They sure bother me.
You what SWAG is, right? It’s Stuff We All Get. All the cheap branded junk from the job fairs and marketing conventions of the world: fluorescent pens, calendar magnets, carabiner keychains. Baseball caps with corporate logos you’d never wear but keep anyway.
A SWAG blog is a blog that churns out tons of content but provides little value over a long time. So maybe at first you’re sucked into its helpful advice or vernacular charm, but after awhile you realize you’re reading the same stuff, different day.
How to Spot a SWAG Blog
Most SWAG blogs are ones that insist they know how to make you the next internet marketing superstar.
They suck you in with their too-good-to-be-true headlines, then proceed to assimilate your creativity with all the great marketing advice you could ever need, and then some.
Before you know it, all that’s left is your craving for SWAG blog “magnetic content” and the daily offerings of praise and worship you leave in their comments.
In other words: No cool blog for you, no book deal, no speaking gigs. Not even a non-spam comment.
Don’t Forget to Graduate
The funny thing is that many SWAG blogs are actually very popular and, believe it or not, pretty darn helpful.
But the way I see it, reading them all the time just because they’re highly regarded is like going to Harvard for 20 years—how much education do you really need to go out and conquer the world?
Here’s what you should do: when you’ve learned your 7 Ways to Engage Your Audience with Video and memorized your 10 Golden Rules of Customer-Centric Copy, cut the line. Graduate yourself and get a job—working on your own blog, of course.
SWAG blogs are a nuisance. I say thanks, but no thanks. I’d rather be talking to you right now than learning how to talk to you never.
Photo copyrighted by Rick Pascale. Racing greyhound prints are available, call 602-918-8383.