Blogging 201: Day Eight: Make Your Blog a Hub

Posted on December 16, 2015 by Gun Roswell

Blogging 201: Day Eight: Make Your Blog a Hub

“Despite the fact that no one views or cares about my blog, I will continue to spend the majority of my life updating it” Unknown

Blogging 201: Day Eight: Make Your Blog a Hub

The internet is a big playground. If you’re serious about your development as an online publisher, you need to think about opportunities beyond your blog, with your blog as your digital homestead.

Think of your site as a space to develop your online presence and personal brand strategically, promote your work in a way that makes sense for you, and connect and share your other projects and work across the web: a hub for you, as well as a place to publish posts.

Today’s assignment: create a page or section on your blog to display links to your online presence elsewhere, and make sure your other presences reflect the brand you’re developing on your blog.

Why do this?

– Because as online publishers, our work is naturally scattered across the web — you want your readers and followers to find you. Building your personal brand means expanding your reach beyond your blog while keeping it the focus.
– Because sometimes you have material that doesn’t quite fit on your site, and you want to make this complementary work accessible.

On the main page of Rantings Of A Third Kind, the social media buttons are present in several places. Both the Instagram and Flickr feeds are shown as widgets. What is still missing, is the widget for the 500px feed, work in progress to find and making it.

On the “About” and “Biography” pages the social media links are presented in their own sections.

Those of you who have ventured to my blog and browsed about, may have noticed this page:

Links 4 Writers

This page contain links where writers can find information on writing, submissions and other connection hubs. I also have a profile on the Stage32 hub.

Blogging 201: Day Six: Dig Deep into a Social Network

Posted on December 16, 2015 by Gun Roswell

Blogging 201, Day Eight

Rantings Of A Third Kind

Blogging 201: Day Six: Dig Deep into a Social Network

“The Internet destroyed most of the barriers to publication. The cost of being a publisher dropped to almost zero with two interesting immediate results: anybody can publish, and more importantly, you can publish whatever you want.” Dick Costolo

Blogging 201: Day Six: Dig Deep into a Social Network

Today’s Assignment: pick one social network you’ll use to help grow your blog. Then, outline a plan for how you’ll use it.

Why do this?

• Because blogging is about building a community, and other social networks have ready-made communities.

• Because social networks are a great place to continue tangential conversations and experiment with content. Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, LinkedIn…where to start? A big brand might use every single one, but a big brand also has a social media department. You have the Department of You, so be selective.

I…

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Blogging 201, Branding and Growth: Day Four: Give ‘Em What They Want

Posted on December 16, 2015 by Gun Roswell

Blogging 201, Day Eight

Rantings Of A Third Kind

Blogging 201, Branding and Growth: Day Four: Give ‘Em What They Want

Time to take a step back. Live with the design you have for the day while we switch gears and start focusing on your content. We’re diving into stats to learn more about what your readers love.

Today’s assignment: do a basic stats analysis to help you create an editorial calendar for the next 30 days.

“There are lies, damned lies and statistics” Mark Twain

Blogging 201, Branding and Growth: Day Four: Give ‘Em What They Want

I have been following the statistics of my blog since day one, six months ago. Call it anal, call it interested, call it day job orientated motivation 😉 Keeping track on who, when, why is interesting. I quickly started utilizing the categories and tags for the posts. This helps on many levels; search, number or posts, statistics.

Due to working…

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Some Social Media Bullshit (Repost for Blogging 201)

Posted on December 16, 2015 by Gun Roswell

Blogging 201, Day Eight

Rantings Of A Third Kind

‘Connecting people – The artist formerly known as Nokia’

Some Social Media Bullshit

You don’t have to like it, but have to be in there: The social media of the world wide web. After all, who wants to be a complete social outcast!

Here are a few examples of what can be used for keeping in touch with family, friends and even your favourite movie stars!

* Assbook: Like opinions, everyone has more than one
* Angstagram: I post photos of myself and my eating habits, therefore I am
* Bitter: You would be too if no one is following you, right?
* Benchpress: For every self aware blabber, but more artistic ;P
* Tiedup: A must for professionals, endorse endorse endorse until you drop!
* You-boob: You did something stupid, maybe flashed a body part usually hidden, it got on video and uploaded on the internet and now you…

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Tea, Earl Grey, Hot, Happy International Tea Day!

Posted on December 15, 2015 by Gun Roswell

Happy International Tea Day!

