Blogs are like little news websites that have sprouted in the internet world very rapidly. It is really very easy to start a blog using free tools like blogspot and wordpress. Volunteers working in Asia to help poorer Asians face many challenges and difficulties. They may have interesting and exciting encounters to share with others. Many of them are still writing letters and postcards.
It is much easier to write their stories in the form of a blog. When we write our stories and post them online we can potentially reach a reader base of over 1.56 billion internet users. I cannot understand why there are still so many organizations which persisted in ‘cutting down more trees’ to print brochures and letters to update their donors.
Donors often give to charities blindly and they really do not know how the money is going to be spent. It will be very rewarding for the donors to be able to read the stories and encounters faced by the volunteers in the frontline. People who give to orphanages to sponsor orphans would be thrilled to be able to read and see photos of the orphans posted in a blog by volunteers.
We are very privileged to have Dr Leslie Tay who came to share with us during the Goducate seminar (19-01-2010) on his experience with blogging online. Dr Tay is a general practitioner who became famous in the online web community in Singapore because of his food blog, “IeatIshootIpost.sg. His food blog has a very high ranking on Alexa and wide base of online readers.
(Dr Leslie Tay sharing passionately about his experience in blogging)
He shared with us the following tips on how to write a blog:
1. Keep it concise and easily scannable
2. Keep in mind who you are writing for. Example: The style for writing to target readers who are businessmen is different from the style to target children.
3. Write something unique and useful
4. Make it personal. Write as if you are talking to a friend.
5. Provide an attention grabbing photo to evoke an emotional response.
6. The first paragraph must make an impact.
7. Make your Headline POP!
8. Make people chuckle
9. Provide nuggets of information
10. Aim to create a response.
Goducate is a non profit organization with a mission to help poorer Asians help themselves. We are grateful to Dr Leslie Tay for spending his precious time with us during the Goducate seminar. If you are good in blogging or an expert in SEO, we really want to hear from you. We need all the help and advice we could get from people like Dr Leslie Tay or experience bloggers to help us to help these poorer Asians.
We need you to be a voice for the poor Asians!