Blogging: 10 Tips

"No rules. Just things to consider."

When blogging for yourself and/or for friends or family, there really are no rules. But if you are blogging for business, you are writing your own articles, so here are a couple of things to consider:

1. As a blogger, you are a publisher! Blogging can be part of a brand. Even if it is the brand of you! Think about your goals as a blogger. Do you want to be seen as an expert? Do you want to share your personal ideas and thoughts? Do you want to get people thinking? Do you want feedback? Or do you just want to use it to document your life?
2. You can have more than one blog. In addition to WOW!, which focuses on marketing, public relations and events for business, I have a personal blog about "stuff" that I share only with with friends and family.
3. Create your blog in a word document. Sometimes it is easier to use spell check in Word. And in a third world country, you never know when the electricity is going to go out and you lose everything you wrote for the last hour!
4. Stick to one area of interest for business. Be the expert in your field! If your blog is for business, or sales and marketing purposes, feature a key "story" or idea for each post. More than one post a day is ok too...especially if a blog is timely.
5. Edit yourself. A senior public relations professional once said "write what you write, and then cut at least 10%". How awful it seemed at first to cut out "my" wonderful words! Eventually, I learned to delete flowery adjectives (four meticulously unique and specially compounded, botanically formulated new-age hormones), flip sentences to write action-oriented content (use "is" not "will be"), and edit superfluous words from content (that is one word that can often be cut out of that sentence because deleting that will cut that copy by at least that much) - some words, such as that, can be deleted from copy without changing the meaning of the sentence.
6. Use bullet points or numbers. Formatting helps break out or define thoughts and makes it easier for readers to follow content.
7. Use subheads. Just like a magazine or newspaper article, subheads improve readability.
8. A picture is worth 1000 words. Post photos at the top and/or insert them throughout the content. Photos break up copy and add interesting graphics.
9. Be mindful of tense. Monitor flipping back and forth between yesterday, the present moment and the future. If the tense changes, use transitions, so the content is more clearly read.
10. End with a call to action. Always ask for the business, feedback or comments.

If you need help getting your blog started, want to know how to blog to market yourself and your business, or need someone to "ghost write" your blog, contact me at mmonte@hotmail.com or 407-964-1557!