The FG Archives

Archive for the ‘Blogging’ Category

Posted on September 4, 2012 - by Fikriyyah George

A Tale of Two Websites and Branding

I have two websites, personal and professional. With each website I’ve identified two problems. This, my professional website has a bangin’ design courtesy of WooThemes and no clearly marked brand. My personal website has a clear brand without a banging design.

With these two websites I know that Content is King because it’s much easier for me to write on my personal website where the brand is clear. Truly a person’s brand is the roadmap to everything else from what you’re going to write about, how the blog will look and how you’ll market yourself. With both blogs lacking one of the absolutes my marketing efforts have been less than robust. Cue face palm for a communications specialist such as I.

How Do I Solve This Issue?

Easy. Find the words that I as a communications professional would describe myself. I’ve been putting this off because honestly I confused brand with talking about myself when in actuality nobody’s brand is really about themselves but why others need them. My brand isn’t based on me but, but what I can do to help companies find their voice and a piece of the pie in this information age.

For my personal website I will have to exploit all of my resources to execute a unique design that communicates my message for free. This includes asking my roommate who’s a photographer to whip me up a header from the random test shots we’ve done in the past. This will include me taking pictures with my point and shoot camera and using that as a background. It’s not important that you spend a lot of money or make it perfect. What’s important is that the words and the images convey your brand. You can communicate your message with any budget.

Honestly, readers don’t realize the money that goes into a website. We know because we’re in the business, but all the average reader knows is whether the button looks pretty, and if it works when they press it. That’s it. For those two things to happen a website owner can spend anywhere from nothing to thousands of dollars.

A super sleek and functional website is the dream, but for now a functional website and a moderately good looking one will suffice for newbies such as myself.

Inadvertently, I’ve been killing my perfectionism slowly. As opposed to tweaking something forever and never actually doing anything I know no matter what I’m pressing that Publish button. Surveying finished work is a lot easier to do than tracking changes in a draft. By shipping before everything is perfect it makes it easier to make it better the next go around. Seth Godin is a genius.

I have been serving a purpose and in that purpose I have come to realize that my brand is making connections using new media, like Twitter and inbound marketing, among the creatively inclined in this wonderful borough of Brooklyn.

Originally posted 2011-09-08 20:40:39. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Posted on September 4, 2012 - by Fikriyyah George

Reading Up

If you are passionate about your work, or hobbies you have to be about it. Meaning just one book, one purchase, one blog doesn’t cut it if you want to get the most out of it. To produce quality and keep producing it whether it be art. or a blog, work needs to be put in. Creating requires you study and practice the craft. For writers writing is the practicing, reading other writer’s work is the studying.

I read a lot of blogs, and still find myself stumbling for words and you know why? I’m not reading up. Reading up is reading material that is slightly above your current level. You can’t just read your peers, you have to read who’s better than you.

I personally find blogs are the place to research topics and keep abreast of industry news, but as far as improving writing quality not so much. For that you’re going to need to bust out some college level literary reviews. Fiction novels can serve this purpose as well, as long as it is above your reading level. If you have to read sentences a few times to understand it even better.

If we can’t push ourselves beyond our comfort zones we will have nothing but mediocrity to show for.

Photo from ruminatrix of flickr

Originally posted 2011-05-09 16:46:58. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Posted on September 4, 2012 - by Fikriyyah George

Three Easy Ways Newbies Can Write Like the Pros

You don’t need to know everything at first to start blogging. Your skill set will increase as you go along. Marketing, design elements, increasing your reach by guest posting- all these things will come in due time. What anyone who is just starting out needs is a good foundation, and that is writing good content. There’s a lot to remember when blogging, but three simple practices will greatly benefit you and your burgeoning readers.

Write With An Audience in Mind

For You Writing for yourself is fine, but not when writing for the web; the point of it is to be shared and viewed and as such your article needs to be interesting by the same people it’s meant for. Writers love to write, but getting started, or completing it? A completely different story. That sense of being useful will get you out of bed nine times out of 10 when you don’t want to write. And then writing for a specific audience, pleasing everybody, a fruitless and futile task, becomes moot.

For Readers The wonderful thing about writing for an audience is that it gives you purpose. Once you identify your audience, and what they need, you can fulfill those needs. The more specific your audience the more likely you’ll be able to help. With laser beam focus comes succinct writing, and that is God’s gift to short attention spans.

Write The Headline First And Then Outline

For you You gotta write that headline first, establish the main points in the post and fill out the content from there. You’ll finish an article so much quicker that way; it’s having a roadmap as opposed to meandering all over the place. Type B personalities may not like being hemmed in, but this is the kind of rule you abide by not because you have to, but because you can’t argue with the results.

For Readers They know what they’re getting themselves into. Concise, with obvious helpful points -if only life could be that way! An article that delivers what the headline promises is the best free advertising.

Have A Writing Schedule

For You Let it be as much or as little as you like it, just stick to it. Writing regularly does this wonderful thing of training your brain to write better. I would suggest starting off once a week. A lot of experts will say once a day is optimal. I say some of us have day jobs, blogging takes a lot of work and devoting that much time is just damn near unrealistic. I know a lot of bloggers do it, but they’re either on multi author blogs or more experienced. We’re dipping our toes here folks, no need to cannonball in. Besides I think it looks better to up your posting frequency than for it to go down. Less frequent posting is a downward spiral that few bloggers get back up from. We’ve all seen it- going, going, gone.

For Readers Reliability denotes passion, and dependability. It separates the serious from the non-serious bloggers and readers like this. When you love something you can’t get enough. This isn’t Christmas time at the toy store, don’t hoard your best stuff, so give it out and give it out regularly.

These Three Make An Awesome Combination

Whether you self host or fire it up at BlogSpot or WordPress.com blogging is a rewarding experience. Your blog doesn’t need to be all that and a bag of chips when it’s new. You just need to be super helpful and clear and concise about it. That’s all. Master these three things and your content will speak for itself. And then you can stretch yourself a little further with more ambitious goals, such as design, getting more readers and taking over the blogging world.