Blogging to Fame!

As kids we have always been fond of comic strips. As adults we are still fond of them. Its easy to gear up imagination and present a point using comic strips. You can make sticky marketing materials. It makes them an interesting and witty deal.

When we talk about viral marketing, your brand would be popular if you project it. Both online and offline, companies have focused on using the little cartoon characters to bring them more consumers.

Been to Blaugh? This is one way to make a statement using comic strips. Blaugh is famous for what it does- hiding their remarks on companies and services under the veil of humor. It gives you thinking material from time to time and still keeps your interest.

It’s Easy.

At ToonDoo- You do have Ideas but you think producing strips will take in a lot of sketching and stuff. Think again. At Toondoo you can just have it done really easy. The above strip as you might have well noticed is made using Toondoo. It’s a really simple task. They provide you backgrounds, characters, props, you just have to customize them according to your need. It provides you a flash interface and all you have to do is drag and drop on the canvas. Add speech bubbles to make your characters speak. You can upload your own pictures and have fun with them.

At QuickToon- This service is in the beta stage and provides you with similar abilities as ToonDoo but with a lot less options, and you cannot upload your own pictures. But again the choice is yours and whichever you find it easier to work with.

At Mai’Nada ComicSketcher- If you are good at mouse handling(read as Sketching online) you can go in for this service. It lets you draw online and the good part is you can obviously let your imagination go wild and haywire. With comic strips you got to.

Al these services will let you embed the strips in your blogs and share them with your friends.

Other Services you can check out are- StripGenerator and StripCreator

So bloggers get there and get creative. Unleash the child within you.

Divya Uttam.

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Technorati Tags:- Comic Blogging

Labels: Better Blogging, Blogging Strategies, Blogging Tip/Tricks, Blogging Trend

Simple ways can save your blog being getting lost in the crowd of over 60 million blogs

Blog is an extension to your online marketing efforts, a tool to bring in life to your static website and maintaining relationships with your customers. Blog is also for individual bloggers those wish to make their blogs as their online income source monetizing them either by using Adsense or by affiliate marketing. As Technorati has been telling us that there are over 55 million blogs and have been increasing on every passing second. It has been recommended by every blogging guru, companies big or small will come up with one soon. Can you imagine the amount of user generated content available on net. With such an abundance of the facilities available on net to come up with a free blog it will be soon equivalent to having an email account.

So where as a Blogger you are going to Stand?

Have you made you space in the Blogosphere?

Have you ever thought that there can be a Time when it can start a dinosaur era, where survival of the fittest will be the only policy.

Blogs aren’t going to go anywhere. They are here to stay, anyways. But their abundance can abandon you as a blogger, if you do not wake up to the realization of giving quality to your blog. It is only quality can win over quantity.

Have you ever noticed that amongst a billion humans roaming around, its still hard to find good leaders whom you love to follow. Survival of your blog depends on how fit you are to lead people to something useful and of help to them.

Building trust and earning credibility would get more difficult soon. I have read a few articles which said that blogging has no future, it wont benefit anyone. Don’t get angry fellow bloggers, it has a bright future but if you promise to yourself to blog for a reason and that reason is not just earning money. This is a very short post but if you are able to understand the point I have raised here, you may as well appreciate it.

It’s a time to take your blog to the next level.

What do you predict about Blogging Future? What’s your say about saving your blog? So what are you doing about it?

Safe Blogging,
Divya Uttam

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Technorati Tags:- Blogging Trends

Labels: Blogging Fame, Blogging Strategies, Blogging Trend

Now that’s a post everybody is waiting for. I have two questions for you before you start reading.

Q1. Do you want to get noticed by an A-Lister? I know it is why you are spending your time to read about it, so that hardly is an question.

But then reply to this:-

Q2. Why do you want to be noticed by an A-List Blogger? Think Hard.

The answer would be one amongst the following, choose yours:-

1. To gain popularity because they have a voice and 1000s of visitors listen to it.
2. To funnel the traffic they are getting to your own blog, either to earn more revenue or increasing Feed Subscribers.
3. Get a link from their High Page blog or to increase your Google Juice..
4. To rub shoulders with the other famous bloggers.
5. To create awareness or gain attention to work or services
6. Creating a Buzz.
7. Becoming an A-List Blogger gradually.

You can also consider these to be the end results of getting noticed by an celebrity bloggers.

What Not to Do?

Forgetting about their business for getting Famous

People are often so passionate in getting noticed for their work and spend so much efforts running after being famous that they have no energies left for their actual work.

Linking A-List Bloggers just for the sake of Reciprocal Linking

Some bloggers are under impression that linking A-Listers might get them in notice and a link back. A-List Bloggers get 100 people linking to them on daily basis, which makes it practically impossible for them to go through each and every post which is written about them.

What Will actually get you Noted by an A-List Blogger?

What will bring you Real Fame?

