Blogs - easy, difficult or a waste of time?

[GDI-Mentor]

Blogs are useful indeed

 

I have to ask this question? Who has an ego big enough to imagine that their customers are really going to be interested in the tittle tattle of their daily life and experiences? How much time do you think customers have? And if they have the time, they're obviously not earning. So where's the pay off in blogging or blabbing whichever it ends up?

Spot on sums blogging up to a tee.The only people who may be the slightest interested in bloggs are other bloggers.

And then only if you can get to the top of google.I would much rather spend my time getting a real live paying website to the top than waste my time thinking I was the greatest writer on the planet.

Bit like the authors who pay thousand of pounds to have there books published.Totall ego trip ,thinking other people are interested in your hum drum scribblings.

Earl

 

[An Oasis]

Have to say that Blogs have plummeted in the SERP's even LIve no longer gives them added brownie points.

We rarely bother to update ours, that said 10 Yetis is making good use of theirs...horses for courses.

 

[Matt1959]

.The only people who may be the slightest interested in bloggs are other bloggers.

sorry, dont agree - its too much of a generalised statement. Blogs can give a potential client an insight into what sort of person they're dealing with - this is surely a benefit for certain types of businesses:|

 

[An Oasis]

Sirearl would not know a blog if it bit him in the nuts!

 

[tcg]

Spot on sums blogging up to a tee.The only people who may be the slightest interested in bloggs are other bloggers.

And then only if you can get to the top of google.I would much rather spend my time getting a real live paying website to the top than waste my time thinking I was the greatest writer on the planet.

Bit like the authors who pay thousand of pounds to have there books published.Totall ego trip ,thinking other people are interested in your hum drum scribblings.

Earl

Blogging is not for everyone.

It depends on your business, your business objectives and most importantly on who you are as a person.

If you don't want to blog, can't see the value or you never read blogs, then great, don't blog. However who are you to say other people should not blog, or worse, call them names and insult them for choosing to do so?

The great thing about user generated content is that the Internet is a democracy. Those who are good bloggers will collect a following, those who are rubbish and self promote will be ignored.

It's a personal choice. If it make sense for you to blog and it fits your personality then great. If it does not then choose not to.

I choose to blog and I respect the decision of those who do not.

 

Blogs can give a potential client an insight into what sort of person they're dealing with

And you think that is a good thing.?

Earl

 

[Matt1959]

And you think that is a good thing.?

Earl

well it depends what you're (not you btw) like as person doesn't it. If you're a shifty little git who gives a great impression, I'm sure a blog is not for you for sooner or later you will be revealed for what you really are

 

Afraid I am a bit biased and stick blogging in with Big Brother e.t.c.

Maybe I have just read the wrong bloggs ,but most of what I have seen consist of inane,incomprehensible drivel ,that sure as hell would be rather unlikely to make me one of the bloggee's customers.:|

But then what would I know ,having had horses and carts roaming the streets when I was young.

Still trying to find out how to work me mobile.

Earl

 

I would say they are no good if they are a personal blog of an employee - did this today, did that today.

On the other hand, if you can use them as a tool to informally get across news about your company, they are a good thing. You can use it to tell people what products you are offering, and maybe why. Definitely something to think about, but your company has to fit the concept of a blog.

Innocent's blog works quite well, take a look at that!

 

[tcg]

Afraid I am a bit biased and stick blogging in with Big Brother e.t.c.

Maybe I have just read the wrong bloggs ,but most of what I have seen consist of inane,incomprehensible drivel ,that sure as hell would be rather unlikely to make me one of the bloggee's customers.:|

But then what would I know ,having had horses and carts roaming the streets when I was young.

Still trying to find out how to work me mobile.

Earl

Nice reply

I hear you. Bad blogs leave a bad taste in my mouth too.

There are some good blogs out there, trust me. Hard to find sometimes, but they do exist.

Oh dear, mobiles are set to get even more complicated too. Blogging on mobiles, now that will get you reacting again.

 

[adventurelife]

Started ours on www.rafting.co.uk early this year. Traffic to site has increased, business has increased

I get a staff member to update every few days so for the little time it takes the return has been good.

I just see them as yet another part of the marketing mix

 

Started ours on www.rafting.co.uk early this year. Traffic to site has increased, business has increased

I get a staff member to update every few days so for the little time it takes the return has been good.

I just see them as yet another part of the marketing mix

Can you actually tell if business has increased due to the blogg.?

I am not against a well written informative blogg.

