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First Blog Post: 15 Tips for New Bloggers

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Keeping up with my Sunday pattern of posting one from the archives, this post below was one of my very first written March 22, 2010. Upon reading it, I’m impressed this list still has merit nearly three years later…what tips might you add based on your own blogging journey? Lastly, how about publish your “First Blog Post?” (Still relevant and well written?)

From Soulati’-TUDE! Archives:

Now that I’m officially a blogger, it feels pretty cool. I’m eager to put all the back-end stuff behind me and concentrate on perfecting and building the network. Unfortunately, I need to dig deeper for the patience as it’s all part of the larger journey.

In spite of my short time here, there are tools a newbie blogger needs to stay the course. Let me suggest several based on direct experience in the first two weeks:

  1. Patience and Perseverance. Without high levels of patience, a new blogger cannot persevere.
  2. Tech Know-How. IT knowledge is not a necessity, although it’s a bonus. Some of the more daunting areas are installations, code, ftp, renaming files, creating databases on c-panel and so much more. When self-hosting a WordPress blog, be prepared to be frustrated.
  3. Know your limit. Hit a wall? Ask for help; hire the experts. I didn’t, but needed to. (I had hit my wall, but a guy on Twitter blew me off for a week, and it angered me so much I insisted on doing this myself.)
  4. Time. Blogging requires more time. Obstacles and snafus galore and solving each take precious hours. See number two.
  5. Listen at a higher level. When speaking with clients, colleagues, friends, peers, listen for the next blog topic. After any conversation, if something strikes you, jot down key words to trigger topics.
  6. Keep a notebook, folder. Keep the notes, posts, items you read in a manual notebook or desktop folder.
  7. Rip tear sheets. Familiar with this term? Public relations practitioners use it when one of our stories we’ve placed hits. Get oriented to tearing out stories and filing into an idea folder. I’m already tearing sheets from Advertising Age, BusinessWeek and the Wall Street Journal which offer an array of ideas.
  8. Follow and subscribe. No better way to get post ideas then to follow people on Twitter lists via or . Subscribe to blogs in a reader. That way when on the road, you can access posts galore and delete subscriptions not making the grade.
  9. Use a dictionary/thesaurus. There’s nothing like a good dictionary to help find the right word or look up a synonym. Each post I’ve written has required reference to the dictionary. I’m expecting a few grammar lessons along the way, too.
  10. Be aware. Being aware is more than just combing content for ideas. Curiosity is the first step towards greater awareness. Surf 10 minutes daily on Technorati and get a sense of topics, style, and popular bloggers’ content. With awareness comes relevance.
  11. Engage on Twitter. A blogger must have a Twitter account, but all tweeps don’t have a blog. Twitter is the first best marketing tool for a blog; it’s a built-in audience who already finds you credible enough to follow. Blog posts are first promoted on Twitter. Whether you include Facebook in this marketing scheme is up to how you use it (friends/family or mix of business).
  12. Be responsive. When you post, the objective is to get attention. The ultimate goal is to get comments and furthermore subscribers. Answer everyone with appreciation who takes time to jot a note.
  13. Queue the posts. It’s Sunday morning. I’ve written 3.5 posts. Am thrilled to have something in queue for the week. Find that quiet time to draft skeleton content. Come back to it and edit. Find support points from the Web to empower the message.
  14. Learn! Already after a solid week of blogging, I’m thrilled with learning opportunities. While I thought Twitter was wonderful, blogging beats it hands down. I now look at everything through the blogging glass…is this a good topic? Is it a trend? Where can I find the data to support this statement? Do I need to back up my opinions? Shall I link to that site? Should I self-promote the blog on another’s post? Does this content resonate? Who cares?
  15. Respect one another. Everyone is entitled to opinions. It’s what makes the blogosphere rich. Set a positive tone with the goal of garnering respect.

What might you add to the list, please?

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Eight Reasons Why Blogs Can’t Go Dormant

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credit: en.blog.wordpress.com

A recent conversation with a small-to-medium business (SMB) included the question, “If my business is booming, then why should I keep blogging?”

Great question because blogging takes a boatload of consistent time and attention. Not only is a blogger responsible for creating and publishing genuine and authoritative content, that blogger needs to nurture a community and comment on others’ blogs, too.

I get it; but, here’s what I said to my peer, friend and colleague:

  • If your blog goes dormant, you can’t walk the talk with clients.
  • When you disappear longer than four weeks with no activity, people stop coming to check in and you’re forgotten.
  • Prospects that want to check out your work expect to see up-to-date product. If a date on the most recent blog post is 60 days prior, then that sends erroneous messages. You may lose a lead if a blog is inactive.
  • To compete, you need to stay inspired. A blog gives SMB brands an opportunity to differentiate from the competition.
  • Becoming an authority is no easy task; keep the insight fresh and trendy, and the brand will benefit.

