Today I had a chat with my buddy Marko Saric who is a semi-professional blogger and organizer of the London Blog Club. He shared his best blogging and social media tips, and he revealed who his favorite blogger is.
What is your day job Marko?
I work in blogging and social media. My day job title is Social Media Manager at PartyPoker.com and blogging is seen as a big part of that.
What is your background?
I got into marketing very early on, then studied it at university and excited by this new thing called e-marketing. I got more and more into internet marketing and started creating static HTML websites back in 1990's.
How did you get into blogging?
Somewhere around 2005/2006 the buzz word was Web 2.0, which let users engage and interact with webmasters much more than a static HTML site could do. Blogs were a big part of the web 2.0 movement so I decided to check them out and converted one of my static sites into a WordPress blog.
What are your 3 best tips for new and intermediate bloggers?
1. Create the best content you can
2. Get out there and connect to your audience
3. Do both of them above daily and consistently for a year or so
How important is personal branding in the blogging world?
Personal branding is important in everything you do. You want people to see you as an expert in your field and because of that you need to push your name, your face and your skills as much as possible. You need to brand yourself if you want to get the big benefits in blogging or in any other area.
How useful is social media to promote a blog?
Social media is where the people are so if you want people to visit your blog you better be in social media and connect to your audience. The most useful tool / platform is Facebook as that is where the most people are. Some other social media platforms that I regularly use to build connections and drive traffic are Twitter and Stumbleupon.
How do you use social media at PartyPoker?
Kind of the same way as I do all of mine projects. It all starts with a blog where you create a lot of valuable content and promotions that people like to read, participate in and share. Whatever you can do that can make people spend time with it, spend time engaging with it and spend time spreading it to their whole network is what works best.
What’s the London Blog Club?
The London Blog Club is a monthly meetup in London that I help organize that helps local bloggers meet other bloggers face to face, network, get connections in the blogging / social media industry and also leanr from the guest speakers.
Who are you favorite bloggers?
I subscribe to too many blogs so it is very hard to say. Someone who always impresses me with their content is Steve Pavlina. Every time there is a new post from Steve in my RSS reader, I get to click it and spend too much time reading his posts and his archives as he is so good to get you in.
What has Marko got in the pipeline at the moment?
Not much. Going on a long vacation tomorrow where I plan to unplug as much as possible and only do some work here and there from my mobile if really urgently needed.
What’s the one thing people can do to help you?
Check out my blog HowToMakeMyBlog and get in touch with me on Twitter at @MarkoSaric