Here is a short recap from the video.

• Blogging is free
• It doesn’t matter if anyone reads your blog
• Become a part of the conversation with your blog
• Blogging is the best marketing tool

What do you think about this? Do you really believe you should be blogging only for yourself and your humility from writing it?

I only show the installation. Not buying the domain, the hosting, or installing themes. Just the installation of the blog.

This truly shows you how easy it is to have your own self hosted WordPress blog up and running in NO time.

#1) You MUST be blogging about something that you are passionate about. So, if you are blogging for a company that you work for, I truly hope that you are passionate about the industry you are working in. Your entire blogging strategy MUST involve around something you are passionate about. When you have a passion for something you should be able to talk about it FOR DAYS AND DAYS. Do not start or continue blogging until you REALLY know your passion.

#2) Listen to individuals! Listen for questions from prospects or customers. This can be basic questions that are asked to you or your employees. This may also be questions asked in general among the social web. But the idea is to listen to what people are asking for, do your homework, and ANSWER them with a post that satisfies their needs.

#3) Simply ask for ideas from collegues, coworkers, or followers (if you are already blogging). Those who are interested in what you are producing should be able to give you some topics that you can possibly cover. At the least, it may be able to spark a unique idea of your own.

#4) Networking and getting into social networking conversations will surly spark off many ideas. When you actively read and communicate within your industry, you are going to find ideas from other bloggers, commentators, or by conversation. These communities, online and off, will help build your knowledge and force you to learn. This in term will expand your ability to share this knowledge.

What other ways do you use to create blog post ideas? For those who are blogging… what other idea generators do you use? Leave us a comment sharing your ideas.

Karen has worked at Google since 2002, specializing in business writing and media relations. Karen first launched Google’s corporate blog back in 2004. Today the company has digital embassies for virtually every product. This armada spans dozens of blogs, Twitter profiles, YouTube and more recently, Facebook. She also developed Google’s corporate strategy using Twitter in 2009; in the first six months, @Google gained more than 2 million followers, making it one of the largest corporate Twitter accounts.

We were able to ask Karen a few key questions about business blogging as preview ahead of her participation at Connected Marketing Week:

What is the most important thing a company new to blogging should do?

Read other business, news, corporate blogs to get a feel for all that’s possible. Some are personal (ie an executive writes it), some are collaborative. Some blogs are all about ‘thought leadership’ and others are more about customer service and best practices. The main thing to do is get familiar with a wide variety (there is no single right way to do this), and begin to consider what *you* would want to say.

What questions do good business blog posts answer?

Posts don’t literally answer questions so much as establish ground for the company. Do most posts offer useful or unique information? Do they reflect the company’s values and interests? Do they demonstrate the people behind the company/products?  Collectively, these are the things a good company blog should do.

Read more: http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/6285/4-Business-Blogging-Lessons-From-Google-s-Chief-Blogger.aspx/?source=email-magnet-55#ixzz0uzqRZ9Pc

What does hosted/non-hosted mean anyway?

A hosted blog means that it is hosted on someone else’s server.

A non-hosted blog means that it is hosted on YOUR server

Hosted

Examples of blogging platform websites are: Blogger.com, WordPress.com, Tumblr.com, LiveJournal.com, and more. Each of these sites give you a FREE account with extreme ease to start getting your content out to the world. With a hosted blog service, you don’t need to install any software or doing backups, etc. You just simply produce content.

However, there are a few cons to the hosted account. Hosted accounts can appear to be a little less professional looking. You have limited control over customizing with CSS and HTML. Some of the hosted accounts don’t even allow advertising.

Non-Hosted

You can host your own blog with platforms from WordPress, Tumblr, and a few other solutions; WordPress being the largest and most well known. When using a non-hosted blogging platform, you must pay a third-party to host your blog such as GoDaddy. With a hosted blog service, you need to manually operate the technical side of your blog, but it comes with some perks. You have total control of having your blog on your own domain or sub-domain names that you personally own. You have complete control of the look and design of your blog with CSS and HTML. You even have control over permalink names which allows you to control the URL’s of each post. This helps greatly with SEO. And the best part, your blog is less likely to disappear because you are not subject to terms and conditions of being hosted on someone else’s website.

Conclusion

When selecting the direction to go, I would suggest that anyone just starting out with a new blog may want to start with a hosted account. It is completely free and you can start blogging almost instantly. There is hardly any learning curve, but I would not recommend you think of this as your final blogging home.

I highly suggest going with the non-hosted blog so you can have more control over your blog and get exactly what you want and need. This is surely the route to go if you want a high quality and business type blog.

The choice is really up to you whether or not you prefer to have a hosted or non-hosted blog solution. I hope this post has helped a little.

Let us know your thoughts on hosted vs. non-hosted blogs.

There are a few reasons why Gary V. and even I suggest creating a list of 50 post titles that you can create content on. If you are truly passionate about your topic and content area, creating a list of this size should be a breeze. You should be so excited about creating content that you are passionate about; you can come up with these 50 post titles in no time.

