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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.

Why do you blog? What is your goal for blogging?

It’s no secret that Dyson vacuums do a great job of sucking up all of the grit and grime around the house. They are known for never losing any suction power no matter what. They also do many other things like cleaning the air as it passes through and easy dumping of waste. I am sure in due time they will be automated and have dinner waiting when you arrive home from work. Only if it were soon enough.

What Dyson did is over the top for branding, but it is the combination of branding and an excellent product that leads to success. The creators of the Dyson vacuum went above and beyond creating just a vacuum. They created something that was different in its category. The biggest lesson any of us can take away from the success of the Dyson is to know that in a world of similar products and services, it is still possible to set yourself or your product apart from the rest.

In marketing, it is easy to settle for what pays the bills. But what is your goal really? Is it to be mediocre? I know my goal isn’t to be mediocre but sometimes I don’t even realize I am heading that way until I see myself surrounded by more people just like me. That is the reason I quit my last job. I could feel the walls of mediocrity closing in on me and had to make a break for something better.

The same goes for life as in marketing. The thing that sets those in the top 20% from the majority are the ones who get complacent or who settle for what is working. You ever wonder why there are always a few Realtors in town who sell the majority of the houses? How about the sales person driving the Corvette in a town full of sales people? What about the gas station across the street that gets 40% more business?

I have no doubt that the creators of the Dyson vacuum are going to keep innovating and finding new ways to break the mold of the traditional. I hear they are even creating a new bathroom hand dryer, thank god. The key to marketing and branding is to create something that is different in the world of the same. How can you take what you have and mold it into a product or service that goes above and beyond, to the far right, to the far left, the most color, twisted, unique, useful, creative in your market? I am sure with a little thought and effort it will begin to take shape into something people crave and desire.

I have found that the more that I am in love with my work environment, the more I love to work. This goes beyond loving what I do, which I do. My work environment is a pleasant place that I look forward to spending time in work mode. I recently bought a Herman Miller Mirra desk chair and it arrived yesterday ;). Note: this chair is not cheap but highly recommended.

I picked mine up from InterOffice Furniture in Fargo and had to wait about 3+ weeks to receive it. That seems like a long time but was well worth the wait. I decided to go with the Herman Miller chair after trying out a few different models and brands. The place where I bought the chair from was nice enough to let me try the chairs over a day or two each in order to determine what I needed. I have had mild back issues for a few years and a good chair makes a huge improvement.

I feel completely at home in my chair and even after a long day of sitting, my back still feels like a million bucks. I came to the point about two months ago that it was well worth the money to invest in an office chair and workspace to increase my productivity. If I love my space and am comfortable while working, it becomes even easier to do what I really love, my work. I am to the point where it is motivating and exciting to get up in the morning and start on the day. I hope both your workspace and environment are to the standards of your choosing.

Up until recently, I was using a patio chair as my office chair. Now that chair was actually better than some of the other desk chairs I have had in the past. I made sure I didn’t continue using that chair a day longer than I had to though. Do you have any office space / equipment horror stories? Lets hear them.

Blogging is a lot of fun, and it is also a way of connecting with others through a form of promotion. You are choosing to show your thoughts and opinions for the whole world to see in a way that best represents you. But, most people go about it the wrong way when they start out blogging. They are chasing dollar signs and not pursuing their dream of freedom via the Internet. It is not a crime to want to make money online and to pursue doing so, but going about it the wrong way will only result in lost time, energy and money. I have put together 3 major tips that I think anyone starting out blogging should consider before taking the plunge.

1. Focus on a subject you love

Everyone needs a passion. Passion is a good motivating tool as well as fun. If you have participated in any outdoor sports, games, hobbies or arts for many years, you are probably dealing with a passion. Blogging needs to have the same passion. You should be able to blog without visitors, without pay, without recognition all for the love of it. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t go after visitors, money or recognition, but you should have the drive to do it no matter what.

