Kolkata Bloggers conducted a workshop on "Blogging and Digital Media" at the Heritage Institute of Technology as part of their Entrepreneurship Summit "EntreSpark 2016". The workshop was held recently.
AnirbanSaha, founder of Kolkata Bloggers spoke about the concept of "Ideas to Implementation" and how blogging forms a part of this process. He spoke about the role of blogging as a tool for personal branding, and how a proper digital presence is of paramount importance in today's professional spectrum. Companies and brands today realise the need for engaging users and potential customers online, which is where the role of a blogger has evolved.
The workshop then discussed different elements of a good blog post and showed the use of tools such as a headline analyser or a related keyword search tool. Terms such as the 8-second challenge were introduced and explained to the audience. The importance of other elements of a blog post such as tags and categories or mentioning a clear call-to-action were other aspects discussed in this part of the session.
The discussion then moved on to one of the most key aspects of a personal blog and its blog posts – the fact that these posts have archival value. AnirbanSaha showed examples from his own blog to highlight the effect that this archival value has in google searches and direct organic reach. Having established this, we moved on to the concept of Conversion Rates – something that businesses today definitely try and determine before hiring a blogger. With sample numbers and demographics, the effect of a good conversion rate was made clear.
The audience included a bunch of new bloggers, some experienced bloggers and some who did not yet have their own blogs. Students from colleges such as Jadavpur University, Ashutosh College, IEM and Heritage attended the session, while some of the attendees were college graduates. A large section of the audience was very responsive and interactive. Questions regarding the framing of a blog post, the manner of search engine optimisation and boosting digital presence were asked and answered at the session.
The workshop lasted about an hour and a half, and was a value addition to all interested people present. Kolkata Bloggers looks forward to conducting similar workshops in the future as well.