Blogging for a MEANING

Many a times, when I try to market my blog, people ask me "What is the worth of your blog?" or "What are the various ways in which we can earn money by blogging?". May be a better question to start with could be "What do you blog about?" and than they could have asked the previous question. And damn,"Who cares how much money I earn as long as I get visitors and comments".

The thing which pains here is that there are so many like these who are interested only in making money and not for making meaning. I do agree, money is important for everyone but idea is more important. Most of the entrepreneurs think that the primary motive of starting a company is just making money but that should not be the case. If you have a good idea definitely you will make money. But this post is not about starting a company but blogging for a reason.

Below are some of the points that would make Blogging meaningful, effective and advantageous:

a. Never blog against your employer:
It is very important not to blog against the organization with whom you are associated with. During my BlogCamp visit in September-2006, this was the first question "Are there any people who have lost jobs due to blogging". Also, check out my post previous post "Be careful while you blog".So check if your manager is around before you start blogging!!!

b. Meaning makes a difference:
Choose a particular theme for your blog. If you blog on meditation, stick to that else people won't be interested in what you write. Also, if you find some good stuff on the Internet, which comes under the same category do not hesitate to put it on my blog (provided you supply a link to the original post else it would lead to copyright issues).This would increase the no of readers who come back to your blog.

c. Make better contacts:
I recollect the early days when I started blogging and it was just a hobby. But now, I love to blog and read other's blogs. One reason to this is "I get noticed because of my blog which makes me feel more positive. It helps me make more friends and I feel I am somewhat ahead than the normal crowd (who are not taking the full advantage of the internet)". I got many contacts on Linked In (the business networking site) and the sole reason is my blog.
This suggests that there are some secret readers of your blog and you are able to send your message to the world.

d. Blogrolling good blogs:
Never hesitate to blog roll good blogs. This has four advantages:
a. People would find a centralized database where they would find good piece of information.
b. It would tempt people to come back to your blog and believe me they would yearn to read your blog.
c. This would help more bloggers linking to your blog and your rank will go higher in Technorati blog search.
d. This is the most important. It would demonstrate your business and marketing sense since, business is nothing but building new relations.

e. Market your blog:
Any succesful product without proper marketing is a waste!! The best tool to market your blog is the good old word of mouth marketing. Also, It would be better to include your blog in your email signatures, business cards etc. I have found a different way of marketing my blog ie. Very soon, I would be rolling out T-Shirts with my blog and the theme of my blog written on it and believe me, this idea is not coming from the marketer's book :-)

PS: There are some points which I would have missed, please include those in the comments or mail me on himanshu.sheth@gmail.com