thestoryofjory.com

The first week of classes at Oklahoma State University is complete, and I don’t think my students or myself are any worse for the wear. I’ve hit a few snags – like going to the wrong classroom on the first day, breaking the projector, etc; – but I’m hopeful students will forgive that initial incompetency and really enjoy the class.

For the curious, we’ll be covering blogging, basic photography and basic Photoshop, Soundslides, basic audio and video editing in Audacity and iMovie, and we’ll dip our toes into building a website with iWeb or Dreamweaver.  Students will write weekly blogs relating their area of interest (say, Sports P.R.) to the topics we covered in class. They’ll also turn in all their projects by posting them to their blogs.

In the first week, I got them all signed up for a blog on Wordpress, and started showing them how they can post blogs, add new pages, and create tags and categories. This week, we’ll talk about writing effective blog posts and blogging strategies.  I’ll also introduce them to RSS – which not a single student said they had heard of or used before, if you can believe it – and setting Google Alerts. The blogging section will conclude the following week with a discussion about design and a workshop on improving their blog’s appearance.

I’m very excited to share what I know with these students.  Most of them indicated that they had little to no experience with blogging or audio/video editing. This class will introduce them to the skills they’ll need to become the professional communicators of tomorrow. I also hope to teach them to connect the content they create with the technology that supports it.  Communications professionals should be able to converse knowledgeably with the designers and programmers who help deliver their content. After all, the world would be a better place in the future if all public relations professionals took a little more time to understand the IT behind their projects, right?

From left to right – Jory, Colleen, Mikey, Lisa & Matt make a picture at the Blue Dome Dinner.

Bloggers from all over Tulsa met up last night at the Blue Dome Dinner to eat some good food, talk shop, and listen to Brett McKay.  Although I’m not a Tulsa blogger, I’m glad I went.  It was good to hang out with Mikey & Lisa, and meet two other Tulsa Project contributors.  I also got to meet and visit with Marty, Angela (Tulsa Frugal Family Examiner & Award Winning Crafter!), Jenny, Brian, and of course Natasha, the hostess with the mostest.  I also visited some with Bill Handy (a very deep thinker on all things social media) and the infamous Matt Galloway.

After we all enjoyed some sliders, fries & tabouli courtesy of the Blue Dome, Brett McKay of ArtofManliness.com fame spoke about his experiences creating a blog that reaches up to 2 million page views a month.  It took me a minute to get over the fact that McKay started blogging in 2005 when he was a senior in high school (I can’t believe he’s so young!).  It’s amazing to think that someone just a little younger than me has already graduated law school and is now a professional blogger with a book deal.  Nevertheless, McKay had a lot of great advice for people looking to improve their websites.  Among the things I took from his talk were:

• Be unique.  Don’t try to copy other bloggers just because you think you can do it too.
• A big mistake a lot of bloggers make is being overbroad in their topics.  Find a niche that interests you, then fill it.
• Research your topics for more than 10 minutes.  If want to provide content that people will appreciate, you have to do some work. McKay said he spends about 3 hours researching each article he posts.
• If you want to be a popular blogger but you aren’t a good writer, you’re going to have trouble.  Bloggers are writers, after all.
• Similarly, if your blog’s design  isn’t all that great, you’re probably not going to have many readers.  Investing some time or money into a blog design will help increase readership of your blog.
• Finally, don’t saturate your posts with pitches and reviews of products, whether they’re your products or someone else’s.  It’s annoying.

Although I’d heard most of the tips before, it’s always smart to revisit and see if I’m following these little nuggets of wisdom.  So, when I apply McKay’s tips to my blog, how am I stacking up?

I should start my assessment by looking at my goal for this blog. Unlike a lot of bloggers out there,  I’m not looking for ad revenue or book deals or even a million readers.  I simply want my blog to be a collection of projects, thoughts & ideas.  I want people to come to my blog and get a good sense of who I am, and if they find that entertaining or informative in anyway, I will be tickled pink.  So, since my blog is about what I’m doing, learning, seeing, etc.; I think I have the ‘uniqueness’ factor nailed down.  As for being overbroad – I probably cover too many different topics for most readers’ tastes.  I could also improve in the area of researching my topics.  I’m thinking back to my posts about lomography and downtown businesses as evidence of that.  Something I am good at? Writing.  My sentences are mostly coherent and free of grammar and spelling mistakes.  As for blog design, my current theme is simple and clean, but nothing to write home about.  My summer plans include a website redesign that better reflects the content and attitude of this blog.

I would encourage anyone who has a blog to really think about how they’re using their blog and to what end.  Then, apply McKay’s tips to the blog and think honestly about how you measure up.  Finally, events like the Tulsa Blogger Meetup are great for talking with other people and getting honest feedback.  Of course, if you’re still using your blog like a diary, ignore everything I just said.