Introduction to Blogging

"Go ahead and bellyache about blogs. But you cannot afford to close your eyes to them, because they're simply the most explosive outbreak in the information world since the Internet itself. And they're going to shake up just about every business -- including yours."
Business Week, May 2, 2005

A blog is an Internet online journal that offers running commentary or "posts" in reverse chronological order. The word is a contraction of Web log. The word weblog, in turn, was probably first coined by Jorn Barger in December of 1997. The word blog was probably coined by Peter Merholz in 1999 and was the word of the year in 2004, according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary publisher. It's even been used as a category on the Jeopardy game show.

Here are some advantages of blogs over traditional web pages:

Blog pages can be created quickly and updated easily by a non-technical person.
Blog page listings are updated frequently in the search engines because they are strong on content and changed often. As a result, blogs can drive high-quality listings for a web site.
Unlike the passive web page, blogs can distribute (or "broadcast") their information through the Internet, actively promoting themselves to subscribers and blog services each time you add a new entry to your blog (see Chapter 8). They use a push technology rather than the traditional pull technology of the Internet web page.
It's good advertising and marketing. Click-through rates on blog ads can reach 5%, and blog advertising is particularly good for niche marketing. Banner ads are nowhere near that. Some bloggers are getting 6-figure incomes from their support advertising in their blogs.
Blogs establish you as an authority on the subject of your blog, increasing your credibility.
Blogs can establish a brand name. Look at the popular blog brand names now - Istapundit, PowerLine, DailyKos, BongBong, and more. To be branded well, you need to have frequent and reliable posts. You also have to market the brand.
Several blogs reach over 100,000 unique visitors a day. In other words, if you do it right you have a very large audience.
Except for the time to research and post, it's inexpensive.

Over 13 million blogs are already on the Internet, a jump from near zero in 1999. CNN, the big media giant, has already declared business blogs as a standard operating procedure for any cutting edge company. This also goes for any corporation, including non-profits, who are serious about their vision - churches, mission agencies, benevolent agencies, and more. Blogs are quickly having a major cultural impact in politics, religion, business, and other areas.

Each blog is generally maintained by one to three people, usually one. Adding a blog to your web site makes it dynamic, drawing your visitors with return visits and encouraging their interaction. You can use blogs to build relationships.
Some common features to all blogs would include:

A primary content area with articles or "posts" listed in reverse chronological order, with the most recent posts first.
A way for others to post comments to the articles.
A list of links to other blogs, often called a blogroll.
One or more "feeds", such as RSS, that permits automatic notification of blog subscribers when new entries are posted.
An archive feature for older articles.

Blogs also focus on a particular topic such as a corporate vision, politics, religion, sports, or health.

What are the Advantages and Disadvantages of a Blog?

Blogging brings you closer to your customers and builds trust with them. Customers can interact with you; they can tell you what their needs are so you can address these. This enables those reading your blog to build trust in you and your mission. That trust is the first step to them becoming a customer (if you are a business), member of your organization (if you are part of a church or corporation). The blog builds community around a common vision.
Blogs generate traffic. Search engines love blogs, so a good blog will drive traffic to you and your web site. For example, one of the General Motors blogs gets over 150,00 unique visitors a month. That's cheap advertising.
Blog software is often free and easy to use. A non-technical person can use a blog.
Blogging is a very inexpensive form of advertising and there is a high clickthrough rate for advertising on the better blogs.
Key people in the media search the blogs for information. I personally often get news from blogs well before the same information is seen in CNN. FOX, traditional networks, or other news services.
Blogging permits team communication in a group that is scattered geographically, with many advantages over traditional email.

Another plus factor is that it is easy for a non-technical person to maintain a blog. This is both a plus and a minus. The fact that updating is easy makes it possible for a non-technical person - perhaps a CEO - to update the blog. At the same time, this means you can find a large number of blogs out there that add nothing to the blogosphere but garbage and mis-information.

The disadvantages? Blogs are time intensive. You need to do research to find and verify information. You have to keep up with many other blogs. You have to keep your blog updated, or you lose your readers. It also takes time and effort to build your audience. Once the audience is built, however, it is a loyal audience. Of the over 11 million blogs out there, only about 4 million are active. People quit keeping the blogs up for a variety of reasons. Most of these relate to the difficulty and time required to author quality content and the research required to keep it accurate.

(Adapted from Blogging for Success, by Carl Townsend)

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