Tips for Starting and Maintaining a Blog

Garrett Graff and I are quoted in this week's USA Weekend about starting a blog. Our tips:

• Know your motive
• Pick a platform
• Just do it
• Promote yourself
• Play nice

Lifehack.org also had a great related post yesterday - how not to run out of blogging steam.

Comments

[Alexandre Alfredo]

Hi Steve,

It´s Alex from Edelman Brazil. There tips are great. One thing that I´d emphasize is that when playing nice, transparency is the name of the game. You have to be honest and let people see that you are fair!

Good luck with our blog!

Best,

Alex

[Michael Beck]

This seems to be mostly a blog of other blog posts. I just read this article. I am looking for information specific to PR.

How is blogging revolutionizing PR?

[Steve Rubel]

Michael, see my prior post as well as my PR archives.

[Roger Anderson]

Steve,
Those are great tips. You are a very experienced writer and some of these things come easy to you.

I just recently started a blog (www.modernmagellans.com). I started by joining a group of blogs so that I did not have to worry about hosting, software and SEO issues. I ran a software company and I was a very early participant in the WWW wave (first site in 1994). So, it's not that I can't I just prefer not t hassle with such things anymore. I also get the benefit of partners who can help me avoid mistakes.

There are many people who do not have the writing skills or do not take the time to improve their writing skills which can actually harm them if they write a blog. So I might debate point #3. Perhaps a little preparation is a good thing. Have your "ducks in a row" before you go out and open yourself up to the world. It does not take much to destroy a brand or image these days.

#4 and #5 are essential. Why blog if not to promote what you believe in. Yourself or a cause. If you don't play nice it can come back to bite you very hard.

For #1 - I just finished writing a book and I feel more confident in my concepts and my ability to express myself. It was a fantastic learning experience.

Hopefully, I purposefully, on your platform, did a nice job of promoting myself. Thanks for the tips. :)

[wow power leveling]

. I just read this article. I am looking for information specific to PR.

How is blogging revolutionizing PR?which is simply to be a NO instead of meaning.wow power leveling

[roger]

First you've got to put some content on your site, then make your blog nice, then figure out your demographic and get on the blogroll for that demographic. Blogs have lots of PR and if you get on a blogroll you can easily get a PR6 or higher.

Try to figure out what search terms you want to go for and get links to it. If anyone would like to exchange links with me, please contact the admin at political forum. We should be able to hook you up with at least a PR4 backlink if not PR5. Have a good one and good hunting. :)

[Diane]

I want to blog my humble opinion regarding the swill we are drowning in. PR???!!! That is one of the problems of communication in this modern age. Why say what you mean when there could be financial repurcussions? Honest discourse and the freedom of expression- of mere opinions- is needed today. Let's hear it. As for me, I think we are doomed. Still, I have some hope in the gathering and analyses of the common voice of the common man/woman (because to be sure she has something poignant to say, if you will only listen).