Cross-posted by Rebecca from Miss604.com

WordCamp Fraser Valley returns for its 3rd year of talks and workshops in Surrey on November 20th, 2010. WordPress is the top blogging platform in the world however it is also used to power millions of websites that you visit each and every day. Its endless theme and plugin capabilities make it one of the reasons why I have been building a business around the platform since 2008.

My company develops WordPress websites, specializing in social media newsrooms that tie blog and multimedia functions into a much more robust website platform. Along with Brave New Code, we hosted WordCamp Vancouver this year and received a fantastic response. I’m hoping that those interested in WordPress, from design and code to using it as a writing tool, will check out WordCamp Fraser Valley this weekend as well.

Speakers include my husband (and business partner) John Bollwitt who is an engineer at CHUM Radio Vancouver. He’ll be talking about how companies can built intranet sites using WordPress to keep their teams informed and in the loop. John has been using WordPress since 2005 and got me hooked on the platform in 2006.

He’ll be joined on the roster by Tris Hussey (author of Using WordPress), Dave Zille, Lynn Robson, and Kulpreet Singh. Raul Pacheco, Danny Bradbury, and Leah Cross will also address how to write and publish your various forms of content using WordPress.

Tickets are still available for $45 so if you’ve ever been curious about WordPress as a user, writer, or developer, these sessions and networking opportunities can’t be beat.

I’ve been interviewed at least a dozen times about how social media people are covering the Olympics in Vancouver. However, I think an equally interesting story is how traditional media outlets are using social media to add to their coverage.

CTV Olympics Video
The official broadcaster of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games has been posting footage to YouTube. The type of event action videos that would get pulled down with a cease & desist letter from the IOC are up and running in full glory on the CTV Olympics channel. Although you cannot embed the videos, you can watch clips of medal moments and even streaming replays of televised events on their main website.

Government of BC
The Province of British Columbia has been capturing Olympic moments and posting them to their official YouTube channel as well. They have athlete interviews, montages, and even an interview with yours truly.

They don’t have Games footage but they have been everywhere around town, profiling businesses and the fan experience.

Global has added a video section to their website and although they’re not posting the videos as shareable items on YouTube, they are blogging and tweeting to enhance their coverage. Same goes for the CBC who has a Road to the Games section of their site, acting as a 2010 newsroom complete with sidebar event listings. You can read more about their coverage game plan in my post from last week.

With such restrictions for non-official broadcasters these Olympics haven’t necessarily made journalists out of citizens, they’ve made the mainstream realize that social media can help them with their coverage — and it can make it that much more interesting.

Technorati, the authority on blog listings and ranks, has released their 2009 State of the Blogosphere. This annual report looks at household incomes of bloggers, genders, topics, measures of success and more. Here are a few interesting stats:

Who are the Bloggers

The “Why” of Blogging

The “How” of Blogging

Each part of the report is being released day by day with new articles to follow later this week.

As a blogger (on my personal site) who is sometimes approached by other businesses, PR firms or marketers, the one thing that makes me click “delete” on an email almost instantly is the opening phrase, “Dear Sir or Madam”. Aside from using the correct pronouns you don’t want to sound like a press release, a robot or a faceless entity when dealing with bloggers and the same goes for running your own business blog.

Last April I attended Open Web Vancouver and sat in on two amazing keynotes, one of which was by Tim Bray. I have since used some of his quotes in presentations and have seen his sentiments echoed across the social media sphere since they are simple, accurate, and they make the most sense.

On the topic of writing your content, here are a few suggestions:

Be human: Don’t have an eleven step editorial process ie. if you’ve ever been in an organization that needs to put out a press release. You may have experienced that it could take 2 weeks for 2 page release and “then you end up with something no human being would have ever written…. or now would want to read.”[From Miss604 Live Blog]

Think about the text you put on your site. Write long, then cut short. If you have 100 words you can fit into a screen without scrolling, write 150. Then, slash back to 75 and see if you’ve got the right message. “Say what you have to say with the fewest possible words.” [Crawford Kilian at the IMC]

Aside from writing in a readable and comfortable tone for your audience you also need to put a face to your blog. This doesn’t mean hundreds of self portraits from your webcam, it just means that people, clients, and customers respond better to names. “Admin” or “Company Name” as an author on your site may not be as well received as “Betty”, “Jim”, or “Sue from Marketing”.

Example: Carnival Cruise Lines

The final tip is to not dupe your audience. If you are an official blog of ABC Company, please state that in your sidebar or on your about page ie. “This is the official blog of ABC Company”. That way it lets readers know you are a reliable resource, and you are accountable for your content. Disclosure is everything.

For many reasons, some companies may be apprehensive about sharing too much or being too transparent in the online realm and that is a valid concern. However, having a reliable, strong, and open community within your business blogging space can still be achieved if you are calm and professional. Write in a readable tone, disclose your objectives, address readers as people (have authors that are “real” people), and start conversations with your audience.

Most importantly, read other blogs (especially if they are in the same industry as you). You can see what others are doing right, have discussions, and make real and lasting connections.

This is a topic that you can go circles in, but it’s one worth thinking about if you have a blog because simply put, RSS feeds are your life line. If people want to stay up to date on the latest that your blog has to offer, this is how they are going to do it.

The problem, depending on how you view it, is what you put into that RSS feed.

For the most part, you know that you’ll have all your content displayed in all of its glory on your site, but for those that subscribe to your RSS feed, you tend to have two choices. Do you give them the summary or the full post? Let’s examine the difference between the two.

The summary is just that. It’s usually short and limited to a particular length of characters or words, depending on your settings or plugins you have on your blog. The point is that it’s basically a coming attraction of what’s actually on your site, but you have to load the web page in your browser to see the complete product. In the end, you are driving traffic to your site, which is what many content producers love.

On the other hand, you might actually hurt your chances of growing your audience due to users who rely on RSS feeds for much of the information they consume. This means that when they see your summary on their RSS aggregator, be it a non-browser program or hand held device, they won’t read your content in its entirety. In fact, some users un-subscribe from RSS feeds based on the soul fact that only summaries are available.

Full posts allow everything to be supplied open and freely to the world, getting your content to as many people as you possibly can. And generally, power users love this. They are able to read your content when and however they can. On top of that, if it’s something worth really noting, they will pass it on in a blog post of their own or through numerous other social networking outlets like Digg, Facebook, NowPublic, or Del.icio.us.

Will this affect traffic to your site in terms of stats? Honestly, it might. However, if you really care about getting your message out, this is something to think about. Stats versus a wider audience of your content. In the end, it’s up to you to decide as to which is more important.

Side note: If you are scratching your head over what RSS is, watch “RSS in plain english” by our friends at CommonCraft to help get you started.

Rebecca was invited to the Massive Tech Show this week to be on a panel regarding social media and what it can do for businesses. The annual event takes place in downtown Vancouver, and it’s pretty tough to say no to something we have such an interest in while not having to go too far to talk about it.

The Massive Technology Show is a three-part, interactive event that showcases technology for business. In one action packed day, Massive connects business professionals with high tech companies, giving them a chance to learn about technology in a user friendly environment. [massivetechshow.com]

She made a couple of posts on her personal blog here and here. You’re invited to read more of her take there.