What NOT to Blog About - Technology Evangelist

This is a quick list of things to avoid blogging about as a business blogger.

1. Self Promotional Posts - Nobody is interested in hearing you talk about how much experience you have in business or how incredible your customer service is. The biggest challenge here is that you're saying nothing of value to prospective customers while simultaneously making statements that any of your competitors could make as well. Instead, focus on educating people about various aspects of your business. This will infer expertise and prospects will find it valuable.

2. Copying Trademarked Content - If you find a news article that your audience may find interesting, great. Share it will them, but DO NOT copy / paste the article onto your blog. Instead, include an excerpt from the article such as a paragraph or two that is particularly interesting. Then link to the article from your blog post so your readers can click through to read more if they're interested. That's great blogging etiquette and will avoid trademark issues.

3. Negative posts - It's very difficult to write effective negative posts. There are many challenges here, including being perceived as someone who has to put people down to prop yourself up. There are plenty of positive things you can write about, so take the high road. If you want to write about something that you disagree with, be sure to do so in a way to provides value such as a learning experience, rather than simply tearing someone down.

4. Legal Advice - This could get you into trouble. Avoid it.

What would you add to the list?

I partially agree with the no negative posts rule... but one of the counterexamples is that controversy gets hits.

If you say something controversial, you're likely to get noticed, even if its negative.

Valya, thanks. Fixed. For those keeping score at home, I used "you're" instead of "your." One of the drawbacks of typing without looking while smashed into an airline seat.

Thanks, Ed, for point #3. I take this to mean negative BLOGS as well. Unfortunately, Bix is right. Negative sells. Why else would we have trolls and blog trolls rant to get attention?

Recently, I was getting ready to trackback to a seemingly popular sales author. His recent post to a blogtroll made me initially think he was making fair fun of the blog. With further investigation, I discovered he not only supports the anonymous muck-monger but models his approach. Sadly, he's abandoned his regular blog about his books on cold calling and now posts daily about how a particular town in Arizona "sucks". Interestingly, there's not a positive comment on his site. He's discovered that negative press attracts attention and he's apparently hooked on it.

We attract the attitudes and values about which we post. Of course, I abandoned the linkback. Besides this general comment that negativity is a disease, I hope this guru gets what he wants. For authors, blogging is usually about attracting new readers. What an audience this New York Times "best selling" author, speaker and trainer must have.

Comments

1. Posted by: Andy Atkinson on March 12, 2008 4:31 PM:

(1) It's annoying reading about something (usually cars in my case) that won't make it to the US. I'd imagine it is worse for those outside the US who constantly read content from writers that are not considering what they are saying from a non-US perspective.

(2) It's annoying reading about products in development that won't be released. cough cough *gadget blogs*.

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