Friday, May 2, 2008
Friday, April 18, 2008
Top 10 reasons you blog
1. You're an expressive person
2. You enjoy writing
3. In grade school, you were the kid who had to be given a time limit during show and tell
4. You have a message to share with the world
5. You want to leave something for people to remember you by when you're gone
6. It warms your heart when you really connect with someone who reads one of your posts
7. Where else are people going to find pictures like you have discovered
8. It helps you keep in touch with people you've lost touch with due to time and distance
9. Three words - Pickled Pig Lips
10. It's a blast!
2. You enjoy writing
3. In grade school, you were the kid who had to be given a time limit during show and tell
4. You have a message to share with the world
5. You want to leave something for people to remember you by when you're gone
6. It warms your heart when you really connect with someone who reads one of your posts
7. Where else are people going to find pictures like you have discovered
8. It helps you keep in touch with people you've lost touch with due to time and distance
9. Three words - Pickled Pig Lips
10. It's a blast!
Saturday, April 5, 2008
Seth Godin's thought on audience
Where do we begin?
Every time I write a post, I have a dilemma.
Am I writing for you, the one who has read more than 2,000 of my previous posts over the last five years? The one who has bought (and read!) so many of my books and is all caught up on my history?
It matters, of course, because I can take shortcuts, it changes the perception of my tone of voice and I can skip a lot of the preliminaries.
Or am I writing for you, the first-timer, the person who found this post on Digg or Delicious? If it's you, then I should take my time, write a bit more, put some background links in, etc.
Now, of course, you have the same dilemma too.
You have it when someone friends you on Facebook. Maybe they found you cause you're cute, or because you just joined a new company or because you're a friend of Tom's. Or maybe they've known you since summer camp and you just need to reconnect...
I think this dichotomy of experience raises the level of responsibility for the reader. Without knowing who you're reading, it's hard to judge the tone of voice of what you're hearing. More important, it changes the posture of the writer.
Sometimes, the web is more of a cocktail party than a club meeting.
Friday, April 4, 2008
Good advice from Robert
Communicating online presents unique opportunities and obstacles. When people communicate face to face, they have the opportunity for immediate feedback. For example, if I said, “The movie, Leatherheads was good,” you could reply: “In what way was it good?” Because of the opportunity to clarify our meaning through follow-up questions, many of us have become accustomed to not striving for clarity in our casual conversations. A typical conversation might go something like this:
Mr. Jones: “I had a bad day today.”
Ms. Smith: “What happened?”
Mr. Jones: “We missed a deadline.”
Ms. Smith: “Why.”
Mr. Jones: “Jimmy was just off.”
Ms. Smith: “Do you mean off work, or he was not very productive?”
This conversation is an example of interpersonal communication. The process works something like this: Mr. Jones starts with an idea that he wants to communicate to Ms. Smith. He goes through a process called encoding. That’s the process of changing ideas to symbols (symbols can be spoken words, written words, body language, etc.) Ms. Smith heard the words or symbols and decoded them into meaning for her. Because Mr. Jones’ symbols were ambiguous or vague, Ms. Smith provided necessary feedback. Mr. Jones continued encoding symbols until he and Ms. Smith achieved effective communication.
In mass communication such as with newspapers and radio, the sender of information and the receiver of information usually lack the opportunity for immediate feedback. If receivers don’t understand what they read in the newspaper or heard on TV, they often just put down the paper or change the channel. The lesson here is that in mass communication, the sender must chose the best symbols to be clear the first time or risk losing the attention of the receiver.
Blogs are unique. Communicating through blogs is similar to interpersonal conversation in terms of the casualness of the conversation and the opportunity for comments. Communicating through blogs is also similar to mass communications in that there is one sender and numerous receivers, and while the feedback opportunities exists, relatively few bother to take advantage of the opportunity. Even when receivers leave remarks seeking clarification from the blog writer, it is often too late to benefit everyone involved because bloggers participate in online conversations sporadically.
That said there is ample opportunity for miscommunication through blogging, especially as it relates to the writers’ tone, inflection, and connotation. Emotion is difficult to convey online. Bloggers may choose to use emoticons such as smiley faces to indicate emphasis and emotion. However, careful attention should be used for noobs or new bloggers, who may be unfamiliar with the less common emoticons. Some emoticons are easy to misinterpret.
