When I first started blogging I didn’t know just how much I was going to enjoy it although I do remember something nagging inside my brain whenever I watched Carrie on Sex in the City sit at her computer. She may have written a column for a newspaper but in so many ways it was a blog, perhaps the original blog. She wrote regularly, had followers and wrote around a particular topic but there was always a point to it that was applicable to life in general. I wanted to be like her; well in as far as writing is concerned. Last post I discovered blogging was an even better marketing tool than I suspected by being an integral part of getting Fifty Shades of Gray out there to the public. Whether you are a fan or not is irrelevant but that the blogging process is not one to be underestimated is, and its blogging I want to talk about.
Since becoming enmeshed in the world of writing I have read lots of blogs and have fallen in love with the medium because it does just that. It allows insights into life through different topics. I particularly like reading posts from Pulse in Linkedin. They come from a variety of people in a variety of professions and yet there is almost always a meeting of the minds in what is shared. People are interested in being a part of people succeeding and write what they can to provide encouragement. At the same time we learn about their world. Blogging allows us into the world of fiction with writers, science with scientist, therapy with its therapist, in short blogging doesn’t discriminate which world we enter. The best part about it all is that we benefit on so many levels so easily without an overload of periphery information on that particular topic often a strong excluder. Instead we connect on a human level.
Marnie LeFevre sees blogging as “part of nearly every business strategy. It’s not something that’s done to fill idle time, but rather something that is scheduled and prioritised. It informs. It builds relationships. It sells.” For me some days it takes over all my writing time and considering my stage in life and how much I do want to finally be a writer I have had to consider carefully my motives and the importance of blogging. I love that Marnie has put all this up there to read. I needed the reassurance which I found in her post. Marnie has eleven reasons to blog but she had me at the words “expanding my network”, and “building brand awareness”.
Me, I am the brand. It is a good to look at yourself and what you have to offer in such a clinical way. Calling it a brand distances you so that you can better see what you need to do. Blogging is a way to build what Marnie calls brand loyalty. As a brand I need to be flexible enough to include a different sort of writing, a more personal approach. In a post you can pass on information, answer questions, vary your topics and be more open to receiving feedback, immediate feedback. I think in this way you get trust, loyalty and a chance to shape reader perception into a positive one for your business as a whole. This isn’t just any brand, it’s a personal brand.
Having read quite a few posts lately from some very interesting people I have felt the final push into having a website grow stronger. A brand needs a home. The website is about housing me as an author and showcasing what I produce including a blog. Part of me feels foolish to have the website ready without a published piece but then I remember I have been posting for almost a year in this journey to reach the place I want to be. Writing a post can take as much work as writing a novel. In fact in some ways it is harder because you constantly digress to different topics to keep it fresh, and you have to produce often as it gives readers a reason to trust in what you can do. Blogging for writers is a heavy duty form of practice where readers not only look at the content but at how you produce it. Your ability to express unique thoughts and do it grammatically well is what a writer is judged by. You are asking people to purchase your computer scribbling. As Marnie point out, the quest to deliver interesting, or informative posts drives you into researching. It’s a business; writing is a business either in book form or as a post and you owe your clients the best possible service. Blogging outside of the career as a writer is just as difficult, if not more so because their business is not words. Yet I see some incredible work in front of me every day where bloggers prove that the greatest enemy to success is the face we see in the mirror and it isn’t theirs.
So now I have the website and am looking at the transfer of my blog to its new home. Of course I have had some technology problems (okay no surprise to anyone that knows me) and the blog seems to have attached itself on every page of the website but not under the Amorina Rose’s Blog where it should be sitting. So unfortunately or perhaps fortunately, for the next few months at least, my blog http://amorinarosewrites.blogspot.comwill continue where it is as well as on the new website. All this is courtesy of a wonderful young man called Sean who has endless patience as well as being savvy, and who is a budding young author himself. I am hoping both sites boost each other but am aware my website is a sad skeleton. Suggestions are welcome as it is sadly lacking flesh to plump it up and give it life. I will have plenty of snippets as teasers but mostly the site is needing its author to get a move on with the promised anthology and a hot contemporary romance. Don’t hesitate to come find at www.brstrickland.com and feel free to contact me on my contact page with any ideas and comments to improve the site, and have some faith the rest will come.
Ciao
Barb