8 Tips To Get Back On Track

1. Post from the archives — there is content no one has seen in 12 months; select a favorite, add a more current opening paragraph, and voila — a fresh post!

2. Write shorter pieces. Blog posts should average about 500 words, give or take. If you’re trying to get back on track, write 350 words (you can do those in your sleep!).

3. Acknowledge your community with a list of the last 25 commenters and their blog urls. That pingback will bring peeps back to your house in droves to welcome you back.

4. Aim for one post weekly for a few weeks to get your mojo working again. Anyone who has blogged more than 12 months knows how to get back to it; just like riding a bike.

5. Remember that community you built? They’re not gone; just dormant, too. But, if you call them back with consistent posts, you’ll earn the traffic once again.

6. Think about SEO juice — what’s the number-one rule? Fresh, frequent content to boost organic attention.

7. You can’t be a one-channel wonder. Great that you’re on Facebook, but where did you really get your start? Twitter. What happened next? Blogging. Where are your clients, community, employees and prospects hanging online? A little bit of everywhere, so you need to engage equal parts Twitter, Blogging, Facebook and Google+.

8. Feeling down and out? Remember the ‘raderie your blog community inspires. There’s absolutely nothing like a good ‘old #TeamBlogJack to raise the spirits of bloggers who’ve been dormant awhile.

So, what do you say? C’mon back! You’re missed!

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Your Blog Headline Sucks

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Power tribes are all the rage on Triberr. This blogger is in three, and the jury is still out whether that will be the norm in a few weeks or not.

What’s happened as a result, however, are the headline and first two sentences (like the lead of a news story) become the most critical aspect of a blog post.

When your headline sucks, and I don’t know you or your writing ability, then your blog is bypassed, deleted, muted, or blacklisted. Your headline needs to be a summary of what you write about inside. It has to provide a creative depiction and enticement for me, the reader, to click, read, share, and comment.

Here’s what I’m seeing that isn’t good in headline writing:

  • One-word headlines that mean nothing and say nothing.
  • Headlines chock full of @ signs and hashtags (I believe that’s because people are writing headlines for Twitter?)
  • A series of peoples’ names that take away from the content
  • Use of first-person pronouns, kinda like, “What I Ate For Lunch”
  • Headlines that go on and on like a paragraph
  • No imagery, innovation or creativity to conjure a visual

Get my drift?

Because I’m in the public relations profession with a media relations expertise, I learned to write a headline that summarized and introduced the entire news release. In fact, I always spend the most time on the headline and then the lead (first paragraph). Now that I’m in these power tribes, I’ve changed up my first paragraph to be less about my thoughts and more about the content in the post.

Two headlines I’ve written (one just this week) prompted more comments and traffic:

Does  Your Blog Have Spinach In Its Teeth?

Should Video Be Like a Nude Beach?

You can see why these are successful; each creates a great visual, and the image you select helps further pull the reader. The first headline  came from a comment I wrote on Clarity For The Boss; I actually was speaking with Sharon Gilmour about vulnerability and asked her whether she’d tell me if I had spinach in my teeth, and lo, there was the idea for the blog post.

Tips For Better Blog Headlines 

(I could’ve used this as the post headline, but, don’t you think the one I selected instead is more enticing?)

Here are my tips for writing better blog headlines so yours don’t suck.

1. Go to the list of observations and don’ts and reverse them, of course.

2. Review your content and select some catchy words that serve to describe what you’re writing about; use those words.

3. Sex sells. Ask TheJackB how many times he’s used some sexual connotation as headline bait…works, doesn’t it, JackB?

4. Use tips — 10 Tips — is always a great puller; people love those lists.

5. How can you make me visualize a picture enough that I want to read the post? Be creative.

6. Never use one-word headlines; please, I beg you.

7. Why waste valuable real estate with peoples’ names in a header? Is that supposed to impress me and make me want to read because three people I don’t know are in the headline?

8. Key words? OK, if you have to, and guess what? Key words work for search marketing and they also work for readers. If I am seeking content on social media (which is often what I look for), then use that in the headline.

I’m always impressed by Mark Babbit’s headlines; without ever reading his content, I know he writes for interns, job seekers and about resumes. He always puts these key words in his headlines, and I applaud that.

Want to try some?

Old: My Boat That Sunk Yesterday

Suggestion: How To Repair Holes in Wooden Boats

 

Old: Special Halloween Family Dinners

Suggestion: Four Healthy, 15-Minute Kids Dinners Before Trick-or-Treat

 

Old: Why My Business Failed

Suggestion: Rescuing A Failing Business With A Lifestyle Coach

 

If anyone wants a bit of headline help, let me know. I’m happy to offer some tips or whip up a new thought for you to consider that is enticing, creative, and exemplifies your content.

 

Does Your Blog Have Spinach In Its Teeth?

