Successful Blog

Your Blog Is Your Stage, But Who’s In The Audience?

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By Terez Howard

You’ve rehearsed your lines. You’ve completed the finishing touches on your costume. The curtain rises, and you see an audience anticipating a five-star performance. Do you recognize the faces looking back at you?

Bloggers have a reason for blogging. They blog to share what’s going on in their personal and professional lives. They blog to promote their products or a service. They blog to express their opinions. Most often, bloggers write in the hopes of creating a reaction.

Who has a ticket to your show?

Here are some general groups of people that take a ticket to blogs:

  • Relatives
  • Friends
  • Potential customers
  • Returning customers
  • Business associates
  • Yourself (You write for you)

Have you chosen a group to write for? I don’t care who holds the ticket, as long as someone is reading what I write. Getting readers to follow your blog can be challenging, and in a state of desperation, you might say that you’d be satisfied with any human being capable of discerning the English reading your blog. If you want a follower to stay for the duration of the show, then not any Tom, Dick or Harry will do.

Look at it this way. You blog for a reason. Let’s say that you blog in the hopes that visitors will click on a link to buy your book on potty training boys under 2. You might be happy to see a comment from your grandmother’s Bingo partner or your son’s 10-year-old buddy. Yes, they might spread the word, but these people are not going to buy your book.

You don’t hand out tax advice or Xbox cheat codes on your potty training blog, even though that Bingo player would love to know how she can get more money back and that pre-teen wants to defeat Tomb Raider. You must stick to topic.

Know your audience

You must establish who your audience is and what they want. Returning to the previous example, you are writing to parents, and not just any parents. You specifically write for parents who have boys under the age of 2 and want to start potty training them.

You blog potty training tips that may or may not be included in your book, how to handle temper tantrums, spirited toddler boys, how to raise a happy toddler boy and throw in your personal stories. These parents will be interested in what you have to say and possibly interested in purchasing your book.

Notice that not all the topics I listed are directly related to potty training. They would, however, be subjects of interests to your audience.

Hone in on a specific group. In my example, I used parents of boys under the age of 2. One blogging professional markets to females ages 21 to 45 looking to start a small business. Another blogger writes to relatives on her mother’s side to post updates on annual family reunions. The better you know exactly who you’re writing for, the better chance you will have at retaining readers.

Sit in the front row of your show

Take a moment to get off the stage and sit yourself in one of those cushy theater chairs. Think about what your audience wants to take away from your blog. What would you want to know if you were them?

You’re audience will applaud your blog if it fills a need, satisfies a want or just pleases curiosity. Who knows? Your words could merit a standing ovation.

Who sits in your blog’s audience?

—
Terez Howard operates TheWriteBloggers, a professional blogging service which builds clients’ authority status and net visibility. She regularly blogs at Freelance Writing Mamas . You’ll find her on Twitter @thewriteblogger

Thanks, Terez!

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

How To Be An Honest Blogger Without Being A Jerk

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Do You Like These Sandals?

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I ordered my daughter a new pair of Stride Rite sandals for the summer. We went to the store to pick them up, and I slipped an excited toddler (she loves fashion at the ripe age of 2) into a pair of brown and gold sandals.

“Do you like them?” I asked her, thinking I knew what her response would be.

My honest little Micah said, “No.”

To be honest or to be nice

What kind of blogger are you? Are you the honest blogger? You would have told me that you didn’t like those sandals point blank, like my daughter, without giving a care to the time, effort and money that went to making those sandals part of my kid’s wardrobe.On the other hand, do you consider yourself to be a nice blogger? You say what people want to hear. You would tell me that shiny footwear was the most adorable creation since ruffled dresses. You would also agree with the critic who hates the sandals. You want to be everybody’s friend.

There are pros and cons to each disposition.

If you’re always honest,

  • You get to be yourself, an easy assignment.
  • People will know exactly how you stand on an issue.
  • You could drum up business with your truthful outlook.
  • Your words might evoke anger, frustration or hurt feelings.
  • Your brutal honesty might scare people away from following you.
  • Your name could be destroyed if you come off as a jerk.
  • People will feel comfortable sharing their true colors. (Is this a pro or con? That depends on you).

