Greg Hoffman


10/07/2005

 

Good Luck Security Awareness Blog

Since I started my journey for the ultimate dream job this week "full-time", I wanted to take a moment and thank the supporters of the Security Awareness Blog. Winn Schwartau did a great job crafting the tagline "Security Awareness for Ma, Pa and the Corporate Clueless" and when we decided to experiment with a business blog in the summer of 2004, I had to fight to use that name. Several employees thought it was too offensive, but it's use as a blog name was proven perfect for the strategy to build an online community.

Read this interview at CorporateBlogging.info for more info on how and why we started the blog.

Our first big hit was to be named a USA Today Hot Site. That sent the traffic screaming to us in January. We were also reviewed by several sites that brought more traffic and legitimacy to our plan: The Weblog Review; Anita Campbell's PowerBlog Reviews; and About.com.

The next big thing was winning the 2005 Business Blogging Awards. The Security Awareness Blog took Best Overall and Best Tech Company. We picked up some good press from that news release: Read in the St. Pete Times and The Tampa Bay Business Journal.

In May, everything changed for the Security Awareness Blog when Winn decided to switch from PC's to Mac. We had a strategy but our goals weren't this big. When we blogged his first rant about the switch, our blog site meter registered more than 60,00 unique visitors in three days. By last week, when the final installments of the switch rants were published, we had more than 250,000 hits since the end of May. Read the stories at: St. Pete Times; Washington Post; The Mug Center; and The Mac Observer.

Getting back to the supporters...We started in 2004 with about 20 regulars and then we expanded into our weekly and monthly newsletters, which grew by the thousands recently. The RSS subscribers went from about 10 to more than 600 today. They say the blogosphere corrects itself instantly. I can attest to that. If we published something that was open to debate or correction, our readers were on it, within minutes, and then the debates began.

It was fun creating and maintaining the Security Awareness Blog. I hope the quality and attention to detail remains in the future. Now, I can't wait to start the next great business blog, wherever I land.


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4 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Let us know where you land please so we can follow from here.

9:42 AM  
Blogger Anita Campbell said...

Yes, please let us know.

And congrats on your part in Security Awareness Blog being named to the CNET Blog 100.

Best,
Anita

11:36 AM  
Blogger Marketing Gorilla said...

I had no clue. Thanks Anita.
http://news.com.com/2311-10784_3-115122.html

11:47 AM  
Blogger steven edward streight said...

You've remained a humble and intelligent role model for the rest of us.

Thanks for sending the email with the link to this post.

More bloggers should do this.

Once in a while, a brief, clear note, with a single link.

I would call it "Super Side Channel Email" meaning, Super targeted, select group receiving special message and link.

This post in itself is a powerful lesson in blogology: how to succeed.

Your getting the good media coverage, plus some controversy and contending for the faith, a purified blogosphere in mind, with greater web user safety, then with that reliable, rich, relevant content, all the results are so satisfying to brew up for others, like and that.

My security word of the day is the Word Verification set of characters: buthix.

1:42 PM  

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