When I first launched my company, LET’S MAKE ROOM, several social networking experts (still can’t believe there is such a thing) told me that by adding dynamic content to my website, aka a “blog,” it would improve my ranking in Google and thus, in theory, help people in need of my professional organizing services find me on the web.
My decision to start blogging was a business decision that I didn’t take to very willingly.
What I didn’t know at the time, was that websites themselves would soon be superseded by blogs.
The solid foundation that I thought would attract new clients to my website was fast becoming a kind of electronic fault line, something I know a little bit about living in Northern California.
It’s nothing short of ironic that I heard someone mention this recently on the very same day I finalized all the changes on my website. It reminded me of President Obama’s recent state of the Union speech in which he spoke about how innovation and technology has caused some of us to “feel like the rules have been changed in the middle of the game” or as the saying goes, “Just when you think you have all the answers, they change the question.”
Starting a small business in midlife in the 21st century has forced me to think about innovation and what role it plays in my business, even when it sometimes makes me feel like George Jetson on his out-of-control treadmill. My blog is a perfect metaphor for this love/hate relationship to technology.
When I first started blogging, I thought it was dumb. Why would I want to spend my time reading some stranger’s inner musings let alone expect someone to read mine? My husband has to listen to me on a a daily basis and it’s no day on the beach for him either.
It was marketing expert Cheryl Liquori, founder of the Breakfast Blogging Club who really changed my mind about blogging.
Every week for nearly a year, Liquori has done for beginning bloggers what Julia Child did for Julie Powell. (Powell’s blog, the Julie/Julia Project, documented her daily experiences cooking each of the 524 recipes in Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking which later inspired Nora Ephron’s acclaimed movie, Julie and Julia starring Meryl Streep.)
For the past 30 weeks, Liquori has been sending out engaging tips, hints and gentle nudges to aspiring bloggers everywhere. She gave me what four years of journalism school could never do. She got me writing every week (or almost).
Now, I have complete strangers from all over the world commenting on my blog (yes, Mr. Friedman, the world is indeed flat, as you proclaimed) and this completely astounds me since it never occurred to me that anyone would.
The Breakfast Blogging Club is true to its mission. It offers a supportive, creative, productive and fun way for entrepreneurs to build awareness for their businesses. But more than that it has helped people like me feel connected to the world in a much bigger way.
So with more than six month’s worth of blogs behind me, I am dedicating this blog to Cheryl Liquori.
Now, if I could just learn to cook Julia Child’s recipe for Sole Meuniere.
Blogging is indeed a very strange thing, but for those of us who are hooked, we can’t imagine life without it!
What has surprised me most is the quality of some friendships I’ve made through blogging, and how much I have in common with these people.