A list member asks,

Since there are only 24 hours in the day, and blogging takes time, I’d like to ask a few questions:

1. Do you blog? What’s your blog like?
2. Do you get anything out of it (besides the satisfaction of writing)? Help for your business, a job, advertising revenue, publicity for your nonprofit organization, a paycheck, help getting your work published, etc.?
3. Are you positive or negative about the whole blogging experience?

The questioner is a writer and wonders specifically if blogging will help bring her work to the attention of publishers.

---

A list member asks,

Since there are only 24 hours in the day, and blogging takes time, I’d like to ask a few questions:

1. Do you blog? What’s your blog like?
2. Do you get anything out of it (besides the satisfaction of writing)? Help for your business, a job, advertising revenue, publicity for your nonprofit organization, a paycheck, help getting your work published, etc.?
3. Are you positive or negative about the whole blogging experience?

The questioner is a writer and wonders specifically if blogging will help bring her work to the attention of publishers.

If you go to marketing seminars on blogging, the presenters will tell you all the reasons you should be blogging, of course. There are specific reasons for different industries. For writers, it is the more subscribers you can show a publisher you have, the more potential success a published work has. For the HR or public relations or customer service departments, the company culture will show through, the potential for larger press (the story is written after all), and building good customer relationships are possible results if the blog is done well.

Some of us, a great many in fact, think blogging is for the vain, self-serving and “bored, nothing to do” among us. Others of us are concerned about privacy and how we will look — our public face.

Should you be blogging? Of course.

Should it just be out there free standing and independent of your business goals, business and marketing plans, your mission and branding? Of course not.

A blog is a business tool - and can be an excellent one. A blog is software that makes content management easier. It can simplify internal communications and knowledge sharing. Internal blogs can be private and never published on the Internet or listed in any blog rolls.

Share industry news. Comment on your competitors’ news. Comment on their blogs, adding a link back to your blog or web site. Build your reputation as a resource and knowledgeable person or company. This is Gimbels meets Macy’s in instant time and around the world. It is not magic. It still requires work, discipline and time to get known.

About the 24 hours in the day.

With the advent of microblogging tools such as twitter, it is ever and ever simpler and less time consuming to blog. I use posterous.com (another microblog, but not restricted to a particular number of characters) to post, which are then automatically posted to other social web sites. You can email your blog post to posterous so no login even! There are a lot of other such microblogging tools and even the original blogging companies offer this type of service.

The rule of thumb is to blog consistently: once a day, once a month, every hour. Your readers will learn your schedule and look forward to your next entry — sort of like waiting each month for the next issue of your favorite magazine. I know a CEO who writes her blog entry every Wednesday. She sets time in her calendar for this. She is not a writer but finds the discipline and return worth the time.

There is one final part: the reading time. RSS is a good filter for this. I find even that is overwhelming. I take a day a month to scan and read what others are saying and then respond/comment. Putting a link in your comment will help drive traffic to your blog. The viral marketing potential is real — and that is a plus, don’t you think?

Gayley Knight is a guest blogger for Great Minds Interactive, LLC. She is Founder/Principal of Business Her Way (a social media management company). Delighting in opening the technology world for your company, Gayley draws on her extensive network and personal business experience to simplify your online world. Showing you best social business practices and simple tech tools designed to increase your business visibility brings social media into perspective, saving you time and money. You can contact her directly at http://www.businessherway.net or via email at gayley@mothergeek.com.

Tags: General

This entry was posted on Monday, June 8th, 2009 at 12:00 AM by greatmin and is filed under Wendy Troupe's Perspectives. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.