There are a few different schools of thought in regard to blogging. Which do you fall into and why?
Blogging for the sake of blogging
This is where the person has something they are passionate about and just loves sharing that subject with others. People can easily in time become an authority on that subject and generate a huge following.
Blogging for opportunity
This is when a blogger is using his or her blog as a tool for a different means such as name recognition or networking. You might be using your blog as a leveraging device to help you meet your goals either in business, personal or finance.
Blogging for money
There is no shortage of MMO (make money online) blogs and more are created every day. These are the people who want to sell ad space, a product, service or even the blog. Blogging for profit has become a pretty big business and the short cut to that would be to throw money at it and save time, such as buying an existing blog. This also falls under the paid to blog area.
Blogging for branding
This is a way of quality control on information that you or your business release. This is also how to interact with your customers in a direct fashion, giving people the inside scoop on new products or services.
Conclusion
All of these different forms of blogging have different goals in mind. Sure, some of them can overlap and criss-cross each other. But what blog marketing comes down to is knowing why you are doing it and then direct your efforts to achieving that goal.
Personally, I shy away from social sites like Stumbleupon and Digg because that does not help me reach my goal. A flood of traffic will not make me any more money than I am making now and only leads to headaches with my servers. But if you are trying to become an authority on computer games or a bigger make money online blog, then that type of traffic would serve you better.
In the end, it comes to asking the right questions and then mapping out the best route to reach your goal. If your goal is to make $1,000 online, probably one of the slowest ways to do that is to start a blog. Sure it can happen but if you are new to blogging it can take FOREVER. On the flip side of the coin, if you are writing a book as a new author and want to maximize your exposure to potential readers, then starting a blog would be an excellent idea to get that reach out there. I will leave you with this:
Why do you blog? What is your goal for blogging?