6 Blogs You Should Be Following

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I am an avid reader and have been since childhood.  With the advent of technology and the explosion of content readily available and easily accessible online, I have added blogs to my daily reading lists.  I follow more blogs than what is listed here, but I thought I would keep the list short and list some of my top favorites.  I present to you the top 6 blogs that I like and think you should follow:

 

Seth Godin

“SETH GODIN is the author of 17 books that have been bestsellers around the world and have been translated into more than 35 languages. He writes about the post-industrial revolution, the way ideas spread, marketing, quitting, leadership and most of all, changing everything.”

 

Gary Vaynerchuk

“In the spring of 2009, my brother AJ and I launched VaynerMedia, a new breed of agency that would help Fortune 500 companies like GE, PepsiCo,Green Mountain Coffee, the NY Jets, and the Brooklyn Nets find their social voices and build their digital brands through micro content and other story telling actions. The idea took hold – what started as a 6-person project 4 years ago has swelled to a 250-strong team spread across the country.”

 

Small Business Marketing Blog (by Duct Tape Marketing)

“John Jantsch has been called the World’s Most Practical Small Business Expert for consistently delivering real-world, proven small business marketing ideas and strategies. His blog was chosen as a Forbes favorite for marketing and small business and his podcast, a top ten marketing show on iTunes, was called a “must listen” by Fast Company magazine.”

 

Entrepreneur.com

“Business ideas and trends from Entrepreneur Magazine. The latest news, expert advice, and growth strategies for small business owners.”

 

Jenn’s Trends in Social Media Management

“My goal in my blogs is to bring you relevant social media and business trends and discuss their applications, implications, and benefits. I will write from my perspective about the things I enjoy and use regularly. I also scour social media, forums, magazines, headlines and groups to find information that I think you will find fun, interesting and valuable. I sincerely hope that you enjoy my postings!”

 

Under30CEO

“Goal: To inspire, lead and educate the next generation to live more succesful and fulfilling lives.  Under30CEO is the leading media property for entrepreneurs, inspiring the world’s next generation of business leaders. Under30CEO features direct interviews with the most successful young people on the planet, profiles twenty-something startups, provides advice from those who have done it before, and publishes cutting edge news for the young entrepreneur.”

 

I would like to note that all of the descriptions were taken directly from their respective sites.  To make it easy to keep up with and read new content from the blogs that I follow, I use a RSS feed reader.  I used to be a user of the old Google Reader that was shut down, through a third party source, but I have migrated over to Feedly.  I can recommend Feedly as a pretty good RSS feed reader to use to follow blogs.

Low Cost to Free Resources to Learn Technical Concepts & Software

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One of the great things about technology is that it has made it easier to share information, find information and learn.  I myself have taught myself new techniques in updated software releases, CSS, some PHP, and a few other technical concepts using online resources.  Some were free resources and some were paid, but the pad resource that I used (Lynda.com) was nominal compared to what I could have paid to attend a class to learn the same thing.  Another added benefit is that I was able to learn at my own pace and at my leisure.

If you are pretty technically inclined and do not need a classroom setting to learn, here are some resources to check out to learn technical concepts and software:

 

Lynda.com

My favorite resource over the years has been Lynda.com.  For $25 per month, you can watch all of the video tutorials you want on your computer, phone or tablet.  Courses are organized into chapters and then further broken down into chapter sections.  The section videos are just long enough to pick and learn what that video is teaching, but short enough for someone like me with a short attention span.  Because of the way courses are organized, it makes it easy to pop in find a video specific to what you need to learn how to do, without having to watch the entire course.  For instance, if you are already familiar with and use Photoshop, but do not understand smart filters; you can find a video within a Photoshop course that specifically goes over that function.  On average, the videos that I have watched are about 6 minutes in length.  For $37.50 per month, you can access the resource files that are used within a course.  One of the best things about Lynda.com is that there is no contract and you can cancel your subscription at any time and reactivate it later if you need.

 

Udemy

Udemy touts itself to be the world’s largest destination source for online classes.  I have not used Udemy myself, but it has been referred to me a few times to learn different programming languages.  It has also been referred to me as a place to offer a course of my own.  So, if you are looking to teach a course and looking for a third party external source to host the material and distribute it; Udemy might be a good resource for you as well.  Courses range in price because they are offered by a myriad of individuals.  You can also price shop for different courses because there tends to be a lot of duplication with the course topics.  I recommend looking at price, course content and reviews/ratings for the instructor, when making a decision.

 

YouTube

Of course the post would not be complete without the inclusion of YouTube.  You can learn a little something about just about anything on YouTube.  From hair and makeup tips, how to play the piano (one song at a time) and of course design and coding concepts.  There are a plethora of users with dedicated channels on various topics and of course, it’s all free!  Keep in mind, that you may get what you pay for with some users.  However, there are a lot of competent and talented instructors with video tutorials on the ‘tube.

Finding Your Blogging Voice

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My first foray into blogging was not on this site here, for business, but on my hobby site for fun in my spare time.  I am very competitive and I turn everything into a challenge that I must conquer.  I find it helps to motivate me to accomplish things and move forward in life.  My hobby blog was no different.  I challenged myself to become a blog superstar.  To become the blog everyone wanted to read and subscribe to and in case you are wondering; no that did not happen, and no it is not the “it” blog.