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Morris Creative

Tell me I have a typo in blog copy. Tell me my sharing plug in is challenging to work with. Show me the errors of my ways in comment systems that are complex. Provide me a hyperlink you’d prefer over the link I published for your blog.

Basically, tell me I have spinach in my teeth, would you?

And, what that means is I’m going to tell you the same. Please take no offense; please don’t kill the messenger; please know I say so with a loving heart so you can put your best face forward.

What these power tribes on Triberr have allowed me is to see several hundred new bloggers for the first time. As I attempt to wend my way around the ‘sphere to comment and share, there are issues with comment systems and sharing plug ins on some blogs.

I’d like you to share my content, and I want to share yours, too. When it’s a bit of a challenge because the blog infrastructure is creating difficulty, then I feel the need to politely share my troubles with the blog owner.

What do you think? Is a bit of ruffled feathers in the spirit of improving our presentation OK with you, or would you rather not know? What’s your preferred method hearing about spinach?

For me, share it in comments on the blog; that way others can echo a sentiment or offer up another comment I can actionalize (Yep! Word coin!)

Eight Reasons Why You Should Thank Twitter Followers

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Credit: Sociable Boost

Twitter is not a one-way street. Your content gets retweeted by a follower, and they get crickets? Thanking followers should be something you incorporate into your daily tweets.

Some folks think “thanks for the RT” is just noise and clutters the stream. Others think it’s a hassle and are on the fence about whether it’s good practice or not. In my blog post last week “How Not To Use Triberr,” the issue of thanking followers popped up in comments.

Adam Toporek who writes Customers That Stick and Ralph Dopping, the Canadian architect who writes The View From Here, both suggested that acknowledging followers for a blog post retweet was not a practice they thought they should engage in.

So, I politely disagreed and thanked them for the idea for today’s post and hope they come back to lend a few cents below (and you, too, of course!).

Two Caveats

Before I share my reasons below, let’s review a few things…

  1. There are MANY ways to thank someone for their acknowledgment. You can comment on their blog in return; you can RT their RT with a thanks at the end; you can follow them on Twitter and say thanks; you can introduce them to someone else in your stream to ensure they’ve met; you can #FollowFriday; you can make up your own way to show appreciation!
  2. Peeps like A-lister bloggers and authors who have tens of thousands of Twitter followers are unable to thank or acknowledge mostly anyone. The stream is so unmanageable especially when you’re publishing top-quality content. I get that, and I don’t expect community leaders to attempt to do a one-off thanks; not possible.  Thus, what’s below is for we who are in building mode – newbies, mid-tier and less-than-12-month bloggers, and peeps who are growing their Twitter stream.

8 Twitter Tips

Here are my 8 reasons why I believe you should thank peeps for their engagement, acknowledgment, and ‘raderie on Twitter:

1. Twitter helps you build community. When you thank someone for an RT, a comment, a compliment, a supportive gesture, etc. it shows you’re paying attention, listening and appreciate someone for their time to engage.

2. When someone engages with your blog by sending along your content, that means they’ve taken time to either read, comment, share, and take the first step to build a relationship. Isn’t a “thanks for that”  peanuts when you think of your content being shared by a relative stranger?

 3. When you don’t know someone who has RT’d a post of yours, it offers you the opportunity to address them by name, say, “nice to tweet you,” and thank them at the same time. You just accomplished a trio of good community.

4. What profession are you in? If you’re in a specialty niche, customer service, like Adam is, then you ought to be building community with like- minded customer-service peeps. If one happens to find your blog and you speak the same language, then all the more reason to acknowledge them and say thanks.

5. Your stream can never be littered unless you’re spamming it with rotten content.  Who is the judge of what litter looks like in a Twitter stream? Has anyone told you that you put out garbage…that a “thank you for acknowledging me with an RT” is trash? Absolutely not. Gratitude is not litter; it humanizes your brand and makes you personable.

6. Why would you regard “thanks so much” as noise? Noise and clutter…hmm. I mentioned that I was choosing not to re-tweet posts from bloggers writing about Halloween family dinners and baby products. These topics are not for my brand or my community. Were I to consistently retweet these to my followers, this would be regarded as noise and a dilution of my brand.

7. Are you self-employed and building a company? If Ralph is an architect blogging for some fun and not to boost his business (because he works for a firm), and I’m in B-to-B social media marketing and PR, then absolutely you betcha I’m going to thank people for acknowledging my content. When someone RTs my content, I recognize immediately if they are new to my stream. That’s how tuned in I am to my followers. Because my followers are organic I have had measured growth, and that’s enabled me to monitor the stream well.

8. What are your goals as a blogger? If you want to be an influencer, thought leader, earn more comments, build a community, monetize and sell products, earn credibility, get ranked, etc. then you need subscribers, right? A thank you to those who pass along your content seems minimal when it comes to these larger goals.

What did I miss; do you agree or disagree?