My friend Jim Duncan is a blogger. He’s also a REALTOR® and an entrepreneur. Jim has been firmly in the lead, using social media and blogging, specifically to help build his business and maintain relationships with referral sources and future customers. Jim offers a nice balance when he blogs, spanning the personal and the professional, including musings about being a dad alongside thoughts about local policies and the real estate market.
Jim’s not selling on his blog — he’s blogging — which I appreciate. His posts are always informative, sometimes controversial but always interesting to read. Because it’s what he most wants to write, Jim gives the reader a great sense of what it’s like to live and work in Charlottesville, Va.
A couple of days ago, Jim shared a link to a post written by Hugh MacLeod which, as Jim said, perfectly summed up his blogging philosophy in one sentence.
People should come to your blog, not because somebody drove them there, but because it was important for them to come there.
We DO spend a lot of time talking about goals, evaluation, measurement and yes, “driving traffic,” but ultimately that’s not it at all. It’s about sharing valuable content, engaging in a way that’s authentic and thereby drawing those who are interested in what it is you have to offer. I’m FAR more interested in only having five visitors to my site if they are commenting, interacting and doing business with me, than 10,000 visitors who stop by and don’t contribute to the conversation at all.
I admire Jim’s philosophy, and subscribe to it myself. Do you agree?
How do you describe your blogging philosophy?