How to Groom Your Voice Through Social Media

Social media has been a more-than-willing accessory to the on-going transformation across the web. And this post is more of a wake-up call to writers of all skill level who are yet to steal a taste of the limitless payoffs of this viable web tool. Believe it or not, social media can amp up your writerly voice and give it a sharp edge.

Let’s look at the high points.

1. KEEP A BLOG.

And if you don't already run a blog, create one right away. A lot of writers who are new to the internet are yet to tap into the reality that blogging is actually a form of social media. Hence, they miss out of one of the most vital aspect of maximizing their presence online. This is an invaluable tool if you must achieve any level of success in writing.

2. CONNECT.

Network, in other words. Reach out to a whole new world of possibilities-new ways of thinking by following, adding friends, adding people to your circle... whatever name your sns calls it. You may downplay the idea, if you've been around the web for a while but connecting with folks on the internet takes a little bit of courage and faith. But hopefully, it takes nothing out of you (besides timidity, of course) but if you really throw yourself into it and make it art, you'll find the rewards are way out of this world.

3. SHARE YOUR BLOG CONTENT.

Keeping a blog is one thing, sharing it with citizens of the cyberverse is another. Sending out your work through social networking is an indispensable step towards toning your writerly muscles. It also builds you up and prepares you for all those rejection slips you'll be receiving when you send out your work to publishers and agents.

4. READ INTENSELY.

Bury yourself deep in reprints (or read off your computer) and do not pause for breath. There's no telling where you might find the ideas which becomes the gift that keeps on giving. Read stuff on your social network-that's why you should follow the right people. Immerse your mind in stuff that appeals to your passion. It pays handsomely.

5. SHARE FROM YOUR NETWORK

They don't exactly call it networking for the fun of it, you know. When you share your connects' work across the web, it's your way of reaching out to them, your way of saying, "I believe in you." It may not be a big deal to you, in the beginning but if you keep at it and more people connect with you for 'sharing,' it builds you up inside. Your good deed comes back to you as a blessing.

You learn how to talk by joining conversations. A similar principle applies to writing online; you learn to write by writing-blogging, connecting, sharing, reading and so on. In other words, your writing voice attains a perfect pitch when you hang around a writerly habitat.

Keep your pens bleeding.

Akpan

Finding The Best Ideas For Your Blog

The most appropriate ideas for your blog are probably, the ideas which unlock the flow and set your muse reeling to your side almost at the snap of a finger. That goes further to mean you have no business whatever wading in waters totally unfamiliar to your muse. In point of fact, if your plan is to be around the blogosphere for a very long time you need to stay on your grind by finding the niche that clicks—finding a unique voice, in other words.

Your biggest challenge while hunting ideas for your blog will be finding what works for you unless ‘you blog not to blog a subject but to blog’ (to coin a phrase). And as far as writing these breed of journals go, all you really need do is try your hands on a variety of topics (which includes searching deep within your heart) and if you can throw your back into it, there’s a 100% chance your niche will come within kissing distance.

If you intend to run a blog where you share a topic-specific content, be aware that sooner or later, you’re going to have to sit down (or stand or lay down, your choice) and consider the odds. Of course, as they say, ideas are literally everywhere and you can help yourself to as many as your heart desires. But before you do, here’s a set of really simple questions you will need to tackle if you must set off on the right foot;

“What would you like your blog to be known for?”

“Who is your audience—the readers you intend to connect with?”

Remember, we are discussing getting the best ideas for your blog. How can you get ideas that keep on giving? The ideas you come up with have to be in tune with your overall blog theme. It follows that, one of the things you must do is spread your theme so thin that it almost falls through (I mean that in a positive sense). Let’s say, for example, you blog about ‘writing.’ First of all, write down the word, ‘writing.’ Next, build a kind of wordweb around it with topics related to your subject matter. Words like ‘book reviews,’ ‘writing tips,’ ‘book excerpts,’ ‘film reviews,’ ‘writing quotes,’ ‘book updates,’ ‘author interviews,’ ‘personal essays’ (or essays in general), ‘bestseller countdowns,’ ‘author bio,’ ‘writing community information,’ ‘top 10 lists’ (these could include movies, books, television, short stories and so on), ‘book quotes,’ ‘book suggestions,’ ‘writing prompts,’ … the list goes on.

With a list like that, which by the way, you can further break down into smaller bits, you can’t run short on weird and wonderful ideas. The best ideas for your blog which also interpret as the most appropriate are the ones that feed your drive, hand you a twig to hang on to when your inner voice is drowning in a sea of life’s problems. This is the good stuff which may evolve into fresh and brilliant topics. Fetching the best materials in the long haul is setting up yourself for a unique and successful blogging.

Keep your pens bleeding.

Akpan

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Pageviews

An image in a post paints up a scene where a neon-lit signpost baths the floors of an alley with its brilliance on a moonless night. And it's because like the neon tube, a picture transmits info on a different wavelength effectively, creating knockout first impressions which casts a spell on visitors to your site. The offshoot of it all is your audience is furnished with a picturesque cause to visit again.

Pictures can make or remake your blog. Should that statement interpret as “you can't enjoy a steady flow of traffic if you don't use images?” I could say yeah and we could argue about it all day. Thing is I'm not going to. What you can do for yourself is take a look around the WWW for a moment. Do the math and come up with your own conclusions. Surf any of the big sites, popular for its content. Did you notice the smattering of images on “every” article? Maybe, you should close your eyes and imagine the same page without the graphics. It is a fact you can’t unsee the upshot of pictures especially, if they are done well.

Images are magnets that attract attention. Sometimes, a well-timed portrait might be all it takes to pull a crowd. Take it from an angle; your title and content bring in one kind of folks and your images another. I think that kind of doubles the effect, if you catch my drift.

