Since I started writing a blog in early January, I have been surprised and impressed with the effect it has had on my own education. First of all, you can imagine the sheer number of eLearning blogs out there is pretty daunting to keep up with on a regular basis.
Then comes the issue of focusing my own blog—I’m interested in serious games, learning management, and self-paced eCourse development. Not to mention the ACTUAL theme of my blog is supposed to be the management of eLearning and being an eLearning entrepreneur. On one hand, I know I need to focus more, but then again I feel I could do more in the eLearning blogosphere to stimulate conversation and garner more comments if I broadened the scope.
Hello to those readers out there—Please help me out with your thoughts on this subject!
Here are a few highlights from my first few months with the blog (I gathered most of these stats from web analytics tools):
- Over 30% of our company site visitors entered on the main blog page, and then more than 80% of blog visitors clicked deeper into the blog or the website pages.
- Another eLearning blogger wrote a post linking back to my “great article” on how to handle SMEs, which drove new traffic to our company website in addition to my original blog post.
- More new visitors came upon my blog and company website after Tony Karrer responded to a blog post I wrote on his informative keynote at a conference.
In terms of marketing, blogging seems to be different from traditional media (corporate websites or ads or mailers) in that it emphasizing talking “with” people instead of “at” people. Blogging about eLearning has allowed industry professionals to derive value in several ways:
- Writing one’s thoughts out on a consistent basis promotes active brainstorming and keeps a record of these ideas;
- We can hear the voices of our peers and actually respond in an dynamic manner;
- The expansive blogosphere allows us to constantly discover new industry players and thinkers through their blog postings—we can then learn through their ideas, but unlike reading trade journals, articles, or research papers, the informal electronic venue lets us share our own views and learn a little bit about the writer’s personality.
Finally, I want to thank Jeff Cobb’s post earlier today for inspiring my own reflection on blogging.