Master Blogging & More With Ms. Ileane
Ms. Ileane was one of the first bloggers I followed and I’ve learned a lot from her. I could not believe she still works full time and I really wanted to know, “How does she do it all and set the bar for us bloggers? ” I cannot keep up with her! She can master blogging and so much more.
My Interview With Ms. Ileane, a Master Blogging Queen & More
Ms. Ileane how do you do it all? You are superwoman, everywhere all the time. Do you still work full time?
Yes, I recently celebrated 30 years on the job. But I’m not unique. We have something called “The 25 Year Club” and there are about 40 of us. I feel truly blessed that I found a company to work for that’s more like a second family.
In what field do you work Ms. Ileane?
We are a not-for-profit publisher that is also known as a standards development organization. The standards are developed by the technical experts and we are the administrators. I’m the membership manager.
Did you really start blogging by accident?
Absolutely! I owe it all to my beautiful daughter Nikki who called me one day back in 2009 to announce that she started a blog. I went to check it out and in the process of trying to “follow” her’s I ended up registering http://ileane.wordpress.com
How long have you been blogging? I believe I see 2009 on your blog / about you.
Yes, that’s correct.
What made you go with multiple authors for your blog Ms. Ileane?
Would you be interested in doing a guest post on Basic Blog Tips?” https://www.facebook.com/questions/195549000491236/You are the Queen of Video Ms. Ileane, were you always good in front of the camera?
Lisa, with over 135,000 views, and more than 1,500 subscribers you might be surprised to learn that the overwhelming majority of my 150+ videos – I am NOT in front of the camera. I try to encourage people all the time to make YouTube videos and you don’t need to ever get in front of the camera if you don’t want to. Truthfully speaking you don’t even need to speak into the microphone. You can use a program like SoundGecko to read your transcripts or blog posts.
Back to your question, I don’t really think that I’m “good in front of the camera” but after watching hours and hours of YouTube videos on my 55” SmartTV (I can see every little pimple) I have come to the conclusion that you really don’t need to be all that great on camera. What you DO need is to provide the information that your audience is looking for. Sometimes they just want to laugh or be entertained, other times they’re trying to solve a problem – just keep posting videos until you find out what resonates with your audience. Then you can make more videos that are similar in style and content. Don’t try to get your video to go viral, just keep providing value.
The most watched video on my channel is a tutorial I did for Diigo (which I don’t even use anymore) and at one point they featured the video on the Chrome extension download page. I haven’t checked lately to see if it’s still there, but I keep getting lots of views on on it every month.
The other video that gets a lot of views on my channel is one that I discovered by watching my YouTube Analytics. I noticed that people were searching for “Chrome Toolbar”. It’s actually pretty funny because technically there is no such thing as a Chrome Toolbar but that’s what “the people” want to call it – so I give it to them. This one is called “Google Chrome Toolbar and How to Manage Your Chrome Extensions
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gX0uSJbG3zE
What is your favorite video that you did?
I really don’t have a favorite, well let me rephrase that. My latest video is always my favorite video so the one that is my favorite this week won’t be my favorite next week.
But over the past 30 days my most popular video is “What to Wear in Your YouTube Video” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rr6C6KSC-2c
I got a lot of comments from my friends on that one because it was my first attempt at comedy on YouTube. I made a point of giving it a serious title, but I probably will change the title one day to – What NOT to Wear in Your YouTube Video.
What is your favorite social network?
YouTube – can’t you tell? lol
I can spend hours on YouTube and even when I shut down my laptop, I will turn off the nightly news to watch YouTube videos (tutorials of course – no cat videos allowed on my TV).
Ms. Ileane you shocked everyone when you went from CommentLuv to G+ comments, what made you do it? How is it going?
Just Installed Google+ Comments WordPress Plugin by @alexmoss http://t.co/AF7xs4s8lg via @3doordigital
— Ileane Smith (@Ileane) May 29, 2013
I am a huge fan of Andy Bailey and I’m also still a huge supporter of CommentLuv. I recommend it to anyone who is looking to get more comments and increase engagement.
The problem that I started to have is that I was getting WAY too many comments. I know some people would love to have that problem but, I’m only one person (with a full time job). In the past when I thought about removing CL, I didn’t like any of the alternatives. I like Google+ comments because it doesn’t cause me any extra work. I spend a lot of time on Google+ anyway so it’s pretty handy for me kill two birds with one stone.
People ask me if I’m afraid I’ll get less comments. Put it this way, since I started the blog 4 years ago there are close to 40,000 comments that have been published on the blog. Just imagine how many I deleted!
Don’t get me wrong, I love getting comments and connecting with people on the blog but like I mentioned earlier Google+ comments kills both birds with one stone.
Be sure to tune in to my podcast to get more of my thoughts on Google+ comments in an upcoming episode. You can find it at http://msileanespeaks.com or subscribe in iTunes at http://basicblogtips.com/itunes
Thanks for inviting me over for a chat Lisa! I enjoyed it.
Thank you Ms. Ileane – you are truly an amazing lady!
Have you followed Ms. Ileane and learned from her as well on how to master blogging?
