What is your blog? What is a corporate blog and why is a blog needed for business?

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Hello dear readers.

A person who enters the Internet for the first time is immersed in a world of diverse information that is located on the pages of websites and blogs. What is a blog? What is a website? What is the difference? You will find answers to these questions and some others in this article.

A blog is a diary in electronic format. But diaries are usually kept only for oneself and hidden from others. Blogs can also be closed from outsiders, but this is rather an exception. For the most part, blogs are authored resources on which a person expresses his attitude to a particular event, publishes his opinion from various fields of science, technology, social relations, hobbies, and defends his point of view. The difference from a diary is that a blog involves communication between the author and visitors.

A website is a repository of information that can be updated and updated. The site is designed to provide all kinds of information and services. The main difference from a blog is that the site is not intended for communication.

The word blog comes from the abbreviation of the words web-network (web) and log - recording of events.

The appearance of resources with signs of blogs on the Internet dates back to the last decade of the last century. First free resource for blogging was created in 1999 in San Francisco.

In just 15 years, blogs have taken over vast spaces virtual world. Today it is hardly possible to say how many such resources exist.

Varieties

There are many types of blogs that can be classified according to the following criteria.

By authorship:

Personal - reflect the opinion, goals, emotions of one person - the author.
Collective - reflect the collective goals of some group or authors.
Corporate reflect news, events, promotions of enterprises and organizations.

By topic, reflect a specific topic, for example:

Politics is conducted by politicians, political scientists.
Everyday life, communication on the topic of everyday life.
Education, communication of educational institutions.
Travels, authors talk about their adventures.
Health, covers a wide range of topics, nutrition, weight loss, fitness.
Hunters communicate about hunting, hunting weapons and ammunition.

And many other topics.

textual, most of the content is texts;
photo blog, the main component of photography;
video blog, the main component is videos, films;
musical, the main component is music;
art blog, the main component of the author’s drawings;
podcast, invites its visitors to download videos.

According to the location platform, blogs are:

autonomous, located on paid hosting. This is the most appropriate location method. Such blogs can be used commercially, placing advertisements, offering services, selling goods;
located on free blogging platform Blogger.com, LiveJornal.com and others. Blogs located on free platforms are used only for communication and posting materials. Such resources cannot be used for commercial purposes.

One of the increasingly popular forms of blogging is microblogging. They communicate on microblogs short messages. As a rule, such messages refer to events and processes that have just happened. Such messages are published for general viewing or for some narrow group. The most famous microblogging resource is Twitter.

Functions

With the development of Internet networks, an increasing number of people are becoming involved in the process of electronic communication. While exploring the role of blogs in modern society The following functions are highlighted:

Communicative, communication with interesting people, acquaintance.
Self-affirmation, publication of your works, poems, drawings, photographs, etc.
For entertainment, many people use reading blogs as a pastime.
Unification, with the help of blogs on social networks, broken connections are found and maintained. New ones are being started.
The archive, the described events can be stored in electronic memory for a long time and in the future you can remember some forgotten events.
Self-development, blogging makes you learn, communicate more fully and harmoniously, defend your statements, reading blogs allows you to learn new things.
Psychotherapeutic, express your emotions, cry, calm your nerves.
Marketing promotion, researching consumer capabilities of goods, demand for services.

Technical basis of blogs

From a technical point of view, a blog on the Internet is a collection of programs. The main task of such programs is to create, edit, publish texts, drawings, photographs, video materials. Such programs are called CMS – content management system or “engine”. Engines can be paid or free. The most popular free engines are Word Press and Joomla. Based on engines using language HTML markup and cascade languages CSS styles, blog and website templates are created for the most different topics with a design to suit every taste.

An edited template, for specific needs, loaded with a certain number of texts, drawings, photographs, videos and will be a blog or website. In order for this resource to be found on the Internet, you must register Domain name(resource address) and upload to hosting. Hosting is a service for placing web resources on powerful computers(servers) provided special programs. Hosting companies provide such services.

Ethics

With the involvement of more and more people in blogging activities, there is a need to adhere to some rules, or, more correctly, to observe blogging ethics:

Do not use swear words in publications.
Do not distribute pornographic materials.
Do not use unreliable information.
Respect copyright. Always create links to sources of information and describe them in more detail. Visitors must be able to know the source of information and its reliability.
Do not allow propaganda of violations of the law in materials.
Do not allow insults, do not be rude.
To be honest. Honesty is the foundation of trust.
Do not use plagiarism.
Reply in the comments in a timely manner.
Responsibly fulfill contracts with advertisers.
Carefully study source materials in order to separate information from hidden advertising.

