Blog everyday to speed up your life

7 April 2010

You must know, I try to convince every talented person I meet to start blogging. During those somewhat awkward conversations, a lot of those folks ditch the idea of blogging, ‘because they don’t have the time’. Thanks to Seth Godin, I’ve got a new argument to use on those non-bloggers.

Godin even takes it a step further. In reply to a question from the audience at a conference in Belgium, the marketing guru urged the crowd to blog everyday. Why? Because daily blogging speeds things up. Yes, you’ve read it right, writing everyday saves you time.

Godin has been writing his ideas and thoughts down on a daily basis for a couple of years now. He noticed that whenever he wrote something down, it puts him on a hook. Since the idea is online, for everyone to read, he should live up to it. ,,The act of writing is what moves things forward”, according to Godin.

I’ve experienced the very same. At the beginning of 2010, I jotted down my five (ridiculous) goals for the year to come. Friends and foes keep reminding me of them, which keeps me focused.

Unlike Godin, I didn’t recognize this as a pattern. He obviously did and eloquently shared it with the Belgian audience. Maybe that’s because of his daily blogging habit…

http://www.vimeo.com/10677881
(via @erwblo)

Posted in blog tips | 9 Comments

Pick your medium. Every day

7 February 2010

,,Go kill more trees”, my friend Edial cheerfully replied when I told him about my upcoming blog book. ,,While you’re writing articles for the newspaper, don’t forget your personal blog”, Erwin Blom warned me on Twitter. Are you a journalist or a blogger, people ask me frequently. Hell, I don’t know guys. I just publish. And for every story, I pick the most suitable medium.

Pick your medium. Every day

Twitter piece in NRC weekly magazine

This week, the Saturday edition of NRC Handelsblad printed a story I wrote about Twitter. Continue reading

Posted in blog inspiration | 8 Comments

My five goals for 2010

29 December 2009

It’s the end of the year. The week everybody makes lists. I figured it would be a good idea to make a list of my personal goals for 2010. So I can live up to them. So that I have to live up to them (since you’ve read them).

My five goals for 2010

Photo Jodi Cobb

If you’re planning on making a list like this as well, please share it in the comments. I’d love to read what kind of exciting stuff you, dear reader, are up to this year. Continue reading

Posted in personal | 7 Comments

We’re Gonna Replace All Advertising on Times Square with Art. Here’s How

20 December 2009

BKB, one of Holland’s most successful campaigning agencies, organizes a talent academy every year. It consists of two study trips and ten meetings with well-known politicians, campaigners, and journalists. I’m participating the 2009-2010 edition and have learned quite a lot already. Better yet, I’ve found a couple of new friends. One of them, Justus Bruns, told me a great plan a couple of weeks ago. We were having apple pie and beer when he said: ,,I want to replace all advertising on Times Square with art.” Well, I asked him, what’s stopping you?

Sure, it’s a ridiculous idea. Too ambitious, not realistic at all. How’s a twenty-something from a small Dutch city going to take over New York’s most famous square? Continue reading

Posted in cultural stuff | 2 Comments

Stop Wondering What Readers Want, It Leads to Mediocrity

15 December 2009

Newsflash: in the endless discussions about the future of journalism, most people are asking the wrong question: ,,What does the reader want?” What follows are assumptions about the behavior of the new news consumer. ,,He doesn’t want to pay for news”, ,,He’s only going to read from epaper”, etc etc.

Well, two things:

  • Assumption is the mother of all f*ckups
  • The reader has NO clue what he wants

Like Steve Jobs said: ,,If I asked consumers what they wanted, Apple would’ve never made the iPod.” Same goes for news. Journalists are the experts. They know what it takes to cover current affairs. They know how to write an essay. In short: they know their profession.

So now it’s time for them to start thinking about how they should present their news stories. Continue reading

Posted in blog inspiration | 6 Comments

How Oprah and Britney Kicked Guy Kawasaki’s Ass

4 December 2009

Michał Walusza is a Polish student and is currently working on a Master thesis about opinion leaders in virtual communities. He emailed me with a question: ,,How to become an online opinion leader?” Here’s my two cents.

In the early days of Web 2.0, most informal leaders in virtual communities were geeks. Chaps like Robert Scoble and Michael Arrington. They made the hypes, determined the agenda. But lately, they’ve become less influential. Why is that, you ask? Well, because the opinion leaders from the mass media have found their way to Twitter and Facebook. They’ve gained thousands of online followers in a couple of months.

