Helping you pay the bills
No doubt about it, web 2.0 has got people in a frenzy. Everyone’s looking at how they can jump in on the action. Nobody wants to be left out on what has been referred to as the next major internet attraction. All the while, some of us are still struggling with basic questions, while web 2.0 gurus abound. What is web 2.0?
join me in this series of posts in which I focus on web 2.0 and try to explain what is it.
Part 1.
Part 2.
Almost-Conventional-Marketing Techniques
12 You cannot live in isolation. Similarly bloggers cant blog in isolation – they live in blogoshere. The trick is to get other bloggers to notice you; to interact with them. Read many blogs and leave many comments on many blogs. It will pay off. All bloggers should subscribe to other blogs site feeds. Blog webrings are good place to start.
13 Participate in blogging games and memes (for example, this one at ProBlogger). These are often projects in which many bloggers try to write on a specific topic. They are fun. More importantly they generate traffic to your blog. You can get to know of such things by reading other blogs widely, especially those in your blog webring.
14 Join social bookmaking sites such as digg, del.icio.us etc.(My personal favorite’s reddit) Submit your best work to them and you may be surprised at the fruits of your labor. These sites can direct thousands to your blog! Use the tips under no.11 to ensure your posts rank highly on social bookmaking sites.
15 Use link baiting techniques. These are methods of getting people to link back to you from their own blogs/sites. Such links earn you visitors. Link baiting techniques range from good to evil. Some of the good methods are making other bloggers your friends your friends who will then link to you, writing interesting or useful stuff, linking to others in the hope of them reciprocating, Drastic, evil link baiting involves attracting others in your writing thus causing them to respond (with links) and any other devious scheme you can think up. More of this here.
16 Put your blogs URL (address) in your email signature, on your business cards, on posters, stickers, letterheads and anywhere else you can.
17 When all else fails, advertise.
Now, to burst some jargon:
Social bookmaking websites – These sites aim to develop a community of friends, online or otherwise. These friend’s interactions are primarily the sharing of each others list of interesting websites.
You can find more tips at problogger, specifically here. more Cool Tips.
2.Content- based techniques
These have to do with whatever you’re blogging about and how you deliver your content.
6. Not only should your blog’s name be catchy but so should all your articles titles. If in doubt, make big promises in your titles – it works! E.g. loose 2 kg in 2 weeks.
7.Quality is paramount. Whatever you write, write it well. Nobody wants to struggle reading poorly written material that may not make much sense.
8. Update your blog frequently. Trust me, it is quite a disappointment to keep on checking a blog for updates – you eventually give up on the blog. For novices, a few posts per week are okay. However, if blogging is anything but a hobby for you, you need to blog daily.
9. Planned blogging always beats random blogging. Think about what you want to tell your readers in a given amount of time (say a week), plan your posts, do some research and take your readers for the ride of their lives. It is true that failing to plan is planning to fail.
10.Keep in mind that most surfers aren’t ready to get into 1500 essay with huge intimidating paragraphs. Keep many of your pasts short, with short paragraphs.
11. I’m in no way a writing instructor, I know you know your stuff, but the following tips can make your blog more readable:
I hope that our previous discussion on blogs influenced you, in some way, to go out looking to join the let’s–all–be-bloggers bandwagon. It would be really nice to know that you all have sparkling new blogs. That would mean that the blogoshere got larger, cool. This reminds me of my first foray into blogging. Few things beat the excitement that comes with setting up a new blog. How will people react? How many readers will like it? So many questions. No answers. Anxiety.
Unfortunately, a few days down the road many new bloggers are worried. Their bubble burst. Your parents siblings, significant–others and friends have all been to the blog that you told them so much about. Nobody comes anymore. (Unless you threaten them with those …you can’t even visit my ….emails). To avoid the heartache, spend some time promoting your blog – and get those much–sought–after regular readers!
There are three main methods of blog promotion:
Technical Techniques
Theses have to do with the more technical aspects of your blog
Everyone has something to offer the world. All a person needs is some sort of stage. Needless to say, the internet is the perfect stage. With a click of a button you can offer whatever you have got to the whole wide world. It really is that easy! Actually, the internet offers a number of such stages. One of them is blogging.
Yes, blogging. I am yet another writer writing about blogging. I just have to tell you of blogs. Blogging is, in my books, a phenomenon. And not just an internet phenomenon. There are million of blogs and even more millions of blog readers. Thousands of blogs are created everyday. I would say that blogs are one of the most important consequences of internet technology. It is reaching a point in time when blogs not only shape the internet but the real world as well (if it still is possible to separate the internet and the so-called real world).
