How to add image content to your blog

It’s time to start adding content to your blog! Now that we have:

created a blog, tracked it with Google Analytics, registered it with Google Webmaster, and used Feedburner to burn your feed
learned how to customize your blog’s theme (photoshop–>html/css–>php)
made your blog twitter and facebook-friendly

It’s time to start adding content to your blog. I dump all of my blog contents into DavidMarkHOROwitz.com, something I don’t necessarily recommend doing. It’s my micro-blog, and not everybody wants to hear about me trying to organize a trip to Chile (or teaching my marketing classes, or hear about funny wine content I find, etc.). It’s good to think about what the focus of your blog is going to be, and the type of content you are going to put on your blog. The key is to include good content–content you think your friends are going to give thumbs up to on facebook and retweet on twitter. People like pictures, so that’s where we’re starting.

Some things you need to know about images

The difference between vector and raster-based images.
- Photoshop is used to edit raster-based images: psdtuts.
- Illustrator is used to edit vector-based images: vectortuts.
- InDesign is used for layouts with graphics and text: Layers magazine.
Image formats
- JPEGs for raster-based images (photos)
- PNGs for vector-based images (icons)
Social images – Flickr vs. Picasa?
- Flickr is the best – 1, 2
- Picasa is the best – 1
- It depends – 1
Organize your images – make flickr sets
Create and join flickr groups:
- flickr.com/groups/globalwineindustry
- flickr.com/groups/murketing
Embed your images into blog posts
Plugins!
- WordPress.com widgets
- WordPress.org plugins
- jQuery Plugin
Use javascript/plugins to
- have flickr images automatically imported onto your blog (video tutorial, discussion forum, blog post). WordPress flickr plugins make this even easier.
- create photo galleries, lightboxes, sliders
Posterous – One emailed photo posts to flickr, facebook, twitter and tumblr at once.
- El Jefe uses posterous
Tag people on facebook!
Make cool images!
Include images of your fans/customers that make them look good.