So I’ve been reading The Huffington Post Complete Guide to Blogging this week. Very interesting. My writing teacher and client (I’m her editorial assistant) just pitched a blog idea to them (she’s so good at op-ed) and I wanted to try it myself. Where better to look for this information than from Arianna Huffington and her blog editors directly?

In their chapter, Finding Your Voice, HuffPo’s editors recommend these steps to writing a successful op-ed post:

What is your point? How would you explain your point to a batty, slightly deaf relative in one sentence? Write that sentence down. This is the gist of your piece.

Clear some space above that main point. Now think up a story that illustrates the point. This “anecdotal lede” is a staple of newspaper and magazine journalism. Reporters like anecdotes because they tend to give a human-interest perspective on the story and tend to draw readers in. If the story happened to you, great. If you put in the proper links and cite the source, you can retell a story from another newssource. You may have to write a transition sentence or two between the anecdote and your point.

Now clear some space under your main point. Give a short history of the debate.

Next, argue your point from the evidence. What makes you think you are right? Throw in two or three quotes, statistics, or stories that back you up.

Now think about who might disagree with you. Why might this person or organization think you’re wrong? Maybe it’s because they’re total idiots, but you’ll write a better blog post if you address their strongest points rather than call them names.

Write a good walk-off line. Or if you can’t think of one, write something like “I’ll be following this story and will post again when I learn more.”

Interesting, eh? I thought so. I’m working on several op-ed posts right now and am going to apply these guidelines to see if I can’t improve my own craft. And perhaps land a blog post on HuffPo! Fingers crossed.

So you’ve got a blog. So what? Doesn’t mean a thing until you get someone looking. Who do you want to look at your blog anyway? We talked about some purpose of a blog for your business in this post.

Did you check it out?

Okay, now read on.

You want people to read your blog that will get other people to read your blog. Influencers.

Who are the influencers in your industry? How do you begin to interact with those influencers?

A few ideas:

1. Don’t just hit a lot of people hoping you’ll get influencers because of the numbers. A blanket press release isn’t the answer anymore. Even if you sent out 10,000 releases, the odds are that you’ll miss the influencers. There are easier ways than this.

2. Know your influencers. Find a few experts in your niche. Now go research them on Google. They’ve probably got LinkedIn and Facebook. More than likely they’re on Twitter. These influencers are savvy. They’ll know if you DON’T KNOW THEM.

3. Have something of value to give. This doesn’t have to be a new plasma television, but it should be something from all that research about the influencers that you’ve figured out YOU can give that they will value. In the software world, it’s computers and cool gadgets. In the services industry, you’ll have to be on top of your game. What do you know that these influencers would like to know? That’s a good start.

Anyway, in the new social media world, finding your influencers is VITAL. You can’t just go play online without thinking about this. So go think! Do it. Do it now.