The 120 Day Wonder: How to Evangelize a Blog

I know a fair amount about evangelism and a little bit about blogging, so I've combined the two in order to provide some insights into the evangelism of a blog. Granted, I've only been at blogging for 120 days or so, but marketing is marketing, right?

1. Think “book” not “diary.” First, a bit of philosophy: my suggestion is that you think of your blog as a "product." A good analogy is the difference between a diary and a book. When you write a diary, it contains your spontaneous thoughts and feelings. You have no plans for others to read it. By contrast, if you write a book, from day one you should be thinking about spreading the word about it. If you want to evangelize your blog, then think “book” not “diary” and market the heck out of it.

2. Answer the little man. Now that you're thinking of your blog as a product, ask yourself if it's a good product. A useful test is to imagine that there's a little man sitting on your shoulder reading what you're writing. Every time you write an entry, he says, “So what? Who gives a shiitake?” If you can't answer the little man, then you don't have a good blog/product. Take it from someone who's tried: It's tough to market crap, so make sure you have something worth saying. Or, write a diary and keep it to yourself.

3. Collect email addresses. The first piece of advice that I give authors who want to evangelize their book is to accumulate email addresses. (The second piece of advice is to start blogging before the book comes out.) When I launched The Art of the Start, I sent out email to 95,000 people who had made contact with Garage in the past nine years by attending our conferences, submitting business plans, ... whatever. Also a team of student interns compiled a database of every entrepreneurial organization on the planet for me.

When I started this blog, I sent out 10,000 email announcements. (I didn't use the entire Garage database because I thought that was too tacky even for me.) You may not have the ability to collect email on this scale but collect them nonetheless. For example, when a bozo includes you on a large carbon-copy email, mine the addresses. However, don't buy address lists or spam people (I define "spam" as sending email to someone who has never sent me one) because for email promotion to work, you must know the recipient--or be known by the recipient.

Two more email related recommendations. First, when you answer an email, stick in a “by the way” that mentions your blog. (The only email responses that I send that don't make reference to my blog are the ones that are responses to an email about my blog.) Second, your email signature should contain your blog address.

4. Collect links for blog rolling. This is something I wish I had done on day one, but I was totally ignorant of this linking thing. If I had to do it over again, I would look for all the interesting blogs that cover similar topics to my blog. Then, on day one I would have blog rolled them all and ensured that  Technorati pinged my blog, so that the bloggers  might find out that I existed. I use Blogrolling.com to create my current blog roll.

Now that I understand how linking works, I use NetNewsWire and Endo to look for new links to my blog, and I find sites that I would have never seen were it not for their links to my site. Basically, you want bloggers to find out about you because you linked to them. You never know what they might do for you.

5. Scoop stuff. There's a very interesting honor system in blogging. Suppose Blogger A finds an obscure article and posts it to his blog. Blogger B reads about it on Blogger A's blog and links to it. However Blogger B doesn't link only to the article; she also links to Blogger A to give him credit for finding the article.

This means that if you hustle and scoop stuff, other bloggers will link to you. For example, when I found and publicized the Stanford Social Innovation Review article by Jeffrey Pfeffer and Bob Sutton, many other bloggers linked to my blog, not just the article itself. I was surprised by this. Bottom line: if you want lots of people to link to you, read voraciously and find cool stuff first. As a Japanese philosopher once said, "Eat like a bird, and poop like an elephant."

6. Supplement other bloggers with a followup entries. Read the blogs of the top fifty or so bloggers (using Technorati's ranking is fine) and see if you have in-depth knowledge about their topics. Then instead of leaving the typical, dumb shiitake comment (“I think you're an orifice who shouldn't make money recommending products that you've invested in.”), craft a real essay that complements the blogger's entry.

When someone does this for my entries, I want to get down on my knees and thank God because it's less stuff that I have to write. Look at this example that was a followup for my entry about recruiting. I don't know about other bloggers, but one of the biggest challenges I face is feeding the content beast. If you can help me feed it, I'll gladly link to you and give you publicity.

7. Acknowledge and respond to commenters. Only good things can happen when you read all the comments in your blog and respond to them. It makes commenters return to your blog. This, in turn, makes commenters feel like they are part of your blog's community which makes them tell more people to read your blog.

