Blogging, Branding and Building Your Business
photo courtesy of Carla Yashiro
“Eighty percent of success is showing up.” – Woody Allen
If this truly is the case, then there’s about 25 women in the south bay who are destined for greatness, not to mention the two exceptionally engaging and smart gals at Gather Your Crowd.
Last Thursday, Beth and I had the honor of sharing the stage with Cherie De Carlo and Carla Yashiro at the Women Entrepreneurs of the Bay Area meeting in San Mateo. Cherie and Carla specialize in helping small and medium sized business use social media tools to build their brand, get found online and engage meaningfully with their prospects, customers, partners and vendors.
Far from being a whitewash of how useful blogging and social media is for business – duh! – Cherie and Carla shared specific tips and tools you can use to have a blog that serves your business goals, gets found by search engines and is consistent in it’s message. Read more
Cook Your Way to a Better Blog
Blogging and cooking are a lot alike.
Both require a minimum of planning, the right ingredients, some time, and a state of emotional readiness, a desire to please, and an end goal of pleasure. Both also create a tangible end result that creates an experience for the audience.
What are the ingredients for a good blog?
- Know who you’re cooking for? Who is your target audience?
- Know what your end result will be. If you’re cooking an omelet, you need to know that at the start. If you’re writing a list of do’s and don’t’s you need to know that, too.
- What experience or result to you want you readers, your audience, to have? Just like you want to offer a savory or maybe a sweet meal to you and your loved ones, you need to know what kind of flavor or emotional experience you want to offer your blog readers. Read more
Blogging is Better in Community
Writing your blog can be like shouting into a canyon and getting no echo.
Do you ever feel that way?
I certainly did when I first started blogging.
There are two things that happened that changed that feeling of utter loneliness into a sense of community, and that can work for you to: Read more
How to Write a Short Post
Recently, I was asked to write a short post for the San Francisco Writers Community, and my first attempt, was well, long. I did write a second post that the editor liked much better. He said, “Send me more, even shorter!”
Shorter!
I’m a novelist. I like to write long!
Luckily, I like the challenge of writing short too!
At a recent Breakfast Blogging Club workshop, I presented on how to write a short post. Read more
How Often Should You Blog?
Remember that Tootsie Pop commercial with the owl?
“How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop?”
1……2……3…….CRUNCH!
3!
So, how many blog posts does it take to make a sale?
1…2…3…4…5…6…7…8…9…10…11…..yep, keep going.
While I’m sure there’s some blogger on the planet who can claim to have gotten a lead or made a sale after 3 blog posts, for the rest of us hard-working mortals, it takes more than that. Lots more.
Wanna know how many? Read more
