Why Blog?

I'll give you a few reasons, in no particular order of importance:

Blogging can be an online journal. For years, I asked my mom to write her story. I even bought her a tape recorder a couple of times but she never got around to it.

My oldest daughter used to keep a journal and then a blog, which is what inspired me to start one back in 2004. Since then I have started several, each with a different theme or purpose.

Blogging is a way to share information. When my daughter was looking for some additional sales training, instead of emailing her, I started a blog and posted some of the articles I had saved on my computer. Later I decided to find more articles, post them on a regular basis and that's the origin of ScLoHo's Collective Wisdom blog which now gets around 6,000 page views each month.

Blogging gives you a voice. I come from the traditional media world. When I was 16, I studied and passed the Federal Communications Commission test for a 3rd Class License with a Broadcast Endorsement. That was a requirement for working on the air at a radio station at the time.

Today the cost of owning a radio station is hundred's of thousands of dollars, often a million plus.

The cost of a blog is your time and an internet connection.

Blogging creates a Personal Brand. There are many people whom I never knew until I discovered them online with their blogs. I have created an online persona as ScLoHo and when you combine the online with offline relationships, it creates a more complete picture.

Blogging helps you get found online. I am not a SEO expert. (Search Engine Optimization). But I discovered that because of my blogging, Google and other search engines where finding me. I was even quoted in a Wall Street Journal article a few years ago due to something I wrote about Starbucks.

Recently I Googled "Scott Howard" and there were over 6 million results. When I Googled "ScLoHo" there were 255,000 results.

Tomorrow, I'll take you through the steps of setting up your profile on Blogger.