If you are a blogger, as I suspect that you are, your presence and your reach needs to step out beyond just the confines of the blog that you run. There’s a whole new world waiting for you out there, and it’s one you need to tap into. Your social media presence can boost the online advertising rates that you demand for your blog once you hit a certain point and in many ways, it must be seen as the ultimate opt-in. Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Youtube; no matter how your readers and followers choose to connect with you, you have to give them the option of diversity. They have to be able to receive your message in a number of ways, not just because you can engage them in so many more ways, but because you can hike your online advertising rates by doing so.

Communication channels such as these are assets without a doubt. They can help you grow loyalty and a following. And from that comes influences and yes, now that you mention it, affluence as well. Your readers and your influence is important not just for you, but also for your advertisers. Perhaps you’ve never thought about it that way, but there is a very direct link between your following and the online advertising rates you can demand. At one time, advertisers were content to take a scattered approach to advertising. Anyone and everyone that remotely fitted the bill would be signed on and given advertising dollars. Now, it’s more than just that. It’s about social media reach. It’s about being heard, being seen and being an influence on as wide a number of people as is possible. It’s no longer about banner ads, even though that does happen. It’s now about brand exposure within the context of social networks.

For you, it’s about raking in more moolah (but not while making your readers feel like cash cows) whilw for advertisers it’s all about creating greater value and awareness, better bang for advertising bucks. Gone are the days when being spammy made advertisers happy. To get top dollar today, you need to cash in on reader trust without selling out your readers and building on that trust they have imposed in you. Sounds tricky? That’s because it is. I’ve seen so many blogs run ads that are intrusive with owners that don’t listen to their community. I understand and fully appreciate the need to monetize a blog, but that shouldn’t come at the expense of your audience. No one likes to feel used.

So just how can you do this without being cheesy? There’s a number of ways to do so, such as,

• announcing an advertising tie-up in a welcome post or a tweet
• publish featured articles every month that can also include advertiser interests.
• Publish special offers you’ve got from an advertiser either in a blog post, Facebook page or a tweet

At any rate, you must make it a point to clearly demarcate advertising and editorial functions at all times. Keep your social media statistics close at hand and make sure that your advertisers get full value for money while you get extra money for not much extra effort. At all times though, make sure this is not at the expense of the reader.

The need to be creative is perhaps paramount for bloggers. It doesn’t just come down to being creative with your posts either. Creative thinking exercises could be spread across a number of needs, such as how to make a brand out of your blog, or how to make its look fit in with your message among other things. In all, it takes a lot of energy, focus, dedication and commitment to be creative all the time, and most certainly at times when you need it the most. But creativity scares the living daylights out of most folk. It’s not a mystical, magical, crazy land that is unattainable folks; it’s not like creativity will hit you like a lightning bolt hurled from the hands of Zeus himself. The reality is that we are all creative, and a few creative thinking exercises can keep you sharp and up to the task all the time.

Write on something you’re passionate about

This is perhaps the single most important thing I can tell you. If you’re not passionate about something, it will show. Admit it. You’ll struggle to write on something that is of no interest to you, far less write about it passionately. Celebrity blogging might be where the greenbacks are at, but if you couldn’t care less about them or if you’re not going to do it to the best of your abilities, why do it? Leave it to the TMZ’s and the Perez Hilton’s of the world to hunt down celebs. If wine interests you, write about it. Extoll its virtues until kingdom come, why don’t you? Perhaps if you’ve lost some interest in your blog, find an angle that can rekindle that interest. Be creative. The more unique the angle, the better.

Keep on learning

There’s something I cannot describe about learning new things that just gives me joy. It’s invigorating as experiences go and it often helps me pull myself out of a creative rut more often than not. You don’t even need to learn by going to classrooms, seminars, conferences and meetings. All you need is a sense of curiosity and you’ll never stop learning. Online classes, e-books, podcasts, conversations; there’s something to learn everywhere, so sharpen that mind of yours today.

Jot down your ideas

Sometimes, I’m riding the subway or in a bus or in the shower and a great idea hits me. It could be an idea for a birthday gift, or a blog post or just about anything. I make it a point to note down any such ideas because they rarely hit me when I’m staring at the laptop. I am at my most creative in the oddest of locations. I had a terrific idea for a blog post hit me once when I was at a Starbucks, and that’s not even the oddest of locations, if I were to be honest. Don’t let that idea vanish into nothingness. Scribble it down somewhere, come back to it later. Never hold an idea in your head, consign it to something physical, like paper or on your phone. You can always come back to it later then.

That’s it then. Three of my top creative thinking exercises for you to do. They’re not really exercises as much as tips, but there you go. I hope it was of some assistance to you.

