Links from the Blogging 101 Class - Google+ Links

There’s a number of tools for evaluating how a blog’s doing traffic-wise, but I’m not sure why anyone doesn’t just use Google Analytics, which will tell you how many visitors, where they’re coming from, what pages they’re looking at, and much more. Much like SEO, this is something that could take up its own workshop, and we didn’t get much to explore it in class. Hopefully these links will prove an alternate entrance.

GOOGLE ANALYTICS RESOURCES:
Google Analytics Lessons: http://www.google.com/support/conversionuniversity/bin/request.py?hl=en&contact_type=indexSplash&rd=1
Google Analytics Web Channel: http://www.youtube.com/googleanalytics
Tutorial on Determining Social Media ROI: http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2075044/Google-Analytics-Tutorial-Determining-Social-Media-ROI
Google Analytics & Why You Probably Don’t Need the Rest: http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/google-analytics-why-you-probably-dont-need-the-rest/
Maximizing Visitor Retention with Google Analytics: http://webtoastie.co.uk/maximising-visitor-retention-with-google-analytics/
Web Analytics Demystified: http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/web-analytics-demystified/

Last week I talked about how blogging on Youtube can benefit writers, so I wanted to cover some of the Youtube basics necessary for a writer who wants to learn how to use it for self promotion. If you’re already technically savvy, much of this post will already be obvious to you, but the thinking about researching what others in the field are doing that’s mentioned at the end would still be a good practice.

First off, create a YouTube account. When picking your username, try to find something close to the one you use on your website. I use catrambo, which is the same username I use on Facebook, Twitter, and most other social networking sites. You want a name that your watchers can connect with your books, so they can find them later on.

YouTube has some social network functions. You can use your account to comment on or “like” other users’ videos and make lists of your favorite videos. You can subscribe to other people’s video streams in order to get notifications when they add new content. Buttons underneath videos allow you to share favorites with other social networks, including Facebook, Orkut, StumbleUpon, Twitter, Tumblr and many more. You can even set your account to publish updates to networks when you like a video or add it to a list as well as when you upload your own videos. Check here for some additional Youtube essentials.

When you start uploading videos to your account (and the post on that is not yet written) , you’re creating your YouTube video channel, which others can subscribe to. You can customize your channel (click on your account name in the upper right hand corner and when a menu appears, select “My Channel”) by giving it a name, modifying the colors and choosing what information to display on your channel’s page, such as event dates, a list of YouTube friends, and who’s subscribed.

But before you start making videos, spend some time poking around and seeing what others in your field are posting to YouTube. You’ll see commentary on book covers, book trailers, book reviews, interviews, readings, news magazines, and more.

Such research will serve you in good stead when you can thinking about what sort of content you want to be using for your blogging on Youtube. But for now – go watch a video or five, all in the name of research.