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Tag Archive: blog

The use of blogging within social media campaigns

Written on Monday 5 September 2011 by Alice

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I’ve said it many times before that your blog should be the hub of your social media marketing strategy. It is the alpha and omega of marketing online, from it your social networking exploits can issue forth to their audiences and be there to collect the finished results.

Of course blogging should take centre stage. Many companies overlook or brush aside blogs, as they think they are used purely for self-expression. They fail to understand the importance for communication to get the overall marketing message across. An archive of easy accessible material aimed at education, entertainment and information-based articles specifically written for the audience in mind.

Using social media within integrated marketing campaigns can only work if there is a realistic objective. If this is understood, there are various methods which can put in place to guide the campaign towards the ultimate goal. Blindly participating on social media without a proper aim may be enjoyable in the short term, but it can be also be viewed as a waste of time because nothing is seemed to be achieved. Only by aiming towards a proper outcome will social media become useful and powerful within the overall marketing campaign.

Blogging and social media used in combination will enable companies to learn all they need to know about their customers. Social networking isn’t about selling, the focus should be on communication, conversations, observation, following and understanding trends, catching breaking-news early and taking action before the competition. Used properly, companies can almost ‘merge’ with their target market: comprehending, empathising, educating, gently changing the general shift towards their products or services without actually using direct selling tactics.

The power of integration should be two-way, through the encouragement of responses from the readership and inviting followers to subscribe so they are constantly kept up to date with the latest posts. And, of course, blogs can be easily and effectively integrated within all social networking profiles through RSS, thus extending the audience and exposing the marketing campaign over a wider area within the web. And by participating in sharing and referral tactics within social bookmarking sites will also prompt further expansion of the messages involved, as well as a larger awareness of the blog and its authors.

Magic Moment: Main settings update

Written on Thursday 18 August 2011 by Alice

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The settings on a blog are usually ignored because either they have been forgotten, or the blogger doesn’t understand what and how important they are.

I always make a bee-line to change the settings as soon as I have created a blog. You don’t need to act with such urgency, but it is important not to neglect this aspect of a blog if you want to optimise the search engine response and regulate how your blog relates to its community.

This is the main settings page:

I have already made my changes from the default settings provided. They are, of course, what I would like and fit in with my perception of how I want my blog to work, and should not be set in stone as ‘the’ settings to have. You should be free to ‘play’ with your settings to see what works best for you.

Magic Moment #7 would like to show you what my settings are – purely as a guide:

The Site Title will show up on the very top of your internet browser you see this blog in. (In PCs it goes from the left, on Macs it is centered.) It is the most prominent title in the search engine listings of your blog, so is very important in SEO terms. It should consist of your blog’s title, if you have one.

The Tagline is your blog’s strapline, or a brief description of what your blog is about, or who you are or what your business is about. Don’t make it too long, and preferably memorable. It is usually placed beneath your site title in search engines listings.

How important is it to set the correct location of your blog? Well, the default is UTC+0 which doesn’t take into account the blog’s country or light-saving-time-changes and such like. If you have set up a RSS feed into your social media, this will prevent your posts from being delayed before they arrive in your Twitter stream, for example.

I am very pernickety when it comes to presenting dates. The British write our dates differently from the Americans (a phenomenon which created problems when I was dating freshly prepared food in my San Francisco breakfast bar job) and I like my days to go before my months. Therefore I have used the setting ‘l j F Y’ to create my preferred format. You can find out which formats are available through the explanatory link available.

Setting the time presentation is purely cosmetic. I didn’t need to change anything here. I also didn’t amend the day my week started and which language I used. Don’t forget to click the ‘Save Changes’ button when you’ve finished.

And there’s your gravatar to amend. Check out how to do this through this e-course ‘How to update personal profiles and upload gravatars’. Once done, your gravatar will represent you throughout the internet via your blog, so make sure it is large, clear and something you can live with without embarrassment!

Blogging, Free Wordpress blogs, increasing business visibility, SEO - Tags: blog, blog location, browser, dates, description, gravatars, listings, representation, RSS feed, save changes, search engine optimisation, settings, site title, tagline, times, Twitter - 0 Comments - Why not leave a comment?

