Chris Brogan is a well-known social media speaker and consultant. You may have seen him in the "Nuts and Bolts of Social Media" series interviews he did with Deb Orton. (Scroll down past the clip of the goofy-looking guy in glasses.) He's also an amazingly prolific blogger, sometimes posting several times a day at www.chrisbrogan.com. The fact that his blog perennially ranks at or near the top of the AdAge Power 150 list of influential marketing blogs, and the fact that he has a large and loyal following, shows he's learned a thing or to about how to blog.

The great thing is, he shares a lot of what he's learned. In a recent post called, "A Simple Blogging Formula," he gives some insight to his process that will be helpful to anyone who struggles to do whatever the digital equivalent is of putting pen to paper.

His first tip is, "Decide what the post should do for you." Are you looking to attract business? To start a conversation? To promote someone else? This is great advice that hearkens back to one of the fundamentals of all enterprise social media activity: You need to have a goal in mind before you start, and that goal has to tie back to your existing business objectives.

For some more tips, check out the list that Alison Bolen and I created a while back, "Nine easy ways to write a blog post."

photo by CFariello