Advocacy Avenue

Many bloggers begin their blogging career with aspirations to blogging fame and glory and front-page mention on DailyKos, SlashDot, or some other "A-List" blog.  Unfortunately, the grind of a daily posting schedule tends to wear down even the most committed new blogger after a few weeks or months.  The blogosphere is littered with blogs that begin with great content for a few weeks and then slide inevitably into mediocrity and eventual dormancy.  "Sorry for the lack of postings," or some variant on the same is often a tell-tale sign that a blogger is running low on creative gas.

So how do aspiring corporate bloggers keep up the initial momentum generated from the launch of a new blog?  Here are a few common-sense tips:

1. Be realistic.  If you’re already working a 16-hour a day job, chances are that you aren’t going to have the energy to stick to a daily posting schedule.  If this is the case, say up front, either in the first posting or as part of the banner, that the blog will be updated weekly, monthly, occasionally, etc.
2. Write what you know.  Blogs are the ultimate way for the 6 people in the world who care about widgets to discuss them ad infinitum.  In other words, if you are an expert on a particular subject, chances are that you’ll be able to discuss that topic in depth and from a variety of angles.  Focused blogs, even ones focused on a general topic (politics, religion, etc.), tend to focus the blogger’s as well as his or her audience’s attentions.  Blogs without a clear direction tend to make for dull reading and writing.
3. Stay aware.  Writer’s block (or would that be blogger’s block?) is another stumbling block that can frustrate new bloggers.  The cure for this is to keep up on what other bloggers and mainstream media outlets are saying about your particular area of interest.  Commenting on other blogs and encouraging other bloggers to comment on your blog is a great way to build a dialog that can keep up the interest level.
4. Get help.  Many of the top blogs keep their content fresh by having several bloggers who contribute on a regular basis.  A side benefit is that this encourages contributors to write posts discussing other contributor’s postings, which continues the dialog.
5. Learn more about blogging.  There is a growing body of content devoted to helping corporate bloggers develop their craft.  One of the best is Debbie Weil’s great new book, The Corporate Blogging Book. Check it, and Weil’s informative corporate blogging site, out here.

Thomas Edison once said "opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work."  At the end of the day, the decision to begin any blog, corporate or otherwise, is a personal decision to utilize this new technology to share your thoughts and ideas with the world.  With work and commitment, the decision to blog is a great way to seize the opportunity that the technology presents.

Mark Cuban, the well known owner of the Dallas Mavericks is a fellow blogger. He is the founder of Broadcast.com and creator of IceRocket.com (soon to be known as BlogScour.com). He recently explained his take on blogs in an Always On article:

Bloggers offer a peek into consumer sentiment in a way that Google and Yahoo can’t touch. That’s why we got into blog search… If I search for our movie information on Google or Yahoo I see the same returns every time. I don’t see what’s being introduced in the ways of information, thought, or ideas about the topic.   IceRocket.com enables me to know every day what’s being added to the "blog consciousness" or "consumer consciousness" about a product, service, event, topic, or person.

Cuban is spot on; blogs are dynamic, blogs are personal thoughts, blogs are insightful unlike all other mediums.  A blog can give companies and organizations a bird’s eye view of what consumers truly think of their products or services and they can do it in real time.   Blog Maverick enhances Cuban’s ability to connect with fans directly and eliminate the media middle man.  His postings feed readers insights into his business decisions, in the same way tabloids give us a taste of what life is like for our favorite movie star. Take a peek at his blog.  By the way – he leaves comments open.

If so, you’re in luck.  Robert Scoble and Shel Israel just released their book Naked Conversations: How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers.

Robert Scoble helps run Microsoft’s Channel 9 site (Microsoft’s developer community wiki and social networking blog).

Shel Israel as a consultant has played a key strategic role in introducing some of technology’s most successful products, including PowerPoint, FileMaker, and Sun Microsystems workstations.

An Excerpt from Naked Conversations:

Blogging’s Six Pillars:

1. Publishable. Anyone can publish a blog. You can do it cheaply and post often. Each posting is instantly available worldwide.

2. Findable. Through search engines, people will find blogs by subject, by author, or both. The more you post, the more findable you become.

3. Social. The blogosphere is one big conversation. Interesting topical conversations move from site to site, linking to each other. Through blogs, people with shared interests build relationships unrestricted by geographic borders.

4. Viral. Information often spreads faster through blogs than via a newsservice. No form of viral marketing matches the speed and efficiency of a blog.

5. Syndicatable. By clicking on an icon, you can get free "home delivery" of RSS- enabled blogs into your e-mail software. RSS lets you know when a blog you subscribe to is updated, saving you search time. This process is considerably more efficient than the last- generation method of visiting one page of one web site at a time looking for changes.

6. Linkable. Because each blog can link to all others, every blogger has access to the tens of millions of people who visit the blogosphere every day.
You can find each of these elements elsewhere. None is, in itself, all that remarkable. But in final assembly, they are the benefits of the most powerful two-way Internet communications tool so far developed.