It’s from a collection of photographs of beautiful bridges around the world. Go take a look. They’re inspriring and amazing.
How is a blog like a bridge to the blogosphere and the world?
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!
Have ever read a review and still wondered whether you’d like the product? Do you know any reviewer who you rely on because he or she has the opposite opinions of you? Sometimes a reviewer who thinks differently than we do is more valuable than one who doesn’t say what he or she thinks at all.
I’ve been reading a passel of product reviews all weekend. Now I remember why I don’t read reviews. In an effort to be unbiased, reviewers seem to be too distant, too flat — they give the facts. The facts aren’t enough.
When you blog the facts only, anyone could write basically the same review. The differences will be in the writing only. When you blog the facts only people tend to read to the minute detail to make sure your facts are exactly right . . . and that they’re all there. Too many facts can be either distracting or boring. Would the VW Beetle have been a hit based only on the facts? What about McDonalds? the iPod?
If you want to write a product review that folks find useful, don’t stick to the facts.
Write your experience too.
Here are the 2 key reasons why you should write a review with both the facts AND your experience.
Any customer needs more than facts to decide whether to buy any product. Sure the facts are important, but looking only at the facts doesn’t tell what it’s like to use it.
When you add your experience, people are more likely to remember both the product and you. A great review can save a reader a great deal of time and money.
Don’t be shy. Tell me what you think.
— ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!! page in the sidebar. Call her now!
Related
To follow the entire series: Liz Strauss’ Inside-Out Thinking to Building a Solid Business, see the Successful Series Page.
Two days ago, Steve Broback and Teresa Valdez Klein announced that Blog Business Summit Chicago would not be happening after all. In its place they have launched a new blog called Web Community Forum. Steve explains their reasoning this way.
Our conferences have always relied heavily on local participation, and our feeling is that Chicago has been very well served this year by at least two excellent, and very reasonably priced blogger conferences: SOBcon and BlogHer. A third event close on the heels of these other shows is obviously a tough sell. In addition, it’s clear from discussions with local marketers that blogging has normalized and is not the disruptive force it was back in 2004 when we launched the BBS.
I applaud Steve and Teresa for their insight and courage.
I think they’re right. Blogs shouldn’t be the center of what we see anymore.
In February 2006, I posted that blogs are technology. At the time, I didn’t take the idea as far as I might. But I’ve been thinking about this since SOBCon07. My thought is that we don’t talk about computers, spreadsheets, or pencils the way we talk about blogs. Yet to me, all are tools we use to get our work done.
Unless we charge a subscription, blogs are not our businesses. They help us advertise, communicate, teach, interact, meet with our customers, but they are not our product or service. They are not what we do or sell. A blog is a business support not the business itself.
My point is this:
Just as knowing how to lay bricks, work with wood, paint walls and decorate can make beautiful store, but does not ensure a thriving business. Having a beautiful blog with wonderful content is not having a thriving business either.
The design, the usability, and the words on our blog are merely a vehicle to sell the products, ads, or services that are our real income streams. Knowing how business works is still key.
A great business uses a blog, but is not merely a blog.
So I leave you with these questions.
Thank you for your answers.
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!
I’ve been a publisher, worked with publishers. I’ve met publishers from all over the world — book publishers, software publishers, web publishers. Bloggers are web publishers. We do what web publishers do.
If you give that some thought something begins to become clear.
Blogs are micro businesses. Every blog, monetized or not, is an entrepreneurial publishing business.
Running a blog is an undergraduate course in business if you pay attention to what you are doing. From how they are built to how they are run, you can learn about entrepreneurial businesses from your blog.
What a difference it would have made if this small town girl had know half this before I started my first job in business. What a difference it would make if most businesses knew it now.
I gave my son a blog for his birthday last year.
–ME “Liz” Strauss
I’ll be talking about this very thing when I discuss our relationship to our blogs and our community at SOBCon 07. Register now! Friday is the last day the convenient rooms at the Sofitel Chicago Ohare are blocked at the supersaver rate.
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Check out the Work with Liz!! page in the sidebar.