Plus Ca Change, Plus Le Meme Chose

Why write a blog? Often it’s a marketing tool, a way to publicize — providing, of course — one can get people to come take a look at it. It is the obverse of the website which resembles traditional marketing techniques in that it looks to reach strangers who have never heard of you — thousands of them — relies on SEOs and advertising — and then seeks to convert these into paying customers.

As a marketing tool, a blog is different. It relies on inbound marketing which stipulates that if good stuff is put out in the world for free, as it travels along the lines of your social networks, the people who find you (1) will already be familiar with you; (2) will be favorably disposed to you because of what they've seen from you in the past and where they got it from; and (3) will be easier to convert into customers. Not only that, it's cheap or free (in terms of dollars needed), and bypasses all the problems with traditional advertising (both offline and online).

Beyond that, a blog is more than a marketing tool. A blog lets you talk to people. In that sense, a blog isn’t really very different than writing a letter was back in the 19th century before there were phones or e-mail. Writing letters — long literate letters — was the way people had conversations — conversations about anything — business, methodologies, politics, science, technology — anything at all. The conversations were serious, humorous, provided solutions, identified problems – and they went to friends and colleagues – and often were spread to their friends and colleagues. They went anywhere and knew no boundaries.

Letters let people transcend borders. Friends became closer, made introductions and the circles widened. Words let people converse whether or not they ever saw each other.

Plus ca change, plus le meme chose.