The best part about a blog of any kind you can start to share about what you have learnt.  We all love to learn, whether we think so or not.  I would challenge you that we do enjoy it.  We may not all like math or history at school but most of us have a class we took we just loved.  We couldn’t get enough of it.  In fact I can remember thinking “I wish Art was everyday”.  Years later I made that class into a full time course, just about, I took up photography at college. 

You can use your blog as a way of sharing about what you have learnt and educate others.  Is it not great to be inspiring to others and make a difference to someone else? 

I love having children because with them I can share the little things I have learnt that make it easier.  One of my sons loves to take photographs too, he’s actually quite talented, and has a natural eye.  However, I still take the time to show him why something works and it doesn’t work. 

If by chance you feel that your ’style’ isn’t quite right find someone who is doing it ‘better’ in your opinion.  Most leaders in their craft or industry will gladly give you some lessons or tips on how to improve what it is you are so inspired to do.

Go out and find someone who is willing to share their mistakes and teach you.  Should you not know someone on the particular area that you want to get some insight into, hey search the library for a book.  There is always a way to find someone to inspire you, go for it.

Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress.

In talking to Michelle twitter.com/mmangen about blogging.  She is away on vacation at the moment and one of her goals is to work on creating a blog while she is away.  Which is great, great to work on goals while you are out of your own environment by the way.

We discussed the advantages of blogging and the the how search engines and spiders work.  Plus tips about how many words and content etc. When the question popped up about what should I blog about?  Michelle really wanted to blog about her life and where self development can be used to create the life you want.

This brings up the point - does your blog need to be solely about work? Absolutely not, however, like everything a blog needs a purpose and a direction.  You are looking for followers and like minded folks to read your blog. Similar to what you may do at other on-line communities.  You can still have a business account but talk about your children if that  is something you feel falls in line with your business - if you can bring back what you are talking about in a way to relate to your readers who are looking for the originally content.  However, if you feel you need a blog that is solely about children and the issues of being a mom then create a different account for that purpose.  The trick is to master your following and your readers and what they are looking for on line. 

Plus ask the question; How can I stand out from the pack?

Oh and by the way if you are looking for a book keeper - I highly recommend Michelle - she and I will be working together and her passion and enthusiasm and her kknowledge is great.  Plus she’s into personal development - check out her website and look for her blog coming soon.

Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress.

I mentioned in an earlier blog that finding a topic to talk about is half the challenge to having your own blog. 

Naturally it is always easier to write about something you love, so you could choose to have your blog not necessarily about your product or your company but what you personally love to do in life.  There are enough bloggers out there that do exactly that, for instances they may be a CEO  or CFO of a company but choose to blog about travelling for their living.  It’s still within the context of their company but it’s about travel.

You may also find that you need to blog about what your customer base is looking guidance on.  So for instance, if you are a realtor there are so many areas you could blog about.  You could talk about the wearther in your location, you could discuss ’style’, the market, the cities you have sold properties in and what those cities offer.  Ask your clients what they want to read about and then cater to their needs.

Also another tip and something I have started for myself with one of the blogs I write for is start a file.  As I get mail or I come across another article that I find of interest or might inspire me to write something along the same lines I hold on to that article.  It’s my tickle file to aid my creative flow.

Another area you might fight a great source of inspiration are social network sites like twitter or linkedin.com where you can post a question and see what responses you get.

Blogging is easy once you know how and why you are doing it.

Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress.

Wow I could write a book on the benefits of both, and also the distractions of both.  They are the same but different.  Both systems have a way of targeting different people. 

Think of both systems as a tool, not an answer to an ends, but a tool.  What is it you want to achieve?  And how often do you want to use the tool? 

When you have a nail and you want to drive it into a wall you can use a heel of a shoe or a hammer, right?  Or you could use a large hammer or a small hammer?  One may work better than the other, or quicker.  So if you play around with either a blog or a twitter account you might find that one works better for you than the other.  They have different appeal to different people.  You may find some people who overlap and use both but you may find that some just want to use the twitter account to link to their blog and get out what they want to say in large bites rather than smaller bites like twitter.

As I said before it’s how you use the tool that decides if it’s productive for you.  There are many people who twitter who will tell you, you can’t use someone else to do your tweets (twitter messages) - however, I suspect there are people that do that for well known entities out there.  My answer to that is, fine let it be - if it works in the business model then let it be.  If it works for you that you have to be touchy feel with  your followers then you certainly are not going to hire someone to make your updates.  Same goes with your blog, remember there are people ready to do ghost writing for your blog.

As to what’s better? Twitter or blogging?  Hard to say they both serve their purpose, personally if you could do both then do both, you are now extending your network.

Go for it twitter and blog and while you are at it don’t forget Facebook.

Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress.

Time and time again I’ve had friends and clients ask me what should I write about at my blog. Or they might say I don’t have  anything to say.  They marvel at the fact that I can always find something to write about.

At www.expatworld.wordpress.com- I have  written a number of blogs about  living in Hong Kong and life as an expat.  When I first started writing these stories ‘letters from Hong Kong’, I treatet  it much the same as a travelogue.  That became  boring, because let’s face it Hong Kong is tiny and there wasn’t much to do as far as traveling was concerned.  I then discovered if Iwrote  about the funny, bizarre side of living on an island that was known for ‘island fever’ I could find a different direction in my articles.  Many of the articles at this  site see the humor in living in Hong Kong.  I’ve talked about the ‘chop being the weapon of choice’ and how an expat forgot how to  iron her clothes because she had now had a maid for too long.

So find what you are passionate about and write  about that.  And if you feel you need a ghost writer for say a company business know that there are people out there that will  do that for a living.  There are also websites  such as elance.com or talk to the guys in India at brickwork.com.

Never think that writing a blog has  to be solely  your own work, like what we learn in The Ultimate Game of Life, life is a team sport!  Blogging can be a team sport.

Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress.

Blog is a new word that came about from the two words; web and log - put them together and you have ‘BLOG’

The aim behind blogs at the beginning was for individuals out there to create their on line diaries, so to speak.  You will find people from all walks of life writing about their experiences be it work or life, or life at work, or life working. 

It soon became apparent to the technology people that search engines, that have a technology called ’spiders’ were picking up blogs before they picked up websites.  In looking at this phenomenon they discovered that the two things that blogs did that were different from regular websites was that when you write a blog you; update regularly which in turn gives the search engine something fresh to find.  The fresh content being the second part of a blog allows search engines to recognizes the fact that you now had an active website.  Active websites tell search engines that activity is going on at a site and therefore readers that were surfing the net were now more interested in something that was fresh rather than a staid site.

Mastering freshness masters the spiders that roam the internet that are looking for content and freshness.

There are some tricks to mastering the spiders; regular content is one method but also length of post.  Short posts are overlooked, as a result content needs to be between 200-250 words minimum for a search engine to consider it ‘worthy’. 

When creating your site; remember regular updates and length of an entry at your blog.

Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress.