For those of us who read blogs, write blogs, comment on blogs, and blog blogs, it’s easy to take some simple things for granted. Like succinctly answering the question of “what is a blog.”

I found myself in this very situation recently. I’m proud to say I helped a group of extremely smart people at my office launch the company’s first blog, HealthyScience.net. The idea was simple: we have a lot of people here who really, REALLY know their stuff when it comes to glyconutrients and nutrition in general. So let’s share the love and get the great content out there.If you know anything about getting content about nutrition as a network marketing company through all the legal and compliance obstacles, you know this is no easy feat.  We’ve certainly got some improvements still to make, but I’m extremely proud of the team’s quick success.

Interestingly, I was shocked at how many people (OK, executives) didn’t really have a handle on what a blog was when I originally brought it up. I mean, the idea of blogs being a new thing is SOOOO 2006. But sure enough, I found myself getting blank stares at the really good stuff in my presentations (tossing out mandatory blog presentation statements like “content is king,” “build authority,” etc. – you know the gist) because just the pronunciation of “blog” was getting too many snickers and rolled eyes.

It hit me that all of this stuff we’re doing in the echo chamber is still not as obvious to a lot of the folks we’re selling the ideas to these days.

So, with some great guidance from my counterparts at work (those executives), I didn’t fall into this trap when presenting this to our sales force at a recent national convention. The video is below if you care to watch. Is it cheesy? Yes. Is it hokey? Oh yeah. Did it work? Surprisingly, yes. I had a lot of folks come up afterward telling me they finally know what a blog is. Go figure.

So I wanted to share my main points. You might be quite clear on what a blog is, but you may know others who just don’t get it. If this quick description can help, please pass it along.

So What Is a Blog?

• It’s a website that is refreshed with new content often.
• It normally focuses on a specific topic.
• Over time, it becomes an impressive and comprehensive collection of content on that specific topic (and thus becomes easier and easier for people to find when they’re searching for that info).
• It’s usually written by a single expert or a group of experts on that topic.
• Put another way, it’s like a newspaper column by someone who really knows their stuff that’s available online for free and anytime you want it.

So what’s missing here? How do you define a blog when people ask?

Can’t see the video? Go here.

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As always, the opinions on this blog are completely and solely my own, and shouldn’t be considered that of my employer.

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The Middle Zone Musings has hosted a most excellent and fun series known as Blogapolooza 2009, where bloggers from all over have been submitting their top lessons learned from 2008. It’s a great way to discover new blogs. 

I managed to get my post in just under the deadline, and you can read it here over at Middle Zone Musings. Thanks so much for including me!

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Andy Sernovitz has just machine-gunned out these great nuggets of blogging principles. Read them all; it’s mandatory. 

1. On comments
2. On writing style
3. On focus
4. More on comments
5. On workload and editing
6. On blogging tools
7. On design and layout

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Sonia at Copyblogger posted a great reminder for both the current blogger and soon-to-be blogger alike: Why Should Anyone Read Your Blog? 

Aside from the astonishing stats that there are more than 133 million blogs available today and more than 900k blog posts posted a day, there is the equally astonishing yet simple message that you still gotta write something worth reading. 

The points are good, and here are mine that I too easily ignore or forget:

1. Narrow your focus, and your audience. When there’s over 10 blog posts going live every second, let blogs do what they do best: find an otherwise hard-to-find audience, and stay in touch with them. 
2. Keep in mind what style of blog you’ve got going. Seth’s blog is made up of quick, devotional-type thought-starters. Scoble is keeping his hand on the pulse. I try to look at MarketingInProgress as my own newspaper column focusing on the rapidly evolving field of marketing. Regardless, don’t try to be what you aren’t, even though a different approach seems to get more action. 
3. Limit the link bait. Yes, linking is an important and beneficial part of blogging, but don’t overdo it. 

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OK – for those of you bored to death with my marketing pontifications, loyal readers of this blog only because of a dedicated friendship or a love of giving me a hard time via the comments, I got ya something:

Introducing VintageBrett.com, my all-new blog that has absolutely nothing to do with marketing, and everything else to do with anything else that crosses my mind.

Start here to find out all about it, and then make your way through the few posts I’ve got up there. I’m still getting the tone and feel of the blog down, but I think it will be a rather enjoyable conversation for us all.

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Here’s an educational rant at Search Engine Land that provides a little food for thought. Are you guilty?

To me, this line sums up the real point: “The problem with this, of course, is that any time you do anything just for SEO purposes, you’ll almost always do it wrong.”

SEO is powerful, but providing valuable content and resources is much more powerful. Don’t let the allure of SEO suck you in to the point you suck.

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A most excellent and insightful post at Canuckflack.

