What it Takes to Get a Blog From Ideas to the Internet

Submitted by Student on Mon, 06/03/2013 - 8:11pm

When I first heard of blogging, I never really grew an interest in the online phenomena. I’ve frequently read blogs like Gawker, Lifehacker, Mashable, and even some personal blogs. Despite being into reading them, I did not want to start writing one. How did I have anything interesting to say? No one would take interest into my thoughts and perspectives about any topic!

What's the Purpose of Blogging?

I never really considered what a blog was really used for. David Meerman Scott points out in The New Rules of Marketing & PR that a blog is meant to facilitate conversation and connection between an author and his/her readers about mutually interested topics. In the book, he points out that in the 2008 election, Barack Obama had a slight edge because he jumped on integrating social media with his campaign. His campaign even created blogs that focused on each state and featured supporters that submitted material to the campaign. This is an excellent example in my book of facilitating conversation and listening to what your audience responding with. This New York Times piece from 2008 lists more techniques used by the Obama campaign to get supporters through social media. Scott also lists four uses for blogs in a marketing and PR situation:

To easily monitor what millions of people are saying about you, the market you sell to, your organization, and its products.
To participate in those conversations by commenting on other people's blogs.
To work with bloggers who write about your industry, company, or products.
To begin to shape those conversations by creating and writing your own blog.

Finding Ideas

I began wondering how I could possibly even pick a topic for blogging. I looked at the “Fifty Can’t Fail Techniques for Finding Great Blog Topics” from the NMDL book and utilized these pointers into narrowing down ideas:

#15. Mine your hobbies: Well... advertising is a hobby, right? If I don’t have an interest in this stuff, I might be in the wrong major. I read that writing about an interest will help keep content fresh and frequent.
#20. Stop worrying you’ll look dumb: I guess I have nothing to lose. I hope if I do look dumb at the start, I can continue develop my post content to have smarts.
#47: Think Funny: Everyone likes funny ads! Not all of the ads that I feature need to be funny, but these are ones that can help draw attention to my blog.

Keeping the Blog New and Interesting

The second source that I paid mind to was the “5 Ways to Keep Your Blog Fresh: A Series Inspired by 150 Posts”. I hope to use these rules as guidelines to avoid running my blog into the ground. As long as I can avoid ranting, keep being a frequent poster, and maybe include a few posts that can run as a series or continuation of each other, my blog may be popular.

The NMDL resource "What to Blog About" makes a key point to always make sure that you create a blog with your audience in mind. It isn't smart to make the blog just about you, no one cares about that. I learned that you need to make it something interesting for others to read with a possibility of gaining something useful out of your posts.

These extra 7 Keys to Keeping Your Blog Content Fresh by Mike Brown give other great tips to keep your blog alive. Self-discipline is the top factor listed. I learned that if you can't keep your blog updated, you'll lose your following fast. Brown notes that optimizing your titles and content is extremely important for your blog to be findable and accessible, as well. I thought one of his best points of all, though, is that you need to have an audience that cares. Even if only a few people comment on your work, its nice to know that people actually take the time to read your posts. It is ven better if the audience is encouraging, yet constructively critiquing your work to help you improve your presentation.

So after taking all of these tips into consideration, I decided to create my blog about the most newsworthy advertisement campaigns and techniques published in today's media. Whether it's the content of the advertisement or the way that the content is delivered, I think that the direction that ads are taking in today's times is fascinating. Please check out my blog "Outside of the Box" here!

NMDL Resources:

2-13: What to Blog About (p61, http://www.businessinsider.com/what-to-blog-about-2011-4)

2-14: Fifty Can’t Fail-Techniques for Finding Great Blog Topics (p61, http://www.copyblogger.com/brainstorm-blog-topics)

2-24: 5 Ways to Keep Your Blog Fresh: A Series Inspired by 150 Posts (p66, http://www.jeffkorhan.com/2010/01/5-tips-to-keep-your-blog-fresh-a-series-inspired-by-150-posts-.html)