Introduction to blogging, an unofficial guide to blogging

       

       There is a hot debate running nowadays on news channels about the topic of restriction of online content or regulation of some kind, thereby restricting the freedom of expression of individuals, a group or certain community of some kind. Well, blogs are meant exactly to do this, they provide everyone with a free platform, allowing the general public the freedom of expression. It can be any review of movie, book, or restaurant or science & technology, literature, art or just an opinion about anything and everything.

        The blogs on blogosphere can be classified based on the contents of the blog mainly. There are personal blogs, music, entertainment, science, fashion, sports, medicine, wildlife, hobbies, cooking, art etc. Many celebrities tweet instead of the whole story as they have less time apparently. Well, you too can be a reader & a writer, soon you will realize blogosphere has more to offer then you can imagine, you can grow technically, professionally etc learning so many things. Well if you have always felt to write something to a bigger set of audience apart form only friends & family, then blogging is the right one for you, Just don’t think too much pick up the pen & start writing i.e key in the stuff on a new blog for yourself. Blogger & wordpress are most popular platforms. Do start with this, & then once you become popular or intend to take blogging to next level, then you can get your own domain name or website. Once you have started writing, do share it with friends, family over social networking sites etc. Well some advertising or selling of your created product is needed in the initial days as people don’t know that you are writing or they are too busy & needs to be reminded to catch up with your new post. Once if they are interested they key coming back to your blog, make sure you have something to offer i.e blog regularly. Don’t blog for the sake of blogging, the content is the king, the appearance, and beautification of your blog is secondary to the content which mainly attracts audience. People will visit & revisit your blog if you provide them with good content. If this content is biased or is derogatory then you may loose your audience or may even receive bad comments. So after you write a blog post & tell you friends to catch up also remind them to make a comment on the post, whether he or she liked it or disliked it or may have thought about another angle to the whole story thereby adding more value to your original post. This encourages the blogger to write more & better. Also a good blogger needs to spend considerable time to read other or fellow blogger posts & write healthy comments. Reading is also essential from the point to measure yourself, how good is your writing compared to others. It just feels good when someone reads your posts & leaves a feedback that he liked the post, & adds on more to it saying his own experience or sharing an incident. You feel the other person has taken home something back after reading your post. On the lighter side this is termed as CDS –comments deficiency syndrome, every blogger gets this disease, where he counts on the number of comments he receives to measure how good is his writing. There are blogging communities where there are competitions held regularly which is a lot more fun as one can be a part of it sitting in the comfort of their home. Some of the good communities are http://www.gingerchai.com/ http://www.blogadda.com/   http://www.blogaton.in/,   http://www.blogadda.com

          Do actively participate in the blogging communities, there is a lot you can learn & take back home by being active in the competitions or events held. Once you become popular in blogosphere, you can consider your blog generating some money by putting up some advertisements, but just be careful to draw a line so that your blog will not turn into the state the times of India newspaper has become these days.  Do respect the sentiments of people, & realize the fact that people are entitled to their own opinion, whatever it may be. Avoid plagiarism & be sure to mention the source of the pic or content in case if you have put up something that does not belong to credit the source in case you want to put up something which is taken form internet. When you write some articles, you tend to be get driven to decorate your blog, you see the blogs of friends or colleagues & you aspire that your blog must also look good, so that it attracts more readers. In this marketing era, packaging is also important, but just be cautious not to overdo your blog, too many widgets, too many photos, etc, will distract the readers, also it will take a lot of time for the webpage to download.

        Thus the whole idea of blogging is to express your opinion, your take on a particular subject, tell a new story or tell a story newly. Well if you don’t want people to see your personal writing stuff, then a personal diary is the best one. One may choose to write anonymously as well. In the real world you are the person who you actually are, but you can be anyone in online world. You can build up your own image & identity & a blogger will always aspire a niche audience. & last but not the least, thanks to social networking sites which are also popularizing the blogs & giving a bigger set of audience for you blogs.

Image credits : http://rickischultz.wordpress.com/2011/01/07/in-the-blogosphere-126-17/