I was tagged on this meme earlier by Leonard, and he asks me to state 5 reasons – Why do I blog?

Before I go ahead and give my reasons, I think this is really something we all blogger got to think about. Setting up a blog, paying for your webhosting, registering your domain and maintaining the blog requires time and money, and you need to have good reasons for spending that time and money!

Here are my five.

#1 To market my seminars

I think a blog is a consultant/trainer’s dream marketing tool – especially small businesses like mine. Through this blog, I can not only attract search visitors that come in through the keywords I target, but also set myself up with credibility in this area, by regularly posting articles about this business blogging industry.

Being an advocate for business blogging – as you would have seen from many of my posts, and I would love to share that idea with small businesses who want to embrace this form or marketing through my seminars and workshops.

#2 To reinforce and archive what I learn

I love to read, and unfortunately for me (and I think for many other people as well), we don’t retain what we read very well. By taking time to blog it down, you shuffle it again in your memory, so you will tend to remember more of it, 6 months down the road. Besides, even if you don’t, the search box is just in the sidebar, so you can easily recall your older posts and read your own summaries.

#3 To network with other bloggers

Blogging can be a very social activity – it is a place not only to publish, but to network, converse and share ideas with others in the blogosphere. The blogosphere is full of nice and helpful people, people who encourage each other, forgive mistakes made and definitely 100% human. 😛

#4 To learn how to write well

I have to admit, I am not a good salesperson in life. If you ask me to live on job on sales, I might starve to death, at least, for the traditional method of selling – cold calls, meeting up in person, and what they call “transferring enthusiasm”. However, I believe in the Internet. On the Internet, you can sell things without meeting a person. You have more time to think about what you are going to say (or rather, type). On the Internet, what you write can help you make your living, as it has done for many others.

With practise everyday, I can get better with my writing – not the academic writing where you write so objectively and sound like someone who has been buried in piles of research papers. Persuasive writing. Writing that tickles your emotions and get words that can get your hand to reach for your credit card 😉

#5 Its just me

I guess, ultimately, blogging is just “my type of activity” – me. Sitting behind a computer screen and typing away can be one of the activities I enjoy most since young. I love surfing around and reading, I love “living with the computer”, as some of my friends would jokingly put it. So blogging became something natural to me. 🙂

Passing it on

I’ll pass this on to Mike, Darren, Easton, Andrew and Char! Tell me, why do you blog?