Blogging?? Huh?

Are you new to blogging? The blogosphere? Not really sure what all the ruckus is about?

We’re going to take a few moments to brief you on the benefits of blogging…

Basically, a blog (short for web log) is a web site that is updated on a fairly regular basis by a blogger (author of the blog).

The phrase “fairly regular basis” is used loosely in this situation. Fairly regular to one blogger may mean once every few weeks, while others may update their blogs daily or the moment a news-breaking event occurs.

Some blogs are personal, resembling a journal. Other blogs have themes. Some companies maintain blogs.

What are the benefits of a blog?

George Siemens, in The Art of Blogging, offers the following uses/benefits of blogs…

Uses for blogging
As an emerging tool, blogging uses have still not been completely explored. Some current uses:

• Knowledge sharing and knowledge management
• Customer service
• Interactive journalism
• Communication
• Self-expression
• Learning
• Self-marketing
• Campaigning/social reform
• Community building
• Experience tracking
• Storytelling

Benefits
Benefits of blogging are numerous (which explains its rapid growth!). An overriding benefit is the democratization of information. In classic models, knowledge flow was “stopped” and administered by news sources (paper, magazines, TV). Many of the benefits of blogging are listed above in “Uses for Blogging”…other benefits include:

• Fostering the fringe - ideas are evaluated based on merit - not on source of origin.

• Filtering - ideas with merit are filtered through various blogs. Significant thoughts or posts receive multiple-links and spread viral-like across the blogosphere.

• Multiple perspectives - one-sided perspectives of newspapers are replaced by passionate debates exploring virtually every facet of an idea or concept.

• Barrier elimination - society is about barriers - actual or unspoken. For example, I don’t run in the same circle as Bill Gates - a socio-economic barrier (at the absolute minimum!). In society, this generally means that I do not have the benefit of Mr. Gates’ wisdom…blogging, however changes that.

• Free flow - any idea can be expressed…and accessed by any one. The process of blogging separates good ideas from poor ideas. The process itself has built in quality control - try that in traditional media!

• Real time - discussions and interactions happen right NOW. Waiting for tomorrow’s newspaper or radio program seems like an eternity compared to real time blogging.

• Links and connections - the complexity of an information heavy society requires specialization. Yet specialization is futile if a process is not created to link specialties. Blogging serves this purpose extremely well. Disparate fields of interest and thought are brought together (and dissected) in the machinations of bloggers.

We hope you will check the HometownQuotes blog frequently for sales tips and industry/company news. Our hope is to help you build your business and always provide a healthy dose of inspiration to close one more lead.

Happy blogging!