To Blog Or Not To Blog

You'd be surprised to learn that there is a good percentage of people (perhaps even 'Bloggers') that are unaware of the origin of the term "Blog".

According to Wikipedia, a Blog is an abridgement of the term web log, and is described as a website which - usually maintained by an individual - has regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Were you aware that Blog is not just a noun, but can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a Blog?

Dictionary.com was - as expected - rather plain with their description: "to write entries in, add material to, or maintain a weblog". Don't you hate it when you look something up in the dictionary and, because you don't understand the meaning of one (sometimes more) of the words in the actual definition, you spend half the morning consequently looking up other words just to piece together a meaning! Thankfully, we can move forward as we already know the term's origin...

Two things that both of these definitions failed to clearly outline is that Blogs are - by nature - written with the intent of the author gaining some kind of response. After all, they've put quite a bit of thought into what they want to say! The other is that an important part of a Blog is the ability for visitors to interact with the author by posting comments and / or voting on the article.

What this means to the novice Blogger (yours truly) is that fundamentally all Bloggers not only wish to be heard (read), but desire some kind of reaction. It is one thing to 'post' your opinion, but if no-one is going to 'comment', what's the "blogging" point?!

Incidentally, how modern day language has changed since when I first took English literature class, desperately trying to understand what John Donne meant when he said, "Busy old fool, unruly Sun, why dost thou thus?" And what if Shakespeare were here today? Would he Blog? More importantly, how would we explain this new interactive technology and convince our literary forefather of the marvels of bringing lightning speed information so much closer to everyone's fingertips?



In my Sales role at Enotia [Enotia is IASP's parent company], I was recently tackled with explaining the difference between a Blog and a Forum. In true patient / doctor confidentiality-style, my client shall remain unnamed (much like the dentist that never shows their face). However, I successfully convinced my client to opt for a Blog component - for their website - instead of the fuss and hassle (not to mention expense) of a Forum. Just because publishing your brand new website is an exciting process, it does not automatically mean that everyone else will agree. It takes time to gain loyalty and interaction, and Blogging is the perfect way to encourage this process.

The Managing Director of a learned competitor of Enotia recently claimed that there is far too much meaningless information on company websites, suggesting that Blogging is an undertaking of vanity. This was compounded by adding that the number of Blogs outnumber the readers. However, as the cliche suggests, you have to be in it, to win it! Will no-one read or respond to my Blog? I doubt it.

What is the moral of this Blog? A Blog post may just be a great way for your company to communicate with users, clients, partners and anyone involved in your business, in the pursuit of receiving valuable feedback. Blog content need not necessarily be work or business related; why not post Blogs about your field of expertise or something about which you are currently very passionate!?

You don't have to be a literary genius like Donne or Shakespeare, either (I'm not). Blogs that are well written, however, encourage interest with users hopefully linking to them (which means they're linking to your website!). Hey, this is a great segue to talk about the POWER of Search Engine Optimisation and its countless benefits to your business (oops, I'd better take off my Sales hat)

An afterthought... Thank you for reading my Blog - whoever you are - whether you post a reply or not. To find out how a Blog can benefit the performance of your website, call me now! (Sorry, that's me with my Sales hat on again...)