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Blog Or Die?
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Don’t have a Blog? Why Your Competition Hopes You Never Get One
My advice for you is to get one today. Seriously, if you are spending money on any other media or advertising and you don’t have a Blog, STOP and get a Blog before you spend another dime.
It does not matter if you are a brick and mortar company or sell most of your products and services online, you NEED to have a Blog. I am surprised at the number of supposedly smart companies that have websites without a Blog.
Because of some recent conversations with clients I want to start from scratch here. I actually have been working on this post for over two weeks now and it’s has even become more relevant since I started it. Here is a short video that encapsulates what this post is about. I am running on about 3 hours sleep today. You can probably tell from the video that I just shot. Click and watch it before you go on if you can.
What is a Blog?
A Blog is basically a list of short stories that are called posts. They can contain text, graphics, audio, video, or a combination of them all. Typically it is updated fairly frequently. It can be several times a day, to several times a month.
Subject matter varies depending on the owner and writers of the Blog. They can be about your personal life, a specific subject matter, or even a hobby. The sky is the limit for what can be Blogged or written about. In the case of a company, it would be information relevant to their clients or potential clients. For instance, this Blog at 21to21.com is primarily about using and leveraging the Internet including Blogs and Websites for individuals and businesses so that their businesses become massively profitable. I am interested in helping you make more money. Which is what Profit Consultants do.
Why are Blogs important?
Blogs are important because they give give you, the owner of the Blog, the ability to communicate freely with your clients and potential clients. The great thing about a Blog is people get to vote with a click of their mouse. Meece Rule! OK, so I made Meece up, but you know what I mean. More on the importance after this next bit.
RSS Feeds and getting the word out
People are able to gather information in a non-threatening way. It also provides you, as the owner of the Blog, to put out information immediately with virtually ZERO lag time. Not only will people be able to find what you posted as soon as it comes out, but, through RSS feeds, it will pass that information along to subscribers immediately.
This is from Wikipedia…
RSS (most commonly expanded as “Really Simple Syndication”) is a family of web feed formats used to publish frequently updated works—such as blog entries, news headlines, audio, and video—in a standardized format.[2] An RSS document (which is called a “feed”, “web feed”,[3] or “channel”) includes full or summarized text, plus metadata such as publishing dates and authorship. Web feeds benefit publishers by letting them syndicate content automatically. They benefit readers who want to subscribe to timely updates from favored websites or to aggregate feeds from many sites into one place. RSS feeds can be read using software called an “RSS reader”, “feed reader”, or “aggregator“, which can be web-based, desktop-based, or mobile-device-based. A standardized XML file format allows the information to be published once and viewed by many different programs. The user subscribes to a feed by entering into the reader the feed’s URL or by clicking an RSS icon in a web browser that initiates the subscription process. The RSS reader checks the user’s subscribed feeds regularly for new work, downloads any updates that it finds, and provides a user interface to monitor and read the feeds.
RSS formats are specified using XML, a generic specification for the creation of data formats. Although RSS formats have evolved from as early as March 1999,[4] it was between 2005 and 2006 when RSS gained widespread use, and the (“
“) icon was decided upon by several major Web browsers.[5]
On my Blog here for instance, I have over 11,000 RSS feeds going out on everything that I post. Good, bad, or indifferent. So, as you can see, RSS feeds are an important part of your Blog.
This can also help with your SEO or Search Engine Optimization.
Social Media
Another reason you should Blog is Social Media. Your blog can post to other Social Media sites including Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Linkedin, Stumbleupon, Digg, and a whole host of others.
And I swear this is a true story I heard today, a member of a fairly well known non-profit organization that helps businesses become better, stated Social Media was becoming less important, or at least that is what they had read. Well, all I have to say to that is I remember people saying the same thing about the Internet back in 1997.
Social Media is exploding and will continue to do so. Embrace it, understand it, make use of it, and enjoy it! It can be a great way to interact with your clients, potential clients, and your friends.
RSS and Social Media give you the ability to leverage and go viral like never before. Even though I am busier now than I ever have been, readership for my blog has doubled in the past two months and it seems that trend could continue for the next year. And, my Social Media Blueprint is less than 10% complete. So, there is a lot of room to improve.
Between my RSS feeds and Social Media such as Twitter, I can potentially reach over 22,000 people in a flash anytime I like for about 1 cent. Can you do that with any other communications tool you have?
That is why you need a Blog. Twitter and Facebook are fine but you are only leasing those. Make your Blog your focal point.
The Ability To Give Great Content To Your Clients And Prospects
You can do things to make your story about your product or service interesting like this!
Tags: Blog or Die, Blogs, WordPress