Then there’s the abbreviated, text-message carry over to blogs. I remember years ago when I received a message with “lol” included. I wondered why my student was responding with “lots of love.” Fortunately before responding I discovered “lol” stood for “laugh out loud.” Another potential for miscommunication for writers and readers of blogs is a word in ALL CAPS. To some a word in all caps means an important term, to others it connotes shouting.
Because of the numerous opportunities for misunderstanding, those who write for blogs might consider how each word could be received by the reader. If, for example, sarcasm is intended, the blog writer might consider a parenthetical expression, ie (sarcasm). While this may seem cumbersome, the alternative is the potential for misunderstanding. If the goal is effective communication, blog writers should be careful to avoid vague, ambiguous terms or terms that may have unintended consequences. With all the online competition, attracting readers to your blog or website is difficult. But getting frustrated readers to return is a steeper hill to climb.
Feel free to share your thoughts on this.
Find this and other interesting posts on Rob's Megaphone
Mr. Jones: “I had a bad day today.”
Ms. Smith: “What happened?”
Mr. Jones: “We missed a deadline.”
Ms. Smith: “Why.”
Mr. Jones: “Jimmy was just off.”
Ms. Smith: “Do you mean off work, or he was not very productive?”
This conversation is an example of interpersonal communication. The process works something like this: Mr. Jones starts with an idea that he wants to communicate to Ms. Smith. He goes through a process called encoding. That’s the process of changing ideas to symbols (symbols can be spoken words, written words, body language, etc.) Ms. Smith heard the words or symbols and decoded them into meaning for her. Because Mr. Jones’ symbols were ambiguous or vague, Ms. Smith provided necessary feedback. Mr. Jones continued encoding symbols until he and Ms. Smith achieved effective communication.
In mass communication such as with newspapers and radio, the sender of information and the receiver of information usually lack the opportunity for immediate feedback. If receivers don’t understand what they read in the newspaper or heard on TV, they often just put down the paper or change the channel. The lesson here is that in mass communication, the sender must chose the best symbols to be clear the first time or risk losing the attention of the receiver.
Blogs are unique. Communicating through blogs is similar to interpersonal conversation in terms of the casualness of the conversation and the opportunity for comments. Communicating through blogs is also similar to mass communications in that there is one sender and numerous receivers, and while the feedback opportunities exists, relatively few bother to take advantage of the opportunity. Even when receivers leave remarks seeking clarification from the blog writer, it is often too late to benefit everyone involved because bloggers participate in online conversations sporadically.
That said there is ample opportunity for miscommunication through blogging, especially as it relates to the writers’ tone, inflection, and connotation. Emotion is difficult to convey online. Bloggers may choose to use emoticons such as smiley faces to indicate emphasis and emotion. However, careful attention should be used for noobs or new bloggers, who may be unfamiliar with the less common emoticons. Some emoticons are easy to misinterpret.
Then there’s the abbreviated, text-message carry over to blogs. I remember years ago when I received a message with “lol” included. I wondered why my student was responding with “lots of love.” Fortunately before responding I discovered “lol” stood for “laugh out loud.” Another potential for miscommunication for writers and readers of blogs is a word in ALL CAPS. To some a word in all caps means an important term, to others it connotes shouting.
Because of the numerous opportunities for misunderstanding, those who write for blogs might consider how each word could be received by the reader. If, for example, sarcasm is intended, the blog writer might consider a parenthetical expression, ie (sarcasm). While this may seem cumbersome, the alternative is the potential for misunderstanding. If the goal is effective communication, blog writers should be careful to avoid vague, ambiguous terms or terms that may have unintended consequences. With all the online competition, attracting readers to your blog or website is difficult. But getting frustrated readers to return is a steeper hill to climb.
Feel free to share your thoughts on this.
Find this and other interesting posts on Rob's Megaphone
Friday, March 28, 2008
Remember
Ideas will come more quickly when you wear the green striped socks. You can thank us later.
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
What about audience?
So, you have heard about blogging. You have starting following a few blogs. You have heard your friends, even your non-techie friends, talk about how much they enjoy blogging and now you are ready to give it a try. But what about your audience? Who is going to listen to what you have to say? Let’s attempt to break it down a bit to eliminate this hang-up and make it easier to get rolling with worrying so much about this question.
For a newbie blogger finding your voice will happen once you start committing your thoughts and ideas to be published. Focus on expressing yourself in a way that feels comfortable. Work at developing a personal style. Try not to jump around and copy everyone else’s technique, but instead work on language that feels like you. Once you start articulating messages on the topics that interest you, that fit your blog, and fit your style you are ready to take the next step towards fame…or at least towards lunchtime conversation.
