Blogging Success in 30 days

There are more and more blogs starting up everyday.  Just look around the Internet someday and you will see blogs that range from cooking, IT technical support, business in your community, someones rant on something and the list can continue for a very long long long time.

With all this noise on the Internet, how do you get heard?  What is your unique spin on something?

There is an abundance of information today all around us, from the Television, Satellite Radio and of course on the Internet.  Many times the information we have to share is lost in the noise that is going on all around us.  In order to have a really successful blog we need to get ourselves above the noise that is out there.  We do this by having an unique spin.

Jusst like in marketing your business using traditional marketing tactics that could range from television or radio advertising, to direct mail to even strategies around Google Adwords, blogging and being successful at blogging is no different.  We need to really have an unique message in order to attract the number of people that are itching to purchase our products or use our services.

Putting your unique spin on things doesn’t mean creating something new from the beginning, it can however more often than not, you may want to leverage the popularity of a certain topic.  The newspaper for me in the IT community is the source of a number of blog ideas for my postings.  I can take a message that I may read in the newspaper or online (online is better, you can link to it) and write about what I thought in that posting or article this is my unique spin.  The beautiful thing with a blog is that you can now use their link as a launching point and if their message that you are referencing is on a blog, then you can post a comment and link back to your blog.

There is a number of people searching the Internet everyday for information that will allow them to solve a challenge, cure a pain or general help them get ahead in their daily lives.  There is also a lot of noise on the Internet today, it is your job to but an unique spin on what you are selling, servicing or providing to the market in order to get ahead and stay out in front.

One of the challenges many bloggers face is to how to get their postings, articles and other information out to attract new readers and keep in touch with their existing fans at a much deeper level.  I stumbled upon ShareThis today which is a solution that plugs in to  Wordpress, Blogger and other blogging services.  It will also work with popular browsers like Internet Explorer and Firefox.

Since I use Wordpress for all of my blogs and run a service at http://www.bloggingisbigbusiness.comI will focus on how this service works for Wordpress.  The ShareThis application works as a plugin for Wordpress and installs just like any other plugin.  This is one thing that I really like about Wordpress is the plugins.  These plugins add extra functionality to making your blog sing and also provide you with a mechanism to share your information and watch who and what is happening on your blog.

When you add the ShareThis tool to your Wordpress blog you know have the opportunity and you give your readers the opportunity to share your postings with some of the leading search engines including:

• Microsoft Live
• del.icio.us
• Digg
• MySpace
• Technorati
• Plus many others

I have the ShareThis application working on my personal blog at http://www.stuartcrawford.com if you would like to check it out to see how it works.

When blogging in business, having inspiration is a key component to having a successful blog.  Inspiration can come from any source so bloggers must remain open to everything going on around them.  Stories in the newspaper, actions of others and developments in our community can spur a thought immediately for your blog.

Successful bloggers can have up to 100 different blog ideas going on at anytime.  It is important to have the ability to filter out those thoughts that may not be a complete fit for your blog with those that our home runs to attract the clients that you are looking for.  Many successful bloggers carry an idea book purely for keeping track of blog ideas and thoughts and use this book to work through the thought pattern on what their post will look like.

The bloggers’ “Blook” (blog + book = blook) is the mechanism to keep your thoughts straight when it comes to maintaining your ideas and writing winning blog postings that attract the prospects you want and keep your client base informed at all times.

Where can bloggers turn for inspiration?

The newspaper is a great place to start.  The business section can be full of interesting stories and also keep track of what is happening in your community and in the marketplace.  You can use stories in the press to spur thoughts and offer your insight to current business events.  You blog may not be totally limited to what is happening in the business section of your newspaper, search out other sections.  For example, if you are in the real estate business, you may want to zero in on the homes and condos section and offer some independent insight to the state of what is happening in your market.

Networking organizations like BNI and your local Chamber of Commerce can also offer insight to the pulse of the marketplace in your community.  Keep an open mind and listen to what people are saying in the marketplace and your business community.  I have used “one liners” and other discussions that I have overheard in passing or that I have been directly involved with.  If people are talking about it on the street, they are more than likely searching for it on the Internet.

Keep an open mind, I have come up with ideas, just by being observant to things happening around me, this happened with my story on being slow to the market (http://ezinearticles.com/?Is-Perfection-Slowing-You-Down?&id=504691).  I was walking across the parking lot at the Holiday Inn in Anaheim, California when I attended the Peak Potential’s Guerrilla Business School course, when I walking across the parking lot after a night of rain I observed the snails that were squished by the cars in the parking lot and thought how is being slow in business squishing business owners.  It is amazing when stories come out.

To achieve blogging success and hit the key things that your potential clients or even your existing clients are looking for you must keep a 360 degree view on what is happening around you.  When you close yourself off, you are not able to think creatively and address what your readers are looking for.

