You’ve Got to Read This: August 16, 2011

I’m back from the beach and plowing through emails, blog posts, conference tweets and more. Thanks to Andrew Hanelly at TMG Custom Media’s Engage blog, I found seven ways to tame the beast: 7 Steps to Dealing with Information Overload.

If you’re coming back from vacation to blog editor duties, you’ll appreciate the advice in this post from Sarah Arrow at For Bloggers by Bloggers, especially if your blog relies on several contributors: 7 Laws That Make Your Multi Author Blog a Success.

When I tweeted out the link to this post, I described it as my best read all day. Noah Brier says the number one question he gets from brand marketers is: “What should I tweet about?” He goes on to write in Want to Tweet? First, Teach Your Brand to Speak at AdAge Digital: “What eludes brands so persistently in new media comes to people naturally.…The content people are sharing, unsurprisingly, is the content they are consuming.”

Ian Greenleigh laments the state of company websites in Quit Blogging Like a Tech Company at Dare to Comment. After posting product release notes and press releases, he says, “They discover how easy it is to blog about themselves. But no one reads it, or cares. Sooner or later, when that ROI never appears from the ether, they give up. And then they’re really blogging like a tech company, because they’re actually blogging so infrequently, it’s a sad little ghost town of quarterly posts.”

Why are Restaurant Websites so Horrifically Bad? asks Farhad Manjoo at Slate. Using hideous examples from some top-notch restaurants, he shows how the design and content fails miserably. The topic was picked up by the readers of Andrew Sullivan’s The Dish who pointed out the weaknesses of artist and college websites as well as restaurant sites. Although the posts are good for a laugh, there is a lot to learn here. Take a hard look at your organization’s website when you’re done.

My last one is for office refrigerators and bulletin boards everywhere, by my online association pal Jeffrey Cufaude: Anyone Can: So Why Not You? I’ve always been fond of #5: “Say what everyone knows but is afraid to bring up.” Who wouldn’t love #12? “Bring in a healthy snack for what will be a very long meeting.”

Author: deirdrereid

Deirdre is a freelance writer for companies serving the association market. After more than 20 years managing associations and restaurants, she's enjoying the good life as a ghostblogger and content marketing writer for the association community. Away from her laptop, you can find her walking in the woods, enjoying live music, reading hundreds of newsletters, watching hockey, cooking, hanging at the local brewery or tap room, or relaxing in a comfy chair with a good Kindle book and a glass of something tasty in hand. View all posts by deirdrereid