I’ve been trying to slowly catch up with some back reading from the last week when I had a bit of time away from the PC; so I am now trying to catch up with some great posts sitting snugly in my RSS Reader just waiting to be discovered.

One I felt that I had to share was from Mike Sansome over at ConverStations - in his post, Is Your blog simply marketing insurance?. He starts with such an important point and commentary all wrapped into one when he says:

We’re hearing more about and from companies launching blogs (good news), and many are doing it because it’s the hot marketing tactic (bad news).

Now perhaps I should focus on the fact that businesses are considering starting a blog and just be content with that - I do work as a business blog consultant after all! But, like Mike, I’m also keen that they are launched for the right reasons and not just because it’s the “latest thing”.

The right reasons will differ from company to company but they need to be thought through and decided upon before they start. By taking that extra bit of time to plan, the blog has 10 times more chance of being a success and delivering the sort of business results that companies are looking for.

This was actually the point I made as my contribution in Ted Demopoulos‘ latest book “What no-one ever tells you about Blogging and Podcasting“. As I wrote there, I always advocate asking yourself (and answering) 3 key questions before starting a blog:

• What is the blog looking to achieve?
• Who is the blog aimed at?
• What results are you looking for?

In an ideal world, these would form the basis of a blog strategy (scary thought, I know) and at the very least they need to be considered and written down before diving headfirst into the blogging unknown.

Blogging may be hot and may produce great results but that doesn’t come from simply installing Wordpress or setting up your Typepad account. Rather it comes from the planning you do before that and the work that you put in after.

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