What are you writing for?

My blogging and writing activity goes very well, thank you for the question. It is a lot to do and explore - especially when working full time for travels and foodie blogs. But, as I said on several occasions, writing and living with the impression of doing extraordinary things it is not enough. The blogs need (a lot of) promotion and intensive networking. Sometimes, you also need also some serious resources, financial, especially first because I need to diminish my time spent with various freelancing projects and second because in some cases a little bit of advertising may help. 

Time-wise I need to learn a lot about SEO and ads and various tips how to use Wordpress as a pro. And in between I need to improve at least another foreign language I have in my pocket because I need to go as international as possible. The list is getting longer and longer each day.

However, if I start thinking mostly about what I need to do to promote my posts, I forget something the most important part of my online story: the content of my stories as such. This is why I have blogs and Facebook page and Twitter account: because I want to share stories. Being present only for the sake of the social media profile does not solve the issue of who will write my posts as good as possible to be considered by publishers and companies for getting more work and visibility. No one will go to find out interesting topics or to prepare interviews if I am stuck checking how many people unfollowed me. 

At the beginning of the online adventure, there may be a lot of time needed until getting to an acceptable level. Learning how to use some good tricks - I started to use recently Google+ and I have only good words for this decision; the same goes to StumbleUpon (hope to write more about those experiences in a separate post) - and trying to be as organized as possible when it comes to various online events - such as the Twitter chats that I love more and more instead to the lonely autistic way of posting on my own and connecting from time to time to some fellow Twitter friends. 

The objective of the next weeks is to create more quality content, end up some interesting advertising deals and learn some decent principles of using successfully YouTube. The more I write the more I want to spend more time for my articles and this is why I want so much to do what I am doing. All my work, time and valuable resources should be spend doing the single thing I always wanted to do: writing. The rest is part of the right appreciation that my (hope) quality work might obtain.

  

How to better use the social reading networks

I am an avid reader and I wish I can spend at least one month the year reading non-stop, with only 5 hours of sleep and one hour of cooking and shopping. It is an utopia, of course, but I try to find as much time as possible to read (almost) any kind of books: literature, travel, cooking, history, self-help, politics, history...You see? Almost everything.

As I also manage several blogs - travel, foodie, social media, and writing - and I am member of the respectable networks of Goodreads and Shelfari and I am always looking to expand my audience and increase my expertise, my book passion can turn into a golden mine for my diversified efforts. Trying to fight with the low social media presence for some of my blogs, I discovered that writing book reviews on my blogs that are later on shared on those social networks plus on Amazon.com could be an impressive free opportunity to raise the awareness about what I am doing as well as a way to attract more readers. 

I am trying as much as possible to have my posts free of a high concentration of key words and to offer honest reviews based of an analysis of the style, information and relevance. Even if I know personally or virtually some of the writers, I always prefer to keep myself at the decent level of evaluation and to not spare any criticism if needed. 

From my point of view, this experience is useful also for improving my writing, my page ranking as well as for preparing the ground for my own books. The motto of my life is to always be ready for challenges and to use my skills for new tasks and opportunities. And there are so many books to read!

How to organize your blogging life

Let's think about the following nightmare scenario:

Happy mother, with a high academic profile, with a busy happy family life, and a lot of social networking, and a lot of passion for writing, reading - as many domains as possible, and many blogs to manage on a daily basis. Please add to the list a new job and some extra business projects I need to continue at least for a couple of months. I also love to cook and to blog about my recipes. I need to attend conferences, improve two foreign languages and other 'must to' at least twice the day.

Sounds crazy, I know, but I use to sleep maximum 5 hours the day and I am perfectly healthy. However, when it comes to my small blogging empire, I suffer a lot for neglecting the regular contributions. As one day - and many years later -  I hope I will be professional enough to focus exclusively on managing my blogging portfolio, I need to prepare the official launch of my free life. But how?

