Jeremiah Owyang has a great post on “The Many Challenges of Corporate Blogging“. It’s a great read, and I highly suggest taking the few minutes to take in what Jeremiah’s saying. The reasons he lists are spot on, but Debbie Weil author of the BlogWrite for CEO’s blog and The Corporate Blogging Book, added a few more reasons, and I’ve added a few more. If you haven’t read Debbie’s book, this is another read I highly recommend if you even have the inkling you want to start a blog, or you’ve started one and you are wondering where to go next. If you’re interested, check out my review of The Corporate Blogging Book.

I think these reasons that both Jeremiah and Debbie listed are all spot on, but not just for CEO’s or Corporations. These reasons are spot on for anyone considering starting a blog, from the work at home mom to the startup entrepreneur, or even the stamp collector wanting to convey his passion. Blogging is a commitment, it’s not just a fad.

So here’s the reasons I listed in the comments of Jeremiah’s post, with a little more in-depth explanation.

• Don’t Just Blog to “Blog”
  Blogging because you read about it on TechCrunch, Newsweek or FastCompany isn’t the reason to blog. Just because your competitor is blogging, doesn’t mean you should blog either. Blogging isn’t just a fad anymore, its a commitment, and unless you can give it the time and nurturing it needs, you’ll likely do more damage to your reputation than if you hadn’t blogged at all.
• Don’t Blog Unless You’ve Got Your “Voice” Figured Out
  Will your blog be just one person? Will it be a team of people blogging about different aspects of your company? Will you talk about products, services, issues, events, company news? Before you even start a blog, you should define a clear road map of what is “off limits” to talk about on the blog, how to handle issues as they arise (who handles what, and what’s the tone) and exactly what kind of demeanor will be portrayed on the blog - will it be laid back, straight talk, humorous or just newsy?
• Don’t Blog Unless You’ve Got the Interest
  If you are starting a blog just because “everyone else is” and you really don’t like to right, or communicate with the outside world, perhaps you should rethink this strategy. Why? Because without a doubt, your utter lack of interest, your lack of passion and your lack of love for conveying why people should care will shine through. It will be just like those commercials Ben Stein did for “dry eyes”, he sounds monotonous and boring. If its a reach for you “social” you might want to think about looking at other online strategies to convey your company’s efforts and news.

and lastly…

• Don’t Blog Unless You’ve Got The Resources
  
  Time, people and most importantly content ideas are the resources I’m referring to. Unless you’ve got the time to dedicate to writing a post, responding to comments and even dealing with spam here or there, you might want to think again about starting a blog. If it’s only you writing in the blog, and you don’t have the staff resources to help you out, again, you might want to rethink your strategy. If you can’t plan out your content for at least 2 weeks in advance, you really should rethink this blogging strategy. The worst thing a “blogger” can do, is start off a blog in high speed, slow down and then just stop because they are either burnt out, lack the time, lack the resources or just have no more content to give. You’ve created a following and now you’ve let them down - its nearly impossible to get them back when you find the resources you should have ad in the first place.

* Photo Credit, Scott Beale of Laughing Squid

If you didn’t know, I’m a huge advocate of Twitter. Some of you are probably thinking Twitter? What’s that?

Twitter is a great way to communicate with the people who “follow you” all at once, with one simple message (or “tweet” as twitters call them). Twitter is similar to instant messaging in that you are doing this in quick snippets, and online, however, instead of doing this in a one to one situation like you do on AIM, Yahoo! Messenger, ICQ or even GoogleTalk, with Twitter you message once and it goes out to all of those people who are following you and wish to receive your updates.

Twitter aims to answer the question “What are you doing now?” within a 140 character allotment. Since it’s early adoption, this medium has flourished and grown so far beyond just “What are you doing now?”. As an avid user, I’ve met new friends, I’ve learned about new events, I’ve discovered new blogs and I’ve even bought a Roomba through Twitter (btw, his name is Meryl)! So as you can see, Twitter has grown much further than a way to chat with all your friend at one time, it’s grown into a way to reach a very captive and very attentive audience.

So now you’re wondering, how can I use this “Twitter” to help reach my audience? Well here’s 5 Quick Ways:

1. Put a Twitter Badge on Your Site. People who know Twitter, use twitter and love twitter will sign up to follow you. They are at your site, mostly like because they like your service products, or what you have to say. Let them know you are on Twitter, if they don’t know, it might be tough for them to find you!
2. Follow Your Followers. On most other sites, this is like making friends. However, what’s different about Twitter is that there is usually always a conversation of some sort going on. You can learn a lot from the conversations, not just about your own services or products, but also about what people think about your competitors.
3. Add Your Blog Feed to Twitter. Have a blog to promote? There are several tools out there that allow you to integrate your blogs’ feed in with your Twitter profile. This allows your followers to know a little more quickly when your blog has updated. The can now have that information “pushed” to them, rather than having to always go out to their RSS readers to find out. Woot is a great example of this, they push their blog out to their Twitter subscription, because of that I got my Roomba!
4. Participate in the Conversation. Nobody likes a “lurker” on Twitter. If you aren’t out there participating in the conversation, how is anyone really going to know what you are about, or why you’re even on Twitter?
5. Initiate the Conversation. Wondering why something isn’t working on your site. Why isn’t your marketing appealing to the target audience? Tweet the questions to your followers, they will respond and respond honestly! Don’t try to control the conversation, and don’t try to explain away their insights. Ask. Then Listen. Then Learn!

Twitter does take investment of time and nurturing, if you are an individual. However, if you are a company like Woot or the NY Times, people already find your services of value and subscribe for very particular reasons - to get your information, make sure your feed is working with Twitter so you can give it to them!