Problogger: “Tell the world something important”

One of the highlights from the Nuffnang Blogopolis event at the weekend was Problogger Darren Rowse’s presentation on ‘Blog Branding and Marketing’.

He was also on a panel discussing ‘The Australian Blogosphere: Past, Present & Future’ (see video for excerpts).

Darren based his talk around his four foundations of blogging:

1. Content
2. Getting off your blog
3. Hook readers in
4. Word of mouth

Here’s a sample of Problogger’s gems:

• CONTENT – make it useful…solve people’s problems in some way; self-deprecating humour works; inform, inspire, interact; mix serving current readers with ‘content events’ to draw in new readers.

• GETTING OFF YOUR BLOG – befriend your competitors; advertise on Stumbleupon; post on other people’s blogs; engage on other social networking sites; share links on Twitter, participate in social media.

• HOOK READERS IN – give readers something to do (polls/quizzes/competitions); build anticipation; use e-newsletters (only 27% of Darren’s 600,000+ – yes, you read that right: 600,000! – subscribers on his Digital Photography School blog use RSS – the rest receive a weekly e-newsletter); look after the readers you already have (“love them to death”).

• WORD OF MOUTH – make your readers famous; “tell the world something important”.

Bree from The Blog Stylist has written a stack more notes from Darren’s talk.