The easiest way to plan is to dedicate at least one hour the day updating two of the blogs and another 30 minutes later the day to keep the track of the social media from the domains close to those blogs. It is important that I create thus a certain regularity of the posts, instead of the current pace when I use to dedicate a couple of days in a row to updating one or two of the blogs and not returning for the next 2 weeks. On the other hand, as blogging is the only activity without deadlines, it was healthier for a while to refrain from being too intensive, as I need to draw the separation line between 'freedom' and 'financial slavery'.

I will try to keep this program at least for two weeks from now and evaluate if it is feasible or not. I decided - 100% randomly - to dedicate the Mondays and Tuesdays to this blog, so hope to be back then!

Wordpress and pictures

I am not such a big fan of Wordpress, but I take any opportunity to learn something new about it. My big problem is that sometimes it might take a lot of time to upload your post, because you need to consider various technicalities that blogspot, for instance, does not have. Very often, due to my hectic work, I need a simple application allowing me to write my posts wherever I am and eventually attach some pics.

While editing some blog posts in Wordpress, I needed to ad some pictures too and I was impressed by the options. First, the picture can be inserted in a very elegant way, with a nice format and a quality space dedicated to the caption. Another great possibility is the creation of galleries of photos. Especially for blogs dedicated to travel, this is a great option. You can follow the slides of pictures at a very good quality. You can insert the picture relatively easily, with many options of the location and the dimensions. The result, is impressive and if not too lazy and with a lot of work to do, I wish I have more than one blog on Wordpress.

Why I like being a blogger?

The only job that I always wanted to have was of a journalist. I not even wanted to be a writer, even though I always have been into books and literature. I was keen to be close to the reality and put it into my words and explain it to as many people as possible.

Luckily enough and with a lot of work, I was able to work as a journalist for almost 10 years. It was hardly a domain that I did not covered during those years, and although as a woman the life in the media is hard and supposes many personal sacrifices, I succeeded to improve my knowledge about world while meeting interesting people, travelling a lot and writing even more.

The only part that I did not like about media was the presence of too many people that were not driven by the passion for reality and words, but by the need to get rich and influencial and to listen to various orders. I left without regrets and I continued my career in PR and communications, writing books and academic articles. 

Passionate about everything new and fresh in terms of communications, I was more than happy to be one of the first using social media tools and various 2.0 instruments. Blogging was naturally among the first new passions that I regularly followed for many years already. In the last 7 years I closed few and opened even more blogs sharing my passions and the eagerness to share to the world my ideas and love for books and wonderful things. Even though I do not have too much time for such non-profit activities - especially when I need to make a living somehow - I try to contribute regularly to all my online media business. 

I hope that one day each blog will work as a source of profit, and small steps were made for reaching possible sponsors and signing various sponsorships. However, I prefer to stay late in the night looking for subjects to blog than to miss the chance of following my passions. Blogging gave my the chance to write what I want and consider important to write, without the need to request permission and explain my choice and my stance. 

I belive in the power of blogging as much as I believe that we can change the world also with the force of the words. For this, and for many other small wonders of my online world, I am once again thankful for living in the 21st century.

Find the right blog

Are you working for a company interested to collaborate with various categories of bloggers? Do you have problems in finding out which blogs are the best to promote your products? Here are a couple of advices about how to make the right choices:

1. Most probably, the products that you are ready to distribute for free are limited and thus, you should be very careful with the category of blogs offered for distribution. The first step is to make a short and long list of networks where you will be interested to see your products presented as well as to define your target group.

2. You should always look for active bloggers - meaning with at least 1-2 posts the week. 

3. Be careful with the new blogs: some people would be happy to use your products for free and for this, they will set up a blog especially for this. Take your time and watch what is going on with the blog in the next weeks and months and start the collaboration only if you are sure that you deal with a committed blogger.

4. The volume of comments is also very important: the best case scenarios are the blogs with more than 5-6 comments for each posts.

5. Other big numbers in social media networks are important: the 'likes' of the Facebook pages, the 'followers' on Twitter or the 'daily ratio' of the readership will automatically pledge the cause of a medium or long term collaboration with a blogger.

6. Beyond those statistical aspects, you should take care of the language and the general design of the blog. Not anyone will be happy to associate his or her products with bloggers assuming vulgarity  or rasist messages whatever the impressive readership, isn't it?

