Writing Tools for the Web

Professionals are turning to social media to give their work more exposure. Sites such as Blogger, LinkedIn, and Twitter are becoming more popular, as well as Facebook pages, Wikis, and RSS feeds. These tools are popular because almost everyone sees them and they are free or low-cost. Forum technology is gaining more popularity to promote work and extend feelers as well. When researching this topic, I found that there are a lot of networking options other than just having your own website to explain and show your work. People even make careers out of being bloggers.

I found an interesting article about writing for the web at Web Pro News. Its main emphasis is that print writing and internet writing are entirely different things. These 10 Commandments of Internet Writing are really simple things to improve the way people read your site, blog, or other postings. This is a link to a book description that gives a similar overview. Here, they say, "The formula is simple - be honest, put the customer first, and don't waffle." This book (advertised on the site) covers many different kinds of online writing from web marketing to news releases, newsletters, webzines, and Weblogs. An article on Associated Content gives you five ways to keep a web reader's attention. The emphasis here is that web readers are very different from print viewers, mainly because they're in it for the quick access to information and are looking for an easy-to-read style. The main topics here are: be specific with your information, describe exactly what your site or blog will do for your visitors, get personal and write in a way that shows how personable you or your service is, and bring true content to your website by giving your readers real value (in other words, give them the full, detailed content especially if background is needed to understand a topic). While researching, I also found many advertisements for classes specifically on writing for the web, which tells me it's becoming an even bigger trend and now involves things other than just Blogger. HigherEdExperts gives a listing of information covered in a Web Writing Boot Camp. Who knew there was such a science to it? However, I think that's what makes it such a useful tool for professionals. If you can do something right, you should probably do it a lot and / or use it to your advantage.

LinkedIn is a professional resource for not only keeping in touch with your past and present, but it is also a resource for job opportunities and networking. I don't personally have experience with LinkedIn, but I heard the guys I work with talking about it the other day. It seems that LinkedIn has a sort of "group" technology and more specific forums that people can invite each other to and follow and participate in. In this way, LinkedIn seems to be becoming a bit more like Facebook or MySpace. With Facebook and Myspace, you can publish your business online and have people follow your news, updates, and happenings. When one person becomes interested in you or your business, all of their friends become exposed to it. In this way, it is a very powerful word-spreading tool. If you present yourself as a professional with good web writing on these sites, then you are more likely to be taken seriously and you may even get some good leads from it. Wikispaces, while I don't think I understand their full purpose, are also useful for business communication or promotion. You can easily put in text, upload images and files, link pages, and install widgets. You can create discussion forums, get statistics on your visitors, tag pages, and customize your wiki with text formatting, custom domains and custom themes. You can also set your wiki to be public, protected, or private, depending on exactly what you're using it for. Wikis seem like simple solutions for simple things. For example, I don't think a graphic designer would get much use from a wiki because it seems to be a little too generic and more geared towards discussions and such that a class might have. I know wikis are seeing more use in the classroom setting as an alternative to Blackboard or Moodle because they are effective discussion tools. I could see them possibly working for some people with some careers, but not for all. Based off of the article "How To Use Wikis For Business", I think wikis are most helpful in project management within a business.

Other Blogger-like tools are: RSS feeds, LiveJournal, TypePad, WordPress, and Blogger itself. The only reason I count RSS feeds as a "Blogger-like" tool is because it gets a message out very quickly, just as Twitter technology or a mass email does. Everyone who subscribes can get instant updates, so this makes it a good tool for advertising purposes, as well as keeping people up to date on your professional progress. This way, people can stay easily informed by getting the latest information from the sites / topics they're interested in (http://www.whatisrss.com). Twitter accounts and blogging among professional companies as well as individual professionals and regular individuals have been growing. One reason they are becoming so popular in companies is so that the companies can promote themselves to a larger population of people as well as so they can increase communication within the companies themselves. LiveJournal is a site on which you can create a private journal or create a blog, discussion forum or social network. It is a networking site, like so many others. The way I see LiveJournal is kind of like a glorified Facebook because you can connect with people, shop and send gifts, advertise, and use it on your mobile phone. One unique thing is that you can turn your journal into a bookstore-quality book. TypePad gets more away from the profile idea of LiveJournal and more towards a blog. You can design and customize your own blog with TypePad and use search engine optimization and social media optimization tools to promote your blog. You can choose from many preexisting designs or create one yourself and you can update your blog from anywhere. It's very simple and doesn't involve any fancy knowledge, yet you can have complete design control and have access to smart layouts and advanced editing features. There is also a feature with TypePad that if you see something interesting online, you can click "Blog It" and it will put the link on your blog, much like sharing with Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. TypePad even has ways to grow your audience by getting your blog noticed on search engines and creating a community (for those who share similar interests) and you can get stats that tell you how many people are interacting with your blog. TypePad is not free, though, so it is an investment to be made. Wordpress and Blogger are two other popular sources for blogging and site-making. Personally, I haven't dealt with Wordpress much yet, but I have heard about it and I have used Blogger. With both you can use templates or create custom designs for your site / blog. I found an interesting debate between the two here. Both also seem easy enough to use. One person on this discussion said that Blogger would be better than Wordpress if you wanted to keep your blog private. I think that Wordpress has more ways to customize the look and feel of your blog as well. While Wordpress has templates that you can buy, there are also free templates. Another advantage of Wordpress is that it has plug-ins that enable you to optimize your site for search engines and Blogger does not. Thus, I would think that for personal use or small-time traffic, one would use Blogger and for things with the potential to grow and spread, one would use Wordpress.

I can take advantage of most of these tools as a student to let people know what I'm doing while I'm in school so that it can help launch me into the professional world. When I am a professional, I can use the same tools or the higher-end tools to represent myself as being more professional and getting my business out to many different kinds of people in many different places. Blogs, and specifically Wordpress, would make it very easy to create portfolios of my work, in particular. Today, I will be creating a LinkedIn profile for myself. I also have Twitter (@sarahegolf) and YouTube (violet13ske) accounts.