Authors who adhere to the above-described and universal principles are, as a rule, more successful. On the contrary, authors who disseminate false information and mislead readers sooner or later lose visitors.

Meaning

Blogs are becoming increasingly important in modern world. Blogs discuss political and socio-economic events. Thanks to blogs, events in one country quickly become known in all corners globe. On the Internet there are no borders between states, and there is no control over the flow of information.

I remember those times when I didn’t even know why do you need a blog. It is clear that then I also did not know. Now the time has come, and I will try to popularly explain what it is and what it is intended for.

Blog– this is the same site, only a special version of it. There are different sites: news, forums, online stores. There is also a type of website called a blog.

Why do you need a blog? Why do people have them?

In order to answer this question, you need to know that blogs are divided into 5 types. And depending on the type of blog, you can find out the purpose of its creation

Types of blogs:

1. Personal blog

2. Professional blog

3. Brand blog

4. News blog

5. Non-traditional blogs

Now let’s take a closer look at each type of blog.

Personal blog

You may have heard that online diaries exist. This is the same as a regular paper diary, in which we write whatever we want. Only it will be in electronic form. Everything related to the life of its author is written on personal blogs. There you will find notes like “how I went to the cinema yesterday”, or “how I chose jeans”, etc.

As a rule, such diaries do not serve any special purpose. It is simply important for the author to pour out his soul. Well, and chat with friends. Therefore, such blogs will be read by a couple of the author’s friends, and so on, random people. True, you don’t need to think that if the blog is personal, then it will not be interesting at all random people. No. The author can write things that will be interesting not only to him, but also to many other people.

Professional blog

As a rule, such blogs always attract a large audience that is interested in what the author writes about. They read it, comment on it, discuss various issues, etc.

Of course, at first the author of such a blog does not receive income, but over time, when the blog gains momentum, it will begin to bring profit to its owner. Moreover, tangible profits. The author makes money from advertising, or by placing blocks contextual advertising Yandex.Direct or .

Of course, you can earn money in other ways. For example, you can sell your information materials. The same photographer can sell photographs through his blog. So it turns out that initially the author simply shared his experience with his readers and communicated on the blog, but over time the blog begins to bring him serious profit. Moreover, initially the blog becomes only an additional line in the author’s income, but gradually it turns into the main source of income. Today there are plenty of such bloggers in the West. But gradually we have more and more such guys.

Here's an example of a professional photographer's blog -
http://www.digital-photography-school.com/

This blog is owned by world famous Australian Daren Rose. This is an example of a person living solely off the profits they make from their blogs. Pay attention to the right top corner his blog. It will say: “Join ****** Subscribers.” There will be a number instead of asterisks. It means that so many people read Daren Rose's blog. For example, today this figure is 564,409 people. This suggests that the blog is very popular.

Brand blog

These types of blogs are usually created with the purpose of promoting the brand of a person or company. I know a lot of people who use these types of blogs in their work. Such people already have their own sites that generate profit. And when they are asked why they need a blog, they answer that it is to share more personal information with readers.

Here another question arises: is it possible to share this information on your websites? Why not do just that?

The answer is quite simple. The posts on the site are very different from the posts you see on blogs. For example, if the site contains information about website promotion in search engines, then there will be more on the blog personal information regarding promotion. The websites will contain materials about the technical nuances of promotion, the cost of this service, etc. And the blog will write about what problems arise when promoting sites, or about the nuances of communication with customers, etc. That is, the difference, I think, is clear.

Blogs of this type are well suited for promoting the name of the author. The author, for example, is engaged in the promotion of websites to order, and thanks to the blog, many people begin to learn about him, some of whom will gradually “mature” and also become clients of the blog author.

There is another option for using a blog brand. This is an opportunity to use it as your main site. Here is an example - http://www.michelfortin.com. This is the blog of a well-known copywriter in the West. His name is Michel Fortin

Michel, i.e. writes custom selling texts for various products and services. But he uses his blog to promote his name. Well, and, of course, a decent profit comes from his blog. The point is that Michel writes on his blog interesting articles. An interested audience gathers around the blog, among which there will certainly be potential clients. And when one of the readers of his blog needs to order interesting texts, then they will already know who to contact

News blog

Such blogs, as a rule, are written by not one, but several authors. They choose one topic, for example, “all about Apple,” and write several blog posts a day. Mainly various news related to Apple.

The popularity of the blog will depend on how interesting the authors write. If it is interesting, then over time the blog will become the center of niche news, and a certain audience will gather around it, which will regularly visit the blog to find out Apple news.

