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3 Steps to Finding Your C-Spot

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I’m talking about blogging, people.

Your C-Spot is your creativity spot, your happy place, where you feel your flow, mojo, juices, ideas, you get the picture.

Sometimes it feels as though great writing is like lightning in a bottle–fleeting and electric. But I think you can do some specific things to capture the lightning.
Writing is like capturing lightning in a bottle

This is our homework assignment for the coming week.

Step One – Find the Perfect Time of Day to Create

Let’s use a sample writing prompt (in case you need one). Write for 30 minutes on the subject of “what I learned from my first job that I’m still using today.” Liz has written some inspiration for finding your writing voice. When you’re ready:

  • Day 1, write first thing in the morning, right after you eat breakfast.
  • Day 2, write in the afternoon, after you’ve already gotten your non-writing tasks done.
  • Day 3, write just before bedtime, when it gets quiet in your house.
  • BONUS Day, if you normally write during the week, try a weekend (or vice versa).

Take note of how your “flow” feels in each time-frame. Was it easy to write, or did you stare at the screen for a bit?

Step Two – Find the Perfect Physical Location to Create

Using the same writing prompt (substitute your second job), choose three different locations where you can write. Try your dining room table, your desk at work, in bed with your laptop, out on the porch, wherever you feel comfortable.

Did this affect your writing?

Step Three – Add Ambiance for Creative Flow

Some people need to have music playing in the background, and some need to write in absolute silence. Using what you already know about your style, experiment a bit with your writing environment. Light candles, turn the TV off or on, put on noise-canceling headphones, try writing with pen and paper instead of a keyboard…go crazy.

How did that work? Did changing the ambiance change your attitude? Did it spark new ideas?

At the end of the experiment, you can try mixing and matching your time of day, physical location, and ambiance to find your perfect “C-Spot.”

Want to share yours?

Author’s Bio: Rosemary O’Neill is an insightful spirit who works for social strata — a top ten company to work for on the Internet . Check out the Social Strata blog. You can find Rosemary on Google+ and on Twitter as @rhogroupee

Image: Flickr CC

What Are Your Assumptions?

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By James Ellis

closeup_donkeyPeople don’t read the web, they scan. People don’t like to click. People don’t look past the first four Google search results. People only search Google with 2-3 word search terms. People don’t open their email on the weekends. People don’t spend money online. People don’t trust strangers online. No one cares what you had for breakfast. No one will want to look at a picture of your lunch. People buy most Christmas gifts online on the Monday after Thanksgiving. No one will download a movie to watch on their phone.

All of the above statements were once considered gospel at one time. Gospel. Carved into stone tablets. Given to marketers’ children to recite every morning.

But you should all see at least one statement that you know to be patently false (in fact, I’m pretty sure that they almost all are, depending on circumstances). But they linger on, because they are based on assumptions.

These are just examples of online/web/tech assumptions that linger in the minds of people close to us (especially clients and bosses). There are plenty of business, blogging and personal assumptions we make and live by that simply aren’t true anymore (assuming they ever were).

Assumptions are the blind spots in our vision. We see them without acknowledging them every day. We work around them instead of challenging them, when challenging them is how we create success. Think of Kodak and Poloroid, who assumed we’d always want printed pictures. Think of Ford (circa 2009) who assumed Americans only bought big cars. Think of the music industry, who assumed that we wouldn’t like to download our music whenever we wanted.

Businesses fail every day because their assumptions were wrong. Businesses thrive every day because they took a chance on challenging assumptions. Think of Starbucks, who didn’t listen to the assumptions that people wouldn’t pay $5 for a cup of coffee. Think of Apple, who didn’t listen to the assumption that people didn’t want to check their email every second of the day. Think of Rick Bayless who didm’t listen to the assumption that Mexican food is cheap food.

What are the assumptions you live with every day? Are you challenging them? If you don’t, what happens when someone else does?

Author’s Bio: James Ellis is a digital strategist, mad scientist, lover, fighter, drummer and blogger living in Chicago. You can reach out to him or just argue with his premise at saltlab.com.

Photo credit: Dieter van Baarle, Flickr CC.

Attention Bloggers – Three Laws You Must Understand While Blogging

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Arba Hana

The internet is not governed by any centralized legal body, however, that doesn’t make it immune to laws related to copyrights, defamation and privacy laws. Failing to adhere to any of these laws can land you in hot water, regardless of your location, mainly because online laws are of universal nature. Keeping these laws in mind is both a moral, and in some cases, legal obligation because everything you publish can be read by a global audience and you just cannot afford to offend anyone.

