Blogging tips from the professionals

This evening I attended my first Social Media Club Melbourne event, an audience with renowned bloggers Pip Lincolne [Meet me at Mike's] Darren Prowse [Problogger] and Duncan Riley [The Inquisitr]

Below are the notes I took on the ipad [surprisingly easy after only a few days practice!], but please note they are jotted down points of the things that particularly resonated with me with regards to blogging.

• Being useful builds authority
• Personal tone is important, experiment over time
• Have your own voice, the way you speak should be the way you blog
• Be authentic, be true
• Constantly evolve, change, test and refine. Success comes through evolution and refinement over time
• You can always do it better
• Guest bloggers - depends on how much you have to share. Pip feels she has too much to share with her audience, hence she doesn't use guest posts / bloggers
• Darren has three blogs - depends on each one. With Digital Photography School he employed guest bloggers when it got big enough that he could pay his contributors
• Traffic - who do you want to attract? Consider creating various reader profiles, aim to solve problems as they relate to the reader profile. Ask yourself 'where are these people online?' Build a presence there, highlight related topics and people will begin to spread the word. They will want to pass on your content, make easy, relevant and applicable.
• Pip made her blog her version of an online magazine, readership snowballed, still continues to write about the stuff she loves. Organic growth is the key.
• Play with content, work out what works and what doesn't.
• What are the opportunities to come out of blogging? Amazing opportunities, a dream realized, monetizing is not where it's at, blog can lead to amazing unpaid opps and connections. Use the blog and brand to grow your business.
• Danger of blog... Looking inwards, is you like, do some community related work to address the balance and create more of an emotional connection with your audience. Get your army of readers mobilized to do good.
• Give others the same opportunities you have had - the blogging community has a reputation for being very generous.
• Evolution from hobby to business. Now mass market, blogs can be trusted these days, grown into a massive industry.
• Twitter allows a more intimate way to connect with your audience, over and above commenting on blogs... much more personal.
• The blog is primarily the home base, where you direct your audience back to. Twitter and other social media act as outposts, existing to promote the main hub [blog]. Social media drives traffic, research, networking etc
• Facebook exposure, for Duncan's site the 'Like' function has increased traffic exponentially
• Social media [twitter etc] can help you come across as a real person. You need to be appropriate to your audience.
• Video - may reach a different type of person on your blog as people relate to content in different ways.  Good for instructions (for Pip, demonstrating crochet etc) you can teach more easily rather than relying on text. Video is an important feature, if its relevant but can be very time intensive. Need the time and patience. Also offer a transcript.
• Ethics - general concensus was that paid content / pay for play dilutes the quality of the blog and content. Think carefully, don't be ruled by ego, make sure it's worth it and audience appropriate.
• Paid posts, disclosed, regardless of the money. An alternative is Affiliate Promotion for products you believe in.
• Hot posts / popular posts should be readily available / featured on the homepage. Bring popular content to the fore, otherwise you rely on a google search for people to find this content.
• Your blogroll is an opportunity to showcase your 'edited' community and the blogs you like / visit. Not everyone uses a feedreader for delivery of content.
• Use email to hook people via newsletter subscription. Offer more than just the rss feed, you may find more people are engaged via regular email newsletters.
• Don't assume your blog won't be big. Set it up correctly with categories, labels and keywords from the start. Very important.

Update on Wednesday, June 9, 2010 at 7:45AM by Seeking Digital

For another perspective of the night jump over to @BrentHodgson's site and read his notes here.

The link to the SMCMelb YouTube Channel to view the video from the night is here.