Owner: Better Business Blogging URL:http://www.betterbusinessblogging.com Join Date: Tue, 05 Jun 2007 17:48:22 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: Everything a business needs to set up, develop and market a successful business blog. Also available a free ecoure on Business Blogging Site statistics:Click here
How 6 organisation types use the blogosphere 2007-08-01 17:55:17 Anyone working with organisations on corporate blogging will have noticed the different ways in which they approach the medium, ranging from indifference, to dipping their toe politely in the blogosphere’s water or jumping in with both feet in the hope of making as big a splash as possible.
As I look around, I also see organisations using the blogosphere in different ways - some content to be passive observers and use blogs primarily for research, while others making use of their full potential and developing their own ‘community’ around their own corporate blog.
Here are some of the organisation types
that I’ve identified and the way they approach blogs and the blogosphere - no doubt there are more, but these are some that I have come across.
The Sleeper
This is an organisation which is aware of what business blogs are but decides not to participate at all in the blogosphere. This could simply be because it doesn’t see a need to do so and is content with usin
Comments - Noise - Common Sense - Good Practice 2007-08-07 17:30:44 A second post about Sony and their Playstation blog so soon after my blog review post on the two Sony blogs, I hear you cry? Well, yes, but it’s a great example of dealing with a situation that has arisen on the blog, so I just had to. (And no, I’m not angling for a free game!)
As you might expect, Sony’s Playstation blog has been attracting a lot of comments, a situation that most of us no doubt view with a tinge of envy. However, it seems that a lot of the comments have been rather too off topic and the “noise” factor has been deafening, drowning out relevant comments on the posts. Effectively it’s been creating a free for all ‘bulletin board’ type of feel which isn’t great in a blog environment.
Following a number of requests from their readers, Sony have decided to take steps to reduce this, and they announced what they were intending to do about it in a post from Patrick Seybold which stated:
Since we launched the blog we have Read more:Comments
, Noise
, Common
, Sense
, Practice
, Common Sense
Sshhhh … just listen for a while … 2007-08-23 17:55:15 As I have been catching up on some reading over the past few days and browsing through links in the articles as is my wont, I found a nice reference by Roy Greenslade in the Guardian Unlimited to an Oslo based blogger called Kristine Lowe.
In her post earlier this month regarding Andrew Keen’s book, there was a sentence which I felt summed up not only a really important aspect of my own attitude to blogs but also a sound piece of advice to both companies and individuals using the blogosphere, whether they are bloggers themselves or not.
If the blogosphere has taught me one thing, it is to become a better listener: I love letting the links of blogs I trust or appreciate take me into unknown territory – introduce me to new and interesting takes, angles, voices…
Yes indeed.
Although important from a personal point of view, it’s also a key element from a business perspective and you may remember that “The Onlooker” (or “The Listener“) was one
Help people to want to read your Blog 2007-08-22 17:55:01 There is a lot of talk about what you write on your blog being all important … and of course it is! The title of your posts should entice people
to read the post itself and the content itself will do a lot of the work in determining if your blog finds its way into the RSS reader, the favourites file or the proverbial dustbin.
However, it’s also important to make sure that the look and feel of your blog (including the individual posts) support and promote the information you’re providing. It’s just like when you’re selling a house - you make sure that you do a “House Doctor” on it and present it in a way that will appeal to potential buyers. It doesn’t actually change the physical structure but it does show it off to best effect. We can do the same with a blog and influence the way in which people react to it as well as how they take on board what we are writing about.
Make your Blog stand out from the crowd
So, the way your blog is present
Two mini series coming your way 2007-08-21 10:20:30 Firstly, a thousand apologies for being a little quiet of late - I wish that I could blame it on a long summer break but alas it’s been a case of catching up on work having over stretched myself over the past weeks on a number of fronts. I guess there’s always a balancing act in managing all the elements of running a small business world and sometimes the seesaw just tips too far one way or the other.
I’ve also been taking the time to catch up on some reading as well as planning some of the elements that I want to write about here. So I thought that I would share those with you.
