1. Welcome to Learning to Love Social Media: BLOGGING

2. What is a BLOG? -in essence, it’s a space for you to share your stories, anecdotes, much like an online “journal.” -it can be your “voice”, your soapbox -reasons for blogging vary extremely widely: people like blogs for different reasons. ex. I like gardening blogs, animal related blogs, and definitely cooking blogs. it’s a place where I can learn from others, and commiserate on a shared topic. -but now they’re really gaining momentum as a business tool

3. Reasons for blogging vary extremely widely: From extremely personal, like sharing your own Bucket List-Alice above

4. To sharing a personal interest/passion (and expertise), like gardening: Doug Green’s Garden

5. And providing a platform for a charity or cause to reach out to the community, ie., moving away from a personal to a more focused, special-interest group platform (Ottawa Humane society)

6. All the way to a business-oriented blog: Sarah Petty’s Joy Blog. Sarah Petty is a photographer by trade, and in this blog she and her partner offer marketing advice to small business owners.

7. How do you create a BLOG? You need an application to get started. Best known ones: Blogger & Wordpress (free downloads) a) Blogger -recognized by the “.blogspot.com” address, as in example below.

8. b) Wordpress extremely easy to use free to a certain point, then easily customizable customization is affordable you can build your entire website on Wordpress-mine is (highly customized)

9. Interested in Wordpress & need help? Go to http://www.makeuseof.com/pages/set-up-your-blog-with-wordpress-the-ultimate-guidehttp://www.makeuseof.com/pages/set-up-your-blog-with-wordpress-the-ultimate-guide to download their Wordpress guide (8.25 MB PDF)

10. Why BLOG? Blogs are being used more & more by businesses to engage their audiences. Here’s what a business blog can do for you: SEO (Search Engine Optimization): help Google index your pages so you can get found in searches-bring you up higher in rankings help you bring your product to a wider/larger audience. connect you with your audience: lets you engage them and vice versa attract people to your website! position you as an expert in your field + build your credibility gives you the space/voice to get your message out: what do YOU want to teach your audience, want them to know about your business?

11. Some Blogging Guidelines/Items to Consider Aim for 300 words-the minimum Google needs to index your pages well 500-600 words is best Engaging your audience is the goal: do not ignore comments, respond quickly use paragraphs, bullets to divide your ideas/thoughts. One giant paragraph does not win people over how often to post? use your judgment, you know your target audience. Once a month is ok, once a quarter is simply not often enough make the COMMITMENT. Don’t start blogging every day/once a week, then drop off to “anytime I feel like it.”

12. If you have questions, please contact me via email or phone Loreto Cheyne loreto@loladesign.ca 613.371.3281 Thank you!