Moments in Time

This is a guest post by Joshua A. DeLung.

So, I’ve never met Kelvin Oliver — not in person, anyway. We’ve known each other online for quite some time now, though, and I suppose just the notion that I would refer to him as a “friend I have down in Memphis” might have been a bit absurd only a few years ago. But with the increasing popularity of social media (which has been popular among folks like Kelvin and I for years now), I think it’s becoming more and more common to consider people you’ve never met before, at least loosely, as friends.

And why not? Friends are people we can bounce ideas off of, people we can turn to for advice, people with whom we can collaborate. So when Kelvin asked if I would consider a guest post for Moments In Time, I thought sure, why not, why wouldn’t I write guest post for that friend I have down in Memphis who coordinates a mean synchroblog?

But with writing a guest post comes the need for a topic. I mean, sure, part of guest blogging is an opportunity at shameless promotion of one’s own blog or agenda. But you just don’t want to come up in someone else’s audience and have those readers come away questioning the blog owner’s decision-making skills after you’ve supplied him or her with a dud of a post.

Now, about that need for a topic…  oh yes, so here are five tips to a good guest blog post (I think that’s what I was getting at):

1) Have a clever, insightful introduction that mentions the contemporary state of medium.

2) Be sure that you promote the host’s blog in the nut paragraph, not your own! (Until, that is, the end of the guest post.)

3) Pretend as though you were struggling to find a topic, just to keep readers on the edge of their seats (even though everyone knows writer’s block is something only experienced by people who aren’t really meant to be writers… the rest of us always have something to say, whether it has any value or not).

4) Use a sort of how-to list because people probably will not read the rest of the post and will only scroll down to grab some quick tips anyway. (Caught you!)

5) You should probably do some research about the audience of the blog on which you’re posting, chat with the blog owner about expectations, find something useful to say, include fun links, follow the style of the host blog and do a bunch of other technical hoopla.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this post, readers of Moments in Time! Perhaps you found it helpful, entertaining or just plain confusing. Ciao!

Joshua A. DeLung is the creator, owner and primary writer at Relatively Journalizing, where he writes about journalism, public relations, new media, life musings, sports and more. In addition, he also blogs for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Empowers Web site, which chronicles the personal stories of American people whose lives have been touched by energy-efficient and renewable energy technologies.

The views, opinions and any other content created by Joshua A. DeLung on personal or social media sites do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. government or any other entity and are not approved by or affiliated with those entities.