Sonia Marsh - Gutsy Living

Is your blog different from other blogs?

April 4, 2011 by Sonia Marsh

If you want your blog to be successful and draw visitors, you might want to sit down, analyze your blog and dissect it to death. Remember those biology classes you took in school? The ones where you cut open an earthworm and labeled it? Well, that’s what I’m talking about, and before all you SEO experts and gurus laugh at me and say, “What about you Gutsy Writer?” let me tell you, I’m in the process of doing this and realize the changes I need to focus on. Give me a break, it’s a learning process. So what about you? Have you thought about your message, what you want others to get from your blog? Darren Rowse from ProBlogger is running 31 Days to build a better blog, the 31D BBB challenge, and the first day is all about your pitch.

Not easy, and believe me, I can relate. If we take our blogs seriously, we go through stages questioning whether or not we’re on the right track. Here are six questions to help you focus on your goals.

What is my message?
Who is my audience?
Do I stick to a theme or am I all over the place?
Should I hire an expert?
Can I do it myself and save money?
Why can’t I just have fun? (If you’re like me, overcoming challenges can be fun. Did I really say that?)

I read many marketing blogs and books and they always talk about the importance of your pitch, message, or tag line. This applies to blogs, manuscripts, screen plays, whatever you’re creating and wish to share with the world.

So today, I’d like to ask you to reflect on your blog. How is it different from all the others out there? In order to help you take the first steps, how would you classify your blog? (Pick the three most relevant to you.)

Educational
Entertaining
Informative
Motivational
Inspirational
Empowering
Spiritual
Uplifting
Journalistic
Artsy
Financial
Humorous
Promotional
Selling
Other (Please describe in your comment below.)

Useful Marketing Tip: If your goal is to get more followers, then just like getting media attention, your blog needs to focus on being:

Entertaining
Informative
Motivational

Here are three very helpful books I’ve used:

Marsha Friedman’s book “Celebritize Yourself” offers the steps you need to work on if you’re ready for media attention.
Darren Rowse : 31-Days to becoming a better blogger.
Annabel Candy: 12 Steps to Successful Blogging

So what is the message you want to share with your readers?
Are there any changes you wish to make with your blog?

4 Important Keys to Prepare for a Happy Marriage (After Retirement)

March 31, 2011 by Sonia Marsh

My Guest today is Bob Lowry From

Satisfying Retirement

Bob started his blog Satisfying Retirementin June 2010. He gives us tons of helpful advice, and whether you’re a retirement “veteran,” have newly joined the ranks of the “no longer working,” or are still a few years away but have questions, you’re in for a treat today.

4 Important Keys to Prepare for a Happy Marriage (After Retirement)

One of the biggest adjustments most of us will have to make after retiring is being around another person, all day, everyday. Whether we are the one who has stopped working, or it is our spouse, it is hard to ignore the “extra” person in the room. Marriage manuals tell you that together time is great. They are right. After all those years of leaving the house each day it feels really special to be together.

However, There is a flip side. All that together time can make for a rocky journey if not handled properly. Routines and responsibilities that have been dealt with a certain way are suddenly upended. Here are 4 keys to help make your married life after retirement satisfying and fulfilling.

Spend time on shared interests. Retirement gives you and the other person a chance to spend more time doing something you both enjoy. Notice I used the word chance. This won’t happen just because you are together. It will only happen if the two of you strive to make it happen.

Here is something many of us forget about shared interests: you may have a shared interest you don’t know about yet. Try this: each of you agrees to do something the other person enjoys for a set period of time. If it doesn’t work, drop it and try something else. You just might discover something you love and don’t know how you got along without it.

Develop complementary interests. This doesn’t mean telling the other person how good he or she looks today, though that isn’t a bad idea. I’m referring to combining interests that compliment each other. For example, I like to take photographs and have a decent eye for composition. But, I do not have the patience to edit each photo for color balance, sharpness, or perspective. Luckily for us my wife loves that kind of work and is very good at it. She likes taking photos too, but secretly I think it is just so she can edit them. Our skills compliment each other and allow us to complete a project that neither one of us could tackle as well individually.

