The trouble with blogs

MarketingProfs.com has nailed why blogs still don't enjoy the same popular status among marketers as other communications tools like email newsletters.

1. The term blogging is associated with online journals; personal, unedited writing; and, er… needless bloviating.

2. Most folks don’t know what a newsreader is and why you need one to subscribe to a blog or any other RSS feed.

Yes, they are clarifying what bloggers already know, but both marketers and your average Joe Schmoe still doesn't understand what all the fuss is about. Particularly in Australia.

Here's my quick analysis and reasoning:

The world of blogging is packed full of subtleties, rules, social expectations, codes of conduct, geek-speak, and little secrets such as how to get more hits. In short, it's an entire social and business ecosystem. And all this comes despite the simplicity of setting up and running a blog using a service like Typepad (which very competently hosts filtered, btw).

It all boils down to the fact that a successful blogger (particularly in the business & IT space) must simultaneously perform many roles that we typically encounter in newspapers and magazine publishing: reporter, columnist, editor, copy editor, web designer, hosting manager, online publisher, evangelist, and marketing manager.

Bloggers ultimately hope that people (particularly marketers if you're chasing revenue through AdWords or BlogAds) will firstly understand this blog ecosystem, and secondly appreciate why you offer a different perspective that's attractive to readers. There are many bloggers out there who go to great lengths to explain what they are doing, and why. Many others simply get on with blogging and hope people will just "get it."

There's no right or wrong with either approach. My point is that it will probably take longer for both marketers and the non-blogging internet population to "get" blogs than we expect. The good news, to steal a line from a shampoo commercial, is that while it won't happen overnight, it will happen.