Now that you are beginning to feel comfortable with blogging and your own style, it is time to start getting the word out. A great intermediate step is to recruit friends, family, and colleagues to start reading your blog. Explain that it is new. Explain that you would appreciate and value their thoughts and suggestions. Pay careful attention to the comments of people you trust. Now is the time to proactively request criticism. Let them know that you consider them part of your team. Part of your challenge is to embrace criticism and not become defensive. Trust your instincts when evaluating input to incorporate that which is valuable and discard what does not seem to fit where you are heading. Don’t worry if you put out a few clunker posts. The next great post is just about to happen!
So you have started to find your style and you have received some good input. What’s next? You are ready for prime time! In coming post we will talk about an number of ways increase readership. Meanwhile, remember that Audience of a Few? Now is a real good time encourage those friends, family, and colleagues to start spreading the word about your blog. Ask them and remind them occasionally to let others know about your blog. It’s called viral marketing and it’s effective. You are on your way. Enjoy the ride.
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Keep it fresh baby
How often is too often? How often is not enough?
Ultimately it's up to you how frequently you update your weblog. Some update once a day. Others update once a week. I, personally, like to update on average twice a day. My goal is to keep the site fresh for my target reader. He/She is tech-savvy, works hard for a living, checks in during his/her coffee break at work, and then checks in again after dinner before spending time with his/her family or perhaps even before bed while checking the day's email at home.
Your target reader might be different. Again, no pressure. Here's the thing though. If I am checking your site daily, I don't want to read the same post for four out of the five work days. I also don't want to have so much information put forth that I feel like I am left out of the loop if I miss a day or two. So pull the reigns back if you are posting nine times a day.
Rule #1 for posting says that frequency is left to your better judgement.
Don't leave us hanging for too long and don't bury us with too much content and you will be just fine.
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Nine Steps to Better Blog Ideas
This post comes from Daily Blog Tips.
9 Steps to Better Blog Post Ideas
Content is king. We’ve all heard that a million times and most of us have seen first hand that the content truly will make or break a blog. One of the single most powerful influences on the quality of blog content is the originality of ideas. A talented author can develop a well-written article, but if it covers a topic that’s been beaten to death it won’t make much of an impact. Likewise, an average writer can create a wildly successful blog post with the right idea.
Too many bloggers rush into writing the post and the importance of idea generation gets overlooked. Improving your idea generation skills is one of the most effective things you can do to improve your results.
Here are 9 Steps to Generating Better Ideas:
1. Make Time for It
Make idea generation one of your priorities, and recognize its influence on your success. Just like you need to set aside time for writing blog posts, you also need to designate time for developing ideas for posts. There are plenty of activities with your blog that can consume your time, but don’t do so at the expense of working on new ideas. Without leaving time for it, you’ll find yourself sitting at the computer searching for a topic to write about, and the results will suffer.
2. Have a Brainstorming Session
Rather than trying to come up with one post idea at a time as you need them, sit down and crank out as many ideas as you can. Write down all of your ideas. Many of them will not turn into anything usable, but that’s ok. Get your creative energy flowing and you’ll find yourself having more than enough great ideas to develop. Several months ago I wrote an article on brainstorming techniques for bloggers.
3. Use Mind Mapping
Mind mapping is a method of brainstorming that helps you to visualize your ideas and to build on them with other related ideas. This method can really help you to develop ideas for posts on particular subjects and topics as you can visualize all of the different aspects and you see the possibilities for useful blog posts. Darren wrote an excellent guide to mind mapping a few months ago at ProBlogger.
4. Outline Posts Before Writing Them
If you are typing your posts with little or no direction you will have disjointed articles that are less productive than they could be. I find it to be very helpful to outline every post before I actually write the content. This may require some research, depending on the topic, but it will make the writing process easier. It also helps you to identify ideas that really don’t develop into quality posts. From the outline you should have a pretty good idea of how well you can develop the post, and you’ll know pretty quickly when an idea isn’t worth the time of trying to write the full post. This way you will be spending your writing time on ideas with better potential.
5. Keep a Journal
Although it is extremely helpful to have specific time for brainstorming, you’ll still have some ideas that hit you at random times. In these situations if you do not have a journal or notebook for jotting down ideas you’ll probably forget more of them than you will remember. My notebook is one of my most valuable possessions. It has more ideas and outlines than I’ll ever have time to write. Sure, some of them are pretty bad, but whenever I need a post or whenever I have time to sit down and type, there’s always something of quality there waiting for me.
