Ball-Bearing Blogs Go “Swoosh”!

“Hula Hoop was the granddaddy of all fads,” says the V.P. of marketing for Wham-O, the company that in 1958, its first year in business, sold more than one Hula Hoop for every two Americans alive at the time.  Fad’s the right description  for that early rush of success, because sales of Hula Hoops plummeted so rapidly from there, Wham-O took them completely off the market until 1965.

Chapter Two, The Comeback, began in 1965 and is still happening, and this is the chapter of Hula Hoop’s history most interesting to me as a professional blogger.  Wham-O’s co-founders came up with a new twist, inserting ball bearings into Hoola Hoop cylinders to make a “swoosh” sound.  Interest in the toy revived, and the toy was back in production.  This week, as we ring in the New Year, it will be Hula Hoop’s 51st anniversary.

Blogging for business is enjoying its own heyday just now.  Blogging maven Terry Philpott comments that blogs have evolved into low-cost advertising and marketing platforms that no business can afford to ignore.  Millions of blog posts enter the blogosphere day in, day out, begging the question of whether, one day, blogging will be relegated to the ranks of marketing “fad-dom”.

That’s not likely to happen any time soon, is my take.  But, just as with Hula Hoop, inserting new “ball bearings” will be what keeps business blogging in the “now”.  Search engine rankings reward recency, a.k.a. new content.  That, by the way, is the key reason traditional websites just can’t compete with corporate blogging, according to Chris Baggott of Compendium Blogware.  New information, new commentary, new insights, new stories – those are all ball bearings for blogs.

Happy 51st, Hula Hoop!  We bloggers plan to be around quite awhile ourselves!