Warning: If you don't read this whole post, you will miss out on some of my most fervent thoughts about business blogging. Please indulge me for a few minutes. Then let me know what you think. "Easton, you're crazy" is fine - just back up your statements with evidence (besides Yoda).
General Note - This study doesn't contain rocket science. It's just the results of talking to a few dozen good business bloggers. So the lesson I want you to take from this is to get out there and make your own study that others can learn from. You should be the one doing what others say they're too busy or too afraid or too good to do. Dig deep where others have just scratched the surface.
Page 4 - "Blogs will make or break your business." Actually, your business probably won't stand or fall solely by the quality of its blog(s) - but blogs can indeed have a profound effect on your business for good or ill.
Page 6 - "Blogs must be part of a plan" (capitalization removed). Amen! Don't just decide on a plan for your blog; also decide how your blog will fit into a larger plan that involves your business as a whole. How will you use your blog to boost your business?
Page 8 - "Find human beings to blog—don’t set up a blog and try to find
someone to manage it. It will fail if you do.” I partially disagree with this assertion made by one anonymous participant in the blogging study. You can successfully start up a blog or establish a space with an assigned topic before finding a human blogger to fill that space. Know More Media has done that before, with surprising success.
Page 10 - "Blogs evolve." So simple, yet so true. We have this incredible constant called change, and it's always eroding and shifting and transforming the realities of today into the evolved realities of tomorrow. I know that the term "business blog" will mean something different to most who hear it ten years from now as opposed to today.
And BLOGGERS evolve, too. At least, 'thems that evolves well will succeed, and thems that don't, won't.' Remember that "blogging," in one sense, is an activity that involves much more than merely using the instant publishing and indexing system you could call a blog. When I think of consummate blogging, I think of connecting with other people and plumbing the depths of conversations around the world and savvy reporting and analysis and collaborative communication.
Are you catching the vision here? The most important skill you can develop as a blogger is the ability to cultivate relationships. In order to become a masterful blogger, you must learn to become a master communicator and connector who uses evolving tools to get people's attention and help them find meaningful learning and communal experiences on a continual basis.
Page 16 - "Blogs are not a fad. They are no longer even an option. Those businesses that choose to remain outside this online conversation, will be sidelined. Eventually they will become extinct." Again, I think this is too harsh a conclusion. Many businesses are doing and will continue to just fine without blogs, but they are certainly passing up many incredible opportunities to engage in multi-directional, personal communication on the Web.
Yes, you can use email, or you can use your phone, or you can go to conferences and get people's feedback. But the whole phenomenon of "blogging" as we know it in the early and mid-2000s is part of a rapid rise in humans' ability to quickly publish, index, categorize, sort, find, share and respond to information. So please, don't ignore blogs and don't be afraid of blogs. Instead, try to figure out how you can improve your business with the help of blogs. This involves two major tasks:
1. Listen to what people are saying about you and your products, services, competitors and industry. All you need to do this are time and patience (and, if you're short on one or both, some knowledge of Web feeds).
2. Consider starting your own corporate blog. If you're scared, that's okay - just ask me or one of my readers for help. We're not a scary bunch!
Hmm ... pages 17-60 contain the actual results of the blog study, so the conclusions comprise only the first 15 pages or so. It's a nicely done and well-presented study. While it has some clear flaws - the lack of admittance of biases, the over-reliance on volunteers with blogs (some of whom clearly submitted answers to the survey through multiple blogs of their own, thus distorting the results) and the frequent typos come to mind - this study is valuable because of the thought it has helped generate in me and hopefully in you as well. I'm grateful to UMass for doing this.
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