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Blogging Tips: Finding Your Voice

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How to blog series

by
Rob Pell

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Why Is Finding Your Voice Important?

If you’re just starting out, it’s difficult to know how to address your audience. From the first instance, that audience won’t actually exist; you will need to build it gradually over time. This makes it even harder, how are you supposed to know how to speak to someone if you don’t yet know who you’re speaking to?

This why finding your voice is important. The specifics of who you are addressing or talking to do not matter; what matters is finding a voice that suits your style, subject matter and personality.

Personality

Writing a blog is not the same as producing news copy. You might be writing a blog about a very recent or developing event and so are tempted to write it in a ‘newsy’ style: don’t, newswriting is a stilted, stripped back and very artificial style of writing. It is used to give the reader the information in the most clear and concise way possible, with little elaboration other than what is necessary.

Try to resist the trap of falling into a newswriting style because once you’re in it’s difficult to get out of. We’ve all read the papers and seen news broadcasts; we know all about ‘the news’ register. If you start your blog post with something along the lines of “Soft drinks giant Pepsi have announced record breaking profits following the release of…” you will very quickly get locked in to that newsy style.

The audience of a blog is looking for something more than just news; they require personality, rather than the cold and clinical form of news copy. Let this shine through; sprinkle your copy with opinion and comment; use a conversational tone; drop in clauses like “I don’t know about you but…” or “my thoughts on the subject are…” and give your writing the space it requires to breathe.

Structure

Of course a blog post does have its own duties to fulfill. For example, it must be interesting and informative. When you begin a post, note down the different points you want to cover beforehand and plan a structure which allows you to retain your personality and conversational tone without resorting to a banal listing of the facts.

Planning in this way will give your work structure and life and will allow you to tailor your article towards a specific outcome. It also keeps the blog sharp and concise and allows you to avoid losing your way as can happen when we become absorbed in our writing.

You will want to include your key phrases in your blog, but do not over do it with these. The primary thing to maintain is your blog’s quality; as long as it is engaging, informative and fun to read you will retain a good core audience. If your blog posts have awkward key phrases shoehorned in all over the place, are difficult to read or are nonsensical, it doesn’t matter how good your SEO tactics are, you are going to lose any new audience members you bring in for the simple reason that your page just isn’t up to scratch.

Finally, always remember to enjoy your blogging. This is paramount and will shine through in your writing.

What helps you find your voice, the voice that connects with your audience?

Author’s Bio:
Rob Pell is a technology enthusiast, all round geek and happy employee of Simplifydigital, the UK broadband, digital TV and home phone experts. Simplifydigital are accredited by Ofcom and provide independent consumer advice on digital services.

4 Points of Clear Thinking in Social Business Times of Fleas and Mosquitoes

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Don’t Let the Adrenalin Cloud Your Thinking

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The biggest part of my business life takes place offline. For as much as I’m visible on Twitter and my blog, I’m most often on the phone or in offices listening and talking about how people think and respond in business situations — how we buy, how we create communities, how we rally to cause, and how we are moved by influences.

In those ongoing business conversations, people I work with and for sometimes bring up cases of negative social business behavior. I bring up a four points that we often lose sight of in such situations.

  1. It’s rare that someone dies or company goes bankrupt because of comment made on Twitter. From the words “Dell Sucks,” through the first time prominent bloggers chose to use and post about K-mart gift cards, to the Motrin ad about “babywearing,” and every iteration large and small debated in the online social business — none that I recall were a life and death situation. And some were obvious attempts by individuals to gain visibility and attention.
  2. Don’t believe anything you hear and only half of what you see. Find out more about everyone and everything before you respond. It’s rare that we work with complete information. Every story has many layers and it’s human nature to lose sight of or devalue the parts that don’t support the position that we favor. If you haven’t considered the restraints and possible good intentions of what you’re criticizing, if you can’t offer a possible way to solve the problem, if you can’t articulate your own version of the same behavior you’re criticizing, if you only have third party access to what happened, then you probably don’t know enough about the situation to call what you’re thinking an informed opinion. It’s impossible, arrogant, and dangerous to think you know other people’s intentions.
  3. Consider the reliability of the source and what the source’s purpose might be. Who brought the first complaint and what might be their gain for complaining? I’ve seen someone ask “innocently curious” questions on Twitter to start a debate, designed to raise his own profile by rallying folks to kick and scream about something that was really none of his business. Very soon a pile-on occurred. If the questions were really so innocently curious, I wonder why they weren’t asked via email? The difference between innocent curiosity and manipulation in this case was the intent of the asker — he wasn’t interested in the answer. He was interested in the debate and gaining more followers.
  4. People can see what you do, not why you did it. Stick to your values and your actions will prove them true. Each time an issue occurs I watch social business experts lose sight of how social media tools work. We tell people to listen. Then we forget that they’re listening. What CEO wants to work with the guy who claims on Twitter to be the only person who understands business? What C-Suite executive or small business owner who’s listening will trust the opinion of a person who tears down a company or rants unmercifully on an individual’s opinion? If you know how the tools work, you don’t lose that perspective to join a witch hunt because someone choose to write an ebook.

