Lee Odden over via Ed Kohler of the Technology Evangelist writes about Social Media Optimization. How does business leverage the opportunity to connect with people using consumer generated media tools?


I’ve distilled Lee’s tips into a easy to use and remember format for my readers here:


1. Get In.
Go where where your market is and investigate the Long Tail for related niches for your products and services. Get your brand is fair percentage of minds hare.


2. Fit In.
Create community around your brand for your percentage of minds hare to pay dividends. Go interactive and create conversations and networks around your brand. Participation is mandatory or someone else will start the conversation that you should have had to begin with. Meet your community where they are and find out what they want and deliver it. Fit in with the new expectations and habits of social networking.


3. Make Friends.
Do actually engage your market through community. Create interactive contests, polls, user feedback loops whatever allows your community to choose, create and contribute to the improvement of your brand. Allow them to submit home grown videos, photos, naming contests and any other unique and interesting experiences that will reinforce your brand and a great experience. This leads to trust. When you’ve been authenticated and validated by your community that can rightly influence the message of your market about your products and services. You'll find yourself in a cooperative position where consumer involvement becomes a vital contribution to your success and word-of-mouth marketing is lifting your business profile in a positive manner that helps you acquire new business.


Check out Lee’s comments by clicking the link below:


SMO: What is Social Media Optimization?: Technology Evangelist.

To read the Lee Odden's comments in full, visit him at the Online Marketing Blog: New Rules for Social Media Optimization.

From MediaPost:

 In the emerging context of pull media, it will be even more important for marketers to maintain an intimate connection with consumers. Relevancy and personalization are requirements in online marketing.

JupiterResearch projects that growth in online direct marketing will shift from list rentals to sponsorship and co-registration programs that work to target offers contextually. “It’s not about making the consumer believe in the brand, but communicating that the brand believes in the consumer by connecting to them with relevance and responsibility,” says Greco.
As everything goes granular, niche, and interactive, we will all learn to love the data. “The guys who get their arms around the databases are going to win,” says Fitzpatrick. “If you don’t learn how to embrace technology now, find another job.”

As new media channels continue to contribute to the fragmentation of the mass market into millions of niche markets, marketing pro’s are finding themselves in lurch of sorts. The growing influence of consumer voice and choice has accelerated the need for marketing pros to work to figure out how to manage traditionally accepted online and off line marketing tactics with that of new online consumer behavior and social markets and the technologies that make social markets possible and powerful. This new consumer behavior is that of social markets. Consumers don’t blindly trust corporate advertising any longer, they trust the voice of the people and the stories they tell about the products and services they use.

It just isn’t the marketing message any longer. The markets are the message as well. It is what is being said about business that becomes the period or full stop to messages business are putting out. The biggest online imperative for any marketer and entrepreneur is the talk it up with your consumers and prospects NOW. You must open a new media channel of communication and engage your markets as  you work out new marketing approaches and related ROI.

The Long Tail has opened vast channels of interest and purchasing that is both narrow and deeper than the mainstream, broad mass market interests. The Long Tail is also where social markets are fiercely active and consumers continue to leverage new media tools to communicate, create, distribute and buy content and merchandise through decision making that is deeply influenced by the consumers themselves. Said another way, The Long Tail affords consumers the means and access to opportunities to create buzz about what they like most and share it with others who in turn act on those recommendations. Consumers now have the tools to personalize their information streams and target the content, products and services that allow them to dig deeper into highly niched and special interest content. This creates a much more rewarding buying experience for consumers and those businesses that provide buying experiences that cooperate with these new consumer behavior patterns are being richly rewarded for it.

Consumers want to be able to integrate choice, creativity and contribution into their buying experiences. They want interactivity and unique and individual experience as well. They want to customize, socialize and validate their choices. Can your enterprise integrate any of these characteristics into your customer experience with your business?

How does old school traditional marketing transition from push marketing where mainstream media channels controlled the message to new media channels such as consumer created blog content, podcasts and video where consumers are controlling the message and altering the marketing and advertising message of big business in the process? It’s won’t be easy for businesses who aren’t willing to adapt and change.

