The odds of publishing a successful blog nowadays are about the same as finding
any issue whatsoever that Rachel Maddow and Bill O'Reilly would agree upon.
That's because most bloggers commit the cardinal sin of writing about what's
important to them, and not to their audience.

In his seminal, new book on social media entitled, (Spreadable Media: Creating Value and Meaning in a Networked Culture), my
colleague, Sam Ford, stresses that a successful blog is determined by how
useful the content is to readers. The most relevant blogs (Note: relevance can
be defined in any number of ways including:  funny, insightful, completely
counter-intuitive, etc.) are spread by readers to their circle of friends and
influencers. And, spreadability, my friends, is the currency of the blogosphere.

On those rare occasions when I craft a blog that someone else deems
spreadable, I know I've been successful. The most recent case in point occurred
just the other day when I penned a tome on the Institute of Public Relations'
new online Center for Organizational Communications I thought it
was a significant advancement to our profession's body of work and needed to be
publicized. But, when IPR's president and CEO, Frank Ovaitt decided, in turn,
to spread my blog to his list of highly influential senior communications
executives, (below) I knew I'd struck a nerve.

So, before you sit down to write your next blog, or counsel a client how to go
about crafting one, check your ego (or the client's) at the door. The blog
shouldn't be about you, your hot new product or your state-of-the-art
consulting solution. Rather, it should focus on something of importance to your
target audience. By thinking about a blog from the outside in, you'll stand a
much better chance of creating something that others find important enough to
spread to their audiences. And that, dear reader, is the definition of a
successful blog.