Further to a conversation I had with some of my family members recently about our family’s penchant for unusual names, this popped up in my Google Alerts this morning.
Baby’s illness made worse by flat, says mum From Malvern Gazette.
The woman featured in it is called Roseanne Smith but it’s not me. No doubt this happens all the time to people and while my name is not so unusual, my siblings certainly have far more unusual names. Okay with a surname like Smith only one half of your name can be a differentiator but honestly whoda thunk there would be another Blaise Smith in the world? All my siblings do quite well in Google search with their online profiles. This pops up for Macdara.
This reason I am looking at all these details is because I am helping them with their social media by holding a workshop for them on Monday afternoon. They know some of their stuff and are doing well on MySpace for example but we really need to work on their Search Engine Optimisation and I really believe that social media and blogging in particular is a great route to improving your search engine ranking. We also need to start translating the time they put into their social media into bums on seats/ album sales/ record contracts/ commissions/ listeners whatever. But I also know that all of them would enjoy blogging and be really good at it and would have a lot to offer their communities. Abigail is already blogging but on a terrible platform and Dad has me. his lovely assistant, doing it for him until he gets his head around it. I think they would be great bloggers because they are all interesting and interested people. They are creators and blogs are another blank canvas waiting to be filled by people like them.
So if you have any tips for aspiring creative arts bloggers please share them. Do you read any creative blogs? What other social networks work well for artists? I know Bernie Goldbach recommended Seesmic to me a few months back and I will certainly encourage them to consider it. Qik could also be an option if venues would cop on and offer Wifi as standard. After an evening with the IIA Social Media Working Group discussing podcasting I would really like my oldest brother to consider giving it a go. I think a lot of people would be very interested in hearing his perspective on painting.
I will record the workshop on Monday if my family are happy to do so. Certainly we’ll try and do some video snippets so stay tuned!