Magic Moment: Sidebar subscription service

Written on Tuesday 16 August 2011 by Alice

Click my logo to ask me a question!

In the e-course ‘Setting up a RSS feed’, I show you how to go into Feedburner, create a RSS URL, and how to paste the code for a subscription form for your blog into your sidebar.

But since I wrote the above, WordPress has created an easier way to add a subscription form to your blog. This is a follow-on from Magic Moment #1 when I showed you how to catch subscribers to your blog through the comments box.

Magic Moment #6 shows you how to install the widget (special blogging application) for a subscription form into your sidebar.

Look for ‘Appearance’ on your left sidebar and open it to reveal ‘Widgets’.

It will open into the Widgets page:

Look for the widget called ‘Blog Subscriptions’ in the main body of the page, and drag it to the top of the sidebar on the right:

It will open up to look like this:

Change the wording to suit your requirements:

And don’t forget to click on the ‘Save’ button. Now go to your blog’s index page (by clicking on the name of your blog at the top of the WordPress page) and look at the new widget in the sidebar:

This is a simple subscription service that delivers your new post in email format to your subscribers’ in-boxes. It is much easier than the widget below created from my e-course stated at the beginning of this post. Nevertheless, if you want to create a RSS URL and have your posts automatically sent to search engine readers and homepage cookies, then the procedures in the e-course will provide the answer.

Blogging help, Free Wordpress blogs, marketing methods, online marketing - Tags: blog, email, feedburner, RSS URL, search engine readers, setting up a RSS feed, sidebar, subscription service, widget - 0 Comments - Why not leave a comment?

Help! I’m stuck for blog content – ten top tips to ease the flow

Written on Monday 1 August 2011 by Alice

Blaze Communication - guest blogger!

Guest post by Natalie Smith of Blaze Communication‘s The Blaze Blog:

So I’m sitting in front of a blank screen, scratching my head and racking my brains. Surely there must be something I can write about in my blog this week. Back at the beginning of the year when this blog was just a baby I was bursting full of topics, updates and information I wanted to share. But as the winter turned to spring and slowly into summer, finding new content has become increasingly challenging.

As a relative newcomer to blogging I’m keen to take advice on board from those with more experience. I’ve spoken to colleagues, picked the brains of those I know who blog, and trawled the net to gain some inspiration.

I’m not saying that finding new topics now is always easy, nor am I constantly bursting at the seams with industry knowledge to share – but as I continue down the winding blogging road, I find that I worry less about finding new content and each week have something (hopefully) interesting to say.

Having gathered all this information together from a variety of friendly sources, I feel it only fair that I continue to share and help anyone else who is currently also scratching their heads in desperation looking for that elusive blog content.

Here are my top 10 tips I’ve received for producing blog content.

Turn detective – investigate something new and share your findings. In today’s fast paced marketing communications environment there is always something new being brought to market. Be one of the first to give it a go, test it out and share your findings with your readers

Let the press work for you – I love my trade press and am lucky that marketing and communications has plenty to choose from. I’m particularly interested in comment pieces and these are particularly useful for inspiring blog content. Pick one that gets you going. Do you agree completely or disagree vehemently? Either way, use this point of view upon your chosen topic as a starting point and let it flow from there.

Get out and about – it’s going to be depressingly difficult to produce blog content relevant to your industry if you have little contact with that industry – get out there, meet people and interact with industry peers to get your ideas going.

Use your clients – there must be a list of questions that you’re asked regularly by clients or customers. If one person has asked you, there’ll be others out there wanting to hear that answer too. Use this as blog fodder by writing it up and sharing it with the world!

Mistakes – what mistakes or misconceptions have you recently experienced? Again you won’t be the only person out there to have made this mistake or interested in learning how to avoid making it themselves. If you can bear to, write it up and let others know the lessons you’ve learnt.

Learn – training sessions and conferences are massive sources of blogging inspiration. Whether you choose to share what you’ve learnt or comment upon what’s been discussed you’ll get plenty of blog-worthy material from these events.

