What's Worth Striving For In Your Blogging?

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Andy Beard wrote (in a comment):

“I really want blogs to become something more than a marketing platform for product launches, but that isn’t going to happen unless it can be shown that blogs and RSS subscribers are something worth striving for.”

Seth Godin wrote:

“Every time you read something I write here, you’re giving me a gift… attention. It’s getting more precious all the time, you have more choices every day, and it’s harder and harder to find the time. I know. I’m grateful. I’m doing my best to make your attention worth it.”

And reading between the lines of both of these masters, there’s WISDOM that needs to be recognized, distilled, analyzed and internalized by every blogger and marketer.

Can blogging become something more than a marketing platform?

Good question. Blogs are indeed personal diaries for some, ‘closed network’ communication tools for others, and platforms for marketing for another group. Seth, in ‘Small is the New Big’ calls them ‘cat blogs’, ‘boss blogs’ and ‘viral blogs’.

But rather than calling ‘viral blogs’ a ‘marketing platform’, Seth explains: “… they’re viral blogs because the goal of the blog is to spread ideas.”

Spreading IDEAS. “What a novel concept,” say many ‘marketers’… because ideas are the last thing on their minds.

Sales are higher. Opt-ins, maybe next. Response rates, conversion rates, killer copy, all rank higher. Ideas, if they even make it on to the list, come straggling in towards the end.

Rich Schefren’s ‘Attention Age Doctrine‘ could potentially have been a barrier breaking document. It could have positioned him to the wider world across the blogosphere as a ‘thought leader’. Instead, outside the Internet marketing clique, the wider audience views him as ‘yet another hype-ridden marketer’.

This despite STRONG endorsements from people with reputation and influence, like Andy Beard. Indeed, that’s what Andy’s blog was originally about… he asked “Do You Trust My Advice?”

One of the people who commented on that post was Jay Neely, who pointed out what’s glaringly obvious to a general audience, yet dances with abandon in the blind spot of a marketing-centric crowd…

Snippets from Jay’s comment:

-The most prominent text on the page insults me.

-If the author can’t distill the most important parts of his own product into five key points, or even a top ten list, why should I trust him to be able to distill the complexities of online marketing into a readable, comprehensible format?

-The target audience for this product is marketers, correct? And you’re using hard-sell scare tactics… against the people most experienced with hard-sell scare tactics? No thanks.

All valid points. Especially considering that this is a document decrying the lack of time, conflicting interests clamoring for our limited attention, and suggesting a way to avoid and overcome it.

What if…

• the document came with TWO landing pages, one for an in-house list of marketers and the other for a general audience?
• the document itself was written in TWO different tones, one for the hype-addict, the other for a more ‘mature’ readership?
• the promotion for it was segregated between the two groups, each getting to see what is better tailored to their tastes?

Then, blogs could have been more than ‘marketing platforms’. They could have been ‘media to spread ideas’. The ideas would spread wider, further, more effectively.

At the core of it all is that vague, uncertain, hard to define, yet determining thing inside each blogger/marketer called ATTITUDE.

Seth impressed me more impactfully than with all of his writing and speaking by making this defining statement incredibly clear and powerful with one short sentence:

“Every time you read something I write here, you’re giving me a gift… attention.”

With a blinding flash of insight, I realized what needed to be changed in my attitude IMMEDIATELY.

It didn’t take hype or marketing speak or joint ventures to do it… just a quiet, heartfelt post to his blog.

And I believe it rings with such startling clarity and effectiveness because it is true and sincere, because it is what Seth Godin builds his brand and actions around, and because it carries the conviction of CONGRUENCY.

A reader with skills of analytical criticism looking at it (like Jay Neely looked at the Attention Age landing page) would find it hard to point out to incongruent behavior. For that reason, the simple blog post would carry more power and impact than a 3-ring circus style roll-out.

‘RSS subscribers’, in and of themselves, are probably not worth ’striving for’.

Attention is worth striving for.

Congruency is worth striving for.

Blogs with both are worth striving for.

What do you feel is worth striving for in your blogging? Share your thoughts.