The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use News Releases, Blogs, Podcasting, Viral Marketing, & Online Media to Reach Buyers Directly

Chapter 17. Blogging to Reach Your Buyers

Blogs are now a mainstream vehicle for organizations to get their ideas into the marketplace. The readers of blogs view the information shared by smart bloggers as one of the few forms of real, authentic communication. Audiences consume advertising with skepticism and consider pronouncements by CEOs to be out of touch with reality. But a good blog written by someone within a large or small company, a nonprofit, a church, or a political campaign commands attention.

At the same time, blogs have seen a lot of hype in recent years. Business magazines regularly include breathless enthusiasm about how blogs and blogging hold the power to transform your business. While I absolutely agree that blogs can change your business and your life (as my blog has changed mine), there is still some mystery to blogging if you haven't done it before. This chapter will set out the basics of how to establish your own blog. But I recommend that, before you begin to write, you first monitor blogs in your market space and that you step into the blogosphere by commenting on a few blogs before you write your own. You might want to reread Chapter 4, where I introduced blogs and provided some case studies of successful bloggers. As you begin to comment on other people's blogs, you'll develop your own blogging voice and get a sense of what you like to discuss online. That's great! You're experimenting on someone else's blog real estate. If you're like many people, soon ...