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Easy steps to enhancing your personal brand with a blog. Return to Work Center April 14, 2010. Today’s agenda. For beginners and neophytes More ‘how-to’ than ‘what-to’ Why blog? Relation to personal branding Where to start/models of blogging Cool things you can do Getting started
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Easy steps to enhancing your personal brand with a blog. • Return to Work Center • April 14, 2010
Today’s agenda • For beginners and neophytes • More ‘how-to’ than ‘what-to’ • Why blog? • Relation to personal branding • Where to start/models of blogging • Cool things you can do • Getting started • Refining and enhancing
Why blog? • “A blog can lead to bigger and better things.” • --Personal branding guru Dan Schawbel, • personalbranding.com
Why blog? • Key component of your personal brand • Establish credibility • Maximize SEO • Hone writing and expertise • Update LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter • Reinforce your website OR • Serve as your website
Personal branding across platforms • Establish your full name, consistently • LinkedIn profile • Twitter name • Facebook • Purchase domain name • Multiple email addresses • Your blog and/or website • Make it look right!
Where to start blogging? • Blogger.com • Part of Google, free • Relatively easy to use, many options • Typically ‘blogname.blogspot.com’ • TypePad.com • Also free (paid options) • Many templates • Good reputation among blogging community
Where to start blogging? • WordPress • More like TypePad than like Blogger • Free and paid options • Highly customizable • Easy to use (in 5 minutes!) • Clean, elegant look and feel • Growing use for both blogs and web pages
Three models of blogging with WordPress • 1) Install WordPress.orgContent Management System (CMS) on your own web hosted space • 2) Publish as ‘yourname.wordpress.com’ • 3) Publish as ‘yourname.com’
WordPress.org CMS on your space • Domain and web space • Most flexibility and control • Strong personal brand • Cost is reasonable ($50-100 per year) • Greatest refinement of look and feel • Requires some knowledge of HTMLand/or SQL and PHP, at least for now
Arthur C. Clarke • “Any smoothly functioning technology will have the appearance of magic.”
5 cool things you can do with a WordPress blog (automatically) • New content on your LinkedIn profile • Tweet • Update your Facebook status • Maximize SEO For Google, Yahoo and Bing • Post from your cell phone
‘yourname.wordpress.com’ • Most common • FREE! • Easy to use • Good technical support online • Starts in 5 minutes • Little or no HTML required • Partial personal branding
Publish blog as ‘yourname.com’ • Strong personal brand • Minimal technical requirements(same as ‘yourname.wordpress.com’) • Low cost (c. $50-$100 annually) • Can be made to integrate with your website
Starting your WordPress blog johnsmith •••••••• •••••••• johnsmith@gmail.com X
Navigating the Dashboard options data: posts, pages data: views
drag to sidebar Shaping display contents with Widgets available widgets select
Creating and editing Posts preview put your post title here Twitter and Facebook put your post content here publish categories write a brief excerpt here
Publish blog as ‘yourname.com’ • 1) Buy domain name through WordPress • Least complicated • Least expensive (c. $15/year) • Some restrictions (e.g. no Google ads) • 2) Use one from another ISP • Publish your blog to the domain (or sub-domain) • Change ISP settings to allow this
Other items • Profile photo • Comments -- allow/ moderated? • Jump posts, or full? • PermaLink to full post • Private or public? • Allow search engines?
Using your blog as your web site • “Not every website is a blog. • But every blog is a website.” • Easy to update without HTML • Multiple contributors if desired • Automatically creates an archive • Archive is searchable
Using your blog as your web site • Modify blog so structure is minimal • Look at entries per page • Modify navigation and other elements • Make a static page the home page • Blog can still be one of the alternate pages • Requires careful construction of widgets
Automatic publishing on LinkedIn most recent post excerpt
Cleve’s contact info • cleve@thecallisongroup.com • LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/clevecallison • Twitter: clevecallison • Blog: bit.ly/clevesblog