Three conclusions from blog day

Today was unusual for me because I was able to discuss blogs, blogging, blog strategy, blog setup, or other various blog related things for a large portion of the day. It was great!! If I had known it would be like this I would have been sure to commemorate August 22 as Blog Day on my calendar. Whether I was getting a new church pastor started on his first blog (more on them in the future), beginning to establish another blog for a pastor/author, or talking with a local PR firm about their own blogging strategy, today's secret word was definitely BLOG. With all this blog talk today I've come to a few more conclusions:

• Anyone seeking to have a voice or influence at any level should be blogging. Period. It's too easy not to. In the case of this new church pastor, he's able to introduce himself to his community before they ever have their first official service. He'll begin creating an impression before he ever sets foot on the stage at the church. When has it ever been that easy and cost effective (free) to do that?
• If you blog, blog consistently. There's nothing worse than an outdated blog...and that means a blog that hasn't been updated in the last 10 days. The PR firm I mentioned above told me they have discussed blogging and other new media strategies with their clients and it wasn't received well. The firm's representative then told me they have had limited success on their own corporate blog so I checked it out and it's been over two months since their last post and they've only had nine posts all year! No wonder their clients don't buy it. I can't help but wonder what kind of negative impact this could have on potential customers. Note to self: Blogs are hungry animals that need to be fed regularly. If an animal looks malnourished the animal doesn't take the blame, its owner does.
• Speak from the heart. Both the new church pastor and the pastor/author I met with today know exactly what they're going to say. They may not even have all the words right now but there's a message they want to communicate and when the time comes the words will be there for it. Contrast that with the PR firm. They have numerous employees contributing to their blog and the posts are all over the place from web 2.0 analysis to The Da Vinci Code. There's nothing wrong with covering a wide range of topics but in their case nobody has owned the blog's voice and it shows. With no owner there's no voice. With no owner there's no heart. With no voice and no heart there's nobody interested in anything you say.