“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?” – Alice
“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to.” – Cheshire Cat
“I don’t much care where …” – Alice
“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go.” – Cheshire Cat

Is most of what you’re doing online pointless?

I had the incredible opportunity to join several of my close friends on a group phone call today. We talked about online marketing strategy and the difference between building a blog/website and building a business.

There was a special synergy that brought at least one of the participants to tears (in a good way).

That call got me thinking about the relative pointlessness or meaningfulness of each marketing activity I do online to promote my consulting business.

These three words were pounded into my brain.

What’s the point?

Do you always ask that question about every aspect of your Web marketing? I know I don’t. I should, but I’m as guilty as you probably are.

In other words, “Why am I doing this instead of not doing it? Why this and not something else? What is it about this activity that is meant to lead my business to success as quickly and efficiently as possible?”

If you can’t honestly think of a point to each marketing effort that clearly addresses your company’s long-term success, should you really keep doing that thing?

What’s the point of what you just spent the last minute/hour/day/week/month/year doing on the Web to promote your business/product/service/event/cause?

What’s the point of each link on your blog/website? What’s the point of your last blog post? What’s the point of all your Twittering?

If you don’t really know, then there’s not much point, is there?

How can you make sure that each online marketing activity you do has a point?

Learn more about our professional services.

Related Articles

1. 16 Classic Resources to Improve Your Social Media Marketing
2. How to Run a Viral Marketing Campaign: 6 Keys to Success
3. Non-Profit Event Marketing: Blog Action Day 2008

How can I help you?

That’s it. I just want you to tell me what I, Easton Ellsworth, could do for you. And I promise to do my best to do it.

I’d especially love it if you told me your burning desires related to blogging and social media, of course. But I’ve left my question open-ended so if you really just want me to fix your toilet or sing you a song, I suppose that works, too.

Three randomly selected people who answer the question above by midnight U.S. Eastern time at the end of Friday, January 9 will win a free blog consulting package worth $250 USD including:

• A free 130-point blog inspection in which I scour every inch of your blog for possible areas of improvement and give you my best recommendations (PDF format, $125 value)
• A video screencast in which I visit your blog and give you advice on how to improve your blog ($50 value)
• A free 30-minute blog consultation by phone with me in which we’ll go over your inspection and screencast and talk about a winning strategy for your blog ($75 value)

Winners will receive everything in the prize package by the end of January 2009.

Why Enter to Win $250 Worth of Social Media/Blog Consulting Help?

I can think of a few good reasons why you might enter this contest:

• You want Visionary Blogging to become even more useful to you in 2009.
• Your blog and social media strategy could use a once-over by someone who spends all day obsessing about that sort of thing (me).
• It’s easy and free to enter.
• You like winning things.

How to Enter

Just answer my question above in the next … 30-ish hours. You can:

• Leave a comment at the bottom of this post
• Call me at +1.970.372.6630
• Talk to me on Twitter (@easton)
• Talk to me on Skype (easton_ellsworth)
• Email me
• Yell really, really loudly.

I’ll announce the winners here on Wednesday, January 14.

If all goes well here, I hope to do similar contests or giveaways here in the future. Which is another great reason to subscribe now.

Thanks and good luck! I look forward to receiving your answers.

Stay tuned – tomorrow I’ll have several top-notch blog improvement and blogging strategy links for you right here.

So … how can I help you?

image by faith goble

Learn more about our professional services.

Related Articles

1. Free Guide: How to Improve Your Blog Commenting Skills
2. Congratulations to Our Three $250 Blog Consulting Prize Winners
3. New Media Consulting Services by Visionary Blogging

Your blog community is at your blog, right?

Duh. That was easy.

Wait a second. No, it’s just centered at your blog, but it has octopus legs at your Twitter account and at your Facebook page and at all your other social media accounts, right?

Um … or maybe your blogging community resides at all those places and in your email inbox and at the blogger conferences you attend? Maybe it’s everywhere?

Actually, it’s nowhere.

Community is only in the mind.

Your blog’s community lives only in the minds of those who belong to it.

And they belong to it only because they feel like they belong to it.

So helping them feel that way is the true secret to building a vibrant blog community.

Don’t get me wrong.

