There are millions of blogs being created every day.   Many of these blogs are being created by customers that love your business.  Their blogs may not have huge followings but their readers can be very loyal.  A small loyal blog following from one of your biggest fans can have a big impact on your business if you can connect with your customer’s blog fans.

…while many individual bloggers might have low readership numbers, they often seem to have more INFLUENCE over that smaller readership.

Mack Collier

Sponsoring your customer’s blog could be an excellent way to connect with her readers.  The myriad of micro blog communities that exist on the web offer macro opportunities to spread your business story.

Here’s a example:
My friend @hostageek has a great blog (  Cheesehead Gardening ), about hostas and gardening.  Say I own a local garden center or a specialty website supplying hosta lovers.  If Jennifer was one of my customers and one of my product evangelists it would make a lot of sense to sponsor her blog.  Her blog readers are in my target market.  The cost to sponsor her blog would likely be minimal ( maybe even a product or service exchange ).  The sponsorship could be a great benefit to a small niche blogger and an even greater benefit to your business.

If your business is considering starting a blog, sponsoring a small blogger that writes about your niche may be a way to get started.  You could even collaborate on content ideas, offering your expertise and information to help your blogger create great stories.  Make sure all relationships are fully disclosed in any sponsor relationship on the blog.

I think this is a great idea that’s worth exploring further.

Mack Collier details this idea out from the blogger’s perspective on his post about how blogger’s should attempt to monetize their content.

What do you think about this idea?

If you could would you sponsor your evangelist’s blogs?

Related posts

• Your Voice, Your Mantra (0)
• WordPress Just Made Millions of Blogs Real-Time With RSSCloud (0)
• Wordpress is a Wonderful Relationship Building Tool (0)

All blogs on the WordPress.com platform and any WordPress.org blogs that opt-in (using this plug-in) will now make instant updates available to any RSS readers subscribed to a new feature called RSSCloud. There is currently only one RSS aggregator that supports RSSCloud, Dave Winer’s brand-new reader River2. That will probably change very soon. Update: Within hours another RSS reader called LazyFeed has announced that it will support RSSCloud as well.

RSSCloud is an element that’s always been present in the RSS 2.0 spec but has drawn new attention with the rise of interest in the Real-Time Web.

I’m imagining the possibilities this will bring to blog communication. Awesome!

Posted via web from kalalea’s posterous

Related posts

• Wordpress is a Wonderful Relationship Building Tool (0)
• Your Voice, Your Mantra (0)
• Would You Sponsor Your Customer’s Blog? (0)

“The Mantra… is a word of power and light that comes from the over-mind inspiration or from some very high plane of Intuition. Its characteristics are a language that conveys infinitely more than the mere surface sense of words seems to indicate, a rhythm that means even more than the language and is born out of the Infinite and disappears into it…”

Sri Aurobindo (The Future Poetry)

Just as the mantra comes from a spark of divine inspiration; so too does your voice.

What is your unique voice?

By this I mean, your essence, your spark, that which when ignited tells others without wonder who you are, who you’ve become or are yet becoming.  Your voice is as unique to you as your fingerprint.  Have you claimed your uniqueness?

Finding the voice that is YOU alone will support you endlessly.  When shared, this voice carries a quality of authenticity that builds trust amongst your tribe, your fans, your audience.

Your Voice, Your Mantra

Are you using your voice, or that of another?

Do you know what your voice is, or has it been buried for so long you’re not sure?

If you could re-discover your uniqueness, would you be interested?

How could getting clearer with your voice make any difference to what you do?

Would it make a difference if people could feel the real you in your words?

Would it make a difference if people felt a deeper bond of loyalty to you because they trusted your ‘voice’?

I believe the answer to these questions is YES.  And I also believe that when we get a yes; it’s a call to action.  If you’re feeling a yes; then let’s get started!

Call to Action!