1.) Copyright Laws

Plagiarism is wrong, both ethically and legally. If you can’t write your own content, don’t bother starting a blog. Copying other work will result in some “cease and desist” notice, Google’s penalty, or even worse a legal suite. A copyright law passed in 1978 has declared all work published, doesn’t matter if it’s on paper or in digital form, it is automatically protected by copyright laws and there needs to be no specific mentioning of a “copyright protected” logo on the site that you are copying from. Therefore, bloggers are given automated protection for their original work and with latest software advancements, it’s quite easy to find out who plagiarized content and from where.

If you really want to include a certain passage or an entire article from another source then you must give citation. Don’t be shy of accrediting others for their work, you won’t lose your readers, instead they will appreciate you as someone who shares authentic information with its sources instead of just hogwash.

Not to forget the copyright when you are using images on your blog, stock photography websites are quite active when it comes to finding out people who are using it illegally and sending notices (e.g. Getty images)

So before you start blogging, you should take out some time and spend it on reading about copyright laws and its implications here.

2.) Online Defamation Laws

Online defamation is the publication of the information that directly harms the reputation of an individual or organization. It’s generally published with a malicious intent of invoking harm on to the victim. Even though the internet promotes a somewhat free culture, any site that indulges in publishing false defamatory information can face legal consequences. Religious defamation is the most active form of online defamation with certain regions being harsher than others. If you value your reputation and your life, do not indulge in defamatory activities especially on a global platform like Internet. Unless you are a journalist, a politician or anyone with a hold on verifiable facts and figures, you should steer clear from stating any rumor or false information on your blog.

At the end of the day, blogging should be more about constructive information. You should avoid defaming any individual/organization based on personally formed opinions. And it holds true for other platforms like Twitter as well.

3.) Privacy Policy:

All websites and blogs must have a clearly stated privacy policy. The policy is used to inform visitors about information collected and the sharing of that data with third parties. This could include sensitive information such as visitor name, email address, images and any other related data. You will be directed to publish a privacy policy whenever you are applying for an account at companies like 2checkout.com or moneybookers.com; even Google has made it compulsory for wannabe Adsense publishers to have a privacy policy on their blogs. You can search online for a number of privacy policy samples available for free, but you must give them a read and know your responsibilities as a blogger.

Always make sure your posts and publications are in league with laws and regulations of your country. As a responsible citizen, you are entitled to provide accurate information backed with verifiable facts and stay away from malicious content and activities.

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Arba writes on topics related to laws and regulations.  She’s working for a website that lets you find notary in all parts of US. You can search for the notaries by state or by counties.

Ingredients to Make your Blog the One-Stop Shop for your Target Readers

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If you are running a blog and relying solely on unique visitors coming from the Search Engines, and that too for a small set of keywords, then sorry to break it to you, but you (and your blog) are not standing on solid grounds. Mainly because a small shuffle in the rankings can send your blog tumbling back to starting point, and you’ll have to start from the scratch. Therefore, you should be aiming for a loyal readership from the day one. You have got to have some readers, who will be coming back to your blog on regular basis, reading your posts, sharing their opinions, sharing the good ones with their contacts at social profiles, and when needed, coming up with the guest contributions. But assembling this kind of readership is not easy. It is one thing to get someone to visit your blog for once (by the virtues of SEO or PPC) it’s another thing to convert these random visitors into regular readers. Your blog has got to have the following ingredients to provide your readers with a perfect mix that will make them bookmark and keep coming back to your website.

Updated Information:

Regardless of the theme or subject of your blog, you have got to keep your readers posted with all the developments or occurrences in your target market. Keeping you blog up to date doesn’t only mean posting news, instead you need to discuss these changes or developments, be it a sports blog, technology blog, SEO blog, politics blog, business blog, or a blog about blogging itself. Any blog that doesn’t cover the recent happenings or doesn’t stay on the ball will fail to convince the readers that this is a domain worth bookmarking.

Food for thought:

Keeping your readers updated with the recent developments is not the only requisite, instead you should be able to scrutinize all of these developments and help your readers understand by providing them with some food for thought, something to take home, for example how they can use a new technology, some marketing strategy, some upcoming trend, and the likes. There are hundreds of blogs out there doing nothing but rewriting the news. At the end of the day, it is the blog that goes one step ahead that gets the nod of approval from readers.

Humor:

Humor can make the most boring topics a lot easier to bear, and it is one of the easiest ways to hold on to your readers, but for some unknown reasons, very few bloggers dare to be amusing in their writings. The thing is that you don’t need to be Louis Harding or Erma Bombek, all you need to do is to relax and write in an informal way. Almost all of us have this inbuilt ability to crack a joke every now and then, when we are hanging out with our friends, so you can assume that you are writing for your friends, and not some critics (or search engines), chances are that you will find yourself coming up with some good tongue in cheek humor every now and then.

Personal touch:

A blogger is not a reporter or a journalist; in fact they are quite the opposite of each other. While people expect journalists or reporters to keep their personal likes and dislikes, or experiences away from the news or featured stories, blogs are meant to be a place where real people can talk about the real stuff with their own take on the matter. So, it is advised that you add that personal touch into your writings to help people related.