7. Your geographical area of interest is also important. If you want to increase your customers from Asia, you should focus especially on the (big) blogs from this area.

Writing challenges, from print to online

Are you a dedicated print journalist and you realized that you cannot continue without a consistent online presence?

Here are some useful tips about what you can do do enhance your performances and avoid the usual mistake made by those who did not realized clearly the differences between the two. 

If you wondered, it is not difficult and if you have the gift and passion of the writer, you will succeed. 

How to keep in touch with your audience

As an intensive blogger and avid reader of various media and books on different subjects, I know that sometimes it is hardly impossible to keep in touch with all my interests simply by the gentle search. It would mean to spend almost 3-4 hours the day or even more only by searching on the Internet after news. An impossible mission, as long as till now, I passionately blog for free and thus, I need to keep myself busy with jobs, family and other obligations in between.

Thus, how to continue writing while still on the run with other topics?

As in many other situations, you should know what your interests are and what your audience expects from you. Thereafter, you need to set up a list of keywords and set up as your Google search tools.

In addition, you need to find out newspapers, organizations and institutions that sent regularly updates with their news. Once something new appears, you will have it right in your inbox. It will help you to better manage your writing time and increase your efficiency. You can count on the spectacular searches and findings, but you need to increase audience, maybe some profits as well and be professional in a world of professionals. And if you want to play good, use the best resources for the best results. Most likely, you have more opportunities to communicate from time to time with those who are sending the updates and to establish better professional connections.

Of course, you should not forget to read your e-mail regularly and check up what is new in your professional inbox. If you have a blog, you should associate it with an e-mail address dedicated exclusively to the communication dedicated to this blogging activity. It is important that you check it at least twice the week - on Mondays and on Thursdays and try to plan your blogging activities up to this information. In this way, you will be able to navigate easier through the sea of news and try to be one of the first to inform your readers with the best quality of news.

Tips for finding sponsors?

Do you have a blog that is open to various collaborations - for instance, book and product reviews, travel packages, photography, Internet and hi-tech products - and you do not know how to find out more companies keen to help you find new and exciting projects?

Honestly, because I have a background in journalism, I avoided to find out more about this type of activity because I considered - and still think it is - not necessarily an informative approach dedicated to share something with your readers. In the majority of cases, people are happy to wear and use different products without any financial effort.

However, it is very important that before you address a certain company, you check carefully the conditions of partnerships. Many of them are honest in expressing their desire to do not interfere with the blogger's impression and thus, you will be free of any obligation to write something nice about something that it is nothing like that. 

My main interest is in books and till now, I had the chance of good collaborations, and most probably I will be tempted to expand a bit my porfolio of services. I like to write, to share to my readers the latest news and thus, I am open to collaborations and new experiences.

There are, in my opinion, a couple of conditions and steps that you should accomplish for successful collaborations:

1. Your blog should be updated regularly - at least once the week.

2. Having additional exposure - on Instagram, Facebook, Google+ - will help you to qualify for the attention of the potential sponsors. Also, do not forget to mention on your blog the e-mail address where you can be found for eventual collaborations.

3. Previous collaborations with other companies will send a message about your credibility.

4. Contact companies and businesses that are included in your editorial interests. For instance, if you have a blog about books and you contact a company for coffee machines, it is clear that you are interested in getting something for free without too much interest for the company as such.

5. On the other hand, it is important the quality of your writing. Add pictures, YouTube tutorials and correctly written posts. In the previous case, you can write a story about how your coffee maker contributed to the overwhelming success of your new book!

6. A bilingual version of the site - especially if you are not writing in English - is a guarantee that you can reach an extended audience.

7. When you address the potential sponsors, be succint but careful to explain in detail why the company should collaborate with you. Try to adequate your message to the possible target group of the company. Explain in a few words how do you see your future collaboration. Mention your social media coverage and any statistics about your audience as well as information about the profile of your readers. Do not try to cheat because nowadays you can easily find out how famous and 

8. Keep in touch with the representatives of the company: write them when you received their products, let them know when you are supposed to post your review. Do not let them write you back to ask you two months after the first contact what happened to their products. Most probably, they will not be interested to work with you in the future. After your review is live, let them know and send a short 'thank you' message. It will not take more than 10 minutes, anyway. 