If you can create a list of 50 post titles for your blog, you should have no problem creating a steady stream of content. If you were to create at least one post per week, these topics would last you ONE year! How great would it be if all you had to do was pump out the content for the rest of the year rather than figuring out what to post about as you went along?  If you can’t come up with a list of this size, then maybe you do not know enough information or maybe you’re not passionate enough to take this topic to its full potential.

By loving the topic, you can talk about it forever. But you may also realize that with some topics, loving the topic doesn’t ALWAYS mean that there will be something to talk about. If you see that there is no long term ability of creating content with your loved topic, you may want to revise the content topics. Having a large list of premade topics before you start your blog will allow you to know in advance if this is more likely to work out. Take the time to think it out a little more before jumping straight in.

Why is a blog your home? A blog is your home because it is a place you can truly call your own. You can have a blog on a domain name that is not your own, but that is more like renting. No, we want you to have your “Own” home on your OWN website. This gives you the ability to have full control of the entire website. You can select the layout. You can put any premade design you want, and even add custom designs. You could add any application you would like so that your blog can function to your specific wants and needs. But best of all, your own blog can give you the greatest chance of monetization, making money. By creating a single focus point online that is yours, you can drive traffic from your Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, forums, etc., to ONE location. This one location shows everyone your thoughts, a full page of who you are, and any pictures or posts of the things that interests you. Your blog is the place you can be free to add written, audio, or video content. You can add all of them if you would like. The point is that you have freedom to express yourself and your expertise without being fully in the hands of a third party.

You then want to look at sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc as parties or vacation homes. I call them vacation homes because profiles on these sites are an extension of your content and blog. They are simply an outpost created to help produce content and drive people back to your home. These profiles act as a second or third home where you can go to hang out and post content. I also call these sites party locations because another reason you are there is to make and maintain friendships. You also want to seek out friends of friends. It is just one big party that you want to go around chatting it up and having fun! The social networking part of social media is no different than the real world. It is all about expanding your personal network and hoping to eventually be able to assist a friend with something they need that is related to your business, service, or products you sell.

Your blog is your home and social networking websites are your party destinations and some cases vacation homes. You want to focus on creating quality content at home so that you can teach and entertain at your own house. Eventually the partying will pay off and someone who comes to your home will need your service or product. And being a good friend like you are to them, you will do anything you can to make sure you can satisfy their needs.

In this article, I am going to go over the reasons why you should consider using video promotion to start your social life online. I will include the basics of creating videos as well as how using video can build your reputation and bring traffic to your website. If you have ever thought about creating video of yourself, NOW is the time to get started with video promotion!

Why Video?

Video has become one of the biggest means of learning and entertainment on the internet. It has even come to the point where YouTube has become one of the biggest search engines on the internet. This is because people are now seeking to find things via video much more than just a typical search engine. Not to even mention that the fusion of the Internet and TV will be HUGE for online video. So the reason you want to get involved with video production is simple, by producing video you are able to put your face and knowledge in front of many information seeking individuals via the computer and TV.

Video Production

You can start creating video for online consumption very quickly, easily, and cheap. It may be a good idea to see this blog post on “What Camera Should I Use to Video Blog?” It will show you that a starting point can be with a cheap web cam and can build up to a highly professional camera.

When you have your camera, start shooting. You can do a close-up face shot sitting in your computer chair, full body standing in front of a wall, or even round table style where you and perhaps someone else is sitting at a table. Either way, you want to do your best to teach and maybe even entertain with a little humor, as long as you are getting your point across.

Let’s say you are a bar tender! Maybe you can do a round table video blog on unheard of mixed drinks. Once a week, have a friend come over to help you make and taste test an unheard of mixed drink. You can even give it a rating, overview, and name it if possible. But the idea is that you are going to become well known for creating these unheard of mixed drinks that people are going to come to you to taste for themselves in real life. This is the way you have to look at any video production topic.

Getting Started

One thing I have to stress is that you just need to get started. Don’t worry about being high quality with special video tricks. As long as you are professional and can get your point across, you will be fine. So jump into producing your own videos and playing around with it. You will learn as you go and make tweaks as you see fit. I would also suggest keeping the videos between 3 and 5 minutes long. You don’t want it to be too short where the viewer doesn’t grasp much and you don’t want your viewer to get tired of watching a long video.

Once you start creating videos, you want to make sure you are producing them on a regular basis and responding to any comments people leave you on the video. Don’t worry about looking like a fool either because, trust me, there are millions of fools out there who you couldn’t compare to.

Conclusion

By producing video, you are building another channel to become more social and build your personal brand. Creating video is seen as one of the best ways to generate awareness of who you really are and get viewers back to your blog. Maybe you can become one of the next viral videos to hit every corner of the media. Now THAT would be a fun and social life online. I wish you luck, and I’ll “See” you online!