Blogs of this type can also be monetized (earn income). True, this is not done right away. First they are promoted, and then monetized. Authors are looking for direct advertisers + hang up or Google AdSense+ use various partnership programs. Here is an example of such a blog - http://www.iphones.ru/

Other types of blogs

Some blogs are created on free blog hosting sites like LiveJournal. But still, the vast majority of blogs are created on free WordPress engine.

This is a very functional engine, and with its help you can create a wide variety of blogs. That is why on the Internet you can come across video blogs, catalog blogs, and any other blog options that run counter to the classic blog version.

How to create your own blog?

Now that you already know why you need a blog, there is only one thing left to find out - how to create one. But the fact is that the technical aspects of creating blogs is a very broad topic, so I will not touch on it in this article. Let me just say that the leader among blogging engines today is WordPress + Movable Type script, which has been confidently holding a leading position for several years now.

Well, that's all I wanted to tell you about blogs. I am sure that now this information vacuum has been filled, and you understand how promising it is to create blogs.

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A personal blog is an online resource in which the author shares his experience, ideas, talks about himself, and publishes various content.

What does a personal blog mean: features and nuances

To understand more thoroughly what kind of site this is - personal blog, let us turn to the history of the appearance of its name. This term was coined in 97 of the last century by Jorn Barger, as an abbreviation for the English web log, which means web log. Two years later, Peter Merholz also used the word blog, which has since come into use.

Usually on the pages of such live journals there is a clear imprint of the individuality of the author himself, since they play the role of a diary or diary. Individual traits can be expressed not only in the external aspect, for example, in the choice of design, decoration, color range, but also in the way information is presented and personal attitude towards it. The blog can be considered part of the author’s image, his face in front of a multi-million army of Internet users.

Advantages and features of personal blogs

The main difference between personal blogs and other types of Internet resources is known authorship. Any user can easily find out whose page, magazine or diary it is. From here we can deduce several advantages and advantages of this method of expressing yourself:

For the author, such a blog provides an opportunity to become recognizable, make it easier to establish contacts, and communicate. Behind short term he can become a famous person.
If the author does not post stock content from the Internet, but his own photographs, texts, videos, life stories, users begin to treat him more trustingly.
On the pages of a blog, unlike a regular website, you can post not only information on the main topic, but also more personal information, share your impressions, express your attitude to a particular event or subject. This allows you to express yourself and channel your creativity in the right direction.
A personal blog is a platform where there are no restrictions. The theme, design, style depend only on the owner. Also, if desired, you can change the focus, add or remove sections, come up with new sections, etc.

Flaws

Except large number advantages of such a resource for its owner, there are also some disadvantages.

When planning to start a personal blog, remember that fame, popularity and publicity are not always good. Some people seriously suffer from excessive attention, and there are a great many inadequate individuals on the Internet. Be prepared for negative comments, condemnation, and possibly even insults directed at you.
If you broadcast something publicly, give advice and instructions, do not forget about responsibility. Your subscribers listen to you, you are an authority for them. Watch what you advise the audience, because if it fails, all accusations will fly in your direction.
Being a blogger means continuous work without days off or vacations. If you stop posting and disappear from view, you risk losing most of your followers. In addition, you will have to constantly respond to comments, respond to questions and requests from users. If you are not willing to constantly work, generate ideas and be active, you are unlikely to advance in this field.

Management, promotion, creation: three messengers of popularity

Live journals and online diaries are starting to be kept so that someone learns about the thoughts and attitude of the author to certain phenomena, events, things. It is understood that they must be live, that is, have an active audience that regularly reads, views and comments on the proposed materials.

Blogging Rules

In order for the resource to always be full of life, for people to come, receive information, comment on it, communicate with each other, and return after a while, the blog must be relevant and interesting. It is important to conduct it competently, and then positive result practically guaranteed.

The topic and title are the first things to think about. A blog about nothing or everything at once, but superficially, is unlikely to attract interested subscribers. The focus of your blog can be a hobby, professional activity, own life experiences, everyday events, politics, sports and much more.
Materials about yourself and your attitude to anything are the basis of any blog, because it Personal diary, not a topic page.
A domain name and proper hosting are the second pillar of properly maintaining your online diary. He must provide fast loading pages, reliable technical support, fast decision any problems, safety and reliability, as well as the availability of backup.
You shouldn’t chase advertising in order to earn as much as possible on your personal blog. Sometimes you may have advertising posts, but there should not be too many of them.
The content that you post on your livejournal must be of high quality, pre-analyzed and truthful. People are tired of cliches, eternal lies, non-existent sensations and unnecessary information that does not bring any benefit.

