The words ‘blogs and ‘blogging’ seem ubiquitous in today’s business life. There are now ‘official’ blogs such as
insidethecbc.com. You see a new(ish) tab on company websites; next to the standard headings such as ‘About Us’ and ‘Products’ we often find ‘
Blog.’ Then there are all the
personal blogs. So what is a blog? Why should I care? Especially as a CMA.
At it’s most fundamental level, a blog (short for weblog) is a website or more increasingly a part of a website which is easily updatable and presents the most current content at the top. This content is interactive. Originally it was the preserve of computer geeks and, I’m told; anti-social and spotty teenagers. Over the years it has evolved into that it is today.
But let’s go back a step. “Easily updatable” - what does this mean? If you are familiar with e-mail, then ‘posting’ to a blog is as easy as typing in a subject line and then writing what you actually want to say. Think of the ‘blog’ as the addressee in the ‘to’ field, then hit send. Within a few minutes, your blog will have the message you just sent at the very top of the page.
There are certainly more elaborate
metaphors for this, but in reality one of the major appeals of ‘blogging’ is that the technology is the easy part. It’s often much harder to think of what you want to say and write it. By comparison the technicalities such as websites, interfaces, uploads, tagging, hyperlinks or anything else; are less of an issue.
I would say that when blogs started the focus was on the technology, then the numbers blogging exploded, as those who could think of what to write discovered they had an easy way to reach millions of potential readers. The result is today’s rich variety of subjects ready and waiting for your perusal. It’s fair to say that whatever you can think of, probably has a blog!
So this leads to the question.
“If there is already a blog for any subject I can think of, then why should I bother myself?”
The interesting thing about all of these blogs is that they are a form of personal expression. They are the views of individual writers on almost any subject you care to name - with no filters, no editors, no censorship. Unless there is someone out there who has exactly the same views on your subject which are expressed in exactly the same way, then your blog will be unique!
By way of example writing an introduction to the subject of blogging like this very post, is not unique. Many people have done so, probably more eloquently than I have here. (
Here is an example). However in the context of my audience, CMA members in BC, I don’t believe it has been done before. Even if it has, then the blogging world moves so quickly it doesn’t hurt to do it again :-)
For CMAs I believe it comes down to two reasons. One personal, one professional. There may also be some cross-over. Ok, that's three reasons, does a CMA have to be able to count?
On the personal side, you will see from my interview in the latest
Update Magazine that I get most of my news and information about the world around from the Internet. A large proportion of this is from blogs. In addition to news I follow a collection of writers on subjects I am interested in, such as
storytelling,
design,
birds,
philosophy etc. On the flip side my own blog posts become a source for others.
(note: the current issue of Update Magazine is not online just yet, stay tuned!)
On the professional side, I follow a number of different blogs which keep me up to date on the latest trends, educate me on things I would like to know more about and others that give me valuable insight in my working life. As little as 10 years ago, to get this information I would have various magazine and newspaper subscriptions, and watched or listened to TV and Radio programmes. Today, in addition to these traditional sources we now have blogs. I can draw from a pool of millions and millions of writers who are online.
To conclude, I would like to return to one part of my original definition, namely that
blogs are interactive. Let’s say I visit a blog and read a post about a subject I find interesting. I can contribute instantly, by writing my own comment in a box and posting it. I can initiate a discussion with the blogger about what they have written. If you don’t agree with something in this post you can say so. I can then respond. You can respond and so on. What’s more this whole discussion is public, allowing the reader to benefit not only from the original article but also the reaction it generated. Many bloggers will tell you this is the most rewarding part of the activity. Some of the most interesting reading is found in the comments! This is not something you will get from a TV programme, for example.
If you take this idea into business and think about how you can use this to start a conversation with your customers; hear what they think, hear what they need. How valuable is that to you? This subject alone is worthy of a future post, as are many of elements of what I’ve described above. As a result, many companies are using blogging as a marketing tool.
Many of these are Fortune 500 companies.
Hopefully this serves as an introduction to blogging. If you have any questions or feedback please comment below :-)
