Blogging Network

I would definitely join a blogging network because it provides a wide range of networking opportunities. Along with this it provides a sense of community and both parties are sharing similar interests, which is fun. A network I could definitely see myself joining would be the “Lucky Style Collective.” This blog is composed of things to do with beauty, such as fashion, styles and new looks. This blog is perfect for me because for this class I actually have a beauty blog. I have always been into fashion and different styles and I get a lot of my ideas from blogs and sites just like this one! I have a lot of knowledge on this type of topic and so I definitely think my voice would fit in. Not only that, but I could bring underground styles and ideas to the table and with me doing that I think it would impress some of the readers, making me a successful fit for the network. When you have something new to bring to the table, you are more respected from the start and people begin to trust your advice more. For instance, I would make Stance Socks my first post since they are very underrated and many people have never heard of them before. I hope to help expose this style as much as possible. I think this type of blogging exhibits a great support system, one because you have many people who are able to back you up but at the same time teach you new things as well. Not only this but I would be able to direction some attention to my personal blog in order to help that grow as well.

 

Annotated Bib 6

Gunelius, Susan. “Blog Advertising Overview.” About.com Blogging. About.com, n.d. Web. 31 Mar. 2014. http://weblogs.about.com/od/monetizingablog/p/BlogAdvertising.htm

Since I state in my thesis that bloggers are able to generate money through blogging, most often by advertising, I found a site that lays out specifically how bloggers can be paid for this. If someone has a very popular blog, advertisers want their advertisements up on that blog so many people come across it. For example there is a method called “pay-per-click”, which means the blogger gets paid for every time their advertisement gets clicked on from the original bloggers page. This is one of the many methods that bloggers can get paid for, the website lists a bunch of ways of how advertising ties into bloggers making money, making this a perfect site for my paper. Basically the more attention the advertisement company gets, the more money the blogger makes. I will be using a few of these methods in my paper to help prove my thesis.

Annotated Bib 5

Cecilyk. “10 Years In Social Media, and Blogging Has Changed.” Babble RSS. Babble by Disney, 30 Mar. 2014. Web. 31 Mar. 2014.  http://www.babble.com/tech/10-years-in-social-media-and-blogging-has-changed/

This site that I found talks about how much better blogging has become because of social media. In my thesis I state how blogs gain exposure and how that usually happens through social media sites and this website backs me up on that. The author talks about the difference from a post she made about blogging in 2004 to the changes it has made up until now. Social media also made it more comfortable to post because they created more outlets for the readers. A quote that I will be using in my paper is, “They not only offered new options, they offered completely customized options that made it easy to pick and choose the content they liked and take it into their own (online) backyards to comment and curate as they saw fit” (Cecilyk). This was a great article to find and use in my paper to back up my statement about social media being blogging’s exposure.

RU Admissions Blog

Overall I love the idea for this blog! I think it can be very helpful for the new incoming students and I wish I had known about it when I was entering RU. It is an easy way for new students to get answers to some of their questions in a very informal, not intimidating way. Many incoming students are nervous about a lot of things coming into college and this is a bridge to helping them adjust. They are able to ask questions or may not even have to because they are probably already answered somewhere in the blog. Not only is it beneficial to the incoming students but also current students. It is a way to share experiences they feel fellow classmates should hear about. It also provides a way to keep students involved and make them feel like part of a community. It is also nice it was chosen to be a blog vs. a different type of writing because blogging is informal and students do not have to worry so much about what or how they are saying things. Instead of speaking to professors they are speaking to each other, which makes it easier to understand each other. Something else that is very helpful about the blog is its set-up. The page is easy to navigate and if a student has a specific concern they want to learn more about all they have to do is look under the tag cloud and click what they are interested in. Once they do, they are brought right to the page where those concerns or questions were addressed. Something that could be changed would be that along with the tag cloud they were provide better categories on topics. The cloud is helpful but categories would be even more helpful.

Annotated Bib 4

Brooks, Rich. “Maine Web Design & Development and Internet Marketing.” Flyte New Media. Flyte, n.d. Web. 10 Mar. 2014. <https://www.flyte.biz/resources/newsletters/07/10-profitable-blog.php&gt;.

 

This article talks about what kinds of things one can do in order to make your blog more profitable. There are actual ways to do this and in this article it points out and outlines 10 tips in order to do so. For example, 1. is “blog for your audience” and this goes on to explain the certain things you should blog about in order to interest your readers so that you keep them instead of them navigating away from your page. I will use this article to show that the blogging business is a difficult one and in order to start making money off of it, you must do certain things in the “blogging world” first to be successful. Most people do not know these things and that is why their blogs do not get the attention they hope for. Overall, it states the two most important tips are to blog for your audience and for your business. Basically these are a must in order to have a successfully profiting blog.

Annotated Bib 3

Wright, Liz. “Mashable.” Mashable. Mashable, 17 Feb. 2012. Web. 09 Mar. 2014. <http://mashable.com/2012/02/17/social-media-bloggers-tips/&gt;.

This article is about social media and blogging coming together. It gives you tips on how you can tie your social media world into your blogging world. It explains why you would want to do this and the reason for that is because social media tends to be so popular that it gives blogs more attention, resulting in receiving more followers. The number one tip she discusses is how your social media icons should be at the top of your blogging page. Social media is so dominant in today’s society that it is almost necessary in order to make things/people more popular and successful. It is a creative tool to use, especially in advertising. Basically, each tip talks about what social media sites should be used and connected to your blog in order of importance. These tips are useful for all bloggers and that is why this article is so useful. I will use this article in my paper to show the importance of social media today and how it can be used to improve your blog. I will also use it to show how these social media sites are useful for gaining exposure, which often helps people get famous these days. After using these tools for exposure, the blog can begin to generate money, which is the second half of my thesis statement.

