Blogging 101 : All You Need to Know

- Lalnunkimi Colney

Ever wondered what’s all the rage about blogs? Well, they are pages of your own at the internet where you can scribble whatever you like about fashion, travel, photography and etc. It’ll take just a few clicks for you to become a publisher, a writer or a reviewer, “You can be anything you want in the world,” never seemed more appropriate than it does with blogging.

 How do you make use of this openly available online portal?

For Those Who Love Fashion

            The majority of the people in Mizoram are fashion fanatics all the way. The evidence can be seen in our wardrobes, markets and our thoughts – that always worry about what to wear tomorrow.

             There are various people from Northeast who have entered the realms of fashion blogging, for example, from Mizo’s there are people like – Esther Fanai with the blog, lahlahishere.blogspot.in whose rare sense of fashion has caused quite a stir in the Indian blogging scene. Then there’s Imsu Pitshala at www.theaili.in from Nagaland who has been picked among the top 40 Asian bloggers. The blogger not just documents about her innovative style and lust-worthy trips, but also has a small online portal where she sells shoes and clothes, worn and new.

            For Mizo students, fashion blogging would be the greatest advantage since the rest of India is really interested in the fashion sense of the North-East. All you will have to do is click pictures of your good outfits, post them online, and as you gain popularity, brands will be on the hunt for you.

Why do the sellers need it?

            Brands, upcoming corporations and online retail stores are always on the hunt for dedicated bloggers who will promote and introduce their products to the rest of the world. You can give reviews, describe the particular product or just share a picture. The more pageviews and followers you have, the better products you get to share to the market. For those with greater popularity, you can expect new shoes, clothes, make-up and even toiletries on the regular. The biggest brands will be happy just to have you pose in their products. But, it takes some effort to get up there.

For Those Who Love to Write

            Words, they have the power to make a change, to inspire and to transform. And, the power of words can be spread to its best effect through blogging. For poems that come straight from the heart, social messages you would like to spread to the rest of the world and articles that need a home, a blog is the answer for it all. Take for example, the article, “An Open Goodbye Letter to India,” written last year by a Mizo girl in her blog in the wake of Nido Tania’s unfortunate incident. It was shared in over twenty groups, spread like wildfire in Whatsapp and was liked over 5000 times in Facebook. The article was shared in many networking sites and even published in the online news site, mizonews.net and in the English daily newspaper, Newslink, in Mizoram. Your voice can be heard through a blog.

For Those Who Love to Travel

            Who doesn’t like to travel? The adventure, the thrill and the beauty of travel is a sin to be missed. And they get just better when you share it with the world. While visiting different villages of Mizoram, you could document them in photographs and post them to your blog so people can see what a beautiful state you live in. If you are a travel buff all the way, you can even make a living with travel blogging. Take for example, Shivya Nath who was a 9 to 5 corporate employee with a passion to travel. She turned her passion into a full time occupation and now she’s a full time adventurer, going east, west, north and south, in and out of India, across different capitals and towns of the world. To pay for her travels, she documents her experiences in a blog, and also writes articles and publications for online as well as offline sites. You can read more about her in the-shooting-star.com.

For Photography Enthusiasts

            Planning to become a famous photographer? Start with a blog. Let your talent of the lens be seen by the world. As the French photographer Bruno Barbey once said, “Photography is the only language that can be understood anywhere in the world.” Communicate to the world through the universal language of photographs and let people see that in the beautiful state of Mizoram are many talented artists just on the verge of breaking out.

*This article was published in the campus monthly newsletter Silhouette Vol-III, Issue No 1