by Gini Dietrich, CEO and founder of marketing and communication firm Arment Dietrich, and author of popular PR blog Spin Sucks, paid a visit to our class last Thursday. For a summary of the points covered during our time with Gini, please refer to Nicole Lygo’s blog titled “Gini Dietrich Covers Everything.” Here we will be discussing what topics resonated the most with our audience related to managing our own blogs.
Let’s start with the basics, blogs. Dietrich said, “If I think of something, I’ll blog about it.” Perhaps this attitude should be spread throughout our minds too. Getting our thoughts online resonated with our audience with a few tweets.
So, what kind of thoughts should we be putting online? Well, that is the fun part. A concept we picked up on was to be opinionated in what we blog about.
Being opinionated is important. People want someone to relate to, or on the contrary, someone to disagree with. However, there are some topics we should, as Andy Bernard from NBC’s The Office would say, “Steer clear Big Tuna,” from. Our audience noticed those topics to be religion and politics. 
Lastly and most importantly, Gini made sure to hammer home one idea and it worked. Do not lie on social media. 
Be cautious. Be truthful. Be yourself. Now get out there and start blogging.
I loved hearing Gini talk about how she blogs. It was fascinating for me because I’m particularly not an avid blogger, and her advice was great to hear. The fact that she also mentions her blog’s focus is on PR, but if there’s something that relates to both PR and some other personal matter she’ll write about it inspired me to look more closely at my blog.
Thanks for the pointers that stood out to you from her talk!
Whats your blog link? I would like to follow!
Polly, it hasn’t been updated since last year. I frankly haven’t found the time to. I might pick it up this coming summer though! You can find it abigaellemulligan.com.
I loved her presentation. I blogged back in high school but now I think I have been inspired to start back up again.
Thanks for this brief summary of Gini’s presentation. I thought she had amazing advice and passion for the industry. Her thoughts on blogging made me want to devote more time to my blog!
Thanks for the summary! I think Gini was a great resource for our class because she is well versed in blog processes and really knows what she is talking about. I also was intimidated to start blogging, but I like the advice that the best way to get better at it is just to continue with it. I can see why being opinionated is a good thing because it shows people where you stand on issues, but its also a good idea to stay away from hot button issues like religion/politics in certain social platforms.
Gini was awesome to listen to. This blog is an awesome summary of what we talked about. Blogging is not my strongest suit, so I found Gini’s lecture to be very informative. One thing that I really took away from her lecture was advice on how to build confidence in blogging. Back in J 452, we were required to blog on a regular basis. I often spent a lot of time struggling to make sure my content was informative, accurate and reflected my own opinions. I asked Gini what she recommends to gain confidence in blogging because of my lack of confidence. Gini said to just keep writing because that’s the only way you will get comfortable with it. Although her advice seems straight forward, I think it’s very true. I definitely hope future students get the opportunity to listen to one of Gini’s lectures.
I loved listening to Gini, and especially hearing her take on blogging. Personally I have found it hard to blog in fear of people not agreeing with me, or thinking that the topics are not interesting . But hearing that disagreements are sometimes exactly what people want to hear was comforting to me. I like that you compared tweets to blogging, cause if you think about it they can be similar. We constantly express ourselves through social media, so why not push that on a blog too!
I love what Gini said about blogging. I think that a lot of people are hesitant to blog now — whether they feel it’s going out of style, or it they’re simply afraid that the world with disagree with them and it will start a controversy. Personally, this lecture from Gini really made me want to start blogging again, regardless of what everyone thinks about my blog. It’s definitely on my summer to do list!
Like most other SOJC students, blogging is on my to-do list as well. Unfortunately, it’s hard to find the time when you’re in college. Even when I was a more avid blogger, though, I found myself being incredibly cautious. It’s the combination of blogging being both casual and very permanent. I even deleted my old blog because I didn’t like the idea of having my freshman and sophomore year opinions and writing available to anyone—both my opinions and my writing skills have changed pretty vastly since then. I’m much more confident in my blogging abilities now, but it still worries me that later down the line, things will change again.
I had the best time listening to Gini speak both to our SOJCssm class, and to my J452 class. She was extremely personable and informative. I tried blogging last year and found that I had a hard time being consistent on top of school, and I was not comfortable writing about personal experiences or opinions for the world to know, and for that I gained even more respect for bloggers. Gini is a fantastic blogger and I really appreciated her honesty about how hard it can be at times to create content that you are passionate about, but that your readers will also be passionate about.
Her talk about blogging was definitely inspiring! I agree to stay away from religion and politics. Those are things that will NEVER be agreed upon and frankly (unless thats your topic of choice) I don’t see a point in even going there. Making an editorial calendar like we did in 452 and for the social media audit for this class is definitely helpful in staying on top of blogging. It takes the stress out of sitting down every time you look to write a post and trying to brainstorm on the spot.
Great post and great summary of Gini’s lecture!
Makenzie Hammond