Now Bob Bly’s Writing A Book About Blogging ?!

Back on May 13th I wrote a post that quoted Bob Bly and his views on marketing with blogs.

6 weeks after the post was written, Bob commented on it and said,

” Not sure how you guys reach the conclusion that I know nothing about blogging. Launched my marketing blog in 11/04, and as you can see from the archived comments, it is extremely popular. I am not a big subscriber to RSS, though I get Adrants and a few others that way. “

To which I commented back and let Bob know that we had not reached any conclusions, but that he concluded for us when he made remarks such as,

” In my observation, there are two major problems with blogging as a business-building tool.

The first is that most of the blogs I encounter are rambling, streams-of-consciousness musings about a particular topic of interest to the author, largely bereft of the kind of practical, pithy tips that e-zines, Web sites, and white papers offer. “

Now Bob has commented again and NOW he says he’s an uber-blogger and has a big-time publisher who wants him to write a book about blogs and their use for marketing.

Somebody with less on the ball than Bob is gonna pay him to write a book about the very thing he dismissed as :

… an utter waste of time

… a pure vanity publication that won’t pay you back even one thin dime for your effort

… something with no ROI

… something less effective than a newsletter or ezine

… rambling, streams-of-consciousness musings

… gloppy mess, tasteless, and not very satisfyingOn the contrary: I stand by everything I said, and in fact, have a book on the subject coming out next year from a major publisher. It cuts through the hyper about blogs, promoted by blogging consultants and evangelists, and focuses on the real but limited value of blogs in the marketing mix.

… largely bereft of the kind of practical, pithy tips that e-zines, Web sites, and white papers offer

… rambling, incoherent, and more suited for private thoughts than public consumption

He also proved that he knew nothing of RSS and the delivery mechanism that blogs use when he said,

” The second problem with blogs is one of distribution.

With an e-zine, once the reader subscribes, he gets the e-zine delivered to him electronically every week or every month — or however often you send it.

But with a blog, the reader has to go out and proactively look for it. And since your contributions to your blog may be irregular and unscheduled, he has no way of knowing when something new of interest has been added. “

And Bob was kind enough to really trash blogs by saying,

” If you have something of value to share, there are many better formats for doing it online than by blogging, including white papers, e-zines, and Web sites. “

Bob also stated that he stood behind these comments ( kinda proud of them, I think ), when today he added,

” On the contrary: I stand by everything I said, and in fact, have a book on the subject coming out next year from a major publisher. It cuts through the hyper about blogs, promoted by blogging consultants and evangelists, and focuses on the real but limited value of blogs in the marketing mix. “

So now, Bob must mean that he’s seen that there’s money to be made writing about blogs and their uses, which he clearly states as none. He also says they have limited uses in marketing.

Really ? So does TV, so does radio, so does direct mail, so do newspapers, etc.

That’s why a smart company uses ALL of the available forms of media to get their message out to their market Bob.

And that’s why anybody with 1/4 of a brain wouldn’t pay YOU to write about blogs and their uses in the marketing mix.

A really smart company would pay ME to take care of their marketing and a publisher that was really in tune with the market would pay ME to write about blogs and their uses in the marketing mix. Since I own a blog network and am paid to be the voice of two companies as their pro blogger, I’d think that I know a helluva lot more than you do about blogging Bob.

But you don’t need me to prove that do you ? You’ve already done a great job of proving that yourself.

Now do yourself a favor Bob, read the blogs of the 5.8% of the Fortune 500′s bloggers and read the blogs out there that are trying to teach people how to best use blogs as a marketing vehicle and learn, but don’t speak, as you only lose more favor and embarass yourself more every time you open your mouth.

This would be a good time for the blogosphere to jump in, write more posts, maybe a few Trackbacks and links and let’s set the record straight – that we aren’t just ” hypey, … promoted by blogging consultants and evangelists, and of limited value. ”

Related Articles:

1. Great Book On Writing White Papers If you haven’t seen it yet, here’s a great book...
2. The ABC’s of Blogging Redeux My lovely wife has up and posted a great alphabetical...
3. Successful Blogging & Successful Living I just read one of my all-time favorite blog posts....
4. 5 Reasons To Write A 5 Reasons Post It’s been almost one month since I wrote this post,...
5. I Bought A New Book About Sales Answers Someone, I wish I could remember who, sent me a...

Don't miss a thing! Subscribe to our RSS Feed or sign up for our e-mail updates (in the sidebar). To leave a comment, click on the post title, then scroll down to the bottom. Thanks!