Blogging for Business

"A blog will boost your business", the gurus say. - Does it really? - testing,
testing -.... 

It is a great tool for information, improvement of page rank, and getting known more or less personally. Is it still? - or is this information already outdated as so many other valuable and logical theories we are presented in internet marketing? 

Was blogging for business only good until 2010, when I wrote about it on Squidoo, and has long become useless due to over-use? I hope not, because I love to blog. I started it long before I started a home business - and now I am neglecting my none-biz blogs terribly for the online work.

Marketing with Content, Information, and Communication

Right, Content-Marketing is, and will probably always be, the best working method of Online Marketing. You can post banners everywhere - paid banners, of course, - But who has not become banner blind? And free banner exchanges attract only clicks from others who want to gain clicks on theirs. Without attention-grabbing content, the page shown in any kind of traffic exchange will be closed after at most 20 seconds, when the time is up, and sometimes the surfers' eyes will be concentrated more on the timer than on the pages shown.

Better traffic comes from search engines since they exist. That means for businesses: A blog is a genuine SEO tool - of course, it needs a bit of SEO too, but the most thing is included: Frequent Fresh Content.

The Blog as the Center of Web2.0

It would lead too far from the subject of business blogging if I went deeper into this now. But while I was preparing my German blogging course, I of course researched a bit on the history too, and I found a very interesting resource :

Blood, Rebecca. "Weblogs: A History and Perspective", Rebecca's Pocket. 07 September 2000. 18 September 2013 

7 september 2000

In 1998 there were just a handful of sites of the type that are now identified as weblogs (so named by Jorn Barger in December 1997). Jesse James Garrett, editor of Infosift, began compiling a list of "other sites like his" as he found them in his travels around the web. In November of that year, he sent that list to Cameron Barrett. Cameron published the list on Camworld, and others maintaining similar sites began sending their URLs to him for inclusion on the list. Jesse's 'page of only weblogs' lists the 23 known to be in existence at the beginning of 1999.

....Peter Merholz announced in early 1999 that he was going to pronounce it 'wee-blog' and inevitably this was shortened to 'blog' with the weblog editor referred to as a 'blogger.'

At this point, the bandwagon jumping began. More and more people began publishing their own weblogs. I began mine in April of 1999. Suddenly it became difficult to read every weblog every day, or even to keep track of all the new ones that were appearing. Cameron's list grew so large that he began including only weblogs he actually followed himself. Other webloggers did the same. In early 1999 Brigitte Eaton compiled a list of every weblog she knew about and created the Eatonweb Portal. Brig evaluated all submissions by a simple criterion: that the site consist of dated entries. Webloggers debated what was and what was not a weblog, but since the Eatonweb Portal was the most complete listing of weblogs available, Brig's inclusive definition prevailed.

Before I get carried away, just 2 more Quotes from Rebecca's Pocket: the first to show that the Web2.0 was not yet existing then, but precisely foredefined 

In Douglas Rushkoff's Media Virus, Greg Ruggiero of the Immediast Underground is quoted as saying, "Media is a corporate possession...You cannot participate in the media. Bringing that into the foreground is the first step. The second step is to define the difference between public and audience. An audience is passive; a public is participatory. We need a definition of media that is public in its orientation." 

 From the Weblog Handbook: Practical Advice on Creating and Maintaining Your Blog by Rebecca Blood Cambridge: Perseus Publishing, 2002. 114-121.

Weblog Ethics

Weblogs are the mavericks of the online world. Two of their greatest strengths are their ability to filter and disseminate information to a widely dispersed audience, and their position outside the mainstream of mass media. Beholden to no one, weblogs point to, comment on, and spread information according to their own, quirky criteria.

You will find that the rules she states for blogs to be taken as serious sources of information do still apply today:

1. Publish as fact only that which you believe to be true.
2. If material exists online, link to it when you reference it.
3. Publicly correct any misinformation.
4. Write each entry as if it could not be changed; add to, but
    do not rewrite or delete, any entry.
5. Disclose any conflict of interest.
6. Note questionable and biased sources.

...And Then Social Marketing Began...

Eyes shut and go for it!

... around 2005, I think. Blogging for business became the dernier cri. In my 2010 Squidoo Lens, I described how this was disturbing the blogosphere with Cassandra's eyes.

Blogs and Social Marketing - Forget it! (?) 

No Community (except Facebook, where I miss it) without  Blog --
But Does Anyone Read ? 

My Co-Entrepreneurs don't care about my News, just about their own. Why don't my Online Friends either? Still, I close my eyes and try to get through...

Oh, that reminds me... Nowadays there must be a picture in every post that wants to be seen... And if you see it pleeease somebody comment! I still hope, I was wrong, and the blogging community is not dead. Help nursing it better, communicate!