Blogging Classes @ LVS Online

In the first week of Blogging for Fun, Fame and Fortune, we spend a lot of time looking at different blogs. We look at little blogs, big blogs, indie blogs, corporate blogs and everything in between. Part of the reason is to get a scope of blog diversity. Another reason is to initiate students into blogging communities. The third reason that I have students look at so many blogs is to help them get a sense of what works and what doesn’t work for them with blogs. This can encompass topic, style, perspective and more.

For part of this week’s assignment, I am asking that students comment on this post. The comment should state your personal favorite blog that you reviewed this week and a couple of sentences of why it was your favorite. The comments on this blog are moderated. The first time you post on this blog, I must approve the comment before it will appear.  So don’t fear if you don’t see your comment go live right away.

Blog naked? I am not talking about you wear or don’t wear while in front of your computer, but how much do you choose to expose of yourself to the world as you blog. On the class message board, several students have been expressing concern about how much of themselves that they want to share with the Internet world and that is important consideration that each blogger needs to weigh. This isn’t just a concern for beginning bloggers but experienced bloggers  as they weigh the pros and cons of sharing themselves online. Sonia Simone at CopyBlogger was inspired by last week’s Biz School for Bloggers to write a great post on this topic, titled Feel Great Naked.  She does a great job of offering hints about protecting yourself and the ones you love while providing a convincing argument about how it is the personal aspects of blogging that engage your reader. She also touches on the use of aliases and gives examples of professionals who have opted to work under a pseudonym.

We have been talking about using an alias on the class message board and I cover it this week’s lesson. You can develop an online persona for a number of reasons. The primary reason is to protect your identity. There are two factors to consider. The first that is if the only thing that you change is your name, what you write about will often give your readers clues about you like the region/city that you live, the composition of your family, your lifestyle, your socioeconomic background etc.  I use one of my aliases “Frumpz” on a review blog. Generally readers won’t know that Bean Fairbanks is Frumpz but after reading the fourth post on Washington wine, Seattle restaurants and/or Seattle events, they probably can figure out that I am in the Seattle area. I am quite comfortable with that level of exposure. The review blog would be meaningless if I chose to hide the locations of the reviews.

The second factor to consider is what will I do if I develop this online persona and I want to do more with it. This something regular authors struggle with when they are known for one style of writing but want to try something very different under a different name.  They may choose this due to a fear of failure or a fear of alienating their current fans. What do you do when that new writing style takes off  and your publisher wants you on tour and your face on the book jacket? Related to this is that blogging is more than just writing posts, it is about gaining authority to attract readership. How will this online persona promote the blog? Will you use this persona to comment on other blogs and build a reputation? I often use another persona online when I am promoting women’s health issues and relationships.  Gender, health, sexuality and relationships can be “hot button” topics. That persona could talk about my experiences as working as a patient model for the medical school. I probably don’t really want potential customers or students to base their decision to hire me on the fact that I use my (naked) body to teach physical exams, I want them to base their hiring decision on my technical and business skills. The persona that I use to develop authority in health promotion is different than the one I use to teach computer and business skills.

Oops! I just put information on an official business blog about something that I said I might not want students to know. In actuality, I thought about the disclosure and I felt OK about it. I made a purposeful choice to disclose that personal information because I decided that served the blog post in two ways. First, it was a real life example of using alternate personas for different aspects of who I am. Notice I did not give you the name of that persona. Truthfully if you REALLY searched for it you might find it but not without some serious work on your part. Secondly, that disclosure demonstrated a conscious choice on my part to share information that gives you more information as a teacher. I don’t just teach online computer classes, I also have taught for years at the medical school and the naturopath university. Maybe, just maybe, that gave me more authority in your eyes and built my reputation in your eyes. I gambled. It might have backfired. You might think that is too weird that your instructor sometimes teaches naked (well I am wearing a hospital gown so I might as well be naked!) or someone that teaches in a medical school is going to be too technical of a teacher for this course or… Your comments to this post will let me know if my gamble paid off.

As Sonia points out, it is the personal information that hooks us. It allows us to connect with the author in a different way and we often care more about what they say. The trick is to do it as a well informed decision versus a slip of the keyboard mid rant. I really stress planning your blog in the first week of class so you can make some of these choices. Sonia stresses the need for planning as well.

Don’t wing it. Sit down and work out, in writing, exactly what you will and won’t talk about. Maybe you’ll talk about old boyfriends but not your current husband, or you’ll say anything about your parents but nothing about your kids. Decide exactly where you draw the line, and live by that.

If you write a post that goes over your particular line, you can edit it and save the personal stuff for your private journal, or sleep on it (at least two nights, ideally) and post it anyway. Either way, you’ll have made a conscious decision.

Sonia says use your personal journal but you can also password protect the post as another option. The other thing that she stresses and with which I agree is that you share only what is yours, and not some one’s elses story.

