1.6.10 - News blogging vs ‘Real’ journalism
The default approach bloggers use when ‘reporting news’ is to follow the same pattern as journalists do in their newspaper columns.
Sara Christensen, from Pajama Professional, puts it best:
Breaking news on your blog is great, but that doesn’t mean your posts have to sound like news. If readers want news, they will head to CNN.com. They [...]
1.6.10 - Let’s talk about branding
2007 has been the year of consolidation and building brands – and with that we’re seeing more and more people understanding that to build a successful business you need to move away from ‘push’ marketing and work more on positioning your product / service and attracting attention by building a powerful brand.
In this article on [...]
1.6.10 - When serving your readers can sabotage your blog
Serve your readers.
Or so goes the popular blogging mantra. In theory, you should always keep the reader first in your mind, because just like the consumer is always right, your blog is nothing if it doesn’t serve the desires of your much-valued readers.
In practice, there’s such a thing as bending over backwards too far to [...]
1.6.10 - The other side of blogger credibility
If you want to be known as an expert in your niche, one of the best ways to build your credibility is to get published in popular media – whether that’s offline or online.
It is credibility through association – books and newspapers are generally associated with expertise, authority, research and knowledge, so if you end [...]
1.6.10 - How to make money from projects you’ll never have time for
Have you ever had one of your ideas ’stolen’ and used by someone else soon after you shared them in a public setting? If yes, you’ll know the frustration and anger that accompanies such a case. It could have been when you were in school and someone else stood up and took the credit for [...]
1.6.10 - Bloggin Productivity Tip: Read only when you have time to act on it
The idea is simple – do not open your email, visit forums, hit your blog’s comments, open your rss reader, visit your favourite websites…in other words, do not ANY type of ‘input’ in your working hours until you have the time allocated to ‘ACT’ on that input.
For example, it’s common practice for bloggers to open [...]
1.6.10 - How do you train new bloggers?
If you’ve ever hired a blogger (or 20), you’ll know that it’s not an easy task to get the type of blogging work that you want out of your new people. This is especially the case when you’re an experienced blogger yourself – the urge to micro-manage may be too great to allow you to [...]
1.6.10 - Public Service Announcement: No ‘short’ posts today
Bloggers Everywhere: If you can do one thing today, please do NOT write a ’short’ and ‘to the point’ post.
Just don’t. You’re probably doing it wrong (there’s nothing unique / interesting / useful / powerful / likeable / discussable about your post) and not only is it adding to the noise, it’s also turning potential [...]
1.6.10 - Personal networking – Remember the forums
Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIN – there are many ‘new’ platforms through which we can now ‘network’ with our peers and colleagues. In theory, you can never have enough social networks, but there has to be some limiting criteria lest we get overwhelmed and end up ‘networking’ 24/7 with the work piling on our virtual desks.
If a [...]
1.6.10 - People are trying to help you: Are you listening?
Yesterday I talked about how bloggers should be more generous; how they should learn to give more instead of just asking for favors.
Before you can be all ‘giving’ though, you need to know exactly what you’re going to ‘give’. Doing favors blindly doesn’t make any practical sense – ideally you want to make a meaningful [...]