The marketing challenge is in the economics of balancing old marketing methods with the economics of reaching into the Long Tail of ecommerce and into new and emerging markets that aren’t as visible, are vigorously consumer controlled through opinion, contribution, filtering and personalization and are becoming very profitable and stable sources of income and opportunity.

 This is an insightful article about the challenge of marketing for Web 2.0. Read more by clicking the link below: 

MediaPost Publications - Getting In The Front Door -.

 

 JupiterResearch gears up to deliver social marketing tactics and help businesses leverage new and interactive social media tools and methods.

Read more…

JupiterResearch Adds Research Service Dedicated to Social Marketing | Tekrati Analyst Firm News.

Great article today from Advertising Age but first…

How often have you clicked away from a product purchasing decision only because of the fact that you could not find a review of the product or service? I know I have done it more often than not.

Consumer reviews have become a vital part of my purchasing decisions and are more and more an instinctive part of the purchasing process. As online shoppers we expect to the have access to product reviews and we expect the opportunities to submit our reviews as well.

Just another part of the interactive, participatory open web that is characteristic of Web 2.0 and new media technologies for online publishing such as blogs, RSS, and podcasting distributed audio and video.

Customer feedback is a powerfully trusted voice that is highly influential on merchant sales. A Jupiter Research  survey of online shoppers revealed that 48% of online shoppers it critical that retailers post reviews. This means of course that “one of two people are going to leave your web site if you don’t have ratings and reviews,” says Brett Hurt, founder of Bazaarvoice.

Here are a few thought provoking quotes from the article Advertising Age - Consumer-Written Product Reviews Increase in Importance:

“…a signal that reviews themselves have become a major sales and marketing tool. Their mere presence on an e-commerce web site is among the most important factors in turning a visitor into a buyer.”

“A report from Jupiter Research, for instance, issued a call for retailers to "use consumer-created content throughout the full circle of customer interaction," citing research that 48% of online shoppers find it critical that retailers post reviews. That report also found that the number of online shoppers who found reviews the most important feature in a site doubled from 2005 to 2006. “

“Product reviews written by real people are perhaps the most under appreciated slice of the consumer-generated-media universe, the explosion of which has captivated the advertising and media worlds. But as marketers fixate on getting their virals on YouTube and making friends on MySpace, these relatively unsexy product write-ups have quietly become the most common form of consumer content -- Forrester puts it as the most-used form of peer-generated content -- not to mention the one with the most direct impact on purchase decisions.”

Consumer reviews are not new, yet the socialization of content on the web as living, persistent, trusted and by the people for people has created a new value chain for online merchants to factor into their marketing strategies going forward.

Consumer review enabled ecommerce is now being considered a primary activity for merchants large as small as research and bottom line revenues bear witness to the increase or decrease in ecommerce fortunes based on providing consumers access to product reviews. 

This drives home the point of openness, authenticity and consumer control. Word of mouth is powerful. As consumers we want to read it and write it and we’re will to make that point clearly through our purchasing power. What is just as important and perhaps exciting is the application of RSS technologies to literally channel reviews for increase web traffic generation and increase revenues.

Question for you: Got Reviews?

Read the full article: Advertising Age - Consumer-Written Product Reviews Increase in Importance.

 

  Microsoft releases a free and beta version of a new blog writing tool called Microsoft Live Writer. As with most graphical user interface blog writer tools, this one also let's you create blog content in WYSIWYG fashion. Of course, that is the Microsoft way for web content development anyway. Not a bad thing depending on how hardcore of a coder you are or the level of control you need for tweaking content on the back end your client tool or server.

Installation

Installing Live Writer is a simple process. Just download the Microsoft msi file and double-click to launch the installer (pictured at right). After the installation is complete you will prompted to configure Live Writer to create blog content for Microsoft's Windows Live Spaces or you can configure it for your custom blog setup. Currently, Live Writer supports the RSD, Metaweblog, and Movable Type API's. I haven't had a chance to test compatibility and usability across different blog software platforms yet.

Features

I just got back from a long deserved week long vacation in Jamaica. My wife's place of birth. I spent all of July on the road and traveling doing IT engagements which prevented me from posting here since I began publishing content here again a few months back.

