So you're ready to start empowering yourself and take control of your organist career?
Good decision. I congratulate you. The best time to start was yesterday. The second best time is now. The first thing you have to do when you want to empower yourself as an organist through blogging is to set up your blogging platform. Here you simply select your domain name which will be your internet address. For this blog I chose my name as the domain name which then allows me to write anything I want. Sometimes if you know that your topic will be very narrow and specific, you can use the keywords of this topic as a domain name. Many keywords are already taken so you have to be creative and use good combinations or even some colorful words which would sparkle the discussion for the domain name. But if in doubt, simply choose your name as the domain name. Once you have registered your domain name, choose a blogging platform. You can use somebody else's blogging platform (such as Medium, Quora, LinkedIn, Facebook or Tumblr) or you can set up your own which you host yourself (such as Wordpress). The good thing about hosting your blog on sites like Medium is that these platforms already have crowds of people who are hungry for great content. It doesn't mean you'll have a built in audience overnight but you have a chance. The downside is that you don't own these platforms because they are free. You basically are their product. They can do whatever they choose with your information. Accounts sometimes get deleted, profiles - hacked. It's rare, but it happens. The good thing about hosting your blog on your own platform is that you can control everything. Nobody is going to take away this asset from you. Yes, you are paying for the hosting but that's why you are also the owner of your content. So you have to decide what works for you. I use Weebly. It works for me. When you're ready, the first thing you write is the ABOUT page. Use pictures, text, audio or video to tell your life story in a conversational manner. Remember, your future readers will definitely check out this page to find out more about who you are, what you do and why should they care. If they won't like what they see, they'll leave. You have only one shot. Perhaps 7 seconds to make that first impression. Don't blow it. Set up a page where people can contact you also, leave a message along with their name and email address. This is very useful because in the future, when you have some credibility and authority in the organ world, it will increase your chances to get invited to play organ recitals, find organist positions, receive deals for promoting your music and basically develop your organ career. At this point you may already have your Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google Plus profiles, your YouTube and SoundCloud channels, and any other social media platforms that you use. Connect them to your blog so that your future readers would find more opportunities to connect with you. Not only place links to the social media on your blog but also go out and place links on your social media profiles that would point back to your blog. This way your blog and social media will get interlinked to increase the chance to find your future fans. Once you've done this, you will be ready to take the next step towards empowering yourself as an organist. Stay tuned. Let me know if you need help with anything or feel stuck.
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