The Green Cross Code of Blogging
Posted by Mark White, Blog Consultant in Blogging Basics , Setting up a Business Blog
[For those not of a certain age, or not from the UK, the Green Cross Code is a road safety campaign for crossing the road started in the 1970s which initially used the instructions Stop – Look – Listen – Think – Cross.]
If you are starting to write a blog, then it is all too easy to get carried away, rush into setting up the blog and start writing immediately. If you are in this situation then try employing the Green Cross Code of Blogging.
Stop! Wait, don’t rush into writing your blog immediately, you need to plan first and see what is happening.
Have a look at the blogs that are out there and see what people and doing and how. Try to read all you can both on and offline.
“Listen” to the conversations going on in the blogosphere and to what people are saying, as well as to any advice you are offered.
Think about what you have read, take time to plan your blog in terms of what you want to say and to whom, and what are your goals.
Finally, start to blog with all of these elements in mind but keeping looking, listening and thinking all the time.
To make a success of a blog, you need to spend time planning a variety of elements on your Blog as you start to develop it, and crucially you should also spend time looking at what is being written about and listening what is being said, before you put “pen to paper” on your first post.
I was reminded of this last week during a webinar organised by Marketing Profs and given by the excellent Jeremy Wright, author of Blog Marketing which I would strongly recommend. Jeremy used the analogy that starting a blog is like entering a room of 1000 people, with conversations already going on everywhere that you are not party to.
As you walk in, it looks like a daunting task to understand what is going on and join in the conversations. However, if you take the time to look at who is talking and listen to some of the discussions, you can quickly get a feel for what is going on. By following the references to other people that are mentioned, you can also develop a good understanding of the principal contributors and their opinions. Then, as you start to blog yourself, you will be in a much stronger position with a better understanding of how it works, what others are doing and saying and whom you should get in contact with.
So, if we break this down and take it back to basics, then I recommend that when you start a blog, you follow the Green Cross Code of Blogging:
July 30th, 2006 at 6:11 pm
Good Analogy there. Also, don’t you think that you need to find a style for your blog and this may need to develop over time? I guess also, audiences are being broken down into specifics so a Blog also needs to cater for that. I find that I sometimes tend to drift topics on mine with no overall plan of what is about.
July 31st, 2006 at 3:01 pm
A style can also be important as well and usually comes from the enthusiasm when writing. Certainly it is likely to develop as the author does – it you want to see this happen speeded up, then a good example of a blog which is quickly developing is the new Dell one2one blog which is having to speed up this process because of the attention it has been getting.
You mention that you find you drift topics on your own blog. That isn’t necessarily an issue but for many blogs it can be. With Business Blogs, the lack of an goal for the blog is the single most common cause for them to be abandoned simply because there is no clear direction and this is often accompanied by no real idea of what their target readership is looking to read. If that understanding is there, then drifting between topics isn’t a problem, because the posts still cover topics that you want to write about and your readers want to read.
August 5th, 2006 at 8:45 am
An excellent analogy. New bloggers, having gone through these steps, then need patience – a mass of readers doesn’t come overnight!
August 6th, 2006 at 8:27 pm
Ah Ash, ne’er was a truer word spoken!
Of course you are indeed right – there is always a lot of work to get a Business Blog up and running correctly and even more to keep it growing. I notice that you have started to get inbound links, sign ups to your RSS feeds and therefore readers, so I wish you well in growing those further!
All the best, Mark
December 29th, 2006 at 12:45 am
[...] 8. The Green Cross Code of Blogging [...]
June 19th, 2007 at 9:44 am
[...] I was glad to read that Avis has been adopting the methodology I recommend in the Green Cross Code of Blogging. They have taken the time to examine and listen to the conversations which have been taking place about Avis around the internet / blogosphere before starting their own blog and have clearly thought through their own goals for creating a blog. [...]
June 28th, 2007 at 11:15 am
Ashleigh, I agree with you, you have to have patience, a blog is like any website, it has to be found to be appreciated and it wont happen overnight..
I nearly gave up with mine recently but I think actually what might also be problem is not only the patience thing, its the fact that people don’t know what they don’t know in order to make their blog better..
You just assume you are rubbish and give up way too soon.
I have only got a very small number of subscribers (less than 50) but hey I must have something that people are interested in and they have stayed with me since I started… only 1 unsubscribe. I am very proud of that achievement. And it will get better the more I learn.
I have been reading much more about blogging and am learning rather than giving up and rolling over…
You never achieve anything worthwhile without effort.
Good luck to all the bloggers out there..
October 19th, 2007 at 12:45 am
[...] 18 Oct 2007 Where to find business blogs (and where to get yours found!) Posted by Mark White, Blog Consultant in Blogging Basics , Blog Directories and Search , Marketingyour Blog , Social Networking When starting a blog of our own or one for our company, hopefully we take time to plan out the content and look at what we want the blog to achieve for us and perhaps follow a process such as the one I advocated in the Green Cross Code of Blogging. [...]