Starting a Blog

With the many blogging tools and solutions available today it’s no surprise that there is a massive explosion of new blogs. Blogs that see their 1st year birthday and are still actively maintained by their author are a limited few of these daily starts. Even experienced writers starting a blog usually take a few re-starts during the blog setup and testing period. Perhaps it’s getting comfortable with the content and picking a topic that allows for more than a few posts before the author has used the blog as their own release of thoughts and comments. Perhaps new authors find themselves with a case of writers block or just find it’s not convenient to find a moment to blog after the first few posts…

Today, blogging can be serious business for any small to mid-size company. It’s an opportunity to inform the public or your customers about the interesting items you might learn from your favorite customer service representative or sales person. It can also be a simple way to publish news in a formal or informal manner.

Are you,

• blogging for you?
• blogging for others?
• blogging for a company objective?

Learning how to blog is probably more of an art than science but there are some important considerations to keep in mind before you become a publisher. Everything you write is public and becomes open to discussion or review in any other place on the Internet. Don’t assume your small blog will never get noticed. If having a popular blog with many visitors and readers is not your intention then pick another outlet for your communication, thoughts, or ideas.

Posting opinions, ideas, news, or observations is what makes blogs interesting for your visitors or readers. With the proper considerations for license and copyright you may want to post images or video. Which means that with a personal blog you can always deviate from your main blog focus for anything else you find interesting.

I sometimes find a stock photo that interests me and want to share why I enjoy the image. The focus and timing of the below shot I find stunning. Not to mention this always makes me thirsty.

Before starting a blog, think about how you will present information. Assume you’ll have many visitors that expect something interesting each week or month.

Planning a goal and editorial guidelines for a corporate blog is critical. Most other independent bloggers just begin their blogs based on an initial direction of concept. As we develop our own blog to help blog startups we will try and give you tips for blogging that allow you find the right balance and blog software to present your information.

If you have questions and ideas, please do share. The community bloggers all work together in allowing citizen media to bring many different ideas together.

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