9. Be honest in your review and mention that you received the products for a free review. However, for the sake of your credibility, try to avoid big and enthusiastic words that do not send any information about the products. Be simple and present as neutral as possible what are the products about and how they could serve the needs of the customers. If there are shortages in terms of qualities, do not hesitate to write about them because the truth should follow your writing activities, although you are not a journalist.

Why I do not like paid posts

As marketing assistant for various trendy companies, looking for fancy bloggers, I am very often faced with the following answer: I would be more than happy to advertise your products, but my costs are the following:$$$. In such cases, I do not like to reply back.

I am blogging for a couple of years already and I am still at the beginning of the learning process of how to successfully promote myself. More specifically, how to use the weapon of my words to win more customers, money, products. Till now, with only one exception, I relied exclusively on my power of using the words and felt the freedom of being free to share my knowledge with the other as often as I had time. Probably my latest marketing experiences taught me something about how to better promote my non-for-profit blogging business.

But, what I do not like when I receive the corporate answers is the idea of accepting to trade your freedom of writing. In many places in the world, journalists will be extremely happy to be free to write without being forced to ponder each of their word for not offending corrupt politicians or businessmen. Some are paying with their lives. Blogging is an honest option to use the Internet for freely sharing your thoughts. As long as your web host allows, you are free to post as often as you want about what do you want. You can exercise your critical thinking. 

In the case of a paid post, obviously, you will praise the values of a product, even it is ugly or harmful or completely unworth the money. Some people ask $70 the post, plus the free delivery of the product. I am completely against this attitude and I wish that many people will realize they and how they are wrong. And this is also the responsibility of the companies that went used to pay the media - online including - for reading what they want to read about themselves. Call it the dangerous denial of the consuming age.

Unless further notice, the posts on this blog are free as spring birds.

The modest lessons of a marketing assistant

A new year and new professional challenges. 

For the next four weeks I will do exactly what I fully enjoy - was it ever something different? Anyway, this time I am the full master of the show and I am more than happy to learn every day some new tricks and tips.

Even though I am not a human resources coach - and will never be in the next 100 years, probably - I dare to give one simple advice: if you really need to expand your professional horizons, try at least once the year to do for a little while something completely out of the previous professional menu. Do a short internship in a new domain, if you hate doing administrative work - as I fully do - try to do it for one week for being able to better understand the secrets of a well organized office etc.

In my case, I decided to play the role of the marketing assistant. My main tasks are to find a number of bloggers interested in presenting a product. Most part of my work consist in doing web research for identifying the target group of my client. It is not well paid and it is mostly a maintenance work, as I am practically sending daily around 16-17 standard mails. 

I don't know how the previous assistants did this job, but I am more than happy with the feedback received in the last three weeks: nice and interesting bloggers, various interests and serious writers. I discovered a fascinating world of young women writing and sharing their ideas. 

Out of my cold and serious world, I am learning new things every day about how to improve your writing and pitch of subjects daily and about introducing better visuals on your blogs. As a photographer myself - I introduced this professional activity on my CV last year, when the process of professional redefinition was started - I am amazed to find every time new inspiration.

As for the lessons learned, there are a couple of insights I would like to share right now:

- Are you looking for targets: find the dedicated national and international networks. For fashion, for example, there are predominant blogging communities gathering interesting individuals writing about fashion.

- Explore the blogrolls: you will easier find people sharing the same style and preoccupations.

- Be as friendly as possible: Try to introduce a personal note in your pre-written, cold e-mails. For example, if you send the mail before the holiday season, be so kind and introduce some special wishes - better a neutral one, as "happy holiday season" as long as you don't know the religious affiliation of the person you are writing to.

- If you have a blog, do at least twice the year an overall checking of your blogroll as it is annoying to keep an updated list of people who didn't write for years.

- Also, unless you don't want to be a super secret person, introduce a address of contact for your avid readers that would like to talk to you. Honestly, I don't think that it is such a big danger as long as you keep it as neutral as possible - for example, an address of your blog, without a direct mention of your name or address or any other very personal details.

