Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Millennium Marketer Revamp

In the interest of web transparency, and because this is in essence a Start-Up Blog, I should probably mention that this blog is still going through some growing pains at the moment. The characteristics of start-ups are often connected to their owners, so I will admit that the changes on this blog are probably because I'm going through a few growing pains myself.

I've been a writer and poet all my life and now as a marketing communications specialist/consultant, the challenge to revamp is really huge, especially in the Web 2.0 Era. The question often comes up: "How do I start a blog?" Sippey agreed with me at a SVAMA panel last year (I was an attendee to this panel) that in the end it's about experimenting with these technologies. Of course, it definitely helps, too, to do the research and learn from other bloggers.

My decision to revamp came from the fact that I did an ego search on myself a couple of days ago. In the 90s, it used to be that if you do a Google search on yourself, it's just a silly thing to do. Web 2.0 is a totally different ball game.

Most people will believe your Google search (or for trivia facts, usually they believe Wikipedia) rather than believe you first. So I have a LinkedIn profile, my blog and some other minor results. This is just as much as I can manage at the moment in addition to all my other projects with a number of different organizations.

In short, the Millennium Marketer is going to go through some changes, and I will post more on this process, hopefully to offer some firsthand insight into blog development.

Necessary Elements of Blogs:
1) Good graphic design that draws the eye in. See Graphic Design: A List Apart Blog
2) Clear topics and days that readers can expect to pick up that information they want and most important content towards the top. Most blog posts are scanned for an average of 1 to 3 minutes.
3) A focused, but wide enough audience (Silicon Valley, Entrepreneurship, Social Media, Marketing)
4) A clear goal as to what you want your blog to do (Share information? Create a community? A place to put your findings?)
5) Transparency with your readers about who you are and what you stand for.
6) Your own URL...I am going to transfer this blog over when I can figure out the best and easiest way to do it.



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