If you’re always nice,

  • People will like you, and you always will have people to agree with you.
  • People will be drawn to your pleasant disposition.
  • You could create work for yourself with your kind demeanor.
  • You don’t get to always be yourself because you strictly want to be nice. It can be difficult to fake how you truly feel.
  • Readers might wonder what the deal is if they find you contradicting yourself for the sake of niceness.
  • People will wonder if you are human or an alien from “V” because you don’t show anger.

The solution: be both

Season your words with salt, the old adage goes. Be honest and be nice. It’s easy to express your opinion when you know the majority will agree with you. Perhaps your blog post reads, “Having a baby is a miracle.”What if a group will not like, possible hate, your opinion? It might be difficult to say, “A woman should never have an abortion.”

What do you do when you need to express yourself on a controversial topic?

  • Don’t use disrespectful speech, and mind your manners. That means you say how you feel without bashing the opposing party.
  • Back up your claims. Don’t make brazen remarks without listing your reasons why you feel the way you do. Your argument might be enough to make a person question his differing viewpoint if you give convincing evidence.
  • Be thorough. This goes along with the last point. Throw in some expert opinions and statistics to support your case.
  • Acknowledge the other side. Your post should include the opposing side’s perspective and why you disagree. This way, you say, “I’m willing to agree to disagree.”
  • Respond to feedback. Controversial posts get people talking, and that’s great. You should be sure to respond to feedback from people genuinely interested in the topic, whether they support you or disagree. Be careful with people only looking to argue, rather than discuss. You can choose to respond to the comment on the post, respond privately or ignore them completely.

Be specific

My daughter said she didn’t like the sandals. I later discovered she loved the sandals and didn’t like that they were a smidge too large for her.The most important way to be an honest, non-jerky blogger is to be specific when you write. Describe your opinion as thoroughly as possible. Make a series on your topic if you can’t fit it into one post.

Get out there and blog your heart out. It’s what people really want.

How do you manage to be an honest blogger without being a jerk?

—-
Terez Howard operates TheWriteBloggers, a professional blogging service which builds clients’ authority status and net visibility. She regularly blogs at Freelance Writing Mamas . You’ll find her on Twitter @thewriteblogger

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

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The Single Best Way To Build A Love For Blogging

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By Terez Howard

Love Is a Natural Thing

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I blog because I love to write.

That makes blogging as natural as breathing for people like me who enjoy feeling a computer keyboard underneath their fingertips. But even for bloggers having an affair with writing, blogging can become a chore. How?

A freelance writer who blogs for a business owner does not particularly relish the idea of writing about chicken coops week after week. A business tips blogger might find she has to include financial advice in some of her posts since finances are a top priority among many businesspeople when numbers are one of her worst enemies. Incorporating financial anything would be drudgery for me.

So what can a girl do to build a love for blogging?

Write what you know.

It’s not a secret. It’s not earth shattering. It’s the truth. You write about what you know. Take your life experiences and everyday happenings and regurgitate them on a blog post.

I’m not saying to give a play-by-play account of what you do during the day:

This morning, I woke up and made the bed. Then, I went into the bathroom to shower.

No. Don’t do that, and don’t do this:

After I got into the bathroom to take a shower, the toilet seat was up again! My husband still doesn’t know how to put the seat down. We argued for hours, and I left the house for the rest of the day. I might not go back.

The first example is boring. The second example is too personal. Strike a balance. Be entertaining enough and personal enough, while sharing helpful information. Like this:

After another marital disagreement (we all have them, right?), I considered what it would mean to the female population if our men actually followed our advice. So I asked myself, ‘How would I best respond to an unwanted suggestion?’ Presentation is everything.

Apply what you know

You must research your topic if you’re writing in foreign territory. Use experts and authorities for your sources. When appropriate, cite your these specialists as your sources. And remember, you are producing your own distinctive work, not a copy cat article.

Then comes the fun part. Make your blog your own. There are hundreds of blogs about cooking. I recently saw an ad about a woman who blogs about cooking and doesn’t cook. She writes super simple snack recipes. She is unique.