6. Take Your Ideas and Plan a Posting Schedule
I find it to be very helpful to plan out my posts a week in advance. Every weekend I’ll look through the ideas that I have been working on, and I’ll select the ones that I am going to finalize and publish during the upcoming week. This helps me to avoid last minute posts that don’t have much of a point except to get something published.
7. Don’t Publish Something Unless You Are Happy With It
If you finish a post and you feel that it doesn’t live up to your standards of quality, either keep working to improve it or just get rid of it. It’s never fun to give up on an idea that you’ve spent some time on, but that is better than publishing something that could lower your readers’ opinions of your blog.
8. Improve Your Title Writing Skills
Some bloggers start the process of writing a post by first coming up with an attention-grabbing title and then working from there to develop the content. While this may not always work, it is a different method that can help to give your writing process a spark.
The titles of your blog posts will have a huge impact on how many people actually read what you’ve written. If you’re going to spend your time researching, writing a post, and proofreading it, why just publish it with the first title that comes to mind? Coming up with the best title usually takes a few attempts, but it will be well worth your time. See Daniel’s post 3 Rules for Writing Effective Titles for a little bit of help.
9. Analyze Your Results
Part of creating posts that attract attention is knowing what types of content have worked well for you in the past. Most bloggers check their stats regularly, but often times this is not done with much detail. Have you ever gone back over several months’ worth of stats and really analyzed what types of posts consistently drew the most traffic and comments, and which other types of posts and subjects drew very little interest? When I took a more detailed look at the stats from my own blog I saw some interesting trends that I hadn’t noticed before, and that knowledge has helped me to produce ideas for posts that perform well.
9 Steps to Better Blog Post Ideas
Content is king. We’ve all heard that a million times and most of us have seen first hand that the content truly will make or break a blog. One of the single most powerful influences on the quality of blog content is the originality of ideas. A talented author can develop a well-written article, but if it covers a topic that’s been beaten to death it won’t make much of an impact. Likewise, an average writer can create a wildly successful blog post with the right idea.
Too many bloggers rush into writing the post and the importance of idea generation gets overlooked. Improving your idea generation skills is one of the most effective things you can do to improve your results.
Here are 9 Steps to Generating Better Ideas:
1. Make Time for It
Make idea generation one of your priorities, and recognize its influence on your success. Just like you need to set aside time for writing blog posts, you also need to designate time for developing ideas for posts. There are plenty of activities with your blog that can consume your time, but don’t do so at the expense of working on new ideas. Without leaving time for it, you’ll find yourself sitting at the computer searching for a topic to write about, and the results will suffer.
2. Have a Brainstorming Session
Rather than trying to come up with one post idea at a time as you need them, sit down and crank out as many ideas as you can. Write down all of your ideas. Many of them will not turn into anything usable, but that’s ok. Get your creative energy flowing and you’ll find yourself having more than enough great ideas to develop. Several months ago I wrote an article on brainstorming techniques for bloggers.
3. Use Mind Mapping
Mind mapping is a method of brainstorming that helps you to visualize your ideas and to build on them with other related ideas. This method can really help you to develop ideas for posts on particular subjects and topics as you can visualize all of the different aspects and you see the possibilities for useful blog posts. Darren wrote an excellent guide to mind mapping a few months ago at ProBlogger.
4. Outline Posts Before Writing Them
If you are typing your posts with little or no direction you will have disjointed articles that are less productive than they could be. I find it to be very helpful to outline every post before I actually write the content. This may require some research, depending on the topic, but it will make the writing process easier. It also helps you to identify ideas that really don’t develop into quality posts. From the outline you should have a pretty good idea of how well you can develop the post, and you’ll know pretty quickly when an idea isn’t worth the time of trying to write the full post. This way you will be spending your writing time on ideas with better potential.
5. Keep a Journal
Although it is extremely helpful to have specific time for brainstorming, you’ll still have some ideas that hit you at random times. In these situations if you do not have a journal or notebook for jotting down ideas you’ll probably forget more of them than you will remember. My notebook is one of my most valuable possessions. It has more ideas and outlines than I’ll ever have time to write. Sure, some of them are pretty bad, but whenever I need a post or whenever I have time to sit down and type, there’s always something of quality there waiting for me.