Community is real. It’s just intangible.

But it requires tangible events, and those require place and time.

And each blog post you write and each offline meetup you host – each event – is a tangible spark for thought and conversation and for people to mentally join your community.

But where should you focus your community-building efforts? What if there are more people talking to you via Twitter, FriendFeed, YouTube, Digg, etc. than in your blog’s own comment threads? And how can you unify all the fragments of your blog’s community so that the whole is much greater than the sum of its parts?

I’ll talk about that tomorrow.

Thanks to David Sandusky for asking the question that inspired this article.

Do you agree that blog community is a matter of the mind?

photo by Jo Jakeman

Learn more about our professional services.

Related Articles

1. 8 Ways to Unify Your Blog Community
2. Guide: How to Improve Your Blog Community
3. Blog Community Building Teleseminar: Register Now

2008 is almost over. 2009 is about to begin.

Have you considered your blog improvement plan for next year?

Here are 7 strategy-related questions you should ask yourself.

1. What will I accomplish with my blog in 2009?

Set a few goals for the next 12 months. I recommend having at least one clear, measurable goal for your blog’s overall performance, plus at least one goal each for the following areas:

1. Blog content improvement
2. Blog design improvement
3. Blog community improvement
4. Blog traffic improvement
5. Blog RSS feed / Atom feed / email subscribers improvement
6. Blog search engine optimization (SEO) improvement
7. Blog social media optimization (SMO) improvement
8. Blog monetization improvement
9. Blog value / return on investment (ROI) improvement

Which means you’ll have at least 9 area-specific goals plus at least one overall blog goal for next year.

Think big. Effort is more important than accomplishment.

2. How will I make my blog more valuable in 2009?

If you do nothing else, please answer this question.

The value of your blog is the excuse for its existence.

What does it generate in revenue, relationships and enjoyment for you and for your audience? How can you justify your involvement with it?

In other words, what’s your blog’s return on investment (ROI)?

And … how will you increase your ROI for your blog in ’09?

3. How will I increase the authority of my blog in 2009?

This is a classic Chris Garrett question.

Authority is closely tied to what people think of your blog – particularly how much they trust it as an accurate, important source of information, discussion and/or entertainment.

Evaluate your blog’s level of authority in its niche. Then imagine what it can become by the end of 2009.

Finally, set one or more goals to increase your blog’s authority over the next year.

4. How will I make my content more addictive in 2009?

There are a zillion ways to phrase this question. We all know that the content of your blog is crucial to its success.

But I chose the word addictive because attention spans are growing ever shorter. The blog visitors of 2009 will have a hundred times as many sources clamoring for their attention as the blog visitors of, say, 2005 (when I took my first blogging steps).

So what are you going to do to hook people next year and keep them coming back to your blog? How are you gonna make ‘em need your blog like a drug?

5. How will I make my blog design more charming in 2009?

Your blog’s design may be much more important than you think. How will you alter it so as to charm the crowds of 2009?

It’s no longer enough to slap up a basic template. In order to help your content stand out, your design needs to stand out. And in order for your design to stand out, it needs to be unique.

It’s about the flourishes. Every baseball stadium has stands, an infield with dirt and four bases in a square, two foul poles and overpriced hot dogs.

But let yours be the one with the ivy.

6. How will I make my blog community funner in 2009?

People usually join communities because of what they feel, not because of what they know. Your blog may offer lots of interesting information, but it also needs to give the visitor a reason to think that coming back again and again to participate in your conversations will be enjoyable.

Where’s the fun in your blog? How does it tickle people? How will you make it seem boring to miss out on its articles, comments, announcements and events?

7. How will I melt my blog more fluidly into my business’s big picture in 2009?

Here’s the thing. You’ve got a website. You’ve got a blog. You’ve got a Twitter account. You’ve got Facebook. You’ve got MySpace. You’ve got YouTube. You’ve got FriendFeed. You’ve got a bunch of online threads wrapped up in a ball.

You’ve probably also got offline stuff. Business cards. Conference itineraries. Office hours. Hands to shake. Backs to scratch. Maybe even mouths to feed. Another ball.

And each ball, if you’re not careful, comes to resemble a mess of multicolored rubber bands, each wanting to break off and stretch you away from the center.

