Part I of this series listed the diferent blog formats as identified by Amy Gahran in Paul Chaney's book, Realty Blogging.

As an exercise for Project Blogger, Paul asked me to write a post with each format with the idea that I would feel comfortable with each and identify my weakness (I'm not sure if that was the goal, maybe Paul should answer that).  I will now go into detail about each format and explain the benefits as well as how I feel about each.

LINK-ONLY -  (my examples: Historic Home Niche and Outside Active Rain drops) - the idea with this format is just writing a list of links that your reader will benefit from.  It helps to identify your audience and know what information may be useful for them.  Paul guided me to 2 different blogs for examples:  Hanan Levin's Grow-a-Brain blog and Steve Rubel's Micro Persuasion. 

I had never done a link-only blog and found it to be a great tool especially when trying to keep content local in nature.  I plan to do link-only blogs for different areas I work in the Miami Area including Chamber of Commerce, Activities, Police Department......I think you get the idea.  Mariana Wagner, who thinks a LOT like me at times, just wrote a link-only post with that concept - Colorado Springs "Must Have" Links.

One thing to remember is that you should try to keep the subject of your blog pretty uniform - don't start going crazy and add links on all kinds of subjects that have nothing to do with each other - the more uniform the general subject of your blog, the better.

LINK-BLURB - (my example: Miami's Romero Britto) - This format fit my style a little more than link-only because it allows for some commentary, usually longer than a sentence or two.  Creating lists of links that are relevant to your community creates a blog that is, according to Realty Blogging, "sticky... one that visitors will come back to again and again".  A blog Paul told me to look at was Jim Duncan's  RealCentralVa.

I think we can all agree that this is a common format used here in Active Rain.

BRIEF-REMARK - (my example: Project Blogger in my wildest dreams) - the point of this format is to write an article that is only one to 3 short paragraphs long - a post that becomes an announcement, an observation, a question or even a joke.  Paul explained that people like shorter posts and guided me to LUXIST.COM

I have to admit that I had a real problem with this format - although my preference is shorter articles, writing a post this short felt like a cop-out to me, like I was being lazy and not doing my job.  How wrong I was!!!  This is a great tool and will start implementing this format more often, especially when finding a relevant article that I want to share.

LIST-FORMAT -(my examples: 10 tips for writing good Real Estate descriptions and  Why isn't my house selling?)  This format is a lot of fun and takes some creativity, it can be the famous "10 top reasons" or "things you should never.....".  Our own Mary McKnight is famous for these lists and Teresa Boardman recently wrote a great post which everyone should read  10 things to avoid on your business blog.

Although this format is fun, I had difficulty coming up with material for this.  One thing is for you to come up with a topic for a post and to feel inspired and something very different is for someone to say, write a list-format post right now.....my creative juices were on overdrive!

LONG ARTICLE - (my example: Historic Preservation in Miami Shores - Mediterranean Revival architecture).  This is the most formal of all formats, it's more like an essay and it's obviously the most difficult to write  and the tone is less conversational. 

To me, this format was the biggest challenge for many reasons.  When I read blogs, I don't like reading long posts, my time is usually limited and my attention spam is very short.  For that same reason, I don't like writing long posts.  Paul Chaney always talks about people scanning blogs and how formatting, arrangements and spacing is so important.  But putting the length aside, I will quote my coach and mentor "While I know that wasn't fun to write, it is very informative. That's the kind of post that tells me this Realtor knows her business."  Knowing this, I feel it is important to include a few long articles in your repertoire.

SERIES POSTINGS - (my example: Blog formats - PART I and this post you are reading now).  When the subject of the post starts getting lengthy, it is a good idea to divide the article into different parts, we also see a lot of these here in Active Rain.  You can also separate posts into categories for example - children's activities in your community vs. adult activities.  Schools - elementary, middle, high school and colleges (the sky is the limit!).In the book, David Smith's posts on the future of New Orleans after Katrina, are used as examples of series postings.

I have used this format many times and it's fun to reference even comments on the first parts of the post.  Doing these types of posts, in my opinion, cuts the length of the subject and captures your reader's attention.  The challenge is in how to transition one post to the other - and the only way to get it right is to look at how other bloggers go about this and practicing!.

This exercise was extremely helpful to me.  Go ahead and try out different formats, a lot of you mentioned that you were winging it and there's nothing wrong with that, but you will identify your strong and weak points and will be able to capitalize on them.  This post turned out to be a combination of many of the formats, I think combining a few is not a bad idea, but would like to know what Paul Chaney has to say about this.  What say you Paul?

Please check out Blog Formats - Part I