Marketing Yourself Through Blogging

Today's post is all about blogging! More specifically, it will focus on blogs serving as marketing tools. Are you ready for this? 

Prior to enrolling in eMarketing and beginning this blogging assignment, I held previous experience in the blogging world. I have managed personal blogs on sites such as Blogger, Wordpress, Xanga and Tumblr, to name a few. While running those blogs, I never imagined that I was marketing myself, or marketing anything for that matter. I thought I was simply blogging recreationally. But, now I realize that I was doing more than that. All of the pictures and information I shared attached an image to my name, and people followed me based on their interest in what I presented them with. So, I wasn’t blogging solely for myself, I was also blogging to connect with others. And, in order to connect with others and gain a reader following I was marketing myself through the content I provided on my blog.

Now, I ask YOU to take a moment and think about your experiences online. Are you a member of any blogging sites? Are you an active blog reader? Next time you engage in any blogging activity, I challenge you to identify ways marketing is associated with the blog/blog’s content.

Below is a short list of some techniques from class on successfully marketing a blog. I will continue to introduce more techniques throughout my posts.

Blogging Techniques:

• Know why you are blogging (What is the purpose of your blog? What message you want to deliver to your audience?)
• Identify a target audience (...and identify why you want to reach that audience?)
• Names are important (Think about how your name will show up in Google Search and Bing. Also, think about how easy that name is for people to remember.)
• Quality of posts versus quantity of posts (A few good posts are better than a lot of bad posts!)
• Choose an interesting topic for your posts

Before I say farewell, I want to introduce you to one of my favorite blogs, Oh She Glows (http://ohsheglows.com/), which is a healthy living blog ran by a woman named Angela. She began blogging in 2008, and has become a blogging phenomenon over the years. As a result of her success, she plans to publish her first cookbook in 2014! It looks like she knows how to market herself! 

Let's get conversational; What are your favorite blogs and why?