The answer for the moment is yes.  It doesn’t harm, it can be updated in the same stroke as Twitter.  If your business is something that is used socially — for example a restaurant or movie theater or event hall — then for the moment Facebook is a very good place for you. 

Some kind of  distinction between social and business networking is inevitable.  As we see how ineffective the lack of boundaries is, we will find new ways to implement them in the context of digital media.  Our old friend etiquette will return and we’ll all know what the tools are for.

Until then, there’s Facebook.

The strongest element of this project was the blog the client brought to me.  Leanna gets it:  she instinctively understands how blogging for business works.  She uses stories to impart information relevant to her field, and to convey to potential clients that she gets them, too.

Leanna is a family and estate planning lawyer on Boston’s South Shore.  She is a solo-practitioner and maintains close relationships with her clients.  Her blog focuses what legal services every family needs — from guardianships for minors, to financial planning for special needs adults.  The blog is a great source of information and makes the reader– the potential client — feel very confident in Leanna’s humor, compassion, and competence.

Leanna’s blog is so good that it was the perfect fit for my preferred model of a dynamic website — pitching the boring banner-and-button model in favor of making her blog the home page.

Our Word Press designer Dave started with Leanna’s old site and refreshed and streamlined the layout.  I worked with her to organize the content so that her most important information was at the top, immediately available to her reader, and her secondary information was an easy dig away. 

The result is crisp, ultra-organized, and eminently readable.  It showcases Leanna’s skills and wisdom and provides an instant picture of her as a seasoned and compassionate advocate.

I want you to practice saying this to yourself:  The People Inside My Computer Are Real.

One of the biggest obstacles to helping businesses build their oline presences is their inability to accept that the Internet is a real place, populated with real people.  It still seems like a Dungeons & Dragons sort of semi-reality that has nothing to do with business.

This is part of living in a revolution:  everyone in our time has to rethink everything about the way they communicate and view the world.

Your online community — while quite different than the one you encounter at your workplace, the kids’ school, your house of worship — is just as alive.  Some of the people in it are good for you, some of them are not, some are boring, some of them even dangerous.  Just like everyone else you encounter in (wait for it, wait for it) the rest of the real world.

Good business has always been about relationships, and your Internet presence is a relationship like any other:  it offers challenges and benefits, and it needs to be maintained.

I recently made use of my Internet community to make Christmas happen for my daughter Karenna.  She is four years old, and all she wanted in the whole wide world was a Disney Princess vanity that converts into a musical keyboard.  There are no words for how obnoxious this thing is — Valley-girl pink, covered in vapid Disney faces, purple turrets, the whole bit.

The week before Christmas I hit Target and lo and behold — no vanity.

I called every Target, Toys R Us, Wal-Mart in the greater Boston area, and then the Commonwealth, and then New England. 

My kid was in love with the toy of the year. It was a week before Christmas and nobody had it.

So I took to my Twitter feed.  I posted the link to the vanity and asked my readers to check their local stores.  “If you find a store that has it, please drop me the name and location, any state. Thank you!” I wrote.

Reply Tweets started popping up.  Readers were finding it listed in their local Targets in Georgia, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, Indiana, Maine, Florida. 

The whole thing reminded me of my summer in Mission Control, Houston.  Every console in that room is staffed by a single person who is communicating with a couple of hundred people through her headset.  Those people — her “back room” — are working the problem that is in front of her and providing her a constant stream of data to assist her.

So I Tweeted about that, quoting Gene Kranz from the movie Apollo 13.

“Wake up anybody you need, call your backups. We need this vanity. Let’s work the problem, people.”  As the hours passed, I kept Tweeting it.  “Me: Work your networks. Cute Husband: I don’t have any networks. Me: DAMNIT! I want solutions, not problems!”

The information kept pouring in, from all over the country, and I started dialing.  I called fifteen states in half an hour, coming up with a total zero.  They were flying off the shelves faster than Internet inventories could keep up.