It never hit me how relevant and related your satisfaction of your paying “day” job is to your blogging habits. No comment as to where I sit in this list.

Here’s one I would add:

• The less busy you are at your paying job, the more likely new posts will start appearing during the lunch hour.

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I haven’t written a post in almost a week, which is fairly rare for me. The fact is, I haven’t really had anything worth saying, or an urge to say it. I’ve got nothing to bring to the table. And for once, I think it’s better to say nothing than to say anything.

I am offering no value to you, the reader.

Don’t get me wrong: I don’t always abide by these rules. I confess, I’ve occassionally posted some real crap over the past year just so I could just have something new up on Brett’s Blog. But I knew it was crap, and I bet you did, too. Sorry about that.

I’m hoping to provide value from here on out. Whether it’s a rant, an observation, a link to something else valuable, a stat, a question or a service, my goal is that each post has value. Obviously, you might not agree with me on what is and isn’t valuable, and we can figure that out along the way. But I have to at least personally think it’s valuable before it can be any value to you.

The principle obviously isn’t limited to blogging. Does your new product add value, or do you just need to launch something? Is your email newsletter adding value, or do you just need to get it out there cuz that’s what you do once a month? Is your time with your kids valuable to them (and you), or are you just clocking in so you feel better about yourself?

The point: Figure out how you can add value, find new ways of doing on a regular basis, and if it’s not valuable, don’t do it.

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On January 19, 2007, I started this simple little blog with not much more than a hankering to blog, as you can see in this inaugural post. Since then, it’s no doubt become a highlight of life, as well as a highly addictive avenue of self-expression. Thanks to all of you who have made it as entertaining as it has been. With that being said, here are some interesting stats to date:

Total views: 40,702
Total posts: 295
Highest traffic ever: July 2, 2007 (704 views)
Total comments: 899
Total spam comments: 19,581
Avg. views per day (Jan. 2008): 206
Post with the most comments: Ron Paul: Can He Digg Out of this Hole? – 20 comments

Top Posts and Pages -

1. We All Work for a Sales and Marketing Company (2,931 views): Traffic to this site has mostly been driven by image searches for “geek,” so take it for what it’s worth.
2. 10 Marketing Tips for Gym Owners (1,539 views): This post has been one of the more controversial posts, along with its predessor, How Not to Run a Business. Basically, the gym I go to has gone through a lot turnover and issues, and these were my rants and solutions on the topic.
3. CarbEase, Dr. Harry Preuss and AdvoCare (1,093 views): This post had a clear motive: getting search traffic. When I worked at AdvoCare, an article in USA Today reviewed Dr. Preuss’ book, in which he mentions the AdvoCare product Carb-Ease. The problem is that it was listed as CarbEase (no hyphen) in the article, so the AdvoCare site wasn’t listed high in the search results. Knowing it would lead to search inquiries, I wrote a post to try to attract this search engine traffic. It worked pretty well, and still generates a good amount of views.
4. Who is Brett? (685 views): Good question. I guess it’s natural for readers to get a better idea of who they’re reading.
5. How Not to Run a Business (640 views): This was my original rant on the Ranch Health Club in Valley Ranch. For what it’s worth, they’ve gotten a lot better since then.

Top Referrers:

1. WordPress Dashboard (794): I’ve had scattered posts featured occassionally on the WordPress dashboard. 
2. Sphere.com Ann Coulter search (679): This is what accounts for July 2, 2007 gaining the most views in a day. Almost all of these clicks came on that one day.
3. WordPress Tag for Ranch Health Club (377):  This is pretty shocking. I’m surprised this many people are looking for The Ranch, and I’m surprised they still don’t have a web page to get some of this traffic.
4. Hee Haw Marketing (374): Here’s a great blog from an advertising expert in the Dallas area, and one of the first blogs I started reading. His account of a holiday experience at a local Kohl’s created quite a bit of buzz, and my reference to his experience gained these clicks from the trackback.
5. WordPress Tag for AdvoCare (211): Makes sense, since several posts refer to my old company and favorite nutritional supplements.

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If you read lots of blogs, then you probably use some kind of aggregate service to receive all of your feeds in one place. And if you’ve done that for some time, you’ve probably noticed that all the posts get backed up like your inbox on vacation, and things can get out of hand pretty quickly.

That’s where I’m at right now, and rather than fix what I’ve currently got going there, I’m starting from scratch. I’m deleting all the blogs that, at least at one point, I was a big fan of, and I’m going to find them all over again.

I don’t know why, but something feels pretty good about deleting all of the mess and starting anew.

So, don’t know exactly why I shared that with you, but if you’ve got some tips on how best to keep up with your blog reading, do tell.

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