I am a new believer of Gary Vaynerchek. Gary is a self-made millionaire and web 2.0 genius! I stumbled across his site the past week and fell in love with his daily video blogs (vlogs anyone?). The energy Gary instills in the listener is unbelievable! Check out his site if you haven’t. You will not regret it!
My “social media circle” on FriendFeed, SmallerIndiana, and Twitter have been talking a lot about the secrets to blogging. What should be the reasons to blog? What kind of content do people want to read? Should you cater to an SEO type system?
Gary posted a great video about his opinion on How To Build a Great Show on the Internet. He relates building an online show to the likes of a blog or podcast. What I loved so much about the video is Gary completely destroying the glitz and glam aspect of social media
From Gary (semi-paraphrased by me):
“All that glitz and glamor is horse crap. It is not about the camera I use. It is not about the high-tech blogging software you use. It’s NOT! It’s not about the widgets. It’s not about the SEO
It is about Content and Community.
It is about giving from your heart on topics you understand.
Simply brilliant. Gary comes from the hardcore tactics of posting daily, responding to every reader email, and always being involved in the conversation. Content and Community should always be on the front burner of goals associated with business and personal blogs. If you start a blog strictly for SEO purposes, go ahead and join the ranks of lifeless posts.
If you care more about your bottom line than helping and joining the COMMUNITY behind your brand… Go ahead and send out an e-newsletter. Don’t waste your time with a blog.
What should be the reasons to blog?
I will always be in the camp that says you have to blog not just because you want to, but because you also have something meaningful to say.
What kind of content do people want to read?
People in this day and age will read just about anything. Some topics just so happen to be a tad more popular than others.
Should you cater to an SEO type system?
Sure, why not. But don’t let it drive your post.
I don’t think I agree with the concept of people reading everything? It sounds like you shouldn’t put much thought in the type of content you are creating. ?
Thank you so much for the kind words my man, hope we cross paths and share a glass of VINO!
Kyle, I am a huge believer in knowing your purpose, and value and sticking to it. There are many blogs that serve the purpose of being an information repository or content publisher. For example there are blogs I read for the industry insight and information. Their purpose is different but no less important to their readers. I am a huge fan of Gary V because he is authentic. Sadly, I have watched others try to create a formula out of his style. We can learn from him and apply his principles but we need to do it through the lens of our perspective and our unique strengths.
Can you say more about that last line on the e-newsletter? For sure, an e-newsletter is communication 1-way instead of two, and it’s not as bright and shiny as a web 2.0 tool, but that doesn’t have to mean it’s only about the bottom-dollar, does it? It’s a channel like any other that can be used to fundraise, build your brand, help/inform the community or other/etc. depending on who’s doing the sending!
Erin: There is nothing wrong with using an e-newsletter tool as a form of marketing. An e-newsletter is not, however, a communication tool. I believe communication is a conversation between two points (Person A and Person B). An e-newsletter accomplishes one thing: push marketing. I am not against using an e-newsletter as part of a communication strategy but it shouldn’t be the only part.
A pull marketing strategy, building a forum for conversation and collaboration between client and business or people in general will give you 10x the return in brand building and business.
Relationships are not built on push marketing.
I’m not sure I agree. I think that you can communicate via a newsletter and that the relationship you develop depends on how well you communicate.
It is difficult for a newsletter to create conversation, granted. But just because the recipient of a newsletter doesn’t communicate back doesn’t mean that the message wasn’t received. Thus- communication (a message from the sending party to the receiving party) has taken place. Case in point- your blog post communicated a message to me. This happened regardless of whether or not I chose to communicate back. It just so happens that I did, thus starting a conversation.
Don’t read me as saying that I am an advocate for always using that type of marketing (alone). But I do think that those tools are still valuable methods of communicating, especially when used the right way!
Take Chris Brogan’s (chrisbrogan.com) e-newsletter. Chris offers tools and tips to readers and often expands upon the content of his blog. While yes, by a pure definition, I suppose one could call this push marketing, I would say that Chris breaks the mold by connecting the content he is ‘pushing’ out with the conversations and relationships he is having via other channels. It’s a value-add; good stuff.
As a recipient, I can certainly say that receiving that newsletter adds to the relationship. The fact that Chris bothers to send it at all says something important to me!
Social media has given us more options than ever before to build relationships and share with each other. But does this mean that we can’t/shouldn’t incorporate our existing/older tools into a relationship building strategy?
Erin: I love it! Brilliant feedback!
I agree completely that an e-newsletter (or an older tool for relationship building) should be used if the strategy merits it. I just happen to come at it from a different perspective.
The same goes with direct mail. I will forever be put off by direct mail. I will probably never use it for my company but that doesn’t mean that it will not work. You can get measurable information from e-newsletter and direct mail (which sometimes you cannot get from strictly a social media strategy).
Chris Brogan does an excellent job at combining both mediums to get conversation rolling. If you can combine both I feel it works better than doing just an e-newsletter.
Thanks Kyle! And- believe me, I wholeheartedly support the use of more relationship-based efforts. I, too, am put off by direct mail and newsletters that really do push. (Have I mentioned how much I dislike the term ‘blast email’?)
Working in the nonprofit sector, we are sometimes slow adopters (no, really? Imagine that!), so I am always trying to imagine how we can update the way we use the tools we already have instead of using them in the same ol’, same ol’ style.
I am hoping to come to a point soon where we can really integrate both into a more cohesive strategy. I agree- I think it will be more effective.
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Re: “It is about Content and Community.
It is about giving from your heart on topics you understand.”
I agree whole-heartedly that it’s all about building community! Good, strong communities…ones that are built on genuineness and trust…allow themselves to be receptive to your message (whatever it may be). Without an active community, you may as well be talking/”selling” to a brick wall.
And in today’s information age, you’d better speak from a place of sincerity because we can spot when someone it being disingenuous from the very beginning and it’s easy for us to move from one brand to the next!
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