Blog On! The business of blogging part 2

Welcome to the second part of our "cook's tour" of blogging for business. Here we'll provide a few simple steps to getting started with your blog.

Did you have a look at other blogs since our last newsletter? Did you check out blogs in your industry, blogs of your competitors, of journalists who write regularly about you or your industry? Have you started to get a sense of why people blog?

If you haven't already, then it is important to familiarize yourself with what's out there in the blogging world, and specifically what's out there that relates to you. To begin understanding why people blog the way they do and how you can use blogs to build your business, then you should examine the way blogs look, how they're laid out, the kinds of things that are discussed and who is discussing them - this all helps to put you fairly and squarely in a blogging frame of mind.

You might have been unable to contain your excitement and actually posted some of your own comments on a blog or two. If not, try it. You'll increase your blog Zen and get your voice out there, displaying your expertise or sparking debate with your insightful repartee. As you have now read many blogs, you will know something of blog etiquette, and how to avoid sounding too much like a smarty pants.

Planning is essential for getting bang for your blogging buck. Think about the sorts of messages you want to get out through your blog and start planning your strategy from there. For example, think about the benefits of your product or service, and how you might start a discussion on your blog that alludes to these. But remember, this is a conversation amongst friends you're aiming for, not a cold hard sales pitch.

Creation is the easy part (technically) and that's why people blog in the numbers they do. Blogging software abounds. You will have noticed that they're fairly simple in look-and-feel and functionality. But your planning will drive exactly what you go for.

Now the hard part - keeping your blog up-to-date. There's nothing more out-of-date than an out-of-date blog. Why people blog once a year is a mystery to us all. If you can't invest the time and money to keep your blog happening, then it's probably better not to bother right now.

The do's and don'ts of blogging

Don't:

Hard sell

Do:

Now you know why people blog, it's time for you to blog-on!

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