The Highs And Lows Of Blogging

If you’ve just set up your blog, or have been running it for a while and it’s becoming established, you may be sitting back and looking at it thinking; “Was this a great idea”?

We know that blogging can work, in terms of generating revenue and working hard to promote your business and services. We also know that blogging is not an overnight money-maker, and we’re probably not going to change the world with our blog, no matter how fantastic it is.

I’ve been thinking about blogging as a way to promote your business, and there are a number of advantages and disadvantages to it. It’s up to each one of us, personally, to decide whether it’s the right vehicle for us and our business. Here are my thoughts on the highs and lows of blogging…

The highs…

One of the main advantages of blogging, to my mind, is the fun factor. Setting up, choosing your theme and finding images and add-ons is a great experience. It’s good to know you are creating your own space online, and you have complete control of how it looks and all its functionality.

Blogs are one of the few front-line ways of communicating. They provide visible and tangible ways of monitoring your traffic, and technology today means we can update our blogs from just about anywhere. The fact that I can lie on the beach and upload a post from my sun lounger while sipping a margarita is marketing heaven. Not that I like margaritas, or for that matter, beaches…

Unlike other types of advertising and promotion, blogs are completely controllable. We decide what comments we want to publish, what subjects we choose to write about, when posts go live and when they don’t. We can make mistakes, knowing that with just a few clicks we can put them right again.
If we run a personal blog, it provides a great platform for venting emotion, journaling (if that’s a word) our lives and keeping in touch with people. Business blogs let us share what we learn, promote our expertize and maintain impetus by making regular updates.

Possibly the best advantage to blogging is the way that we get to ‘meet’ people online and build up a really great social network. I know for a fact that I would never have had the opportunity to meet some of the people I communicate with every day, had it not been for my blog. Blogs keep us in touch with people, and for those of us who work from home that interaction is really valuable.

And the lows…

OK. Here are some of the disadvantages.

• Blogging is not a quick fix, and it won’t make us overnight millionaires.
• Blogs are like children – they need ongoing nurturing to prevent neglect, and to help them grow in to decent and thriving ‘beings’.
• Blogging is frustrating. Wondering why some posts work and others don’t, or why you aren’t getting noticed for your writing can be incredibly annoying for the newbie blogger. Of all the jobs in the world, running a blog has to be one of the most emotional! If things go well, you’re elated. If they go badly, you’re despondent. You can’t rely on your blog to put you in a good mood!
• Writing your blog can be a total bind. If you’ve just come home after a long day of networking or meetings, and had a row with your other half, and there’s a great game on TV, the last thing you want to do is pick up your laptop and write a witty and interesting post. At times like this, you wonder why you bothered.

Having said all that, I know from personal experience that I will always be a big advocate of the blogging platform. Looking back at this post, I realize that the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages. Take a look at the list and decide for yourself whether this is the right industry for you. It really isn’t for everyone, but can be wonderful if it is for you.