Alphablogs

I’m really enjoying working with Robert Meyer on his Musical Reminiscences. A double bassist who worked with Britten, de Sabata, and many others, Meyer participated in much of the classical recording and performance that occurred in London after the war, until the 60s when he moved to Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. His newsy reminiscences are always interesting to me. How do I help him? I take the emails he sends me and help them become bloggable. Then I post them with links to relevant additional information. And I handle any pesky spam issues.

We included his extensive discography which is introduced by a great article that really reveals the life of a working studio musician in London in those days. Through the blog Robert has been in contact with others, and has brought out even more stories than those he includes in his self-published book.

Check it out here.

A blog can really help when you are writing of a memoir, as it is episodic, and can be completed in stages, as it grows naturally. It seems easy, then the compiled blog postings can be edited together in book form. The people at Lulu have named this “the blook” - a book created from blog postings.

(This entry was included in the first LinkedIn Blog Carnival)

We’re excited to use a great new capability that allows PowerPoint slideshows to be shared on your blog. If you already have a presentation ready to go, you can just pop it on the blog and voila! Excellent if you are travelling and need to present, or if you want to convey a lot of information in one blog posting. How does this differ from, say, a video presentation? The timing is all in the hands of the viewer, who can go through the slides much more quickly than in a real-time presentation.
Here are a few examples:

I’ve been doing video for client blogs for some time now, and it’s been a wide range. Here are two clips from recent postings:

Alma Pasic, Mortgage Broker, on new mortgage opportunities for the self-employed.

Robert Meyer, Double Bassist, on conductors.

Today we’ll look at a blog by golf pro Dave Smallwood.

Right off the bat – I’m not a golfer. So this is also a challenge to all you golfers out there: what does this blog look like to you, from the point of view of someone who really knows about this noble sport?

I’ll look at it from the point of view of a potential client, who might want to get her feet wet with a few golf lessons. What does Dave Smallwood have to offer me?

Focus and readability

When I first chanced upon the host site – the Ontario Golf site – I saw the word “instruction” right away and made a beeline for it. Check – I’m in the right place. Well done! Dave doesn’t confuse his readers.

The next thing I noticed that his paragraphs are nice and short. The longest is six lines long. I’m not intimidated by big blocks of text, which makes me want to read on. Great!

Images: Unprofessional - but they do the trick

He provides pictures to illustrate the text. While I thought this was a great idea – apart from illustration, it also breaks up the monotony of text – I would suggest he use better images. The colours of Dave’s images tend to be drab and a bit unfocused. So there’s room for improvement in that area, although in Dave’s situation, it’s better to have any image than none.

Why is that? First of all, in his situation, the information that the illustration provides is more important than how he presents it (content, here, is more important than form). For other professionals – photographers, for example, or fashion designers – form is almost more important than content, and posting images of such quality would be an absolute no-no. It all depends on the industry.

The other reason why the below-par quality of Dave’s images may not matter so much is because the rest of the web site provides a relatively good and professional visual presentation, so a few mediocre photographs can be forgiven.

It goes without saying, of course, that we will always advise you to only use best-quality images on any of the blogging projects that we help you manage.

Headlines that go the distance

I like the headline of one of his posts, “Greater Club Head Lag Means Greater Distance”. Dave says, “It is likely that 98 % of all golfers have no idea what the title to this article means. Regardless, all are very aware that they would like greater distance.”

That’s one of the secrets of a good headline: Marry a desire (“greater distance”) with a mystery (“greater club head lag”).

What desires do your clients have? What mystery tip do you have for them?

My young assistant, Alex, wrote this about watching me blog. I’m blushing a bit as I present this here (actually, I’m blushing a lot) but I think it gives one more piece of the puzzle of the success of blogs. I’ll also add a few comments.

You need to jump off a cliff in order to get anywhere (metaphorically). It’s very possible to engage an audience - it just requires a leap of faith into the unknown.

It’s true; starting a blog is a bit like jumping off a cliff. But what Alex says about the “unknown” is exactly one of the things we’re after when we’re blogging: what is it that our clients want that is unknown to us? For example, I had no idea that so many of my clients share my passion for Dr. Seuss!

You can inform and entertain and show your expertise without being on a podium all the time.

I love “without being on a podium.” I really don’t like preaching, and most clients thoroughly dislike being preached to. A blog gives you a chance to casually share your knowledge and experience with your clients.

In her blog, Isabella showed me that it really pays off to show courage and congruency of intention, focus, and a thrill for what you’re doing, no matter how difficult it is.

That’s another thing that blogging does: it puts a spotlight on your “thrill”. Blogging is for people who are passionate about their work.

And don’t be afraid to ask for help (simply asking my friend Ryan with a little bit of information about Google Analytics, the blog statistics program, paid off extremely well for her); don’t be afraid of challenges!

The blogosphere is a bit of a jungle sometimes. And you know what, it’s a jungle for everyone, even for high-level experts like Robert Sanzalone from PacificIT (who fired me up about blogging in the first place). The trick is to have a bit of a map for this jungle, and to know where to find the guides when it gets too dense.

I’ve learned how to ‘tag’ her blog entries properly so that people like you can find them in Google (or any other search engine you use).

That’s very important. Blogging is all about “pull marketing.” Pull marketing leaves it up to the client to find you. Good tagging makes it easy for your clients to do that.

It’s a thrill to be her personal assistant because she keeps me on my toes and it’s a position where I’m constantly learning and growing and fully supported through that process!

Well, it’s a thrill to have someone like Alex, and I fully return the compliment. One of the reasons why it’s so great to have Alex around is because she is of the Web 2.0 generation. A generation who grew up with computers, fully at home in cyberculture. It’s great to have such an expert on board!