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Mickler & Associates, Inc. » Education » The Lifelong Learner » Blogging and Self-Publishing

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Author Topic: Blogging and Self-Publishing
RP Mickler
Administrator
Posts: 44
Post Blogging and Self-Publishing
on: July 7, 2010, 19:59

Hello all!

Welcome to the forum for Blogging and Self-Publishing: an onground course hosted by Clark Community College of Vancouver, Washington!

This forum is for class members who have questions that can be addressed outside of the onground class time. Please feel free to post your questions here!

Thanks again!
R

With over 14 years of professional technology experience, Mickler has earned his CISSP and MCSE certification, is a published technology author, is an adjunct professor, and works as a technology consultant to small businesses. He lives in Vancouver, Washington.
KellyO
Member
Posts: 1
Post Re: Blogging and Self-Publishing
on: July 9, 2010, 16:28

I’m thinking of starting a “group blog” on horse matters in the Pacific Northwest. The postings would be made by experts (or others) in a variety of horse topics as guest bloggers. I’d get veterinarians, trainers, professional riders, barn managers. I would just be the moderator, with occcasional articles. It would also have a discussion forum or comments.

There are several horse magazines in the NW, but I think the idea of being interactive might be attractive.

1. Does this sound like a viable plan? I’m assuming I could sell ads?

2. Since money is tight, would it be OK to start this on blogger or should I go right to the professional WordPress and domain name?

Thanks!
RP Mickler
Administrator
Posts: 44
Post Re: Blogging and Self-Publishing
on: July 10, 2010, 14:32

Hey there, Kelly -

I think your idea sounds great! You may want to ask yourself:

What percentage of this community are Critics or Spectator’s on the Social Technographic Profile (https://docs.google.com/present/view?id=0AfHviP2oD6cNZGZ4MjZidDdfMTUzMmN6Ymhqdmd4&hl=en)?

In the version of the Social Media class that you had from me, I didn’t cover Forester Research’s work on this scale, but you’d want to identify how many people would watch and read your blog (Spectators) vs participate in the blog (Critics). You can find the scale on slide 14 of this presentation.

A simple SurveyMonkey poll – or even a paper-based poll at an actual event, like a rodeo – may help you determine where this audience might be and how to market to them. I’d ask: what percentage of your audience are Inactives on this scale? Then, for the Spectators, what would it take to make them Critics? To participate in the discussion?

Your success would depend on that rate of Conversion – turning Spectators into Critics – and the percentage of Inactives in your target market.

Myself, I’d encourage you to maybe drop into it maybe fifty bucks and set yourself up with your own URL and your own WordPress site.

You could probably even launch it with the existing property you already own (horsebizgirl?).

You could even launch the marketing analysis piece – like the online poll – from this site, even start to lay the foundations and attract the following.

Because I don’t know much about that demographic, I’d try to think long and hard: are many of these people online at all? If they are, what compels them to be online? Are they utilitarian-types – just using the web for email – or are they social-types – using the web to make interpersonal connections?

In the real-world outside of the ‘Net, how can you reach and encourage the social-types to spin by your site? That’d be my primary thinking.

R

With over 14 years of professional technology experience, Mickler has earned his CISSP and MCSE certification, is a published technology author, is an adjunct professor, and works as a technology consultant to small businesses. He lives in Vancouver, Washington.
RP Mickler
Administrator
Posts: 44
Post Re: Blogging and Self-Publishing
on: July 19, 2010, 16:44

Linda Writes:

I don’t know if this is how to put a new post on the Forum, but it’s all I could figure out.
I am in the Clark College class and thought people might be interested in a talk this Saturday at 6am (use your DVR!)on CSPAN2 (channel 25 in Vancouver Comcast) called, “The Facebook Effect: The inside story of the company that is connecting the world.” It presents a new book about Facebook.

Linda Godson

R

With over 14 years of professional technology experience, Mickler has earned his CISSP and MCSE certification, is a published technology author, is an adjunct professor, and works as a technology consultant to small businesses. He lives in Vancouver, Washington.
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