Understand the need for private time and space. Each of us must have a period when we are alone. We must be able to simply “be” without having to respond or comment or decide. We must have time to be involved with interests and activities that we don’t share with another. It is important to make it clear you are not avoiding the other person because he or she irritates you. Both of you must discuss boundaries of duties and time so each protects what is important to the other person.

Above all communication is crucial. Effective communication is hard work. It involves a type of listening called reflective listening. This is when you briefly summarize what you believe the other person has said and then respond. Reflective listening is a sign of respect because you are not formulating your answer while he or she is speaking. Trust me. Without strong communication the other three keys won’t matter.

Bob has put together a 61-page e-book, which you can download for FREE.
I have it and am sharing it with my husband. It’s great to plan ahead.

From Building a Satisfying Retirement: How to Make the Most of this new Phase of Your Life

10 Social Media Steps You Should Take Today

March 28, 2011 by Sonia Marsh

US Women
from Velo Steve

I spend my time reading articles on how to improve my social media skills, but often, feel extremely overwhelmed. It’s almost as if technology is whizzing past me and I’m on a bicycle, racing faster and faster, trying to keep up. Perhaps I need a new bicycle.

Like most people, I love to learn, but cannot help myself from dreaming of Belize, where I lived for a year, from 2004-2005, and wrote in my journal, “I’m bored!” What I meant was, I had so much free time on my hands, I remember finishing a 1,000 piece puzzle with my ten-year-old son, Jordan. The next time I sit down to a 1,000 piece puzzle, I shall probably be in a retirement home.

This is not a luxury that most of us writers, bloggers, and self-employed, have in today’s world, where things have turned towards branding and self-promotion. I recently ordered a great book, Celebritize Yourself: The Three Step Method to Increase Your Visibility and Explode Your Business, by Marsha Friedman, an expert on PR and branding yourself. Marsha clearly points out that becoming a celebrity means, “You’re not really talking about yourself: you’re simply opening a dialogue about what you know, what you learned, what you have to offer and how you can help your listener.”

So first thing this morning, I started reading Eva Kaplan-Leiserson’s article on “10 Social Media Steps You Should Take (But I Don’t Have To)” and now realize which areas I need to focus on. Please read Eva’s article for a detailed explanation on how to accomplish these ten goals.

1. Launch your website. Include such sections as About Me and Contact Me, including a good description of what you do. (Mine is reserved Soniamarsh.com.)

2. Create a blog. (Done) As Eva points out, “Make sure you’re going to post regularly. It doesn’t have to be every day, but it should probably be at least every week, to keep people coming back.”

3. Set up a program like Google Reader for others’ blogs. (I use Google Reader to keep up to date with other blog posts. Do you?) Eva mentions, “There may be some people who still don’t tweet their blog posts.” I hope you do.

4. Start a Twitter account and create a background. (Do you all have Twitter accounts? Let’s connect.) Eva explains the importance of, “Titling your account with either your name or the name of something else you want to brand (your company name, your book name, etc.)”

5. Use a Twitter dashboard like TweetDeck. (I’m doing that today. What about you?) This allows you to “glance columns for people you follow, direct messages, tweets that mention you, even Facebook status updates.”

6. Create a Facebook Page. (Is yours for business purposes?) “If you have a company, create a page for it. It’s important that this be separate from your personal page.”

7. Join a Facebook Group. (I’ve joined several groups. Have you?) “Groups are great ways to keep in touch with certain segments of your friends or get support for certain niche interests or activities.”

8. Set up a Linkedin account. (I have one, do you?. If so let’s connect.) “While more and more people are using Facebook professionally for their companies, Linkedin is still the go-to place for individual professional accounts.”

9. Link to social media accounts on your website. You need big, visible buttons up on your website so that people can easily subscribe to them.

10. Explore other options but don’t get overwhelmed. (I am still figuring this out as I keep learning.) As Eva points out, “it’s better to use a few tools well than create 100 different social media accounts that will look like ghost towns because you never use them.”

Now it’s time for me to race my new bike again. But first the gym to warm-up. What about you?

