Computer Lab: How to Blog for Business

Here’s a workshop for you – mixing strategy with practical hands on experience, 2nd October 2009 in Sydney, 12th October in Brisbane, Singapore 26th October, 9th November in Hong Kong. Other computer lab based social media courses are also being run during October and November.

How to Blog for Business

This is a hands-on computer based course that takes you step by step through how to create, edit, tweak and promote a WordPress Blog. We use  Wordpress plugins and themes and create blog posts and pages by both teamwork and individual use of internet enabled PCs. The course is aimed at those who are investigating establishing a blog for business purposes but will also suit personal or hobbyists.

One of the Laurel’s popular classes for computer based social media

PREREQUISITES Please bring your email logon and password details for social media sites such as WordPress.com that require email verification. This course is hands on, not theory.

Dates & Locations & Booking Information

This is a popular course due to the practical hands-on nature of the exercises and tools used for creating and promoting a blog. Costs for 1 day include lunch and breaks, and a workbook, held in a computer lab.

• SYDNEY 2nd October 2009 $490 AUD BOOK HERE How To Blog For Business
• BRISBANE 12th October 2009 $490 AUD BOOK HERE How To Blog For Business
• SINGAPORE 26th October 2009 $620 SGD BOOK HERE How To Blog For Business
• HONG KONG 9th November 2009 $450 USD BOOK HERE How To Blog For Business

Can also be run inhouse, please email laurel (at) laurelpapworth.com for a quote.

OTHER COMPUTER BASED SOCIAL MEDIA COURSES ARE AVAILABLE.

Learning Outcomes

• have an overview of what a blog is, and how the blogosphere works
• which tool to use and variety of blogging platforms
• create a blog from scratch, naming and tagline and header graphics
• choose the colours and layout, and minor template edits including widgets
• add plugins for SEO, advertising and cross promotion to other social media sites
• create an article (blog post), choose a tone and voice, moderate comments, add video and photos
• overview using external blogging tools – blogging from phone, from email
• connecting with others and building an audience

Topics Covered

• 9:30 – 10:45 am Blogging Decisions

In this session we investigate various blogging platforms and make key decisions – do we blog under our own domain name (mycompany.com) or use a hosted service? Can we put the blog alongside our current website or should it be separate. What are our options?  Overview of WordPress vs Blogspot and which successful blogs are using which platform.

• 10:45 – 11:00 Break

• 11:00 – 11:50 Create a blog

Tips with regards to creating a blog name and URL and tagline. We create a blog, checking settings and tools, filling in an About page. Tips with regards to choosing a template. Selecting a template, editing the look and feel of the blog, adding in some widgets.

• 11:50 am – 12:30pm Blog posting

Create an blog post, insert an image, insert a video, preview,  publish. Importance of categories and tagging.

• 12:30 am – 1:15pm Lunch (provided onsite)

• 1:15 pm – 2pm Plugins and extensions
  

The powerful extensibility of blogs as content management systems (CMS) means that with a couple of clicks you can add Technorati tagging,  SEO packages, Google Adsense, Amazon advertising, tag clouds, badges and all manner of others. Discover and install the most useful and popular plugins for your wordpress site.

• 2:00pm – 2:50pm Promotion

A blog – unlike Facebook – does not come with an inbuilt audience. Find tools, discover strategies to grow your audience of readers and build a community of members.

• 2:50pm – 3:10pm Break

• 3:10pm 4:00pm Analytics

Business blogging means setting KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) and measuring return on investment of marketing time in your blog. While working on your blog, we investigate various tools for measuring and monitoring your blogs success online.

• 4:00pm 5:00pm Exercises

Additional exercises and question/answer sessions.

Computer classes using social media tools for business

Testimonials

A total of two hundred and twenty three people attended the event and one hundred and fifty four of those submitted an evaluation form. Of those 154 (attendees): 92% indicated they would implement what they had learnt in their business. 98% rated the presenter’s delivery of the workshop as good to excellent. Department of State and Regional Development workshops to small business.

I just wanted to thank you for a great course day last Friday. I found the content really interesting, and ending up spending the entire weekend on the internet – updating my blog, setting up Feedburner, and expanding the fan pages on facebook for my band! Emily Copeland, FBI Radio

“It’s been almost a year since Making Links and your amazing workshop. I have just signed off on the scoping for a new website for Autism Spectrum Australia with the intranet not far behind – all to be driven by web 2.0 tools. Thanks for the inspiration!” Anthony Perl, Communications Manager, Autism Spectrum Australia (Aspect)

As one of Australia’s preeminent thinkers in social media and virtual worlds, Laurel deconstructs the buzz words and brings social concepts to a mass audience through engagement and demonstration Duncan Riley, CEO of Inquisitr and ex-TechCrunch

More Testimonials here

Additional Information

Laurel is a senior consultant, strategist, writer and workshop facilitator on online communities and social networks in Australia, Asia and Middle East. She is a (global) Power150 blogger, and a top blogger in Australia. Teaching social media marketing classes since 2005, at the University of Sydney, Uni of Western Sydney, Australian Film, Television and Radio School and others, Laurel’s classes are also popular in Singapore and New Zealand. More on the About page or email laurel@laurelpapworth.com