As covered in the lesson, there is a huge spectrum of private to public online. In the lesson I mentioned some people have lost their jobs due to their blogs. The most famous is Heather (Hamilton) Armstrong whose blogging about being fired made her famous Heather not only blogs “naked”, she runs down the street naked waving a banner saying LOOK AT ME!. She says whatever is on her mind and is not shy about sharing her thoughts and prejudices in colorful language and humor. Her blog Dooce is not for the thin skinned or faint of heart. Sometimes I think it aometimes goes towards Too Much Information (TMI) but it also so popular that she was just on the Today show and her blog supports her entire family so the parents can stay at home with the kids.

Not all successful blogs have a personal element, but many do. This includes business as well as personal blogs. Businesses that can bare their mistakes and show the actions that they have taken to remedy the situation gain trust and customer loyalty.  It will be up to you decide how personal in nature your blog will be overall and on a post by post basis.

I love my laptop. It allows me to interact with the world, even when I am too weak to get around the house. I am comfortably ensconsed on the couch, my legs up and well supported, the laptop on my lap. So, I cracked up when I came across this blog post about the dangers of blogging in a recliner. He talked about the “scissor-like action” of his recliner severing his power cord and Internet cable as he folded up the foot rest of his recliner to stand up. 

Earlier, I posted about the concerns of balance in your life while blogging. I guess that balance issue applies to your recliner as well <grin>

It happens to every writer. There are those days when your creative fountain of ideas has run dry and you are confronted with an empty screen.  Journal or diary bloggers could just detail their errands and comings and going, but that tends to bore the writer not to mention the reader!

On Problogger today, Darren Rowse wrote a post titled “5 Ideas to Come Up with Blog Content from Your Daily Life“.  Although I could see how his five ideas could help generate content, I was more intrigued by his diagram that showed Daily Life - Capture - Repurpose. Instead of just telling your readers that you ate your favorite Indian dal for dinner, share the recipe with them and/or tempt them with a photo of your feast.  Darren is correct in stating that sharing your “latest meal” is probably not going to be appropriate for most topic bloggers like those that blog on collector cars or wilderness photography. It is totally appropriate for the journal blogger or the blogger that focuses on food or delectable delights. Capture how you do things and what they look like. Web surfers are used to a multimedia experience and if you incorporate images and video, you will cater to their surfing expectations. You could type out an anecdote that you want to share with your readers, but think of how much more engaging that story might be with your vocal inflections and facial expressions in a video. There is a reason that You-Tube is as popular as it is. Humans like to watch!

Recapture can be viewed as recycling your blog content in a fresh and innovative way. Using a guest blogger to respond more in depth or to give their point of view on a prior post can encourage additional dialog. Your guest doesn’t even need to be actually written by another human. If you have been blogging about your toddler on your parenting blog and feeling overwhelmed, try writing a blog post from the perspective  of your two year old. It will probably be amusing and maybe even enlightening. When I worked on a blog for an organic farm, and we were too busy farming to actually blog, I would often ask customers if I could share their emails on the blog. I could post their rapture over the fresh luscious organic raspberrries that they got from us last week and attach a brief note about berry status this week. It allowed me to consolidate my time, provide another point of view on the berries, and answer questions about berry availability, all at once. Another way to recapture content is to provide updates. In another blog, I frequently post about bills in the local legislature. If they passed or failed, got vetoed or signed, I can provide update to my readers and allow me to voice again my concerns or congratulations on how the government is handling an issues.

Prizes are a time honored gimmick to promote events and businesses, but do they work? The short answer is sometimes. Recently Rachelle Chase did an online promotion by giving away three copies of Blogging Tips: What Bloggers Won’t Tell You About Blogging by Lorelle VanFossen  To be eligible for the prize, her readers were asked to add a comment about what they like or dislike to read. She had about thirty people post their comments.

There are three groups of cost and benefit here: blog readers, Rachelle and Lorelle. Let’s look at the blog readers first. Obviously, three of them won a new book. About half of them had links to their blogs with their comments. This gave their blogs additional exposure.  Rachelle looked at their blogs and some of her readers looked at their blogs. The cost to the readers was minimal. Basically, the cost was the time involved in writing their comments.

Rachelle’s cost is basically the shipping on the three books. Her benefits? Other bloggers posted about her contest. I heard about the contest on another blog and it directed other readers to her blog. She had about 30 people that posted. The other third of the comments were from Rachelle and Lorelle, and part of their “cost”.

Lorelle’s cost was her three books and, as mentioned above, the time to respond to the readers. Her main benefit is the increased exposure to her book and to her blog. It was at least the 30 readers that commented but we don’t know how many read the post, learned about her book and/or visited her blog.

Rachelle provided additional benefit to all three groups by her topic selection. Her prize was a book for bloggers. So, she picked a topic of interest of bloggers. Her reader-bloggers, Lorelle and herself all gained the benefit of information about blog turn ons and turn offs. Although a couple of comments contradicted each other, definite themes emerged.

