The following essay has some amazing parallels between blogging and Network Marketing.
Copyright 2006 Donovan Baldwin, posted with permission.
While a blog can be almost anything from a personal diary to an expostulation of the most arcane data or research results, keeping the blog going is one of the most important aspects of blogging. This is particularly true if your goal is to use your blog as part of your internet business marketing strategy.
Unfortunately, many would-be internet entrepreneurs get lured into programs by the prospect of lots of money made easily. The truth is that MOST of these people, even highly-motivated, intelligent people who have been successful in other spheres will fail. The money does not come quick, and when it does come, it usually starts as a trickle. Frankly, the motivation of anticipated ease and wealth does not stand up for long under the harsh light of reality. Just as people drop out of network marketing, internet marketing, and other home businesses due to expectations not being met and no reward, people let their "internet business opportunity" blogs fade away due to lack of interest.
PASSION
Many successful network marketers, internet marketers, and marketing courses will tell you to find a niche. They will advise you to make that niche something about which you are passionately interested. In reference to blogs, I agree and go one step farther. Center your blog around something you would choose to write about, talk about, read about, discuss, or attend lectures on almost every day if you had the leisure. That way, no matter how your "internet business" does or does not respond, you will be motivated to return to your blog regularly, reading comments, responding to them, and providing new content.
NEW CONTENT
This is key to a blog's success. Even your best friends might not wish to visit you regularly if they knew they were going to be served coffee cakes left over from their last visit. New, fresh content provided regularly entices previous visitors to return and establishes your blog as a center of information or discussion. If the content is accurate and informative, this establishes you as knowlegeable and worth heeding. If your comments are friendly, genuine, and responsive to the comments of others who have posted, you will be seen as a friend whose advice can be at least listened to, if not taken whole.
DO IT FOR YOURSELF
Of course your blog should be written in such a way as to please the visitors who drop by, just as your home should be a warm welcoming place for visitors who drop by there. You are the one who lives there, however, and when the visitors go home you should enjoy hanging around, rearranging the furniture, hanging a new picture, or just pouring a glass of wine and sitting down in your favorite chair. Making the blog FOR YOU will encourage you to return often yourself.
FINALE
Begin with a subject which delights and intrigues you, add a regular dip back into the refreshing stream of your interest and wonder, share this with others. If you want money from this, link to your money-making site or sites and have fun every day. When you go to bed, the blog will still be there chatting with your visitors, telling them what a great person you are and inviting them to return for another visit. Donovan Baldwin is a Dallas area writer. A graduate of the University Of West Florida (1973) with a BA in accounting, he is a member of Mensa and has held several managerial positions. After retiring from the U. S. Army in 1995, he became interested in internet marketing and developed various online businesses. He has been writing poetry, articles, and essays for over 40 years, and now frequently publishes articles on his own websites and for use by other webmasters. He has blogs on the subjects of weight loss and health, hybrid cars and alternative fuels, and internet marketing and related business topics. You may view several of his articles at http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Donovan_Baldwin
Comment Preview