Day 2 of BlogIndiana kicked off with a lively keynote from Erik Deckers, from Pro Blog Service. Erik has been making a living from writing for the last 24 years. He shared the secrets he’s gleaned throughout his career. This is a live blog, which means it is largely unedited. You’re looking at notes taken throughout the presentation. It is not meant as an exact transcript. I just try to capture the highlights along the way.

Of course, I had a difficult time capturing the details with this one. Erik’s talk sparked a lot of conversation on Twitter. Namely, the debate on whether bloggers are writers. Personally, I think my blogging style is so different that it can’t be considered writing, but maybe I’m thinking of writing more formally than Erik means. I guess I’ll concede that bloggers can be writers, but only if they know how to write first—which goes straight into his 3rd point, so I’ll let him get to it!

Bloggers are writers – if you’re putting words together to share ideas or provide information, you’re a writer.

1. A word is worth 1000 pictures.
2. Paint pictures with your words.

descriptive words vs describing a word. (i.e. ran quickly/sprinted)
metaphor vs simile (metaphors create a picture in the readers’ minds and are more powerful)

3. Know the rules, then break them.

Don’t let what you learned in English class disrupt the sound & rhythm of the narrative.

4. Half the grammar rules are wrong.
5. Words have power – use them wisely.
6. Write the hell out of everything.

Whatever you do, focus on it with everything you’ve got.

7. Write intentionally.

Pick a technique you want to improve, and use it in every writing you do – emails, blogs, etc.

8. “Write drunk, edit sober.”

Write when you are loose, comfortable and the ideas are free flowing. Edit later.

9. A good writer can write almost anything.
10. Your words are NOT your babies.

You don’t have to coddle & save them from the editor. Never let someone who thinks you’re awesome (aka Mom) edit your work -  you need an editor who will be critical and  ruthless.

Heather Sokol is a frugal, gluten free, chocoholic, bubble bath connoisseur. She’s a little bit crunchy, always opinionated and sometimes speaks geek, but not fluently. Heather is the founder of Inexpensively.com and tweets as @JustHeather.

BlogIndiana kicked off with a keynote from Jay Baer. We stole him from Arizona just last year, so it’s awesome to see him catapulting straight to the forefront in Indiana. As Jay joked, it was probably a smart decision to start the morning with numbers, right after everyone had their injection of caffeine. The topic was a tricky one—how many times have you thought or said that social can’t be measured?

Jay Baer, from Convince & Convert, has a way, and he breaks it down into 6 simple steps. This is a live blog, which means it is largely unedited. You’re looking at notes taken throughout the presentation. It is not meant as an exact transcript but I try to capture the highlights along the way.

Don’t be afraid to admit social media doesn’t act alone.

The goal is not to be good at social media; the goal is to be good at business through social media. What are you trying to achieve – awareness, sales, loyalty? Pick one!

Don’t be afraid to measure differently.

There is no magic number for measuring social media.

Home Base & Outposts: concentrate on one social network that’s most important to your company while tracking & paying attention to the others

Holy Trinity: search, content, social

So, what should you measure? Behavior, not aggregation.

Awareness: positive social mentions, share of voice (positive mentions vs competitors), new visitors from outposts, inbound links, search volume trends

Sales: social-only offers, sales funnel behavior (which pages on your site will people only visit if they are considering a purchase i.e. testimonials), brand community participation, offline fan advocacy, online advocacy/sharing, content subscription, propensity to promote (scale of 1-10; subtract 0-6s from 9-10s)

Don’t be afraid to commit to your numbers.

Pick your metrics in advance – don’t try to track after you’ve already jumped in.

Just because everything is trackable, doesn’t mean you should track everything: pick 3 metrics, then see.

Don’t be afraid of ROI.

ROI always = (revenue minus investment)/investment

Multi-Step ROI (Ar.gy/blogROI), Market Research ROI, Customer Service ROI, Correlation,

Don’t be afraid to share the data.

Everyone working for the company should have the information to be able to support social media efforts.

Don’t be afraid of anecdotes.

Sometimes it’s about the stories, not the numbers.

Heather Sokol is a frugal, gluten free, chocoholic, bubble bath connoisseur. She’s a little bit crunchy, always opinionated and sometimes speaks geek, but not fluently. Heather is the founder of Inexpensively.com and tweets as @JustHeather.

Anyone can be a writer. If you work at it, you can even be a good writer.

You need a basic grasp of the English language. You need to know punctuation, grammar, and sentence structure. You need to know how to string several sentences together in a cohesive string.

And that’s it.

You don’t need to go to writing school. You don’t need to take special writing classes. You don’t need permission. No one is going to tap a sword on your shoulders and say, “I dub thee. . . a WRITER!”

You just need to start stringing words together in a way that is pleasing to you. And, if you like, pleasing to other people. You just need to start writing something you enjoy, and when you’re done, you need to write something else.

I have based my entire writing career on trying something new and seeing if I liked it. Not waiting for someone to tell me I can do it, or taking a class on it. If I like it, I’ll do it again. If I really like it, I’ll keep doing it. That’s how I’ve managed to make a living — and a long-term hobby — out of being a professional blogger, a newspaper humor columnist, and now, a book author.

I didn’t need any special training or permission to be a writer. I didn’t take any writing classes. No one granted me a writer-ship with a sword. But, on a good day, I can sometimes do it better than the people who did get all of that.

Back in 2005, I entered a script for a play into the 2005 Indiana Theatre Works script competition. I took a play that I had originally written for radio, and adapted it for the stage. But I had never even written a stage play before, so I wasn’t sure how it was done, so I did some reading and wrote what I thought was a “proper” script. I even had to ask my wife for stage blocking directions.

So you can imagine my surprise when I was named a finalist for the Indiana Theatre Works conference itself, where I would get to meet other writers, directors, and even actors. I was in awe of the people who were there, and I questioned whether I belonged.

This was a room full of playwrights and Masters of Fine Arts holders whose specialty was in playwriting. I was just some schlub who made booger jokes once a week for some newspapers.

Everyone else had spent years, and sometimes decades, in “the thea-tah.” My only experience in live theatre was as a G-Man in “You Can’t Take It With You” when I was 16. My total stage experience was two lines. Otherwise I hadn’t done anything with or for live theatre.

But I could write. I had already been writing for 18 years, so I at least knew my way around a pen and paper, so I tried to get by on my (false) confidence. Everyone else figured it out though, as the weekend went on, and I asked some pretty basic questions. Plus, I think I blurted out “but this is my first play!” more than once.

So a few people were rather annoyed when I received the Best Comedy Script for the entire competition, beating out a couple MFAs who had spent years honing their craft, sweating every word, only to be beaten by some newbie who entered the contest on a whim, because he had never written a play before.

What’s my point?

My point is that, it doesn’t take anything or anyone special to be a writer. Anyone can do it, and anyone can succeed.

It doesn’t matter whether you can spell. Or that you don’t know the difference between the subject and object of a sentence (after 24 years of writing, I’m still not clear). Or that no one has said “you’re a WRITER!” and whacked you with a sword.

All you need is a laptop, or a typewriter, or even a stubby pencil and the back of an envelope. It’s up to you to call yourself a writer, because no one else is going to. Or needs to.

Besides, my sword is tarnished.

Erik Deckers is the co-owner of Professional Blog Service, and the co-author of “Branding Yourself” and a new social media book coming out in October. He also helped write “Twitter Marketing for Dummies.” Erik will be the keynote speaker on Day 2 of Blog Indiana 2011.