I just think most people would benefit more from working on there SEO and other forms of site/ business promotion,and don't consider Bloggs as being much benefit to a sites SERP's.

Earl

 

[adventurelife]

Can you actually tell if business has increased due to the blogg.?

Earl

Can track how many people visit the site via the blog as the entry page. We also ask clients how they found us and when we are not to busy we ask dig a lot deeper the the usual answer of " the internet" so yes business is up on the blog.

That said like I said it is only a small part of the whole marketing mix. I would not bet the house on it

 

[cricket]

I see a lot of people new in business giving away a lot of trade secrets in their blog. It's great to advertise but if you wave the flag, 'hey, look how well we're doing with a top product' you'll soon have people reading your blog to spy on your success and copy your ideas.
It's a fine line between promoting a product or service and telling the world how well you're doing.

I've been in busuness successfully for 25 years and i learned early on that to stay in business and beat the competition, stay beneath the radar and aim your advertising direct at your known market.

 

[tcg]

I've been in busuness successfully for 25 years and i learned early on that to stay in business and beat the competition, stay beneath the radar and aim your advertising direct at your known market.

There is some sense in that. It is daft to give away information to your competition.

There is a shift happening however. To survive in this climate, and to survive in a future where resources will even harder to come by, intelligent collaboration is one of the keys to success. So much energy is spent shutting out the competition where it could be spent building relationships and collaborating.

Of course there is a need to protect yourself, and it would be naive to think that people will not take advantage of you, yet as services and skills become more specialised, there is room to pass on the business, or parts of the business that does not make sense to you and receive the pieces that are.

I do agree that some, in their haste to prove their thought leadership and knowledge do give away too much in their blogs. The trick, and this is the difficult part, is to give away just enough to be useful, increase interest, position yourself and engage people without looking like you are flogging something.

 

[cricket]

Absolutely true. It shows that you need to be good at the skill of marketing your own advertising in a discreet yet informative way because honestly? There are smart people out there on the internet who innocently ask leading questions in order to bleed you dry of how you and your business operate.
It's a form of grooming and it's highly effective. I cringe when I see bloggers openly giving away all their trade information.
I've written books on my own industry but even with these, I've had to be very discriminating about how much I reveal so that I don't sell myself out of my own market.

The trick is to be smart with how you write, what you say and how you attract the right kind of reader that is genuinely interested in buying not taking from you.

 

[GDI-Mentor]

I do agree with you

 

[the white rose]

Nice reply

I hear you. Bad blogs leave a bad taste in my mouth too.

I don't understand this line of thinking at all. There is a huge array of information out there. Some of it will be to your taste, some of it won't. The stuff that isn't you just click off and move on, without it having to leave a bad taste in your mouth. Life's too short. It just wasn't to your taste.

To survive in this climate, and to survive in a future where resources will even harder to come by, intelligent collaboration is one of the keys to success. So much energy is spent shutting out the competition where it could be spent building relationships and collaborating.

On this point I agree with you tcg, and one of the biggest openings for this in the blogosphere is via cross-promotion. And by that I don't mean advertising, I mean writing articles about an interesting related service/product, which when backed by friendly backstage communication can often lead to their blog commenting on yours. Google loves this as well of course in SEO terms; other blogs linking to yours.

If you want to see an example of this working effectively, have a look at my August 08 blog posts at judecalverttoulmin.com, about lego artist Chris Doyle, inventor of the now world famous Mini-Mizer, software to instantly create yourself online in Lego (at the time of writing these articles are still all on the front page.) I blogged about his work. He then blogged about my work and asked permission to use one of my art pieces in his Lego comic strip. I then blogged about this. He then used the art piece on his blog, on the T-shirt of one of his lego characters. I blogged about this as well. Great publicity for both of us; I can tell from my stats (sitemeter.com is a good free stat counter for blogs btw and very easy to set up.)

 

[tcg]

I don't understand this line of thinking at all. There is a huge array of information out there. Some of it will be to your taste, some of it won't. The stuff that isn't you just click off and move on, without it having to leave a bad taste in your mouth. Life's too short. It just wasn't to your taste.

Yes, the Internet is a democracy, I agree. However sometimes you can't forget what you have read and you cannot help but be affected by it. We all are entitled to our opinions and on the same line of thinking we are all entitled to our reactions. If I read something offensive, or something that goes against my values, I react accordingly.

This is a good example of how forums, blogs, discussions etc can lead to misunderstandings, we are essentially saying the same thing. The point is bad blogs should not put you off reading others.