First Blogpost of 2010 - Why do you blog?
January 12, 2010 7:27 pm copy-writingIt’s the 12th January 2010 and I can’t believe that I’m only getting around to writing my first blogpost for Achieve Marketing.
I’ve been writing posts for clients but not myself and have been fielding questions about the importance of having a blog.
I’m only dying to get into blogging again for 2010. I’ve had a number of customer relationship issues that I need to share, some writing tips to let you know about and generally engage with people now that Christmas is over.
Over the past couple of days, I’ve been thinking about the importance of blogging. So for my first post, I’m posing a question to all the bloggers:
Why do you blog?
I blog because I have ideas to share, to build credibility and to engage with the community around me.
Can you take a few minutes to share why you blog? I’ll combine all comments and share later in the month.
January 13th, 2010 at 11:13 am
The question of “why I blog” is a very good one indeed… It has got me thinking about it, and I’m afraid the only way I can answer the question is with a very long answer.
I started my first blog (www.cube1986.blogspot.com) when I was in my 2nd year of Commerce in UCD. I guess I started it because I liked the idea of owning my own little piece of the internet, and I also knew it would be a good way to force me to pursue my interest in writing. Initially I posted articles related to the course content we were learning and I found that by writing about it it allowed me to gain a superior understanding of the topics. I then found come exam time I didn’t have to do all that much study. I quickly gained a (very) small following, and I enjoyed the fact that others might benefit from my articles.
So initially I blogged for the joy of writing, learning and sharing.
In more recent times I have set up a blog for a company I was working for, here it was for more business like reasons such as aiding SEO and helping establish us as industry experts on a topic. Again it allowed me to better understand the product I was trying to promote, but this time I was not as into the topics being covered and as a result the frequency of blog posts was not what it should have been. The blog helped the business get it’s name out there and broadly achieved it’s goals.
That was me blogging for business reasons.
Now I blog for both reasons, because I am now self employed and working in an area in which I am very interested in blogging is now personally AND commercially beneficial, which is a nice situation to be in . Like ever, blogging still allows me to make ideas more concrete in my head, but now I can also share ideas and information about a topic in which I am a relative expert, and like the good ol’ days I like to think that my materials are helping other people a little bit as well as helping myself.
So, in a nutshell… I blog because I like it, and because it helps business
If anyone was interested you can find my presentation blog here: http://www.clearlypresentable.wordpress.com
January 13th, 2010 at 1:54 pm
Hey Denise, Happy First 2010 Blogpost! For me, I blog when I feel like sharing some observations or thoughts on the way people/companies do things, or things that companies/people could do differently here that I’ve seen elsewhere that I find interesting or to tell a story from recent travels (usually there’s a particular story to it to keep me on topic)!
Andy
January 13th, 2010 at 6:33 pm
I never had anything interesting to say until I was diagnosed with Stage III Breast Cancer. Now I blog to keep from answering the same questions over and over and over (and over etc).
January 14th, 2010 at 10:21 am
Hi Denise,
Happy New Year!
I do both personal and business. I do it partly because I enjoy it although I do not always do it regularly enough.
The business one is a mixture of advice and my thoughts on a range of business/technical topics. I suppose I started out as a simple guide to a variety of technical subjects. I felt I had something to say and could say it in a reasonably accessible way. I also had an eye on having an effect on website traffic. That said I’d like to think that most of it is worth reading and not just another 250 words of nothing just to please search engines.
Since then I have tried to expand it to include a wider range of advice on computer topics.
My personal one is just that. Originally I started it as I got fed up with the quality of contributions on a number of forums I was registered on.
Most of what I write is social commentary particularly politics. Rather than be a “pub philosopher” putting it up online makes it cathartic!!
January 15th, 2010 at 3:01 pm
My blog on Healthy Survivorship is one more way to help others. It reaches a different audience than my books and regular column. And it is more timely, because I can respond to news right away.
It is time-consuming and challenging, but knowing it is helping others is enough to keep me at it.
With hope, Wendy
May 31st, 2010 at 10:14 pm
[...] her, I asked my fellow bloggers and got some great comments. You can catch the entire comments HERE so I’m [...]