Let’s have a look at the Twitter Top 100 for example. In the early days, geek visionaries like Pete Cashmore, Guy Kawasaki, Chris Sacca, and Leo LaPorte dominated the list. But when you browse to the Top 100 now, this is what you’ll see:

Twitter Top 100 on Twittercounter.com

Twitter Top 100 on Twittercounter.com

The ‘real life’ celebrities have taken over. Continue reading

Posted in blog tips | 5 Comments

What Journalists Can Learn From Rock Stars

27 November 2009

Newspapers are dying – you probably know that by now. Online news is their hope, but there’s no business model (yet). We can be sure of thing though: at some point, somebody has to pay for quality news. It doesn’t really matter those who are paying are readers or advertisers. What matters, is that quality newspapers can show their audience that their news is worth paying for.

Every expert journalist is a rock star. Just like Ezra Koenig from Vampire Weekend. Photo: Anne Helmond

Every expert journalist is a rock star. Just like Ezra Koenig from Vampire Weekend. Photo: Anne Helmond

When The Times announced that they’d start charging for online news, its editor indicated the costs of quality journalism. He said it had cost the Times €1.6m ($2.4m) to run a Baghdad bureau for the duration of the Iraq war and €11,000 ($16,363.33) to send a correspondent to report on violence in northern Sri Lanka.

Whether it’s dumb idea of The Times or not, the editor got one thing right. Continue reading

Posted in blog inspiration | 9 Comments

Blog Your Bar Stories to Get Comments

24 November 2009

The first weeks of blogging  generally suck, because of a lack of attention. I want to help you getting over those weeks and get comments from your visitors instantly. Next to writing this blogging crash course, I’ll also give tips in separate posts like this one. And always with an example.

Let’s start with inspiration for stories. How do you write articles that people find interesting? The answer is actually quite simple: tell the stories you used to tell in bars while having drinks with friends. Those are your best ones.

That’s exactly what my buddy Renato Valdés Olmos did. Continue reading

Posted in blog tips | 7 Comments

Personal Blog Design: 10 Essential Elements

21 November 2009

Blog design is addictive. You can tweak pages endlessly, striving for perfection – which you’ll never reach. Don’t worry, it’s a fun addiction. Better than heroin, so to speak. Therefore, I’ve made a list of elements that are essential for a personal blog. Let it be the next shot you’ve longed for and get inspired. Grab a notebook, some other addictive stuff – like a beer -, and jot down some ideas for your next redesign. And please, do share them in the comments. Let’s enjoy this addiction together.

1. Go over the top

The first one is actually a mind-set. Your personal blog is your little slice of digital heaven. It’s all yours, and you can do with it whatever you want. So go wild! Go over the top! Show your readers who you are. Here are three examples. From a flash-based rich application to the LSD trip of Matt Mullenweg. The third one is by a datavizualisation guy, as you can tell by the background.

Nalden.net

Nalden.net

Matt Mullenweg, founder of WordPress

Matt Mullenweg, founder of WordPress

Edial.nl, a blog by a dataviz guy

Edial.nl, a blog by a dataviz guy

2. Hire a professional for your brand

Unless you’re an artist yourself, I advise you to hire a professional for your brand. Whether that’s a cartoonist (see Yoast) or a designer (see this blog). He or she will give you that look can’t be beaten by some fooling around with Photoshop.

Cartoon of WordPress guru Yoast

Cartoon of WordPress guru Yoast

How modest! My own logo

How modest! My own logo

3. Work that header

It’s all about first impressions on a personal blog. You want to present yourself, and just like in real life, other people will make their first – and terribly important – judgment in seconds. So seduce them above the fold and work that header. Here are some examples:

Chris Brogan, right in your face

Screenshot Chrisbrogan.com

Screenshot Chrisbrogan.com

Don’t know Chris Brogan? Don’t worry. His name, his expertise and his face are the first things you see when visiting his blog. Nice to meet you too. Brogan has also included a list of pages on which you can get to know him better. You wanna know his life story, contact info, best articles, or would you like to spend some money on him? It’s all there, right in your face.

Same goes for the blog of cartoonist Hugh MacLeod. Those four things make him interesting, so take action!

Buy my art, wine or book and subscribe

Buy my art, wine or book and subscribe

You got me confused, Mr. 'Talking of Design'. Yet I like it!