“To Santa Command Back Room:” I wrote.  “None of the places you sent actually have the freaking mother-loving vanity. The Internet is a big fat liar.” 

I was about to give up.  Then this:

It was done.  She shipped it, sent me a Paypal request, and I transferred funds.

 The vanity arrived with days to spare.  We assembled it Christmas Eve and had it propped up beside the tree Christmas morning.  Ren lost her squash when she saw it, with absolutely no idea what had gone into making it happen for her.

Amanda had sent a note with it, which I tucked away in the souvenir box so that some day Ren would know who Santa really is, and how hard strangers will work to make the magic happen for a kid.

The moral of the story? — Santa is real, the Internet is real. 

And good business has always been about relationships.  Today’s businesses need to learn to nurture online relationships, to apply the same rules of give-and-take, boundaries, caution and generosity they use in the rest of their relationships.

When young Dave Caolo was first striking out in the world, he earned a living scooping ice cream at Ben & Jerry’s.    One of the features of a Ben & Jerry’s store is fresh waffle-cones.

“Every morning while the waffle cones baked,” says Caolo, “the manager would have us prop the front door open.  That baking smell wafted for blocks.  People would come in going, ‘What is that?  I MUST have one!’”

That is what your Tweets need to do for your business.

There is no more devastatingly boring read than a Twitter feed that sells.  It’s like getting a subscription to magazine advertisements.  

Your feed should not sell, it should waft.

So how do you make a Twitter feed waft?

First, by remembering the golden rule that people are not reading your material to help you, they are reading it to help themselves.  So a feed that is about selling your product becomes burdensome — the reader feels guilty for not buying, and irritated at the demand on her time. 

She severs the relationship.

But a feed that gives the reader something is appealing, and draws the reader to you and your business.

Let’s go back to our old favorite, the Chinese restaurant.

“Check out our specials! http://tinyurl.com/y9bhxg6 come in for lunch today!”  pops up in your Twitter feed.  Followed by, “Don’t forget, buffet for only $6 every single day!!” and then, “Book your lunch meeting here — free soft drink and dessert with every buffet plate!!”

The Tweets are burdensome, they provide tired information, and do not draw you to the restaurant.

But when the feed becomes about giving the reader something – information, a taste, a window into a place she might like to visit – it becomes interesting.

“Just brought in a load of fresh lobsters,” goes the Twitter feed.  “Am working on a ginger sauce.  Needs a hit of orange and garlic, I think.  Will be serving tonight, $11.99.”

That Tweet literally wafts, which is easy when there’s food involved.

How about when it’s a management consultant?

“Tip of the day:  Conflict resolution meetings should happen in the afternoon.  The opposing parties can go home and cool off and start fresh in the morning.”

A stationary store: 

“Remember:  if you want to order personalized holiday cards this is the week to start.”

A salon:

“Michelle Williams went ultra-short and it’s gorgeous!  Feeling brave?  We can do it for you!”

An office furniture maintenance service:

“Jeff has perfected a new scratch removal method we tried out on a job today.  Client was blown away.  5 years of hard wear, looks good as new.”

People subscribe to your feed because they have a need or interest in your business.  Make your Twitter feed a service, a tight burst of information that demonstrates your capabilities, reminds your clients why they need you, and draws people to you.

At least once a week, 20 minutes per week.

That’s what I tell clients they need to do to keep their websites dynamic, to maintain a thriving web presence for their businesses.

But reality is that that’s not always possible.  Sometimes, inspiration comes easily and we can bang out a post a day for a week or two, no problem.  But then we get slammed with other projects, the blog slips, and we commit the mortal sin of ignoring it too long. 