What to do about negative social business behavior?

Try the rule of fleas and mosquitoes.

What do we do with fleas and mosquitoes? When they keep their distance, we don’t even think about them. They’re irrelevant. When they bite us, we build environments where fleas and mosquitoes don’t thrive and flick them away on occasions we must. Then we get on with what makes our lives worth living, not bothering.

It’s easy to have a knee jerk reaction in a situation where many have tools to reach a few thousand people. So those fleas and mosquitoes, who choose to suck bits of blood for their own advantage can appear to be powerful. But only have the power that we give them. Be aware of what feeds them and remove it from your environment. Starve the fleas and mosquitoes of attention. Gratefully thank them for their wisdom and move on. The folks you want in your community don’t like fleas and mosquitoes either.

Focus your attention on giving food to what keeps you strong and protects you — the folks who already love you. Give the folks who love you even more attention. They’re the ones who deserve the explanations. Give them your commitment to continue doing what they already love about you. Let them know your trust won’t be bent or broken by voices who yell louder than they might. Invite them to be closer to you. Reward them. Celebrate them as heroes.

You’ll never go wrong by valuing the people who love you more than the fleas and mosquitoes.
Keep your head, your heart, and your adrenalin on the mission of the people who share your values.

Be irresistible.
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

How Images Can Make Your Blog Post Demand to Be Read

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How to blog series

A Guest Post by
Chris Lamphear

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Successfully Working From a Home-based Office

Be Compelling. It’s one of the most important commandments for any successful blogger. But after you’ve written a post full of value for your reader, your job isn’t done. You have to figure out how to make your post jump off the page and demand to be read, otherwise all the work you’ve done writing the perfect post will be for naught.

I’ve been writing articles and promotional copy for more than twenty years and have learned that an attention-grabbing image is a must if you want to be read. I even started creating my own images and over time figured out the type of images that do the best job. Here’s what I’ve learned …

1. The image should communicate a concept.

Your reader wants to learn about a certain topic; that’s how he or she landed on your article. An accompanying image must clearly illustrate the same concept the reader is interested in. Don’t go with a pretty but generic picture. Ask yourself, “If I just stumbled here and didn’t know what this post was about, would this image tell me?” Make sure you pick a photo or illustration that clearly makes the very same points you’re writing about.

2. The image should be simple.

You have about one second to convince your reader to spend time with your article, and the less complex detail getting in the way of communicating your message, the better. The reader should not have to study the image to get to an “Aha!” moment and uncover your point. Think of the picture as a billboard shooting through your field of vision while you speed down a freeway. The most effective and powerful images are those that make an immediate impact. Be clear and you’ll get attention.

3. Intelligent use of vibrant color is candy for the eye.

Certain colors like red are flags that tell the reader the image is important and pull the eyes in. Stay away from drab, dull colors; instead look for primary and bright colors that jump off the page and say “look at this!” Here’s an example of an image of the word Goal with a target and arrow. Red is a color that tells the eyes “This is important,” and when the reader sees it and absorbs the message, determining this is in fact the subject he or she wants to learn about, you have succeeded.

4. Words in pictures tell a story.

Sometimes the best way to make your subject matter jump out and demand attention is to pick a picture that embeds that very word right inside it. Here’s an example: a two-way street sign with the words You Decide. Sometimes an image that incorporates a word or two can pull double duty, telling a reader what your post is all about more quickly than a wordless image can. In this sense, a word truly is worth a thousand pictures.

