Blogging in Today's Day and Age

What exactly is a blog?

Well to put it simply a blog is a form of communication done over the internet. Individuals can set up their blogs and write about a topic that they feel particularly passionate about. As David Meerman Scott points out in his book The New Rules of Marketing and PR, blogging is a crucial tool for small businesses as well as large ones when seeking out viable marketing options.

Due to the fact that the term blog holds some kind of negative connotation behind it (many think of personal endeavors when thinking of a blog), Scott suggests that individuals within a company who think that starting a blog would be a good idea but are wary of implementing the plan because they feel their superiors may think it is unprofessional, call their blog a "regulary updated information site". The idea of a blog is so simple and powerful that it is only a matter of time before every business creates one.

Here is a quick video to give some of the skeptics a few reasons to start up that blog.

Getting Started

So not knowing where to begin is probably the number one reason that so many people do not blog or have not thought about blogging. It is so simple to start and the only thing you need to do is be passionate about something. Resource 2-2 (pg. 57 of the NMDL book) provides a great example of how to get started with WordPress. Getting started with blogging, in my eyes, can boil down to three simple steps:

1. Find your passion
2. Create your blog
3. Publish your work

It is my opinion that following these steps will get your name out there and from there becoming noticed is a sure thing. Once a blog is up and running and the blogger has some experience under the proverbial belt, the only thing that is left to do is improve! improve! improve! Generating more engaging content is a primary task of a blogger, the tips given in resource 2-8 (pg. 59 of the NMDL book) are a great guide as to where to begin improving your blog.

Do Unto Others...

...as you would have them do unto you. The golden rule applies to this situation...in a sense that is. In order to start to get feedback you must start to give feedback. Comments are the currency of the blogging world and especially successful blogs generate a ton of controversy around the topics, that in turn generates a ton of comments on each post and that is what we want as bloggers. Attracting traffic to your blog is the only way that your thoughts and ideas are going to get out there, resource 2-17 (pg. 63 of the NMDL book) gives 8 tips for generating more traffic for your blog. Some of the tips include:

• Powerful, compelling, keyword-rich titles
• Posting links to your blog across various social media sites
• Leaving comments on other blogs

Commenting on blogs does more than getting your opinion expressed, it puts your face and a link to your blog on other blogs and will generate more publicity for you in the long run. Essentially the success of one's blog is determined by the individual's choice to "give back" to the blogging community.

Please feel free to check out my blog here! I post and will be posting all about past, present and future technology and the uses or hardships it is bringing us!