Last week I published a post about determining your blog worth. After Blogher 10 and speaking at The 2nd annual Social Media Master’s Summit I realize that this question is heavy on many people’s minds. Social Media has empowered all of us in an economic time that was making many of us feel powerless. With the communication explosion that is social media comes opportunity. Opportunity has been knocking on the door of a number of bloggers. So the big question is how do you get opportunity to come to your neighborhood? That’s exactly what we’re examining.

The first step, as I mentioned last week, is to understand who you are and what you have to offer. We do that by examining our own blogs. But since it can be hard to be objective about ourselves I encouraged you to buddy up and evaluate each other’s sites. Hopefully you have taken some time to look at your blog and other people’s as well. Was it hard? Looking within, really looking within, can be uncomfortable at first, but ultimately it’s a great lesson. The goal is to understand what you are projecting to the World and make sure that is in line with what your inner intent is. On top of that you want to make sure that your blog functionality is in place. Do you have your contact points, disclosures, pr guidelines etc… Chris Brogan has an in depth article posted this week with some great suggestions always worth reading.

Now armed with a better sense of the real estate you have to offer it’s time to talk numbers. [Read more...]