Paintings

In my critical response to the articles from last week I mention how important the use of color is in blogging. Color is all about where you want the eye to be directed when someone is viewing your blog. The same goes for paintings and Lauren definitely knew this while composing her paintings. She uses a lot of color in all her very abstract work. Her use of the dots allows the reader to make what they want out of her work. Since none of her work can be made out for sure what it is, it leaves it up to the viewer’s discretion and that can be appreciated by them because they get to view how they want to. I think this is a good tip for our blogs because maybe we should be posting certain things where the viewer gets to decide since giving the reader power is important. Although this could maybe work against your blog if you are not running an art blog since some people, like me, prefer a definite an answer or knowledge. I like to know what I am looking at and so if it is not art, I feel like I should be able to perceive it for what it is. I often get frustrated when I am unsure of what something is. Then again I am not very big into art and so you can see why I feel this way. Something I did find interesting about her work is the fact that some of her paintings have complete pictures in them such as watches and a reoccurring lady. It has me curious as to why most of her work is dots but then there are the occasional pictures. Something else I noticed is that she uses the same lady in all her pictures. What I take from that is that that lady is very significant and so she always uses her. She symbolizes something in her work I just do not know what that is. Overall I think she bases a lot of her work off of color, which is very smart considering color is one of the biggest components of any type of work.

Blog Layout

I was very informed after reading these two articles. They represent how to make the perfect blog and they give you information on both the more and less obvious aspects as to how to layout your blog. Some of these tips may be common knowledge which is what more of the first article, “Tips for laying out Blog Posts” focused on. Then there are more technical tips most do not know and this knowledge came more from the second article “10 blog Layout Tips.” Both present great tips in order to have an eye-catching blog!

In the first article, “Tips for laying out Blog Posts,” it is all about how to catch a person’s attention through visual concepts. These concepts consist of things such as colors, images, fonts, all the things that draw a viewer’s eye to something. I figured this was a very important aspect to blogging but I did not realize actually how much until reading these two pieces. The tip that interested me the most from this article would be number three, which was collages. I would not have guessed that collages caught the eye more than a single picture. My reasoning would be because there is a lot to focus on rather than just one picture. Turns out I was wrong! Not only are they attractive to the eye, they help speed up the loading time of a page from the consolidation of the photo. Everyone can agree that they are much happier with a page that loads quicker rather than having to wait! So this tip actually serves two purposes, the practical purpose and the fun purpose!

Then on the opposite side we have the second article, which basically gives tips on things that most people would not already know about. These are more technical things that many people would not realize that it actually does make a difference such as, white space, vertical alignment, typography and so on. These things focus more on how to set up your blog so that your viewer has an easy read while also being able to easily navigate through your page. You might think things such as a cluttered page may not matter but you would be wrong! Small things like this do make a difference even if it may be a sub-conscience one. I wanted to point out that there was a reoccurring tip I came across and that was colors. Using vibrant colors in order to direct the reader’s eye to where you want it to go has come up in both articles making it one of the most, if not the most, important aspects to a blog in my personal opinion. It makes sense when you think about it, in order for a reader to stay on your blog and actually get to the point of them reading your posts, they have to be interested enough so that they do not click out of it first. In order to do that your layout must be eye-catching so the little things such as colors matter just as much as the actual information that is being provided and so it is worth it to really contribute to all parts.

Annotated Bib 2

Rowse, Darren. “Can You REALLY Make Money Blogging? [7 Things I Know About Making Money from Blogging].” ProBlogger. N.p., 28 Nov. 2012. Web. 25 Feb. 2014.

<http://www.problogger.net/archives/2012/11/28/can-you-really-make-money-blogging-7-things-i-know-about-making-money-from-blogging/&gt;.

This website is useful for my thesis because the author really goes into how or if it is possible to make money off of blogging. He does this in a format of 7 points he addresses, which he deems important to know about the process. Since my thesis states that yes it is possible, it was nice to see that his first point stated that it is possible to make money from blogging. He then goes on to describe in the next six points what one must recognize in order to make this happen. He keeps it very realistic and straight forward, which I consider helpful. My favorite part about this site is that the author is really honest in his reasoning.

Nude Media

I think this article was eye-opening. It shows that what you post on the internet can be morphed into something different once you hit submit/publish. What I got from this article would be that although we have free speech and whatnot, the internet is still very controlled. The fact that you can submit something and then have it be changed once it is published is not always something the public recognizes, but what is submitted is a representation of the author. This is unfortunate for the author when they are trying to portray something specific but it comes out in a different way. It is almost like they have control over what exactly we get to see and how we get to view it. I think this goes against our freedoms. I guess this is a sacrifice you have to think about if you are willing to make or not in order to have your articles published publicly. Even something as small as changing a font can affect a reader and their feelings towards your piece. Layout is everything and how you present your work is a matter of what type of audience you are looking to target. Once this is played with and changed, this could affect a works success. You can perceive this as a negative vibe once he compares this process to that of the game telephone. Everyone knows the game of telephone is often viewed as negative once compared to a real life situation since telephone rarely ends up with the right message. So when you compare this to what is being published, it makes it obvious that the original piece is almost always edited. This provides public publishing agencies such as newspapers a lot of power, which is something the author must consider. This also touches on the fact that these editors are trying to make all authors the same instead of originally different. As an author I think they should have full control over their work, including something as little, yet as important as the font. When you strip an author of their individuality you are stripping them of half of their job. Instead of trying to make everyone the same, we should be proud of everyone’s differences.