Welcome back to WHR You Decide!
We are honored and pleased to announce our next special guest host, Andee Frizzell, famed actor from Andromeda, Supernatural, Flash Gordon, Stargate Atlantis, and many more wonderful television and movie appearances!
We suggest following Andee Frizzell on Twitter, like her Facebook page, and click to learn more about Andee Frizzell at her official web site!
Andee Frizzell will join us on You Decide Sunday September 9, 2012 8pm Eastern time, 5pm Pacific time to discuss her new blog, http://memoirsofthelostandconfused.com/
The Blogging Way
Are you a blogger? It depends on your definition. According to Jeff Bullas, everyone is a blogger, whether they know it or not. But then, Mr. Bullas’ definition is pretty broad. If you write something on Facebook and receive comments and feedback then you are a blogger. Tweet a short sentence of 140 characters on Twitter and you are a micro blogger. Upload a video to YouTube where you can obtain subscribers and elicit comments, then you are a video blogger.
Arianna Huffington of the Huffington Post said that “self expression has become the new entertainment” and people are increasingly likely to participate online than just be couch potatoes in front of the television. It is creating an explosion of creativity and expression that is opening up digital doors for invisible experts worldwide. Formal qualifications such as a degree or a diploma are still vital in a knowledge economy and display good educational discipline.
The fact though, is that no longer do you have to wait years and years to be declared an expert by an institution or mass media outlet who has picked or anointed you. Pick yourself and publish. The democratization of publishing and marketing through self publishing (blogging) and self marketing (social media) are breaking down barriers to display invisible experts who previously would have been hidden from view.
Mr. Bullas lists several benefits for the beginning blogger that may appeal. As a blogger, you will improve your writing, learn new things, become a better researcher, look like an expert, increase your on-line status, improve your memory and creativity and improve your networking skills. Not bad for a few lines of text on a regular basis.
The Downside of Blogging
According to the bloggers that I know, the downside to blogging is the feeling of responsibility a person gets when they establish a reader base. Once the readers get used to a certain pattern of blogging (in Stargate writer and Show Runner, Joe Mallozzi’s case, it is every day), they expect to see a new post every day. I am sure that Mr. Mallozzi often does not feel like writing a post, but, since people have come to expect it, he has little choice.
Another downside can be the problem with topics. What is too personal to write about? With no one editing a blogger’s material, writing about personal information may get out of hand. What may seem like a very important and relevant topic today, can become a page worth of embarrassment later on.
No problem, just delete the page you say? Unfortunately, what has been posted on the internet often does not just go away because you want it to. Anyone who has read your blog can have made copies of it so the post can pop up again in the future. Some larger sites like Twitter keep information even when you attempt to delete it. The best thing to do is to read your user agreement so you know if the post is ever truly removed.
Blogging takes a great deal of work. Once that post is written, you then need to promote it, then you need to interact with your readers in the comments by replying to every comment. You will also need to interact with readers from Facebook and Twitter, and try to bring the conversation back to your blog.
Replying to comments is the best way to show you are an active participant in your blog, and that you are available to your readers. You want to stand out from all the bloggers out there, and the best way to do that is to be actively social on your blog. This will also make it easier for you to build a brand around your name and blog, if that is your goal.
Do you know what an “SEO” is? No? The letters, “SEO” stand for “Search Engine Optimization”. Wikipedia describes it as “the process of improving the visibility of a website or a web page in a search engine’s “natural,” or unpaid (“organic” or “algorithmic”), search results. In general, the earlier (or higher ranked on the search results page), and more frequently a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine’s users”.
In other words, to reach the top or number one status on any search engine list like Google, you need to pepper your document with key words that people will use in their search for whatever interests them. The better you do with adding the right key words, the more people will find and visit your blog. The challenge now becomes, what are the best key words to use.
The most important thing, when looking to start a blog, is to determine why you are doing so. Then do your research. It is always wiser to learn from the mistakes of others instead of making your own. Unless, of course, you enjoy making your own mistakes. But that is an article for another time.
Thanks to Kenn for final staging of the audio and images in this news article and thanks to you for stopping by WormholeRiders News Agency!!
We look forward to seeing you for our exclusive interview with Andee Frizzell this Sunday 5 PM PST 8 PM EST!
Please feel free to leave a comment here, click an icon below to share this interview with your friends, or you can visit and follow me on Twitter by clicking on my avatar to the right.
Regards,
Thank you.
ArcticGoddess1 (Patricia)