Are You Doing This in Your Blog?

This week, we'll wrap up our series on blogging. I have to say, I learned so much at the Design Bloggers Conference I attended last month and I'm so glad to have this opportunity to share it with you all! I'll spend this last article focusing more on the basics of blogging, sharing some of the most valuable tips that I picked up from the various presenters at the conference. So here's my short (well maybe not so short) list:

Don't apologize for your absence in blogging. We all have a tendency to feel bad when we've committed to blogging and then fall off the wagon so to speak. Just pick up right where you left off and skip the apologies. Your readers want content not apologies.

Be aware of what's above "the fold". Make sure the content that people first see grabs their attention. Don't make your readers have to scroll down to get to the heart of your content. You want to avoid your blog read like that book that starts out slow and is hard to get into. Capture their attention from the start.

Pictures are everything! Give your readers lots of eye candy and sprinkle with your own comments or tips. Make sure your pictures are of professional quality and post well to your blog.

Speaking of pictures, always make sure to give credit where credit is due. Publish source, designer and photographer if available. Too frequently people post without giving proper credit and this can very quickly sever relationships you've worked so hard to create within the blogging world.

Always keep in mind that when you blog, you are also marketing your business. Make sure, as I've mentioned before, you blog aligns with your brand and speaks from the same voice.

Leverage your posts on other social media platforms. Make sure you utilize the power of Facebook and Twitter to get your posts out there.

Comment and repost. Nothing helps establish your online relationships more than commenting and sharing posts from other blogs that make an impression on you. In the blogging world, that's the ultimate compliment you can give someone.

Blog "must haves" include:

An "about me" section that briefly describes you and your business

A "contact me" option so people can connect with you directly

A "sign up" box so people can subscribe to your blog posts.

That's it! I hope this series on blogging has been helpful for you. I'm just getting my feet wet with blogging myself so these tips from the conference have really helped give me direction and realize like so many things, we are the ones that over complicate the process. Just keep blogging simple, consistent and speak from a place of passion. That's really all there is to it!

Action Steps:

Start blogging! Don't keep saying "someday" just dig in and get started. Go back and read through the past few ezines I've devoted to blogging and most importantly, implement those action steps. They will guide you step by step in how to get started. Blogging is really about finding your passion and then sharing it with others. Let your personality shine through and don't focus on impressing others or "getting it right". Blogging can really be relaxing and fun if you don't over complicate the process. In terms of the process, remember KISS - keep it short and simple. Let the pictures inspire you and talk to how those pictures inspire you. Share you passion and the conversation will follow. Good luck!

Karen Dunlap is an interior designer, business owner and creator of the Design For Your Success NOW System?, a unique training and coaching program specifically created for design professionals. Using specific strategies and systems, Karen coaches design professionals on how to simplify their business, attract ideal clients and get back to their original passion, designing and decorating.

Karen Dunlap - Interior Designer, Student Member ASID, Trade Partner AIDP
KMD Interiors, LLC, 43283 Thaddeus Lane, Lansdowne, VA 20176
p. 571.218.6531
f. 571.333.7641
e. karen@kmdinteriors.com
w. http://www.kmdinteriors.com

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Your Online World and You

In a Few Hours

The speed at which your online world can be created is simply astounding. As you discover what is taking place when you...

1. Start a Blog or Website

2. Create a profile on a social network

3. Spread content around the internet

4. And start linking everything together

... you're creating a virtual world and you are right in the middle of it.

Parents have been telling their children for generations that the world doesn't revolve around them but this is different. The world you create is designed to revolve around you.

Whether your world is intended for personal, professional or philanthropic purposes you are the designated epicenter. You are the center of the online business world you create and the more that world reflects you the better your business will be.

What Your World Sees...

In real life the world you live in is unique. No one else has the same exact people in the same exact relationships sharing the same exact experiences as you.

You are a small part of thousands of other people's worlds all intersecting and sharing some common ground.

So imagine being thrown in the middle of that world with all eyes fixed on you and every ear hanging on your every word; kind of scary.

... Is What You Show Them

The magic of your online world is that for the most part you control what people see, hear and discover about you. The greater the control you have over the media you utilize, the more accurately you can portray yourself to your world.

Honesty is the most important ingredient in any relationship. The people in your online world have limited information to consume about you compared to actually knowing you but they will always recognize sincerity and will always expect integrity.

The clearer your content presents your image or your brand, the more likely the people in your virtual world will have that sense of really knowing you.

Popularity through Value

In addition to the people in your online world recognizing you regardless of where they find you as an honest and sincere person, they expect some type of reward for belonging to your world.

In the same way we expect our friends in life to put themselves out there for us and expect even more from our families, being the center of your own internet universe does command a few expectations.

