I just saw a thread on a LinkedIn Bloggers pointing to Dennis Kennedy’s Why I blog post. He quips he blogs because he can’t play the guitar (me too) :p One of his commentors say “I blog because if I didn’t, I’d explode.”
Fun stuff!
Made me think, though, why I blog. I’ve been blogging almost every day at the JibberJobber blog for two main reasons (off the top of my head… there are other reasons): SEO and community.
If I don’t blog frequently, I think I’ll lose out on building a solid community (where’s Jason??), and google will think I’m not that important. But super-frequent blogging (once a day) seems to appease both of those.
Oh yeah, I also blog because I get to develop great relationships with people. Otherwise I’d just be a website service with no voice, name or personality. But people learn what drives me nuts, and what makes me happy. And our relationships can go beyond corporate. That’s huge.
I started the LinkedIn blog before I finished my book, so that I could build a community there for people who read my LinkedIn book, or were looking for LinkedIn help. Again, SEO and community. But it’s been a great tool to help me collect information, thoughts and stories around LinkedIn. I’ve been pretty good about updating that blog, usually getting in at least one post a week.
I started the Facebook Advice blog with Jesse Stay for the same reason, although we both have been pretty bad at keeping that as updated as we should have kept it. I really want to resolve that. I just need another me, and a few more hours a day. As it is, sleep is getting in my way of being as productive as I want to be 😉
I started this Jason Alba blog because there are things I want to jot down, share, think about, etc. that just don’t fit anywhere else. Like some very cool You Tube videos I found. Are rants, or raves… stuff that was just off-brand for my other pages. I had to clean up my tone a bit when I made this my professional speaker’s page though.
Maybe, at the end of the day, I blog because I’m addicted to blogging.
Or wait, maybe it’s because blogging is therapeutic.
Whatever it is, I can’t image not blogging.
Hi Jason,
I wish I could take credit for the “I blog because if I didn’t, I’d explode.” comment on Dennis Kennedy’s “Why I blog” post, but that was Jordan Furlong’s comment.
Mine was the clever Smokey and the Bandit reference. 😉
Patrick
Jason:
Great post and I agree that blogging does build a sense of community and allows you to connect with others-our partnership is a great example of that.
I also like to blog because I like to research employment trends, hot industries and just about everything that affects job search and career transition. I find it fascinating.
Randi