When I decided to send one-question interviews to people I found interesting, I knew there would be one person I’d be interviewing for sure – and hounding them if they refused.

If you want a poster child for a blog/business that engages its readers and customers, provides excellent content, thrives on conversation and has a blog community to die for – then you don’t have to look further than the Men with Pens. James Chartrand is the face of MwP and the guy who heard my half crazed question that I didn’t voice.

Q: What is the one thing we should change about our approach to become more interesting?

James: Being interesting means being real. Gone are the days where companies boast and try to appear more than they are. Today’s consumers want to hear stories from the people behind the company. They want to have an experience, to get to know those they buy from personally.

Share your stories. Talk about your interests. Be genuine and show that you’re human too. Discuss past mistakes and what you learned from them. Mention accomplishments and what you went through to achieve them. Have fun and talk about something from your life that you’re passionate about – a hobby, for example.

You can be real and be approachable easily without losing professionalism. So enjoy what you do, have fun with it, and demonstrate that to your target audience. They’ll learn to love you for not only what you offer, but who you are as well.

And that, my friends, builds trust and loyalty, two huge factors to your success.

–

Thank you for the interview James. You guys totally rock!

Technorati Tags: Blogging, Freelancing, Social Networking

Today, Michael Martine (Remarkablogger) answers my question about what we as bloggers, can do to hold the interest of our readers.

Michael is a blog consultant and coach who’s the brain behind a lot of things. The most impressive of which (for me) is WordPress SEO Secrets.

I asked Michael the vaguest question in the world and he came back with the most specific answer I could have asked for. Thank you for your time and insight Michael. You’re awesome!

What is the one thing people should change about their approach to become more interesting (to their target audience)?

Michael: The one thing people should change in their approach to become more interesting is the “voice” of their writing. Interesting writing is full of personality and the voice of the writer is unmistakable in it. Inject your personality into your writing voice.

When we write, we often write in a voice that isn’t natural to us. It’s forced. We think we have to sound a certain way, that we have to sound “professional” or “business-like.” That is complete bullshit. You must sound like YOU. Write how you talk. Write like you’re writing an email to your best friend. That doesn’t mean your spelling and grammar can suck, but even those are secondary to personality. Do this and your writing will instantly be more interesting.

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To learn more about blogging from Michael, check out the series of posts he did at Remarkablogger on how to write for your blog.

• No More Rambling Brain Splats
• Quit Qualifying Your Words and Just Say it Already!
• Don’t Get Mad – Get Persuasive
• Separate Fact from Fiction in Your Blog Writing
• Simple doesn’t mean Stupid or How to Write So Anyone Can Understand You

Technorati Tags: Blogging, Freelancing, Social Networking

“You’re boring.” declared Seth Godin.

I could swear he was pointing at me.

“The only path left is to lean out of the edge and become interesting, noteworthy and yes, remarkable.”

‘But how do I become interesting?’ I wondered. Before I could voice that question, he’d gone off to his next post. I wanted to scream after him to come back and tell me how to be interesting. I didn’t want to go through his archives. I wanted my answer right now!

Knowing I’d fallen for Seth’s trap didn’t stop me from grumbling. He’d forced me to think and wonder about how to be interesting. I don’t know about you, but there was no way I was going to fumble around in the dark making a fool of myself in an effort to be interesting.

Of course, one could argue, that making a fool out of myself would be extremely interesting for a number of people.

I figured if Seth wouldn’t tell me (not that I asked him), I’d ask other people through a one question interview. Three stellar and totally awesome people replied to my one question interview.

I asked them:

What is the one thing we should change about our approach to become more interesting?

Yes, I realize. That’s got to be the world’s vaguest question. I was going to chicken out of sending the email to them if I hadn’t sent it when I did.

What I really wanted to ask was: “How the hell do I become interesting so that people like you will visit and read my blog? How do I catch and hold your interest? Tell me for God’s sake!!!”

The nice, professional blogger that I am, I couldn’t possible ask in exactly those words now could I?

So I sent the first question that popped in my head without stopping to frame it properly. And I got replies! Imagine my shock when the first email popped in within 24 hours! It didn’t even ridicule me or tell me to go get my act together.

Starting tomorrow, The Base will be featuring one interview per day for three days. Learn how to be interesting from three of the most interesting people online who know what it takes to keep their readers riveted.

Tomorrow, Michael Martine of Remarkablogger fame will be sharing his view on how to be an interesting blogger.

Tune in tomorrow to find how we can become interesting bloggers, the Remarkablogger way.

P.S: The Base will be updated every day this week and the review of Unit III of the Staff Blogging Course will return next Tuesday.

Image credit: Scragz

Technorati Tags: Blogging, Freelancing, Social Networking

If you’re still running around like a headless chicken wondering why your blog isn’t making you money, let me clue you in: It’s because you’re going about it the wrong way!

