As a blogger, you’ll need to wear multiple hats to keep your blog on the right track and moving forward. Of course, if you make it big and become a star, you can afford to outsource a lot of processes that are not among your core competencies. But 95% of bloggers will probably need to handle multiple positions on a consistent basis. So not only you’ll have to write your content, you’ll have to work to promote it, find ways to enhance your blog, and work on your branding efforts as well. You may not be able to do everything by yourself, but there are simple things that every blogger needs to be doing in 2010.

If you are serious about your blog and are just starting to grow your blog, here are 10 simple ways to get it done:

• CMS: using a content management system comes in handy if you have lots of articles on your blog. I personally recommend Wordpress to all bloggers. No disrespect to Blogger and other content management systems out there, but Wordpress is the king among blogging content management systems out there.
• Blog Security: if you happen to run a content management system that can be enhanced through plugins, don’t hesitate to download plugins that can enhance your blog’s security and protect it against hack attacks. Hackers target bloggers from time to time, and while there is no 100% foolproof blog security system out there, you can at least give hackers something challenging to deal with.
• Theme: if your blog has had the same look for years, you may want to invest in a premium blogging theme or pay a designer to develop a brand new look for your blog. Don’t think of blog redesign as an expense as it’s more of an investment.
• Twitter: if you have not taken the time to create a Twitter account around your blog, there is no better time to do it now. Being on Twitter is not too special anymore. Lots of people have been on Twitter for a couple of years now. But if you are not taking advantage of Twitter, you are doing your blog a disservice. Don’t forget to enable Twitter sign on feature on your blog as well (you can use Disqus to do that).
• Facebook: similar to Twitter, Facebook gives your blog yet another avenue to drive traffic to your blog and get more exposure for your work. Build a Facebook page for your blog. Make an effort to connect and reach out to your fans.
• Ning: Ning is a great platform to be a part of and take advantage of. It not only allows you to create social portals, but it can help you find niche communities to be a part of. I am personally a member of various Ning portals in my niche. It’s a fun platform to play with.
• YouTube: if you haven’t taken the time to register your brand name on YouTube and create a channel for your blog, now’s the time. Even if you are not making videos currently, you should take time to work towards doing that in the near future. Video is the present and the future. You may as well get on board.
• Posterous: Posterous is a great young platform that gives bloggers yet another chance to reach out to the world and share content with others and follow top players in any niche. It’s very easy to use too. Another one of those sites that you need to be on.
• Flickr: Flickr can be a big traffic drive if you take advantage of what the community has to offer and provide value to other community members. If you have a decent camera and know how to take decent pictures, Flickr can be another avenue for your blog to reach out to the world and bring it in.
• Listen and Participate: you can be on all the above-mentioned sites, but if you are not taking time to participate, add value, and listen to what others have to say, you are missing the boat. It’s nice to catch up with friends on Facebook and Twitter. However, there is just so much information to look at and learn from if you are watching and listening closely on Twitter, Facebook, and other similar services.

There are of course other things you should be doing, but the above tactics are easy to implement and something that most bloggers should be doing by now. If you are not, there is never a better time to start.

If you have been making your own videos and uploading them only to YouTube, you are seriously leaving some traffic on the table. While YouTube will be responsible for most of the traffic that you can get from your videos, there are plenty of other video sites that can bring you a decent amount of traffic. The only issue is, will you have time to upload and track your videos on multiple video sharing sites.

That’s where TubeMogul comes in. It’s an innovative video distribution service that lets you upload, tag, and submit your videos to multiple video sites in one shot. The service is designed for people who want to get the most out of their videos and track user interactions as well. The interface is designed to allow you to easily add your own title, description, and proper tags for top videos sites such as YouTube and DailyMotion.

Once you have added your information and uploaded your file, the service is going to ask you to enter your username and passwords per each video sharing site. So as long as you have an account with all those video sharing sites, you can easily add your videos to them without going through the hassle of submitting videos by hand one by one.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of TubeMogul is the tracking feature. You can add any artists profile to your tracking system and track his/her videos and ways people have interacted with them. Best of all, you can find the top videos per artist and find out what they are doing right.

All in all, TubeMogul is a video sharing service that shouldn’t be taken lightly. It’s easy to use, affordable, and gets the job done. It also makes the tracking process much easier to manage. A must use service for all vloggers.

