Is blogging a marketing or networking activity? When does blogging become a distraction?
September 30, 2007
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Perhaps asking this question is heresy in the blogging community.
It is a question I am asking with increasing frequency these days. I have been writing daily since 1998 and writing about small business will always have a place in my schedule.
A busy schedule makes blogging especially challenging.
I have noticed that when I have multiple problem solving or creative projects on the go my desire to write for my blogs slips dramatically. I recall feeling the same way about my podcasts. Producing a quality podcast consumes more time than blogging. Perhaps that is why I stopped podcasting and kept blogging. If so, how do we measure the value of blogging?
Quantify the Value of Blogging
Personally, I love writing and blogging provides immediate feedback. The hard nosed capitalist pig in me asks, “What is the economic value of blogging? What metrics should we use to determine the efficacy of blogging? Should we apply a simple economic (sales increase) measure? Should we measure success by the number of comments a post gets? How can I determine if blogging has become a distraction?
No Blogging = No Distractions
Perhaps that statement is just to simplistic. If I just stopped blogging it would certainly eliminate the “distraction” but would it solve the problem? Is the consumption of creative energy that blogging requires really a problem or is it an opportunity disguised as a problem? Is it just my situation that makes it a problem?
My Current Situation
I am in the midst of reviving and updating a seminar I created in the mid 1990’s before I got involved with the Internet and writing online.
What struck me most was the fact that in those days all my writing and creative energy was 100% focused on developing and delivering seminars. I did not have blogging as an outlet. But these days I am finding that blogging is draining my creative energy and time.
Manage My Creative Energy
I have always justified the time and energy investment into blogging as an essential marketing activity – especially given the fact that my business is 100% international. All my clients, writing, and business opportunities stem from my blog or the relationships I have built with the readers.
I do not question the value of the relationships that result from getting to know the readers on my blog but the potential energy drain. Here is the paradox – the business needs me to redirect the creative energy from my bogs into developing seminars, tools, and web applications. Which causes me to ask the question, “Is blogging a marketing or a networking activity?”
Blogging Resembles Networking
Unless you actually have a marketing plan wherein blogging is one of many marketing tools and activities you use to reach your market – your blogging is more of a social, networking activity. Bottom line, I am questioning the efficacy and ability of blogging to produce the desired result. Is this just a phase? Do I have writers block?
No Writers Block
Writing is easy. Writing well is hard work.
Late in 2005 I wrote Tips and Traps When Buying a Business (274 pages) and in the winter of 2006 wrote Tips and Traps for Writing an Effective Business Plan (374 pages) all while maintaining my blogs. It was a huge commitment that sapped every ounce of creative energy I had. Writing those books was an amazing experience as I uncovered knowledge and capabilities I knew I had but had not fully developed.
Could it be that I just need to get comfortable with directing my writing and creative energy somewhere else?
Can a Blogging Consultant Help?
I wonder how the blogging consultants out there might react or respond to these questions I ask? How many blogging consultants ask their clients about their marketing and business plan?
Comments
11 Responses to “Is blogging a marketing or networking activity? When does blogging become a distraction?”
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Greg, some great points on that. One thing that I really focus on when helping others is to make sure they understand how their blogging helps achieve their goals and fits into the larger picture. Here some points to consider:
What is the one ultimate purpose of your blog? For a business owner, it is almost always to get new clients. There are lesser, secondary goals that help lead to that, such as gaining traffic and networking with others in order to seek out and provide opportunities. But at the end of the day, your blog is there to show people why they should want to give you their money and hire you as a business coach.
You have to balance the time spent getting new clients with the time you spend helping your current clients and planning/developing methods/tools to help clients, otherwise your work will dry up or you will be overly busy. Seems to me the part of this that’s a bit newer for you is the planning/developing methods/tools part. You’re on an innovation kick, and something’s got to give.
If you innovate in a forest and there’s nobody around to hear you, do you make a sound? Blogging gives an audience of listeners to hear that “sound.”
You write humongous blog posts (I tend to, as well). You are a man who is doing things, but your blogging is often a lot like thinking out loud. You could try changing your game up to write more about what you are doing, instead of ruminating on concepts, which means you don’t need to write such large posts.
You don’t have to post as often. Keep the larger content items as articles or ebooks and sell them or base your next print book on them.
Engaging in networking and community activities should really take up more of your time than blogging does, like 2:1.
What you are doing would benefit from a more traditional type of media coverage. You want to impact a million business owners. Interviews and being the subject of articles in magazines, etc., has a long reach. It’s worth it to take the time to work this rather than blog so much.
