I’ve just been on a course at Cambridge university blogging to online audiences, to hopefully mould and hone this bloggers writing. The course aims to improve the bloggers own approach for writing articles that are legalistic, ethically sound, and sustainable in and for the ‘communities’, or ‘tribes’ that comprise the blogs intended audience. So for my blog, that’s fashionable little Itzaa, the communities I’ve targeted are the fashionable, and ‘on trend’ tribes. As a traditional online blog writer this could also be seen as contributing to other styles of blog, articles, communities, platforms, and publications.

Delving into a number of subjects we cover sustainability, how to write, discovering a voice for writing where we touch on that all important mention of a bloggers potential brand. 

What to write about online is a question asked most often, and the opportunities to explore our written article structures, and ideas through use of prompts, daily, weekly challenges, and storytelling is very much a recommendation. We the bloggers on the course are encouraged to use and explore inspirational content, to create a realistic, and truly enjoyable positive experience for the audience. 

Ethics covers gaining active consent of users, in particular researching anonymous sources of information whilst maintaining GDPR compliance to effectively build and maintain a reputable online presence. The class are asked to create a very unique personal blogging set of ethics, no online digital blogging type should write, or publish without.

Exploring and identifying relevant ‘online communities’, and ‘tribes’ entwined with our own blogging aims, is encouraged. If your a Seth Godin fan this is a way to recognise, take part in, contribute, create, or belong to these identifiable ‘tribes’.  From this perspective we understand the who’s, who of online communities, and our own ‘tribes’ we relate too as bloggers, or wish to target. The interplay with blog posts from these various sources covering numerous issues of the day, news, a product, or movie tie in retweeted, back linked, or commented on by the audience.

So all that’s great, it’s all good, useful information. I’ve even set up my own blog in WordPress as part of the course, tweaking carefully soon to be published articles for SEO, or search engine optimisation, but what has it done for this blog author on a personal blogging level? 

The course has certainly improved my understanding of online blogging,  and shown useful methods to safely write, and publish articles on the World Wide Web which I’d recommend are worth learning including safeguarding of a writers work in any subject online.  We’ve developed an understanding of potential blog promotion, sitting over the digital footprint of any blog, and its success in the online community, or tribe it’s written for. So the ways in which we target audiences using seo trends to name our blog articles in a friendly way for the search engines to pick up, are amazingly important.  

Inevitable opportunities for potential monetisation through sustainability, using crowdfunding or as a contributor to other platforms are briefly covered.

The Cambridge university course has what this blogger feels contains a key positive message. With the right tools, and techniques used for blogging. It’s okay to be unique, to be different, to be challenging, and retain a reputation, but don’t ever be silenced

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton