The verdict is in, this project is all but underway, and we will be leveraging, virtually, solely, a blog to enter the world of Web 2.0 radicalness. I feel like we’re finally bringing the new millennium to the doorstep of an industry plagued with archaic means of marketing, and can’t wait - to be honest. Granted the traditional marketing folks are apprehensive about pioneering into this unknown world, and hence - the subject of this post.

There are a few things remember when blogging, I think:

1. Write meaningful content (I’ve said this before) - Make your blog worth reading, and for god’s sake don’t regurgitate something you found on another blog site. If you do, reference it, and write to it - in response to it, or add something to it…
2. Keep your content freshly updated with regularly awesome content. This will at least keep what readers you do have around for more reading.
3. Don’t just blog, interact. If someone comments, reply - and if someone uses a social bookmarking site to link to your story? By all means, seek those posts out and react to them as well.
4. Monitor sites like delicious and digg for your stuff, but don’t add your stories yourself, that’s just lame - and I’m a hypocrite to a degree in this regard, but that was back when I first launched, so shut up.
5. Read your own posts! If your post doesn’t make you happy - then you’re just puking words. If you can’t finish your own article? Delete the damn thing. If you’re not writing for you, than you’re not writing well.

Seems like common sense to me, but for companies using blogs to spread awareness online that they exist, there’s another few factors that are sought after - readers, exposure, monetization and marketing. I think that if you follow the 1 through 5 above? Well… those things will just happen, IF in-fact you’re producing something that’s worth paying attention too.

On Sociosophy, I try to write to make things interesting for me, and the readers I have - and damn it! I laugh at my own sentences sometimes, and I’m not ashamed to do so. So, for the sake of baby Jesus and the integrity of the blogosphere… If you don’t have what it takes to write stuff that makes me happy in pants? Stop typing, you’re ruining Al Gore’s Internet.

We had a conference call with a massive PR agency, eager to work in the online arena, to brainstorm ideas for moving forward in our market type. Here’s the trick, this is Real Estate… Well, ok, we’re not really real estate, but we are… Err, crap, here’s some background:

We’re a company that specializes in master planned communities, a big phrase for - we buy a shit ton of land and make it friggin filled to the brim with rad amenities and convenience, while still keeping the landscape looking… well green and cheery.

Anyhow, when it came to the subject of “subject” - because I’m driving into these people’s heads that we can’t just pay for content and exposure to expect a good return on our production, we actually need… something worth reading - it turns out we have people here, in our own building, that have been through housing recessions… Actually eight recessions to be exact. I voted we tap into his brain to give prospective and current home buyers some valuable insight to what the future holds, from the industry side of the house. Sustainability - a new catch phrase for people tired of the words “Green Living” - is another subject we have on tap… Why aren’t we doing this already?

The more we talked about what we already have at our finger tips, and what’s being used to write useless columns in those printed things… newspapers, I think they’re called… the more I wanted to just get this thing on the road already. But this is red-tape bureaucracy, even though on a small scale, and we can’t just jump in and start… Damn it.

Today the PR lead at work came to me with an idea to start planning for creating an online relations rep for my company. Dandy! I’ve always wanted to invent an A-List Blogger, just haven’t had the funds to do it… So this should be awesome.

The idea is pretty simple, really, and in my eyes is a great way to actually have someone write and post quality, worthy information to the blogosphere… an arena that’s been lacking new and exciting content types for quite sometime. From what I’ve seen, 90% of the content that’s “new” the social arena, really isn’t all that new, and if it is? It appears on a gazillion resources in different forms, all claiming to be the one that got the scoop on the story… and weirdly enough, it seems that people post things only to get “the scoop”, not necessarily to share valuable, and quality information.

Maybe I’m just biased, or maybe I’m just wrong - but to me, everything out there seems to have the same tone and goal, “get read”… But in my opinion, if there’s quality content, genuinely creative, and authentically informative… then it will get read on it’s own. Just seems to me that there are too many blogs that exist to simply try to get read, instead of displaying quality information.

Anyway, the plan is to provide honest to goodness industry information that’s worth every word, and every post… Thus being worth every penny. The avenues I’m going to explore are the typical paths used by everyday blogger types, only, I’m going to be ensuring the quality of content, and keeping the person or team on track to providing people with awesome content. These avenues are going to be a blend of video, audio, a micro-blog, tumble log and regular blog, with posts to industry/content related sites. The equation is easy, actually, and will be very simple to execute… as most people can relate, but - the trick is to provide something of quality into the model, as to give people something that’s worth reading and sharing with others.

Since this handy dandy little bit of work will be done via the social arena that Sociosophy so pleasantly is cluttered with, what better place to write about this project and it’s progress than here? So… Here’s Day 1. Don’t get too excited all at once. Cheers!