Break it up - nobody wants to read an essay so don’t tackle big problems head on in your blog. Break down big subjects into bite sized themes and use these to produce multiple blog entries, you’ll find that this is better for the reader and beneficial to you too!

Pick colleagues’ brains – you don’t work in a vacuum so make use of those around you; talk to colleagues, ask them about the projects they’re working on and the questions they’re asked regularly. You’ll often find that a second viewpoint inspires blog content you would never have produced going it solo.

It’s all about give and take – blogging can’t be just about you giving your ideas to the world, read other blogs, get involved in online conversations and be part of the community that you’re setting your stall out in. You’ll soon find ideas popping into your head as a result of participating in the social media community.

And if all else fails? – how about blogging about having nothing to blog about. It’s worked for me today!

If you found this post useful, you may also enjoy reading these blogs from our archive: Top tips for writing web copy and A beginner’s guide to blogging

I hope that you find some of the above useful. If you have any further tips, please do share them with us – all inspiration gratefully received!

The Fairy Blog Mother loves to republish posts that she approves of and thinks would be valuable to her readers.

Blogging help, blogs and blogging, Writing tips - Tags: blog, communication, industry, information, knowledge, Questions and Answers, share, topics, trade press, updates, viewpoint, writer's block - 2 Comments - Why not leave a comment?

What is your blogging focus?

Written on Tuesday 19 April 2011 by Alice

Fairy Blog Mother

I’ve just got time to add a quick post because I wanted to share with you this comment I got from someone I have been communicating with via LinkedIn to help them with their blog:

“I love your blog so much I just added it to my blogroll on my blog. It really helped me. So many people tried to give me advice, but it was all too complicated. Thanks for putting this stuff in easy to understand language for us newbies. I hope your blog helps others as well.”
Connie

Now can you provide a comment that sums up your objectives for having a blog? I know some of you won’t be blogging for a purpose, solely for the pure pleasure of it, but ideally it is wise to have something to focus on when you are writing your blogs, even only to give your posts structure.

My focus is to help beginner bloggers create, start up, survive and succeed with their blogs. Every time I manage this I feel I have achieved a job well done. Certainly Connie is on the right track – long may it continue.

So what is your blogging focus?

Update from 20 April 2011:

I received another comment from a contented blogger which I would like to share with you:

“Your blog is my absolute favorite. I have learned so much from your helpful advice. I am new to blogging and writing. At first my blog was going to be about my unwritten memoir but as I got into it I have written about past present and future and little things in between. I thank you for your dedication in helping folks like me become better in the blogging world. Thanks a million!”
Jan

This is so gratifying to hear I am helping these beginner bloggers get their blogs off the ground. Keep ‘em coming…

blogs and blogging, non-jargon, Writing tips - Tags: achievement, advice, blog, blogroll, comments, complicated, easy to understand language, focus, helping, LinkedIn, objectives, purpose, structure - 0 Comments - Why not leave a comment?

I’ve written a post – now what?

Written on Friday 8 April 2011 by Alice

Fairy Blog Mother

Well done for writing a post – after all, that’s what your blog is for. Now you’ve got to let people know so they can see and read it. This can either be done manually or through automated systems.

Here is a list of what can be done to spread the exposure of your post:

Set up a RSS feed: RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication, which means automating a procedure for something to happen simultaneously in several places at once!

This means your subscribers will receive your latest post in their email inboxes, or view the latest feed in their search engine reader pages, immediately without you having to send it to them, or they remembering to visit your blog to find out your latest post.

Update your status: You can also use RSS to automatically feed your posts into Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn and any other social media you’ve joined up with.

After you’ve published, your posts will automatically appear in your profiles via the special applications available, either with the headline, first paragraph and connecting link, or in Twitter as the headline accompanied with a tinyurl linking back to your post.

Allow readers to share: You can add applications to your blog to encourage people to share your post once they’ve read it, for example, there are the three boxes at the top of this post to encourage my readers to retweet in Twitter or share via Facebook and LinkedIn.

At the bottom of the post there is another button to encourage my more technical audience to share and save in any of the myriad of social bookmarking sites, which will boost the post’s exposure considerably.

