However the Blogging 101 class I was enrolled in didn’t necessarily cover the intricacies of what creating, and more importantly maintaining a successful blog meant.

The Story

Fast forward to July 2012, I’m graduated and by now my blog had officially became a ghost town – no new posts, no visitors to speak of, and still under the .wordpress.com domain.

…gross.

However the next chapter of my life involved working deeply in social media and developing competencies in community management and strategy. That being said, despite the basics I learned in class, I began to notice I lacked the real know-how to confidently say I knew how to even blog correctly.

You see blogging with a purpose and gaining traction and authority in any niche isn’t as easy as it seems. Especially when you are being self-taught.

So where did I turn? The Internet of course — which was ripe with A LOT of information about “best practices” and “do’s and don’ts”

Did I mention there was A LOT of information. Almost too much information! It was quite overwhelming and a bit discouraging to be honest. Like drinking out of a fire house.

Luckily I was able to take the information I was learning online and apply it to my own blog and in turn take the best of what I had learned from those experiments and apply it to the company blog I was writing for.

But all this fractured research from different sources took a lot of time and energy to combine, not to mention many of them contradicted eachother!

The Climax

Then it happened, I was introduced to a site called Triberr which in turn introduced me to some of the top bloggers in the industry.

One of those bloggers, Sté Kerwer, had his own site Dukeo.com dedicated to blogging tips, affiliate marketing and SEO. I decided to pay him a visit, and I’m glad I did!

Finally, I found a one-stop-shop for all of my questions and a single site I could navigate to get the answers though I would like an easier way to find older articles aside from his most popular posts.

And with an introduction saying he makes “a high six-figures yearly through blogging and affiliate marketing” how could I not trust his authority?

But the best part of this story is that Sté didn’t become an overnight success and was once in the same shoes as I am today, not to say I’ll be making six-figures through blogging anytime soon!

But still, seeing the end results of his hard work and utilizing his teachings helps keep me motivated to move forward.

And despite all the traffic and feedback Sté receives, he still makes time to respond to each comment left on his posts and has no problem elaborating when needed.

Dukeo.com has evolved a lot in a short 2 years period and in light of his upcoming anniversary on Jan. 29th, Sté held a contest for which this article is dedicated to.

The Conclusion

I can only hope Sté continues to see positive success from his blog and that more people find out about it sooner than later as I did. I know blogging takes time, and patience is key, however when you have the right teacher and apply what you’ve learned, only good things can happen…

…and good things ARE happening!

The post One Resource a Little Too Late: Dukeo appeared first on Social Media Tutorials by Jacob Curtis.

What interested me most about diving head first into learning the program was the ability to take my own personal drawn sketches  and  color them.

I made sure to practice the keyboard shortcuts to optimize my work flow. Also taking the time to learn how different layers worked together I found was key. If I want to be taken seriously and put Photoshop as a part of my resume I would have to know these sort of techniques. It has also re-stimulated my passion for art and drawing. I am also pumped to see how  refining my ability in Photoshop will translate into future video or motion graphic projects I get involved with.

It is also great for generating content for social media channels and numerous online tutorials are available across the web if you get stuck.

I will continue to practice coloring  and upload my finish projects as I go.

Not to shabby for teaching myself Photoshop right?

The post Teaching Myself Photoshop appeared first on Social Media Tutorials by Jacob Curtis.