 My mention of my vacation to Jamaica provides a segue for mentioning the Map Publishing feature of Live Writer. It's like a smaller version of Google Maps for your blog. You can do a high level map like the one I've inserted at left or your can drive down to more details is that is suitable.

Wow factor his is pretty low for me but it is one of the things that may not be as cool because it won't be used that much but becomes really cool when you want to share a location or directions with our readers in a very visual way within your blog content. The Interface is pretty clean and simple to use. Standard formatting bar and menu's are located across the top of the interface with quick access to features located in a Sidebar to the right. The interface looks, feels and functions like the standard MS Office family of products so if you familiar with MS Office, you will right at home getting up and running with this blog content creation tool.

Overall...

Eh...it's okay. Being that it is beta, it seems to work well but which much left for the developer community to pick up on an implement such as support for Tagging, insertion of audio and video into blog posts, and photo sharing support for sites like Flikr. Definitely not a bad start for a free tool that is highly Microsoft-centric.

Found via... MS Blog Tool Goes Into Beta - ComputerWorld Blogs.

 

Further Reading

Windows Live Writer - The Good, The Bad, The Surprising

Introducing Windows Live Writer - Digg.com

Quick...how do you get your message "heard" by the right people who can directly influence the bottom line revenues in your business?

Well, there are many ways depending on your business and customer base. Watch the video and see how one company chose to get their proposal directly into the hands of someone who has the potential to make a dramatic impact on their bottom line.

What's the connection?

What is the connection between this video and business blogging? Maybe much, maybe very little. One thing is apparent though. At a time when information clutter, overload, volume and competition are always at the ready to overwhelm your message and reduce it's effectiveness in reaching your audience, you must think about how to break above the noise and deliver a crisp, clear and direct message that will be heard and received.

The company in video used a low tech but effective medium to deliver their business plan to their target in a memorable way. As a result they were able to get immediate attention and some level of action towards their business objectives as outline in their business plan.

Why Create a Business Blog?

As a business considering a business bog, realize that business blogging allows you to use a hi-tech method to engage in an ages old process of talking with customers and prospects. While the method of delivering your conversation to your customers had changed, the mode has not. You are still simply talking. The important thing about blogging is that this talking isn't just a moment in time. It is digital dialog which is nearly immortalized in bits and bytes in the world of the Internet. This talking has the ability to reach your customers and boost your business quicker than traditional PR means and even email.

This digital dialog is persistent and endures as an organic mesh of links which carry permanent influence. This talking also bypasses the corporate boardroom and the media newsrooms. These means of communications and others not listed here are not obsolete but blogs have disrupted the command and control nature these mediums once had. Your business cannot drive the message alone any longer through these media channels. Customers are drivers of messages and drivers of change more so than ever before and blogging outpaces traditional media channels in getting much of the information that matters most out into the mainstream of your customers and prospects.

Is Traditional Media Communications Dead? No. It Just Isn't Trusted.

Traditional media channels are not trusted. Trusted communication is communication that involves business and consumers. The spirit of entrepreneurship is alive and well yet the image of corporate success has been tarnish greatly by greed and scandal. A business imperative for you is the establish trusted communications and relationships. Blogs are the most trusted form of accuracy right now. There is a lot of opinion disseminated within the social context of blogging and that opinion will eventually reach your business. The social matrix of blogs is very good at filtering fact from fiction although it isn't perfect but the power in blogging is that it is the power of the people.

People trust the opinions of the guy or gal consumer like them and will consider their opinion and expertise in making decisions about your business...UNLESS... you are blogging! Blogging is inherently an open medium of communication. You bring yourself to the level of identifying with your customer base when you open a business blog. You engage in an authentic process of communication which can boost your business and brand. You also position yourself for tremendous opportunities to exercise thought leadership in the marketplace, build an army of customer evangelists and influence (not control...remember the customer is in control now) opinion about your business.

The culture of the customer is one that has conditioned them to look for opportunities to talk to businesses, express their opinions about businesses, share their purchasing experiences with businesses as well as look for those companies (especially the ones they like) which are willing to talk back and share the inside story of how the company is being run and managed. The opportunity here is that any business can position themselves as leaders in their market, in their communities and most importantly in the minds of their customers by simply talking about how they are doing business and asking for input and feedback from customers.

