Harlan Editorial

The essential stumbling block I had to get over: blogging is not another word for ranting. 

Let me update you, first, on how I got to this point, — blog site up, ready to develop.  It was a long road from print media journalist and Web content creator to blogger. I overcame lots of preconceived judgments and low expectations of the world of blogging along the way.

Since I’m primarily a journalist, I started with research. I googled and yahoo-searched, clicked on links and then on links again, found more links and clicked there until I wasn’t even sure where I was in the universe of blogsites. I was looking for thought leaders in the online marketing industry.

Because Blogging is Marketing, or else why would IBM, McDonald’s and Hillary Clinton invest in it?

It’s not pajama-clad, midnight rants, though there is a lot of this, for sure. In fact, there are thousands of bloggers throwing their voices out into the blogosphere void for no apparent reason. Some are rants; some are personal, some just for fun, and many with much more intimate information about themselves than I’ll ever want to know.

But I was searching for online marketing leaders and following those links. And I found several blogs written by thought leaders.

These are the sites that I go back to again and again to check in on what blog marketing is all about. Their sites are both sales sites for their companies and content-rich sites for those of us searching for insight. You think people like David Meerman Scott, author of The New Rules of Marketing & PR, are giving away the store because when you visit his site and Susan Getgood’s or John Jantsch’s site, you find rich content.

And that’s the first lesson of blogging. It’s all about content. Readers come to your site not just to learn about your latest workshop, but to learn something about your subject. Give them content. Let them inside the store. Share.

And business will follow. (Example: I bought David Meerman Scott’s New Rules book after seeing it on his blog.)

PS – (Can you put a PS in a blog?) My thanks to everyone who responded and, yes, please do not be embarrassed about just lurking (and learning!); when you want to respond, click on comment below or go to register in the right-hand column. You can sign in either way. (Requiring sign-ins helps me control spammers.)

Tags: Blogging, Online Content //