Was it worth it? Take a look at the comments on Rachelle’s post and let me know what you think. Did all three parties gain more than they spent?

Registration is now open at LVS Online and the time is now to sign up for May session classes.  Join us on the inaugural voyage for Blogging for Fun, Fame and Fortune. It is designed for beginning bloggers, as well as those that want to improve the content and increase their reading audience.  During this course, there will be guided instruction and lots of student participation to develop your own personal blogging community. We will be using the WordPress 2.5 software package to power our blogs, and you will learn how to customize your blog to fit your style and your message.

At only $25 for this 6 week online class, you can’t afford to let this opportunity pass you by!

Professional bloggers work around the clock to stay on top of their competition. Often the first person to post the scoop is the one that wins. That is the post that makes the top of the list and garners thousands,  sometimes even hundreds of thousands of hits.  This insistent pressure to be the first is taking its toll, particularly on professional bloggers that are paid by the piece. Two professional bloggers have died of heart attacks in the past year, and their fellow bloggers are taking notice. Working from home doesn’t mean low stress. Advertising dollars is often a cut throat business and that is true for blogging for advertising dollars.  According to an article in today’s New York Times, bloggers that work as contractors or employees for media outlets are feeling the crunch as their pay may be based not only the post but on the number of hits that their post generates. Independent bloggers who have created their own media outlets are not immune.

“I haven’t died yet,” said Michael Arrington, the founder and co-editor of TechCrunch, a popular technology blog. The site has brought in millions in advertising revenue, but there has been a hefty cost. Mr. Arrington says he has gained 30 pounds in the last three years, developed a severe sleeping disorder and turned his home into an office for him and four employees. “At some point, I’ll have a nervous breakdown and be admitted to the hospital, or something else will happen.”

Other professional bloggers complain of sleep deprivation, relationship issues, poor health and weight gain.  Hmm sounds like many a workaholic to me. The key is balance. Like others driven to succeed and to be the best, sacrifices are made. Only the individual can decide when the sacrifices are too great.  For me, with my limited energy and disability, I am delighted when my revenue pays my web hosting bill. If there is enough that month to sample and review another couple of bottles of wine, that is all good too!

Sometimes it seems that everytime we turn around, we are confronted with a new software upgrade. Sometimes the new version of software offers us innovation and efficiency, but most times the upgrade seems like nothing much more than a new coat of paint.  I am excited to say that this time Wordpress has given us a well organized administrative interface that streamlines the process AND gives us new features like the new media library.

I have installed the upgrade for some of my customers and they are loving the new administrative interface. The sections they use most often, like new post and managing comments, are at their fingertips. Wordpress components that are used less frequently are tucked off to the side until needed. They are also really excited about the new media functions, especially those that want to implement podcasts into their blogs.

Although I also appreciate the new organization of the Wordpress interface, it is the new upgrade functions that is putting the smile on my face. This upgrade function allows the Wordpress blog owner to upgrade most of their plug-ins from within Wordpress.  On the plug-in page, Wordpress notifies the blog owner when one of their plug-ins has a new verion or needs an upgrade. Click the link and Wala! It is installed.  No more looking up the home pages for all of your plug-ins just in the off chance that it needs an upgrade then doing the required download from that site and upload to your blog. Let’s face it, most bloggers don’t bother to check up on their plug ins until they break. Unfortunately, that can mean they are missing out on security fixes. It is so easy now, there is no reason to not have the most secure and up to date versions of your plug-ins.

It has only been a week since Wordpress 2.5  was finally released. I must admit I was skeptical after watching the upgrade release be delayed time and time again, but so far it has been stable and has worked without a glitch with my themes and plug-ins.

Blogging is taking the world by storm! The heart of its power lies in its immediacy of publishing information, the ease of setting up and maintaining a blog and its interaction with its users. Blogs are used for everything from private family updates to journals to product reviews to photo journals to political podiums. As well as being a satisfying outlet on a personal level, blogs can be powerful business tools. Businesses, from freelancers to large corporations like Boeing, are using blogs to promote their products/services, gain and maintain customer loyalty, obtain customer feedback, and communicate news to their customers.

During this course, you will learn about the art and science of blogging. We will use the popular and FREE WordPress software to install and administer our blog. We touch upon styling the blog to match your style and topic. We will cover how to write engaging titles and blog posts, how to use blog directories, how to build authority in the blogging world and how to share your blog with others. We will focus on the interactive nature of blogging and how to increase participation on your blog without a lot of spam.

Not all blogs will gain you fame and fortune but they all can be fun! For those blog topics that are conducive to it, we will also cover revenue streams like tip jars, affiliates, advertisements and sponsorships. Some bloggers, Like SimpleBits and Lockergnome, have turned their blogs into fulltime businesses.

For more information and to register for the class, please follow this link: http://www.lvsassociates.com/register/product_info.php?products_id=256