Author Archive

Back in June, Ida Horner approached us to see if we wanted to do ‘Africa on the Blog’. Knowing how much the Blogmistress loves a challenge she swiftly set to work on setting up Africa on the Blog (why change a winning formula ). Given the brief of , colour it like Africa, she came up with a golden brown design on the Studiopress framework that is consistent theme on the ‘On the blog’ sites.

It’s visually stunning.

Ida in the mean time started recruiting bloggers – please welcome @naomiestment @AshantiGirl @taluta @Chocolat_a_toi @jkainja @TonyBurkson @STM95 @sportinkenya @Chiira

From start to launch it took 14 days and three of us working at it – and the first blogger posted a blog about African traditions and since then, 5 days a week there has been a huge amount of discussion on the site. Significant amounts of retweets and a tremendous amount of traffic.

I learned a huge amount from this experience – blogging about what you are really crazy about, what gets you hot and bothered is a good thing. Ida who also blogs about African development and manages ‘our girls‘ through her charity, is relentless in bringing the voices of Africa to a wider audience. To the tune of a 1000 people a week, and then some.

An example of this is the blog post The Cut, about female genital mutilation. Yeah I know, it’s been spoken about for years. This time the story was told by a man and the impacts on the community and different perspectives. Just when you think you have been de-sensitised about something and nothing can be done, a blogger gives you fresh perspective and puts the fire back into the fight against it.

I have learned about Eba, the African equivalent of tapioca or semolina. I have learned that Nigeria has a thriving film industry. I have read about what it was like to be a child in Egypt. I have read what the World Cup really did for South Africa and I saw some stunning photographs.

If this blog can change my thinking about Africa, and her people in diaspora, show me sides of Africa that I never knew existed, I think you could learn something too.

Sarah

@AfricaOnTheBlog for tweets of the blogs and African news updates or join the Facebook page to get the updates there.

Well, literally not figuratively . Or is it the other way around?

I was thinking about premium WordPress plugins.

What do you use?

If you don’t use them, why?

I have two.

One I lost. Yup, forgot what it was called and where I downloaded it. The other one is an RSS bomber, which I have yet to use. At least I know where that one is!

Out there in the big wide WordPress plugin world, there are many premium plugins that enhance your SEO, promise to fetch you traffic and even bake you a cake of you let them. Ok, I am making up the cake baking bit, but if there was one, I’d know about it.

So can your words be music to my ears? Can you tell me what you recommend as premium WordPress plugins, point me to any reviews that have caught your eye?

If you have created a WP premium plugin, come and tell us about it, as I said I am all ears today

Sarah

really it is .

I recently read a guest blog by Jackie Barrie, she wrote a lovely guest blog about email marketing and left a tip on the post that was very useful, read it here (sorry, can’t give away the punchline).

That lead me thinking along the avenue of what people share when they read and write on the web.

When I comment on a blog that doesn’t use Disqus as a commenting system (which allows me to add my comments also onto my facebook page and twitter updates) then I use Twit That. Twit That is just dragged and dropped into your browser toolbar and I share what I commenting on and what I am reading.

I did share a lot via social bookmarking, but lately that has fell by the wayside.

With the advent of Facebook liking, where you can ‘like’ a blog post anywhere on the web and it will update your facebook profile, I wondered if there would be anymore sharing on my blogs where it’s installed. Nope, apparently not.

People prefer what they feel comfortable with, tweeting, twit that – ing, social book marking. Yes, sharing is caring, but it has to work for the person that uses it and well as the person who owns the content.

And the ‘why‘ people share.

Funny gets shared a lot. Those cheezeburger lolcats I see zip around the web, along with jokes, petitions, fundraising requests and one or two poignant requests for help. I thought perhaps the most shared stuff has to have a request in it, but on further reflection the things that are most shared are the things that touch us. Either by our heartstrings and then our pursestrings, or through the desire to make someone smile and share something warm.

If that’s right I should be ending with a cat or burger-eating cat joke with a just giving page attached, but somehow I just haven’t got it in me!

Don’t construe that as an attempt for the poignant tug of the heartstrings share, it was acceptance that some posts like this one, will be ordinary, they won’t be shared and they won’t be liked to death over on Facebook. There’s nothing wrong with that, understand its nice to read something that’s easy on the heart, purse and soul every now and then.

In reading and writing content, not everything has to pack the killer punch. It does have to satisfy a need though.

Sarah

Writing a blog isn’t rocket science.  It can be formulaic if you want, it can be as complex as you make it. The more complex something is, the less it’s likely to happen. That’s why we are not all rocket scientists. Looking after several multi author blogs one of the things the bloggers say from time to time is – What do I write and I have run out of things to write.