To make your diary popular and start making money on it, you will need the following:

Participation in various competitions for bloggers.
Carrying out regular promotions, distributing gifts and mini-prizes, even in the form of special marks in user profiles or beautiful stickers.
Creating an email newsletter for subscribers.
Advertising on social networks and on thematic platforms.
Regular publications and Feedback with subscribers.

How to create your own personal blog

Let's try to create a blog from scratch using the Blogger service from Google as an example.

Go to existing account or register a new one on Blogger.
Find the words “Create a blog” and click on it.
Enter the name of your future online diary, and also select a suitable URL for it.
Select the appropriate template and complete the action.
Post your first post. It is advisable to tell about yourself, inform your subscribers what the focus of your blog will be, and what content you plan to fill it with.

Create personal blog You can use any other platform, for example LiveJournal, Wix, WordPress, etc. Choose the most convenient option for yourself, make a publication plan, attract new subscribers and do not forget to constantly stir up their interest with regular interesting posts.

When blogs first appeared on the Internet, they were used primarily for keeping online diaries. Initially, the word itself blog comes from the phrase "web log", that is, in other words, a web log (web diary).

But today, after several years, the meaning of the word blog has acquired a new connotation, and most of the sites on the Internet are either blogs or have their own blog.

A completely natural question follows: why have blogs become so popular among Internet users and why are they needed?

In this article, I discuss several reasons why you should start a blog.

A great opportunity for self-realization

Blogging is a wonderful incentive for personal development in the direction you choose. You know that your audience regularly expects useful information from you, which means you simply must develop in order to constantly provide people with something useful. You learn a lot yourself, you become a more organized and responsible person due to the expectations of the people you help.

Thanks to the ability to comment on your blog, people will express their opinions about your resource, leave comments and thanks for what you do. In turn, this will serve as an excellent incentive for you to develop the project further.

Building Audience Trust

When you create and start blogging, no matter what the topic, you are sharing your thoughts and knowledge with your audience. You're giving useful information people, tell them how to cope with this or that problem. You help people solve their difficulties, you communicate with your audience and, in the end, as an expert in a particular topic, you earn their trust.

The more trust you earn from your visitors, the more likely it is that when you have some paid goods, your visitors will become your clients.

Technical Advantages of Blogging

Blogs are a type of blogging, the information on them is constantly updated, which has a very positive effect on the promotion and authority of the site among search engines.

Blogs usually have automatic settings, which greatly help website optimization. One of the features common to all blogs is a special site navigation, which helps search engines more easily find new and updated pages, which greatly speeds up their indexing.

Ease of use. Blogs are usually based on a content management system, which allows the user to quickly and easily add new posts and edit old ones. That is, you do not need to constantly resort to the help of a webmaster; everything is done through the site’s admin panel, and this can be done by a person who does not need to know all the intricacies of writing and editing code.

Feeds are often connected to a blog by default (these are so-called “update notifications”, for example, RSS-feed), or they can be connected at will. A person who subscribes to updates on your site using the feed will receive a notification about each new article that you add to your site, and this will be done automatically.

Also, thanks to feeds, you can register your blog in directories, which will significantly help promote your blog.

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A personal blog on Instagram is a popular platform in social network to express your thoughts, communicate about interests and promote your products/services.

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Today, more than 800 million people are registered in it. Some people simply share their impressions and news with friends and acquaintances. And some people prefer to present for a large audience. Such people are called .

If you are not yet a member, but you want to expand your target audience’s reach, show and sell your products, and earn money from advertising, we advise you to register right now. The promotion process takes a lot of time and the sooner you start, the better.

How to make a personal blog on Instagram

It's very easy to create. You can work from a smartphone or laptop or computer. It will be more convenient to use your phone while maintaining a social network. Anything you need - Email. Enter it, the name by which you will be known and the password. Or login via account Facebook if you have it.

Then the system will ask you to post a photo and connect the page to Facebook. Skip this moment or do it. If you tie it right away, you will save yourself from unnecessary actions in the future. So, everything is ready, you can talk about your life, hobbies, post beautiful pictures, look for readers and even become popular. But still, your profile at this moment is deprived of some opportunities for development.

What does a personal blog on Instagram mean for a company?

There are two types of accounts: simple and commercial. The second is more functional and allows you to recognize and attract more target audience. What is the difference? Externally regular page Instagram is almost no different from a personal blog, except for the gray mark under the username and a few advantages that it provides.

Why is this necessary?

