“Setting up a blog, for example, is one way brands can encourage their fans to participate.

“But the brand has to be serious about running these accounts and dedicate resources to it,” Salcido says. “It has to be done right because people will sniff out the fakers in a heartbeat, and it could turn negative very quickly.”

A lot of business owners/managers don’t understand the commitment involved. They start a blog. Post a few times, then put it on the back burner and spend time on more “immediate issues.”

Then, after a few months, they give up. Blog? Nope. Didn’t do anything for me

Putting together a thoughtful post that doesn’t read like a press release isn’t easy.

An example of a great local business blog (Carlsbad) is bubbleinfo.com. The real estate agent started it at the height of the bubble. Jim Klinge spoke openly and frankly in his postings about the unsustainability of the pricing. The site was one of the first to use YouTube videos to catalog the losses of many properties. Its obvious he spends a few hours every day working on the blog.

Fast forward to today. He’s gained nationwide attention and has been quoted several times in the New York Times, Nightline, and the LA Times to name just a few.

While many in the real estate industry are singing the blues, his office is expanding.

A side note – I was surprised out how many pages the linked article spanned. 6 Pages? Get to the end of the page, stop reading, click next, wait for the page to reload, start reading again. Repeat five times.

I understand about multiplying page impressions but for an advertiser are they really more likely to get a click over the course of 6 pages rather than 2?