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Making Your Purpose Your Business, Step#4 by: Heather J. Tait Step#4 ' Organizing & Developing Online Content If you have done your homework then you are ready to organize and develop what will be your online content. Your content is very important as it will be used for promoting you, your work, and your website. Content serves a variety of purposes; it displays public relations, target marketing, and general information to build a platform for your product (your purpose). One of the main items that need attention would be your biography. If you are an artist or writer, you will get asked for this pertinent information every time you make a submission or apply for competitions. Your biography is an essential piece of information that often can get viewed prior to your work. Even if your target audiences are publishers, agents, or clients, you have only one chance to intrigue them and make a good first impression. There are several ways that you can address your audience. If you would like to be up front and personal, you can write in first person, using 'I' in your sentence structure. For example, 'I was born in Silver Springs, Maryland.' If you want to have a general sound or professional structure, you can write in the third person, referring to yourself as stated in this example, 'Heather J. Tait was born in Silver Springs, Maryland.' It's really up to you on how you would like to address your audience. I personally prefer writing in third person when referring to my work mainly because I feel it conveys a sense of professional etiquette. It creates a press release persona that can maintain your audience's attention. However, if you prefer to write in first person you can do that and still have strength to your sentences. Either way you want to spark your audience's interest in you and your work. The difference between a how a hobbyist or a professional artist or writer can be determined simply on how they are conveyed through content. You want your sentences to have strength and power to them. Each word and phrase counts because they are performing a difficult task, representing you, when you are not there to do so. For example you could say, 'I'm an artist from Erie, PA. I am trying to make a living doing art. Hope you will look at my work.' This sentence hardly provides any credibility to my name or my art. It conveys that I am not really serious about what I'm doing, but I still would like you to look at my work. That's a lofty expectation to have of my audience when I lack taking myself serious. A professional sentence structure as an example, 'Heather J. Tait was raised in Erie, PA and began her career as a professional artist in 1997.' You want to state who you are, where you come from, and what it is you do. You want your opening sentence to really state a few basic facts about you and your work. This is not an easy task and perhaps one of the reasons why many artists and writers procrastinate completing a biography. Perhaps one of the reasons why, just as Alan Wilson Watts states, 'Trying to define yourself is like trying to bite your own teeth.' It's quite the challenge to write about yourself and really expand on your talents. You have to convey your work and yourself from almost another person's perspective. Imagine yourself as a Public Relations Specialist and you were just hired to write about an artist or writer. What are some things you would need to know about that person? What strong points do you want to enunciate about this person's life and accomplishments? What active role does this person assume now? You don't have to be overly personal but you really want to give your audience a sense of who you are. Let them know how you began your career. Write about your technique or your style. It is possible to be personal but also professional. You may have to work on several drafts until you get a nice flow of words and a functional biography. The time you put into writing this valuable piece of information will pay off by getting people to take notice in something very dear to you, your purpose. So share your passion with your audience. You just may notice that your enthusiasm might be contagious. You want to have a short version (100-150 words) of your biography and then a long version (500-'1
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