Setting your blog apart..

I was glancing through some books at our local book store earlier and read a quote that got me thinking. The author said " The last thing the internet needs is another corporate blog, but it needs a great blog from you".

I got to wondering, is blog marketing the new wave of Buzz marketing. I mean, its been apart of it for a while, but it seems as though, its now the best tool available to create a buzz about your company on the internet. While it requires a helathy amount of SEO, readers subscribe because they like what you have to say. My boss thinks that if we throw a lot of money at advertising our blog, we will get readers, i disagree as i feel most of you all will too. If we throw money at the blog and get it well circulated, we will get good traffic. Well, at least once. If the blog says nothing new or nothing of interest, it will simply be checked out then ignored. The users that initially see it will find no reason to visit it again.

So im sitting here at my desk, browsing my competitors websites, random google searches and other industry related blogs and trying to think of ways to set my blog apart from the industry. Im trying to think of interesting things that people in the automotive industry would like to read about. But its like building a Honda Civic for a car show, what can you do that hasnt been done. Seriously, there have been no new ideas in hundreds of years, just improvements on existing ideas. Ever heard the expression "The best thing since sliced bread"? Breads been around for years, knives have been around years. It just took someone putting the two together to start a craze.

With that said, my intitial thoughts for my blog were to post a different readers car everyday along with a spec sheet. My readers love to look at pics of customized cars, while google will pick up on the spec sheet (my keywords). Simple enough. Or is it?

Now ive made a post asking for readers to submit their automotive related articles so that i can post them. Afterall, who doesnt like seeing their work published? Once again, im trying to get my subscribers to do my work for me.

I also post up blogs about our project cars and such because i know people like to read about things being done to cars that havent (and in some cases, shouldnt) be done to cars before.

Those are the 3 basic concepts for my blog. I know i only started my blog in May, and i didnt really start trying to maximize its potential until a month ago, but the 5k hits a month im getting just isnt enough for me. There are blogs out there with more daily subscribers than that.

I guess my question isnt so much as a question as it is a topic for discussion. Am i on the right track? What can i add or do differently? Is this blogging thing a waste of my time? I know there is a thread about blog plug ins already, but im more interested in keeping the blog pretty simple, yet interesting.

What have you guys found to work to get your blog read?

Sorry for the long post, it was going somewhere but my brain is a little scattered today and i just thought this would be a good topic for discussion.

Justin