Creative Posting!

There are at least 150 million blogs out there in cyberspace. But when you consider that number is just a hair over 2% of the world’s population of 7.3 billion, suddenly the world seems big again. However, when you run that number against the 1.2 billion people who are in “more developed countries” (as counted by the Population Bureau), you come up with about 13% as the number of people who have a blog. I am sure the percentage increases as we consider age, demographics, and wealth, further narrowing down the number of people who might have blogs.

Let’s argue that most everyone who wants a blog has one, or are writing for someone who does. Standing out in a crowded space that seems infinite, but isn’t, is not easy. To get noticed you have to add value to attract readership.

Here are some more stats that might help bring this all into perspective. There are approximately 350 million profiles on LinkedIn. The free version of LinkedIn gives you access to 10% of that, or 35 million. I'll take my chances standing out in this group because I think I have something in common with the membership, and one or two things to say. LinkedIn posting functionality is an excellent way to do just that. 

So let’s define value. 

Merriam-Webster says value is “a fair return or equivalent in goods, services or money for something exchanged.” I am not sure that definition stands up on the web and with blogging. There are often no goods, services or money exchanged. So we are getting closer to the definition of value as being relative, say the “relative value” of something. Don’t confuse this with the economic or investing definition of relative value, we are creating a new meaning for the term. We're riding a slippery slope here, but hang with me.  We should know it adds up to something because “free” web services are offered by companies with multi-billion dollar valuations. The conflict between value and relative value is the web and blogging. Many people blog for free and seek nothing other than a personal brand awareness (such as a click of the Like button) in return which is not a good, service or money. It is when you add the relative part of this, where the difference is made to the reader and the blogger. It appears to me the value is derived from the information received. 

So “relative” as defined by Merriam-Webster is “a thing having a relation to or connection with or necessary dependence on another thing.” On the web, connection and dependence are your wants, needs or desires. You ascribe what the value is to you. And the information you seek and its value will either fail, meet or exceed your expectations. Often companies (i.e. Google or Yahoo) just aggregate the value and find someone to pay for it. I say, “Thanks guys, but I can’t sort through all of this information to find my relative value easily.” (Ask Google a question in the search box and see the variations in responses as an example.) Microsoft tried to make a mockery of Google’s search results when it launched Bing in 2009 but they suffer from the same issue.

As bloggers we provide content that we hope has relative value to someone but we don’t always know how frequently read we are or whether we have provided value to someone. Perhaps the promise of the semantic web or some more organized and predictable web service will help improve the information we seek, but until then we are left with the need for more blogs and information sources to get what we need. However LinkedIn has narrowed the field to business and only 10% of the available field so herein lies a unique opportunity for you, your company and its products and services. I suggest you all participate in posting on LinkedIn as I think there is some real value here.

Value to who? Perhaps you!

My best, Chris