Exclusively for bloggers only, Your Blog™ was an open session where speakers and bloggers interact freely to share thoughts and ideas on how your blog could be moulded into a personal brand, depending on what you want to achieve with the blog.

Firstly, Yongfook shared his experiences themed as 8 profound and life-changing things that happened because of my blog. For every of these pointers, he made sure to emphasise “..and this would not have happened if not because of my blog.” The experiences, impacts and benefits reaped from blogging. He talked about how his blog evolved over the years, from Japanese food reviews to design & development; and how his readers grew accustomed with the switch of content.

Arti Mulchand, a former journalist, really inspired and motivated me with her contribution on Write Right. Writing well does not neccessary mean the usage of many difficult words for the purpose of impressing readers. Quality content is what matters. Good writing should be clear, precise, and able to induce curiousity from readers to read further into the story; also known as “scattering gold coins“. And, this can be effective by putting together with as little as six words! 

Next up, Designer Brian Ling talked about creating and managing your blog(s) as different facets of your brand personality, or purpose. You could have a blog, twitter, flickr and facebook. You have the authority to decide what to do with each of these properties and how you want them to link up as part of your portfolio. He briefly mentioned about SWOT – Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunites and Threats, and how to leverage on these factors to decide the best direction for your blog.  

Finally, Toysrevil emphasised on having a unique voice, even if it meant for him to be blogging in Singlish. Also about having original content - pictures of his toys’ collection, and credible content – how he managed to obtain press releases first-hand. It’s to go the extra mile to stand out from the crowd, to have something worthy that would attract readers to re-visit the blog for updated content.

These have been useful insights and positive motivation for me.  

Thanks to Pat Law | Oglivy for organising the session!

Also, read Key Take-aways by Brian Koh.