The social marketing and social networking era ushered by blogs is a culture of collaboration. Each customers reaches another one through opinion, persuasion and choice. Simple word of mouth. Again, old mode but new medium.

Your Business Blog May Not Sing or Dance, But...

You may not be able to get your blog to sing or walk into someone's office and do a presentation but you can channel a stream of expertise into your marketplace and create an ongoing presentation of what you do best as a business and demonstration the value of your products and services on a continual bases and at the speed of change. A business blog is now in the critical communications path at some degree of internal or external communications. You simply have to have the means to get your information to your customers as fast as possible. You should also be willing to get information from your customers as quickly as possible.

To create a business blog is not to just jump on the bandwagon of "me too" blogging. To create a business blog is to position your business more effectively for the communications wars where information and perception conspire to help your business or hurt your business. You have an awesome opportunity to drive your brand value deeper into minds of your customers and strengthen your customer relationships at dramatically reduced costs.

A business blog doesn't guarantee an overnight increase in profits, new customers or fame. It takes some time to build an effective business blog but with the right strategy for your business and right guidance on how to deploy social communication tools in your business, you could be well on your way to improving customer relationships, building brand equity and keeping your competitors in check.

Tags: blog, blogging, blog marketing, business blog, business blogging, rss

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via TMCnet...

Nokia reports that Globe Telecom (located in the Philippines) is the first telecommunications operator in the world to offer customers a fully integrated mobile online sharing experience with the new Nokia Nseries multimedia phones (N93 shown at right).

What's so special about this? Well, Globe customers can now upload their photos and video clips directly from their Nokia Nseries devices to the Globe WAP blogging services called G-Blogs. The Nokia N93 and N73 devices support this feature.

The Nseries phones are full multimedia devices that allow you to text, take photos as well as capture video. Nokia also has a platform that allows customer to create blog entries on the go. There moblogging software is called Lifeblog and it is designed to allow Nokia mobile phone users to keep a multimedia diary of items they collect on their mobile phones. Nokia Lifeblog automatically organizes photos, videos and text messages in a chronology or living timeline that allows for easy archiving, browsing and sharing.

Technorati: MobLogging, mobile-blogging, Weblogs, Web, Tech, technology, Travel

Now this is pretty cool. Scrapblog combines "...the storytelling aspects of scrapbooks and the sharing power of blogs". I haven't tried this service yet but I did have a interest in scrapbooking in a former life but I remain passionate about the power of story with visuals. Using RSS of course, Scrapbloggers can share their creations with one another.

Scrapbooks can be made public or private. I've taken a look at several of the public scrapbooks and I must say that this service is exciting, fun and very promising. Scrapblog allows you to import photos from Flickr and embed your Scrapblog pages in MySpaces pages or your personal blog.

Scrapblog allows you to enhance your scrapblog with rich media so that you can tell your stories in real-time and with engaging visuals. Scrapbook hobbyist from all walks of like would do well to check this service out. Assuming there isn't a to big of a digital divide between traditional scrapbook creators and social publishing aspects of Scapblog using RSS and blog publishing, there should a very bright future in store for Scrapblog.

Check out the press release.

Technorati: scrapblog, scrapblogging, rss, blog, online scrapbooks

Cymphony announces their Influence 2.0 initiative to speak more boldly to and precisely track the convergence between traditional meda and social media. It's about the the creation of what the Wikipedia definition of the Web 2.0 calls "market conversations". It's about the the creation of what the Wikipedia definition of the Web 2.0 calls "market conversations".Cymphony plans to play a significant role in helping businesses understand the new strategies required to navigate the dynamics of market influence. In addition to their blog announcing the Influence 2.0 initiative, they also released the first chapter of their ebook, Influence 2.0 and their new Influence 2.0 Wiki. via Media Post Publications

Technorati: influence web 2.0 social media marketing public relations customer service

Windows-based weblog editor. Feature rich and ease of use especially for those who like the look and feel of a Windows-styled word processor like Microsoft Word. This is a great weblog editor when it performs right. I'll get to that in moment. For now, I'll talk about what I like. RocketPost prides itself of being a fat client that gives full online and offline control of your content development and management. For it's claim here I would most certainly agree. RocketPost allows you to create blog content for one or several blogs and allows you to fully manage that content in and organized manner. This isn't necessarily a novel feature and much of what RocketPost offers isn't necessarily new. But it's the execution of these features that makes the different for a blog content publishers using RocketPost. Environment can make a difference in motivation and the right tool makes a big difference in how stuff gets done and how often it gets done. It's the joy factor in doing something. RocketPost brings a level of joy to the blog publishers life.

