Commenting on blog posts

Hi everyone,

Today I wanted to draw attention to something that I feel is an important part of a small business' marketing strategy today.
Commenting on blog posts.
There is an art to this, in my opinion. It's no good just picking up on a blog and going on there and saying something inane and then posting a link to your website. You have to say something intelligent, lucid, and relevant to the post. Otherwise, you just irritate. So, make sure that your comments add something to the article and are informative. If you don't do this, there is a good chance that your comment will simply be deleted, anyway, and then you will just have wasted your own time and the blog owner's time.

What I'd suggest is the following:
- Pick interesting blogs to follow, blogs that are relevant to your industry or your interests.
- Check back on them on a relatively regular basis.
- Read the posts.
- Think of something valuable to add - maybe something from your personal experience, or add your expertise.

If, for example, the post is about switching from using a tape recorder to using a digital recorder, don't just go there and say "I transcribe, send your recordings to me". Chances are that the person has been doing their own transcription for some years anyway. But if you go on there and say something to the effect of "yes, you've made a good choice with regards to your choice of digital recorder, and this is why", and use your link in your identity, then you'll have planted the seed in the mind of the author and anyone else who happens to see the post that you are an expert in this field - and that maybe they should consider approaching you to save themselves some time - by giving you their transcription. Intelligent, informative comments are appreciated by bloggers, simply because they bring a variety of phrases that may well be picked up by search engines - in other words, they bring traffic to the person's blog. So be careful and think about what your comments are - don't be an irritation, be an asset.

How to move from cassettes to digital dictation.

Hi everybody, I've just had an interesting query from a gentleman and I thought it would be beneficial to publish my answer here.

The query ran: " I use a typist for my small business but now I am moving away and wish to use the same person. How can i get documents or folders to her by e mail to type for me and send back using modern technology? At the moment I still use tapes and adictaphone but this will not work when I am 150kms away. Can you guide me on what I can use to go electronic? I can see you do such work but I am hoping you would not mind guiding me?

My answer to him ran as follows:

Most of my clients use Olympus to dictate their work into mp3 format for me (I think it's Olympus 5000), which they then send to me via www.sendspace.com, and I've recently implemented a system whereby they can upload files to my website. I then transcribe it and send it back to them using email, so the entire process is done digitally. There are also other digital dictation machines available I've done a google search for you here - http://www.google.co.za/search?hl=en&q=digital+dictation+machines&btnG=Search&meta=cr%3DcountryZA and you see Olympus comes up tops.

If you or your typist have any further queries I will be happy to help - I've even got an ebook available for R90 which shows how I set up and started, which could be very useful to her.

Good luck with the move, and if ever you have any excess transcription or somebody else enquires, I'll be happy to oblige!

Further to this, I looked up the suppliers of Olympus digital recorders here in South Africa and their details can be found at http://www.maynards.co.za/olympus.php