What’s the ROI of blogging? Exactly $1.55

At least that’s what this blog is worth. A buck fifty-five per post.

Here’s how I know.

ToughSledding finally earned me some money last week — a $546 annual raise. Not much, but it’s cold, hard cash. Real ROI.

Student blogs remain foundation of social-media lessons at Kent State

You’ll find 14 new links on my Kent State “Student Bloggers ’09″ box today (right column) — bright young minds discussing niche topics in public relations.

The assignment: Find an area of PR that excites you, explore it, write about it, then work to engage others in the discussion.

Is the exercise effective? We think so. I see passion in the posts, and I hear some online voices stretching beyond the shallowness of tweets and Facebook updates. Blogs require critical thinking and clear writing. Most other social-media tools do not.

Three years, 300 posts. I’m not impressed!

Darth Blogger

I almost let this milestone pass. Three years, 300 posts, and still flogging the blog. If that isn’t addiction, I don’t know what is.

I spent half the summer plotting the death of ToughSledding — as I’ve done several times before. This time I came oh-so close to ending it after those 2 blissful weeks offline. But you know what they say: Sh#@ happens. And it did.

Here’s why ToughSledding blogs on:

Some solid lessons for students in “New Rules of Marketing and PR”

I didn’t pay close attention to David Meerman Scott’s “New Rules of PR and Marketing” until he published the 2nd edition sometime last year. In 2006, when the book came out, I was still getting a grip on social media, and I spent way more time writing than reading in those days. Blame it on new-blogger’s ego.

By 2009, when the 2nd edition of New Rules arrived, I was knee deep in SM books, and more than a little jaded over their marginal content. But this one I like, enough to require my students in the “Media Relations” class to read it.

Saying goodbye to the blogroll — at least for now

I deleted my primary blogroll today. If you were on it, don’t take offense. If you used it as a resource — and I doubt anyone did — sorry about that. It was a decision based on transparency.

A few months back, a Twitter friend asked me why I had so-and-so on the blogroll. I had no answer. Fact is, I had seldom read the blogger in question, who made my list based on some witty Twitter comments.

In fact, I read only about one-third of the writers on my blogroll. There isn’t time for more. But their presence on my personal “A” list implies endorsement. I could leave that one-third in place, but even many of those I don’t read consistently.

Everyone from my former blogroll, and quite a few others, remain on the feeder. I check that feeder about once a week. (Sorry, but I’m busy.) I read blogs daily, and I learn from them. But I find the posts mostly via Twitter or Facebook links, or emails from people I know and whose opinions I trust. Call me lazy, but like I said, I’m busy.

Deleting the blogroll may hurt my readership and may result in my eviction from other blogrolls. But it’s not like I depend on this site for income…though maybe I should.

I was thinking about coining the term “blogrolla.” I wonder how many bloggers would pay me for the traffic I send their way. (Wipe that smirk off your face!) As the home of “blogrolla,” I just might raise a few bucks, you know?

I might also raise a few eyebrows for my lack of ethics, but the way things are going in social media, I doubt it.

Should PR students be forced to blog? We think so

With apologies to National Lampoon!

No, we’ve never threatened to shoot anyone’s dog. But if you want to study PR at Kent State, you can’t pass “PR Online Tactics” without writing a blog and putting it up for the world to see. If that bothers you, you’ll want to find another major.

As PR professionals, we know that blogs are part of the communication landscape. Not all organizations participate, but all are part of the social-media game — even if they don’t play. So a new PR grad must understand blogging — and what better way than learning by doing?

Some disagree with our blog-or-else policy. In her excellent article in JMC Educator, Shearlean Duke reports on a Delphi study involving top-level PR professionals. The Delphi panel lists blogging as one of the key new-media skills PR students should develop. But the panel also insists PR educators SHOULD NOT REQUIRE students to blog, as “forced content skews the transparency of the blogosphere.” Student blogging, they say, should be voluntary.