Remember, comments are closed on Blogging U. assignments. If you have a question, or want to share or chat, head to The Commons. You’re going to publish a post today. Don’t worry about how your blog looks. Don’t worry if you haven’t given it a name yet, or you’re feeling overwhelmed. Just click “New Post,” and tell us why you’re here. Today’s assignment: write and publish a “who I am and why I’m here” post. Why? It gives new readers context. What are you about? Why should they read your blog? It helps you focus your ideas about your blog and what you’d like to do with it. The post can be short or long, a personal intro or a bloggy mission statement, a manifesto or a simple outline. If you’ve already been blogging for a while, we still encourage you to do a version of this assignment: use it to revisit what you said when you first started blogging, to take stock of what you’ve accomplished and what more you’d like to do, or to lay out some goals for your next six months. To help you get started, here are a few questions: Why are you blogging publicly, rather than keeping a personal journal? What topics do you think you’ll write about? Who would you love to connect with via your blog? If you blog successfully throughout the next year, what would you hope to have accomplished? You’re not locked into any of this; one of the wonderful things about blogs is how they evolve as we learn and interact with one another — but it’s good to know where you started, and articulating your goals may give you a few other post ideas. Feeling stuck? Write the first thing that pops into your head. Anne Lamott, author of a book on writing we love, says that you need to give yourself permission to write a “shitty first draft” (her language). Anne makes a great point — just write, and worry about editing it later. When you’re ready to publish, give your post three to five tags that describe your blog’s focus — writing, photography, fiction, parenting, food, cars, movies, sports, whatever. These tags will help others who care about your topics find you in the Reader. Make sure one of the tags is “blogging101” so other new bloggers can find you, too. Here’s the nitty-gritty on publishing a basic post, and here are instructions for adding tags to a post. Welcome to blogging! Want to chat one-on-one with fellow bloggers? Head to The Commons. Note: If you registered on Friday afternoon or over the weekend, you’ll receive a welcome email and Commons access by the end of the day today (Monday). Vía Michelle W. At Dailypost.Wordpress The post Blogging 101: Introduce Yourself appeared first on Glacier Design Group.
Posted on: Mon, 05 Jan 2015 00:42:09 +0000
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