- Be very careful with what you write. Check once more before pushing the 'send' button.

- At the beginning, it may be annoying to keep the track of your payments and of your hours and to report every week your evaluation, mostly if you are used with somebody else's doing it for you. But, you know what, being fully independent is a blessing and you need to know all the small details of a work in order to understand the energy and value of any minute.

There are also other lessons, but for the moment I keep learning hard.

Google, to promote high-quality sites

Google announced a change of perspective in promoting the blogs and sites, by focusing more on the content than on other "mathematical" aspects - as frequence and number of posts...For me, it is nothing revolutionary, but a welcomed returned to the brains' normality.

Do you still rely on blogging?

If you'll ask me, I will definitely answer "yes"! Twitter and Facebook are useful tools, but nothing more than tools, for widespreading information on facts and figures and ideas. But still, you need to provide a reliable base and this is made of your coherent ideas that you can express and introduce on your blog(s). I still trust it!

Related articles

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• Why Blogging Isn't Going Anywhere (bloggingwithbeth.com)
• Online video sharing doubles within a year (econsultancy.com)

About blogging, travel and good marketing

I enjoyed a lot this interview, with a successful blogger passionate about what he is writing about.

From my point of view, doing what you enjoy is the first step to success. Of course, you need lots of effort, passionate dedication and as much time as possible.

Just plant the seeds, take care of the tree and wait.

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Share forward

Since the beginning of this week, I am fully enjoying the wonderful opportunity of updating my digg, StumbleUpon etc. accounts and blogs more than once the day, by using the great "Share" button at the end of the all respectable articles posted on Internet. Only a couple of clicks away, you are offering as often as possible content to your online dossiers. In less than 2 minutes you have everything on. For somebody reading and documenting permanently, it offers a great opportunity for sharing forward. This is the option of showing to the world how you are, in a very efficient way.

Good luck with sharing, readers!

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• How To Use Stumble Upon For Free Traffic (social-media-traffic.com)
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Q and A

One of the advantages of obtaining a high traffic on your blog is to post information related to things on the run in the daily reality. But not only posting links or various other data already available on the net, but trying to succeed in bringing your own contribution with other information or with interesting comments.

For some cases, posting a rapid Q and A, outlining relevant aspects concerning a specific issue - I was thinking about this idea while trying to find attractive ways to update periodically a blog covering topics regarding the foreign affairs. You can offer to your readers original content for exaplaining a certain situation you are findind everywhere in the media. Nowadays, for continuing with the example from the area of international relations, everybody is discussing about the issue of the economic situation from Ireland. You, as an inspired writer, you are identifying a couple of questions following the lecture of the most important articles or opinions that will be answered on the basis of a proper documentation. Time is important and before deciding the blogging hobby you need to be well prepared for dedicating more than five minutes the day or the week for updating and promoting your blog. Of course, in the case that you want to offer a reliable and successful project.

Have a nice and inspiring week-end!

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• 5 Ways you Can Use Blog Comments to Obtain Organic Links (cash-bandit.com)

About blogging

Share and the readers are yours

For a long time, I always found difficult to organize my posts and content for my blogs. Because always in a harsh competition against time, my desire to have an interesting and update blog being countered by my problems to deal with difficult professional and personal tasks. Hence, the focus on sharing link, instead of offering fresh and insightful ideas and content.

My chance started when I realize how important is not only to offer original content, but also to share direct experience. It is not always a need for a different style, but a concentration of your professional lessons learned and the importance of sharing. We are more likely to follow and be interested in what others did before us, about life testimonies. It brings a slice of life and authenticity to our words. From the point of view of the author, it brings ideas easily and offer many opportunities to expand your horizon. If you are a writer, a speaker, a consultant, use as often as possible the argument of the previous experience. Looking back, it is how you can inspire and create a direct connection with your readers or listeners.

Focus on who you are and only when you know exactly what do you stand for you will be able to influence the others and create role models and try to improve the world by your modest but necessary contribution. A life worth living.