Contribute your content: Sometimes it’s worth spending a bit of time manually promoting your post, especially if it’s performed with a personal touch, as that can set it apart from automated feeds. Start slowly with one or two locations, and build it up gradually.

If you’ve joined any relevant LinkedIn Groups, contribute to the discussion by posing a provactive question or statement, backed up with a link to your latest post, and do the same for LinkedIn Answers if you post qualifies and contributes to your answer.

Join in on other discussion groups and forums, either with helpful and relevant responses or by starting another thread with a link to your post. Comment on other blogs within your niche or industry, as that will automatically link back to your blog, as well as drawing attention to yourself, and some blogs will automatically show the last post you’ve written too.

Update your email signature: If you send out a lot of emails, you could be missing an excellent publicity slot if you don’t include your blog’s URL in your signature. You could even type in the latest post’s permalink for direct access.

That will do as a start. Automation will make your life easier, but don’t ignore manual contributions which can differentiate your post from others, and ensure its relevance to the environment it is posted into.

Not understanding how can be scary

Written on Wednesday 23 March 2011 by Alice

Fairy Blog Mother

None of us are infallible, not even the Fairy Blog Mother!

For the past two days I have been struggling with my blog. If you didn’t notice, then ‘phew!’, that is a good thing, but the initiated may have spotted a slight problem, which wouldn’t have affected anybody much.

Except me! This past experience brought home how scary it can be when you don’t understand what is going on and why something doesn’t work. In this case the problem sorted itself out (with a bit of help from some experts), and now I understand a bit more about blogging.

Why am I confessing this? Well, it gave me some more empathy with beginner bloggers and how daunting blogging can be to those who aren’t technical. I remember my first days when starting my blog, how confusing it was because it wasn’t ‘obvious’, even though it was to others.

This became even more prevalent when I ventured into the world of WordPress.org, and had to learn how to understand HTML, PHP, FTP and other technical goodies. And when I went onto a WordPress forum to find out what to do, I was greeted by bright young things that spouted jargon at me left, right and centre, and became totally frustrated when I didn’t immediately understand what they were going on about.

Reading self-help books about blogging revealed there was nothing that was totally jargon free, and there was an assumption that the reader had some experience in web-language and programming. This I considered to be unfair, and I also realised that most of these books were geared towards creating blogs in WordPress.org in order to make money, as that is what made the books sell.

Thus the Fairy Blog Mother was born. I wanted to create a personality that would explain blogging in everyday language, slowly, carefully and patiently, so that anybody could start a blog. I wanted to share how I had learned how to blog, in a way that was accessible to all, so others could do the same. I made all my e-courses available for free so that not only could people gain access to them when they needed them, I could refer the links to people who could benefit from this instructions, and I have done this many times since.

Recently I have strayed from this purpose, with a post that provided code for removing comment boxes from pages in WordPress.org. It was purely for SEO reasons, and I am now ashamed, because it probably didn’t make any difference and turned some people off. From now on I will concentrate on WordPress.com, and only will offer WordPress.org elements if it doesn’t detract from the subject matter.

To help me with my quest, I would value what other people think, want, need explaining or require further research into the world of beginner blogging. I will endeavour to provide succinct explanations, and maybe all this ‘fodder’ I have in this blog may go towards a ‘totally beginner blogger’s book’ that fills in the gap that is unrequited by self-help blogging manuals.

blogs and blogging, Free Wordpress blogs, non-jargon, Self-hosted Wordpress blogs - Tags: blog, don't understand, empathy with beginner bloggers, experience, fairy blog mother, jargon, not technical, problems, totally beginner blogger's book, Wordpress - 0 Comments - Why not leave a comment?

How to create a WordPress account

Written on Monday 7 March 2011 by Alice

Fairy Blog Mother

When you start using WordPress, in whatever format (.com or .org), it is necessary to create a WordPress account. This involves creating a username, but this can be often confused with creating a blog in WordPress.com.

