I give a number of presentations about how to blog, how easy it is to get started, the tools you need, and how much time you should allocate to such activities… and so on and so forth… It all comes down to first addressing the single most important question when it comes to blogging: your objective.

What is your objective?

1. Generate buzz?
2. Engage your customers?
3. Evangelize?
4. Journal?
5. Feedback?
6. Commentary/editorial?
7. Generate business?
8. Scientific?
9. Reporting?
10. Entertainment?

You must first answer this question to be able to proceed and actually start a blog. Once I address this question for my audience (if giving a lecture/training session), or for my client if consulting, I can then identify the proper tools, time and resources that they will need.

I often encounter clients who are intimidated by blogging. They think it is too time consuming, and that they’ll have to post articles that are 1,000’s of words long with deep primary-source based references.

On the contrary!

There are so many methods for creating a successful blog, and they all go back to identifying your objectives before you start.

So, have you stopped to identify your objective? If not, then read no further. Once you have an objective, only then can you get started with all the rest…

And if you already started to blog and you wonder why it’s not going well, here’s more support for my hypothesis from an article by Mark Ivey for MarketingProfs, entitled, “7 Reasons Your Blog Sucks (and What to Do About It).”