BusinessBlogAngel

Writing with confidence - project confident writing

Was coaching a client this morning - teaching her about the technical stuff, showing her round the admin interface and talking about effective blog writing etc. when the topic of 'what to write when you don't know what to write' came up.  I immediately thought of a brilliant post on this topic which Joanna Young wrote on this blog.

Coincidentally, I also had an email from Karen Swim of Words For Hire with a secret mission all to do with Joanna...

Joanna has just moved house to the west coast of Scotland (where I imagine her view is similar to that pictured.) As a result, she's been offline for some time. As Karen pointed out, for a prolific blogger like Joanna, a week or so offline must feel like an eternity - and Brad Shorr, Karen and a couple of other blogging/Twitter friends, Robert Hruzek, Daniel Smith (link to follow) have come up with a lovely idea: to welcome Joanna back to the blogosphere with a collection of posts on her various friends' blogs featuring our favourite posts from her Confident Writing blog. I've raved about Joanna on this blog several times and clearly I'm not alone in recognising her greatness. It speaks volumes that virtual friends want to do this for her.

Anyway, I've had a good rummage around her blog and have opted to highlight the last post she did before she went offline simply because it features a whopping 8 posts from the archives all about what to write when you're feeling stuck. So...

"Welcome back Joanna - we've missed you - we love you - you are the mutt's nuts!"

8 From The Archives To Help You Free Your Words by Joanna Young  at Confident Writing

Practical Tips For Business Bloggers: Introducing A New Series At BizBlogAngel

There's nothing like blogging about something to get it clearer in your mind. 

Now that we've convinced ourselves (and hopefully you too!) of the merits of writing a blog series, branding posts and creating a product that's going to have a long shelf-life Claire and I couldn't wait to launch our new mega-series.

It's called Practical Tips For Business Bloggers... and yes, it'll do just what it says on the tin :-)

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UPDATE: 06/06/08 - Episodes to date include:

Intro: Showing off Your Content
Part 1: Should I Have A Welcome Post On My Blog?
Part 2: Use Bold And Bullets To Break Up Your Posts
Part 3: Break Up Your Posts With Quotes
Part 4: One Simple Programme That Can Save You Blogging Time
Part 5: "Continue Reading" With Style
Part 6: How Do I Format Links?
Part 7: How A Footer Helps You Blog for Business

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The series is aimed at business bloggers who:

• are just getting started
• have been blogging for a while, but always wondered how to (x, y or z...)
• are always looking for ways to improve their blog

And if that sounds like you, read on.

How To Make A Bigger Bang From Your Blogging Buck

So you put all that time and effort into thinking up fresh content, weaving in your keywords, crafting a killer headline and then poof! it's yesterday's news.  Before you know it it's time to reach for your blogging-brilliant thinking hat again and draft another post...

Except it doesn't need to be like that (which is just as well, as we'd pretty soon get tired of blogging if it was).

There are simple but effective techniques that you can use to:

• generate ideas for new posts
• link posts together for greater impact
• repeat and emphasise your core message
• make it easier for your readers to follow you
• create content with a longer shelf-life

Cardinal Business Blogging Sins - is writing off-topic a no-no?

OK... so what excuse can I find to post a picture of our new puppy on my blog... um... tricky...

You see, the majority of visitors to this blog are here to find out about blogging for business or social media marketing - not to see pictures of puppies - no matter how cute.  Puppies are off-topic.  So does that mean I shouldn't post the picture?  Well, you tell me...

Is off-topic content always a cardinal sin?  Or are personal posts ok?  Does it depend on other factors? If so, what are they?

While you ponder these questions, enjoy the above pic of Sgt. Pepper - a super-charged, 19wk old Heinz 57 rescue pup who 'came home' to us just last night.  (Click to enlarge it.) I'm not a mum, but boy do I feel like one today - knackered, sleep deprived and totally blissed out!

What are your business blogging goals for 2008?