The thing you’ve got to figure out for 2009 is how to melt all that stuff together. How to make it so that when you work on your blog, you’re helping the rest of your business, and vice versa.

I wish you a wonderful 2009.

Hire Easton Ellsworth for 2009

Hire me as your blog improvement consultant for 2009. I’ll help you answer all the questions above for your business blog or professional blog. See my blogging resume and over 40 testimonials of my work.

Coming Soon at Visionary Blogging

My next article will talk about how to improve your blog community for 2009. Stay tuned.

Photo by magnusdigity

Learn more about our professional services.

Related Articles

1. Try the 130-Point Blog Improvement Checklist
2. Blog Improvement: Do You Know These 9 Key Areas?
3. Over 100 Blog Improvement Resources Added to Our List

Learn more about our professional services.

I recently asked artist Jason Dowd a few questions about The Expressionist, a just-launched blog magazine covering the art industry with a Tampa, Florida flair.

Easton: You’re calling The Expressionist a “magazine.” Why?

Jason: The magazine is dedicated to the many fields of art. No matter what you touch, someone had to create it, it’s a work of art. I know from being an artist for more than 16 years art is an expression, that concept seemed to fit this magazine and gave it a powerful name. Thus came “The Expressionist” in honor of all the artists inside.

Easton: How did you settle on your current site design? What sites (if any) influenced your design decisions?

Jason: My site manager and partner, Jesse Petersen, knows the person that made this current layout. He chose it because of our content and it’s an easy to navigate layout. When I asked him about designing my site, I showed him Rolling Stone, Time Life Magazine, George, and People.

Easton: How much time and effort has The Expressionist required so far? Do you anticipate any lightening of the load soon?

Jason: To start it’s been grueling. Jesse has worked through school and all his waking hours getting our layout perfect and some content. I have been working on it almost 24/7 myself. Hopefully once we get it running, Jesse, Justin and I will be able to take more of a department role in writing and management. My goal is to in one year get us off the writing and have us manage our deparments and hopefully hire writers.

Easton: How do you plan to make money with The Expressionist? Any advice for professional bloggers out there?

Jason: We plan on selling a .pdf of our magazine each publication which will contain the featured articles, and some higher sub content. We also plan on advertising, we sell space on a tower for ads, and we will allow advertising on our stories. For advice, find someone who knows what they are doing when it comes to blogging! You want to do it right the first time, and I am so lucky I knew someone. This magazine would not be even remotely close to what it is today if I didn’t have Jesse.

Easton: What have been the biggest challenges you’ve faced in launching The Expressionist? What advice would you give to those who may create similar blogs or online magazines in the future?

Jason: Time … we all have a demanding schedule and had to make hours of work fit into minutes. Luckily we really had no major flaws anywhere or any major setbacks. Advice … first, get an idea that will impact the majority of people, bring stories to them that not only keep them informed, but educated. Believe in your work, and use it for the good of the people, not just yourself and you will see how successful it becomes with time. With any online/print magazine or blog, fresh content is key. Expect to put at least one, maybe two articles up daily so be on the lookout for the news.

Thanks to Jason Dowd and Jesse Petersen for sharing a bit of The Expressionist with us.

Learn more about our professional services.

For whom is your blog?

Who writes the blog posts?

Who typically leaves comments?

Who’s the target reader? The target buyer?

Who your blog?

Who your blog matters more than what your blog. It’s bigger than when or where or how, too.

Let me rephrase it: Knowing why you’re blogging and who you’re blogging for is more fundamental than deciding anything else about your blog, including what to blog about.

When you’re birthing a blog, the why and who are the head and shoulders.

Concentrate first on why your blog and who your blog and the rest will emerge easily.

So … boy or girl?

Imagine all the bloggers …

photo credit: Gaetan Lee

Learn more about our professional services.

Related Articles

1. Blog Audience Building in 37 Words
2. Rabid Blog Audience Building: 4 Steps You Must Follow
3. Non-Profit Event Marketing: Blog Action Day 2008

Why your blog? Why is it special?

Why your blog? Why did you choose the blog format?

Can a new visitor tell me “why your blog” within 10 seconds?

Can you?

Why your blog?

Learn more about our professional services.