The most important question to ask is, "How have the people in my internet sphere benefited from their experience today?" This will force you to provide honest value and increase the gravitational pull on anyone who is still orbiting you in cyber space.

How valuable is your free time and are you willing to sacrifice 2 hours a day for 6 days in order to see the potential of transforming your free time into the opportunity of a lifetime? The learning curve has been eliminated and this book will open the gate to the future so that you can create your online world quickly and easily. Simply go to http://WorkAtHomeBusinessFromAnywhere.com/online-business-world for your copy of "How To Create Your Online Business World In 6 Days" to discover exactly what is involved while you do it.

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To Blog Or Not to Blog, That is the Question

Blogs are changing the way we interact with others. Blogs are changing the traditional way newspapers, TV and film is presented. Blogs can expose inaccurate reporting, or omissions made by mainstream media sources, along with communicating events as they are happening. Blogs influence what people buy and what people watch on network and cable TV. Blogs allow people to do their own research and fact finding. A blog can provide commentary on a subject, or it can be personal entries. A blog can include text, images, videos and other links to other websites. Blogs are part of a blogosphere, which is a social network that connects communities and ideas around the world. Blogs allow you, the reader, to leave comments on others blogs and interact with people over the world.

There are many types of blogs and more types of blogs are evolving every day. An example are artblogs which are blogs that use art work instead of text. They can be any type of visual art such as images, music, sketches and drawings. Artblogs are about posting art work as a blog, not a blog talking about art. With the introduction of artblogs, artists from anywhere in the world can publicize their work. Artblogs can help other artists create and evolve with their work and connect to others through art. There are warblogs are blogs about news events covering the war. Iraqi people blogged about the bombings and attacks, and gained a wide audience. Soldiers from both sides posted to blogs perspectives and viewpoints of the war. These blogs became the 'new' news source about the war. Sometimes warblogs continue after the end of a war to discuss political, social and cultural issues of a war where they become political blogs called Poliblogs. Poliblogs are very powerful discussions of major political issues and can even influence presidential elections. MP3blogs, also called Musicblogs or Audioblogs, are blogs where mp3 files of music are available for download. MP3blogs also discuss all types of music, and generally include links to music artists' websites. There are other visual logs, such as Videoblogs where the content is mainly video. Popular Videoblogs are YouTube, which are generally individual videos, and Lonelygirl15, which is a series video. There are also Photoblogs, which are similar to Videoblogs, but are primarily photos. Photoblogs are increasing in number, and becoming more popular to be able to share globally because pictures can speak a universal language.

People blog for many reasons. They can blog to persuade, to influence, or to have a personal voice. Some want to leave a record of being here, to leave history of their lives or an event. Others want to share their creativity, and learn from others creative endeavors. Some people blog to attain or trade something. Blogs can be in the form of advertising a product or to tell a negative story about a product, or perhaps to review a product. People blog to inspire others, or support a particular organization or social cause. For some, blogging is about connecting with people, having social interactions with others. Some bloggers blog to make money. Blogs can be a form of way of criticizing what the media has already written. It can also be a form a giving different opinion of traditional media that may be biased.

Blogs can add new voices, new perspectives and possibly new facts to current events. People no longer need to wait for an editor, or a big media source to publish their stories. Bloggers are people who are not professional journalists and are not constrained by deadlines or editors. Bloggers can sometimes be ahead of the news and journalists can look at the bloggers to get insight or additional information for their stories, using them as sources.

Screenwriters and film makers can promote and advertise their work, and have the opportunity of an international audience to view their works with Video and Photoblogging. Creation of online film festivals, such as Now Film Festival (NFF) connects people through the social networking sites such as MySpace and YouTube. With the technology of cell phones with cameras, digital cameras being able to record short video sequences, and inexpensive video cameras, material for videoblogs is simpler than traditional filming. Inexpensive editing tools allow anyone to quickly create a videoblog to tell a story or share information. Videoblogs are changing the need to view video on the big screen and there is a trend to view short videos even if the content is from an amateur. With the creation of sites such as YouTube, the traditional filmmaking distribution has changed by becoming easier for the amateur to produce films.

Shared meaning and understanding are created, as people share with blogs. Everyone is a journalist and can have opinion and influence. There is no longer the traditional gatekeeper of news and information. Bloggers decide what is and is not important. People are no longer just consumers of news, they now are publishers of news. Information can be published quickly and in real-time with bloggers. Blogs give you a different opinion, a different look. They offer a worldwide audience and different perspectives from different countries People have a need to connect with others, and blogging provides expanded connections that are not limited by geographical or economic constraints.

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Blog the New World, Blog It Right

Blogging is a free service on the World Wide Web. My 62 year old mother has a Blog. Those of you, who think having your own Blog or Weblog, are beyond your capabilities on the computer, you may have a surprise coming.

