What Is This Blogging Thing All About?

There are 57 million blogs now, according to blog tracker technorati. About 1/3 of those are written in English. I haven’t seen the figures on how many people read blogs, but certainly more than those who write them. So we can divide the world into those who blog (read or write or both) and those who don’t.

The question for you as a person involved in marketing (I assume that since you are reading the blog of a marketing company) what does it matter? For an increasingly diminishing minority, it doesn’t matter. For an increasingly increasing majority, it matters a heck of a lot.

I think of blogging as a conversation. Actually, millions (57 of them) of conversations. Sort of like the mythical water coolers or the Cheers Bar–a place where people of like interest or inclination gather to talk about things. All kinds of things. Trite and unimportant, to the most significant burning questions of our day. Think of those millions and millions of conversations going on. Someone somewhere is talking about something of interest to you. It may be important to your business or organization. It may be little known information, or deep secrets, or it may signal important new trends. If your company is reasonably well-known, even in a relatively small circle or market, chances are your company or organization will be the subject of conversation as well. Product concerns, service difficulties, new introductions, stories of how people are using what you sell or disappointed by it.

Let’s say you don’t read blogs (we got a problem because it seems you are reading this one), and you need a reason to pay attention. Well, if you knew right now there was a watercooler conversation going on right now and the topic of conversation was you, or your company, or the products or services you offer, would you like to know what is being said. If you wouldn’t you don’t deserve to think of yourself as a marketer. Of course, you would. Not only that, you might want to actually participate in the conversation. Sure, you could “lurk” around the edges and just listen to what they are saying, but you could jump in and comment, open yourself to some comments back. Tell those with the strong opinions where they are wrong. You might even think that rather than letting someone else set the agenda for the conversation, why not create a watercooler conversation of your own? Even, (gasp!) launch your own blog.

If you get to that point, maybe we can help. We’ve helped a number of companies launch blogs–even some of the biggest company names in the country. We’ll explain how that happened if you ask. The point is, there’s no reason not to listen in, join in and get involved in the conversation. But there are some very important reasons why it is a bad idea to simply let these conversations go on and pretend they don’t exist.

~ by gbaron on February 22, 2007.