In amongst the other posts, there will be two short series
over the coming weeks focusing on Specific small business uses for Blogs and also on RSS.
Specifically, for the Small Business series, I’ll be trying to look at:
Blog websites rather than simple blogs for small businesses
Blogs as a Search engine optimisation aid for local search
Blogs complementing a small business’s onli
Who should write my Business Blog? 2007-08-27 17:55:40 Ask the Blog Coach: Business
Blogging FAQs
Question: Who should be the main author of a corporate blog? Should it always be the MD or CEO?
The Blog Coach’s Reply: Firstly, it’s important to stress that, even in corporate blogs, whoever does the writing, it needs to retain a personal tone and not drift towards corporate “marketing speak”. This personal aspect is one of the key business benefits that blogs offer. A personal writing style helps companies to put a human perspective on an often austere external corporate image and differentiate themselves by doing so. This is particularly effective for Professional Services companies where a key selling point has to be the people (as well as their expertise) carrying out the work – a corporate site can state their qualifications but, unlike a blog, cannot give an insight as to who the people really are.
Should only CEOs blog?
As for whether CEOs should always blog – no, not at all. I would certainly not recommend
Wordpress 2.3, Tagging and SEO 2007-09-25 17:53:50 Should you be looking at upgrading? Well, Wordpress
is maintaining quite a rhythm of late in terms of new releases - these can often be time consuming if you are trying to maintain several blogs with up to date software as I am for the people I work with. However, I digress … as ever!
Wordpress 2.3 Overview
This version does seem, however, to be well worth the time and effort. From a purely business perspective, there are a number of elements in this latest version which are of particular interest to me, primarily the canonical URLs and tagging elements which I’ll explain in more detail below. But let’s a have a quick recap of all the new things going on first.
The main additions in Wordpress 2.3 are:
Tagging
: native tagging as they call it which includes tagging in the main software rather than relying on 3rd party plugins (see below)
Wordpress and plugin updates: lets you know when there are updates available either of the main Wordpress software or of the plugins th Read more:SEO
Walls, Balloons and Blogs 2007-09-23 17:45:43 Another nice piece from Seth Godin last week where he talked about his Seven tips to build for meaning and where he briefly (comme toujours!) talked about some tactical tips about how to add value online.
One of them particularly struck a chord with me. Seth’s comment was:
It’s a brick wall, not a balloon. This is a hard one for many people. We try to build something quickly and get it totally complete all in one go. If we can’t, we get frustrated and give up. But great blogs and lenses are built brick by brick, a little at a time. You learn what works and do it more.
I liked the analogy and particularly in terms of the building of the brick wall.
I find that it can sometimes be difficult for companies when they launch a blog - whether they are launching a business blog or a full blown corporate blog, I get the impression that they have a nagging feeling in the back of their mind that somehow it’s not really finished.
When a website is launched, it should have e Read more:Walls
, Balloons
, Blogs
What makes a successful corporate blog? 2007-09-19 17:30:25 I guess that this is probably the key question for any organisation looking to create their own corporate
blog. My answer: one which fulfils the purpose that it was created for.
This may sound evasive - a “cop out” if you like - and I suppose that, in a sense, it is. However, with so many different types of corporate blog, it’s simply not possible to give a single definitive blueprint for creating one.
For example, the style and goals for a so-called CEO blog are going to be very different from one designed as a product blog. Likewise a corporate blog which brings together a community of users and developers for market research or product development, will have a very different definition of “successful” from an “expert blog” written by a specialist lawyer looking to directly improve his/her profile and reputation.
However, what they will have in common is likely to be a clear set of objectives, albeit all different, which they are focused on achievin Read more:makes
Are bloggers important to retailers? Absolutely! 2007-09-17 17:51:09 Well, clearly Amazon believes that they have an important role to play in guiding potential customers to their site. They have just launched a series of widgets that bloggers
and online social network users will be able to use, primarily as part of Amazon’s affiliate program.
