In talking to Michelle twitter.com/mmangen about blogging.  She is away on vacation at the moment and one of her goals is to work on creating a blog while she is away.  Which is great, great to work on goals while you are out of your own environment by the way.

We discussed the advantages of blogging and the the how search engines and spiders work.  Plus tips about how many words and content etc. When the question popped up about what should I blog about?  Michelle really wanted to blog about her life and where self development can be used to create the life you want.

This brings up the point - does your blog need to be solely about work? Absolutely not, however, like everything a blog needs a purpose and a direction.  You are looking for followers and like minded folks to read your blog. Similar to what you may do at other on-line communities.  You can still have a business account but talk about your children if that  is something you feel falls in line with your business - if you can bring back what you are talking about in a way to relate to your readers who are looking for the originally content.  However, if you feel you need a blog that is solely about children and the issues of being a mom then create a different account for that purpose.  The trick is to master your following and your readers and what they are looking for on line. 

Plus ask the question; How can I stand out from the pack?

Oh and by the way if you are looking for a book keeper - I highly recommend Michelle - she and I will be working together and her passion and enthusiasm and her kknowledge is great.  Plus she’s into personal development - check out her website and look for her blog coming soon.

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For many people just understanding the concepts of blogging is half their battle.  And now with Twitter available a lot of people are questioning why bother to blog in the first place.  Good thoughts, but truth be known just like going to the theater to see a Movie vs see it on TV there will always be people who want have it on the big screen vs 28 inches or in other words; read the whole article vs. the 140 charachters!  So remember blogging can still be the answer to some of your readers and your followers.

Blogging doesn’t need to take a lot of time in your day and if you are writing about something you are passionate about it most likely only takes you a few minutes to type something up and get your thoughts out.  And if you are really think about it you could actually have someone do the work for you.  You may have to pay for it but there are people out there that offer this as a service. 

To learn more about blogging and to understand it you don’t even have to read about it on line, at your local book store (be it Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or Borders) you can find books on the subject.

Here is a book I highly recommend;

Naked Conversations by Robert Scoble and Shel Israel

Actually what I consider a fun and interesting read - if you are into “how” and the “benefits” with some great company stories - this is an excellent read.  I have dog eared and underlined many parts of this book.  Fascinating read.

 I will have some other recommendations in the coming weeks

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I mentioned in an earlier blog that finding a topic to talk about is half the challenge to having your own blog. 

Naturally it is always easier to write about something you love, so you could choose to have your blog not necessarily about your product or your company but what you personally love to do in life.  There are enough bloggers out there that do exactly that, for instances they may be a CEO  or CFO of a company but choose to blog about travelling for their living.  It’s still within the context of their company but it’s about travel.

You may also find that you need to blog about what your customer base is looking guidance on.  So for instance, if you are a realtor there are so many areas you could blog about.  You could talk about the wearther in your location, you could discuss ’style’, the market, the cities you have sold properties in and what those cities offer.  Ask your clients what they want to read about and then cater to their needs.

Also another tip and something I have started for myself with one of the blogs I write for is start a file.  As I get mail or I come across another article that I find of interest or might inspire me to write something along the same lines I hold on to that article.  It’s my tickle file to aid my creative flow.

Another area you might fight a great source of inspiration are social network sites like twitter or linkedin.com where you can post a question and see what responses you get.

Blogging is easy once you know how and why you are doing it.

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Wow I could write a book on the benefits of both, and also the distractions of both.  They are the same but different.  Both systems have a way of targeting different people. 

Think of both systems as a tool, not an answer to an ends, but a tool.  What is it you want to achieve?  And how often do you want to use the tool? 

When you have a nail and you want to drive it into a wall you can use a heel of a shoe or a hammer, right?  Or you could use a large hammer or a small hammer?  One may work better than the other, or quicker.  So if you play around with either a blog or a twitter account you might find that one works better for you than the other.  They have different appeal to different people.  You may find some people who overlap and use both but you may find that some just want to use the twitter account to link to their blog and get out what they want to say in large bites rather than smaller bites like twitter.

As I said before it’s how you use the tool that decides if it’s productive for you.  There are many people who twitter who will tell you, you can’t use someone else to do your tweets (twitter messages) - however, I suspect there are people that do that for well known entities out there.  My answer to that is, fine let it be - if it works in the business model then let it be.  If it works for you that you have to be touchy feel with  your followers then you certainly are not going to hire someone to make your updates.  Same goes with your blog, remember there are people ready to do ghost writing for your blog.

As to what’s better? Twitter or blogging?  Hard to say they both serve their purpose, personally if you could do both then do both, you are now extending your network.

Go for it twitter and blog and while you are at it don’t forget Facebook.

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Time and time again I see blogs at different websites, and naturally I’m interested.  I’m probably just as interested as everyone else is because let’s face it along with the words SEO, social traffic, social media, blogging is a buzz word on the Internet.

So if you are going to have a blog remember to BLOG, blogging doesn’t take long, you can belt out a quick blog in less than 1o mins if you have something you feel your readers would be interested in.  If your blog is about health, write about a recipe, a great new drink you discovered, an exercise program you did that day.  If it’s about spirituality, write about a book you read, a guru you look up to, a vision you had.  What ever your blog of choice or rather passion write write write or delete the idea of having a blog because having an inactive blog may not be the best marketing idea for your site.

There are many readers out there who go first to the blog to  find out more about you, they use the blog to get the real you, to find the authentic person.  Blogs are about transperancy just like twitter is about  time and reaching out to the masses.  Blogs are about people getting to know you and getting to decide if they want to be in your inner circle.

And remember if you haven’t got the time to blog or the knowledge about how to go about it hire someone to write your blog, someone who loves being in your inner circle.  Find a Ghost writer if that’s what it takes to keep your blog active, that doesn’t mean you can’t write at your blog it just means the blog is now being constantly updated which is what the search engines are looking for.

ps this blog entry took me 3 mins to write - what you looking at if you own a blog that is currently inactive? go write something

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