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Read More, Blog Better

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You can’t always write about personal experiences as a blogger unless, of course, you are a personal blogger.

When you write to monetize, earn money online, generate leads via digital marketing, and lure others to your perspective, then here’s the absolute secret:

READ MORE.

When you read more, you write better. I promise you this is true; I know this from direct and hands-on experience. If someone does not read the news, industry publications, leading and cutting-edge blogs, white papers, or other sites where you learn, then when you sit down to write your slate is empty.

There are no new ideas and concepts or angles to blend into your perspective.

You can only revisit old content and hope that it’s fresh with another posting.

What’s worse, you bore your audience.

Who is Your Audience?

YOU!

You are your first critical audience. Present yourself to the world with the freshest perspective you can offer on news of the day or issues of interest. Put yourself on the receiving end of what you write; is it worthy of others? Are you trying your hardest to bring readers in and keep them?

I picked up Bloomberg BusinessWeek tonight to leaf through. I was treated to the first five stories on a variety of global topics that immediately piqued my interest in writing with those inspired angles.

As I was climbing into the car, this title came to me…my mind was not done mulling over its overflow of jumbled ideas, but guess what? My day is jammed with others who demand my attention. When I can open a business publication and let my mind explore the endless possibilities to write for myself, then I’m fulfilled.  

Is that how you are inspired? Do you think like this all the time with your blog?

I have trouble shutting it off, and I have trouble focusing on one arena of topics because I do hybrid PR – I know a little about a lot with a thirst to know more.

How do you write, get inspired, find topics and share them?  

Tell me is there’s a topic you’d like to see written about here. I am happy to accommodate a try!Thank you for reading me; I appreciate you.

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Reading Online Vs. Print Publications

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When Bacons, now , published its media directories online, I was so accustomed to turning the thin pages of the five green telephone bookish resources that I was forever lost. I needed to skim and scan and quickly flip the dog-eared newsprint with the flick of a licked tall man to make my media list.

Tactile. Tactilization. Tactilness.

I think the latter two mean something like, “I’m so old, I like to physically turn the page.”  And, guess, what? That goes the same for my morning paper.

  • I want to have a coffee and scan the headlines of the every day for blog fodder and client news.
  • I want to take the entire sheet into my sight line and  scan down the page without clicking, scrolling, tapping or sliding pads and mice and pointers and other spongy-tipped gizmos along a colored screen.
  • I want to recycle the soy-ink, best newsprint for , who uses stacks of wet Wall Street Journals to shape and cool near-liquid glass into paper weights (I made two of them!).
  • I want to mark up the story I need to read later and tear it out. I want to use it as reference to write a blog post and extrapolate snippets from the story. How can I do that from the iPad when I’m writing on the iPad?

I’m on the computer all day, and when I’m not I’m thinking about being on the computer; I dream of being a computer. I don’t wish to read my media online. Some outlets require that, but I’ll tell you I prefer to see the pretty colored pages with lots of advertising hit my mail box to the kitchen table to the dining room table to the office to the floor of the office and then eventually to the recycle bin. Or, perhaps I share copies of some pieces, like or .

I haven’t counted in awhile, but I subscribe to likely two dozen periodicals; there are stacks and stacks of them all over the office shelves. I could probably keep an art class swimming in collage materials for years. Do not even think of me as a hoarder! That’s not the case; it’s just that I will one day get to my reading and find a gem to inspire my story writing.

Don’t you wonder how I write about such a wide range of topics? I read a wide range of print publications. I am not inspired as much when I read online. I am unfocused; over-stimulated and cannot pay attention to the story and the never-ending clicks that take me deeper with snarky comments from anonymous idiots.

Think about the peacefulness that goes along with reading a publication that smears ink on your sweaty hands? Then compare the experience of reading the same publication online with all the intense distractions targeting your attention.

As long as publishers are foolish enough to offer me a subscription for $10/year, or thereabouts, I’m good to sign on the dotted line and have a hard-copy publication arrive in my mail box.

What’s your practice? Online or print publications?

 

 

How Does PR Happen?

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Excellence is defined by the ability to deliver one’s craft with leading-edge knowledge. It’s the ability to strategize a program quickly based on current events. Problem solving is part of the equation; as a strategist one needs to know the steps to make things right, improved, and fail-safe (in a perfect world). High-quality public relations is knowledge gleaned and tapped that adds to credibility and reliability as a counselor.

So, how does this happen…the attainment of public relations excellence?

The Public Relations Society of America has a rigorous certification course that puts a nice little acronym after your name – the APR designation (accredited in public relations). If I dug deeply, I’d be able to find the number of folks who’ve elected to join the group locally and nationally, apply for and be accepted into the course, pay, study and receive the deserved commendation.

As for me, PR happens because I have a thirst for knowledge about everything. The periodicals that arrive at my house are as varied as my college education (anthropology to zoology). I receive Scientific American, Legal Technology News, B to B, Advertising Age, Bloomberg Businessweek, U.S. News & World Report, The Wall Street Journal, Vegetarian Times, Body & Soul, More, Health, Food & Wine, Cooking Light, Fresh Home, and (no wonder I supply second-hand zines to every school, waiting room and salon in town!).

Beyond reading (including the blogosphere I attempt to get to 3x/week in my Google Reader and fail), I also self-educate. When I first began hearing “PR is dead” from bloggers, I knew I wasn’t. By then, I had already enrolled in several Dreamweaver (Web design) classes, a Photoshop course, and one on HTML.

More than a year ago, I began to tweet. Twitter was the best thing that ever happened to me. Beyond meeting some of the most fab people I now can ring at any time for counsel or to say hello, my learning rate increased five-fold. I am serious when I say this. There’s no way to immerse in social media faster than on Twitter.

You learn early on whose links to click, and when a learning pot of gold greets you at the other end, every minute of time is worth it.

I also buy access to communities like Marketing Sherpa, and I’ve joined Social Media Today on which my blog gets posted, too. I listen, I engage, I learn.

My favorite learning environment right now is Lynda.com. It is a wealth of tutorials on the illusive knowledge we in public relations do not have – it’s tech and software oriented to the Internet. If you never spend a dime on your education, I recommend you stop the bleeding and rush to Lynda.com.  I’m not even an affiliate! I just value what I’m learning off this site so much, everyone else in integrated marketing should know about it, too.

How does public relations happen for you? What rich resource am I missing to enhance my intelligence quotient?