My role at LEVEL consists largely of monitoring things happening in our clients’ industries, researching demographic data or finding specific data like the average connection speed in India. Between monitoring client relevant information and researching other obscure tidbits, I read my fair share of blog entries. I’ve found that about 90% of entries are often repeats of something that somebody else said on another blog or article. One large, highly-trafficked blog will speculate about a new product, followed by about 10,000 smaller blogs writing about those speculations, hoping to cling on to some of that search traffic and not necessarily adding value to the reader.

To me, the most engaging and valuable entries are the ones that provide first-hand accounts about something. I like reading personal travel blogs and Forrester’s various blogs that share findings of recent research. For my first post on the LEVEL blog, I’d like to elaborate on what I think it takes to make a blog worth having (and ultimately reading):

- Personal experiences: Readers want to see personal stories about what their favorite band is doing on tour or how other small business owners are marketing with small budgets.

- Personal knowledge: Blogs need a theme. The LEVEL Blog concerns everything digital or agency. Sharing personal knowledge around a blog’s theme makes it worth coming back to and can position your company as being full of thought-leaders. We hope posts on this blog will reflect the knowledge and culture of our agency.

If you currently have a blog or are thinking about one, start by asking a couple questions.
Who is going to be reading it?
What kinds of things will they be interested in reading?
How can we make our own personal experiences relevant to our designated audience?
Who at our company (or personal network) has relevant knowledge to share with our audience?

Now that I’ve given blog guidelines, I suppose I have to keep them in mind in my future posts. Let me know if I get off track.