6. Take Your Ideas and Plan a Posting Schedule
I find it to be very helpful to plan out my posts a week in advance. Every weekend I’ll look through the ideas that I have been working on, and I’ll select the ones that I am going to finalize and publish during the upcoming week. This helps me to avoid last minute posts that don’t have much of a point except to get something published.
7. Don’t Publish Something Unless You Are Happy With It
If you finish a post and you feel that it doesn’t live up to your standards of quality, either keep working to improve it or just get rid of it. It’s never fun to give up on an idea that you’ve spent some time on, but that is better than publishing something that could lower your readers’ opinions of your blog.
8. Improve Your Title Writing Skills
Some bloggers start the process of writing a post by first coming up with an attention-grabbing title and then working from there to develop the content. While this may not always work, it is a different method that can help to give your writing process a spark.
The titles of your blog posts will have a huge impact on how many people actually read what you’ve written. If you’re going to spend your time researching, writing a post, and proofreading it, why just publish it with the first title that comes to mind? Coming up with the best title usually takes a few attempts, but it will be well worth your time. See Daniel’s post 3 Rules for Writing Effective Titles for a little bit of help.
9. Analyze Your Results
Part of creating posts that attract attention is knowing what types of content have worked well for you in the past. Most bloggers check their stats regularly, but often times this is not done with much detail. Have you ever gone back over several months’ worth of stats and really analyzed what types of posts consistently drew the most traffic and comments, and which other types of posts and subjects drew very little interest? When I took a more detailed look at the stats from my own blog I saw some interesting trends that I hadn’t noticed before, and that knowledge has helped me to produce ideas for posts that perform well.
Saturday, March 22, 2008
No Pressure
Really.
It's not rocket science. As you begin this process and get over the initial set-up issues, blogging will come naturally to you. Learn to schedule your time for posting and analyzing your results. I had a friend tell me "Manage your blog. Don't let it manage you". Good advice indeed.
I have seen several of these "how to" blogs that were so crammed with pop-up and affiliate ads, it was hard to see what the actual content of the site was. The Idiot's Guide is here for you and we're not doing this just to make money. That will come later ;-) Seriously. We're here to help you get started and point you in the right direction and hopefully to answer questions that you might have.
Now...how is your brainstorming coming along? Have you gotten alone with your pen and notepad yet? Take a long walk. Take some deep breaths. Turn off the input and get quiet for a little bit and see what comes to you. Then take some action and put your ideas on paper.
I leave you with this quote from Randall Jarell...
"It is better to entertain an idea than to take it home to live with you for the rest of your life."
Friday, March 21, 2008
Getting Started!
How does one start a successful blog?
CONTENT, CONTENT, CONTENT!
1. Get alone with your thoughts
2. Take a pen and a pad of paper
2. Take a pen and a pad of paper
3. What's important to you?
4. What are you passionate about?
5. What interests you and what do you talk about?
Write all this down and see what you come up with. Don't just blog for blogging sake. Have a point. Make a difference. You can change the world with your blog if you set your mind to it.
There are blogs that average nearly a million visits per week with ad revenue over the six figure mark. There are also blogs that sit stagnant with no one reading. Which one you will be depends on how you write and market your site.
Here are a few topics we will cover in the coming days. I hope to have bloggers on the big 3 platforms sharing their tips - Blogger, Wordpress and Typepad.
Google Adsense
Keywords
Links and Networking
Guide to better posts
Using Pictures and Video
Writing from the heart
Pay Per Post/Paid Reviews
Link Baiting & Post Submissions
Proven Money Making Strategies
Formatting for Success
Analytics - Measuring Your Progress
The First Post
(A blogger holding a Google Adsense check for $132, 994 - We'll talk more about Google Adsense and this guy in a later post)
Welcome.
We here at T.I.G.T.B have established this site to assist you, the beginning blogger, as you hack your way through the proverbial weeds called "the blog startup".
Your blog is your new home. You will sink hour upon hour into it. You will shape and mold it and it will become an extension of who you are. We are here to help you manage this new extension. What do you want to do with your blog? What are you looking to accomplish?
Are you looking to make enough income to retire?
Are you looking to impact the world and display a widespread message?
We are here to help and it won't cost you a dime.
Please feel free to ask questions, pick our brains, and visit as often as possible.
We don't claim to know everything there is to know about this subject but "The Idiots Guide to Blogging is written by people who have been doing this and can share the successes and failures along the bumpy road to blog-dom.
Now...on with the show...
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