Mary Schmidt Marketing Troubleshooter

(As a follow-on to my previous “5 Reasons” post…Yeah, I seem to be channeling Mike Sansone this week. Could be because I’ll be seeing him live and in person this weekend at SOBCon ‘07. If you’re in the Chicago area, I think there are few seats left, come join us!)

In Why Blogs are like TV Programming, Mike Sansone notes that, “One business owner I’ve been working with says he doesn’t write to a “bloggy” audience. What he doesn’t know (and refuses to see) is that his industry (and audience) is abundantly present in the blogosphere. Where is he getting his “bloggy” perception from? And is he getting a nose bleed sitting that far above ground?”

And so it goes - people continue to miss the value of blogging for their business. Stories like Business Week’s Big Shots of Blogdom don’t help. Here’s a telling snippet:

The growing influence of a few über bloggers comes as the overall creation of new blogs is slowing down. A total of 70 million blogs have been set up, but March data from blog search service Technorati show that only 15.5 million bloggers updated their sites during the last three months, up slightly from 15.3 million in October. Meanwhile, the most successful blogs are approaching the heft that mainstream sites enjoy.

Oh dear! “Uber bloggers” - that means it won’t work for a small biz like me - I’ll stick with the Yellow Pages. and… Only 15 million! Blogs have peaked! Blogs are Dead! People have run out of cat photos to post! Uh. No. No. and most definitely No.

BW then goes on to talk about the poobah bloggers in the context of “new media.” True, as far as it goes. But here’s where the idea comes to a screeching halt. Blogging is a lot more than the “new media.” Business Week and most of the dead tree, mainstream media continue to view blogging through the prism of their own prejudices and fears. Thus, they’re still trying to somehow define and fit blogging within their old business models (square pegs, round holes…). (I link to BW’s Brand New Day blog section, by the way, over there in my blogroll.)

Then there’s Seth Godin’s Do Business Books Work? A whack in the perspective for those of you who think blogging has no value to you. Go. Read. Think. Then, reconsider that “bloggy” thang.

Like what you’re reading? Subscribe to Mary’s Blog by Email

Related Posts:
Small Biz: Make Time for Web Marketing
Cut the Clutter
Blog or Web Site or Both?
I don’t have time to play on the computer.
Blog Business 101
Gooogle Isn’t Always Gooood.
Lost/Missed Customers? Maybe You’re Scaring Them!
The Problem with Marketing Creativity

If you’d like to leave a comment, please do so. It may take a bit to show up since I hate making people type in little letters (I can’t read most of them myself) - so I moderate all comments. Feel free to disagree - debate is healthy. However, I’ve blacklisted the worst obscenities, including the “f” word, as part of the troll wall.

Tags: ecommerce, web development, web marketing, marketing troubleshooting, entrepreneur sanity check, blogs, blogging, new media