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With the popularity of blogging showing little waning, I decided that I would offer a bit of a tutorial on how to blog. Effectively, that is. Anyone can sit down in front of a keyboard and punch out a post of little to no import or community relevence, but it takes a bit more than that to blog effectively. There are millions of people blogging all across the vast sea of cyberspace, and many of them are doing it the right way to maintain their visibility among the masses. In fact, I posted about this very topic here at Tutorial 9 recently in, Key Elements to Blog Visibility. One of the main focuses of that post was on content. Because, above all, it is the content of your site that is going to bring the readers back time and again.

Given that content is king, how do make sure that you are delivering the content that will secure your site’s location on the list of go-to blogs that the masses cannot get enough of? Some might say that this is not something that can be taught. You cannot guide someone into creating good, quality content that is worthy of a return visit. But I would disagree with that assessment. I do believe that you cannot necessarily give someone the gift of outstanding wordplay, charging their writing with the same passion as someone who has dedicated themselves to crafting and honing their writing abilities, but they are hardly the same thing.

You see, while the writer’s ability can prove to enhance the blog post overall, it is not writing ability that sets the defines for good content. You can be a fantastic blogger, while still having only mediocre writing skills. On a blog, it is not about writing structure as much as it is about writing substance. So how do you get the good stuff? What are the elements that effect the punch of your posts? Well in this writer’s humble opinion, if you want your content to reign supreme, you need to focus on the points below.

Know Your Stuff

First and foremost, be knowledgeable. No one wants to read a lengthy post of innacurate information that ultimately proves to be unuseful. Before you decide to take a topic head-on on your blog, do your homework. I know, I know. Nobody likes homework, but it really is essential if you want your blog to be taken seriously and for people to continue to seek out your perspective on the different topics that you decide to tackle.

Not only does this help grow your base of knowledge on the subject of the blog post, but by making sure that you know what you are talking about you can have a meaningful dialog with your readers in the comment section of the blog. Otherwise, your comment time will be spent either apologizing for corrrections that have had to be made after readers left you constructive and not-so constructive feedback about where you dropped the ball in the post, or you will be avoiding comments that challenge you. Mainly because you do not have a firm enough grasp of the topic to dicuss it openly with them.

It is an old writer’s rule to write what you know, and the same rule applies for blogging. Know your stuff, and your content will be helpful. Make your content helpful, and your blog will be respected.

Know Your Audience

The next way to make sure that your content resonates with readers, is to be relevant. If you are talking to the design community, then make sure that you are discussing design or design related things in your posts. Talking about major political events or trends, or the latest Twilight film is not generally what your readers are looking for from your site, so keep on track with what it is they want. Now discussing the role that design played in the last election, or the finer points of design areas related to the latest Twilight film, like set design or costume design, could pass as acceptable topics to broach on your blog. Though you might be pushing it a bit with Twilight.

Another audience-conscious action to take, is to make sure that you are talking to your audience and not at them. In online interactions with only one side being presented at a time, it is easy for your tone to be misinterpreted and come off in an unintended way. By being aware of this, you can safeguard against any unpleasant tones that could be taken from the way you said something. Read through your posts a second time out loud to hear the way it reads, and if possible, have someone else give it a read as well to check it out.

Also take care to present your content in a user-friendly manner to make sure that you are further taking your reader into consideration. Know your audience, and you will be able to connect with them through your content, ensuring they will come back.

Know What Needs to Be Said

This next content director actually goes along with knowing your stuff, and that is be original. When you are doing your research, check out how often this topic has been discussed around the blogosphere, and find a new way to approach it. Do not rehash the same subjects over and over again unless you have a meaningful addition to the conversation or a unique perspective from which to examine the topic. Keeping your posts fresh and original will truly help your content shine out among others.

Also, find the important and not so important topics that are not being discussed anywhere else around the blogosphere, and open those lines of discussion in these areas. Readers will appreciate new dialogs being had and the opporunity to take part in them. Exchanging new ideas and delving into virtually untapped wells of information. With unique content pushing your site, you will steer more readers in your direction to be sure. Though do be careful when broaching a new topic that is not being discussed anywhere else, there may be a good reason for its ommission.

Originality does help make your blog stand out, with so many ports to go calling on for online information. Knowing what needs to be said is a vital part of crafting quality content, that your readers will respond to.

Know How to Say It.

This next element to shaping up your content is also pretty important, being clear and concise in your posting. You can take all the care in the world with carving out quality content, but if you are unclear or hard to follow, then you will lose your readers as they continuously lose your point. Outlining your posts before hand, is a great way to keep your points from becoming muddled or simply lost in the conversational circles that we can often talk ourselves into when trying to tie down our ideas.

Writing style can work against you in this case, especially if you are prone to large expositions of prose that tend to waft to and fro in different directions during your discussion. Outlining can further help to make sure that you fully delve into each topic you have raised within your post, not leaving any loose ends that have failed to be tied by the wrap up. Otherwise, while an interesting premise, the post overall, will not live up to the full post potential. It will kind of be the Alias of blog posts. Great idea, with a lot of ball-droppage on the follow through.

