Less Than 40 Hours Until 2007 Bloggies Nominations Close

It's been a learning experience since Lyke2Drink was launched back in July.

Turning out copy on nearly a daily basis is not new to me, nor is marketing a product. Still there is much about blogging that I am still learning. I want to create a blog that goes beyond the "I had this to drink today" nature of some and has more news value than the cut and paste content of some others. There would be elements of each of these formats to Lyke2Drink for sure, but my goal is to create something people will want read and visit often. Perhaps not on a daily basis, but at least once or twice a week. I purposely decided to go in the direction of a general alcoholic beverage blog, instead of something more specialized solely about beer, wine or spirits. While focusing on one segment would give me the ability to turn out more in-depth copy and appeal to some, I don't drink only one type of beverage and I don't think that is the way most people approach adult beverages.

I've learned that most bloggers are very friendly and more than willing to promote another blogger's good work. I've found that blogs can be a very good source of information. They can also provide misinformation, but so can the mainstream media. I was prepared to work to slowly build an audience and see where it went. I've found that after five months or so with a relatively low level of promotion, I can expect 80-130 unique visitors a day to my blog about alcohol. My highest daily hit total was back on September 14th when 357 people hit my blog, many reading a post about the Greatest 50 Drinking Songs of All-Time. My best month so far was December when 2,756 unique visitors stopped by Lyke2Drink.

I have learned that building a blog's readership requires good content, reader interest in the topic, some good luck and timely promotion. After all, there are something like 60 million blogs in the world today. Building a blog does not mean the readers will come. That's where the promotional part of this message comes in.

I could use a little help. It will use up less than 3 minutes of your time and your help will be greatly appreciated.

This is a real longshot, but to try to promote Lyke2Drink I'm mounting a rather late grassroots campaign to be nominated in the Best New Blog category of the 2007 Bloggies. Again, this is a real longshot.

Nominations must be submitted by Jan. 10th (Wednesday) at 10 p.m. You can only submit one nomination form and it must have at least three nominations listed. So you can put Lyke2Drink in multiple categories or list some of your other favorite blogs. Take a look at a few in my blogroll for suggestions.

Please go to http://2007.bloggies.com and enter Lyke2Drink (http://lyke2drink.blogspot.com) in the new weblog category. Thanks for supporting Lyke2Drink. In the spirit of politics at its finest, I owe you a drink.