It gets said over and over again that you need to focus on a small niche in order to be a successful blogger. While I agree with part of that, I think it is more important to focus on a topic you are passionate about. If you like antique furniture or remote control airplanes, ,jewelry or whatever the case my be, focus on that subject. I don’t care if the topic has already been covered a thousand times and even seems supersaturated. Still stick with that subject. You can always carve out your niche in any subject and still remain passionate about it. At first the results might not show in a crowded subject but by being able to stay the course for 1-2 years, you will see the less passionate people fade away. This week marks my sixth month of blogging, and already I have seen quite a few bloggers come and go. The simple answer: they were not passionate about their subject.

2. Frequency

Blogging is habit forming and like beginning or ending any habit, it takes time and dedication. It is not easy to wake up one day and say gee I am going to start writing every day; the same goes for putting down the cigarette. My advice to everyone who asks me how to improve their blog typically goes like this: “Write a blog post every day for the next 30 days.” Sometimes I hear back from people, but most the time I never hear from them again. When I visit their blogs a week or two later, they still have the same posts on the homepage and nothing has changed, but somehow they still have time to drop Entrecards on my blog. This shows very little dedication. The whole idea for posting every day is to build the habit of doing so to begin with. It all starts with a first step.

I don’t think you have to post 10 times a day to have a successful blog, nor do I think posting once a week will lead to a successful blog. I do believe posting and promoting more often will help your blog grow quickly, but I think that it is all in proportion. If you are a gifted writer and thoughts flow like water and your posts end up being 1,000+ words each, then having a post every couple days is completely acceptable. If you like to post Twitter sized blog posts on hot topics of the day, then I would shoot for more frequent blog posts. At the end of the day, it comes down to finding the best fit for you and your time, then posting consistently and with diligence.

If time is an issue and you don’t feel like you can take the time to post every day, then take an hour or two on a Saturday or Sunday to write out the next week’s posts. I go in cycles when I know I am facing a busy week. In those cases, I will write out a series or string of posts to cover the week. If I have more time on my hands during the week, I will typically do posts day to day. I always have ideas ready to go for the next post at anytime thanks to my many pocket notebooks and Gmail.

3. Content

All you ever hear about is content, content, and more content. The truth is… it is true, content is king. I know not everyone here is a natural writer with gifting that publishing houses are actively looking for, at least I have never been contacted. But, each of us is more than capable of creating and expressing a complete thought, whether it is thought provoking, opinion, rift, muse, story or analysis (I am sure there are more). Take the time to think about what you are trying to say and let the thought ferment a bit. It is not a crime to let a half finished post sit there a while as you develop the thought and content. I have had some posts sit in my holding queue for a month or two before publishing them, usually with a lot of revisions. Take time to think things over and explore different stances and do all the research you can. People are looking for a lot of different things online often at light speed, so give them something worth their time to read.

Don’t worry about people stealing your content. Rarely do blogs above you steal your content without giving recognition. If your blog is updated frequently and you have your pings set correctly, search engines will know where the content originated. I never really go out of my way to fight blogs that take content without recognition (just a waste of time in my opinion), I simply don’t allow their links to appear on my blog. Normally, they get next to zero for traffic and are only doing it to get the ad revenue. Rise above them and focus on writing genuine high quality content.

Protect your image and brand by releasing content that is fully ready to be published. If your post has a bunch of typos and grammar mistakes, it will only reflect poorly upon you. I am the first to admit that writing is not my strongest point and knowing that I usually have my girlfriend (an editor) read over my posts before publishing them. If having a significant other as an editor is not an option, there are many sites like quickpostedit.com that will edit your blog post quickly and cheaply.

Conclusion

Be passionate and proud of what you are doing and remember why you chose to blog in the first place. I am a big fan of goals and making sure there is a why behind the reason, whatever that why may be. It is not easy to start a new hobby, and it takes time and work. If you pursue your passions online like you would offline, it will carry you through the times of uncertainty and doubt. If you don’t play rugby in real life, why would you choose to blog about it?