If you have been following this blog for a while, you probably know what a big fan of vlogging I am. As a start-up owner, I don’t get to vlog as much as I should. But vlogging is a big part of our overall corporate strategy. Video is the present and future of this business, and there are things that you can communicate much better through video than test. YouTube is one of those services that will go down in history as a game changer. It truly changed the way content is shared, and it gave advertisers, content producers, businesses, and TV stations another channel to get involved and get some business done. And let’s not forget that YouTube has made a lot of stars as well.

Learning how to post videos and manage your account on YouTube is not as difficult as it seems, but it does take some work. You can’t just expect to sit in front of a camera, go on a rant, and gain a whole lot of subscribers on YouTube. If you look at all the vloggers who have had success on YouTube, you can tell they have a real strategy, and they implement it wonderfully. So unless you are a natural, you are going to need some training to put your best foot forward in front of the YouTube community. YouTube and Video Marketing: An Hour a Day is a wonderful book that teaches you how to get started with YouTube. It not only teaches you how to find your way around YouTube, it also shows you what you need to do to create viral videos.

Why Get It?

This book is not your everyday YouTube book. A lot of YouTube books spend more time showing you how to rate videos and do simple things than giving you the big picture and what you need to do to go viral on YouTube. Here is a summary of what’s covered:

• YouTube Training: learn how to do things on YouTube in no time.
• Viral Videos: learn how others make viral videos and what strategies you can use to do the same.
• Video Production: producing video is actually more of a science than an art. This book gives you a solid foundation on this topic.
• Quality Content: learn what quality content means and how you can go about creating your own killer videos.
• YouTube and Branding: YouTube can be a great branding tool. This book teaches you how to push your brand and get more recognition on YouTube.
• Video Optimization: just like search engine optimization, you need to do a few things to rank better with your videos. Whether it’s tagging or other things, this book has you covered.
• Traffic: once you put your videos up on YouTube, you need to drive traffic to them to get more recognition. This book talks about how you can use other blogs, social networking sites, and forums to build traffic for your videos.
• Video Analytics: learn how to track, measure, and analyze your video marketing results.
• Case Studies: learn from the masters and find out how others have become successful on YouTube.
• Studio Tips: if you want to take your game to the next level and build higher quality videos, this is the section you should read.

All in all, YouTube and Video Marketing: An Hour a Day is a wonderful book that teaches you not only how to build videos and master YouTube, but how to grow your business and become a YouTube superstar. If you are into vlogging and feel you’ve got what it takes to become the next video hit on the web, this book is a great place to start.

Rating: 8.5/10

Vlogging is not so much of a novelty these days. Most blogging superstars have jumped on the videoblogging bandwagon. But for a long of folks, starting a videoblog is a challenge. If you have checked videos on YouTube, you have probably seen that for every one great video there are 1000s of worthless crude items out there. A lot of folks don’t know how to work the camera, and some don’t know what to say once they get in front of the camera. These are very real challenges, but videoblogging is not something you can’t master.

Here is what I learned from my experience with videoblogging which I believe will be helpful to a lot of folks who are trying to get started with their video-blog:

• YouTube is only part of the game: a lot of folks buy these books and master YouTube as if YouTube can make you look good on camera. Knowing how to do things on YouTube is great, but it doesn’t make you a good video blogger.
• You’ve got to have a story: you’ve probably seen those boring videos that folks struggle to talk about anything interesting for 10 minutes. That’s what happens when you get in front of the camera with no plan of action. There was a time that I would go to my presentations without preparation, believing that I would ace them due to familiarity with the subject at hand. But proper preparation not only makes you more confident but it can get you out of some hairy situations. The same concept applies to videos. Prepare and have a story to tell or you are doomed.
• You’ve got to be able to tell your story: you know what’s the difference between a salesman and a scientist? A salesman can come up with all kinds of stories to convey things to prospects. Scientists, on the other hand, often struggle to convey what they know with others. Having great videos is not about who’s the smartest in the room but about who can tell their story the best.
• You’ve got to engage your audience: just because you are in front of a camera doesn’t mean folks won’t see you. Your video will be viewed by real folks so you want to pretend there is someone there. Imagine your camera is a living breathing person. That’s key!
• Know what you are getting yourself into: Video-blogging is a more intimate form of blogging. People are going to see you and hear you, and your video can be distributed, downloaded, and shared all over the web (depending on your success). Make sure you behave, and be ready for criticism.

YouTube is a great testing ground for your ideas. Pitch your ideas on YouTube and see if there is an audience. You learn a lot about your video-blog idea from YouTube and other video sites. Take the feedback on the chin, and remember that no one is perfect right out of the gate. The sooner you get started with video, the better off you are. It’s not too late to get started with videoblogging. Not yet!

Did I miss anything?