Creating content vs. Sponsoring content

Wow, I feel for you. I've been writing a blog for the past month (and twittering and launching an app) and it's a dumpload of work. Even if you don't hit writer's block, the time commitment is daunting.

1. If you can arrange for the blog content to appear on your site only and continue that effort for the long haul (strongly associated with your company), go for it. I think it's possible to accrue many of the benefits of writing yourself - although not quite perfect.
2. Simply sponsoring an external blog feels not much different from other types of advertising. Would you take out a banner ad on the blog?
3. Most successful bloggers don't create "cult-of-me". The real aims are to give something valuable to prospects/customers and to humanize the company. Put another way, my preference is to buy good products from good people. It's hard to recognize likable people when the corporate mask is on.

If your primary business is content, then sponsored content is ok.

But if we are talking about company blogs, I don't see the value add it provides.

There is a recent inc article entitled - how hard could it be? I think there are a lot of good points that joel makes on "blogging for visibility".

Stealing one good point - read the entire article for additional info.

An entrepreneur's blog has to be about something bigger than his or her company and his or her product. This sounds simple, but it isn't.

Mike makes a great point - whew! this stuff is tiring!!

If you're in it for the cult-of-me thing, then I guess that there is an endless amount of time and energy one can spend.

But it does take time to create relevant, on-topic content & spoon feed to your target audience. Lots of it. How much time do you have?

The best way to drive traffic to your website is to have great content IN your website. That way you'll be driving visits to your site, that stay there and learn about what you have to offer after they read the post (and not the other way round, as it would happen if you sponsor a blog, since in that case people read the post and then have to decide to click your sponsor logo to get to your website).

All the traffic you get will tell the search engines that you are a good resource of content that people actually visit, and this will help your ranking.

If you don't have enough throughput to create all the great content you need to fuel a growing stream of new visitors to your website, you might considering inviting guest bloggers to write there (the Copyblogger blog does this all the time, and they are great writers themselves!)

Another tactic is to identify relevant posts in other blogs, and then start your own discussion in your blog, pointing to those posts, or simply asking permission from the blog owner to copy/paste a piece of their blog entry. Finding inspiration in other blogs is a good idea (copying them without authorization is not)

Hope this helps.

Blogging is not the only way to create a digital presence. I've seen lots of entrepreneurs put up a blog because they read somewhere that it is what they are supposed to do. But unless that blog has content that means something to your target audience and you are able to update it regularly, it is a waist of time. If writing isn't your thing, then try to showcase your expertise in other online venues, such as LinkedIn Answers. The point is that if someone Googles your name, you want examples of your capabilities to show up in the search results.

If you do decide that blogging is the way to go, one way to ease the burden and bring in interesting content is to join forces with other entrepreneurs who have complementary businesses. For example, if you are a product developer, you might join people who have related functions like product marketing, pricing, sourcing, and so on. The main criteria is that all in the group share the same target audience and agree to a common theme. In the case of my example, the theme could be "Taking Products from Idea to Market"