One blog I’ve really gotten in to recently is Jeremiah Owyang’s “Web Strategy with Jeremiah.” Jeremiah has some awesome insight when it comes to business blogs and as he puts it, he “discusses how web tools can enable companies to interact with customers.” One post that I came upon recently was his thoughts on “How to be a corporate blog evangelist,” and is a MUST read for anyone exploring blogging as a business.

In part of the article, he explains the importance of getting involved in the blog community. While I certainly agree in the importance of being involved in the community to learn from the collective mindset, it got me thinking. When we talk about new media promotion, one of the most important things for growth is going outside of these communities. A great place to start is to find those internet social networks that are already engaged in the conversation and get involved. But is this still dramatically selling us short?

The reality of online social networking

Let’s face it, while the number of people truly engaging in some sort of online social network is increasing, it’s still far smaller than many would believe. If you ask most people, the only two-way communication you can have on the internet is email. Enter the world of spam, and the internet is back to simply browsing web pages or doing some online shopping. For the most part, one-way communication.

So how do we encourage others to look into the box from the outside? We need to start thinking as if the box doesn’t exist. Creating content is not solely writing a blog, doing a podcast, etc. It’s engaging in the conversation. We need to treat new media as both a channel on their TV AND a conversation around the dinner table. The concept of low-barrier of entry needs extend to both discovery of content AND participating in it.

So, how do we direct people to the open door in our new media homes? How do we encourage people to discover that THEY can be a part of the conversation?