With so many other blogs out there, all vying for a piece of the online readership you need your content to be able to be understood and followed, or people will turn away. Knowing how to say it, is as important as what you are saying. Because, lets face it, if they cannot follow what you are saying, it doesn’t matter what you say, it won’t be effective.

Feel Your Words

The last tip for taking your content to the next level that I want to bring up is being passionate about what you are discussing. If you are not interested in the words you are writing, or the topic you are covering, it will be harder for your work to generate that interest or passion in others. And believe me, the reverse of that also tends to be true. If you are driven by a subject, then you more than likely will be able to impart that enthusiasm to others through your words. If they do not resonate with you, then chances are, they will fall flat with the readers as well.

Another benefit to only blogging from a place of passion, is that you continue to enjoy the work, and will be less likely to experience burn-out. While you will want to make sure that you keep your schedule flexible enough to help prevent tiring of your blogging, keeping that work in an area that is consistently challenging and inspiring you, can also work heavily in your favor. Which in turn will work in the favor of your content and your blog.

Another way to ensure that your content will connect with others, is by making sure that it connects with you. Feel your words, and they will be able to reach out to others and draw them in. Your passion will be able to transfer through your posts.

That’s a Wrap!

This concludes the list of tips to make sure that you are blogging effectively and connecting with your readers. Your blog is only ever as good as the content driving it, so make sure you take the time this make-or-break blog element demands and deserves, and the readers will respond.

When Facebook launched the 2.0 version of its iPhone app in September of last year, it was a huge upgrade from its original app that launched with the App Store last July. And now it’s on the verge of launching the 3.0 version of the app, and having tested it today, we can safely say that it once again takes Facebook on the device to the next level. In fact, it may be the most useful app on the iPhone now, period.

This new version simply improves upon the old one in just about every way imaginable. Not only does it have a wide range of new options and features, many of which we went over previously, but it’s actually faster. And the design is rather brilliant. Built by Facebook engineer Joe Hewitt, the app manages to maintain the good practices found in many iPhone apps, while at the same time creating its own unique look and feel.

Features

Nowhere is this new look more evident than on the new Facebook home screen. It’s sort of like the iPhone main screen, but with a different, distinctive design. The large buttons are easy to hit, and best of all, you can add people’s profiles and pages as icons as well, to provide shortcuts to your favorites.

The main screen that you were probably used to from the old app now resides in the upper left corner of the main screen, as the “News Feed.” It largely looks the same but the ability to “like” items has been added to the ability to comment on them. You can also now easily take and post videos if you have an iPhone 3GS. Hitting the “News Feed” button in the upper right hand corner, allows you to sort this feed by the various filters you’ve set up.

The “Profile” area is the next button on the main screen. The overall look and feel have been updated, and now also include the “like” and “comment” elements on the Wall. You can also now see your profile pictures.

The “Friends” area has been updated to include both Friends and Pages. But a killer feature may be the ability to hit the phone icon and have the option to call or text your contacts. People who consider Facebook to be their contact list, will love this.

The “Inbox” is the next main area, and it now features not only new messages, but updates from your groups, and sent messages. But the best thing about this feature is how fast messages load. It’s leaps and bounds better than trying to load messages on the regular Facebook, and I think from now on I’ll simply use the app to respond to any emails I get through it.

The “Chat” and “Requests” areas remain largely the same, though both have been cleaned up.

The big new feature of this app has to be “Events”. The lack of a way to even see events in the previous version of the app was a major complaint against it — it had people using the web interface to log-in specifically to find events. Now, not only can you see them in the app, you can see details like the address of the event and host of it. And you can RSVP, and you can see who else is attending. With so many Facebook users now using its events feature for social gatherings, it simply made no sense not to have this in there. The Events area also features a “Birthdays” tab to specifically see which of your friends’ birthday is coming up.

The “Photos” area now allows you to create new photo albums, and it is significantly easier and more obvious as to how to tag someone in a picture. And at last, Facebook photos allow you to take advantage of the iPhone’s multi-touch to pinch zoom in and out of pictures.

The last main page element is “Notes,” which is new. You can see, edit and create new notes from here, just in case your Status Updates don’t give you enough room for all you want to say.

Below the main elements is the “Notifications” area that seems to update in near real-time when someone comments or “likes” one of your items or an item you’ve commented on.

What’s Missing

As good as this new Facebook iPhone app is, there are still some missing features. The two biggest ones are Push Notifications and a robust search. Hewitt had mentioned previously that Push Notifications would not be in 3.0, but hinted that they could come in 3.1. He stated on Twitter that with 3.0 done, the work is already starting on 3.1.

