Many small business owners in Lakeland (or Anytown, USA) ask: Why blog? As an internet marketing expert that lives and works in Polk County, FL, I ask: Why NOT blog? There are certainly many more reasons for me to create and maintain a blog than there are NOT to be an active blogger for my own company.

Here are my thoughts, as I am starting to write this blog for Radiance Road Marketing today…

Why NOT create a blog?

The first reason to avoid the whole web-log thing is that I am lazy. Some days, it’s all I can do to get up and put on pants. That’s part of the reason that I started to work in marketing, advertising and public relations.  We marketing guys have days that we don’t have to get dressed. Or go anywhere. We can work from home. With the growth of the internet, more and more business owners are not getting up, putting on pants (or panty-hose) and traveling the morning rush-hour to earn a living.

OK, I am not actually lazy – I like to work. I just like make working as easy as possible. For me, internet marketing consulting is the easiest way for me to earn money doing something I enjoy. I get to stay at my home here in South Lakeland (actually between Highlands City and Bartow), get on the internet (which I do anyway) and have an opportunity to apply my knowledge, skills and abilities marketing online.

Second, the whole thing seems complicated. I mean, do I really want to learn more tech-stuff? No. Back in the late ‘80s, I saw a fellow student in college creating a newspaper column on an Apple MacIntosh. I was amazed. I remember learning to use that funny mouse-thing by watching him and then trying it myself. Not hard at all. I learned basic electronic publishing that year as managing editor of The Springhillian. I was hooked. The next year, in graduate school, I took Electronic Publishing as one of my first courses. I was amazed at how far we had come from Gutenburg and the printing press and how we were transforming the power of the people to communicate. I even bought my first Mac, toted it around in a backpack and started my first marketing consulting firm.

Later, the internet came along and I worked for Matrix Information Systems where I learned more than I ever dreamed possible about the world wide web, computers and software. I published a website and maintained it for the first time. When I went back to consulting, I had my first internet connection at home and used it to communicate with clients and my internet mentors. Finally, two years after moving to Lakeland, I learned how to create a blog. After all, I am an internet marketing consultant now. It was simple. I read for a few days abut blogging (cause I have to know A LOT about something – the whys and hows – before I try to do it myself.

Really too easy.

In about fifteen minutes, I had downloaded and installed WordPress on my website. Another half-hour to install some plug-ins. Another ten minutes to edit a blog post and make sure the thing worked. Today, I’m a blogger! For me, it took twenty years and an hour and a half to get here. Only the hour and a half were really billable hours. If you haven’t tried creating a blog yet, WHY NOT? Lemme know….

NEXT TIME: Blogging for profit!