Your blog might not be so one-of-a-kind, but each post can stand on its own as original if you parallel what you know with what you write.

“But I don’t know anything.”

That’s just lazy. Either you are not thinking, or you are not working to know anything. Look around. Literally, look around. Go ahead.

I see a computer. I could blog about which computers offer programs that cater to writers. I see various piles of papers. I could blog about organizing these papers or why these piles are already organized. I see an enormous bookshelf. I could write a blog comparing the writings of my favorite author, Langston Hughes, with my own writing or get tips from this multi-talented writer.

Those ideas are the ones that are in front of my face. Walk through your house. Think about your family and friends and their interests. Recall your everyday activities to mind and apply them to your blog.

Maybe blogging isn’t love at first sight for you. Look at blogging through a mirrored lens to cultivate a love that could grow into a lifelong relationship.

What one thing about blogging could make you fall in love with it?

—
Terez Howard operates TheWriteBloggers, a professional blogging service which builds clients’ authority status and net visibility. She regularly blogs at Freelance Writing Mamas . You’ll find her on Twitter @thewriteblogger

Thanks, Terez!

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

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7 Real Ways a Blog Raises Influence and Increases Expertise

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How to blog series

140 Ch Can’t Say It All Intelligently from the Heart

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Every day I greet the Internet with my coffee and a clear purpose and I find lots of opportunity — information, ideas, and input — offering itself. Never a question about finding that.

If I’m not focused my head is filled with thoughts and energy sparking and flaring in directions that look something like this …

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Unfortunately without focus so much can stay dispersed in that beautiful, but disintegrating way. I can end up responding to and considering bits of data like swatting gnats. Not much progress is made in a world of randomness.

Twitter, in particular, offers ideas I can encounter and pass along, but if I do that, most of what I think vanishes into past thoughts considered and soon forgot as unconnected bits.

If we want folks to know us we also need longer conversations in stronger venues. Telephones help. Personal conversations at meetings are great. If only we could stretch and scale our resources to share that way. So we write.

It’s why I keep my blog. In fact, that fact makes me passionate about why I write every day. But it’s not just the connections that keep me writing.

7 Real Ways a Blog Raises Influence and Increases Expertise

Writing is one way to share our thoughts with more folks more efficiently. Publishing makes the connection more natural and accessible. The words stay present and available through time for anyone who wants to access them. We get visibility and benefit others when we write, but we benefit ourselves as well. By recording our thoughts we make them more in so many ways.

  1. Writing gets us to clarify our thoughts. We have to find words to communicate ideas. We think the ideas through for ourselves. In that process we make them more concrete.
  2. Writing teaches how to see what we think. We have to find words to articulate what’s on our mind. We think the ideas through for ourselves. In that process we make our ideas more concrete, more transportable, and more memorable.
  3. Writing teaches us how words communicate meaning. Every time we write we choose the words we need to express a thought or idea. The more we practice the more we learn how to make choices that help people connect to what we mean.
  4. Writing helps us develop a voice that is natural and consistent, strong and confident. Even when we write for ourselves, we go back to read, listening to what we wrote. We question. We consider. We critique our choices.
  5. Writing teaches to manage our internal editor — to value our own thoughts and to be quiet until feedback is useful. Too often when we just think ideas we can shut them down before we’ve fully considered their possibilities. Trying to put them into words keeps us going to a longer process.
  6. Writing is an opportunity to share our expertise. Everything we write has an audience. Every time someone shares something that we write they add value to our ideas — when they change them and when they don’t.
  7. Writing makes us more thoughtful readers and responders. We bring the insights and appreciation of a writer to what we read. It gives us a venue to ask questions and solve problems with help from the world.

As efficient as Twitter is for conversation, it’s not enough for working out ideas. 140 characters can’t express a full-on deep thought. A soundbyte might get attention, but it doesn’t show depth of knowledge.

Writing is clear thinking made visible. — Bill Wheeler

 

I heard that quote a long time ago and I hold it close every day on the Internet. It keep as a reminder that writing raises my game.

We meet more people in print than we can ever possibly meet face to face. Many people will know our written voice as well as they know our names. Writing is a huge opportunity in a noisy world to teach what we know and to learn from the best of the people we meet.

