BLOG 101: Branding Blogs (Part 1)

I know most of you would be excited to set up your own blog site and get into the blogging community. But one thing that many of us do is to know the basics needed to start your own blog. Yes, blogs are the reflection of who the blogger the blogger is, if it is run by an individual. It  should also show a certain "branding" for those corporate and partnership blogs. 

Branding should reflect on your personality and lifestyle. However, there are certain things that should be considered when choosing the brand for your blog. Branding is the same when companies name their product (individually or multiple items) that would leave an impression on  consumers. Brands differ with the type and target market, and as much as possible wholesome in nature so the general public can see, hear, or read about them.

Starting at the most important element of brand is the brand name which will represent the blog as a whole. This name will also be an identification for events, archiving, and projects. Remember to choose a name that would be "eternal", because you want a brand that will last a very long time, even at the point of merging or collaboration will still be identifiable with your market.

How To Start A Blog (Part 2)

Yesterday we started on how to blog part 1, today is its continuation...

Now you can start with your blog post probably with a short essay of 2-3 paragraphs which is not that short nor too long for a blog post. Blogs are usually shorter than regular articles which aims to provide straight information because there will be a lot of distracting internet content which will grab the readers attention.

Now how do you get their full attention aside from the blog post which is written? This is where you can utilize multimedia content. You can choose from photographs, videos, flash animations, forms, and other website content which should be relevant to the topic discussed. This would now depend on you available resources  if you can provide original content, that would be the best. However if not, you can also scout the web for content but remember that some content have copyrights which might not allow you to have them posted on your blog. Though uploading identical content is not advisable, you can also check if you can use a certain media either by embedding options or asking permission from the creator. You may also want to check on open resources which can provide free content.

How To Start A Blog (Part 1)

Many would ask " How do you start a blog?" The answer is pretty simple, love to write and a willing heart for adventure. Remember that blogging is also the same as writing in the papers, or broadcasting them via radio and TV. That it is why its called media for which is the forms of "medium".

For blogging, it is more unique because it can be multimedia and can be in written, audio, and video presentation of information which sums up the three other media. Since the dawn of the internet, its purposed has been utilized in many forms and it would be better that we can fill it up with useful and entertaining content. 

What is a BLOG?

Blogging like a sir (Photo from Aylin Vedad
of thedailyposh.blogspot.com)

As the title shows, this is a manual about blog. And even most of us know what that means, its is always better to know the definition and what are its coverage. We will take this part by part so it won't bore you. As the word itself has become a very general word used in many ways and forms and might have a thousand books written just for its definition. 

Blog might have a lot of etymologies, one of which according to wikipedia, came from the world "weblog":

The term "weblog" was coined by Jorn Barger on 17 December 1997. The short form, "blog," was coined by Peter Merholz, who jokingly broke the word weblog into the phrase we blog in the sidebar of his blog Peterme.com in April or May 1999. Shortly thereafter, Evan Williams at Pyra Labs used "blog" as both a noun and verb ("to blog," meaning "to edit one's weblog or to post to one's weblog") and devised the term "blogger" in connection with Pyra Labs' Blogger product, leading to the popularization of the terms.

MTB: The Most Comprehensive and Most Simple Guide to Blogging

This 2012, the internet has really blossomed into a very wide and diverse field where almost everyone is aware and present today. And every second counts with billions to trillions of data being shared everyday. It has become a necessity of life as it satisfy the social interaction of man. And with almost 7 billion people in the world, internet users are growing exponentially faster that the birth rate.

With the internet as the primary source of news, entertainment and social networking, the other potential are being tapped for a lot of reason and actually one of them is social media and blogging. This new blog Manual to Blog is a spin off blog from Manual To Lyf which has been on the net since 2006. This new blog will help people who are interested to know about how blog works and helps one about the in and outs of the blogging. Some of which are (1) steps to create a blog; (2) Why you should blog; (3) Blogging styles and etiquette and many other topics.