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8 ideas to defeat blogger’s block
Writer’s block happens to every blogger. Producing creative content on a regular basis can be difficult. But it is not impossible. Experience teaches that there is always a lesson to be learnt or a story to share with others. It may come from watching a video, an e-mail conversation or simply revisiting some old files and situations.
Looking for ideas to keep you going and kill blogger’s block? Here are eight for you.
Guest post: The social butterfly: Branding
The following is a guest post by SeanTR. His bio is at the end of the article.
Establishing your brand and sharing it is rapidly becoming a mantra for success in today’s connected world. Building your brand is telling the story of you in a way that makes you easily recognizable and sets you apart from the crowd. Provide useful and interesting content on your website, blog and in the forums you visit. What this can do is establish your site’s authority in your field of expertise and gain the following of others with interest in the same industry.
Check out our three social media tools to use to effectively build your brand online.
First and foremost: Have a blog or website
A good place to start building your brand is with a blog or website that tells your story. Describe yourself on your site and list credentials, skills and awards to reinforce the idea that you are the go-to person in your field.
Post useful and helpful articles designed to answer some of the commonly asked questions related to your field. Do research to get the most relevant keyword phrases and the most searched topics for your articles. A good rule of thumb is to offer more than just the minimum; make each post authoritative and provide answers your readers can use.
Do this on your blog and offer to write useful posts as a guest blogger on similar sites. You can reciprocate and help a fellow blogger by letting them submit guest posts to your site. A simple text link back to your blog drives traffic and helps establish a credible online presence.
Add social networking tools to your site
Make your blog interactive by adding a Facebook Share or Like button combined with a text blurb encouraging readers to share the page with their friends helps establish your online presence.
You can encourage readers to share your page on other social sites. They can Tweet about your great article or product and ask friends to Digg you. It takes time to build but soon your brand will become established and well recognized.
Post insightful and helpful videos
Another easy way to build some online credibility is to create and post useful videos to sites like YouTube, Google Videos and MetaCafe. Build a branded YouTube Channel with a selection of videos designed to answer questions and offer solutions to problems. This establishes your credibility as an authority and creates quality backlinks to the content on your site or blog.
Use the comments section as an interactive social media tool to reply to viewer questions and comments and further build brand recognition. It is important to remember to employ usernames that mirror or draw attention to your brand name; avoid humorous or nonsensical handles. You want everything you post online to push the brand and reflect positively upon it.
Conclusion
Sit down and devise a strategy the will promote “you.” It is your marketing campaign to sell yourself just like other online campaigns sell soap or a genie bra. Promoting your brand with video, interactive social networking tools, guest blogging and forum posts will get your brand seen and remembered.
Going viral takes time, but the results are worth the effort.
SeanTR is a writer that loves exploring new territories and their social dynamics. When he’s not traveling or reading you can find him contributing to ATTSavings.com or @SeanTR
5 ways to reach the right audience with your blog
Here is a presentation I created and uploaded on SlideShare. I share five simple tips that will help you promote your blog.
Share your thoughts in the comment section!
9 great Social Bookmarking plugins for your WordPress blog
How do you make it easy for your readers to spread your content across social networking and sharing sites? You use Social Bookmarking tools, of course!
With WordPress, the process becomes a breathe. Here is a list of 9 great Social Bookmarking plugins for your blog.
Guest post: The argument for social media as an educational tool
The following is a guest post by Ella Davidson. Her bio is at the end of the article.
Social Media has allowed for an unprecedented availability of communication among individuals. Creating a diverse spectrum of available information and connection, the education system can tap into this invaluable resource in order to offer students a greater ability to learn.
With the rapid progression of social media, students, across the board, have grasped onto outlets such as blogging websites, Twitter, and Facebook. Generating an influx of users from all ages, young, education bound students, have largely developed into the main frequenters. Using these websites primarily for social construction purposes, students have grown increasingly committed to networking websites and as of 2010, “74%” of students, 7th-12th graders, “say they have a profile on a social networking site” (Henry).
As students grow more comfortable and willing to dedicate time to social media sites, it is reasonable to consider expanding the realm of communication to education purposes as well.
While not directly intended for education, Facebook contains many elements that may benefit the educational process. In many classrooms, individual student-to-teacher attention is hard to come by. However, through Facebook, students can connect with their teachers and engage in a directed and comfortable dialogue.
Unlike the traditional lecture style, Facebook’s utilities allow for a collaboration of information outside of the classroom. Take for example the “group” application. A teacher could simply create a group for the classroom which would let students post questions from class, view due dates on homework assignments, share links, and even work on group projects more efficiently.
By assuming a method of teaching comfortable with those learning, the information learned would be more organic and endorse a dialogue between student and teacher. Facebook has its educational advantages with groups and easily posted information, but other social media sites offer other resources that are equally valuable.
Just as Facebook leads to a more direct student engagement, Twitter similarly creates an atmosphere that is both informally relaxed and also creates access to a constant stream of online discussion. Distinctively a Twitter function, although Facebook has more recently switched, is the mobile function. Although Twitter consists of an online site, one of its most predominant features is its ability to produce a stream of mobile material.
Allowing users to post information from anywhere, this could become an educational tool through its capability to birth an online discussion in addition to classroom dialogue. With the simple accessibility students less willing to add to the discussion in the traditional educational setting may be more willing to ask questions and generate ideas. Furthermore, due to the extensive range of people using Twitter and user’s access to following profiles, it could become an interesting and insightful resource for expert research.
WordPress and other blogging websites offer their own unique opportunities for education. From developing out-of-class discussions on specific subjects to making group projects, blogs are useful in an out-of-class context. At Duke University, Professor Michael Munger, suggests that “the blog form, which has evolved naturally, is the best way of having a conversation [online]” (Liu).
As such an effective communicational tool, blogs can be implemented in a variety of manners. One unique way to enhance student learning is through a class blog. With a blog entirely devoted to a class, teachers could individualize student learning by responding to direct questions and comments online. Additionally, creative assignments could be established in which students would post articles to the blog themselves.
Social media has become an integral part of children’s, to young adult’s way of communicating. As a reliable and comfortable means of communication, the connection between education and these sites like Facebook, Twitter, and WordPress is inevitable. Offering a wide array of benefits such as individual attention, increased engagement in and out of class, and a dialogue rather than lecture between students and their teachers, social media is a progressive method of enhancing education.
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“Daily Media Use Among Children and Teens Up Dramatically From Five Years Ago, Big Increase in Mobile Media Helps Drive Increased Consumption .” The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. The Kaiser Family Foundation , 20 Jan 2010. Web. 3 Feb 2012.
Duerden , Daniel. “Social media as a tool in educating.” 360 education solutions. N.p., 14 OCT 2011. Web. 3 Feb 2012.
Fleerackers, Tom. “Social media as an educational tool.” Flat World Business. WordPress, 30 May 2011. Web. 3 Feb. 2012.
Liu, Mingyang. “Professors introduce blogs in class assignments.” Chronicle, The Independent Daily of Duke University. 02 May 2005: n. page. Web. 4 Feb. 2012.
Ella Davidson is part of Coupons.org, a consumer savings site that offers coupons and deals for a wide-range of retailers.
