How To Write An Easy Blog So You Can Share It

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Learning social media is a lot harder without something to share. If you want to grow your online reputation, simply posting pictures of your dinner or your cat might not be as effective as if you also had some blog posts written that would get a visitor to your website. NOW social media won’t be so hard, right? You’re not just filling space when you have something important about your organization to share.

When you’re just starting to blog, the whole thing is a little overwhelming. My advice is always to stay at it, because it does get easier. Get in the habit of writing down your thoughts, whether you use a notebook or Google docs, until you have about five posts. That way, you can take some of the pressure off yourself as you develop a routine that allows you to post more frequently.

Here are a few more tips to get you posting:

• When looking for topics, think about the questions your customers or callers have been asking you. Give them what they already want and you’ll have a more popular blog.
• Write as though they’re right in front of you, conversationally.
• Use short 2-3 sentence paragraphs, break them up with bolds and bullet points for the scanning reader wherever you can naturally.
• Enjoy yourself! Never forget you’re helping someone with the information you’re serving up.
• Your first drafts should just be a run-through of your thoughts. Go back the next day to make them look like you want. You’ll find so much that you want to delete! That’s good, because you really want your blog posts to be about 300-500 words.
• Images and video are great, but make sure they augment your message and really help your reader.

If you’re a Zero To Sixty Marketing client, you’re using a WordPress blog. WordPress has an image library, but most blogs at least have an ‘upload image’ function. To make adding images to your blog easier, spend some time on iStockPhoto.com*. For under $25.00 a month, you can browse professional images, download them to your computer, and add them to your library for future use. If you have any questions about copyright on images, post them in a comment and I’m happy to help you understand how to give photo credit to the photographer.

I believe in using Google Documents for writing my blogs. Together with the calendar feature, I can really think about my marketing message throughout the year, and I’m a lot more effective with everything I do.

Begin with one post a week, but realize it will take three to five posts per week on a consistent basis before you’ll see major results. Start somewhere, you can learn a lot getting into the rhythm of posting once a week first.

That doesn’t look so easy, Susan. Well, here’s the biggest tip of all. I always open up several tabs at one time. That’s not several Explorer or Firefox sessions!

First, I open Google Docs, I record my audios in another tab, then my website blog editor, my email service editor, and Hootsuite Pro*. I get everything opened up so I can easily get my message out everywhere it needs to be in a hurry with simple cut and pastes.

I hope this helps you start blogging! Your website can do so much for you, but you have to give it regular, fresh content that you can share for search engines to give it the attention it deserves.

Please leave any questions you may still have about blogging in the comments section, and we’ll be happy to respond to you right away.

P.S.
This July, I’m hosting a live event in the NE Dallas area to help you understand some of the nuances of Facebook that will help you get started or just do it better. Don’t miss out on an opportunity to meet a handful of people who are really succeeding in this area and are willing to teach you how, too. I invite you to bring along the person you’d trust managing your online messages, if that won’t be you. Don’t just send them, because you need to understand this stuff, too.

Call me. In the Dallas area, 214-714-0495. If you’re in the Neenah – Menasha – Appleton, WI areas, call Shari Voigt at 920-364-0261. We’ve been where you are, and know what you need to learn to become effective. We can help. Call us.

* I always share the products and services that I use, and they almost always have affiliate link opportunities I don’t pass up. That won’t affect your product one bit, or cost you a thing. It means that if enough people use those links, I might get a few pennies paid back to me for telling you about them. Don’t YOU miss those opportunities either!