Crowdsourcing via twitter, Facebook and Forums really comes into it’s own here. People who know you through the forums, often make excellent suggestions as to what to blog about next.

Let’s say you have plenty of inspiration, how do you actually write a blog?

I like to think of it as a story and in the blog you tell that story. It’s readable, it hooks you in, you learn something and you get to give immediate feedback in the form of a comment. If only books were that good

What sounds better?

Yesterday I did 6 deliveries for 4 new customers in a white transit van

or

Yesterday was a busy day for our same day courier business. We had 4 brand new customers to deliver for and they all had different requirements meaning our organisational skills were tested – you will be pleased to know they were not found lacking!

I can expand and say how I came about those customers, what sort of things they needed to have delivered, what items they were and if it was a confidential delivery, I can say that too. The blog will show future customers and regular readers you know what you are doing, or you don’t know what you are doing.

If you don’t know what you are doing, don’t blog about it as a factual blog. Make it a “what if” blog…

What would happen in your business if you took on 4 diverse customers from a variety of backgrounds? How would you cope? Is it some businesses can deal with multiple customers better than others? Let’s explore that further, the multiple customer thing. In this scenario your blog is asking for advice and if you tweet it out or share it on Facebook, you may get comments that will help you.

Back to writing that blog…

• Tell the story and tell it as best you can.

• Be as open and as honest as your business allows.

• Just write.

In telling the story you describe the features of your business and how a client has benefited from them, the story aspect makes it readable, the blog and your company become memorable by default. Having to read lots of facts and figures is more palatable if it is part of the blog. A list of figures will get glossed over and some of the impact of them lost. Experiment, tweak, test – see what works for you and your readers.

Being open and transparent, is a good thing, your readers will identify with it and you become a credible source of information to them. Over time this will enable you to build a strong relationship with them and they will trust and recommend you and your blogs.

Just write. Seriously. JDI. So many would be bloggers spend hours worrying over the colour of their blog, spelling, what to say – it’s displacement activity. Do you think this post looked like it does now whilst I was writing it? It was one huge block of text and when I finished. &00 ish words and no capitals and very little punctuation. I started adjusting, tweaking  and formatting it. Remember the power of JDI, don’t get over zealous and edit the life out of your blog and if you make a typo or spello, it is not the end of the world. If someone comment s to correct you, they are engaging. It may not be the type of engagement you want. But it’s a start.

Despite what people will tell you, you will get better with practice. You will cringe at some of your early stuff – even if it’s very good. Writing blogs is like using a muscle it gets stronger with use. So use it.

Sarah

Useful further reading

• Six @ Six: 6 Pioneers in Corporate Blogging
• Promoting Personal vs. Professional sites and posts
• Win Copies of John Jantsch’s “The Referral Engine”

I discovered a plugin about 2 years ago that greeted people when they visited my site. It knew (by magic ) who had sent the person, google or a certain forum and welcomed them.

A little banner greets the person and invites them, after welcoming them to stay in touch via RSS or email and you can customise it to say what you want. For a small fee you can remove the creator of the plugins name

This marvelous tool is WP Greet Box. I love it, I love it to bits. If someone visits from a social bookmarking site they are welcomed, fellow Googler, Stumbler etc. I am a member of a forum and when people pop over to view a post from that forum, I personalise that greeting to them, and demand they leave me a comment, they know who they are and are bemused by it. On one social network, Nikki Pilkington, Ida Horner and Steven Healey regularly post links to their works on Birds/ Blokes on the Blog and the Greet Box welcomes them appropriately too. Often  it simply says ” Thank you for clicking Nikki, Ida or Steven’s link”.

Yesterday on twitter I was chatting to Graham Hunt of Entrepreneur Solo fame, and author of the Bootstrapping guide and he had seen the Greet Box and loved the idea of it. Sadly it conflicts with another plug in or the theme of his site, whilst he is working it out, there is another option.

Referrer Detector You can read all about the similarities and differences between the two plugins on the download page. Given the choice, I’d use the WP Greet Box, when there is no choice for reasons of conflict then I use Referrer Detector. No point in missing out on greeting our readers is there?

Ian McAllister pointed out that sometimes the conflict is another plugin called YARPP. YARPP shows related posts in your side bar or elsewhere on your blog. If you get the time, check out the link – the floating tabs are sublime, just run your mouse across them.

Now if only someone would invent a wave goodbye box for when someone leaves my site, I’ll be truly happy

Sarah