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This March I'll be speaking at the Story @ Home 2012 conference on Temple Square in Salt Lake City. If you were to attend such a conference, what would you be most interested in hearing about with regards to “blogging your faith”?
Alison Moore Smith is a 61-year-old entrepreneur who graduated from BYU in 1987. She has been (very happily) married to Samuel M. Smith for 40 years. They are parents of six incredible children and grandparents to two astounding grandsons. She is the author of The 7 Success Habits of Homeschoolers.
I think it should include the benefits of blogging about your faith. What good does it do?
I think it should include ideas. I already work on doing this, but my blog is pretty small, so maybe some ideas for how to increase your traffic too.
I would be interested in hearing about how to deal with troublesome posts, either by those that are antagonistic to your faith, or by those that are struggling with it and reaching out to you.
Lisalisa, good idea on giving benefits. And maybe the pitfalls, too. I know most of the latter!
Pattyann, on your first sentence, did you also mean traffic building ideas or was that referring to some other kind of ideas. Post ideas? Can you clarify that for me?
Tracy, very good idea. Lots of material there.
More ideas anyone???
I agree – I’d love to hear about benefits and how to handle antagonism. Also, how do you incorporate the church’s official sites into your blogging? Do you have a profile at mormon.org and what do you do with it?
-Emphasis on the value of the *personal* in personal blogs. (e.g., rather than just sharing that church video, share what you like about it. Rather than sharing the doctrine, talk about how the doctrine helps you in your life.)
– Figuring out your audience and writing appropriately. (Are you writing to talk about your faith with those within the faith, or friends of other faiths (or no current faith system at all)?) + tips for either approach. Similarities and differences of each approach. Ideas for the kind of Mormon lingo to watch out for and/or link to outside sources (mormon.org, mormonwiki.com, lds.about.com) to help clarify concepts, doctrines, practices).
– Tips for getting people involved and interacting. (It’s one thing to share, it’s another thing to invite people to comment, act, do, ask.) The social in social media is a whole world of its own. (Might be more than you want to get into in this context, though.)
– Some simple SEO tips. (e.g., make titles count (vs. making them clever or poetic), write for the kinds of questions you think people might ask to find your post, include keywords naturally in the beginning of your post, etc.)
– Heads-up about organizations like the More Good Foundation that exist to help members share faith online. 😉
– Email me for one more idea that is a little more ‘in the works’….