Don’t panic.  First, here are some simple tricks for avoiding that senario:

1) When you go through those weeks of high creativity combined with a lull in other aspects of your business, write all the posts you’re dying to write.  Take pictures, generate as much content as you can.  But don’t post it.  Save it in draft form.  Then when you’re suddenly up to your ears in other work it’s a simple matter to open a draft, read it through, refresh it a little, and hit post;

2)  Set realistic goals.  Don’t try to post every day unless you are a prolific writer and expect your blog to generate income.  Write once or twice a week — that’s enough to keep your web presence fresh;

3)  Remember that straight lines are the least aesthetically appealing.  By this we mean:  vary your posts.  Some should be light, some should be packed with industry-relevent information.  Some short, some long, some with lots of pictures, some without.  This variety also helps you continue to produce — you’ll naturally be better at some kinds of posts than others, so you can do the easy ones when you need to bang something out, and save the harder ones for days you have more time.

Sometimes, even despite that, you’ll look up and realize it’s been a week or two and you haven’t posted.  That’s okay, too.  Just remember the number one rule:  No excuses.  Your readers and clients aren’t interested in your troubles.  They come to your blog to gain something for themselves.  Offer perspective, information, insight.  Never complaints.

And then get back up and back into the regular posting routine.

I am often interrogated about my love affair with Twitter.  “What is Twitter?” clients ask.  “And how important can it really be for me?”

In short, Twitter is a broadcasting tool that allows you to post a 140-character message from your computer or your phone. Why is this important?  Because it creates one gigantic global watercooler for us all to chat around.  Sorting options like “following” and “listing” allow users to read the feeds of their friends, favorite name-brands, or movie stars.  Master Twitterers generate massive followings and can routinely transmit 140 characters to tens of thousands of people.

The power of this tool is only just being understood, and we love watching people who really know how to use it.

For example, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick’s office. 

The first thing we like about this feed is that it is interactive.  When you sign up to follow MassGovernor, you get followed right back within hours.  MassGovernor then sends you a Direct Message with a link to the website that explains how the office uses its Twitter feed. 

This is the second thing we like about this feed — it is transparent, which is a hallmark of excellent communications.

“.. we are using Twitter at the Governor’s Office as another way to keep citizens informed about what we’re doing and as another way to get feedback.  The account is maintained and monitored by a combination of Governor Patrick (usually appends his tweets with “-D”), and members of his communications and constituent services teams.”

This is a feed with a stated purpose, and a clearly-defined authorship.

MassGovernor’s mastery of the interactive power of Twitter was demonstrated to me the day this Tweet popped up in my feed:

 I saw the Tweet and was amused.  I Tweeted about it: 

I am often amused.  Rarely does it rate gubernatorial input.  In this case, however, it was a matter of minutes before this appeared in my direct message inbox:

MassGovernor  it’s actually not a winking smiley, it’s his initial (as in “dash D”). you’re not the first who’s thought that, tho (that was one) ~Brad5:06 PM Nov 5th

Let’s take a hard look at this and see why it’s so good:  First, it was a direct message, so it went to my inbox and not on the governor’s feed.  My initial comment had been public, but the reply was completely private, ensuring that I did not feel embarrassed or singled out.   This is particularly important because he is a governor and I am a constituent, and he must not bully me no matter how much I may have asked for it.

Second, it was signed so I knew exactly from whom in the governor’s office the note had come. 

Last, it was funny.  It mirrored the tone of my original Tweet, it was friendly and personal.  It corrected misinformation in a pleasant non-aggressive way and did not tell me what to do about it.

I’m a good Twitterer with excellent social media manners.  I replied to Brad’s direct message, thanking him for the clarification and promptly Tweeted the correction on my main feed before going to bed.

When I woke up in the morning, I found this:

The governor — or his staffer, Brad — had retweeted me.  Why is this important?  First, because Brad was getting the word out about the misinterpretation of the Governor’s original message, and he was doing it without being snide.   Second, because Brad was also demonstrating excellent social media manners:  repaying my Tweet with one of his own, getting my name out on the governor’s massive follower list. 

It isn’t always possible to retweet everyone — patently impossible for big feeds like the governor’s.   However,  retweeting a sampling of the comments the governor gets makes the entire constituency feel  listened to, it replies to important points, and it generates an interaction that makes the governor approachable to a large population.

What does this all mean to you?