When we asked him about any new features for that build, Hewitt said he wasn’t ready to comment on specifics yet. But it’s probably a good bet that Push Notifications will be one of them. And earlier today, he also noted that there will be a landscape mode in 3.1. And he’s also noted that videos recorded on the iPhone 3GS don’t yet play in the app because Facebook doesn’t encode them in an iPhone-compatible way. That should change soon too.

The bigger omission, as I see it, is the lack of a robust search tool. Facebook recently rolled out the upgraded search functionality on its site, but on the iPhone searching is limited to profiles and pages. Basically, it’s useless, as you can get much of this information from the Friends area. If Facebook is serious about search, it needs to make basically everything that gets updated on the site (allowed for by individual’s privacy settings, of course) searchable on its mobile app in real-time. That would be a killer feature.

Overall

Overall, the Facebook 3.0 iPhone app is a huge step forward as a social tool. In fact, in terms of the data it lets you access, it’s hard to argue that any app is more robust. It’s now basically a way to keep track of and remark about what your friends are up to, an always up-to-date contact list, a picture and video sharer, an inbox, an IM client, and a event coordinator, all tied to over 250 million social users.

With the additions of Push Notifications and a better search tool, it will be nearly perfect. And all of these new features wrapped into an app that is even zippier, makes this a great (and free) upgrade.

Update: Hewitt has just let us know about another really nice feature. If you tap the Facebook logo, you’ll automatically go back to the main home screen. Tap it again and you’ll return to where you just were. Subtle, but nice feature.

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Facebook’s been evolving right before our very eyes. It started back in March, when Facebook rolled out a new homepage design and redesigned Facebook Pages. At the same time, they started announcing changes to open up the platform: public profiles, profile fans, public status updates, real-time search, and earlier this morning, Facebook Lite. Facebook’s been busy.

All of this is part of a process we sometimes describe as Twitterification. Facebook is opening up in parts in order to combat Twitter – another reason why Facebook completed that blockbuster acquisition of FriendFeed. But since these privacy and profile changes have occurred in parts, they have created a lot of confusion.

That’s why we have written this guide to Facebook’s most recent changes to profiles, status updates, and privacy features. We highlight the big changes and explain what is likely to come next. Here’s how the new Facebook is set up:

Profiles

In terms of privacy, there have been two major changes. The first one, which occurred back in March, is that you can make your Facebook profile public. You can make all elements or just parts of your profile public: photos, details, videos, work information, etc. This can be managed in Facebook’s profile privacy settings.

The other major change to profiles, announced in June, is the ability to have profile fans. It’s just like Twitter followers: they will be able to see your updates and info without you friending them. This feature is not yet launched, but will be coming soon:

Status Updates

Status updates have also changed. In the past, only your friends could see your publish posts and status updates (you know, that big “What’s on your mind?” box at the top of the homepage). But as of June, you have the ability to post status updates not only to your friends, but to friends of friends, to your networks, and to everyone. You may need to activate it in your Facebook profile privacy settings.

You’ll also notice that there’s a custom setting. You can post status updates just to specific friend lists. For example, post a personal update just to your top 20 friends, or you can let everyone on Facebook find your update about your big tweetup next week.

The change brings it more in line with Twitter, which is public by default. Really though, this was the prelude to yesterday’s big Facebook Search launch.

Realtime Search

As we covered in-depth yesterday, Facebook is currently rolling out realtime search. While the old search only could find things like apps, groups, and people, the new search is like a beefed-up version of Twitter Search. The new search crawls the last 30 days of news feed activity – photos, notes, images, videos, links, and status updates – and lets users search them all by keyword. Want to learn more about the FriendFeed acquisition or chatter about Mashable on Facebook? The new search helps:

So where does Facebook privacy play into all of this? The search covers all of your friends, but on top of that, it searches all public profiles and public status updates. So if you want to be found in search, you better change your Facebook privacy settings. Remember though, what you say will be visible to everyone then, so don’t say anything you wouldn’t discuss on your public Twitter feed.

What’s Next?

Facebook’s many new features can all be described with one word: openness. It has seen Twitter steal the spotlight and the attention, especially when breaking news and world events occur. Facebook, with its hundreds of millions of users, should be able to do the same thing, but cannot due to the network restrictions that have existed since Facebook’s inception as a college social network.

Facebook will encourage all of its users to join in on the world conversation by opening up their profiles, making their status updates public, and promoting its new realtime search tool. It will also promote users having conversations around news items – a la FriendFeed. The acquisition provides Facebook with a lot of technology that focuses on realtime updates, public conversations, and in-depth discussions. You will see integration with the world’s largest social network very quickly. FriendFeed may even become the model for public discussions on Facebook.

Luckily, you have a choice in these matters. If you want to keep your Facebook profile private between you and your closest friends, you can – just adjust your privacy settings to your network of friends. However, as Facebook opens up more and more, the pressure to open up your profile will increase as well. So prepare yourself for a new Facebook, one that intends to take down Twitter and even give Google a run for its money.

Tags: facebook, twitter