Lemmings are cute, but silly. If you tell them to jump off a cliff, they will. Just like people who start blogging because everyone is doing it. Guess what happens after a while? Blogs die.
Managing a list of many websites, most of which are blogs, I removed countless sites from the list because the sites and blogs no longer existed. People ran out of power or had no reason to start them in the first place.
How do you know when a blog is right for your business? Learn why people start blogging, how they find their niche, and how blogging tools can be used for more than just blogging.
Some people like to read blogs, some like to read newsletters, some like to rely on feeds, and some read some or all of them. No matter the method of information distribution, each medium has one thing in common: content. Having a blog connects your newsletter and your business with all these readers and offers important content in a particular style.
I’ve been blogging since June 2000. If you review my early blog posts in Meryl’s notes, you’ll notice they’re more personal. When blogs first appeared in the late ’90s, they were personal journals and diaries. Like the blogging business, my blog has morphed from personal to business language, though I still add personal notes here and there.
Some bloggers tend to talk about their work, their products, and their little world. That might work for celebrities whose fans want to know everything about them, but it doesn’t work for the average business person. Other entrepreneurs want information on how to be successful, and when a blog spends time selling products that offer worthless information, few people return. The people whose products sell well are the ones who provide valuable information. Readers already know what kind of information they are getting, so they trust that when they buy something, it will be of equal or better quality. This value must be reflected in your blog. It’s a lot like people who only sign up for a newsletter after seeing an example for the first time.
Nobody wants to be a lemming (I hope so). How do you decide whether or not to start a blog? The answer is not black or white (what did you expect?). Ask these questions:
- Can you update it regularly, at least five times a week?
- Have something to say besides linking to others?
- Do you read other blogs or feeds?
- Can you provide valuable information to others, not just yourself?
- How big is your list of newsletter subscribers?
- How many unique visitors do you get in an average day, week, or month?
The big deciding factor is whether or not you can blog almost daily. The people behind high-traffic blogs post multiple times a day. Though clever, simply linking to other sites doesn’t give visitors much of a reason to make the effort to visit yours. Reading other blogs or feeds is a great way to learn how to lead a discussion. Find other blogs covering similar topics to yours and check them out. Do you disagree with their opinions? Write about it and explain your reasons. Cross-blog discussions are common, and that’s where trackback comes in handy.
Trackback is a blog feature. If you choose to comment on another blog post on your blog instead of on that blog’s comment page, then you link to the conversation via the referral link. The trackback is similar to the permalink, the blog post’s permanent URL, but it has a different URL to copy and paste into your blog’s trackback box.
In addition to the technical aspects of running a blog on a daily basis, the size of your subscriber list and website traffic are good indicators of the kind of reaction you’ll get from starting a blog. Starting from scratch with little traffic means you have a long road ahead of you and a lot of work to do. There is no magic formula that someone can sell you for $97 to make your blog an overnight success. But with a little perseverance and ingenuity, your blog can attract a lot of prospects and customers.
Considering there are numerous blogs out there, choose a niche topic when starting a blog for the best chance of attracting and keeping an audience. Meryl’s notes focus on three areas: webby, geeky, and wordy. Actually, this is too much. What I need to do for my readers is create three separate blog entry points, so those interested in writing, newsletters, and internet marketing get nothing but long-winded entries. Those interested in web design get the webby stuff and technophiles get the geeky content.
I also run a personal blog separate from Meryl’s notes. It’s about cochlear implants and deafness. This might fall under the geeky category, but it’s a personal blog and doesn’t belong in Meryl’s notes. This blog is written for a different audience.
The blogging tools for both of my blogs come with syndication capabilities so those who use feed readers or aggregators can read the content through the software. When you submit a new issue of a newsletter, comment on it or link to it on the blog, that way blog and feed readers will get the products, so all three bases are covered.
Blogging tools aren’t just for, well, blogging. These tools are a great way to help you update your website more frequently than you otherwise would. I use it to manage list of websites without tables. Using blogging tools is much easier than the way it was done before, updating HTML files by hand. Although a blog tool is used, it is not a blog. In this case, the blog tool has become a content management system (CMS).
Small business owners don’t need the fancy and expensive CMS out there. They find it easier to use blogging software to manage their sites or hire someone to tailor the tool for their site.
Blogs have found a place in business, and people are finding creative ways to use them. Some companies have an intranet blog to communicate project status, risks, and metrics. They are used for knowledge management. With information pouring in, blogging tools provide a way to share, organize, and process information.
Being a follower can be good or bad. No one wants to jump off a cliff with the lemmings, but everyone wants to succeed. Best practices won’t help, as the decision to blog is based on the organization’s mission, needs, and goals along with the wants and needs of your target market. A blog about lemmings? There is one, something like that. Or maybe you’d like to start your own and talk silly business moves.