1)  Social media manners are important:  be polite, be friendly, be non-aggressive.  Pay back a good turn.

2)  Twitter is a powerful way to reach your constituency — to communicate your message and demonstrate your willingness to solve problems.  Use it to show your human side so that people feel they know you and want to do business with you.

The moral of the story for Brad?  He’s an excellent social media manager and people should watch him to see how it’s done.

I still think they need to change the Governor’s signature, but I am finding it an increasingly minor point.

Business owners  tell me that the number one reason they don’t want an online presence is a fear of negative comments.

“I don’t want my business to have a blog because I am concerned that one bad day could bring a hailstorm of negativity about me published to my own website.”

While it’s a logical conclusion, it’s the wrong conclusion.  Here’s why:

1) Negative reviews online are a fact of life for every business.  It’s not likely that having a blog will  increase their occurance;

2)  Online reviews from bloggers, Twitter, forums, or review websites can do a great deal of damage with viral speed.  It is impossible to respond to those reviews if you are not already plugged in to the mechanism.  Having a blog, a Facebook page, a Twitter account allows your business to respond immediately in the forum where the negative review was made;

3)  If the negative review is made to your own website, so much the better.  It means you know what’s been said, and the conversation is happening on your home turf.  If the negative review has to happen any way, better that it increase your traffic and visibility;

4)  The most important part, the golden rule of business:  to fix a negative experience is the best way to build customer loyalty.  A public bad review is your opportunity to demonstrate to potential clients what a masterful job you do of fixing the problems we all know are a part of business life.

So let’s go back to our example of the Chinese restaurant. 

“Worst Kung Pao I ever had,” writes one reviewer.  “Waiter was slow, horrible night, and the decor made me nauseated!”

“Really, the Kung Pao was no good?” you write back.  “So sorry to hear that!  It’s one of my favorite things on the menu.  Anyway, next time, be sure to let your waiter know and we’ll be happy to bring you something else.   You’re right that the kitchen was slow Tuesday.  We got hammered out of nowhere.   We talked about it in a management meeting last night and agreed we need an extra floater on days we don’t expect business.   I’m sorry we didn’t figure it out sooner.  We’d love a  second chance.  Come on by and let me know you’re here, drinks are on me, and you can tell me what, specifically, makes you want to vomit about our decor.”

People are less likely to slam someone when the anonymity is removed — when you know them and they know you and you are actively trying to solve the problem. 

Having a forum increases your chances to turn one negative experience into an opportunity to impress the person with the problem and all the potential customers reading.

Great writing — great blogging — is not easy.  It’s an emerging literary art, and the people who are really good at it are creating work that will last beyond their lifetimes.

Unless you want to spend 100 hours a week on your blog, that’s not you.

Good blogging can be learned.  It takes practice, some basic skills, and a little courage.  But once the basics are mastered, good blogging is great business.   So it’s worth a little investment to get the return.  Here are five basic elements of good blogging for great business:

1)  Make sure your post is technically correct.  Spell check it, read it over carefully, ask someone else to read it, too.  A good, clean post makes you look like a sharp professional.  A poorly-worded, badly punctuated mass of verbiage will do quite the opposite;

2)  Keep it short; keep it tight.  Long posts are snoozers.  The blog is a short form.  Your reader wants information, she wants it now, and then she’s on to the next;

3)  Always give them a takeaway:  your readers are coming to your blog for information, enlightenment, entertainment.  Give them some.  Even if you saw a link to something interesting, or you wanted to set their minds at ease about a news article everyone’s talking about.  Just one tidbit that your reader takes away will make her come back for more;

4)  Don’t sell on your blog.  Don’t talk about your products, your pricing, your genuis, your great press or how generally fabulous you are.  There’s a reason people go get a drink during the ad.  Keep them in their seats by offering them substance, insight, something they can use.  If they can use it, then they know you’re the guy to go to when they need to buy the service or product you’re writing about;

5)  Write in plain English.  Avoid fancy words or the appearance of genius.  Just tell us what the heck you mean and sign off.