Category: blogging


Germaine Greer would not approve but sometimes when I’m on the verge of a mid-week crisis I clean the bathroom.  Amongst the soap suds I have discovered the answer to many a thorny problem.
Bucket and Mop Photo

Creative Commons image courtesy of Husond and Wikipedia

According to Wikipedia, ‘Kaizen’ in Japanese means  “change for the better” and is a business philosophy centred on the continual improvement of processes through alignment of the business in small steps. To improve my digital kaizen, I’m trialling the Problogger 31 day challenge to makeover my blog which is long overdue. A problem that needs more than rubber gloves and Pine-O-Cleen.

Can you say it in 30 seconds?

One of the very first exercises is looking at defining my tagline and to describe what I write about succinctly. But where to start?

‘Adventures in Digital’ really described what I was feeling at the time of starting my blog two years ago at the beginning of the GFC as a freelancer and not really knowing in what direction my writing or my work for that matter would take. Although on the odd occasion I still like to channel Indiana Jones, Adventures in Digital needs a bit of tweaking.

 

Many suggest thinking of it as an elevator pitch, a short sharp description that describes the blog in one sentence. That is easier said than done. To kick off the process I brainstormed the following points and asked friends and family what they thought my blog was about.

 

Thought starters
  • Who are my target audience?
  • What am I trying to say? Whay do I write about?
  • Is there a problem that my blog could help with?
  • How would family & friends describe it?

Is anybody out there?

Originally when this blog was set up, it was just to aid my finding a job! So back then I was more interested in targeting potential employers as well as peers in digital media and marketing. What I would love to do however is be able to share my experience and knowledge with an audience (outside of my family and friends) who aren’t neccessarily in the industry already. There is still an air of bamboozle and snake oil that surrounds digital media and marketing for people outside of it, if I can cut through the waffle and provide useful and interesting content from my producers point of view perhaps it will help someone out there among the pixels.

From Art to Z-index

Subjects that interest me include  digital campaigns, interactive art, opinions on topics that range from social media to wireframing with a few random musings on people that inspire me.

My new blog tagline should reflect that and act as a signpost so that readers know what to expect.

Ideas Please

There are some excellent taglines out there, if you are looking for inspiration check out the list on this Daily Blog Tips article on some of the best ones online.

I don’t want a description that is too straightforward or boring, there’s a million or more great blogs that focus on digital marketing and digital media, what would make mine so different?

Family very kindly described my blog as “social commentary on digital stuff” which has been rolled into my welcome message as more of an elevator pitch. For my tagline,  I’m going to test out Where Life Meets Pixels. It’s probably still a tad abstract but Ms. Greer may approve.

How to tame the Content Monster

The funny thing about being a producer is that people assume that you were born with the  ‘ultra organised’ gene shared by wedding planners and mother-in-laws all over the world. Perhaps this stands true for some producers. These are the same types who are adept at Excel pivot tables, despise a beautiful shoe and haven’t seen daylight for the last four years. I however am not ashamed to say that attempting to manage this blog in between work, life, walking the dog and cups of tea is starting to become a tad challenging.

What I need is structure and process to tame the myriad thoughts, ideas and opinions that keep popping into my head and then running off into the ‘great topic for a post’ drawer soon to be forgotten along with all the left footed socks.

After much analysis of the blogs I have decided to give my content monster a few ground rules, I noticed some common factors and rules of thumb which I am going to adopt:

1. Post regularly and succinctly

It’s an obvious one but a cardinal rule that I have been breaking for the last year! If you post consistently a couple of times a week, your readers know what to expect, it improves SEO and it forces you as the blogger to become disciplined ala Seth Godin or Guy Kawasaki both of whom post regularly on interesting topics in around 300 to 400 words.

2. Create your own Editorial Calendar

This should aid the first point enormously, having worked on content schedules before I’ve seen a hundred variations of a content calendar however  there’s some excellent tips in this post by Lisa Barone at Outspoken media on how to create one specifically for your personal blog.

3. Focus on it

The Calendar should enable me to do this. I don’t harbor any great expectations of this blog making me a millionaire, what it does do is provide me with an outlet for the frustrated writer within. Being a natural ‘scanner’ I am am always curious about the world, I always wonder whether what I should really be blogging about is  fashion or living in Sydney or beagles. Having a niche blog works, however after two years I still don’t think I have a specific subject area  but what I do know is that I’m not giving up on the blog and I’m not going to start another one no mater how tempting it is to start afresh. My new blogging idol, Penelope Trunk has a great article about why it’s better to stick with what you have started.

4. Learn from Others

I love finding blogs that not only interest me but that I can learn from whether it’s content, design or structure. Some blogs I have been referred to, others I have discovered having gone off on a tangent researching an entirely different topic however all of them have taught me something along the way.

5. Just Do It!

Sites like Problogger are a great starting point and you can find a raft of online articles and posts on how to set up a blog and how to improve what you blog about. However much like learning how to ride a bike, you can watch others and it can be really intimidating but at some point you just have to get on and start peddling :-)

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