Blog Content

• Be an expert on your topic: even if you may not know everything about your subject, it is critical to at least understand you are an authority on your knowledge base, beliefs and techniques.

• Write with confidence: it instantly translates to your blog making it more relatable and professional. Example, When I first starting blogging I was leery about this idea. I knew how to run but I knew little about the actual sport, all the training a person needs and what people go through. I choose my topic actually for that reason, to learn two new things at once. To compensate for shortcomings in expertise on a subject, link to other blogs. This is how I got through the first few weeks and as I reviewed my blog I determined I was actually linking less and less and writing more as the semester progressed. I became more informed on how to start marathon training, running the race and running itself. This is because I was logging my experiences but also forced to read other blogs, informational sites and tips, the interest grew and I wanted to learn more throughout the blog time.
  

• Variety of topics: it is a quick way to make you blog more appealing. I wanted to talk about training but it is not only about the workouts. In fact its less about the actual running and more about strategies with the diet and exercise and the programs which occur along the way. I talked about everything from diet to footwear to weird things runners to injuries. The other side to this process is that it brings more traffic to your site. For example, people might be training for a marathon but are looking for footwear advice, they might find the site and there is one more view. It makes your blog that much more interesting.

• Having subgroups: will make your content fuller and readable

• Look at other blogs for examples, tips, help

• Strong layout: the amount of people online is tremendous and your job as a blogger is to get those readers to your blog and have them stay there for as long as possible. Just like in marketing you have to promote yourself in the best light.

• Short, concise reads are more appealing: makes visitors to the site more compelled to stay. It should be written in a more conversational, informal, free voice then that of traditional writing. The visual look of your blog should be clear and neat as opposed to cluttered and unappealing.

• Step back and review: How do you like blogs to look? Remove yourself from the situation and look at your content skeptically. If you look to other blogs for references it could aid in a better understanding of what you may want to try out. Which is also any other key trait; be willing to attempt new formatting and writing styles. However do not loose site of your original goal and idea for the end product, always remain true to yourself and your style of writing but tweaking it here and there will serve your audience better.

Secrets to a Great Blog and Why?

• Pick a good topic that you can be passionate about: You do not necessarily have to know everything about your subject, in fact it may be more beneficial if you don’t. This way your judgments do not get in your way of evaluating new information.

• Take slow: do one day at a time or else you'll run out of steam or become overwhelmed.
  

• Be playful and expansive with blog content, voice, visuals and formatting: Along with experiments, writing styles vary from person to person, but that should not limit people from trying different styles. If it is a person’s first blog this is even more important. Because one blog which talks about cooking is set-up one way, while others just as successful are different. If every author wrote the same, about the same topic people would read books less then they already do.

• Be open to new ideas: should be readily available to your audience members. People will appreciate if they comment on you page for you to write them back or possibly take their suggestion.
• Example, In the case of my blog I received several comments which helped me with my formatting after my initial posting. First comment was on how to better embed my links. The other was on my bio.That little checkup factor helped me learn how to better my own writing techniques. I also trusted the people who commented (The Dillonator) (The Columbia Conversation)and I linked to their blogs. In turn those small changes helped me become a cleaner writer\blogger.

• Niche audience: a key element to blogging is figuring out your niche audience and appealing to them. The appeal can come be varied. A person does not have to be the best writer to blog but they should appear to always be professional and personable. A niche audience takes awhile to discover. This is done through appropriate language, presentation and clarity within the actual writing. I changed my audience several times because you never know how people will take the information you put out. You have to be willing to change and be versatile to their suggestions.

• Care: simply caring about your subject and the time you are putting in to the process, makes all the difference. If you care about your topic and want to find new sources and build more insightful multimedia packages\visuals, then people will get excited too. Like starting a fire, the idea is only the spark, it is the atmosphere which is created, that sustains the blaze while the amount of wood and pine cones you put on the fire acts as the writing, pictures, etc .

• Posting regularly will give your readers a routine to follow as well.

• Think of blog like a package deal: multimedia packages could be presented through, linking. A link should be embedded into a blog post at least once if not more times within one segment. It enriches your content. When you link, picking the appropriate words within a post help steer readers and inform them as to what they will be looking at. This also gives create to the sources you use, it is like writing a bibliography within a post. It may also give you more readers from their site or blog, if you link back. Just remember be aware of overlinking and it ends up looking more like an aggregater then a blog. The more varied the media used, like photos, visuals, websites or videos the better the blog appears.

• Little tidbits which should be included in your blog: mainly basics of the internet. By linking to other blogs and creating a varied blogroll on your site you create more traffic and therefore become more reputable. Use sites like YouTube to embed video clips for example. RSS feeds and comments help in people’s perception of your content. Try new applications even. Being up-to-date with current and future trends could help your blog as well. Be able to spot other good blogs and offer them to your readers. Understand how to use social networking sites to your advantage which will build a stronger presence on the web.

Who Blogs and Why?

• Simplest answer anyone who wants to: can be any person, company or outlet, can blog about any topic. The variety can be seen in our serious they take the experience and what they want the end product to look like.

• Blogs Role in society: (within social institutions)

o Education Systems: use them not just as a tool, in classrooms, but as a communication level. They provide platforms for dialogues to exist; thus exchanging information among the masses but on an individual level.

o Business are using blogs more and more: seen in the ways they communicate with their public. Businesses are using new media as a way to talk to their consumers about their products. They are traditionally looking to promote their items but also to get feedback. This can be seen as a trend all over the world.

§ Ex: They could be aiming to corner the market on used books for example and so have blogs set up to have a forum for people to discuss

o New media markets, Mass Communications Field: have incorporated using blogs as a form of expressing, interpreting and reporting news. According to recent studies 95% of the top 100 newspapers have some form of a blog. With the shift from old to new media blogging is finding a home along side the reputable news sites. As outlets which promote creativity in an otherwise structured environments, audiences take to blogging. It is the same notion behind being able to learn more in a practicum situation verse a tutorial. Media, especially journalists, are reformatting the current market structure with this type outlet. They can discuss the news formally, in the old journalistic sense, or informally, in the more op-ed way. Here in Baltimore, there is a cousin-like paper to the Sun, B, which fuses the old media (newspapers) with new media (blogging).

• Journalist vs Bloggers: Journalism use of new media technology like blogging is growing everyday. The original differences arise out of the foundations of journalism's. For bloggers sources for posts can be linked to and immediately contacted. The research element for bloggers is much smaller, since in today’s circumstances finding resources are easier. The contact lists for sources are endless which in turn makes discusses richer. The topics are the final major difference among journalists and bloggers. Where journalists have to interpret the facts and regurgitate events, bloggers get to talk about the news on a more informal level and discuss their belief relative to the topic. However bloggers should attempt to remain as subjective as possible but still inject their own voice into posts. It is not so easy for every country however to make this transition from Journalist to blogger has some are catching backlash at home.
  

• People want to be thought of as individuals: Since blogs should follow one niche topic to reach a niche audience people can share their knowledge of a topic with others and create a more varied viewpoint on a subject which enriches our culture.
  

• Individual people (biggest contributors): They are building strong communities centered on a niche hobby, idea, belief, topic, etc. Typically the blogs are recreational in nature but that is not a requirement to ensure success. They can reach as far as the boundaries of the world will take them.

o I had a follower from the United Kingdom reading my blog. It is an amazing tool considering less then 100 years ago America had to watch the news at only certain times in the day and relied on newspapers for their information.

• Blogs give a voice to anybody willing to speak up: They are a provocative tool for accessing information about subject matter. They enhance and reform social networks by creating a platform for communications to exist. At the end of all the discussion, any person, company or outlet, can blog about any topic. However, certain criteria have to be met in order to ensure the blogs success.