A very short and top line talk I gave to a group of writers at Eastside Books, Bricklane, in London.
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1. Eastside Books Blog talk Richard Galbraith
2. ContentsWho am I?What is blogging and social media? What
platform to use? Getting going, the circle of social media Things
to remember 3. Who am I? Richard Galbraith @ricgalbraith Blogger
Writer Social media participant Conversationalist Online marketerAn
online voice 4. What is blogging and social media? Social media are
primarily Internet - and mobile-based tools for sharing and
discussing information among human beings Wikipedia2009 Community
Collaboration Conversation 5. What is blogging and social media?
There are a huge selection of platforms you can choose from to
interact with people, learn from and push content to. The more you
have, the larger your online presence is From the top, clockwise:
Social news Digg Social bookmarking Delicious Media repositories
Youtube Life streaming Friendfeed Live streaming Ustream Forums
& Review sites Social networks Myspace Micro-blogging - Twitter
6. What platforms to use When it comes to getting started in
blogging and social media, choosing the right tool to suit your
needs is just the start. To really understand which tools you want
to use and why, begin with a content plan
What do I want to achieve through blogging?
What should be my main avenue of content?
What should be the theme / topic of my content?
How much time to I have to do this?
Do I want to make money out of blogging?
Do I have a budget, can I spend any money?
How long do I have before I assess myself?
Do I know anyone who has a blog already?
How do I plan on getting links?
Do I have a selection of key words?
7. Circle of social media If you want to start blogging, here is
the path that I recommend
Choose your content theme
Try typing out a post in a word processor
Choose a blogging platform
There are loads of platforms out there, have a look around and
chose one you feel comfortable with, wordpress and blogger are the
two most popular
Choose any other platforms you want to use
This could be twitter and youtube, or flickr and youtube, or
however many or few you would like, depending on the type of
content you think youre going to produce
Choose an online name and set up accounts
Have the same name across platforms so people can find you
easily and begin to recognise your name
Make yourself a six month timeline
Make a list of content for a few weeks at a time, make goals
such as two posts a week and stick to it as best you can
Use blog directories and online tools to find other
bloggers
There are a number of directories and tools you can find just
by googling blog directories look into these and find other
bloggers, begin talking with them and interacting, with two ideas
in mind, firstly, to find interesting new people, secondly to try
and gain links to your blog
Start blogging and remember to enjoy yourself
8. Things to remember A couple of things to bear in mind:
Blogging and online stuff takes time
Blogging wont make you rich
The likelihood of it getting you a book deal is extremely
low
It will make you friends
It will probably make you stressed out at some point
Link backs are the key to success
Have fun with it
Follow me on twitter @ricgalbraith
9. Sites to use A couple of sites to get you going
www.wordpress.com
This is one of the best blogging platforms available, its
extremely malleable and easy to use
www.twitter.com
This is the site of the moment, its good for micro-blogging,
networking and finding other bloggers and writers online
www.technorati.com
This is a blog indexing tool, register with it to get an
authority number and find other bloggers to get in touch with
www.google.com
Googles tools are some of the best online, their RSS reader and
their Analytics and their Adsense services are particularly useful
for beginners, intermediates and advanced users alike
10. Sites to use Other sites that you might find useful