“Enjoy life sip by sip, not gulp by gulp” The Minister of Leaves, The Republic of Tea

Tea, Earl Grey, Hot

Slow down
Listen
To the world
Around
Forget
That strife
Just Enjoy
Without a ploy
The simple pleasures,
Purest treasures
Of life

A cup of tea,
Plain and simple
Easy as
Your A, B, C
Soon you’ll see
A dimple
On your cheek
Will sneak

Breathe in
Breathe out
Relinquish
All doubt
Nothing to it
You can do it
Relax a while
It is no guile

Soon enough
The moment
That should have
Forever lasted
Has passed
You are back
On track

Remembering,
Hoping
The moments
Between now
And running out
To the
wide open
Would last
Longer than
A token

Blogging 201: Day Seven: Make the Most of Events

Posted on December 15, 2015 by Gun Roswell

Blogging 201: Day Seven: Make the Most of Events

“When I first came out there was no such thing as Twitter or Facebook. And the blogs! Like, what is that?” Christina Aguilera

Blogging 201: Day Seven: Make the Most of Events

When it comes to building a strong community around your blog, nothing replaces steadily publishing and commenting on others’ blogs — but that doesn’t mean you can’t help yourself (and your blog) target new audiences through blogging events, both virtual and in real life.

Today’s assignment: create a recurring blogging event on your site, and/or make plans to attend a blogging conference.

Why do this?

– Because hosting a blogging event attracts visitors beyond your immediate network of blogger friends.
– Because running an event or participating in a blogging conference helps raise your profile in the community and grow your audience.

I really appreciate the hosts put their time and effort in the shows for the blogging events. Lots of work and effort are needed to keep up with the posts, updates and what ever it entails. I, myself am currently more a part taker than a caretaker. The benefits of the events are the sense of community, valuable feedback and of course, more visibility.

As for myself being a host to any such event: If and when I am ever blogging as a full time paid blogger, then I will seriously consider hosting some events.

But, until such time, feel free to invite me to your event, I am in whether writing or photography or maybe even something different, I’ll be there!

Quote a Week Tuesday, 2015-12-15

Posted on December 15, 2015 by Gun Roswell

Source: Quote a Week Tuesday, 2015-12-15

Upside Down or Opposite Day (Writing 101 Poem A Day)

Posted on December 15, 2015 by Gun Roswell

Writing 101, A Poem A Day, Day Six: Fallacy
Poetry & Photography

Unsound arguments. Failures of reason.

Today, let’s write poems that are wholly illogical.

Let’s see how miserably we can get reason to fail; both our reason and the reason that guides our readers.

Try not to consider this prompt as a call to nonsense but rather a call to use your good (creative) sense to arrive at firmly misconstrued ends. Surprise yourself!

Alternatively, make poetry from known philosophical fallacies. Make that straw man stand by a red wheelbarrow, put the genius of the crowd to the test, or tell the tale of a (tautological) tub.

“Poetry…where magic is supreme and where therefore things happen which realistically-minded strangers find difficult to understand.” – Robert Graves

“This is not the rhyming song!”

Upside Down or Opposite Day

Chocolate as a dietary measure
Which can be the ultimate pleasure
To get the same effect
From this heavenly confect
You would by eating a carrot

Oh don’t listen to the parrot!

At least double the amount
No no you don’t have to count
Per each pleasurable bite
When enjoying this healthiest of delights

Chocolate is the answer
Never mind what the question was!

Blogging 101, Commenting Bootcamp, Day Two, Share a Personal Story

Posted on December 15, 2015 by Gun Roswell

Blogging 101, Commenting Bootcamp, Day Two, Share a Personal Story

Blogging and commenting are about connecting. We connect with one another through stories.

Today, leave a comment in which you share a personal story about yourself.

When you tell a personal story, you show the original blogger a few things. First, that their post resonated with someone — something every blogger strives for — and second, that you’re ready to open up and engage in real conversation.

Share a personal story in a comment — something relevant to the original post.

Again, we encourage you to leave this comment on a blog where you’ve never engaged before. This just might be the start of a beautiful friendship!

“I plead the fifth”

Blogging 101, Commenting Bootcamp, Day Two, Share a Personal Story

For today’s assignment, I must “plead the fifth”.

Call it personality, call it national heritage (Finnish inherited personality), promoting myself shamelessly while enjoying someone else’s product is something which is not in my nature to do. If there is a funny anecdote to be shared, then that is fine, when the situation demands it. I have even written a comment in a poem to one of my favourite blogs, but sharing something truly personal on someone else’s blog, is really not me. Of course there are always exceptions to any rule.

What prompted this?

Definite “no-nos” from real life, which I have received as comments on my posts:

“Excellent story and colourful pics: now come and see my site…”
“Rant, rant, why I hate religion, rant, rant, nothing to do with your post, continued rant”
“I really don’t like black and white photographs”

I like to follow my dear departed Grandmother’s motto “If you haven’t gotten anything nice or constructive to say, shut the hell up!”

Keep calm and keep blogging, and commenting all!

Tuesday Morning Sunrise

Posted on December 15, 2015 by Gun Roswell

In honour of the month of December
&
Posted in response to The Clinic-Photo Rehab hosted by Lucile De Godoy
Poetry & Photography

“I had a rule that I had to go to bed before the sun came up. So I used to look up the sunrise times because I thought it would be bad karma to be going to bed as dawn was arriving” Eric Schmidt

Tuesday Morning Sunrise

Tuesday morning Sunrise
What a pleasant surprise
For the early morning riser
What could be finer
Than being greeted by the magnificence
Of mother nature’s excellence
On this fine december morning
A few days before holiday glory