5. Relevant images = good SEO.

As a bonus, having images with titles and alt tags that support your subject could help you with SEO efforts. Communication is becoming more visual every day, and Google Image Search is being used by more and more people to quickly find the content they need. Be sure to include the appropriate image information in your code, such as title and alt description, and make sure you title the picture file something that matches your content.

I’ve decided to share my images with others like you to help you communicate your messages. Use one of my pictures in a post and see if it makes a difference! I’ll give you one in exchange for a link and credit. Just take a look at my royalty-free stock photo website and let me know what image you’d like to use. Click on the Contact Us page at www.theideadesk.com and tell me what you’d like to use. Good luck!

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Author’s Bio:
Chris Lamphear is author and owner of the ideadesk blog. where he writes about how to use design to boost the effectiveness of your communication, from winning new customers to growing relationships. Through the blog, I also offer free images from his site for royalty-free stock photos, theideadesk.com

The Inverted Pyramid — A Simple Approach to Catch Audience Attention

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A Guest Post by
Rahil Muzafar

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What Is the Inverted Pyramid

Inverted Pyramid is a term well known in the field of journalism, and it refers to a particular structure of laying out a story. While following the Inverted Pyramid structure, you need to start from the most important part of the story/news. The idea is to give the crux of the story in the headline, or the first two three lines.

You might not have noticed this approach because you are used to this style. However, imagine if journalists weren’t employing this approach, and taking the route of story tellers, they will have to start from the scratch and the culmination will come in the end. And even though, reading the newspaper (or watching a news channel) might not have been such a gloomy experience if this approach wasn’t at play, but it is this approach that provides the journalist or reporters what they are looking for, and that’s … reader’s attention.

Is the Inverted Pyramind recommended for all types of writers?

The approach is commonly used by journalists, but not all types of writers. For example the novelists can’t start from the conclusion and then follow it with the rest of the story, but they’re lucky in the sense that their targeted audience is ready to devote some time in reading the novel. But in case of journalists, they don’t get the audience with such leisure time (nobody would prefer going through the doom and gloom news in their leisure time). However, web writers can learn a thing or two from the approach.

What’s in it for web writers?

If you notice, web surfers are actually more in rush, as compared to someone with newspaper in his/her hands. In their bid to scan through hundreds of Google results or web pages in a matter of minutes, they usually just glance through the titles or headlines. And if it fails to grab their attention, they are gone. Thus, one of the most important skills a web writer can learn is to form a headline that will be a magnet for clicks. Now, I’ve worked with a number of writers and some of them are naturally gifted in this regard, and they can come up with more interesting and catchy titles as compared to their counterparts, who might be equally good at writing, still not able to churn out good titles. But if you lack in creativity, you can simply use the “inverted pyramid” approach to overcome this weakness.

How to use the “Inverted Pyramid” approach?

It’s quite straight forward, all you need to do is to think of the most important part of the story, article, blog post, or marketing copy. It’s the part that you think can catch the attention of your targeted audience, and then use that particular information in the title. Note that it is not some revolutionary idea. In fact you see this approach being used a lot while surfing through the web. Remember all those headlines promising overnight riches or miraculous results, that’s inverted pyramid for you and you can use it as well in your writing, from now on.


Bonus Tip:

At times, writers get obsessed with SEO and goes to the extent of spoiling the titles in a bid to add certain keywords in the titles, especially the dry ones like Norton 360 Discount or System Mechanic Coupon. Whilst having keywords or key phrases in the title can surely boost your chances for getting ranked for those keywords, you should make sure that the inclusion of the keywords is not done the cost of ruining the main purpose of the title i.e. attracting the readers.

Rahil Muzafar

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Author’s Bio:

Rahil is an Internet Marketing expert. He works for various coupon codes and discount websites, for example www.verybestsoftware.net that shares different types of deals and discounts for software like Norton 360, System Mechanic, or Acronis.

Thanks! Rahil!

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

Audience Is Everything – Do You Know Your Audience as Well as You Know Yourself?

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Content Isn’t Audience, But You Knew That

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When I gave a keynote at the EdNet conference, where I met with many old and new friends in the business of publishing. I ended up in the most interesting conversation with one in particular, a man who was connected to me from years ago when publishing in print was my life. We got to talking about how publishers were facing the need to move from shelves of books to information that moved across the Internet.

