- Can you tell us a little about yourself and your blog?
I am an ordinary person with an extra ordinary life. I am a very strong believer of God and time and again remind myself that my entire life today is a testimony to His Grace. I am a Keralite born and brought up in Pune and then moved for work to Chennai. I love travelling and have seen a good part of Europe since I live there now. Though I am a very independent person, I love my emotional dependency on my family. And those who know me, know very well that they cannot talk bad about my friends in front of me. I stand by my choice of friendship no matter what.
My blog SuKupedia is my online stage, where I can virtually talk. Yeah you got it I love talking and I don't find audience around all the time, because they have serious work to do you see :). The blog name is inspired by WiKipedia, because like wikipedia I think you can find an opinion about anything and everything on SuKupedia. SuKu comes from my name Sunita Kurup.
Are you a full time blogger? How did you get into blogging and why?
Yes I am a full time blogger. Apart from my blog posts I also contribute to the Times of India (NRI) and another online magazine NRI matters. I am a Freelance Writer so you can find my articles on Tehelka, Women's Web etc.,
I came back after finishing my MBA and decided to get married. So the time till my marriage other than the bridal shopping I used to get bored. Once I saw a friend Remya post one of her article on Facebook. I visited her blog and liked what I saw there. Thought to myself that I should give it a try too. I was very naive with blogging and found Blogger very user friendly. So created an account there and that is how SuKupedia was born on July 25th, 2010. So something I created to keep myself busy has now turned into a passion.
If someone was interested in blogging, what would be a few things you would suggest?
Well, the first thing is if you are interested then just start it. Create a blog and start writing. You know I created a blog on July 25th and after posting about 8 posts I got my first comment on my blog on December 6th, so like after 4 months. I did not even know then that I could register myself with blogger communities. Infact I remember I wanted to read Indian blogs and I did not even know where to find them. I would go to Blogs of Note by Blogger and just stick around some international bloggers.
So one advice for new bloggers would be, get yourself acquainted with these communities, take part in online discussions and let people know that you exist. There is a lot of support available. And more importantly read, read and read a lot of blogs because I really don't think you can write good if you don't read enough.
How do you build a community around a blog and social media?
Community around blog is created by three components, your readers, other bloggers and your own blog. It is the integration of these three that can help you create a good community. If you just write your post and leave it there for people to comment and not reply to their comments or you do not read other bloggers and interact with them, then you are isolating yourself. And moreover blogging is such a quick and responsive medium that it was never too easy to communicate with your community. And same goes for the social media. If you want your presence as a writer or a blogger on social media to be valued then interaction is a must. I have seen people having facebook accounts and just posting their blog posts there. It is very important to build rapport with your fans or followers.
What are your three favorite blogs to read? What makes those blogs special?
I follow tons of blogs and I read them all very religiously. I make sure whatever I think about that post I let the writer know by way of my comment. I will find it very difficult to mention only three, because I follow them only because I like all of them. But still out of all of them there are these three bloggers that I wait to read (order is just random)
1. Chintan Gupta at The Blunt Blog : Even if I have 100s of blogs to read she is the one I absolutely wait to read. I am in love with this writer. Her flow of thoughts and her clarity of penning down her thoughts just like it comes to her mind is absolutely commendable. And mind you, that does not mean she just writes anything. Her belief in her post and thoughts is so strong that you can see through that in her writing.
2. Aditya Raj Kaul at Wandering Shadow: I am not a big fan of journalists now-a-days. But I am a huge fan of Aditya. I follow him on twitter and I don't miss reading his articles. His blog is an absolute pleasure for someone like me. It gives me a closer look at his writings from a reader point of view. I think he just puts lot of emotions and sincerity into whatever he writes.
3. Purba Ray at A-Musing: If there is someone who loves to read blogs and haven't read Purba's blog then I don't know what they are doing in the blogging world. I feel she puts so much effort into making of a post that it is clearly seen by the quality of what she writes. Though I am sure the thoughts just come to her effortlessly. You go to her blog and cannot leave without a chuckle. The language, the placement of thoughts everything is just excellent.
Which one plugin would you suggest all bloggers to have?
I am not sure if it is new or old, because I only discovered it recently. Bloglovin, I think this is something every blogger who reads must have. Simple way to organise your favourite blogs in one place for you to read. The Blogger Reader list has some bug for sure because it is really having some issues lately and Bloglovin was my answer.
Her Social Media Connect:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/
0 Comments