To Blog or Not to Blog....
Blogs are dead...Long live blogs...
I was reminded of this recently while trawling the blogosphere which is increasingly taken up with blogs that appear to be dead, dying from neglect or stillborn, with one or two initial entries, now years old.'» Guy Rundle, via David Maister - consulting guru
Depending on which side of the fence you're on, blogs are where it's at - the healthy, vibrant, web 2.0 community that can enhance your business, help you find your soul-mate, earn you incredible riches and so on. Or, as in the above quote, they are still born (what an unpleasant association don't you think? - perhaps a gender bias, but nonetheless an otherwise amusing quote).
I've personally been on the web long enough to have what's referred to as a proto-blog. I won't provide the link here, unless you ask nicely:), but what that means, essentially, is that I was journalling, or writing an online diary, way back in the late 90's, and was using straight html. No blogging tools, no automatic archiving, no search feature, etc. Can you imagine? It's no wonder the site's last update was over 10 months ago.
However, even with all the fabulous tools now available (many of them free!), starting and maintaining a blog is no easy undertaking.
Questions to ask yourself
- Do I have the necessary skills and time to write a blog?
- If not, do I have the staff and/or am willing to hire a copywriter to do this for me?
- Do I have a topic I am passionate enough about for blogging purposes?
- What is the purpose of my blog?
- Will I allow comments?
- If so, do I understand, or does the blogging software I use, make it easy for me to handle spam comments?
- Corporate or Personal Style? Or a hybrid? The answer to this is complex. Suffice it to say, it's a combination of industry specific sensibilities and your own level of comfort.
Our blog?
Where is our blog then, you may well ask? It's well, ahem, under development. After recently transferring over to a new hosting company, we have indeed been inspired to get back in the blogosphere. But, we want to wait till there are a minimum of 29 posts before making it public. Stay tuned.p.s. This is a good strategy to consider - dip your toes into the blogosphere by quietly beginning one.
- a) It takes a while for google et al to notice that you've ventured into this domain.
- b) It allows you to become familiar and comfortable with your writing style and topics of interest.
- c) Once you do make it public , there's quite a bit of content for folks to read, so you don't have to immediately worry about frequency of posting.
- Happy Blogging!