Blogging - The Professional Campaign

Posted on March 14, 2008
Filed Under Business Management, Web 2.0 |

[From an email I sent a new client just getting started on the road of self promotion.]

As a beginning, let me show you a bit about how a blog works, why it’s perfect for you, and also how it integrates into the rest of the website, either as an accomplice, or as the front runner doing the heavy lifting.

One of the first things you might do is read a success story of a blog used by a man with a very specialized profession. The story tells of filling a niche - founding it really - and becoming globally accessible, simply and cleanly, over 2-3 years.
Success By Blogging - a Case Study

You might follow this with another piece I wrote, about why blogging is perfect for consultants:
Blogging Is Perfect For Independent Consultants

Getting away from my site, take a look at some of the people I read for a view into how they promote themselves. The modern business world is beginning to resemble academe, in that it’s publish or perish. The plus side of this is that if you can write, and if you have something to say, you can attract and cultivate your own network of supporters and correspondents. In the end, it’s your network that will keep your skills sharp and your knowledge up to date, and also give you work.

I like to read Bob Warfield, he’s amazingly prolific and great with rapid analysis of breaking situations. His blog is a free one (which you don’t want), hosted at wordpress.com, and the design comes from a free design theme he selected from several available. His overhead is almost nil in technical terms, leaving him free to pour his writing and thinking into the site.
SmoothSpan Blog

Professor Andrew McAfee is using a blog hosted and designed by Harvard Business School. His articles don’t show the comments, but click on some to see the depth of feedback coming back to him from his readers. This is useful dialog, to his own thinking and to us the readers. With a serious blog, the comments can sometimes prove greater than the original post.
The Impact of Information Technology (IT) on Businesses and their Leaders

Ross Dawson in Australia is a keynote speaker and author. His blog serves to boost his credentials, and allows him to cite other journals that reference him, among all the other uses.
Trends in the Living Networks

Richard Boardman runs a consultancy and writes about his field in his blog. As with many people his articles are thought pieces that sometimes reference other industry commentators (in their blogs), and that get published and cited in other journals, while he keeps the rights (I assume) to archive them permanently in his own blog. See his link in the sidebar to Mareeba CRM Consulting, and follow it to view the brochure-style, “ordinary” website that houses the nuts and bolts information about his company. The blog is actually an addition built into the existing site.
The CRM Consultant

Nicholas Carr has shown us how to think for a living, and how to build buzz for a book while it’s being written. His blog features posts daily, with multiple references to his books, either the one just gone or the new one when it was a’building, and now as it’s published and on the bestseller list already - which he proudly proclaims in his blog post. Note his links at the top leading to another site with more detailed, linearly presented, static information for reference and additional promotion.
Rough Type - Nicholas Carr’s Blog

Finally, here’s how Frank Rumbauskas promotes himself and his speaking and coaching abilities. He has a blog to display the latest news and to comment on current issues in the industry, and a link to a static, traditional style website that holds a lot of well crafted promotional pieces, including video clips of him giving presentations.
The blog is the medium for networking and spreading the word further afield than his website can, while the website is a powerful sales tool, the “clincher” that holds affirmations and calls to action. Yet a third site is his official About site, holding his bedrock credentials and affiliations.

The blog:
Frank’s Blog

The Sales Tool:
Never Cold Call Again!

The Bio Site:
Frank J. Rumbauskas Jr. | Official Site

There is a lot more that can be said about the blog, and if you stick around long enough you’ll hear me say it all, probably in writing, probably in my own blog. This little tour d’horizon was to show you how commonplace, how simple and yet variegated, how flexible, and how utterly effective blogs are.

We may build you some static pages, and we may have different design on them, but we absolutely have to get you started in a blog. Nowadays people write in pieces that they post in their blogs, knowing that the pieces will be brought together and made into a larger format, such as an article for a journal somewhere, such as a manual for sale, such as book for publication. You can be “earning miles” in self-promotion as you write.

I hope this gave you some things to digest. I know it doesn’t specifically cover your field and your effort, and when you send me your details I’ll be able to drill deeper into where we’re going. But it’s some reading to ponder.

And by the way, since I wrote close to a thousand words on this beginning piece of advice, it occurs to me that I don’t ever want to have to write it again, so now it can go to live permanently in my blog - and maybe someday in the book.

You can find it here:
Blogging - The Professional Campaign

Ross

Comments

Leave a Reply