I know I am timing in a little late on the conversation, but I just came across the post. My employer has given me the task to explore and explain the blogosphere to my employer (you will have to do the research to find out who that is). Since then, I have been paying close attention to Kevin O’Keefe’s blog LexBlog. Kevin’s insight has been a great help in both my personal and professional exploration into the blogosphere.
In his post titled “Website not best way to maintain Internet presence”, he states:
The best way to maintain a positive and effective Internet presence is by entering into the Internet discussion to network with others in your target audience. Blogs and RSS are networking tools. A Website is as useless as my running shoes in networking so as to maintain a positive and effective Internet presence.
Kevin was commenting on an article from another blogger, Dennis Kennedy. Kevin makes the point that a website is “as useless as my running shoes in networking so as to maintain a positive and effective Internet presence.” Why I agree with most of what Kevin says on his blog, to say that a website is not the best way to maintain internet presence is somewhat wrong. I say somewhat not to avoid confrontation but to help with a point. Both websites and blogs are great for maintaining a web presence, but both, especially in today’s world, must be used correctly to maintain an interactive presence.
Websites are great for presenting large amounts of information about any, or multiple, topic/s. No blog can replace the information that is given on a well-designed company website. If websites were not important to maintaining an online presence, why would Kevin continue to maintain LexBlog.com. If it were not an important part of the equation, Kevin would abandon his website and stick with just the blog. Nevertheless, as Kevin pointed out, websites stink at building online networks or inserting the company’s input into a global conversation, even with the creation of RSS feeds. I agree with Kevin and Dennis in that the best way to network interactively is by blogging. But don’t discredit the standard website either. Just as a carpenter cannot build a house without a hammer AND a saw; an individual cannot build an interactive presence without both a website and a blog. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that they are interchangeable. The most successful companies understand the idea of integration, all parts work together to create one message. With both web design and blogging being relatively inexpensive, there is no reason an individual cannot do both.
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