Blogging Out Loud The Basics of Blog Writing Explained

Who Am I? Danielle M. Villegas Author of TechCommGeekMom and STC Notebook's "Villegas Views"

In this webinar, we will... Hear personal experiences in creating a blog Review how a blog can work for both personal and corporate gain Give pointers on best practices.

Learning by Doing….A Blogger’s Story Started TechCommGeekMom as a graduate school project in March 2012 Through promotion and good SEO/tagging, I was noticed by Adobe, who helped promote my blog As of December 2013, TechCommGeekMom has over 500 posts and 15,000 all-time hits—and counting! Used my blog to create a tech comm community as well as open doors to opportunities Blogging for Adobe Day at STC Summit 2013 & Lavacon Offered a by-line in STC Notebook blog (Villegas Views) Asked to do webinars!

Why blog? To get your message out

Types of Social Media Broadcasting Self Netizenry Participatory Culture Work Environment, Labor, and Markets P. Andrew Klobucar, PhD at NJIT

What Are The Benefits? Personal Blogging Create your own brand Provide evidence of your writing skills and competency of a given topic Provide your perspective on a given topic Corporate Blogging Reinforces corporate brand Provides a casual yet informative means of providing product information Provides a means of direct contact with clients/consumers For both : knowAttract an audience and a following that will know your brand Create COMMUNITY

Create content for your blog Write down main ideas as they come to you Make a list Create a Mind Map – Good for creating a series Cull your list, and edit! Start drafts to get main points down so you don’t forget Plan ahead – Schedule your posts when you can

Curating Content Great and easy way to provide content Several tools out there can help bring content into your blog, as well as create an online “magazine” of your collected articles such as Paper.li and ScoopIt.

TechCommGeekMom's Rules It’s all about the mind set. Write from the heart, and don’t be afraid to speak your mind. Make sure that if you don’t have all the facts, admit to not having all the facts. Write professionally. Edit, edit, edit! Be yourself, present yourself in the best light as you write your words, and have fun with it!

Blogging Don'ts: 1.Begin a blog for money or fame. 2.Quit your day job. 3.Start one if you do not love to read and write.

Blogging Don'ts (continued): 4.Pick a title that's stupid, silly, obscure, or without keywords. 5.Start your blog without purchasing a domain 6.Start your blog on a platform that is difficult to use or that you cannot change.

Blogging Don'ts (continued) 7.Write a purely creative blog. 8.Pick a topic without thorough research and about which you know nothing. 9.Start before learning something about SEO and Google's best practices

Blogging Don'ts (continued) 10.Forget your reader. 11.Be unwilling to learn a lot of information and techniques quickly 12.Find writing everyday frightening or unappealing. Darin L. Hammond

How Do You Promote Your Blog? (Lots of ways to do it!) Social Media Promotion Twitter Google + Pinterest Facebook LinkedIn YouTube Instagram Blogger Communities Triberr Social Buzz Club Biz Blogging Buzz Viral Content Buzz Manual Bookmarks Digg Reddit StumbleUpon Scoop.It Delicious Automated bookmarks Onlywire SocialMarker Social ADR Bookmark plugin AddThis Sociable Shareaholics Nextscripts Guest post Comment on other blogs!

Act quickly to cut traffic losses If you are losing customers and traffic, look at these areas for improvement: Maintain a constant focus on your blog. This means publishing regularly and also staying on-topic with your brand message. Alter your blog's design for maximum efficiency. Avoid being too cluttered, especially with ads. Keep your design easy to read and follow and make it clean. Post as much as possible, as regularly as possible. Give people a reason to return to your site later in the day. Keep your grammar clean. You don't need to be perfect, but allow only the occasional mistake or it annoys people. Provide unlimited value on your site so that your readers have a reason to hang around, with easy to locate, excellent information. The best way to retain visitors is by getting them to subscribe or join. Be sure to place boxes where it is easy for readers to rss subscribe and sign up for s. Put yourself in the mind of one of your readers and view the site from their eyes. What do you find? What attracts or detracts from the page? Darin Hammond:

Summary Have a primary focus for your blog – create your brand Take steps to write and curate thoughtful, interesting content to attract your audience Promote your blog posts Be sure to maintain your blog ENJOY THE PROCESS!

Contact Me: Website/Blog: TechCommGeekMom.com E-Portfolio: LinkedIn:

Questions/Discussion?