How to become a master blogger & marketer of your expertise

Paula and Merja interviewing each other.

Yesterday at Toimintaa! -torstaiklubi (which this time was on Monday) we learnt and practiced how to build one’s expertise and tell about it in the web. If you weren’t there, this blog post is your virtual workshop on the topic.

LESSONS ON MARKETING & BLOGGING

Two peer experts led us the way: Tomi Strömberg, a student of folklore & b2b marketing communications professionial taught us  the really useful basics of marketing (your expertise). Three things that caught my attention:

  1. Target group & call to action: In marketing you always have a target group you want to act in a certain way. Think who you’re talking to, where they coming from and what you want them to do. Communicate it.
  2. Work in progress: Expertise is a process, so communicate work in progress, not just end results. It’s a way to learn with your target group.
  3. Contact details: Attach your contact details everywhere and every time. People don’t want to make an effort in finding you.

Erkki Perälä, a student of political science & a prominent blogger & social media debator shared his secrets on how to develop and tell about your expertise by blogging. Three things that caught my attention in Erkki’s “How to write a perfect blog post” lesson:

  1. Interact: Invite your public to discussion and reply to comments. Don’t leave your readers alone after you’ve posted your post.
  2. Summarize or translate: If you don’t have a topic of your own to write about, create a summary or translation of something with your own remarks. It might stir a lot of discussion.
  3. Remember the picture: Make sure you link your blog post to Facebook etc. and that the link has a picture. Make sure the image link works by using FB’s best kept secret. And Flickr is an incredible, free source of Creative Commons licensed photos and other pics to attach to your blog posts etc. (Go ‘advanced search’ > tick “Only search within Creative Commons-licensed content”)

FROM KNOWLEDGE TO ACTION IN 15+15+15 MINUTES

After Tomi’s & Erkki’s valuable insights we practiced what had been preached by creating an introductory text of ourselves for the web. To chase away the hesitation and the fear of empty paper, we divided the task in three efficient quarters of an hour:

  1. 15 min: Interviewing each other, interviewee rambling about her/himself and the interviewer taking notes. The questions: What excites you? What bugs you? What are you good at that the world needs? What have you done with whom? Who do you want to work with?
  2. 15 min: Interviewing the other way around
  3. 15 min: Exchanging notes and writing your own introduction in 15 minutes ONLY.

Then for half an hour peer reviewed the introductions. Very very useful and eye opening. One by one the intro texts were projected on the wall and others gave supportive comments on how to shape the introduction to be even more catchy, concise and clear in telling who you are, what you think and what you can. You’ll see the results of the 15+15+15+peer review in this blog soon.

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