They are a good distraction, too (which is why you have to make a visual representation pass across some form of message). Readers will feast on these things if they are done magnificently. "An appropriate piece says a lot more about your content than the words themselves because pictures communicate on a level only pictures can." Besides, take a long look at some of those bare posts (yours or someone else's). I bet they seem a bit 'stripped.' Think of images as a covering for your write-ups. Has it ever crossed your mind how using images can land you and your blog a feature on Google Images search page and by extension, Google Search?

Some other payoff of blogging pictures is they give your blog an “official touch.” Your posts get the feel of a magazine or Ezine. But keep watch you do not fall into the trap of excess; there is such a thing as too many illustrations, you know? If you are not displaying art for the fun of it or pictures with quotes embedded or portraits of persons and/or books relevant to the topic under discussion, and unless your blog is especially, dedicated to photography, I'm not a stickler for rules but it would do you a world of good if you stick to two per post tops. If your readers can't see the post for the pics, that's a cue you're doing it wrong. Images are like wild flowers, they are good, but carefully picked ones are better.

One more as a parting gift and we're done here,

“If you have to paint a picture, use the brightest colors.”

Keep your pens bleeding.

Akpan

The Sideview Apocalypse

Caution, which is an essential you'll stow away in a trunk as a functional make-up of the maintenance kit turns up missing in a Lagos driver's vocabulary. These roadhogs hit their mind's delete key on a whim at a hint of the C-Word—and don’t you dare pretend the situation’s less complicated where you live. They've laid down their cautionary hats. These days they prefer not to.

There was an age when blinkers were a vehicle's most delicate hardware. The world moved on and subsequently, readjusted the standpoint on blinkers. In more recent time, motorists traded interest in the turn signal for vehicle part of a little more elevated status—and that’s not on the terms of importance but of position—the sideview mirror. When a Lagos driver isn’t all over trying to trump James Bond’s driving skills; which happens when he (or she) is constrained to proceed at a crawl, motorists turn their energies to ripping off the other guy's sideview. 007 stunts are small potatoes compared to this delirious real-life-car-chase-choreography from hell.

I should clear up the air a bit so I don’t hand you the wrong end of the stick. The episode conveyed through this prose is stringently localized (that don’t extricate the speed daemons in your locale). If you've been around Lagos, Nigeria or better yet, if you read my post on “James Bond driving,” you have a roughly sizeable idea how this yarn’s going to come out.

Courtesy: pbase.com

Let’s do a little comparison. A covert intense virtual feud is all the rage on the internet right now. A development not alien to the action flick scenario played out on a minute by minute basis on Lagos highways and byways rules the digital multiverse. Millions of site owners strive for awareness or traffic—pardon the pun—it gives a sense of congestion on the internet. But as it is with real traffic so it is with the virtual; there is a destination in the big picture.

            Saying’s still true ‘if you keep your focus soon your focus will keep you.’ You don't have to take the lead. You aren’t stuck in some sick race where the laurel wreath gifts the suicidally speedy. What you can do, and should, is seek out new and fresh channels to pull in your resources as some Lagos commercial bus drivers sometimes do even though at the expense of commuters.

One minute you're staring out your rearview watching some bum stuffed behind the wheels of a beat-up truck pull up to your bumper. What happens next is a blur as the monster hunk of metal hurtles into the scrawny space between your automobile and the highway divider. It gives your ride the bum's rush, collecting paint scrapings for souvenir and not quite leaving your sideview out of the wager. Splinters of glass spray on the tar and all that’s left is a hollow, battered (mostly plastic) housing.

            In time, drivers learned at a pretty price, the implicit meaning of the warning legend engraved on the wing mirror; the one which reads “objects in the mirror are closer than they appear.”

Akpan

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7 Good Reasons Why You Oughta Blog That Idea!

Sometimes, ideas pop up into our minds and we don’t know what to do with 'em.
Had any peculiar thought lately and wondering if that idea is really worth blogging? Here, I present you with, not one or two, but seven terrific tips to lead you by the hand into the land of creative blogging.

1. The Internet Would Be a Seedy Place –

Why would you leave a piece of info for only one website when you got a relevant message to share in a unique voice? The www is filled with info and resources because people like you and me never give up on giving what we got to give.

2. Increase Your Knowledge Base through Research –

This one speaks for itself, really. The more you blog, the more you read across the web to get better ideas about what you do. The more you feed yourself through online/offline research, the more you will blog. It’s really as simple as that. 

3. Show ‘Em What You Got –

There won’t be any online research, there might be, on the other hand, but they would barely be fulfilling. If people didn’t blog their ideas, google search staffers would be out looking for jobs. Blogging your creative thoughts is another way of sharing your knowledge and getting ‘em across to surfers that need it.

4. Inspire Somebody to Write –

On a personal level, I’ve read blog stories that got me so fired up I had to create something. There’s no telling who might get ideas for an article just by reading your stuff.

5. Build-Up Your Writing Muscles –

Keeping at your blog expands your creative glands. You’re practically working out therefore, enlarging and stretching your creative muscles.

6. Keep Your Muse Busy –

This point is not the same as the above. While point 5 is about exercising, point 6 is like trying to spark up a relationship, sort of. In relationships, a lot of sharing and communicating is involved. When you hang around your muse a couple of times you tend to sense the inward tugging of inspiration faster and with keener intimacy. I do, too. Look at the results!

7. Somebody Out There Needs You! –

Or your ideas. Whichever comes first. This should be at the top of your mind every time you try to back out of an idea. Write or blog until there’s nothing left to give!

Keep your pen bleeding!

Akpan

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