This is something that you perhaps haven’t considered, but ponder over it for a second; is your website ready for mobile devices or does it need further mobile optimization? Many reports have predicted that there will be some 1.7 billion mobile internet users by the year 2013. And if they find that your website isn’t fully mobile optimized, they’ll simply turn elsewhere. It’s quite safe to say that more than a few of them will visit your site and view it on a screen no larger than your open hand. That is why you need mobile optimization. Could you imagine surfing through a website that is cramped, counter-intuitive and hard to read from a mobile device? Well, neither can your user base.

It’s not just about ease of navigation or viewability either. It’s about connection speeds. Your website will usually be rendered nicely on laptops and desktops with their higher connection speeds. But mobile users have to make do with slower connections. Telecommunication service providers ramp up their services all the time, but the experience is still a slow one for users. That’s logical; the more capacity that is added, the faster it is consumed by users. No matter where your visitors come from, they need to have a good experience on your website. And the requirement for mobile optimization holds true for regular and first-time visitors.

What good is that fancy, even gorgeous site design if you don’t consider the needs of your users? An increasing percentage of your users are going to come from mobile devices such as the iPad, the iPhone, Android devices and the upcoming PlayBook. In the light of that, great looks is only so important. What needs to be prioritized is usability and a high quality experience. You have to make sure your website feels great for everyone out there. The problem is sometimes we don’t know how to do that and that’s understandable. But there are some very easy things you can do to take your first steps towards mobile optimization of your website.

The first thing to do, especially if you are using WordPress, is to make the website more mobile friendly by using plugins. All it will take you is 30 seconds (yes, really) and WP Touch is perhaps the best of the lot. The price is right (it’s free!) and it’s a very customizable tool that you can use to suit your needs and your site. Of course, visitors should be given the option of visiting the standard site too. But before you install any plugins, make sure you back up the website. Seriously, do that right now.

Another simple thing that can be done is to create simpler navigation. That eases things up considerably and makes mobile optimization so much easier. There should be clear, distinctive ways to make the site seem usable. While you’re at it, cut back on the images; they can be heavy to load and take away from the mobile experience and cut back on Flash and Javascript too. Not all mobile devices can support those two standards. The better option is to simply go with (X)HTML/CSS standards for universal viewability.

Starting a blog is a very serious thing, and it’s not easy to get noticed at all. If you knew then, as you know now, that it is hard to get noticed would you have started blogging at all?

As beginners, we all have pet causes or pet peeves. It’s perhaps why you started your first blog, because you had something to say and you wanted to be heard. Oh, and you would have had something in the region of $10 in your pocket to register the domain name and get started. But as you wrote on and on and on, it must have sometimes seemed as if you were just letting your words vanish into the void. No one seemed to care much, no seemed to read your random musings that you found amusing and it is almost as if you didn’t exist. No one stumbled upon your blog. All you are met with is a stony, deafening, never-ending silence.

You have a very serious problem on your hands if this is the case with you; it’s called Invisible Content Syndrome. But it’s not something terminal, and you can reverse it (thankfully). Every blog starts out afflicted with this syndrome and everyone has to build from that start. The difference for the best bloggers is that they happen to shed this stage with varying degrees of quickness while many of us get stuck in the quicksand of anonymity. It’s an incredibly frustrating experience, but it’s not something incurable, like say natural stupidity.

The key to being a good blog is to offer value and to be useful to your readers. Everyone will catch attention at some point or the other, the key is to keep it. A great very many blogs will use some form of gimmicky show to try and draw readers in with their slick interface and looks, but drawing attention to yourself is only good if you can capture those eyeballs for good. Even if you’ve just got a basic mastery of some subject matter, it’s good enough. Remember that there are many people just setting out in whatever area of expertise you may have, and you can pass on an understanding of your art and craft to them as you see fit. Teach the newbie that you once were how to get the job done. This is the land of the blind baby, and you’re the one eyed king. Rule over your subjects! Find people who know less than you do and be their master.

Network. It’s such a simple thing, but something very few people do. Pick out some five or ten blogs you like, with content and readership like you envision yourself having and then just hang out there. Tweet and share their content, make comments (not like “lolololol great post!” That’s just retarded) and engage their audience and blogger in a discussion. Use your name to talk to them, not a keyword because you’ll just come off as a spam bot if you do the latter. Link to the posts that you like most and riff on some posts of theirs that you like, picking up where they left off by covering angles they didn’t. You won’ generate eyeballs from everywhere by doing so, but you will generate eyeballs, and that’s what matters. Be interesting, be yourself and have fun. The rest will fall into place in good time.