A Great Example of a Successful Blog (With Video)

[KarenB]

Candy Beauchamp is a virtual assistant who (in my mind) has really used the best of blogging to the nth degree to promote her personality and services to her prospective clients.

2 Minutes With A VA (http://bit.ly/15qk27)

What I like about this blog is its interactivity, the personal feel of the site and the ability to ask questions and have them answered by a real live person as opposed to searching through an FAQ.

I think the videos add a nice personal touch and reinforce the concept that there is a real live person (or persons) behind the official name of the service/company.

Wish I had thought of it first!

[Harold Mansfield]

Wish I had thought of it first!

Just because she does it , doesn't mean that you can't. Many successful businesses are a combination of ideas, or a culmination of knowledge from failures.

She's basically video blogging. That's not a new concept or one that is protected in any way.

[vangogh]

That is a good blog Karen for all the reasons you mentioned. Definitely a personal touch and useful information in the videos too. I agree with eborg. There's no reason why you can't do the same or similar. What she's doing isn't so unique. Many bloggers are using video. Some mix a video post with a written post and some will mix both in the same post.

Why not give it a shot? It doesn't cost much for a decent video camera or a web cam and sites like YouTube make it easy to upload your video and get back the code to embed it on your site. Also by having the video on YouTube or others it opens you up to potential new audiences.

And you definitely have the personality for it.

[aussieroo1]

Video marketing is a very effective method of promotion because you can express yourself better with it. You can also be creative with the editing to make it more appealing to your target audience.

[cvsols]

What a great idea 2 Minutes with a VA is! I've just started my own VA business and found her site to be very informative as well as entertaining. Gives me some great ideas!
Susan

[vangogh]

Susan even if you don't decide to offer videos, blogging in general can be a great way to help market your site and you.

[greenoak]

this idea of video blogging hasnt hit the style blog world im in...so i posted it today on my blog.... my grandson or my webmistress probably know how to video off my camera..so i might give it a whirl ....
...i think it will be popular.... especially with my target readers.
i could give a paint demonstration or maybe show the hurly burly of an auction.... ..ann

[vangogh]

Even better Ann if no one is doing it in your world yet. Being the first has a lot of advantages.

[cvsols]

I'm definitely interested in blogging, just not sure how to get started. Silly question, do you have a separate website for blogging or do you use your business site?

[Patrysha]

I use my business site, others separate. I like having them together, so that's what I do :-)

[greenoak]

mine is magpie cottage and seperate from the business site..its a blogging site thru blogger....and much easier to build and maintain than a website...
..but we definitely have links back and forth....so the store viewers can easily go to the blog..we also promote it in our emails..and on a few related message boards......its a business blog ....not a mom or wife blog...altho i have a little of that in it too....
mines on blogger and my daughter n law set it up in just a few minutes....after i picked the form thru their offerings.... i blog a few times a week.....mine is pretty casual...my goal is to have something useful and maybe entertaining and definitley pictures....
mine is aimed at getting real not cyber traffic to our store.
ann

[cvsols]

Thank you Patrysha & Ann for your responses. I'm looking into starting a blog using blogger, now I just need to get started. I've got to figure out what to blog about!!
Susan

[billbenson]

Thank you Patrysha & Ann for your responses. I'm looking into starting a blog using blogger, now I just need to get started. I've got to figure out what to blog about!!
Susan

If your just getting started, I'd highly recommend hosting your own site with some software such as WordPress rather than using Blogger. Its a bit more work up front, but when you have your own site, you have far more control and will find it easier to place well in the search engines.

[greenoak]

right ...if you know your way around a computer go for the wordpress...if you need it fast and easy go for blogger.
what to write about....eye candy and usefullness and entertainment......
ann

[vangogh]

WordPress is just as easy to use as Blogger. Ideally, as Bill suggested, you should host it yourself meaning you would install it on the same hosting account as your site. Many hosts make it very simple to install WordPress through a click or two inside the hosting control panel.

You can also sign up for a free account at WordPress.com (http://www.wordpress.com) that works basically the same way Blogger does.

If this is going to be a business blog then you will be much better off having something installed on the same domain as your site. You will gain more benefits from your blog that way than if you sign up for one of the free accounts.

