Hire Your Character

It goes without saying – to those of us who are already bloggers – that a blog can be an efficient and successful way to promote a company. But despite the fact that I spend hours researching and “blogging” daily, I’m seriously starting to wonder if the term “blog” is developing too much of a stigma with the general Internet (and non-Internet) public.

Schools are banning students from blogging. Companies are banning employees. Why? Because of some perceived threat from such “clandestine” activities. To paraphrase The Jackson Five, “one bad blogger don’t make the whole bunch bad.”

It’s likely true that most people who read blogs may not even know that they are doing so. To them, it’s just a website, and this weird word, “blog”, that almost sounds offensive or just silly may not not after all be doing the potential of weblogs justice.

The terms “diary”, “journal”, “words”, “letters”, “(daily) musings”, and “thoughts” might be more appropriate. But then what about all the effort us bloggers have invested in promoting the terms “blogs”, “bloggers”, and “blogging”? Do we just abandon it all?

If you do invent a character for a promotional campaign that targets the general public, ask yourself, “is this fictional character more likely to write a journal/ diary or a blog? They’re synonymous terms to bloggers, but not necessarily to everyone else.

I also have a hard time with the word. I own a magazine and have a “blog” set up to discuss and report on less “polished” information. It is so much easier to keep up with news and events if you can crank them out and display them within the hour rather than wait until your next magazine publication.

Anyway, not to sidetrack from the original comments, but when I say come check out my blog, the reactions I get are more of a less serious nature than if I replaced the word blog with my “Online Journal”..

I use phrases such as “Online Journal which keeps an ongoing chronical of current events blah blah blah” rather than “posting at my blog”

The term blog has earned a reputation of something “recreational”. For one, people start blogs all the time to post literature, personal experiences, and short-tempered opinions. When blogging professionally we need to make sure it doesn’t take on the same meanings.

Thanks
Steve