Many bloggers start out with no idea on what to write (I trust we have this one sorted out from Day 1) and the biggest challenge they have is what is their intention for a blog.  There is nothing wrong with starting a blog to share events in your life like you children’s baseball games, or your run across the country.  These are all great things to share and it is important to know up from what the intention of your blog is.

I have my own personal blog at http://www.stuartcrawford.com and the intention around that blog from day one was to have somewhere to share things that impact my life.  I also have some very industry specific blogs that focus in on very unique product lines, challenges and communities. 

It is a good practice if you have multiple intentions for blogging to create separate blogs to get those messages across.  It is actually a great practice to break up multiple thoughts into different blogs.  It is crucial to keep everyone on the right thought when reading your blog.

Here is a great example of getting your blogs in line with your intentions.  You are a realtor working in the city of Toronto.  Now if I am moving to Toronto and have no idea where to look for a home in the area of Toronto that I am wishing to move into I have a couple of options here:

• Call people I know in Toronto and find out what areas are the best in the city that meet my financial requirements, commute time to work, schools for the kids - you get the picture.
• Next, I will go to http://www.google.com and start researching on the Internet what people are saying (Web 2.0 is awesome), what Realtors are serving the area and what else is available.

So the point here is this, if you are the realtor in Toronto focused on a certain area, a blog is an awesome way to reach new people that wanting to move to an area of town that you serve.  The intention of your blog is to get new business and how do you do that, well you can:

• Discuss items of Interest in your community
• Keep up with the news
• Write about the schools in the area
• Discuss the public transit in the area
• Interview key residents (We will talk more on audio and video later)

The list can go on forever, it is important to have an intention to your blog, this will create clarity in the work that you are going to be doing, keep you message on topic and keep you focused.

Perhaps one of the most important activities you will do over the next 30 days to your blogging success is to ensure you know what you are going to say.  There are a lot of blogs out there that are just ramblings from someone with no desired outcome or real message.

Blogs can be a diary of your daily events, musings on how current happenings around you are affecting your life (I have one of these at http://www.stuartcrawford.com), or they can be a power marketing tool for your business and that is the focus that we are taking over the next 30 days as we work together to allow you to be the best blogger possible, generate the traffic that you need to sell more of your solutions, reach out to new markets, become the immediate expert in your field.  Remember there are two ways that you can become an expert, maybe three:

• Get a post secondary education
• Travel more than 50 miles to speak at an event
• Write a blog

Why is writing a blog in that list?  Simple, because not everyone is comfortable writing and then inviting the world to read it.  When you make this investment, you are elevated to industry expert status immediately.  People want to do business with experts so here you immediate elevation to that status.

Use day one to figure out what the message is that you want to say to readers, or those that find you on google.com.  Education is the best way to market to people, in my travels as VP of Business Development for IT Matters (http://www.itmatters.ca) I have found that the majority of my clients do not enjoy people sold to, however, they do enjoy being educated and taught something new that will enhance the role that they play in their office or make them look smarter with their peers.

A great blog can do this for your clients!  It is my recommendation that your blog needs to be an education tool for your existing clients, new prospects and those who you have lost contact with.  Don’t make it a sales pitch, there will be plenty of time for that later!  Focus on educating your clients, becoming the industry expert in your field and creating attraction to you and your business in the market place that you serve.

Day One Review

Take today to figure out what you want to say in your blog and how you will flow the information.  It is also important to review other blogs that are online today around the same core focus that you want to have.  It is also very important what spin you have.  Is it going to be a highly technical blog, marketing, sales, education and so on.  It is important to figure out today what you blog will say out there. 

Remember, that failing to plan effectively is planning to fail.  Blogging is no different, you need to ensure that you have the right plan of action in place to launch your blog effectively.

Start planning today!

Here are some tips to plan effectively

• Start a Blook - This is a hi-tech term for a notepad or book that you will write your blogging ideas in.  Blook is short for Blogging Book.
• Write everything - Write down every idea that comes to your mind, it is a great idea to keep your blog next to you at all times
• Be open - Be observant of everything around you, the strangest ideas come at the weirdest times.  Keep your eyes open, you ears listening and your mouth shut. 
• There are no bad ideas, just bad habits when you don’t write them down and review them.

Welcome to day one of our thirty day journey together to your blogging success.  Don’t forget to pre-book your copy of “Blogging Success in 30 Days” available here on this website or blog.  Please feel free to email at anytime at info@bloggingisbigbusiness.com.

Hello Everyone, my name is Stuart Crawford and I am an avid blogger in the technology world.  I travel across North America talking to entrepreneurs and small business owners on the value that an awesome blog will have on their business.

We all need a competitive way to reach out to our clients and those that are looking for our services.  It doesn’t matter if you are a technology professional, real estate agent, mortgage broker, massage therapist or an engineer.  We all have knowledge that we can share with others in our industry and across our world.

When your blog is professionally done you have instantly become the expert in your field.

It is time to take on the world, expand your boundaries and take your business up to the next level.

Join us for a great trip on blogging to success in 30 days, invest in my upcoming eBook on blogging and gain a competitive advantage.