Here is a quote for Anconia's website about their weblog editor tool, RocketPost:

RocketPost imports all your blog posts upon setup. It treats the posts on your PC as the primary version of your data, which enables lots of unique productivity features to speed up your blogging. Created by a former Microsoft Word® designer, it supports all your favorite word processing features and shortcuts so you can write faster.

RocketPost is the most comfortable writing environment for bloggers. And it's a single unified command center for all your blogs and blogging systems. RocketPost puts the blogger first.

RocketPost prides itself of being a fat client and full featured for the serious-minded bloggers. RocketPost has all the major formatting functions available from a toolbar with clearly identified buttons. It is a great thing to have all your major features a button click away. It saves time over having to search the menu bar if you're the type that doesn't bother with learning the shortcut keys. I especially like the Dropcaps and Pull Quotes buttons.I especially like the Dropcaps and Pull Quotes buttons.

What I didn't like however was the unexpected behavior of RocketPost. For example as I type my content I like to save the content just in case of a error on my system or an error by me. I can simply recover the content by using undo/redo and in the worst case just close the file and open it back up. Well with you press the "save" button in RocketPost there is no visual indicator that the content is saved. It seems the button doesn't work at all. The only way to save is the publish your content as a draft to your blog server or service. Doing this regularly allows you to save your content. I attempted to undo and redo changes that I typed or inserted with RocketPost tools and the undo/redo didn't work at all at times. At other times I removed too much content.

I actually lost two paragraphs of information by simple clicking the style button and then canceling the action. Because the save button didn't work and I didn't post the changes as a draft to my blog server, I had to rewrite the content from memory. Not good.I had to rewrite the content from memory. Not good. I also noticed that RocketPost tended to tie up the my CPU sometimes and performed sluggishing when executing formatting features like bold, italics and underline. Sometimes these formatting changes would carry over to the next line and since RocketPost doesn't give you a visual cue that formatting is turn on or off, it takes a button click or two with typing to make sure your formatting is off once turned on.

I will keep my on this as I'm running WindowsXP Pro SP2 with a 1.8GHz Intel processor and nearly a gig of RAM. This behavior wasn't consistent across the board. I only had a Firebox browser session going with an several processes running in my system tray. Nevertheless, my PC resources should be plenty to run this weblog editor without problems.

This is one the best tools I've used for publishing. The design ideas are right and even the execution of the features are fine. This weblog editor seems to have been around since about December 2005. They need to work out some the code and smoother and precise behavior but it's a very good start. I do think that this product is rather pricey. The is a single blog version priced at $37 and a version that allows you publish to and unlimited number of blogs for $99. $99 is a bit high given the unpredictable behavior I've experienced products features. The publisher considers this a high end productivity app and has thus priced it a such. There are more features available with this editor that would be welcomed by serious blog content publishers that time and space do not permit to document.

I do recommend that you visit Anconia and get your 30 day download and try it out for yourself. If this program plans to be around for awhile then the future for it is very bright indeed. Even with the unpredicable behavior I experienced I will continue to test this tool and as it improves will certainly add it to my toolbox. You should definitely give RocketPost a test drive.

View the RocketPost 2 minute demo.

Technorati: weblog editor, blog editor, blogging, blogging for profit

In Part 1 of this review I reviewed Zoundry Blog Writer as a blog software editing tool and I went into some of the specifics of its features. I'll conclude this review with a look at the Zoundry service component and sum up my experience with using this tool.

Master Affiliate: Zoundry As A Service

Zoundry as a service serves as a one-stop product search engine and master affiliate. You can search through the Zoundry catalog of major affiliate programs and create links easily as you blog with Zoundry Blog Writer.