Not your fault really, seeing how you’re headless

As a former headless chicken, I would advise you to sit in one place and read this review to find out how you can change your luck and go from earning zero to paying your bills in less than a year. (Not my story. Ali’s. Mine will come after I’ve completed the course.)

Unit II of the staff blogging course deals with finding your first staff blogging job.

In this unit, Ali explains:

• Different methods of finding staff blogging jobs,
• Tips on increasing your chances of landing the jobs and
• Lists job boards where you can search for blogging jobs.

Exercises

As with the previous unit, there are exercises included that guarantee success if done properly. What stood out for me was that there is a very realistic time frame included for each exercise.

You can of course, take longer but the time limit provided in the exercises is more than enough if you’re focusing on the course alone.

Handouts

Not only does the “Finding your first staff blogging job” come with a separate handout listing the reputable job boards with well paying staff blogging jobs, but it also has another hand out in which Ali has included emails as samples that she sent to blog editors herself when applying for a job.

Each email is explained, with every important aspect of it highlighted so that the reader understands why something was written in a certain way and what effect it would have on your application.

Included in the handout are a few more personal messages that give you a clear idea of how to approach a blog a  job. It’s not all about success in the handout though. Ali also list things that did not work for her.

My view and experience

I’ve started checking the listed job boards daily and applying to jobs that I feel I’m a fit for. I used Ali’s sample email to modify my own application email before applying. While my first few applications were rejection, there are a couple worth mentioning.

My very first application for a travelling blog was rejected because my geographical location was not what they were looking for. Since they had not specified a location in the job ad, they apologized, and mentioned that they were impressed by my samples and would keep me in mind if something came up. Much better than a ‘Thanks but no thanks.’ don’t you think?

Another application replied with a ‘We’d love to have you blog for us. Please tell us your rates.” I sent them my rates and never heard back from them. Keeping an eye on their blog revealed that they had hired someone else. Before you ask? No, my rates were not high.

A follow up email elicited no response.

Success!

All right, so not in getting a staff blogging job – though I’m hopeful that might change soon – but in getting work offer through one of the methods Ali suggests and explains in the unit. Keep your mind open for not just staff blogging jobs, you can apply for other jobs with the help of the things you learn.

The fact that following Ali’s advice is eliciting response is success in itself. With every application, I’m getting more confident and realizing that I have more experience that I give myself credit for. All those years of blogging have given me mad skills!

You already know what I’ll say, but I’ll say it anyway. Do yourselves a favour and buy the staff blogging course. You’ll be making money from blogging within three months. If you don’t (provided you’ve done every exercise in the course) there’s a 90 day money back guarantee.

What are you waiting for? It’s $19! Or less if you have a discount code.

Image credit: Andyp UK

Technorati Tags: Blogging, Freelancing, Staff Blogging, Writing

If you’ve ever posted any content online, you know spam.

It’s like the neighbour who wouldn’t stop coming over to ‘borrow’ something or the other. You politely tried to dissuade her, gently but firmly told her no, talked to her about how annoying it is when people ask for things continuously and never return them or the favour back but nothing worked. So you trained your kids to always be  on the lookout for Mrs Can-I-borrow-it-forever from next door.

You even tried to hide in your own home and pretend you weren’t there.

The neighbour still comes over and you still get spam.

Until one day it all mysteriously stopped. The neighbour stopped coming and you could opened the kitchen window and allowed your kids to play in the garden.

A few weeks ago, spam stopped coming in completely. I went from receiving over 200 spam comments a day to zilch. Zero. Nada.

Then I got one spam comment. I pounced on my spam folder sure that it was genuine comment caught up by mistake. At first look it did seem like it. The comment said: 

I was ready to pump my fist in the air for catching an authentic comment in my spam folder when I noticed which post they’d left the comment in. That can’t be right. The person in question had been wondering about the issue of keeping my zen seat warm.

I checked the email and the domain looked fishy. So I let it remain in the folder to see if it was genuine or more of the same would follow.

A few days later, another comment got caught by Akismet. This one seemingly innocent with a request to copy the post to his website. It had google.com as its website and the post it question?

Yeah, you guessed it. Why spammers are so interested in my seat of zen is beyond me. It’s in my loo for heaven’s sake you dumb bots! I would flush each one of you down given half the chance.

Finally I got another comment caught in spam. 

Thanks, I love my theme too. I would also tell you where I downloaded it from if your website and email address didn’t promise the enlargement of a part of human anatomy that I don’t even have.

So got any smart s-p-a-m lately or am I the sole recipient of their newfound intelligence?

Photo credit: cursedthing

Technorati Tags: Blogging, Spam