He said, “I love books. I love seeing them stand on the shelves. I understand why everyone wants to keep making them. But I also see why we need to move our thoughts and ideas to PDFs.”

First I winced, then I smiled, then I laughed.

“What?” was what he said.

“You’re thinking of the paper web. A PDF is just a digital form of a paper document and almost as much of a pain. It’s not really part of the web. It’s a gated and separate location. I have to leave where I am to click over to where it is, wait for it to load, and then I’m stuck inside it. Switching back and forth takes for ever. It’s like asking me to go to the corner to buy a book.”

“Ah, I suppose I should be saying content.”

“Content on a blog or a website is easier to access. Yep that’s for sure, but content isn’t the end.”

I asked him to tilt his head to consider this question, “How many books sit on library and living room shelves that were chosen with great intentions then never read?”

If your goal is to sell books or to sell content, then keep your eye on them.
That will happen is that you’ll grow your sales and find ways to get more books in peoples hands and more visitors to your content.

But all of the thoughts that writers worried to express and the reams of ideas that could be changing the world may become good piled in the good intentions of book shelves and feed readers — parts of collections that never get read.

The book, the pdf, the website, the content isn’t the destination the audience is.

Know Your Audience as Well As You Know Yourself

An airplane traveling from New York to Chicago is off course 98% of the time. Still it gets there. Why? The pilot is always adjusting with his destination in mind. Do you listen to your best audience and tweak what you do to keep your content in their sweet spot?

The audience is your destination. If you’re writing for yourself, you’ll head in a different direction than if you’re writing for people learning what you know. It may sound obvious, but it’s still worth stating — if you don’t know where you’re going, you’re not going to get there. If you think you’re going everywhere or writing for everyone, you’ll end up nowhere.

Too often authors and bloggers don’t think through who their readers will be. As a result a blog post or a book title gets our attention but doesn’t keep us interested. Don’t write for the fad or the lastest content trend, write for the people who are exploring the idea behind it. Then when they change their direction, you can change yours with them because your relationship is with the audience not with the content.

Have you really thought through who your audience is? Here are some questions to help you do that. Take a shot at answering them all in one sentence.

  • Who am I writing for?
  • How are they like me and how are they not?
  • What do they care about?
  • What will get their interest and keep it to the very end?

Write down your audience profile. Revisit it often. Adjust it as your readership grows and you get to know them better.
Use it to guide what you choose to write.

Now that you’ve got a clear destination. Other decisions get a whole lot easier.

Do you look at what you offer from the audience view? How does that work for you?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

The Old Neighborhood Bars and Blogs

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relationships button

Chicago is a city of neighborhoods and neighborhood bars. Every neighborhood has a name. Every neighborhood bar is like Cheers. People go there because the folks inside, especially the bartender, knows their name. Names are important. They’re the first words we know about ourselves and each other.

When I think of my favorite neighborhood bar, I can’t separate it from the folks who are always there. Over time the people grow and change. Some days all one bartender can talk about is his camera. Other days all he can think of is sports. That’s who he is. That’s part of what makes him interesting.

We have personal jokes. He knows some of what I like. I can tune in. I can have my beverage and hardly talk to him at all. There was a time when he was not a happy guy. He’s a friend. You ride it out. Everyone has phases. . . .

It’s a well-known fact that I think of my blog as my father thought of his saloon. But in one way it can’t be the same. Saloons don’t have RSS feeds.

What difference does that make?

When I change focus for a while — you might do it too, or you might not, but we know I always will — readers can decide the new direction is not their “beverage of choice.” That’s cool. That’s only right. I do the same thing — with the blogs I read, not with the people in my life.

In life when my friends shift gears, I often come back to see what they’re doing later. Most often what I find is that we have plenty in common still. Yet when a blog has changed direction, it’s felt more permanent. I hardly ever go back. I’m rethinking that today.

Over the next week or two, I’m going to check in on blogs I used to read. It will be like visiting the old neighborhood bar to see who’s still there. I’m looking forward to it.

I think I might find some nice surprises. What do you think? What’s your experience? Do you ever go back to the old neighborhood?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!! Liz understands how people think.