[greenoak]

is it really?
i tried to look at wordpress and for my level blogger sure looked way easier....as in 10 minutes...and it meant not getting into our website...which i would never do..

.several folks told me to stick with blogger as it was easier for my level of ability...
.

[billbenson]

Ann, a question. If you wanted you database of blogs from blogger so you could move to another blog program such as WordPress, can you get it?

My guess is you can't. You are stuck with blogger until the day you die. Either that or copy and paste every blog entry. Carts like yahoo stores operate the same way. You don't have access to your site or the actual coding. It's really not your site. It's on their domain not yours.

[vangogh]

Ann you're thinking of the application WordPress which you download from wordpress.org and install on your site. WordPress also offers the exact same thing as Blogger through wordpress.com (http://www.wordpress.com). You sign up for a free account and within a couple of minutes you have a blog.

I'm sure there are differences between the two if you're already more familiar with one that will be the easier one for you now, but to someone new it shouldn't take any more time to learn to use WordPress than it does to use Blogger. And again you can get the same kind of free account with WordPress as you can with Blogger. You don't need to install anything and you can be blogging in minutes.

[greenoak]

i knew i couldnt move it and had to depend on blogger.....
. im happy there....and havent done evrythng it allows...
i got quite a bit of feedback on this question before i picked blogger....some from on here...
the maybe sad thing is now i have my web person working at our counter a few days a week...and she could have set it up and maybe taught me...i cant get all the blogger uses down yet tho....
ive seen some very neat typepad blogs....!!!
ann

[cvsols]

Wow, thank you for all the great information. I'm going to have a Blog page added to my website and use WordPress. Can't wait to get started! I'll keep you posted.
Susan

[vangogh]

Susan if you're up for it you can have your entire site run on WordPress, not just the blog pages. If you click on any of the links in my signature they'll take you to my site. The whole thing is on WordPress from the home page to very single post.

You'll probably want to have your site developed as a WordPress theme in time. It's something that could be done in a few days. Depending on who you hired it might only cost between $500 and $750. I'm not sure you're looking to spend that at the moment, but I thought I'd let you know. It's an expense, but not a huge one. If you have development skills you could also build the theme yourself. It'll take a little longer to become familiar with how WordPress themes are developed, but you're in luck in that several of us here work with WordPress and could easily help and answer questions.

At first you may just want to get WordPress up and running and play with it to see what you think.

[greenoak]

vg....my bad....i was thinking of typepad not wordpress....when i was picking a blog platform i had seen 2 wonderful blogs on typepad....and then heard how much easier blogger was than the typepad blogs i liked.......i picked blogger ... .....sorry about that confusion.....
do you realize that in the huge network of style /decoration / trend blogs im familiar with almost all of them are on blogger? its huge in my world..i wonder why?

.isnt it connected to google in some way too?> anyway im good on blogger... and not trying to change anything...and i guess i should be hoping they dont collapse and i loose everything....
ann

[vangogh]

Oh got'cha. I've never used Typepad, though I think the learning curve is a little higher. I believe it used to be the platform for blogging until free options like WordPress and Blogger came along.


do you realize that in the huge network of style /decoration / trend blogs im familiar with almost all of them are on blogger?

I bet that's simply what the industry found first. Blogger is certainly easy and so word spreads. And your first entry into blogging was probably seeing someone in the same industry blogging and wanting to blog yourself. You see them using Blogger and so it's naturally what you try. And when people in the industry ask each other they inevitably tell people how they use Blogger.

By the way by 'you' in the above, I meant the generic 'you' and not you specifically.


hoping they dont collapse and i loose everything....

I doubt that would happen anytime soon, though it is a risk whenever we let someone else host our content. In the end your content is somewhat at the mercy of Google and what they decide to do with Blogger. I don't see them collapsing though.

[cvsols]

VG - I looked over your site, its great. How hard is it to get WordPress up and running on my site? I contacted the guy that did my site and he said that it would take some effort to incorporate into my site. Thoughts?
Susan

[vangogh]

Thanks for the compliment.

I'll send you a PM with some info.