Successful bloggers tell stories like Darren Rowse

March 24, 2011 by Sonia Marsh

Darren Rowse in Tanzania March 2011

A few weeks ago, I discovered something about Darren Rowse, the Australian guy (guru) behind ProBlogger I didn’t know. Apart from his expert advice on blogging, he wanted to share another facet of himself by conducting a bold experiment called: the Tanzania Blog Project. He decided to take us into the lives of ordinary Tanzanians, especially women and children with medical issues, and share the wonderful work conducted by CBM: an Australian non-profit..

Darren wanted us to see and feel like we’re with him, without leaving our comfortable armchair. Through his daily interviews on video, we’re able to follow the lives of Tanzanian kids like Athman, the ten-year-old boy who is constantly picked on because of his disability. Darren’s video shows us what CBM in conjunction with CCBRT (a Tanzanian non-governmental organization) are doing to help at their disability hospital in Dar es Salaam. Darren states that Athman’s biggest problem isn’t his physical disability, but his “social isolation.” He managed to capture Athman getting mobile on this video.

We get to hear about another common problem in Tanzania, women with fistulas. This is a problem that can be treated, but many women live in “shame” and are also “socially isolated” or badly treated by others. Darren interviews two women, Hadija, who is older, and who has suffered 30 years with her fistula problem. She did not realize it could be treated until a younger woman, Niguala (who’s had a fistula for two months) heard about the hospital from a neighbor.

Some of the harsh realities of Tanzanian life are:

35 women die a day from maternal health issues.
120 babies die within 24 hours of being born every day.
Fistulas are a common problem in women in Tanzania, many caused by child birth.

Darren says in his final video, “Instead of thinking about the depressing aspects, we need to focus on the fact that there are people out there helping.” Disability is more about not being able to participate, because kids and adults are secluded by others. “It’s our attitudes that stop disabled people from reaching their potential.”

I agree with Darren that getting involved with project like the Tanzania Project, reminds us of some of the things happening in other parts of the world. I think it’s uplifting to see volunteers helping. I know I benefited tremendously from my ten days of volunteering with a group of U.S. nurses in a Mayan school in Belize.

It’s difficult for many to travel to far away places like Tanzania, however, I appreciate the way Darren captured the “stories” of many women and children, and opened our eyes to what’s being done, and how we can help.

Why do we let young girls dress like that?

March 21, 2011 by Sonia Marsh

Taylor Momsen 17-years-old

Have you noticed how more and more teenagers and tweens are dressing provocatively or is it just me?

In an article by Jennifer Moses in the Wall Street Journal, she poses the question, “Why do so many of us not only permit our teenage daughters to dress like this—like prostitutes, if we’re being honest with ourselves—but pay for them to do it with our AmEx cards?” This controversial article and interview has 280 comments since it was published on Saturday March 19th. Many of those who commented were angry at Jennifer Moses, however, she does have a point: the media is bombarding young girls with role models like Miley Cyrus and Paris Hilton and tween catalogs are advertising clothing as “sexy and flirty.” In another article entitled “Too Sexy Too Soon,” you can see how the fashion industry is putting pressure on tweens to look sexy.

There is nothing new to the fact that young girls want to be cute and flirty, however, I’ve seen some eleven-year-old girls dress so provocatively that you question, “What is their intention? Jennifer Moses asks, “What are they saying? I’ve got them, come and get them?” She admits that some mothers are better at guiding their daughters than others, and that she has had problems with her own daughter while trying to bond during a shopping trip. Excuses like, “It’s no big deal mom, everyone is dressing like that,” or “Just cause I dress like that doesn’t mean I’m having sex,” are common. She admits that teenagers will drive you crazy, and you end up giving in.

There are some moms and dads contributing to this behavior by shopping with their daughters and throwing them parties at clubs. It’s almost like they’re saying, ‘Look how hot my daughter is.'” But why? One mother says, “It’s a bonding thing. It starts with the mommy-daughter manicure and goes on from there.” On the other hand, Jennifer Moses who grew up at the tail-end of the hippie generation, brings her own theory. She says, “It has to do with how conflicted my own generation of women is about our own past, when many of us behaved in ways that we now regret.” She continues, “We are the first moms in history to have grown up with widely available birth control, the first who didn’t have to worry about getting knocked up.”

When asked what about her message, Jennifer Moses believes we need to make kids aware of the following: