Category Archives: Tutorials

Marketing 301 For Bloggers

13 Replies

Probably the most controversial subject for bloggers and blogger marketing is the relationship between bloggers and designers and review or promotional items that they may feature in their blogs. This is a topic fraught with misconceptions, angst, resentments and drama, so let’s just jump right in.

Let’s start with one of the most widely held misconceptions about bloggers – that they are motivated purely out of avarice, blogging solely in order to rake in free stuff from designers. As with any misconception, there’s a few grains of truth out of which people have made a whole loaf of error. It’s likely some people start blogging in hopes of raking it in, but they don’t last. Once they realize how much work and expense is involved in blogging, they quit. That’s why so many feeds, events and store review policies have a requirement that someone have blogged for three months or so – it winnows out the ones who are not motivated by love of fashion and blogging. You can look into Ful.io to get more ideas about how to make your blog stand out from rest of the others. Continue reading →

Marketing 201 For Bloggers

5 Replies

In the ever-evolving landscape of online marketing, growing businesses are increasingly recognizing the significance of Search Engine Optimization experts to boost their visibility and reach a broader audience. Just as bloggers seek to enhance their blog’s exposure through social network marketing and other strategies, businesses also realize the value of SEO in improving their chances of reaching potential customers and generating leads. Partnering with skilled SEO professionals can help businesses implement crucial methods that will elevate their rankings in search results and drive organic traffic to their websites. Embracing the advice shared in this insightful post, bloggers can cultivate consistency, engagement, and authenticity while navigating the digital landscape with enthusiasm, patience, and positivity, if not you can still turn to SEO experts. So, dive into the world of SEO and watch your blog soar to new heights!

A few months ago, Gidge did an intro to marketing for bloggers seeking to get the world out about their blog on different social networks. That social network marketing is a critical portion of marketing your blog, particularly in its first few months before it gets added to any feeds. Once you have some history, though, it’s time to start taking additional steps.

Blog Consistently

People will get in the habit of checking your blog regularly if you blog consistently. This does not have to be everyday. It can even be just once a week, but then make sure you do blog once a week, not once this week and four times three weeks later. Make it habitual so people can count on you. If they visit your blog three times without finding new content, they will quit visiting.

Getting Syndicated.

Once you have been blogging for three months or so, it is time to apply to be added to feeds.  A feed aggregates posts from multiple web sites so people can look at the single feed instead of going to multiple websites. Most feeds will not add a blog that does not have 6 weeks or longer of sustained, regular blog posts.

Continue reading →

How to Use FILTERCAM – Yeah It's A Tutorial

2 Replies

My friend and fellow blogger Gala and some other people have asked me what is this Filtercam thing that Cajsa and I (and some others) have been on about lately. It’s certainly not NEW but what is new is that a whole new pack of filters has just been released, an expansion pack if you will, and it’s got the awesome written all over it. Of course – that information isn’t all that useful to you if you don’t know what we’re talking about in the first place.

So, let me explain. Continue reading →

IOF PSA: Marketing 101 for Bloggers – Social Networks

2 Replies

So after Cajsa did her unbelievably thorough marketing pieces for Creators (mostly fueled by frustration- don’t get us started) it was mulling through both our minds that not only do Creators need some sort of SOP and content marketing strategies for marketing success, so do us bloggers.

This list is by no means comprehensive or complete. Blogging is a real time evolving thing. It changes month to month. Day to day even. You don’t have to write complete sentences to be a blogger. (see what I did there?)

Regardless, there are some things you can do to improve your blog’s marketing and traffic and I thought I’d list of some of those basics here.

First of all quit lying about not caring about traffic. If you didn’t care about traffic your blog would be private or invitation only. You DO care. The degree to which you care is what is going to motivate you to take steps to market your blog effectively, and how aggressively you market yourself.

We bloggers are peacocks of various ilk. That’s ok. It’s what we do. So then, where to start? Continue reading →

Fun With GOS Boots or HOW THE SHOE POLISH WORKS

1 Reply

One of the things I’ve learned in four years, is that you can never be sure that everyone GETS everything. I’ve been asked a couple of times recently if I knew how the boot polishes at GOS worked, so I figured HEY BLOG POST.

