My Internet Marketing Adventures

You might expect that I could give the following 6 reasons for being a monetized blogger:

1) To Make Money
2) To Make Money
3) To Make Money
4) To Make Money
5) To Make Money
6) To Make Money

Actually, while the money IS a consideration, it isn't the only reason that I'm wandering down this road. There are plenty of ways to make money in life and plenty of roads to travel, and so as I am creating my plan for blogging and other online marketing activities, I am trying to keep things in perspective and make sure that I accomplish other goals than just making money. Here's numbers 2-6 on my list:

#2 - To Promote My Interests.
I have an itch to propagate Multiple Intelligence Theory and my own ideas about brain wiring and our unique intellectual abilities. Notice that I said "itch" and not "burning desire." Intelligence, personality and temperament intrigue me, but don't absolutely inspire me to make Intunique my life's work. Yet, when there is a possibility of earning a few dollars while I research and formulate my ideas about intelligence, it helps to get me moving forward.

#3 - To Leverage My Regular Business Activites
I have worked with small businesses in my local area for a number of years and continue to be active with the local Chamber of Commerce. Occasionally these small business owners need some marketing advice or are willing to pay for some of my experience and talents, like the fact that I've been a radio talk show host and am comfortable conducting live interviews. Blogging about business in our local area helps me add greater value to my clients.

#4 - To Stay Reasonably Proficient with the Internet
There is no way that I can hope to be an expert, but the process of setting up blogs and learning about social networking, etc., at least gives me the hope of not becoming a complete dinosaur. The Entrecard community has been a good source of info about blogging for dollars and I've been a Mashable reader for several months now. Even though I took a Fortran and Cobol class in college, I highly doubt that I will ever be much of a programmer, but it's nice to be able to tweak things here and there.

#5 - To Exercise My Creativity
It's tremendously cool to register a domain name (or an account on a site like Blogger) and be off and publishing within minutes or hours. Several of the blogs I am developing are extensions of ideas that I've had over the last 20 years, ideas that have heretofore languished in a folder in my file cabinet. I'm not particularly artistic, but I've managed to come up with a few relatively novel ideas for sites that will be graphic intensive. Again, I doubt that I would be pursuing these if I weren't aided by the possibility of a earning a few bucks along the way.

#6 - To Participate In the Larger Community
My family keeps me busy and I'm not one to spend much time socializing. As I have been working from home for most of the past 3 years, I find that days can go by where I don't talk to anyone who doesn't share DNA or a surname with me. And while I'm basically ok with that, I recognize that I have a desire and responsibility to support the larger community. Blogging gives me an opportunity to meet people from all over the world and never have to take off my slippers.

I guess the big question about my list of reasons is how likely am I to continue blogging if reason #1 doesn't materialize. Hmmm.