Getting Attention...in Des Moines (Moments of Clarity)

Thank you Mike Sansone for pointing out this wonderful piece in the Wall St. Journal on the changing face of PR and "Attention Getting" in the blog era. I promise it's worth the read. The article points out many truths about blogging and getting noticed.

One of the key points established in the article is that in blogging, "There's also etiquette involved. For starters, once you find an appropriate blog community, you can't just expect to jump right in and have it instantly hawk your wares or link to you. "It's like going to a dinner party," says Mr. Rubel of Edelman. "You don't just come in and start selling your product. You listen to what other people are saying and find a way into the conversation."

Very accurate. After you've been blogging, linking, making relevant comments, trackbacks, etc...you will begin to get some "street cred" if what you have to say adds to the conversation. My efforts (pleasures) have yielded links from a few A-List bloggers that have driven a ton of traffic to my blog. In turn, that traffic and those links have driven a few key topics that I discuss (and my name) to first page google results. I'm fairly confident that I could not have paid for this publicity...and it all happens between about 4:30AM and 6AM each day here at Midwest Command (home office in Des Moines)...rather than in a high priced PR firm in NYC.

Like most things in life...you must simply start doing them and seek out those who already do them well...and model their behavior to increase the velocity of your success.