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| Joe Shlabotnik, via Flickr |
| Want to try business blogging? Don’t just dive in. |
You’ve probably heard that blogging is good for your business. If you haven’t already started blogging — WAIT! Leaping into this medium cold is the most common and damaging error I’ve seen.Before you do anything else, figure out which groups you wish to engage in a public conversation.
Next, figure out where they already spend time online…
Go where they are, and start following their existing conversations. Depending on your niche, this part can be trickier than it sounds. It means spending time searching through blog search engines like Technorati and IceRocket to find blogs that are already succeeding in attracting attention from your core communities.
It also means exploring other types of online media — bulletin boards, e-mail lists, wikis, virtual environments (such as Second Life), and citizen media sites (such as YourHub.com) to find good matches. Web sites of local or regional mainstream media also can be useful to watch if they allow comments and foster public discussion in your core communities.
The ideal outcome of this research is a short list (just 3-5 blogs or other sites) that you should start reading on a regular basis…
Don’t just read the posts — comment threads are crucial to get a sense of the conversation and the community.
Don’t just lurk, speak up! Start participating in existing discussions. Take the time to leave comments on blog posts or forum threads, and respond to others’ comments. Always be positive and helpful.
More importantly, don’t be “salesy.” That is, don’t blatantly pump your business or agenda. When you join the public conversation, your guiding motive should always be: “What value can I offer this community?” Abject self-promotion almost always backfires.
It doesn’t matter if you don’t have your own blog yet — or even if you don’t have much of an online presence. The point is to start right now to build a constructive, helpful, credible reputation among your core communities. If these people get to know you first as “one of them,” they’ll be more likely to keep listening and talking to you when you launch your own venue.
If you want to take the public conversation a step further and bring more of it back to your site or blog, here’s some advice about strategic commenting.
(NOTE: This is an edited version of a column I wrote for the Boulder County Business Report. Here’s the full article. I originally posted it to The Right Conversation. )
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