Who shouldn’t blog

Well, excuse me for being old school. But last night at a gathering of SME chief executives, I frequently wanted to tell a room full of excited bloggists and potential bloggists: don’t do it!

We had gathered in a renovated North Melbourne pub where the fake fire looked good but threw out no flame. There were about 60 of us that met to discuss “blog smog” and many of the questions were fired from people who were keen to blog, but obviously were unsure how to proceed or what the benefits were.

Questions centered on why you blog, who should blog, how to get started, the purpose of blogging and how to find the time to blog.

And the conversation went like this (and I am paraphrasing here).

• Question: “How can my blog get found so I am not talking to myself?”
  Answer: “What’s your purpose in blogging?”
• Question: “How can I get more people to read my blog?”
  Answer: “What’s your purpose in blogging?”
• Question: “How can I find the time to blog?”
  Answer: “What’s your purpose in blogging?”
• Question: “I am blogging. But why?”
  Answer: “What’s your purpose in blogging?”

Answers varied. But there were two themes. People said they were blogging to express an opinion. And the second group were blogging to get exposure, build connection and status in their community/industry.

To the first group, I would say don’t bother. If you want your opinions heard, comment on mainstream sites, join forums and be part of a community. It is hard work starting a blog and then driving traffic to that blog. And usually those who wanted to “be heard” had busy day jobs.

The second group is using blogging as a marketing tool to partners, customers, employees or their industry in general. They were much clearer about why they were blogging.

But they still had many questions. And as we kept pointing out: go back to your original purpose for blogging and then make a blog plan that you keep fine-tuning.

If you are finding it too much work, then decide to only update the blog twice a week and set aside a few hours to work on it.

If you want to write better, do a quick training course into writing more compelling content.

If you want wider distribution, start sending it to editors of mainstream media or niche industry publications.

And if you can’t clearly see a purpose for blogging, then do us all a favour. And don’t.