Tag: sharing

How to Personalize Your Posts (Without Telling Your Business)

how-to-personalize-your-post

If you’re like me, you’ve wondered how to be as genuine as possible in writing online but without being too personal. I understand some people are extremely open but I’m not. Telling my personal business is not something I do in real life, let alone online. However, to relate to people does require some level of openness. How does one balance this? Here’re some things I’ve tried doing on this blog to help you to relate to me personally without being too detailed:

  1. Talk to Us, Not at Us

You are not my fans and this is not a stage. We hear it over and over again the importance of writing in a conversational manner. This means to approach your blog as if the people reading (that’s us) are actually sitting right across from your breakfast table sipping coffee or maybe sitting on the couch laughing and you’re having a conversation. This is recommended because it makes your posts read more genuine than the business-like tone (unless your post is strictly business-like). I’d recommend this for your email lists as well.

  1. Share Experiences / Admit Mistakes

This really helps us to remember that you’re not a robot programmed to schedule posts. We’ve all been through things in our life that has provided us with much to share. I’m sure many of us are over twenty-one and have tons of stories and life lessons to give. There’s no such thing as being “qualified” to give advice. No one has walked your shoes so no one can tell the stories or share the wisdom that you share. It’s like writing. While we can certainly share information, resources, and tips, why you write is a separate matter. No one can define this for you. It’s a different journey in and of itself. In any event, sharing experiences certainly gives your blog a more personal feel to it. With this comes admitting to your mistakes. It will take lots of courage to admit to a mistake you made in private let alone in public but this can be balanced with what you are learning from that mistake to create a nice personal touch. In this way, you’re not just whining but offering something of value to your blog without over doing it. It also showcases humility.

  1. Show Emotion

I’ve found that some of my best posts are the ones where I am showing emotion. This isn’t to say that I’m writing you tears or cursing someone out. That’s extra. Showing emotion just means that you are being real. Even the strongest person is going to get frustrated sometimes or hurt or experience doubt. It doesn’t make you weak or unfaithful, it just makes you real. It’s OK to use your blog to vent a little bit. Not to the point where you’re out of control but just enough to show vulnerability. Again, this isn’t weakness, its realness. We struggle every day and hiding that struggle only makes you look like a phony. No, you do not have it all together and even if you do some days are not going to be easy. Readers can relate to this kind of stuff and it helps to build a stronger bond with us. You never know who is reading your blog and gaining from your strength.

  1. Family Photos / Updates

No, I’m not talking about why your sister in law’s baby cousin Tracy slept with your best friend. That’s telling you and someone else’ business. I’m just talking about a little family update now and again. (Maybe you just got married for instance) Posting family photos or giving family updates is a great way to connect with readers. Again, it’s a personal thing but not over the top. Maybe you just had an anniversary, bought a house, or took a family trip. What was it like? Did you enjoy yourself? This makes readers feel closer to you and as a result, closer to your blog.

  1. Personality

This seems obvious but it really can pass us by as we settle into our blog niches and routines (I don’t really do the niche thing. I blog about whatever moves me). Your personality is your character and not many people showcase their character in their post but this is a nice personal touch without going all out. Even in business type posts, it’s OK to implement some persona. Are you funny? Sarcastic? Serious? These attributes should come across in your writing because it’s you. It helps readers get to know you in a very personal but not too personal way. By very personal I mean that people understand what you like and what you don’t like. They know what makes you upset and what makes you laugh. They get to know you because who you are  will shine through your writing.

  1. News Articles and Third Party Links

They say 90% of communication is non-verbal. This means that most of who you are do not come through in your words but in your actions (i.e. actions speak louder than words). When you share content from others, even news, you are showing a part of yourself. If you pay attention, you can discern the persona or the thoughts of bloggers who rarely blog about how they are feeling because you can see them in the third party information that they share. I can see it in your quotes, your re-blogs, and your links. You may not say much, but I see you. I see you in your actions. I feel when you are in disagreement because the contention is dripping from your energy. I can feel your nose turned up into the air and almost see your head shake. I know because I can smell the aura on your breath and not even the best perfume, cologne, or craftily arranged words will hide it.

  1. Music

What is more personal than music? If actions show your true self, then music is a mirror. The inspiration behind my Throwback Thursday Jams is my attempt at showing another side of myself on this blog other than writing. It is my way of opening up. Not to the extent that I’m talking too much, but just enough for you to get to know me a little more. If you’re still not sure how to be more personal, talking about the kind of music you like or any kind of art is a great way to connect with others.

