Loading ...More often than not, people jump into blogging with a get-rich-quick mentality. Unfortunately, that is not the way it works. A blog takes a lot of time and work, and according to Duane Forrester of Microsoft, the one critical component is passion.
Without passion, a blog cannot become established as an authority or sustain readers. Forrester believes a lack of passion is the “biggest killer for most blogs out there.” He goes on to say that if a blog does not have passion, it will run out of steam before it can reach success.
Passion results in value, which leads to loyal readers. When businesses and people enforce these practices, the readers will go on to share this valuable information socially and produce links, which will establish the blog as a resource.
“This is a business like any other, and it requires time and investment,” said Forrester.
Incidentally, these are challenges that everyone faces including Microsoft and MSN. Due to their size, however, they also have scale to deal with. Forrester pointed out that social media helps, since it aggregates users’ sentiment and provides a means to communicate with them.
Microsoft recently put this into practice with Xbox when it addressed customer service issues through Twitter. It actually broke a Guinness World record for being the most responsive brand on Twitter. Apart from the record, this move additionally resulted in more links and a stronger brand.
In this interview, Forrester also offered up tips for conversion optimization that are addressed in his book, Turn Clicks into Customers.
“If you’re running an e-commerce-style business, it is critical that you optimize for conversions,” he said.
He further mentioned BeanCast, which is a marketing podcast that addresses some very specific issues such as the Twitter Tax and advertising in Captchas.
Absolutely agree that passion is what will get you through the often frustrating initial stages of launching a blog and driving traffic.
Passion is the thing that will keep you going in the face of adversity and help you to stick it out until your blog reaches “escape velocity”
What an awesome video. I first saw how long it was- 12 minutes. No way. It was well worth the time to fully invest in watching this video. Duane mentions getting value from a blog. Well he really gave us some value with this intereview. Thank you Duane and WPN
A whole load of common sense stuff spoken simply and clearly in this video.
The 12 minutes flashed by and I did not notice at all.
I really liked what I heard.
It was absolutely truthful and upfront, no BS at all.
Thank you Duane and WPN.
Actually, the nature of bloging is to share and contribute… right? If people jump into blogging with a get-rich-quick mentality, than, to my opinion, something is going wrong.
WPN videos and article are contributing grately that a blog-land doesnt become a wild-land. We indeed need education in doing it right and be benefit-giving to others.
There are newbies like me, who do need guidance to sort out good from bad blogging.
Passion is something we beginner are not missing, but we get confused with so many ways to do it … observing the extremes of using and misusing this wounderfool media, as many other things in our real life.
I would apreciate you pointing an article, on how to put some elements of ethically promot own business, yet keeping the main purpose of blogging alife.
Blogging is all about good content. If you share good content, others interested in your subject matter will listen. It takes time and effort to determine (and write about) good content. You also need to write in good form, logical sequence with good information. Our blog has slowly picked up speed but it takes effort.
No wonder, I’m having this phase of my own where there’s only couple of readers in my blog (sigh) but hey , you’re right Duane, I’ll keep it going and I’ll get the book. Thanks Duane
What I find so inrteesting is you could never find this anywhere else.
Hello
Well,it was good to hear from Duane Forester the message and reconfirmation of consistency hard work with quality content,will actually bring you great results.
I just started my blog targeting the Floral Industry build lot of Social Network Connection.
Starting to have “visitors” but no body commented on the blog yet.
It was well worth all the 12 minutes to watch it. Thank you WPN.
Very good interview. I also think that the passion is crucial and furthermore we have to pay more attention on stuff such as SEO, architecture, design, social, etc. We are obligated also to find the best way to estimate our ROIs.
мой самый любимый форум,хочу чтобы об этом знали все !!!
In this interview, Forrester also offered up tips for conversion optimization that are addressed in his book, Turn Clicks into Customers.