Cuz I have a blog.

So first off, take yourself to GOS and buy yourself some boots or shoes that have the boot polish system available. For my example I’m going to use the 8 hole DOCS.

They look like this, only smaller. Continue reading →

IOF PSA: Marketing 201 for Creators

7 Replies

So your store is up and running. We can find your store from search and from your profile. Now it’s time to get the word out.

In-World Marketing Groups: I am a group-a-phobe and have no real expertise on in-world groups for marketing, but that’s okay. Harper Beresford is. She did a great summary on in-world groups for the Fashion Forum at Second Life Community Forums. Store owners should join marketing groups that connect designers with customers, but remember to be considerate and follow the posting guidelines for the group. Sasy points out that not all of these groups are for marketing, some are for advice and chat. MenStuff and WomenStuff are two from her list that are for marketing. There’s also What’s New SL and Fashion Consolidated or FashCon. Please post more suggestions in the comments. 

Continue reading →

IOF PSA: Marketing 101 for Creators

4 Replies

Kevin Costner has a lot to answer for. I know that “If you build it, they will come.” sounds lovely and all, but if you build it, they won’t come unless you tell them what you built and where to find it.

Who you are, what you built and where to find it – the essentials of marketing in Second Life. That’s not hard, but sadly many creators spend so much time and energy on their creations, they forget to market them.  I am writing this from the shoppers’ perspective and know that you may have other ideas. I am telling you how I look for and find stores and what I think is critical to making it easy for me.

Continue reading →

Making Your Own Child's AO

2 Replies

Gidge’s SL daughter, Hatchy Mills, made an adorable child’s Animation Override at a very low cost. With the popularity of children’s avatars growing, there is a need for children’s AO that produce the naive, unaffected and innocent movements and stances of children.  While a child at Hogwarts would need something more sedate than this one, there’s nothing to stop you from making your own AO at little cost.

Continue reading →

Lighting, Shadows and Projectors, Oh My!

12 Replies

So, now that my preferences are set and I have fine-tuned my windlight settings, I can finally take a picture! Whew! But wait, my necklace is missing pieces and my feet show through my shoes. I even have some bald patches! And after all that work!

Never fear! Debug is here!

Open Debug Settings from the Advanced Menu and type in rendervolumeLODFactor. It will autocomplete by the time you type L which stands for LOD which stands for Level of Detail. You want this set at 4 or higher. I find that 4 is high enough for everything I am wearing, but I suppose if I wanted to see the hazelnut in the raven’s claws 75 meters overhead, I might want to crank it up higher.

Continue reading →

Where Did They Hide My Windlight?

10 Replies

Those of us who have installed Second Life viewer updates recently have all had a moment when we said “Gack! Where’s my windlight? What have they done!!!” Actually, I am sure most of us had more profane things to say as we struggled to understand this new interface. My first reaction was totally negative. I have found a couple silver linings, though, to the grey cloud that is the new interface and struggled through. I am sure that other folks who are also exploring the new interface has even more ideas of how to use it more easily and hope everyone can share their tips, because the new interface has confounded some folks. As I get more comfortable with it, there are some things I value.

The Environment Editor is in the same place as ever, though we have faster access to the different components of the editor than before. They have also given us some additional day presets so we can choose our Second Life environment and still have it cycle through day and night. This will be a great benefit to role-playing sims and other sims that want a day and night cycle, but want a different environment than the default we are all used to.

Ambitious people can create their own Day Cycle or Fixed Sky settings and make them the default for their region, giving people a much stronger level of control over how people experience their sims. We used to get notecards at a sim with a suggested windlight setting we could replicate if we weren’t too lazy. Then we could get notecards in some viewers that we could click on to import a setting or get a link to a preset we could download and install, if we weren’t too lazy. Now, all we have to do is got there and unless we override the region’s lighting with our own, we will see what they want us to see. That’s a bonus.

Continue reading →