Currently Zoundry supports the following merchants:

Amazon.com
Buy.com
eBags.com
Ritz Camera
Brookstone
Apple iTunes

The Zoundry Product Chooser and Link Converting makes searching for products easy. Zoundry charges 30% to 20% of qualifying revenues as a transaction fee. Referral rates from the list merchants range from 3 to 7.5%. As a master affiliate Zoundry is managing and centralizing your affiliation with these merchants for you. If you count the time and cost to manage multiple affiliate programs and then insert affiliate links (finding and inserting them), their percentage may just be worth it to you. You decide on this one.

I know for me that managing affiliate links can be time consuming when you consider searching for and getting affiliate resources that are compatible with your blog and articles. Having and quick and easy way to search for matching content that is time efficient is a plus in my book.

Easy Updating

The left hand pane makes checking for and updating the software a cinch. I downloaded version 0.9.123 if I recall and checked for an update. A new version of 0.9.126 was available. I downloaded and simpled installed it on top of the current version. The installation automatically located the current installation directory. Careful though as after I updated and ran the Check Update wizard, the software detected the previous version 0.9.123 (older) as a newer version to be downloaded. I had just upgraded form the 0.9.123 version. Zoundry is in a beta phase right now so this should not be a long term issue.

Other Cool Stuff

Tagging

The Tagging feature in Zoundry is a nice touch. You can select from a number of Tagging services to use when you post. Zoundry remembers tag words that you've previously used and stores them. You can then easily access previous tag word from a pop dialog list and just check the ones you want to use with the tagging service you've selected. Even cooler is that when I configured Zoundry to for my BlogHarbor blog, it imported tags that I had previously used on my blog. Nice touch. Zoundry also support configuration of a custom tag space if you desire to do so.

Template-Based Previewing

Zoundry allows you to preview content based on your blog template. This is kind of cool I think. For each blog you have an account configured for within Zoundry you have the option of having Zoundry download or import the template that each blog account is using. You can then preview your content exactly as it should look on your blog. Unfortunately this blog and my Success Motivation blog didn't display well graphically although the text styles did. A little more tweaking here I guess but cool nonetheless.


Dragging and Dropping

Zoundry allows you to drag and drop images and mp3 files and while automatically upload these files to your media repository that you've configured. A nice touch. I like it even though I couldn't figure out how to get Zoundry to stop auto thumbnailing my images when I dragged them into the Editor window.

The Bad

Content Inflexibility

All is not gold however and there are some shortcomings that a bit glaring. The ability to not be able to save content as .txt, .doc or .rft is one big drawback in my world. Asking for an option to export to adobe format is probably up there with miracles but I understand since most of use are probably using some sort of adobe software for document conversion anyhow. However, I like to have flexibility with content so that one can easily repurpose their blog content easily.

As we write lots of content over time we should want the ability to export that content to common file formats for both repurposing and backup/retrieval. Having content and articles locked in a proprietary format that only Zoundry can read is a no-no. A straight export and save to a common file format is a must have for this software.

No Spell Check!

What?! No spell check or grammar tools? C'mon folks...let not skimp here. No writing tool should be creating without editing features like spell checking and/or grammar checking. The brilliant design of this tool is severly undermined by this and one wonders if this is just a means to their end of getting people to use their affiliate master services.

This is quite perplexing to me since on the other hand it seems that Zoundry was truly designed with the blog publisher in mind. How could they have missed this??? This has to be more than just an interface to a cooperative revenue service for Zoundry. In order for Zoundry Blog Writer to be truly effective it needs to go a few steps further. It is a very strong entry into the realm of blog writer software but my desire is to see this tool go the distance as a full featured blog writing and editing tool. No spell check means it is not a fully featured editor.

Summary

Zoundry Blog Writer is a software tool as a service offering. It services as a standard blog writing software tool with support for some of the most important features to blog publishers such as mutli-blog management, trackback support and discovery, remote post management, and WYSIWYG editing and publishing.

As a service Zoundry offers integrated product search and affiliate link creation, that allows you or your favorite charity to profit from your blog publishing efforts. You can very easily leverage this blog software and affiliate service to your advantage if product reviews and marketing are a influential part of your blogging profile.