(I'd like to do this better, but I've created a monster. I don't have any quantitative evidence, but it sure seems like a I get large volume of comments to my entries. There are days that I simply can't keep up, so forgive me.)

8. Ask for help. If you are providing value in your blog, don't hesitate to ask for your readers to help. If you don't ask, you don't get. You don't have to be as blatant as I am in the desire to climb Technorati's ranking, but in a perfect world, you provide something in your blog and your readership will want to reciprocate by helping you spread the word.

9. Be bold. I'm not saying you should intentionally piss other bloggers off, but if you can't speak your mind on your own blog, we might as well all give up and stay on the porch. This is a fascinating thing about blogging: Even when people torch you, they link to your site. I would have thought that you don't link. My logic was: Why give someone you torched any exposure?

10. Make it easy to join up. A blogger named Steve Nipper showed me the list about this. I had no idea what Feedburner and FeedBlitz did until he  told me about them. The bottom line is that you should enable your readers to get to your blog in multiple ways. It's no different than distributing physical products through multiple channels. 

May you use this knowledge to rise in Technorati and make the A List. Just say hello as you pass me by--someday I'll be sucking up to you.  :-)

PS:

Here are some other resources that I found:

1. From reading Christian Blog Evangelism:

• How to Build Traffic to Your Blog by Priya Shah
• Promoting Your Blog

2. From readers:

• http://www.squidoo.com/blogstarter.    The author of this, Rajeesh Setty, also has a very interesting (and free) ebook here about personal branding.

Comments

[Sterling Camden]

Homemade trackback: http://www.chipstips.com/microblog/index.php/post/559/

[Periscope]

Hi Guy,

I have a post called "HOW TO: Make Friends on the Blogosphere" that might be a good side note to your post. I also reference your post. It can be found here:

http://blog.periscopesolutions.com/2006/04/how_to_make_fri.html

Thanks,
Sarah

[sainathkm]

Nice article..

[Stephanie Sandifer]

Great list of tips -- I've just started blogging and am having great success by doing exactly what you say here.

A thought on #s 1, 5, 6, 7, and 8 -- it's about the CONVERSATIONS between all of us... learning, sharing, growing, and expanding the possibilities.

The most powerful blogging involves all of what you stated about linking, commenting, and asking for help. We must think "collaboration" and not "competition" if we wish to be active, constructive participants in the "sphere".

[Dan Harris]

#5 is a biggie for me. I find that by noting who actually found the article, I have a friend out there ready to reciprocate. I also get really pissed off when see (through sitemeter) that they were at my site and then they post on the exact same thing, without any recognition. Fortunately, without exception, all of the blogs that have done this to me are not worth much in any event and the good blogs never seem to do this.

www.chinalawblog.com

[Sidewalk]

*Collect email addresses*

If I may be so bold, my product Sidewalk (http://www.captureimportant.info) is geared specifically towards making it easy to add lead generation forms to your blog. Create your form in Sidwalk with our simple tool, and paste a line of code in your blog, and Viola! You're instantly in the lead generation business.

[leon]

Thanks for another top article Guy.

Wondering about this though:

"Eat like a bird, and poop like an elephant."

Isn't it more than you eat voraciously and poop conscientiously?

cheers!
lb

[chuckk gerwig]

Great article guy, thank you as always.

[Jason]

Great article. This is my first visit to your blog. Thou shalt return.

I'm always researching new ways to gain readership. Most of these I have yet to apply. Thanks.

Although I enjoy the personal nature of blogging, I agree that we should "think book over journal" 'cause that's what folks want to read, useful and entertaining stuff.

Cheers,

JP

[David Askaripour]

Wow, amazing article. Thanks a lot, Guy. I plan on implementing some of your ideas in my entrepreneurship blog right away.

David Askaripour
Flush the Toilet: Student Entrepreneurship

[ron wilson]

Great Article!

[Ohad]

Hey Guy,
I've been to several of your confernces back in the old days and was quite surprised to find you a blog owner. I loved the insight you provided in this post.
I'd love to get your opinion on my blog @ http://ohad-new.blogspot.com which deals with internet sites and technologies and the way they affect our lives.