Two of my friends asked me for advice in blogging, so I suggested they create WordPress.com blogs to learn how to blog effectively. They dutifully went to WordPress.com and clicked on the ‘Sign up now’ button (see below):

Then they were confronted with this page:

Now WordPress.com sneakily make the first option a darker blue so that you fill in that field first before you realise what you are doing. This is what happened to one of my friends, and he ended up creating a blog before he knew what was happening.

But I advise creating a username first before creating a blog. This is because you can add on as many blogs as you like onto your username, and it doesn’t have to be part of the URL or web-address of your first blog. Neither do you need to worry about keywords or search engine optimisation, as your username will not be scrutinised by spiders. Just make sure it’s relevant to you and is memorable.

My username is ‘alicedesigns’, because I created my first blog http://alicedesigns.wordpress.com, but it would have been more appropriate to have my username as ‘aliceelliott’ and create my first blog with a separate web-address coming off it. As it happens I now have 13 blogs hanging off my username.

So to create your username without creating a blog, click on the next section and the link ‘Sign up for just a username’:

This will then give you this page:

Now you have to fill in the fields with the information you require. If WordPress says your desired username is already taken, try again with a memorable number after it. It doesn’t matter if you add initial capitals, WordPress will ignore them.

Then create a strong password (WordPress will indicate its strength) using the same procedure: use memberable numbers and maybe even symbols like an exclamation mark. Repeat it to confirm its the right one, and make a note of your username and password somewhere safe in case you forget it.

Next add in a relevant email address, because after you’ve clicked the ‘Sign up’ button, WordPress will immediately send you an email with a link that will activate your username, so stand by your email account ready to confirm.

It will then automatically go to a webpage saying your username is yours! And now you have a WordPress account, ready to create as many blogs as you would like. Go to WordPress.com, sign in at the very top with your new username and password, and go to ‘Your Profile’ under ‘Users’ in the left sidebar and fill in your details. I will write a post about that very soon.

blogs and blogging, Free Wordpress blogs - Tags: account, blog, blogging, memorable password, search engine optimisation, username, web address, Wordpress, Wordpress.com - 2 Comments - Why not leave a comment?

Worried about blogging? Start slowly with WordPress.com

Written on Tuesday 1 March 2011 by Alice

Fairy Blog Mother

I regularly read blogs that praise WordPress and say what a fantastic blogging platform it is. But generally it is WordPress.org they are talking about, the sophisticated version that is independently hosted, and can perform in total synchrony with your website, or even become your whole website!

refers to .com blog

Unfortunately you need to pay to host it, it needs someone who understands how to build it and it can take a long time to set up. Even so, once completed, the results are totally professional, it collaborates extremely successfully with search engines, and is very much worthwhile the expenditure.

But this doesn’t help the blogging sceptics. There are plenty out there that are uncomfortable about starting a blog, are not sure of the expense, their business may have only have a budget, or they would like to find out more about WordPress before making a commitment.

Enter WordPress.com, the ‘free’ version hosted by WordPress that can be set up in minutes. Its minimal expenses are to activate Akismet, the ‘spam eater’, and if you want to convert the URL WordPress gives you to one of your own.

Here is a blogging platform ideally suited to enable you to ‘practice’ blogging before embarking into this social networking world. By creating a WordPress.com blog you will be able to learn how to fully use the platform, discover all the tricks there are available, excel in the intricacies of blogging and enjoy producing a fully-operational blog with the minimum of fuss.

OK, there are some restrictions: you can’t advertise or sell from a WordPress.com blog, as the blog police will close you down. Only certain forms of HTML code are accepted (RSS, YouTube videos, podcasts, etc) so it is not a medium to make money. This kind of blog should be used only to education, entertain and publicise your business.

But if you want to create a blog to practice blogging or somewhere to dip your toe into the blogging world before expanding into more elaborate and profitable realms, then WordPress.com is the answer.

And remember, if you want to eventually create a WordPress.org blog in the future, it is extremely easy to transfer the contents of your WordPress.com blog over to it without losing a thing! After all, they are run by the same people!

If you want to know how to set up a WordPress.com blog, my visual e-courses are available free on this website. Just click here to make a blog or explore the links on my sidebar.