Controversy:

If you feel your blog is getting monotonous, and turning more into a dud with little or no activity, you can always resort to a little controversy. By controversy, I don’t mean delving into sensitive topics and hurting others’ feeling to make them speak, instead you can try and debunk some popular notion or myths, remember that we are talking about thoughtful write-up and not just trolling. For example, an SEO blogger can try to debunk a popular myth, or a tech blogger can confer some popular brand or gadget, or maybe a blogger taking on the fellow bloggers for some unethical practices getting common in blogosphere.

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Rahil of Weight Loss Triumph is an online entrepreneur and a part time blogger. At his website, you can get a wewood coupon. These discounts and coupon codes will help you save while purchasing watches or other accessories from fossil or wewood.

http://www.weightlosstriumph.com/wewood-coupon-code-and-review.html

The Grinch Who Stole Blogging Past

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As your business winds down 2011 and looks forward to a fresh start, it is likely to review company practices for the past 12 months to see what worked, what did not work, and what flat out needs changing in 2012.

If your company blogs for its customers now is as good time as any to review the material you put out there for clients and others, seeing what is resonating with those who may end up putting money in your pocket.

In the event your company blog is getting little or no traffic at all, perhaps you can relate to those poor people down there in “Whooville,” those same folks who are targeted every year at this time by none other than The Grinch.

You see, The Grinch doesn’t like happy things, one of which is a productive company blog that drives traffic to your Web site, increasing the chances of selling your products and/or services.

So how can you outsmart The Grinch at his own game?

Well, you need to:

  • Set your blogging goals for 2012 – What is it exactly that you seek to accomplish with your company’s blog? Are there clear intentions with the blog or are you just seeking to fill some space and/or producing a blog because others do it? Don’t wander out into the cold aimlessly with your blog this winter, map out where you want it to go ahead of time;
  • Peer in on some successful company blogs – They say copying is the greatest form of flattery. While you do not want to duplicate a rival’s blog, you can certainly learn from them as to what is working and what is not. See how they interact in real-time with their customers, if they blog about industry trends and analysis, do they mention and/or offer special deals, coupons etc. through their blogs;
  • Review your content – No blog is successful if it contains stale and boring content. If your staff does not have the proper time to give to a blog, then you need to think twice about having it in the first place. The more successful blogs are those that provide relevant content, are updated frequently, have an appealing look to them and are rich in keywords that search engines will pick up on. If your company blog has trouble meeting some or all of those areas, you seriously need to rethink the purpose of having one;
  • Balance communicating and sales – If the company blog is just one big sales pitch, it will likely fall on deaf ears for the most part. You need to find the proper balance between selling and serving, i.e. the blog should provide informative material for your customers and potential clients, not be an advertorial time and time again. You will likely be in a tug-of-war between your marketing/editorial folks and the sales staff. The former will want to provide solid copy that offers relevant content, while the sales team will seek to turn the blog into one big sales pitch;
  • Alter your posting times – When posting your blog, alter the times it goes live to the public. Some helpful hints include…. Fridays are a bad day to post because a lot of people have their minds off of work and turned towards the weekend. Then again, a blog centered on outdoor activities and purchases can be good for this time of the week. Tuesdays are generally considered a good day to post due to the fact Monday is out of the way and more attention is likely to be paid to it. Lastly, make sure to end the blog with a call to action so that customers and those potentially interested in your business have reason to respond;
  • Lastly, use your blog to interact with customers – Real-time interaction with customers is priceless, even when they are upset with you and your products and/or services. The one thing you need to remember is that not all businesses have company blogs, hence you have an additional means by which to interact with customers that they do not. Take advantage of that opportunity and speak to your customers on a regular basis.

Your company’s blog can be the envy of many other businesses if you devote the right time and resources to it.

Heck, even The Grinch would smile about that.

Photo credit: holderbaum.educationextras.com

Dave Thomas, who covers among other items home-based jobs, writes extensively for Business.com, an online resource destination for businesses of all sizes to research, find, and compare the products and services they need to run their businesses.

Questions to Get Closer to You Question 25

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Get Closer to You

This is a series of questions, I don’t know how many. They are the ones I ask when I help folks get closer to their personal identity.

What are you NOT doing right now that is causing you to miss opportunities?

< I'll answer first to get things started. --ME "Liz" Strauss Check out the Work with Liz!! page in the sidebar.

Related
Branding: 5 Ways to Help You Find Out Who You Are

Questions to Get Closer to You: Question 24
Questions to Get Closer to You: Question 23
Questions to Get Closer to You: Question 22
Branding: 5 Ways to Help You Find Out Who You Are

Questions to Get Closer to Your Brand: Question 1
You’ll find the entire series of Questions to Get Closer to you on the Successful Series page.