Choose the appropriate category and name. Click next.
Add your contacts (one is enough).
Ready.

If you later decide to return to regular version, just go to the menu again and click “Switch to account”. Gray mark and all options will disappear.

Themes for Instagram for personal blog

To attract people and gain thousands of subscribers it is not enough just beautiful photos. It is necessary to develop a promotion strategy and profile concept. One of the components of a successful Instagram is. Postings must be published regularly and certain time. Marketers advise posting no more than 1-2 posts a day, morning and evening. Try to make the page lively and in the same style.

If you're creating an account to make money from advertising and don't have a theme chosen yet, stick with the one you like. Second important factor– you must understand what you want to talk about if we're talking about about serious areas (nutrition, sports, medicine). The most popular are invariably blogs about the beauty industry, travel, lifestyle (about life), cooking, fitness, and handicrafts. But you can develop your niche. If they are interesting, you will find your audience.

What posts to include in your content plan

There are several varieties. Often one note combines two materials.

Entertainment

They are needed to increase your engagement rate. They show how many likes they give you and comments. What does this include:

Polls.
News.
Humor.
Competitions and promotions.
Motivational stories.
Congratulations.
Collections of films and books.
Texts from users.
Distracted thoughts or ideas that you want to talk about.

You can add commercial elements to them. For example, in surveys, find out about customer preferences, arrange a draw for your products.

Useful (educational)

Such materials are suitable for Instagram advertising services. Let's say you are a psychologist or designer. In this case, you need to build trust with your audience since they don't know you yet. Such posts will also be useful for goods. Tell us about new products or how to maintain the quality of an item for a long time. Write a short, meaningful text. If it takes up a lot of space, be sure to break it up into blocks.

Adviсe.
Instructions.
Interview.
Comparative reviews.

Selling

What to write? Your proposal should be readable (paragraphs, graphic elements). Complete it with a beautiful, appropriate photo. Style and presentation depend only on your target audience and what you are advertising.

Description of the service or product.
Reviews.
Story about the company.
Work with objections.
Presentation of a new product.
Announcement of competitions and promotions.

Where to get ideas

If your muse has left you, don't be upset. Finding a topic is easy. One of the most common ways is to ask account visitors. By the way, this can even become an entertainment and commercial post. Ask your audience what they would like to read about. There are several other ways to get out of creative stagnation:

Competitors. Look through them, but do not copy, but tell us about your view of the events.
Groups on other social networks and YouTube channels.
Your old texts. Rework them, write how your point of view has changed.
Meeting newly arrived users.
Interview.
Show off your favorite places in your city.
Visit a park, botanical garden or animal nursery and film a mini-report.

How to create a personal blog on Instagram and gain subscribers from scratch

Before leaving the shadows new page, it needs to be filled out. Friends, relatives and acquaintances will be your first visitors. If you already have a business and are developing it, add Instagram to business cards, flyers, and website. In order to increase your audience, come up with some beautiful, meaningful notes that will interest your target audience.

Do this even if you don't have a single reader. No one will pay attention to an empty account. Be sure to fill out the profile header. It is important to write down who you are and what your personal blog is about. List the main topics – there shouldn’t be too many of them. Choose one, two, three. Use emojis, but in moderation. Add links to other resources if you have them. Good example in the screenshot. The craftswoman indicated that she makes jewelry and loves wildlife. Indeed, both themes can be seen on her Instagram. Added contacts that make it clear where the order will come from and a link to the Etsy store.

Subscribe to pages that interest you, leave comments, participate in (). Follow the statistics. Which texts and photos are responded to most often, at what time. Experiment. For example, if you see that there is no user response during the recommended morning hours, try early evening. Communicate with those who read you, respond to comments. Instagram Promotion requires daily involvement.

Take photos in good light. The best is during the day, without direct sunlight.
Use filters third party applications. For example, VSCO, Snapseed.
Don't post just photos, no text. Today, this social network is becoming increasingly popular text format. Often people subscribe because of interesting thoughts.
Do not put the most popular ones, only those relevant to your topic. Come up with your own.
Make a video. There are also statistics on it and they say that short posts are liked by other users.
Be yourself. Don't copy famous accounts or competitors. Add humor and zest to your posts.

So, you have learned what a personal blog on Instagram is, how to create and connect it additional functions. With its help, you can promote your products and services and earn money from advertising. The key to success is a well-thought-out strategy and lively, entertaining content. Instagram is not easy. In order to achieve your goals, you will need patience, regular work over texts and photographs. However, nothing is impossible, make a content plan, watch the statistics, be inspired by successful accounts and you will succeed.