Today’s task on the Blogging 201 course is to find a blogging buddy and If appropriate, plan to publish guest posts on one another’s blogs. The other suggestion if there are no buddies out there is to lean on them for feedback and support.

So here’s the thing, over the last week or so, I have met so many bloggers as part of this course, that I would consider everyone that has liked, followed or given me encouragement as a buddy in some way, whether it was the feedback on the site navigation changes that I made on Day 5 or the feedback about the blog’s design and the way I write.

Not one to pass up on the opportunity to find a blogging buddy, I came across Chow Kim Wan’s site from the Commons which mentioned about posts on music. Well, looking at the site, it’s so original, a mathematician who also enjoys music.

Could this be serendipity?  or just a wild coincidence. My husband is by all accounts something of a numbers person, having graduated with a science and engieering degree and worked in the Aeronautical industry and though we are so different in our tastes and preferences, we make  an unlikely combination that somehow just works.

So I thought about what I could write that would compliment both our blogs, perhaps it will be about an event from my days at school.

An event that I think is best put behind me, and yet was something I consider one of those transformational moments which can be called character forming.   It was both terrifying and exhilirating, but at the time I just wanted to get it over with.

I’ll be thinking about how best to approach this so that it can be published on a Wednesday to coincide with the Chow Kim Wan’s blog post publishing calendar.

Returning to the buddies and the bloggers that I’ve blog met over this course; I went blog surfing agin tonight, reading through my reader, comments and took a visit to the Commons.

Ravishing Roses has an excellent post on the Make your own Face Mask which she received as a gift – looks amazing to try and to create a home made facemask. Wait a minute, I have some Rosewater, which I can use – hmmm and some lavender honey as well.

The Planted Vegan has a new receipe for a wrap which will make a very tasty lunch this weekend (Our dishwasher broke today) so the fact that the receipe is for a wrap, means there’s little washing up, means I like this post very much.

Lela at inthenewhouse dropped me a lovely comment about visiting her Inspirational Thursday party, which reminds me, I will need to contribute to the Link Party tonight.

Saw the post on the new Erktop couch that Creative Gem has, which has got me thinking that perhaps I should save up for one too. Except it will have to come after the Dishwasher now that it’s broken.

Girl Independent has made so many improvements to her site, I especially like the way she has included text over the images, but in a way that doesn’t detract from the visual power of her photography.

I’ve been reading through  Cyn Franks blog Franklywrite which if you are ever stuck and think you have writer’s block is the post to read to get you back in the saddle again so to speak.

Finally, LeZoeMusings whose blog popped up as on my recommended blogs in the reader is so visually stunning. I think her blog raises the bar for beautiful, stylish and paired back simplicity. It has both style and subtance. Just in awe of her blog

There’s been so many other bloggers who have inspired new ideas and a fresh perspective over the course of the last 9 days, so another task that I’ll have to work on is to create a blog roll and post it on my site.

Thanks for viewing this post. Looking forward to the final day of Blogging 201.

Digging Deep into your Social Network.

The recent projects I’ve been developing at work means that I have been looking at the importance of Social Media and Search.

In fact, Social Media has such an influence on Search and getting content indexed and found through Search browsers, that it’s impossible to ignore it’s influence on getting traffic to your site.

The problem though is that I’ve never been very active on Social Platforms, in fact I’d go as far as to say I’ve avoided Facebook and Twitter, simply because I don’t think I have as many interesting or fascinating things to post up in a day.

I think I could be described as a passive observer in Social media, as it always amazes me how there are posts about bungee jumping, crossing off challenges on personal bucket lists, doing the Ice Bucket Challenges and all the other wild and interesting activities that my friends and peers get up to.

I feel a bit of a bore posting up things about what our family get up to – who really cares that we went to the dentist or got our hair cut or took our cats to the vets?

At any rate most of my daylight hours are spent in an office and there are lots of stories of people posting things they will regret later, such as calling their boss something unprintable and then shouting about it in social media, that I think writing anything that you may regret later is best avoided.

Blogging on the other hand is completely different, it’s a space to be creative. To express an idea, write an article about something that’s inspired you and can be drawn from your experiences whether they are in the present, past or the future.

So the prospect of having to connect up the blog to Social Media channels was somewhat daunting.

However knowing how important it is in terms of search, I’ve made a start.

Firstly, the most important step I made was just to set-up the accounts. The social media platforms that have the biggest in terms of audience size and reach and order of prominence are as follows:

1) Facebook

2) Twitter

3) Google+

Whilst Google+  is not as big in terms of audience size, I think G+ is more important than Facebook or Twitter, due to its relationship and direct impact on Search. Once you have a Google+ account, your profile, the content you post in Google+ will be indexed and ranked for search purposes.

Since Google’s Search Engine’s algorithm is based on a number of factors, posts within Google+ get indexed almost immediately, there’s a great article about it here .

I like things simple, so for now I have in WordPress Settings connected my Google+ account to the blog so that when ever I create a post, it will automatically get posted onto G+. At the time of writing, Google+ does not make the post public, so I go into my account about once a week and re-post so they become public.

4) Pinterest – similarly has a relationship and impact on search engines and rankings. This article about the relationship between Pinterest and Search provides a good explanation of the why and how.

I’ve set-up a Pinterest account so that I can pin images from my blog to Pinterest boards that I’ve set-up.  I keep back a few images. Once a week, I check the boards. I also use Pinterest for pinning images that I find interesting or inspires ideas for future posts, so it’s quite useful in that respect.

5) Instagram, 6) Tumblr

There are of course lots more beside, the above I think represent the core ones to focus my efforts.

I still have a long way to go in terms of social media and connecting and creating a community around the blog.

For now, I am focussing on getting the blog discovered through search and using the social platforms as a way to do this.

I hope this post was helpful. Do let me know if you’ve been successful in setting up a Social Media Strategy to help increase awareness for your blog.