I can probably think of so many other ways in which we can get personal in our blog post (sharing recipes is another one) without telling our business but I’d like to hear your thoughts as well so I’ll stop here. To be clear, when I say personal I’m not talking about personal in the sense that we tend to think of it. I’m not saying to gossip about your neighbor or tell us that your nephew is homeless. I’m not saying to “sneak diss” someone you didn’t have the intestinal fortitude to approach personally, and I’m not talking about posting about how your rent was due but your husband or wife couldn’t pay the bill. By personal, I just mean to incorporate a dash of persona, a pinch of emotion, and a sprinkle of humility in each post. Let us know that you’re real.

Eight Reasons Why Writers Should Use Twitter

Though I don’t have lots of followers, I happen to love Twitter. Probably too much lol. (@ahouseofpoetry) *Comments disabled here. Please respond to the original post*

mdellert's avatarMDellert-dot-Com

If you follow me on Twitter, then you know that I have more than 5,000 followers and frequently post throughout the day.

How frequently? Every two hours. But I do take a break between 10 pm and 8 am Eastern Time.

A typical tweet has a two-hour shelf-life. That’s not much. If you want to get your content noticed—whether you’ve written it yourself or you’re retweeting someone else—you need to tweet throughout the day.

TwitterBut why Twitter?

  1. If you’re active on Twitter, it will refer a ton of traffic to your blog and website. (Twitter is my #1 source of website traffic.)
  2. There’s a large community of Indie authors on Twitter who are willing to help you promote your book and form supportive alliances. Endeavor to meet other authors in your genre, share blog posts and promote each other on Twitter.
  3. Twitter will help you market your books.
  4. Twitter is where…

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Why Authors Need to Be as Accessible as Possible

Post Quote: “As an author today, you know that every reader is valuable. You love your readers; you want to keep the ones who are loyal and reach new ones…The easier a reader can find you and buy your books, the easier it will be to reach wider audiences.”

Why I Use Images in (Almost) All My Blog Posts

Notebook, coffee mug, pencil

Almost because there are some posts where I haven’t used images so to say all just wouldn’t be honest now would it? Yall know I gotta keep it all the way real.

So anyway, I’ve always enjoyed the look of a post with pictures. Even when I would get zero likes on a post and no feedback, I’ve always loved pictures. In the beginning, it was just the aesthetic of it, I really just liked the way my posts looked with them. Today, though I still like the way the post looks with pictures, I also use them with a slightly greater outlook on the post itself and with more of a strategic edge. For one, I’m trying to step my blogging game up and to do that there are a few basics that must be accomplished. It all started a couple weeks ago when I did a google search.

I didn’t understand how vital images were to search engines but apparently they’re a big deal. Here’s a story: One day, while searching Google images, I saw a picture that I just couldn’t pass up. It peaked my interest as I wondered what the post associated with the image was about. I clicked on it and guess what? The photo was linked to The PBS Blog! That’s right, it was mine and linked to one of my blog posts. As a result of this experience I started paying more attention to images and top blog sites and guess what? When you examine the top blog sites and your favorite blog sites you’ll notice that all of the top, trending blogs have one thing in common: images. They all have images to go along with the post. I’ve also been noticing how my post looks when shared across social media.

I’ve discovered that images look really nice when blog posts are shared. I’ve recently been exploring Pinterest and having an image I already used in the post makes it super easy to share content. Otherwise, I find myself searching through images on my blog offered as suggestions by the Pinterest app. I love Twitter as yall already know (I’m at @ahouseofpoetry FYI…plug), and I just hate when that blank white space is there with no pic. I feel so incomplete, so that’s another plus of using images in your post.  And not to mention Facebook too which gives a nice preview but I’m sure we all knew that.

Images used in blog posts are also linked with that blog site and will show up in search engines like mine did. Recently, I’ve even taken it a step further and stopped ignoring the tagging part of the image. You know, you up load an image and there’s the title, alt, description, caption, and all that. Yea, I pretty much ignored that for a long time.

