Title: Blogging: Bypassing The Media Word Count: 441 Summary: National and international business is doing something mainstream media professionals never saw coming – they have wrested control of information away from entrenched media sources. Standard media sources provide content in a confined and compartmentalized fashion. This form of communication is normal, expected, dare I say status quo? A Passing Fad or Defining the Medium In the beginning blogs seemed more attuned to ‘stream of conscious’ thought. The beginning of b... Keywords: marketing,internet marketing,site promotion,blogs,blogging Article Body: National and international business is doing something mainstream media professionals never saw coming – they have wrested control of information away from entrenched media sources. Standard media sources provide content in a confined and compartmentalized fashion. This form of communication is normal, expected, dare I say status quo? A Passing Fad or Defining the Medium In the beginning blogs seemed more attuned to ‘stream of conscious’ thought. The beginning of blogging was personal and sometimes social. This thought morphed into social networks that are prevalent today. Somewhere along the way business caught a vision that blended information and marketing into a highly personalized package known as Business Blogging (B-blogging). Taking Information to the Consumer Blogging has taken business information from small portions of data from sources you need to pay for and brought it to the masses – at no cost. Suddenly those who were the most knowledgeable were bypassing the media and actually finding greater success in reaching those most interested. Not only was the information available in a timely way it had a significant impact on the marketing aspect of the company. The media can often drain the personality from an interview with an expert, but a b-blog can restore the personality and allow visitors to see your business as more approachable, accessible and likeable. Where Media Fails Where once a staff writer had numerous stories to work on and numerous contacts to make to finish other stories, now a motivated industry expert could bring multiple opinions and insight to their readers in a very short period of time. While the staff writer worked on trying to understand the issues surrounding the article they were been assigned to write the business owner/industry expert is already gathering comments and analysis from other industry experts. Essentially business blogging removes one of the most cumbersome steps to information distribution - time. The biggest positive in all of this is blogging has the ability to place you in the driver’s seat of information. Vision Connections Many businesses have not explored blogging because they haven’t caught the vision for success and they haven’t understood the benefit of developing a niche specific information stream that has the ability to convert motivated information consumers into customers who understand how the information affects their purchasing decisions. Blogging has given business a tremendous gift. Interestingly mainstream media has taken an ‘if you can’t beat ‘em join ‘em’ mentality by providing their own blogs that have taken this town hall approach to information to their readers. In the final analysis mainstream media still stand several paces behind business blogging pioneers who are now viewed as trusted authorities.