Blogging for many people, perhaps the majority, is a fun hobby.
Most people also know that you can make money from blogging. Directly through ads, or indirectly through selling products and services. There are also PR benefits from having a business blog.
Are there real impact-the-bottom-line benefits to personal blogging?
Thinking about a certain take no prisoners mouthpiece I think there are …
Doug is a successful business owner. He doesn’t particularly need to earn any revenue from his blog, and he isn’t very bothered about putting on a PR-friendly front. In certain circles he is very well known, so fame isn’t a goal either.
So, why should he blog?
Some of you will know that I also have a personal blog. Due to Twitter it doesn’t get the attention it once did, but I have had some sort of personal blog, and before that personal website, since the early 90’s. Even though I always built these things out of fun, wanting to share with family, and generally geek out (most of these things were hand coded in my programming language du jour). Looking back I know it has paid off.
Personal blogs, rant blogs, what I am doing today blogs, help form connections with people. They are a vehicle for finding common ground. When you make human connections then opportunities tend to come along too.
Even though Twitter and FriendFeed are taking on some of this role, you can’t beat blogs for posting longer and more thoughtful content or more in depth rants.
I can’t count how many opportunities blogging has brought me, but also I have made a great many good friends.
So what about Doug? Well Doug is well known in certain circles right now, but blogging will help his name spread outside of the same old faces and bring him a new audience who will either connect with his, um, direct style, or who might tell others about this guy they disagree with. We can’t always keep pace with the way this industry changes, you never know if one of those new people might be just the person who helps Doug profit from the next big thing.
Keeping in mind blogging can be its own reward, if you only make one new contact through blogging I think that is a great return on your time investment.