“The Title, Caption, Alt Text, and Description fields for images in WordPress are the most ignored and underutilized features that can improve your content and bring more people to your site. Images play an important role in web publishing, and WordPress makes it easy to add images to your content in several different ways. What you probably didn’t know is that taking a few extra minutes to fill in the “Attachment Details” for your images can improve their communicative value, create better user experiences for your visitors, and bring more people to your site.” – Morten Rand-Hendriksen

Only recently did I start to fill in the blanks here. Usually when I read about this stuff it just sounds like Chinese so I’ll let Morten explain:

“The alt attribute or “Alt text” is mandatory for images on the web but is often ignored because it seems unnecessary. This is unfortunate because the alt attribute is both important and powerful. The alt attribute is the text that displays when an image does not display. The general rule of thumb when applying alt text to an image is to describe in text what the image is communicating.”

Thanks Morten. For the image to this post, my alt text simply describes what’s in the picture: “Notebook, coffee cup, pencil.” < But I think this is wrong, hmm. I’ll figure it out.

“The alt text is there to describe image content and relate it to your overall content. While most visitors don’t see the alt text, search engines do and they index the images based on them. And as we move into a world of wearable devices that don’t always show images the alt text will become more important than ever before.”

(I’ve also discovered that this helps with people with special needs who can’t “see” the image).

Want to incorporate more images into your posts? Here’s what I use.

Unsplash – Images are licensed free to use. For that, unsplash pics make up the bulk of my post images.

Canva – Canva  helps me add my own unique touch using my own images. Usually seen during my EC Quote Friday Posts and my Guest Blog Posts.

Google Images – If you use Google Images, be sure your post is in accordance with the Fair Use Act. Because this blog is not monetized and contains educational content,  images that are used from Google are according to Fair Use. See my Copyright Page to learn more.

My Own Pics – I also use my own pictures which you’ll be able to tell are mine because I’m not a professional photographer. At all. Not even close.

Photoshop – I LOVE mock-ups! In fact, that’s what I used for the pic to this post. If you want to create your own professional looking images for your business or blog, Photoshop provides a great way to do this using mock-ups. You can then use these unique images on your blog. All it really takes is a $10/ mo account and there’s a lot you can do even if you don’t want to upgrade. I’m still working on a basic Photoshop tutorial. Stay tuned.

The PBS Blog
Cartoon EC is very excited to be mentioned in this post

Bitstrips – I also use bitstrips to cartoon myself and use them as blog pics. I fell in love with this last year (2015) when Colleen of Silver Threading (now Colleen Chesebro dot com) had me on her blog for the first time. She always uses silver cartoons and taught me how to use them. Since then, I’ve been obsessed with them. Now my cartoon mini me is incorporated into my blog which helps out a lot when I need a quick image and can’t really find one that’s available. It also adds a unique touch.

Effective Re-blogging – Getting The Most Out of Them

It’s so easy to like and re-blog a post, but is there a way to do so effectively? Is there a way to get the most out of your re-blog?

First, why do you re-blog? I’ll go first. I re-blog because:

  • I really enjoyed the article / post. This means I found value in the post in some way
  • Not only did I enjoy the article / post but I think its worthy of being seen
  • Not only do I think it’s worthy of being seen, I think the original blog deserves the attention

My purpose of the re-blog is first to share valuable information with my readers. This is especially true if the post has something to do with something I’m passionate about: Scripture and Identity, History, Poetry, Self-Publishing, Blogging, or Writing in general. My secondary purpose of re-blogging is to give esteem to the person who took the time to produce content that is not only worth reading, but also worth sharing. For this reason, I believe it is important to make the most of the re-blog. If I am trying to help the writer to get attention, I have to make sure that they will actually get the attention. To do this, I make sure my re-blog include a couple things.

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  • Commentary

I think this is a very important thing in the world of Scams, Hackers, and Plagiarizers. When I prepare to re-blog a post, I think it’s important to add my own commentary to it. If I don’t have much to say, I quote something said in the article using quotations marks and ended with the author’s name. Why is this important? It gives others a sneak peek into what the article is  about. It’s also much more genuine, in my opinion, to the person who you’re re-blogging from. It shows you actually read the article and got something from it. When I re-blog, I want the person to know why I’m doing it. This also, as stated, helps others to ascertain what’s so special about the post. I think everyone should always add a little commentary to their re-blogs. Chances are the post is so good its been re-blogged dozens of times already. That said, I add commentary to let you know why it was so special to me personally knowing it will show up in your comments). People are also very sensitive. We have to keep in mind that not everyone wants their posts re-blogged (in which case they should have a disclaimer somewhere on their blog outlining this fact) or may be very suspicious as to why someone is doing so. It’s even more suspicious if your blog is only made up of re-blogs. I mean nothing against blogs made of re-blogs st all, but it is difficult to get to know you though as a person. What are your thoughts? Experiences? Insights? Every once in awhile, it may be a good idea (especially if you’re an author) to post something from scratch that represents your personal self. A list, a poem, a book excerpt. Something that is not re-shared or re-hashed so that we get to know you. No, quotes don’t count.