Think about it. All you need to do to spread a rumour is to post it on a popular blog. There are now professional bloggers (people who live off their blogs). Blogs are increasingly being turned to books. Bloggers are migrating to the traditional media, having launched their careers on a blog. Traditional media writers are migrating to the blogosphere. Some bloggers were even invited to the White House, along with traditional media journalists and reporters. An Egyptian blogger (Alaa Abdel Fatah) was arrested for being anti-government. Company-sponsored blogs are the in-thing in the corporate world. There is even a Kenyan Blog of the Year – tHiNkEr’S rOoM! Blogging is big!
Whoa! Let’s not get all excited and forget to ask some important questions. What is a blog? A web log, which is usually shortened as blog, is a type of website in which entries are made much as in a journal or diary and displayed in chronological order. But that’s just the technical mumbo-jumbo. A blog can be anything you want it to be. Your diary, your magazine, your newspaper, your photo album, whatever.
There are several types of blogs. Personal blogs are often used to record your own opinions, feelings, experiences and views much like in a diary or journal. Blogs which aim at fostering a community with a specific interest may be called community blogs. These are blogs like Kenyan Soccer, Kenyan Cricket, the Capital Breakfast Crew blog the awesome Mzalendo or even the type of blogs used by the U. S. presidential candidates last time round. An ODM-K or NARC–K blog would fall in this category. Some variation of community blogs are those family blogs – a convenient way to tell the whole family something quickly and accurately. There are also news blogs which, like newspapers, aim at delivering news. However, such blogs often deliver highly slanted news, to say the least. Finally, we have company or corporate blogs such as the Google blog.
Apart from just text and pictures or photos, some blogs ‘broadcast’ audio or even video. These are called podcasts and blogs respectively.
It is a shame that you have to tell people of something’s benefits before they try it out.
Why would anyone want to blog? For the individual, blogs are the ultimate freedom of expression. Now you can say anything to anyone or everyone. People interested in writing may find blogs particularly interesting. If you haven’t broken into print yet then a blog is just what the doctor ordered. It’s your opportunity to show the world what you are made of. The number of blogs being turned into books is increasing, so blogging doesn’t just have to be a hobby. Believe it or not, some people blog their novels! If you already are a writer, a blog may be the way of getting around your editor. Above all, blogs can make you money.
A surprising twist to the story of blogs is that corporate blogs are now cool. They’re in. It is not hard to see that blogs can be the perfect PR or marketing tool. Readers find blogs and bloggers to be more approachable and readable – they have a personal touch that we all like. I, for one, would be more likely to read a blog that ‘just happened’ to tell me something about a company than an official, boring, uninviting company statement. Is there a better way to reach your customers?
The easiest way to get a blog is via blogger or blog who both promise to have your blog up and running in three easy steps, and, in record time! Live journal is another notable blog publisher – all your posts are not only published on your blog but also to a giant aggregator on which all live journal blog parts are published. All 11 million (at last count) of them! These all allow you to get a blog for free. However, there are many other blog publishers out there: wordpress.com, wordpress.org, movable type among others.
Go ahead, get a blog today. Do remember to join the Kenyan bloggers webring while you are at it.
For more info. on blogs, and neat tips, visit problogger or check out his Blogging for Beginners series.
You may also like:
Naked Conversations: How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers.
Now, to bust some jargon:
Blogger – a person who writes and maintains a blog
Blogosphere – that part of the world where bloggers live
Posts – articles written for and published on a blog.
“Joost™ is a new way to watch TV, free of the schedules and restrictions that come with traditional television. Combining the best of TV with the best of the internet, Joost™ gives you more control and freedom than ever before – control over what you watch, and freedom to watch it whenever you like. We’re providing a platform for the best television content on the planet – a platform that will bring you the biggest and best shows from the TV studios, as well as the specialist programs created by professionals and enthusiasts. It’s all overlaid with a raft of nifty features that help you find the shows you love, watch and chat with friends, and even create your own TV channels.”
That’s what the site had to say. I haven’t really experienced Joost – I’m o the waiting list – but it sounds really cool. I will definitely have more to say on joost once I get to experiencee it. has anyone of you experienced it? Tell us about it. Here’s a great screenshot:
Following my interview with SmellyCat on chatting, I have identified the following main points about internet chat:
Safety tips From SmellyCat:
The problem is that a lot of people invite problems by not practicing safe chat. You see, young people make friends really easily and they can’t help but trust (to some extend) these friends. What they don’t understand is that not everyone you chat to is honest.
Internet chat is really very nice, try it at talkcity, through YahooIM/MSN, or-for the ‘ultimate’ good-old expereience-try IRC. I personally vouch for talkcity – I have met many long-term freinds there.
Here is a list of acronyms that make up a lot of the language used in internet chat….just so you don’t get lost…