Blogging: Why blog?

• Show off your writing skills & style
• Show off your expertise
• Promote yourself & your books
• Build a platform & a following
• Share opinions
• Promote your website & your brand

SEO: Search Engine Optimization
Search Engines Don’t see

• Pictures
• Flash & Videos
• Fancy scripts like Javascripts
• Frames

Search Engines Do see, pick up and follow:

• Text
• Links
• Meta Tags
• Tags & Keywords

The Best Thing About Blogs

• Blogs are text!
• Blogs are FREE!

Blogging Tools

• Blogger http://www.blogger.com
• Free WordPress http://www.wordpress.com
• Paid WordPress http://www.wordpress.org
• RSS Feeds http://feedburner.google.com/

Finding Time to Blog

• KISS: Keep It Short & Sweet
• Up to 500 words
• Blog at least once a week

Twitter http://www.twitter.com

• The New Word of Mouth
• What CB radios were back in the day
• A way to communicate with many people in real time
• July 4 Twitter surpassed 200 million tweets per day by 200 million users!
• Started 5 years ago, now gets 460,000 new sign-ups daily
• Tweet: 140 characters
• You grow a following by following people
• You can search for people or topics
• # – the hashtag
• What’s Trending

Jargon:

• Tweet and tweeting
• ReTweet (RT)
• Direct Message (DM)
• Mention @
• #FF – Follow Friday
• Tweet several times a day
• People log on to Twitter at different times during the day
• If you’re national, don’t forget time zones
• Monitor your Mentions
• Block Users that you don’t like
• Report SPAMMERS
• Most who Read Tweets also Write them (eMarketing article)

Promoting Your Blog

• Twitter
• Facebook http://www.facebook.com/

1. Profile page – your personal info
2. Fan page – promoting your book
3. Groups – book club

• LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/ – professionals, groups
• MySpace http://www.myspace.com
• Google+ https://plus.google.com

1. Need a Gmail account
2. Set up Gmail profile

YouTube

• video – book trailer
• friends
• follow/subscribe to channels / comment

Managing It All

• TweetDeck http://www.tweetdeck.com
• HootSuite http://www.hootsuite.com
• Google Alerts http://www.google.com/alerts
• Nutshell Mail http://www.nutshellmail.com
• Klout http://www.klout.com

Wrap-Up

• Do Focus on Content
• Be the Expert
• It’s not about you, it’s about what you know
• Trade useful info
• Goal is to get folks to share it with their followers & grow your following

Happy blogging and tweeting!
Giselle
www.giselleaguiar.com