Keep Current with Blogs

[by Jenna Close]

This summer, take the time to delve deeper into the world of blogs.  Subscribe to or bookmark your favorites.  Each morning you can sit down with your cup of coffee and enjoy all the new updates and information you have effortlessly received in your inbox.  Here are a few blogs that I recommend:

1) No Plastic Sleeves: info about digital/print portfolios, marketing pieces and clever marketing ideas, blog.noplasticsleeves.com
2) Burns Auto Parts Super Premium Blog: creative consultant Leslie Burns blogs about absolutely everything that is important to the photography industry,  www.burnsautoparts.com/blog
3) The Strobist: very informative blog about lighting,  strobist.blogspot.com
4) A Photo Editor: blog of former photography director Rob Haggart,  www.aphotoeditor.com
5) John Keatley: www.keatleyphoto.com/blog
6) Robert Benson: robertbenson.com/blog
7) Nick Onken: nickonken.com/blog

Jenna Close, along with partner Jon Held, runs P2 Photography.  They specialize in imagery for the alternative energy market.  You can find Jenna at www.p2photography.net.

Blogs and Your Business

[by Jay Kinghorn]

About six months ago I began blogging regularly and I can safely say it has become one of my best business planning tools. When establishing an audience online, you are constantly striving to provide that audience with meaningful, thoughtful, useful information. In turn, you’re committing yourself to thinking deeply about your craft and staying ahead of the information curve. This thought process is incredibly valuable as it helps you clearly articulate what your business’ role is in your field and the value you bring to your clients.

Perhaps more important, it helps you constantly see your business from the client’s perspective, which can only help you provide better, more targeted services.

It’s helpful to answer these questions when planning your blog presence and the unique content you’ll bring to your clients.
- What information does my audience need?
- How can I provide that information?
- What is my true expertise and how can I use it to help clients?

If you haven’t already answered these questions about your business, then this is a better time than ever to start.

Some of the practices I employ when writing blogs:

1) Passing on an interesting news article or link: Don’t just recycle it and send it out just as it came in. Instead, reference the article and put it in a context that applies to my readers and what it means to them professionally.

2) Original works: Try to address challenges you know your audience faces. If you are writing about something of interest to you, tie in why it’s important to your readers.

3) Blog often. There are so many blogs out there. Don’t just expect your readers to stay with you just because you’re there. They will stay only if you regularly provide interesting, useful information.

4) Gather data on the success of your blog posts through analytics. This will give you insight into what your readers find interesting and helpful.

Writing your blog thoughtfully and with your clients in mind will reap big rewards. You’ll be able to clearly articulate your business purpose and produce better better work for your clients, because you’ll have a better handle on what your clients need and want.

For a great recent article on blog posts, read this from problogger.

Use an RSS Reader for Easy News Gathering

[by Jay Kinghorn]

Blogs are a tremendous source for information, ideas and insights. However, they can also be a tremendous drain on your time and productivity. If you subscribe to more than a handful of blogs or news feeds, an RSS reader like Net News Wire (Mac), FeedDemon (Windows) or Google Reader is essential to quickly sift through a large number of blogs and find the valuable posts hidden within.

An RSS reader aggregates all the unread blog posts from your favorite blogs into a single window. This allows you to quickly skim the headline of each post and read only the articles you’re most interested in. If you’re really tight for time you can flag articles, or pull them into a clippings folder for later reading.

Here are a few links to get you started:
Newsgator
Google Reader
Best RSS Readers

Blog Smart

[by Judy Herrmann]

In the past few months, I’ve worked with a number of photographers who are struggling with their blogs.  Their technology is fine – they’ve been successfully managing their blogs for several years and have worked out the kinks.  They post regularly and have a rhythm down.  Their site analytics reveal lots of unique visitors who leave lots of nice comments. Their blogs are perfect in every way except one.

The community they’ve spent all this time cultivating will probably never spend a dime supporting their families.  Why?  Because instead of posting information of interest to the client side, they’ve focused on what interests them. As a result, they’ve built a strong, vibrant community ofŠcompetitors.

Now, I’m not saying that everything you do has to be rooted in a profit motive.  If the compensation you’re getting takes another form (like giving you a platform to push yourself creatively) that still counts.  These photographers would tell you, though, that after awhile the novelty wears thin and as much as they’ve enjoyed the ego strokes, the effort they’ve put into building this community has used up a lot of time, energy and elbow grease that could have been tapped more profitably.

In times like these, few of us can afford the luxury of investing time or money in places where the return on investment is low to none.  These photographers now have a tough choice to make. They can come up with a way to generate income from the community they’ve built or start over and focus on building a new community of people who’ll pay cash money for what they already sell.  Either way, they’ve got a lot more time to invest before they’ll see much return.

If you’re gonna blog, blog smart.  Make your blog interesting and useful to the people who need what you sell.  Show them your value.  Show them how you can help them.  If doing this consistently seems overwhelming, consider guest blogging as a way of reaching the right audience.  As these photographers have learned, blogs can be a powerful marketing tool but that marketing doesn’t help you much unless it’s reaching the right people.Blgo

Attracting Readers to Your Blog

[By Rosh Sillars]

Attracting new readers is a big part of the blogging game.

Many people keep blogs for their own satisfaction. It’s a place to share their thoughts or show off their creative efforts. But deep down inside most bloggers want more readers and subscribers. They want their blogs to be successful.

In order to be a successful blogger, you need a plan. You need to develop a theme and focus on the type of audience you want to attract. Here are a few suggestions that will help you grow your reader base:

First, comment on other blogs. Be authentic and engaging. Don’t make the comments all about you; develop a voice that will attract your audience.

Second, make sure your headlines and posts contain key words related to your blog and theme. We live in a key-word world. If you have a Twitter account, use the same key words on Twitter to help drive traffic to your blog. Don’t be afraid to share relevant older posts with your social media followers. In many cases, the posts are still new to them.

Third, create a group related to the theme of your blog. You can use Facebook, Linkedin, Yahoo, Google or Flickr to attract your target audience. In some cases, you should create a related forum under your blog domain or use a site such as Ning.com to develop a community.

Some people prefer to receive blog updates via e-mail. Make sure you have an easy-to-find RSS (Real Simple Syndication) subscription button and an e-mail subscription invite box. Do do this, you can use services such as FeedBurner.com or Feedblitz.com.

The most important action you can take is to reward and champion the followers who support you. These are the people who will help make your blog a success.

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