  • Tags

I also tag my re-blogs. This means that after I re-blog the post, I go into my WordPress dashboard and I add tags that are relevant to the article. I am also sure to tag it “re-blogs”. Even though it is obvious it’s a re-post, I think its important to my integrity that my readers know this is not my article but a re-blog from another blogger. This also sets my tags for re-blogs apart from my traditional tags. Re-blog tags will always have re-blog in there somewhere. Since tags help people to find your blog, this will also help people to find their way to the post. They’ll click on view more of this post and be led to the other person’s blog. Mission accomplished.

  • Re-blog no no’s

One thing I absolutely do not do is change the headline of a re-blogged post. Again, that transgresses my integrity and is crossing the thin line between sharing and plagiarizing. If the person headlines a post a certain way and I am sharing it, it is my duty to share it as is. I feel the same way about editing comments. I’m not sure why the ability to do so is even relevant. Why do we need to edit comments?? You can’t do that in real life! Imagine, “You suck. Wait, no, I take that back.” Lol.

The only reason I’ve edited a comment was when my main website changed from a time where I gave the person the other one. I edited it to the updated site just in case someone else came along later, I wouldn’t want them to have the wrong website. However, editing other peoples comments? That’s just wrong (and weird).

  • I Wish I Could

It was only recently that I understood that not everyone wants their posts re-blogged (Yes, it’s OK if you re-blog my posts! Credit me of course though). So, I wish I could disable comments for some of my re-blogs! Unless of course its my guest post from another blog. In that case, comment on! Does anyone know how to do that? Disable comments so that people will comment on the original page instead of your post? I think that helps the blogger gain more attention for their work and, most importantly, the credit they deserve.

Bloggers: May You Come Out of The Closet – #May Challenge Day 1

No, not like that. By “Come Out of The Closet” I just mean to reveal yourself to your readers. I know, I know, you MAY not consider yourself to be that much of a blogger to have “readers”. It MAY feel arrogant in nature, narcissistic or whatever, but the truth is that its not. It doesn’t matter how big or small your blog is we all have readers. There is someone somewhere who reads your blog. Someone somewhere who is always watching, silently and consistently keeping track of everything you post. Scary isn’t it? In some ways yes. You MAY feel that one day you’re going to be judged, called out, accused. I wouldn’t worry about that. First of all, no one reading this is my judge. Neither of you have the power to give my breath or to take it away from me. So for me personally, if I were you, judgement is not something I would worry about.

Today is the first day of the #May Writing Challenge and my first message is MAY you come out of the closet. For most of our lives we’ve been taught to keep our skeletons in the closet, which means to keep those most intimate parts of ourselves, those mistakes and faults secret. The closet represents something hidden, the heart if you will. We are taught to keep our deepest darkest secrets in the deepest darkest places of our hearts. The problem with blogging this way is that readers will never get the chance to see who you truly are. It is not about airing dirty laundry (My motto is always to: Keep Ya House Out Ya Mouth” meaning everything that goes on in your home should not be shared). So obviously we’re not talking about that. What we’re talking about is the kind of openness and intimacy that will allow people to get to know the real you because that’s what people want to connect to. Not something fake, something transparent, something real.

Bloggers: May You Come Out of The Closet

Tell us something about you that is personal. By personal I mean your favorite food, music, movie, your mistakes, your experiences. By personal I mean something that we can connect to. Something we can bridge to. Experiences are what connects us. Sure, we MAY make mistakes but that’s the beauty behind the whole process. Re-blogs are cool, writing tips are always good, and quotes are uplifting but sometimes that gets boring. It gets boring because people read blogs not just to be inspired or encouraged but to be informed. People want to know who you are on the inside, what your life is like, or did that new recipe work out for you? Yesterday I read a post about a woman’s journey to conception and it was truly touching and close to my heart. Truth is you never know how sharing your experiences can help others. In the end its about blogging without fear. Don’t be afraid to share a piece of yourself with your readers so that they can have something to connect to. Its the only way to build.