Overall this this tool is very cool. If you can deal with having to be perfect as you type this tool works well. Very well. If you have a habit of composing content in a different editor like MS Word and them pasting into a blog software publishing tool, then this tool will well for you as well. However, if you are like me and you want to commit to a tool that will fulfill is purpose all-around then this tool may not be for you. The affiliate master service isn't required but can be a plus if you are okay with their cut of revenue stream you will generate. I rate this tool (*** / *****) 3 out of 5 stars.

BlogHarbor users can go here for easy setup and configuration options: http://forums.blogharbor.com/viewtopic.php?p=3566#3566. BlogHarbor users should also email BlogHarbor support for the details on the Zoundry offer for BlogHarbor users

I've also taken a read of the Zoundry Blog for some feel of the roadmap for this software from the publishers themselves. They seem to have a clear vision of Zoundry as a enabler of affiliate marketing for bloggers. A very effective one at that. I hope they don't lose sight of features and functionality for publishing the blog post and not just the blog profits. If they keep the tool effective as a writing and publishing platform then profits will follow soon enough.

Related Links:
Zoundry Blog
Zoundry Forums
Zoundry Blog Writer
Zoundry Service
Download Zoundry Blog Writer

Technorati : Amazon, BlogHarbor, Zoundry, affiliate marketing, blog software

Introducing Zoundry. A recent entry into the blog software tools of blog writing and editing. Yet Zoundry isn't just another blog software editing and writing tool. Zoundry is also and affiliate service that attempts to bring blog publishing and affiliate marketing together into a cooperative publishing for profits solution that I've not quite seen before.

With that said and to repeat...Zoundry is both and blog writing software tool and Zoundry is also a service. By the website copy they are first and foremost a service.

Zoundry As A Blog Writing Tool

Zoundry Blog Writer is currently and windows only tool with plans to develop and Mac and Linux version based on demand and user feedback.

As a blog writing tool, Zoundry Blog Writing is easy to use with a pleasant interface that allows any publisher to get started without much need for a help file. For the most part it is a pretty straightforward and typical software installation experience.

I found Zoundry Blog Writer rather brilliant in some spots because of simplicity of design and effectiveness of useful features such as multiple tags services and post management but fell short in areas of content export/backup and basic content editing considerations.

One question I had as I read the copy for this tool before using was whether or not this tool was just the means the end for Zoundry. In other words, would the tool fall short because of a focus on the Zoundry affiliate service or would the Zoundry Blog Editor be a fresh entry into the blog software arena bringing a solution that understands the needs of blog publishers.

Let's find out.

Getting Started with Zoundry Blog Writer

Installation is a snap. Just run the downloaded Windows .exe file and step through and standard Windows installation. Once you launch the program using the program icon you are presented with the Zoundry Blog Writer editor interface as seen in Figure 1 below.

Set Up and Configuration


Figure 1. The Zoundry Interface

2. Set Up your blog

Launching Zoundry User Settings Wizard kicks off the Account Wizard. Go to 'Blog Accounts' click 'New Account' and 'New Blog Account' wizard starts


Figure 2. The Zoundry Blog Account Wizard Interface

3. Enter Account Details


Figure 3. Entering Account Details

4. Confirm settings. Detection of Upload support.


Figure 4. Discovery and Confirmation of Account Configuration

5. Finished


Figure 5. The Zoundry User Settings Interface

6. Custom Directory for uploaded media? use FTP config and confirm Settings


Figure 6. The Zoundry Interface - Configuring FTP/Media Repository



Figure 6a. Zoundry Tests FTP Settings


Writing and Publishing


Figure 7. Selecting Your Blog - Multiple Blog Accounts Supported


Figure 8. Support for Categories


Figure 9. Support for Multiple Tagging Services


Figure 10. Support for Blog Templates


Content Editing and Management

Zoundry supports downloading posts from your server, editing and then republishing articles. Great time saver of course and a nice necessary component for the busy blog publisher. I think it could be a bit more intuitive or perhaps I'm just to exacting here.

