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Welcome to Back to School, Back to Blogging!
Hopefully you have all of your school supplies. Did you get a new Trapper Keeper? Some of you probably don’t know what a Trapper Keeper is, and that means I’m old enough to be your mom. Damn.
I am SO excited with the turnout for this event. I hope you all have some fun and improve your blog in the process. It’s not too late for people to join, so encourage your bloggy friends to sign up!
Anyway, this is our kickoff post that contains info on how we’ll get started, and what you’ll need to have done by September 12.
Overview of the Course: this is a 6-week minicourse. Each week we will cover a different topic. If you don’t want to participate in one week, no worries. Each week is pretty self-contained, but all follow the same model:
Read: Reading will be posted on Sunday. Finish it by Wednesday. Some reading will have suggestions and tips for your blog. You can pick and choose which tips you want to utilize (and when), and which you don’t. Totally flexible, totally optional.
Write: The writing task is loosely based on the reading. Some will be simple, like the first week’s. Others might be more challenging or just plain fun. Post your writing task by Thursday of the week. If you don’t want to do the writing task, don’t do it. You won’t go to detention. But you may not get as many visits from other participants.
Share: On Thursday and Friday, we’ll be sharing our writing, learnings, and tips together in my BlogFrog community, on Twitter, etc. You can learn the most about blogging from other bloggers, so this is where I hope you’ll get the most benefit. Don’t be afraid to get out there and interact!
Pre-Work
This will really be pretty easy! Many of you will already have these done:
1. Join my BlogFrog. As mentioned, we’ll be sharing a lot of information via BlogFrog, so you’ll want to join mine before we get started.
3. Subscribe to my RSS feed. All of the course material will be posted here on KludgyMom, so you’ll want to make sure you stay on top of every update.
3. Have a ReTweet or Twitter Share button loaded onto your blog. You should have a button on your blog for people to retweet or share your blog posts.The most commonly used one is Tweet MeMe (you can also use Topsy). If you have techno-fear, don’t worry! I will give you resources and tutorials on how to install one of these buttons on your site. See the bottom of this post. If you run the tutorials and still have problems, post questions in my BlogFrog!
4. Create a StumbleUpon Account. StumbleUpon is another great way to get additional traffic to your site. But, you need to create an account (make sure you put your blog URL in there!), and ideally download and install the StumbleUpon toolbar onto your browser of choice.
5. Create a Facebook fan page for your blog. We’re not doing much with Facebook, but while you’re at it, create a fan page for your blog there. It helps keep your personal FB account separate from your blogging, too. Just do a quick and dirty one is great to start. People from this challenge may want to “fan” you. See my tutorial and resources page if you need help.
That’s it! In Week 1, we’ll be talking about how to do housekeeping on your blog and finding enhancements to make your site perform better. There’ll be a great guest post as well!
If you need help on Retweet buttons, Facebook “Like” buttons or other questions, go to the Twitter & FB Resources Post for extra help! See you on September 12!
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