You got me confused, Mr. 'Talking of Design'. Yet I like it!

Thanks Istok Pavlovic, all my questions about your blog are answered in the header.

Thanks Istok Pavlovic, all my questions about your blog are answered in the header.

Jeffrey Sarmiento has a lift off

Jeffrey Sarmiento has a lift off

4. Smashable elements

Maki

Maki

According to Danish marketeer Martin Lindstrom, logos will soon be obsolete. In his book Buy-ology, he advises marketeers to work on smashable elements. If you threw a Coca Cola bottle on the ground, you’d still recognize the brand from the fragments. If you took away the pack of cigarettes, you’d still recognize Marlboro from the cowboy. This also goes for blogs, Lindstrom once told me over lunch in Belgium.

If you read online marketing blogs regularly, the magna image of the right will probably remind you of a specific blog. Right, Dosh Dosh. It only has one article every week or so, yet this blog by Maki, a Philosophy student in Toronto, is hugely popular. Partly because his style is so recognizable. For example, he adds a magna illustration to every post. That’s some really smashable stuff.

Seth Godin's bald head is smashable (that sounds weird).

Seth Godin's bald head is smashable (that sounds weird).

5. Show off that book for instant authority

Have you written a book? Please bring it under the attention your reader right-away. Don’t be modest. It gives you instant authority. Ebooks count as well, as long as you have a cover and testimonials, a little switch in people’s mind will tell them that you’re an author, and thus should be taken seriously. Learn from Tim Ferriss:

The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss

The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss

Read more: Geek to Live: Turn your blog into a book, part I

6. Can’t live without the bio

Sure, tell those readers who you are. Better yet, tell them why you’re interesting. People see so many Twitter profiles, LinkedIn invitations and whatnot every day, so you’ve got to stand out. I work for a well-known quality newspaper in Holland, so that’s one of the first things you’ll see in my bio. And don’t forget to make it look good:

Bert Timmermans

Bert Timmermans

Hi Darren Hoyt!

Hi Darren Hoyt!

Douglas Menezes is a cool dude

Douglas Menezes is a cool dude

Juan Diego Velasco says: have a seat and read my bio

Juan Diego Velasco says: have a seat and read my bio

7. Popular Posts

In the last bio-part I mentioned that it’s important to convince folks you’re interesting. Another way to do this is showing your popular posts. Even if they don’t like your avatar, people might click on a popular article. In the end, thousands of other readers did that as well. So why not giving it a shot.

When browsing to dutchproblogger.com, this is the very first thing you'll see

When browsing to dutchproblogger.com, this is the very first thing you'll see

Read more: What Every Blogger Needs to Know About Categories

8. Facebook Fanbox: these people love me!

A Fanbox gives your blog a soul. In one glance, new readers can see that they’re actually not alone. There are at least ten pictures of smiling people in there who love the stuff the blogger writes. How about that? So start one, promote it, and give it a good spot in your sidebar.

Read more: Give your blog some soul with a Facebook fanbox

9. Get a second look with your picture

Your blog is personal, so why not revealing your face to the crowd. Use a stunning pic and people will either feel connected or aroused. So find a friend who happens to be a professional photographer as well and get your picture taken. Here are some examples:

Ok, everbody's using polaroids today, but if well executed, it still looks great

Ok, everbody's using polaroids today, but if well executed, it still looks great

Patrick de Laive wants to make sure you'll remember his face

Patrick de Laive wants to make sure you'll remember his face

When reading the columns on the blog of this Dutch newspaper (where I work), you can't miss the writer's face

When reading the columns on the blog of this Dutch newspaper (where I work), you can't miss the writer's face

10. Time to connect

Assuming you want as many readers possible, you’ll need to connect with the guys and gals who pay your blog a visit. Like Kevin Kelly said: all that it takes to make a living out of your passion is a thousand true fans. How do you get them? Well, by connecting with them. What’s the easiest way to do that these days? Twitter! Yes! So, show a tweet, or two.

Meagan Fisher show her last tweet on Owltastic

Meagan Fisher show her last tweet on Owltastic

Jeffrey Sarmiento and his latest tweet

Jeffrey Sarmiento and his latest tweet

That INDIE Dude uses a comic balloon in the header

That INDIE Dude uses a comic balloon in the header

Read more: Develop a Twitter Landing Page

Have I missed an aspect of personal blog design? Please let your fellow readers know in the comments!

Posted in blog tips | 3 Comments
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