Thanks

Ohad

[Julien]

Many bloggers, in fact, do not link back when they have problems with the person they're discussing with (though that causes problems with the readership finding the original post). More likely is to say "if you don't link to me, I won't link to you." I like that policy.

[Jennifer Apple]

When I try and do link exchanges with big sites it usually ends up in a horrible waiting game where nothing ever happens. The bigger they are the more you are seen as either insignificant to them, or as a threat to them. Instead I look out for brand new blog sites and try and help them out. I give them a plug in their early days, when they really need it the most, and they usually respond with overwhelming enthusiasm and a link back. Of course I only do it if I like them. But I find it more challenging and more satisfying to contact the unknown players and see how they grow and help you down the line.

[ssp]

So what about the people who consider their blog a private fun website and aren't too much into marketing and spamming hundreds of mailboxes?

[Jon Cantin]

Good article Guy, I would add one more thing though - I am assuming you have a large proportion of your readership who are entrepreneurs (and their kin).

Don't turn your "personal blog" into an advertisement for your company. We want to know your thoughts, dreams and aspirations in life, not daily thrusts as to why I should use your product over another.

Jon
Life: http://jon.legendarylife.com
Founder of http://www.myfoodcount.com - free & anonymous online health monitoring

[Mike Sigers]

Gald to see you say what you did in #4, since you don't seem to be a Capt. Links-A-Lot.

Also, #6 would be nice, but you also don't seem to acknowledge when this happens, as it would take a link and they seem to come out of here very sparingly.

Other than these traits, your writing is above first rate and your info is usually very well presented and thought out.

Answering comments on this blog would be a full time job, so we understand about #7.

You're getting more involved in the blogosphere and all you seem to need is a new/better linking strategy and to comment on others posts every now and then and a few links to other great posts and you'll be da stuff of legends.

[Mureen Sharib]

Add, populate, distribute, use ME! Me! Me! I LOVE the aggressiveness in your outlook and the effectiveness of your suggestions. I come under fire for "puttin' it out there" all the time. I just can't help it, but the "little man" (my O/C disorder) on my shoulder is always whispering, "How will they know 'less you tell them?" I listen more than I should. I am full aware some wisenheimer will remark the following is "TMI". TFB, I say.

;)

"We read advertisements... to discover and enlarge our desires. We are always ready - even eager - to discover, from the announcement of a new product, what we have all along wanted without really knowing it." ~
Daniel J. Boorstin

Our goal is to save you time and help you succeed.

Maureen Sharib
Names Sourcer
513 899 9628
maureen at techtrak.com
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[Torley Linden]

#9 is one of my faves. "Even if someone is dissin' you, they're publicizing you by the very mention of your name!" ROCK ON D00D!!!

[Todd Zeigler]

Guy,

I'm a fan of your blog, and, well, buy what you're selling.

I contribute to my company's (web consultancy) group blog and our goals are different. Mostly distributing info via email (a pretty hefty list) to people who aren't bloggers. Not trying to be Technorati stars. Technorati doesn't reflect our readership, because we're not playing the link/ meme game. People we're trying to reach don't blog. We're trying to:

(1) Evangelize to employees internally (public blog as internal communication tool). And I think encouraging folks to write entries is a form of evangelizing.

(2) Evangelize to existing clients.

(3) Evangelize to prospects we add to our list.

Any thoughts on how to use a blog to reach those people. Once again, it's less about finding readers than finding the right tone between providing info/educating and well, selling.

Cheers.

Todd

[Janette Toral]

Hi Aloha. I'm not sure about the one you saw. I linked one of my blogs to my name that shows a sample as to how I integrated Yahoo's My Web 2.0. I hope it helps.

[Smittie]

Wow! I'm not so sure about http://myweb2.search.yahoo.com. I went there to take a look. Every reference on the page was a porn site. Your milage may vary.

Guy, this stuff is great. Especially for a business blog which is now becoming a major component of marketing.

As always, thank you for the effort you put in here.

Aloha

[Janette Toral]

Hello Guy. If I may also add, it will be helpful also to use Yahoo's My Web 2.0 at http://myweb2.search.yahoo.com to save blog post and interesting articles. Afterwards, populate it to your other blogs.