First it was the phone, once upon a time it was a new technology that altered how people communicated in a life changing way. Now it is the internet. Only the internet has a much greater impact.

Not only has emailed revolutionized the way we communicate, but the internet itself has opened up a chasm of different effective and more productive ways to communicate. Wiki’s, instant messaging, forums, blogs, social networks, email, virtual conferencing, chat rooms, the list goes on.

Yet some people want to stick fast to an age old worn and torn method, the meeting. I have never been a huge fan of meetings, they suck up way more time than they are productive. Travel, preparation, concentration shift (twice), delays, small talk… often times you spend more time with the tasks surrounding the meeting than meetings themselves.

Granted there are times where meetings simply are the only way to accomplish specific tasks, and are completely valid. However they are performed way too often.

Seth Godin recommends skipping at least one meeting a week, see how it impacts you for better or worse. My estimate is that in almost every occasion you can find better ways to communicate the same information quicker and more clear than holding another meeting. Work schedules, reporting, and continual information exchange will save everyone time and keep people updated all along a project not just at specific intervals.

At BlogFire we use project Wiki’s that allow clients and internal contractors alike to watch and update the progress of the project with out requiring a two - three hour disruption. However there are many ways to archive the same effect and cut down on unnecessary meetings.

No matter what your blog is about, no matter what you plan to use it for, you should always find and learn as much about the people who will read and respond to your blog as possible. This is with out exception, and is an integral part of the success of any blog. Regardless if you are trying to entertain people, communicate with people you know, or reach out and discuss a topic or express your brand. Even if the blog is specifically for your own personal reading and reflection, you must think about what you want to get of the blog.

Ultimately your readers are your customers, and your blog is your brand. Each post is a product. To really engage people, get them interested, and keep them coming back you must understand them. By understanding them and figuring out what they want is the only way to craft a product that they enjoy. If they enjoy your product they will return, participate in the conversation, give you feedback and tell others. Each post should reflect back to those readers, your target market.

I could go deeper in how to use the information obtained by finding and researching your target market, but I will save that for a later post. Instead I will discuss how you can go about determining your target market and how to research them.

Step 1, who would be interested?

The first step is take a look at who do you want to talk to, who is going to be interested in the subject in which you are talking about. What can they benefit from it, and how will it in turn benefit you? If you can find or think of anyone who would be interested, or any way for the blog to be mutually beneficial then you might want to reconsider the topic.

If you are talking about food, who with in the vast subject of food interest would read the blog? Chiefs, hobbiests, home makers, or just people who dine out?

What age bracket are they? If they are people who just enough a nice meal, are they cooking for themselves, or are they cooking for their family?

Where do they live, would that influence what type of content they would be looking to read?

Step 2, hone in on them

After you have developed an profile of the reader, it is critical to learn more about them so that you can use that information to shape every blog post (or product) and the overall brand of your blog.

There are plenty of ways to do market research to learn more about a target market. However blogs themselves actually provide a great way to research people with in your market. Using tools like Technorati you can easily find thousands of blogs on any given subject.

Subscribe to any blog that fits your profile, and spend time reading through their new posts, previous posts, and comments. You will quickly learn what content is valuable to the author, and to the authors reader base.

Make sure to catalog any findings so that you can quickly refer back to the data you have collected and use it to shape your product. Knowing that most young professionals who blog about your topic are interested in topic X will help shape any blog post designed to engage them.

Step 3, Ask away

After you have defined a profile and found people who fit that profile. I encourage you to reach out and contact these people. Be completely open and honest, and if you can offer them a gift for their valuable time. See if they would be willing to answer a quick survey in which they discuss what types of content they would like to see, what sites they spend their time on, and what other blogs they read.

This has multiple benefits, as not only does it give you the chance to establish a relationship with the other bloggers in the space; but it also gets first hand market research and valuable information about what topics, sites, and content is important to the people you are looking to communicate to.

After these three steps you should have a very clear idea of who your audience is, and data that backs it up. This data and information should be woven into every step of your strategy. Write every post with these initial findings in mind.