What sort of thinking have you shared today?

Be irresistible.
–ME “Liz” Strauss
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Forget About Your Ship Coming In – Think about the Captain

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For @ChrisCree , @SheilaS , and @BeckyMcCray

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about how often we end up looking and caring in the wrong direction.

A friend is going for a job or a contract and does everything she can to be all that person wants. Then hears “I’m sorry, but you’re just not a great fit for this job.” She’s so involved in that one position that she’s crushed and any other option is a loss.

Another person so needs a sponsor to move his project forward. He puts together what is a most compelling argument. The potential partner, unfortunately, doesn’t have the resources to help. He sees time lost and his inability to convince someone.

Both are waiting for their ship to come in.

Every day I talk to someone who’s got a grand plan for how things will lay out or how things should be, will be, if only that ship comes in. Listening to them talk you can almost see that ship in the distance on the horizon. The hidden assumption is that the ship will come in and pick them up.

That’s the problem, even if that is a ship in the distance, you don’t own it. Who knows where it’s going? Even if it comes in, where it goes is up to the captain.

What if we slightly shift our vision — stop looking at that one ship and starting thinking about a world full of captains?

Sometimes the harbor is filled with ships waiting to take on working staff and paying passengers. Sometimes is not. But one thing’s sure more than most. Some of people who run the ships have gotten to know each other.

It’s the person, not the job or the sponsorship, that my two friends should be tracking … care about the “captain,” not the ship. Lots of folks have reasons to want to ride along with them for some reason. You can’t negotiate your way on board if the right person doesn’t care about you.

If you want a chance at the real opportunity …

Get the “captain” to fall in love with your vision and to believe in its reality. Move the “captain” to feel like a hero and smart for helping you.

You see …

Even if the captain’s ship isn’t going where we’re going, that person still knows a whole network of other “captains.” If we communicate the value of what we’re doing, chances are most captains will start looking for a ship going in our direction.

Care about the captain and not the ship.

How can you shift your vision to the people who can get you where you’re going?

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Online Business: How Do You Make a Living from This?

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A Guest Post by Terez Howard

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Successful entrepreneurs asked that question. You’ve asked that question, and sometimes I’m still asking that question.

An epiphany: it all goes back to gardening.

Let me explain. My brown thumb has kept me from killing another cactus and from watching seedlings waste away. But this year, I decided to give gardening a chance. Since it’s early in the gardening season, I don’t know whether the fruits of my labor will produce anything edible or not. I’m proud to say, though, that my green beans are towering and my spinach is plentiful.

What do you care, right?

Well, I did research, asked my friends for advice and jumped in. That’s what we do. We research how we can make a living as our own boss. We join forums, follow blogs and ask the experts to give us direction.

What happens after that?

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DO SOMETHING. Don’t get stuck as a professional student, always reading and studying but never graduating and starting a career. This might sound like lunacy coming from a blogger, but stop reading so many blogs and responding on so many forums. Take some time to build your own business, and don’t let the possibility of failure to paralyze you. Some seeds will not germinate. It’s part of business.

I’m not going to give you an exhaustive list of how you can get started as a business owner. You can gorge yourself on a buffet of such information. All I want you to do is one thing that will lead you toward your goal. Of course, you have to know what your goal is first. Maybe you want to make an income selling an original fitness routine. Today, sign up with Twitter with the goal of giving your potential and future customers daily exercise tips. It’s not much in the way of marketing, but it’s something.

With my garden, I knew that I wanted to pay $1 for a package of seeds and get 20 times that amount in produce. The end result motivated me to get started. This goes back to your business goals. If you know what you want to gain, then you’ll be more likely to get moving. Write your goals down and keep them handy as a personal motivator. Post them in your workspace.

Oh, and the time is now. Time to get started on that garden!

Do you know your goal? What sort of garden is it?

—–

Terez Howard operates TheWriteBloggers, a professional blogging service which builds clients’ authority status and net visibility. She regularly blogs at Freelance Writing Mamas . You’ll find her on Twitter @thewriteblogger

Thanks, Terez … you said it perfectly and with style.

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

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