Here are some stimulating questions to help in getting clearer with your voice:

• What is the voice you’re currently sharing?
  Is it authentically, uniquely you? If so, what are the things that make that true? If not, whose voice are you using?
  Why? What are the qualities of that voice that you resonate (vibe) with?

• How could the voice you’re sharing be more accurate to the real you?
  What could you add that would help others get a better sense of your true essence?

• Has your unique voice evolved over time with growing awareness, changing interests, etc.?
  Is this an environmental influence of sorts?
  Would your fingerprint change with changes in your environment?

Dig Deep~

These are not trick questions.  Only questions to have you dig a bit deeper.  Our finger prints don’t change.  They are with us from birth.

Our essence, that which is at the core of our being doesn’t change either.

It’s our life experiences, specifically our perspectives of those experiences,  that change and either bring us nearer or farther to that core essence.  The more aligned our thinking is with our true nature, the more in sync we are with our uniqueness.  Our essence.  Our brilliance.

Are You Listening?

It’s this core that we’re listening for.

This is our voice.  This is the voice we want to bring to every thing that we say or do.  This is the spark that when ignited shines our brilliance for all the world to see…and for our audience to align with as they feel supported in shining their own brilliance.

Isn’t this what we all desire, deep down?  It doesn’t matter what our job, vocation, or talent is.  This applies to them all.  It isn’t prejudiced; doesn’t segregate.  Deep down we all want to be who we are, be recognized and have others be able to do the same.  Consciously.

How can you impart “infinitely more than the mere surface sense of words seems to indicate” as the mantra does?

Simply by infusing your essence, your eternal spark of inspiration into every word you choose.  It’s about layers, depth and truth of character.

If this interests and inspires you, please share your thoughts in the comment section.  Let’s talk.

If you’d like some gentle assistance in finding your unique voice and some guidance on how to better share that with others; please connect with me here.

Happy Buddha Photo

Related posts

• What Makes a Brand Social Media Smart? (0)
• Today’s Best Social Media Resources (1)
• Fish Where the Fish Are (2)

Blogs are cool.  You’re reading one right now.  Publishing is undergoing a revolution and blogs make it easy for businesses and individuals to share news and share their story with the world.  This video is a great introduction to the power of blogging.

Related posts

• Your Voice, Your Mantra (0)
• Would You Sponsor Your Customer’s Blog? (0)
• WordPress Just Made Millions of Blogs Real-Time With RSSCloud (0)

I love Wordpress for all the many ways it can be used to share your story and build relationships on line. I’ve been using Wordpress since 2005. I used the Typepad blogging service for a couple of years and was looking for more flexibility when I switched to Wordpress. I’ve been very happy with the move and Wordpress keeps getting better with each new release which makes me confident that Wordpress will continue to be my choice at the the center of web communication networking into the future.

Here are some of the things I like about Wordpress:

• Sharing your words and multimedia to the world

• Easy system that scales to power communication tool

• A powerful story sharing tool

• An empowered conversational relationship builder

• Your blog can be at the center of the conversation

• Commenting allows conversation to turn into a community

• Wordpress.com is a simple and powerful way to get started

• Wordpress.com can be ungraded to Wordpress.org

• Thousands of themes and lots of design choices

• Highly customizable

• Static “pages” take Wordpress beyond the blog stream

• I love plugins (add ons) and there are hundreds to choose from

• Sharing tools help readers spread the word about the content they like

• Wordpress is an excellent multimedia platform

• Create your own internet radio show (podcast)

• Build a video channel with Wordpress

• Wordpress is continually updated and each update makes the user experience easier and more powerful

• Google likes Wordpress

• Feeds make optional reading easy

• Highly connected for social networking

• Wordpress and Twitter play well together

• open source helps evolve the platform

• And so much more…

What do you like about Wordpress? What else do you wish it could do?

Related posts

• WordPress Just Made Millions of Blogs Real-Time With RSSCloud (0)
• Your Voice, Your Mantra (0)
• Would You Sponsor Your Customer’s Blog? (0)