You don't have to know HTML (code that web pages are written in) to be apart of the fastest growing section of the internet. Blogging is an online journal of your experiences, likes, dislikes and views that can only come from your perspective. The internet is fast becoming one big online commercial and Blogs are a refreshing reminder of the intent of the original builders of the universal web.

Blogs are created by individuals for individuals, who want to communicate with a world outside of their own. There are no specific requirements in creating your own live journal. Some Bloggers simply write an account of what happened in their lives that day or that week, about their jobs, their kids, their vacations or their desires.

Ranging from the shocking to the mundane, Weblogs create a sense of community as like minded surfers link their favorite Blogs back to their own site. If you feel the need to divulge your appreciation of basket weaving, simply search for "blog+basket weaving" and that Blog will probably have links to other weavers just like you.

Blogosphere is a term related to all Weblogs or Blogs as a community. Blogs have grown their own culture and interconnectivity on the web. No subscription is required to share your experiences or enjoy or be repulsed by someone else's life, detailed for your reading pleasure.

30,000 - 40,000 new Weblogs are being created each day; link indexes like Technorati are now tracking over 7.8 million Weblogs. This Blogosphere is doubling in size about once every 5 months. It has already done so four times, in less than 2 years; the Blogosphere has increased in size by over 16 times.

People just like you are taking back the web from the large corporations one personal journal at a time, from California to Ohio to New York and everywhere in between. Blogger.com is an example of the new World Wide Web for the people, as it offers almost unlimited web space for posting pictures, Photoshop creations or artist renderings.

The Bloggers Gateway began as a place to write my stories and has blossomed into something more.

Dennis Sweatt is an authur, webmaster and an artist. His Blog can be seen at http://ca2ohio2florida2ca.blogspot.com/

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Important Issues When Utilizing Web Blogs

The advent of technology brings too much things that human have never imagined. One of these is the internet. The internet brings things closer to humans and makes the world smaller and narrower. The internet paved the way to radical and far-reaching means of communication.

Through the internet, people communicate with no limitations. One way of communicating in the internet is through web blogs. A web blog or web log is a website that displays journals posted in chronological order by individuals or groups and usually has links to other web pages and to video, audio and other links.

There are different web blogs that focuses on a particular area interests. These include the arts, home, computers, recreation, science, sports, business, games, internet, reference, shopping, world, comics, health, news, world regions, society etc.

Blogs are far different from traditional sites and forums or newsgroups. Unlike traditional sites, blogs allow the easy creation of new pages for entering and submitting new data into a simple form. Automated templates take care of adding the article to the home page, creating the new full article page and adding the article to the appropriate date or category- base archive.

Blogs also allow easy filtering of content for various presentations and allows the administrator to invite and add other authors whose permissions and access are easily managed.

Bloggers do not manage the software. The software management is done by server- based systems. These systems allow travelers to blog from anywhere in the world with web interfaces. Those bloggers with common interests share blogrolls, list of links that create a context for a blog, and help each other increase their visibility on the internet.

Visitors can post comment to individual blog entries with the aid of feedback comment system. Those popular blogs have frequent comments, but many bloggers prefer to just pre- screen or block comments.

Users can maintain web- hosted blog even without the need to be online while composing or editing posted blogs through the use of tools. There is software available or programs enabling multiple blogs to be automatically notified where certain topical or other changes can be made to one blog.

Like the other innovations in the technology, blogs and blogging brings advantages and disadvantages. This is a fact that exists in every thing being introduced in the world.

With blogs, the citizens and costumers are potentially better informed. This is good for societies and economies for it makes people knowledgeable on the things that are happening in the world.

Blogs are a positive way of collecting feedback and criticism. It keeps people on point. Through blogs, people can offer commentary; react to certain pieces and many others.

Through blogs, an organization or the society can develop stronger relationships and make loyalty with the people. Blogs let people interact at face value of an organization.

Despite the pros it brings, blogs also have some cons as well. One is that, in blogs, most people are unable to write down their ideas in a clear and convincing way. Since writing is one of the most difficult and time consuming tasks for a human being to undertake and many blogs are not updated, so it damages the reputation of an organization or society rather than enhancing it.

Since everything can be posted in blogs, it can make many organizations look like they are disorganized with multiple tones and opinions. Contrary to what some might think, the average person prefers that the organization or society is at least somewhat purposeful and rational.

Web blogs are really an innovation of technology users cannot ignore because it brings many things to the public. The benefits blogging offers should also be used properly for the good of all concerned and not for worse.

Carmelo Mastroeli is the proud owner of wealthconcepts.blogspot.com which provides valuable information for internet marketing and the latest reviews on the web.

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