I can answer that question in just two words- Your Business. But that won’t satisfy your reading urge neither my point. We have already talked a lot about being different, building relationship with others by commenting on their posts, being an expert in your niche, writing passionately and stuff. These are all very important but will it get you noticed by an A-Lister lets say after an year or two, because all of this is a long-term strategy and a continuous process. Another thing you can go for is Viral Marketing and Linkbaiting, where with a click of an idea you can have everybody talking about you. Remember our recent favorite 2000 bloggers project. It has done wonders, and that Z-List has increased everybody’s Technorati ranking. Yes, they created a Buzz in the blogosphere and gathered lots of fame for their inventors. As they say an Idea can make the difference.

There is another option though which may take lots of initial hard work, an innovative approach and a business strategy, but may prove worthy enough to let your generations may live on it. When you think about having your name mentioned in a 8 page rank blog, you are going the wrong way. Renowned entrepreneurs do not work for getting noticed but for the Success.

Have you heard about Go2Web2.0. You must have. The first review that Techcrunch did on it was on its launch in September 2006 and after they upgraded there was another. Why? Because Go2Web2.0 has an innovative and structured idea. They have an attractive product. They did not have to struggle for 2 years to get it done. They even have 2K+ subscribers in exactly one year of their blogspot blog.

My point is if you are the best in your business and have put thoughts into your product and marketing, if it helps others and is attractive enough, A-Listers would automatically love to talk about you. Even if you are a whole sole blogger, and do not own a company, another website or a product. This should not give you a reason to lack behind. Don’t forget the Z-list and 2000 bloggers project I mentioned above. They did not have a service, product or a company to support them, but they still got famous.

Get Thinking, be innovative and Break the Rules. Remember its only You who is stopping You. Get Aggressive.

Best of Luck,
Happy Blogging,
Divya Uttam.

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Technorati Tags:- Blogging Fame, Blogging Strategies, A-List Bloggers

Labels: Blogging Fame, Blogging Strategies, Business Blogging

I want to make a point here, so do go through every word of this post.

There is a clause though, you’ll have to change, change the way you think. If you are going to read this post you have to be flexible enough to adapt to it to change the future of your blog, the way you look at your traffic. Renew your philosophical approach to change your relationship with your readers.

The traffic you receive may how minimal it would be, repeat visitors should form at least 50% of it. Let me repeat this more bluntly. You are actually loosing a lot if you do not have repeat visitors. Giving your visitors to turn into readers take great effort. Remember, what you have been told since childhood in one way or the other- Treat others like you want to be treated. Its about treating your visitors and giving them a reason to return.

People who come to you, and read your posts, see you and your company as advisors. Now you have to see yourself as trusted, respected and expert advisors. This means you can do nothing less than what an professional is supposed to do. Its your responsibility and obligation to counsel them about what’s best for them. You would never try to manipulate them to benefit you in return either by buying something from you, giving you monetary help or joining your community. Its when you lack the professionalism, these things come into play. You’ll always be aware of the fact that the more value you add, that is perceived by them the more success will it give you and making more of blogging sense.

Your Readers are not your Customers.

There is difference between customers and clients. Don’t let yourself believe the wrong thing. Customers are people who buy a commodity or service from you, but it is the client with whom you have a relationship, who is under your care and protection, who will look up to you for anything. These are your readers, your repeat visitors.

Internet is a place where you can portray yourself as giant as Coke Company and even your competition can do the same. If you understand your visitor and do not just try to make customers but clients, where your ultimate passion lies in your niche, and you provide the very best, the richest information which is more enjoyable, profitable, productive, a wholesome enriching experience, you are going to rule your Niche, because your competitors do not look in the same way. Its your own Attitude that matters.

You can put this as a long term strategy and among the best examples I could give you is SEOMoz.org and the amazing way they have developed business. Seomoz.org are among those blogs, who are able to build a successful business out of a blog, implementing not only linkbaiting but a system to get more repeat visitors.

Why did I ask you to change in the beginning? In a race where everybody is doing the same thing, its you who should draw a line and differentiate yourself, and only who are able to do this get as big as TechCrunch and SearchEngineWatch. The way to do this is change your attitude towards your visitors, and yourself. Start thinking about your relationship with them. Provide them with an experience of a life time. Your Time Starts now…

Happy Blogging,
Divya

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Technorati Tags:- Blogging Fame, Blogging Strategies

Labels: Better Blogging, Blogging Fame, Blogging Strategies, Blogging Tip/Tricks, Business Blogging

When you have ever increasing cloud of blogs and everyone wanting to achieve the very best for themselves, it is getting tougher day by day to actually achieve the zenith of popularity. Blogging has become very easy and profitable exercise, and your blog a part of your existence. With an ever increasing blogosphere, you need to make your own space, so that you can get known for your work and efforts, to actually make a little fortune from it, whether in terms of income or traffic.

