Business blogs must serve a purpose
Blogging is so easy to do that many people jump right into it without much, or any, planning. If you’re blogging for your family and friends or simply want to post personal stories to satisfy your soul, this casual approach is fine. If you’re incorporating a blog as part of your business, however, planning is essential. . .and defining your purpose should be near the top of your planning “to do” list.
“When you are inspired by some great purpose, some extraordinary project, all of your thoughts break their bonds: your mind transcends limitations, your consciousness expands in every direction and you find yourself in a new, great, and wonderful world. Dormant forces, faculties and talents become alive and you discover yourself to be a greater person than you ever dreamed yourself to be.”
~ Patanjali, Indian philosopher
One way to identify the purpose behind your blogging is to ask yourself “Why am I willing to invest my time, energy, and creativity to this endeavor?” and write down all the ideas that come to you. Or, to ask the question in a different way, “What purpose(s) can blogging help me/my business fulfill?”
Though our minds tend to zone in on financial measures when we talk business, I encourage my business blogging clients to widen the scope of their inquiry to see if blogging holds a greater appeal. Though not all the segments of the Circle of Life (image at right) may apply, it’s worth your time to at least consider if blogging speaks to these other important parts of your life. Could blogging serve a purpose tied to your spiritual well-being or your relationships and feeling of community?
Regardless of the process you use to identify the purpose that blogging will help you fulfill, discovering your purpose will make you a better blogger because you’ll be doing so fueled by a deeper calling.
“This is the one true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. . . . I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. . . . I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no ‘brief candle’ to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.”
~ George Bernard Shaw
What’s your purpose for blogging?
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The Patanjali quote gives me goosebumps!
And I love the questions you encourage us to ask: “Why am I willing to invest my time, energy, and creativity to this endeavor?†and “What purpose(s) can blogging help me/my business fulfill?â€
Thank you Shonnie!
Adrian
Comment by Adrian Deal — April 5, 2007 @ 8:43 am
Great quotes are so awesome! I’m glad you’re finding the questions useful. Sharing some of your answers may be helpful to others, so feel free to do so if you’re willing.
Comment by Shonnie — April 6, 2007 @ 9:56 am
Okay, here are some of my purposes for having a blog:
Build credibility
Build community among my seminar participants and customers
Develop content for books / e-books / tips booklets
Entice people to purchase my products and attend my seminars
Have a way to get useful feedback from my customers on how to improve my product & seminar offerings
I’m also considering having my blog BE my website — though it might be that I have too many pages that need to be “static” for that to work — at any rate, I want a website and/or blog with these qualities:
Professional and “clean,” but infused with my personality
Attracting tons of visitors and converting a huge percentage of those into buying customers
Easily managed and edited
Inexpensive to run
Multimedia: written words, audio and video clips (why? to engage people’s brains in different ways; to appeal to people with different learning styles)
My “bigger, deeper whys”:
I envision having a business that is fun and easy to run (especially as it’s getting bigger), receiving infinitely huge amounts of money-energy into my life, and doing / creating offerings to the world that feel joyful to me. The biggest outcome for my life is to live a life I love; feeling full of joy, gratitude, abundance, ease, and vibrancy.
Does that answer all of our questions?
Adrian
Comment by Adrian — April 10, 2007 @ 11:40 am
“Does it answer the questions for you?” is the real issue. I think you’ve done a stellar job. If you “feel” these “whys” when you read them, you’ve got it! Thanks for sharing and giving sparks of inspiration to the rest of us.
Gold star!!
Comment by Shonnie — April 10, 2007 @ 12:20 pm