Although January can sometimes feel like a slow month, it's also a time when our thoughts naturally turn to our goals, dreams and ambitions for the year ahead, to the things we resolve to do or intend to set out and make happen.

I know that we've all got our own ways of thinking about goals, resolutions, intentions but I'm guessing most of us will be spending some time this month thinking about where we want to be by the end of this year.

And if that includes the plans for your own business you want to be asking yourself this:

What are your business blogging goals for 2008?

5 blogging mistakes that are so last year

           

Prologue: We don't claim to be blogging saints round here (though Claire is, of course, a blogging angel).  Although this post was drafted a little while ago we couldn't post it until we'd done a little bit of blog housekeeping ourselves... Well one thing we do believe in is being willing to take our own blog medicine:-)

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It's a funny thing about the New Year, isn't it?  A few weeks into January and suddenly 2007 seems like an eternity ago.  A time that's over.  Things that we've let go.

And all of a sudden things that are dated 2007 can look just that: dated, tired and over.

And yes, that includes your business blog.

This is the perfect time to make sure your business blog is bang up to date - and that you're avoiding these 5 blogging mistakes that can keep you stuck in last year.

Getting back to blogging

Happy New Year everyone!  I don't know about you but I'm still getting back into the swing of things after the Christmas and New Year break and working my way through the gloom that can be January in Scotland...

We've got a few goodies lined up for you over the next few weeks including some back-room stuff on new products and services that Claire is working on.  All will be revealed soon :-)

Meantime here a few suggestions that might help you get back into your stride if you haven't blogged for a while:

Time to get social: networks real and virtual

Photo by alexdecarvalho

The festive period is upon us already, which seemed like the perfect excuse to get a little social, learn a little about the power of networks, oh and share a little link love too.  Well it is nearly Christmas :-)

One of the things I get to do as part of the Blog Angel Team is dot around the blogosphere looking for good resources to bring back here, and to follow what Claire's blogging clients are up to.  (It's a pretty long list now - just take a look at the length of that client blog roll!)

There's been a distinctly social theme to some of the posts that have been pinging my feed reader over the last few weeks, and without further ado here's a serving of some links to the best of what you've been writing on networking, social media, and making them work for you.

A thumbs up to StumbleUpon

I keep on reminding Claire that she should get into Stumbleupon as another extension of her social media networking strategy... and she keeps on telling me that she will once I explain to her how it all works.  There's nothing like a challenge to get my creative juices flowing, so I decided to combine an illustration of three approaches to stumbling with my first attempt at creating a video tutorial to show as well as tell you how it works. (Note from Claire: Yeah, in fact, I did sign up for an account a while back, prompted by 2 fab clients - Emma Bird and Claire Chapman - who both 'friended' me or something, but even after joining, I found the whole thing a bit confusing.  Having said that, seeing that traffic to this blog usually triples if a post is Stumbled is sufficient motivation to learn more! So, back to Joanna...)

Now when I first stumbled across StumbleUpon it was as a way of finding new sites.  I think it must have been in a quiet period when I was looking for new material and discovered that you could jump to new sites in the blink of an eye just by hitting the "Stumble!" button over and over again.  And yes some of the sites were relevant and interesting (you set it up by indicating what kind of material you're looking for) - but after a while you find yourself hitting the refresh button over and over with hardly a glance at the sites you're reading, and start to wonder if it isn't time to switch off your PC set and do something more interesting instead.

But that's only one dimension of stumbling.  There are loads of other ways that you can use it to make connections, to learn from your readers, to extend your blogging network and develop your online brand.

10 ways that MyBlogLog can help you blog

I’m a big fan of MyBlogLog.  Now that I’ve got my identity crisis sorted out (and can happily flit backwards and forwards between my Confident Writing self and the Blog Angel Team Joanna) I’m re-remembering all the things that I like about it – and all the different ways that we can use it to help us blog.

As preparation for this week’s post I started jotting down a list of the things that MyBlogLog has helped me to do – and some of the ways that other I’ve seen other people use it.   

I’ve come up with ten so far – but I’m sure there are more…