You access the POST menu and then select Download Recent Posts. You can select the most recent 1-150 posts. Once downloaded however it isn't really clear how to access them. After some clicking I discovered that big orange folder icon whose tool tip says 'Open Entry' is the way to access these previous AND your saved content that hasn't been published yet. That icon is rather non-descript but most windows user would eventually click it anyway because it just screams of Windows File Explorer.

Once opened, your previous posts are there clearly label with Title, Date Modified, Date Posted, Blog (which blog the post is published to) and Status (published or unpublished-local machine).

I also think the in-context right-click menu is well excecuted. It focused mainly on linking in general and link to products. This tool truly makes affiliate marketing a time efficient exercise.

Posting to the Future

I'm not sure if the posting to the future is an auto detect feature or not. I configured Zoundry to work with my account here at BlogHarbor and over at TypePad, both of which support 'scheduled posting to the future'. Since the software did a good job of detecting if the support for FTP uploads I figured it might be in play here to. Let me know if you find this is not the case.

Blog This URL

This is one of the weaker spots in the software. If you want to blog a URL you can to copy that URL to the clipboard and then from with Zoundry access the FILE menu to access the Blog This URL option which opens a dialog box to paste your URL into. When completed however, Zoundry does of good job of autodiscovering the TrackBack URL if available.

In cases where you may want to link to but not trackback someone's content you may be able to avoid that by manual insertion of the URL as you normally would as Zoundry doesn't seem to offer a option to turn trackback autodiscovery on or off other than not using the Blog This URL feature or the TrackBack dialog box the is ever present in the UI of this editor.

In that case I would assume it works like other blog writers I've used in the past that don't support trackback and that is leave it to the blog software application. BlogHarbor allows you to turn trackbacking and autodiscovery of trackbacks for links in content you publish either on or off and on a per post basis. Some editors that don't support trackback have not always support your server settings either when you have autodiscovery turned on for your server software and which you published that article from the blog editor instead of the web-based editor available with all blog software installed on any server whether it's your own or with and blog hosting service.

SideBar of Champions

While finding where all those posts went that I downloaded wasn't immediately apparent (okay, it took me about 3 seconds to figure it out), the sidebar does a super job of allowing you to manage your entries.

From the VIEW menu you access the SIDEBAR menu where you have 3 options: Getting Started, Check for Updates and Blog Entries.

Getting Started clever outlines the setup and use of Zoundry and a series of easy steps to follow make it very easy for novice blog publishers to use this tool right out of the gate. I like the fact that Zoundry isn't complicated to configure and doesn't overwhelm you with detailed options.

Check for Updates is a feature I covered in a previous section of this post but is easily accessible from the sidebar.

Blog Entries is the heavy hitter here. You can only populate your blog entries area by either composing an article/post and saving it as unpublished content on your local machine before publishing or by the Download Recent Post as I discussed above.

When viewing your blog entries from the sidebar you can view your entries by Account, by Tags or by Links. I find this extremely powerful and highly effective in its historical capacity as well as it's useful as a content and resource organization tool. You can easily identify clusters of information, articles and topics depending on the filter you use. You have to try this in order to fully appreciate what I'm talking about here.

Now, when you select any recent post entry or saved entry in the sidebar you also activate five smaller icons specifically associated with the sidebar entries. They are:

Open for Editing: Allows you to edit the post you downloaded or the post you've saved as local.

View Post Online: Launches a browser session taking you to the specific entry you have selected. You can only select one entry at a time.

Create A Link To This Post: This is great! If you are composing content and you want to easily link to a previous post you've already published in you blog you can simple select that entry, click this button and Zoundry inserts a link to that article into the post you are current composing. It will use your previous post subject line and the linked text and of course you can only link to the previous post from here if you have it already downloaded in Zoundry as a Recent Post Entry. Great time saver!

Properties: Launches and dialog with tabbed information about a specific recent post entry (General, Links, Media). Great way to get summary content and properties about and post and you can also insert the link to this post and view the post online from this dialog box as well.

Delete Post: Obvious. Don't want it? Push this button to delete a recent post or saved post.

In Part 2 of this review I will talk about Zoundry as a service and sum up my opinion of this tool.