As an offline business owner you might like to have an advertising budget and hire a few marketing professionals to generate brand awareness for your company who would look after your public relations with the media and others. Getting online fame is not much different as being popular offline as an individual. Lets take a few offline fundas of getting known. Get more people to know you as friends or acquaintances by being socially active, do something that create news, be helpful to others so that they appreciate you(this is inbuilt not a funda, but guess still makes you known), be a leader of thoughts or initiate and manage events, become an expert of certain aspects so people come to you for your advice etc.

Although if you have struggled helplessly and came to a conclusion that its very difficult to create a large audience for your blog or that you need an advertising budget, I am going to prove you wrong, sire, very wrong. Though the first and foremost is presenting a good blog, the rest goes easy. The content of your blog is what matters most and how professionally you present it. No matter what your advertising budget is, or how much you put into creating back links, if your content is not worthwhile forget about any sort fame. Whether you blog about golf or internet marketing, people will read your say if it provides them what they need. What is there in your blog that others don’t?

Promotion of your blog isn’t what you think it is and it is not that difficult as you think it might be. You cannot promote your blog without providing anything useful and you can still get your blog to the very top even if you are a newbie.

A knack for your niche, an expert’s view and a heart to help others can easily get you started. Blogs do not exist in Vacuum and you need to be socially active in the blogosphere and an ongoing updating of your blog is the basic necessity. I know sometimes there actually isn’t enough time to write quality articles frequently but guess, you got to give something to get something. You will also have to reach other bloggers through your shout-outs, reviews and comments, linking relevant and good posts to provide must read information.

Here is a small list of what all should do to get your blog noticed:-

1. Try to get fame for others, the more you give the more you get.
2. Search engine optimize well.
3. Comment on others blogs, create a conversation.
4. Provide RSS feeds for your blog.
5. Be an expert of your field and provide quality content.
6. Get yourself listed in major directories.
7. Pick up products and provide first hand user experience.
8. People do not talk about you if you are a part of the crowd. You need to be innovative and creative.
9. Get yourself noticed by the A-list Bloggers(I’ll soon tell you how)
10. Add a viral effect to your blog, be contagious.
11. Try Linkbating.
12. Use Social Network Sites to your benefit, without depending on them(Atleast they will help in Branding).

Though promoting your blog takes constant hard work but avoiding it will actually ruin your chances to get popular. Good promotion also helps you to upgrade the quality of your work.

Till then Happy Blogging to Fame,
Divya Uttam

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Technorati Tags:- Blogging Strategies, Blogging Fame

Labels: Blogging Fame, Blogging Strategies

Starting a blog is no big deal, but how to prepare yourself for making it successful and popular from the beginning is one. So before you start blogging put on your spectacles(Its good if you can do without them) and do some research, on whatever you have decided to blog upon.

Your Blogging Strategies will start from where you start planning about your blog. Like its name, the domain name you’ll use for your blog, what platform you are going to use, how will it be designed and everything else. A reader of mine mentioned in his comment that Strategies change from time to time. According to Wikipedia - “A strategy is a long term plan of action designed to achieve a particular goal, most often "winning". Strategy is differentiated from tactics or immediate actions with resources at hand.”

Strategy is a plan of action resulting from the need to reach of specific goal.

If you know your goal, and plan a course of action, stick to it. Changing of routes daily will help you get nowhere. Planning a Strategy takes in a lot of research of the market and developing it accordingly will help you achieve your destination. Following Hit and Trial method is usually applied with tactics, not Strategies.

I’ll pick up an example from Hindu Mythology. I would not get into much crucial details because we are not having a history class here. There were five brothers who were being thought shooting with the help of bow and arrow. Their teacher took their test one day. Each one of them was required to shoot a parrot in the eye(I hope it was a dummy parrot, I am an animal lover). Teacher asked them one by one what they saw. Each of them described the trees and the sky except one. This was the only one who could actually shoot the parrot in the eye. When he was asked what he saw he replied he saw the eye of the parrot. His aim was clear and he knew what he wanted from his course of action. He strategically shot accordingly to accomplish his goal, and he won. So your goal and focus should be crystal clear so that your strategies do not fail.

What are Your Blogging Strategies…

Strategies depend on each individual and his business, so defining Strategies for everyone is not possible(If you are interested to ask me to plan out your strategies, you can drop by a comment) . What I can guide you here through is how you should go about deciding what’s best for you and your business.

Step 1: Decide what you want from your blog, and how it should achieve your goals regarding your business model and develop your strategy accordingly.

Step 2: Research your market and your competition.

Step 3: List the points where your competition might be missing. Your competitions weakness should be your Strength.

Step 4: Your Blog should be interactive. Initiate an honest conversation with your audience.

Step 5: Remember, Blog is an extension to your personality. So, just because a topic is popular, you start blogging about it to attract traffic will reflect in your writing. You have to be passionate about what you write, and in addition to that you should be an expert in that field.

There is more to come in. Stay Tuned.

Happy Blogging,
Divya Uttam.

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Technorati Tags:- Blogging Strategies, Blogging Tactics

Labels: Blogging Strategies