Contribute to the Conversation

So, you're thinking about starting a blog to help promote your campaign or your nonprofit organization? It's critical to get into the right mindset.

The reason that blogs are effective community-building tools is that they make it easy for a disconnected group of folks with similar interests to get connected. How does that happen? Conversation.

But that conversation will never happen if you just use your blog to post news releases, media hits, and boring announcements.

Over at LawFirmBlogging.com, they've got an interview with Burkey Belser - generally considered the "father of legal advertising". He's got it exactly right:

Here’s a gospel we preach to our clients every day: “Don’t advertise, contribute to the conversation.”

Contribute to the conversation. Bingo.

For more thoughts along the same lines, dive into some earlier posts here at P&T:
Why Congressman Conyers Likes to Blog
The "Skutnick": How I learned to stop worrying and love the blog
A new way to define "blog"
Is blogging too risky for politicians?
Blogging 101

(Hat tip to David Swanner's South Carolina Trial Law Blog.)