You can space out the need to take time to write original material by milking your archives with link posts that link to stuff you’ve already written.
You can offer guest posting spots, so you don’t have to write so many posts.
The above is a bit of a brainstorming session, so it’s a bit random. I
Greg,
I also ask clients about their marketing and business plans! Blogging, at least when done right, does not exist in a vacuum.
I’ve refused to take on clients that simply wanted a blog because it was a “checklist item” (must have blog — whatever that is, mentality).
I also find blogging takes significant creative energy, and when I’m extremely busy like now, my blogging output and desire diminish.
That is great feedback Michael, after sleeping on it overnight, I still want to continue to blog just with a smaller footprint on my daily energy and creative time. I have felt that reposting links to older articles was lazy, but that said, they tend to get buried in the archives and it could be a very helpful thing to the readers.
Your comments on using the media to get my message out regarding my March to Impact a Million Entrepreneurs is a great distinction.
I think the answer depends on one’s business Greg, and Michael gives you some very thoughtful advice in regard to yours. For instance, in my present business model, it’s marketing for me as an author, but not as a coach. When does it become a distraction? Pretty much every time I’m online with more than five minutes!
@ Ted, thanks for the feedback, glad to hear that I am not alone in facing the challenge.
@ Rosa, as a coach does not blogging help clients to get to know us better? I wonder how we can make that more tangible?
Sure it does Greg (you asked, “as a coach does not blogging help clients to get to know us better?”), but it can also distract them (existing clients) as we are serving a bigger audience, and not their specific needs. Said another way, I don’t believe blogging is necessary with existing clients if you are doing a good, complete job with them in the first place – which includes building a relationship with them in which they do begin to know you exceptionally well, way more than most blog readers.
I was initially responding in regards to marketing creating new business for me as a coach. It has, and it does, but frankly, if that were my main goal with blogging the return is poor relative to the investment- making that “more tangible” is not part of my desire presently. Blogging fulfills other needs for me, and you know I love it and am not about to stop, but business creation in my coaching is not one of the needs it fills well in compared to other strategies – again, in my present business model.
Greg,
Corporate blogging is marketing, except in one specific instance.
In fact, as a freelance corporate blogger, I have rewritten my profession to be “customer engagement”. When I began working, I quickly became involved in all the tasks that a marketer also had to know: learning the product, writing copy, defining the message, and so on. Networking and writing blog posts are only one facet of a corporate blogger’s work.
I started a blog specifically to track these thoughts on corporate blogging from the blogger’s perspective.
Yehuda Berlinger
When I hear ‘Corporate Blogging’ I think big business. This is a small business blog and since most people blogging for a small business are also accountable for the ‘financial results’ for their business it does shine a slightly different light on the subject.
I agree that customer engagement and knowing the “product, writing copy, defining the message” are other facets to a business blogger’s duties. While each of these disciplines are important – all of them are a waste of time and energy unless they result in old fashioned specific, measurable, and financial end results.
I appreciate your contribution to the discussion and pointing of the other facets. As a solo entrepreneur since 1990 and writing daily online since 1998 I can tell you it is way too easy to get caught up in using blog (comments, subscribers etc.) and web site statistics to justify the “blogging activity”.
Eventually someone needs to ask, “Where’s the beef?” aka. show me the money. Know what I mean?
Greg,
I think, as Ted’s already noted, that if blogging is used it should be part of an SME’s strategy.
And really blogging is a tactic that’s implemented as part of that marketing strategy.
It’s up to each entrepreneur-blogger to decide what measures they need to decide whether the blog is helping that strategy.
For example if your strategy is to be seen as the expert on ’something’ your measurement might include ‘x’ amount of traffic from other leading expert blogs and ‘y’ amount of comments and maybe ‘z’ amount of dollars from conversion to a sale – from each follow-up mechanism, not just the blog.
Jim
Greg,
I think the answer might also be different depending on where you are with your business. For me, just starting out in a new business blogging is an opportunity to refine my thinking, establish my position (to myself and hopefully to prospects) and generally make things more tangible as I’m in the creation process.
More established bloggers will likely have a different perspective, but at this point I would blog even if no one was reading it (which isn’t far from the truth…)
just because it’s a great developmental and learning process.
Great discussion – thanks for bringing it up.
Shawn
Response to everybody – it is great to read your thoughts on blogging, helps to maintain focus and absolutely agree with Shawn – blogging, writing – all for learning and growth. I think it is amazing how different marketing and lifestyle has become – think 5 years ago: blog – what?