In other words, quit wasting time. Especially as it regards blogging.
In 2006, you'll likely see fewer posts over here. More often than not I'll only post when there's something to say that I really believe in. Less fluff, less mentions of obscure shows, less talk on blogging itself, and less ranting about things that aren't likely to change in this industry in the near term.
Which is not to say I don't believe in blogging. I do. Very much. The coffeehouse blog has almost as many pageviews as this one and I've only been at that for one year. It's been a huge asset for us.
And I'm doing blogs for other people to promote their businesses (and shows).
But as far as blogging about the show industry, the market for the type of content I've enjoyed publishing is still not very strong. TSMR has a core audience of a handful of folks who publish other marketing blogs and a couple hundred or so show pros and exhibitors who've been with me for awhile and are part of our "choir".
But of the 50,000 page views we did last year, the 300 or so "regulars" accounted for about half of them. The other 25,000 page views were mostly one-offs from "drive-by" visitors who came here from links on blogs often unrelated to shows and conferences, or from search engine listings.
Much as I like hearing myself, I don't like it enough to continue the volume of posts I've been doing over here at the expense of everything else I could be doing with that time. I suppose I'm going to rationalize this by saying that when you do see TSMR posts come along, you'll be more inclined to read them because they'll be more like "surprises" than daily obligations.
We are going to continue covering key industry events and trends. This year I've been invited to ECEF for the first time, and I'm looking forward to that. I also intend to be at SISO and IAEM and will cover those events. Perhaps some others too. Those posts generate tons of readership. People like talking about other people and about their industry events. That's why print pubs have regular sections on industry gossip, hirings and staff changes.
The unfortunately fact about blogging is that with the exception of people who have blog networks for consumer products (or politics) or create blog software, nobody is making money by blogging, unless your name is Hugh McLeod.
I'll qualify this by adding that I'm hoping to become more involved with a start-up in the weeks to come. This company marries a whole lot of the marketing tech stuff we've been talking about ad nauseum. Should that happen, then you will be hearing a lot about what I intend to do with those technologies and why they're important.
It could be a beautiful friendship.
But if that doesn't happen, you might want to just redefine our TSMR acronym to mean Trade Show Marketing Recluse.
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