I bring up that blog because that is where I found my blogging voice.  I’ve written previously about why every business should have a blog and it is something that I advise my client’s to do.  One of the objections that I hear is:  “I’m not witty/funny or know how to write eloquently/formally.”  Basically, they do not know how to find their blogging voice.  I do not think that you have to be intentionally witty or funny to blog or write in a formal style, not if that is not true to who you are and how you speak.

When I first started writing on my hobby blog site, I first tried a more formal approach.  My thought process was that I always made good grades on term papers in school and graduate school is almost entirely writing and reading.  I figured if I could make it through grad school and did well writing in school, surely I could write a few articles/posts for a website blog.  I kept it formal and I did not see much traction or success.  I do not believe that the formal writing style was the problem, but that it was not my genuine speaking voice.

With time, I became a bit lazy and the formal style dropped.  Instead, I began to write more like I talk/speak.  I started speaking to my readers instead of treating them like professors requesting my paper for a grade.  When I started doing this, I saw more traction with my blog in the form of engagement from my audience.  They answered my calls for guest post submissions, commented on posts and my traffic and subscription numbers increased.  I no longer have the time that I used to, to devote to that site (the woes of entrepreneurship), but the site continues mainly through guest blog post submissions.

I believe to find your blogging voice, you must find your actual real life voice.  How do you speak when you talk about something you are passionate about to someone in real life?  How do you explain it?  How do you give out advice and tips?  That is the same voice that should be used on your blog.  Speak to your readers and not at them.  Unless your topic is of a scientific/technical nature AND the audience that will be reading the information needs to consume the information in a formal way, use your natural voice.

WordPress is “Easy,” is Relative to Your Experience

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I love the WordPress platform for building and maintaining websites.  Lots of web designers, entrepreneurs and bloggers love WordPress as well because it’s so “easy.”  When working with clients and explaining WordPress to them, I have branded it as “easy” to use and learn as well.  However, I have begun to realize that “easy” is relative and WordPress may not be “easy” to learn or maintain for everyone.

WordPress is “easy” to me for a variety of reasons.  One, I no longer have to hand code a full site.  Gone are the days of me designing websites based on what I knew I could actually code and make function.  I went to school for graphic design and later went back for a MBA in marketing, but all of my web design skills and knowledge are self-taught.  I am admittedly more right brain than left and the left brain is what sees art and music in all of those lines of code, styling, hooks and calls.  WordPress came along and made it “easy” because I can use something existing as a base to build off of.  Instead of starting from scratch, I can use my coding skills to customize, tweak, tear apart and put back together a site that is unique in look to my client and gives them the functionality they need.  Compared to what I had to do before, WordPress is “easy.”

Another reason is that maintaining what I have built is much simpler and no longer requires the expertise of a client’s webmaster (does that term still exist).  Before WordPress, if a client needed a change or update made, they would have to come back to me to modify the code.  Now the interface looks similar to Microsoft Word although the WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editor is not quite so WYSIWYG.  Thus, making WordPress “easy” to maintain and update, but again; this is all relative to my experience and knowing what it used to be like.

For someone that is entirely new to websites and is looking to have one made for their business, WordPress may not seem so “easy.”  Especially when they have an interface that is similar to Microsoft Word, but does not really act or function like Microsoft Word.  It can be downright frustrating.  WordPress also requires a bit of technical savvy to really get a handle on how things work on the back-end and how that all correlates to what is seen on the front-end.

While it is great to be able to say what it used to be like and how hard that was in comparison to WordPress today, for a client that needs a business site, it is all irrelevant.  Today they need a site and today they need to be able to maintain it.  If I told them that it would be “easy” with WordPress, then that is what it needs to be.  For that reason, I no longer tout WordPress as an “easy” solution, because “easy” is relative.

Why I Quit Facebook…Sort Of

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I quit Facebook.  Well, sort of.  Before social media became a marketing tool, I was an avid user on the personal side of things.  Like most, I bounced from network to network as they were created and became popular.  Myspace, CollegeClub, and a bunch more that escape my memory at the moment…sad, I know.  When I first landed on Facebook, it was actually after it had been opened up to non-college students.  I had tried to sign-up when it was for students only, but was unable to, because I had graduated and lost access to my .edu email account.  When it was opened up to everyone, I jumped on board.

Fast-forward to now and the current social media revolution as a tool for personal, marketing and professional uses.  I have continued my social media hop, but now I hop and stay for a while.  Also, when I hop, the purpose has changed from being purely personal, to being for business/marketing reasons.  I am on Pinterest, Twitter, Google+, Instagram and Facebook with my freelance business (follow me).  What I am finding is that I enjoy the other social media networks more.  I enjoy them more, in my opinion, because the connections I share also share more content that is in line with my interests.  If I follow someone, but later decide I do not like the content they share, I unfollow them…and I do not feel guilty about doing so.

Facebook is a different story.  My personal account is filled with connections from people I have interacted with or encountered at various points of my life.  Some I have worked with, gone to elementary school with, attended college with, etc.; you get the picture.  Although I personally have met or known more people I am connected with on my Facebook profile than on the other social media networks, I feel less connected to them.  Just because I have met or known them, does not mean we share the same interests, thoughts and/or values.  I also feel guilty to “unfriend” people because it feels more personal than unfollowing someone I do not know on another network.

Instead, I have taken a passive aggressive approach and hide posts from certain people from my timeline.  I have started to come to a point where I feel like why bother.  If I did not need the personal account to keep my business page, I would close my account.

So for now, I sort of quit, I keep the account open and only pop in for business reasons.  Does anyone else feel this way?