Blogging entails a large time commitment, let’s face it. It can be hugely rewarding, but some companies are just not ready to take on the responsibility of managing and updating a blog. They may be ready three months from now but that’s the future. There are still numerous ways you can leverage the power of the blogosphere without creating your own blog.
Read Blogs
Just reading blogs or setting up your feed reader to automatically download the most important blogs for your industry can be a great way to utilize the value that blogs bring to the business community without the time commitment and expense of creating your own blog. Blogs are a tool for keeping up with the latest developments, breaking news and products that effect your industry.
This is really a necessary part of being in business today. The tricky part is organizing all the information that is relevant to your company into a form that will allow you to access it when you need it and utilize it to your advantage with out becoming overwhelmed. The best tools for organizing information on the Internet are called social bookmarks. Social Book Marks allow you to filter out the information that’s not helpful and access the information that is. Once you’ve found the information social bookmarks give you the tools to store the information so that you can access it as you need it.
Guest post on someone else’s blog
If the pressure or work required to have your own blog doesn’t interest you, you can still influence the dialogue in your industry by writing articles for other people’s blogs. Industry bloggers are often looking for “experts” to serve as contributors on their blogs. Just contact the bloggers that you respect in your industry and pitch an article that might be of interest their readers. Bingo, you have instant exposure.
Become a Blog Commentator
A blog commentator is someone who contributes to industry discussions by placing comments on the discussion section of blog sites. These comments can answer others questions, pose new topics for discussion, ask questions, or share new insights.
Link to Blogs
Linking from your website to blogs that will be helpful to your clients or customers is a great way to demonstrate value, your knowledge of current industry trends and your connections in the industry. It also encourages other bloggers to link to your site, thus building your traffic.
Good luck and happy blogging.
