Curious? Read on...
What Is It?
You might want to think of this as a series of mini classes or workshops, or for those of you who have already started blogging, a refresher on some of the essentials. A new post will be published once a week on a topic, beginning with the most basics of starting a blog, such as deciding what platform to use, then moving onto more advanced topics like photographing and writing reviews.
Each post will be informative, drawing from my own experiences, the experiences of other bloggers, and my research. But there will also be at times short exercises to apply what you're reading, as well as links to other resources on the web.
Who Is It For?
I can really see this series being useful to three groups of people:
- Those who haven't started blogging, but want to learn how to start a blog and what is involved in a nail polish blog
- Those who are new (or relatively new) to blogging. They may have started a blog in the last few weeks or months and need some direction
- Those who have been blogging for awhile (more than a few weeks or months), but still feel like new bloggers, or want to redefine their blog
Even within such a small niche such as nail polish blogging, there are so many different types of bloggers. Some of these posts will appeal to all new bloggers, for example the posts on blogging platforms or taking photos. However, I've really envisioned this series as appealing to those who want to make their blogs bigger. By that I mean they want to grow the audience of their blog, reach more people, and even attract the attention of companies and indie makers who will want to work with them. There are other bloggers who don't care about things like followers and pageviews, and that's okay too, but they might not find some of the posts useful.
Why Me?
I started blogging over a year ago, first on Tumblr, then later on Blogger. I may not be the most experienced blogger, but I have learned a lot in that past year, and I've come to a point where I want to pass on that information and knowledge. I also like to do a lot of reading on the subject of blogging, so in these posts I'll be speaking both from my experiences and from the research I've done.
What Can You Expect?
Here's a tentative list of topics that will be covered over the next several weeks. If there's something you'd like to see covered but it's not here, leave a comment.
- Defining your niche and reasons for blogging
- Blogging platforms
- Taking photos
- Editing photos
- Providing unique content
- Building a following
- Writing reviews and working with brands
- Using social media
- Managing your workload and staying motivated
Final Thoughts
I realize this series might not be for everyone. If that's you, don't worry, I plan to do other series in the future, and hopefully they will interest you more. One of my main motivations for doing this series was that I wanted to take what I've learned through my experiences and my research and bring it together in a way that made sense for me, and ideally for others.
If you're a new blogger, or thinking about starting a blog, I hope these posts are helpful for you. If anything here stand out, I'd love to hear about it! Your feedback is very important to me. :)
Stay tuned next week on Monday evening for our next bootcamp post!
Stay tuned next week on Monday evening for our next bootcamp post!
Tell me: how many newbie bloggers are out there? How do you learn about blogging, from reading or from experience (by doing it), or both?