And just why is this avenue so important to retail organisations? The reason is that the personal recommendation is a powerful tool for retailers
- in fact probably THE most important one they have if used correctly. Quite simply, we all rely very heavily on the opinion of friends or colleagues that we trust when making a buying decision.
Online word of mouth, as I mentioned in Blogs, Peer Review and the Retail Market, holds enormous sway with customers and is going to be increasingly important. This is primarily down to the massive increase in the levels of online communication via blogs and social networks. But, importantly, this is not only the case with the so called Generation Y but with people of all a Read more:Absolutely
Blogs, Peer Review and the Retail market 2007-09-09 16:10:07 How many times have you been in a position where you are looking to buy something and yet are faced with an enormous choice of seemingly similar products. What’s the first thing that you think of doing? If you’re like me, you’ll either do a search on the internet, get someone else’s opinion … or do both at once.
If that’s your chosen route to “product enlightenment” then you’re not alone and it seems that the “both at once” option is becoming ever more common with customers’ opinions on the internet being a key factor in the decision making process. One recent survey targeting Generation Y (also known as the “yoof of today” in common parlance) reported that some 67% say that they use online reviews as a way of deciding what to buy, with 21% specifically stating that they have used blogs to help them make buying decisions.
However, this type of reaction is not restricted to the younger generation. We all trust the opin Read more:Blogs
, Retail
Researching business blog topics - use Google Alerts 2007-09-07 15:25:10 I’m a great fan of RSS and all that it can do and I use it on a daily basis both to keep me up to date on a range of business topics
that I’m interested in and also for writing my blog. However, I’m also realistic enough to know that RSS use by publishers is still relatively hit and miss, and so if I want to keep abreast of all information being published on the web, then I need to be looking at other tools as well.
Enter Google
Alerts. A great research tool and free to boot which can really help you with your blog posts, either to add additional reference sources to a topic that you have already written about or indeed to help you if you are searching for ideas of new topics to write about.
It’s very easy to set up - just head along to Google Alerts and select the search terms that you are interested in. If you like, you can select new entries just from Google News, Google Search, Google Blogs or Google Groups, but by far the best option is the comprehensive se
Post titles - who are they for? 2007-09-04 17:50:41 As you sit down to pen your next post, you’ll probably already have a clear idea of what you want to communicate and how you want to go about getting that message across. Nevertheless, unless you can entice people to read what you’ve written, then all of your hard work will have been in vain. So take care with the title you use for the post as it plays a key role in that process.
Why are Post Titles important?
Well, they’re important in the same way that a newspaper headline is - they attract our attention, offer an insight or a “teaser” as to what the post contains and hopefully encourage us to read the full article. We have a huge amount of information presented to us every day, and so it’s really important to grab people’s attention in the short space of time that we have before they move on to something else. It the case of our blogs, we generally only have the post title at our disposal to achieve this.
However, there is an added complication.
5 ‘R’s of Business Blogging - a Summary 2007-09-03 17:45:41 When it comes to BusinessBlogging
, there are 5 ‘R’s which we should focus our attention on if we want to create a successful and sustainable small business or corporate blog. Our aim should be to put all the necessary elements in place on our Blog to allow these 5 ‘R’s to happen as smoothly and automatically as possible. When we manage this, we’ll have created a Blog which fulfils both our readers’ requirements and our own business needs.
These 5 R’s are:
Read - Reply - Return - Recommend - RSS
Simply put, we need to create and maintain a Blog which in the first instance will attract readers and then encourage them to participate by commenting on our posts or contacting us directly. We then need to make sure that it provides sufficient value or creates enough interest to make them return and become regular readers as well as recommend our Blog to others. The 5th ‘R’ of RSS underpins all of the others by supporting the distribution and the promotion of the blog.
If w Read more:Summary
Blogs and HR: which HR manager is right? 2007-09-28 13:26:44 I was interested to see two opposing views expressed recently in Personnel Today of whether blogs and social media were of use in general and particularly whether they had a role to play in the area of company HR (Human Resources).
On the one hand, there is the take that blogs and social network sites are nothing more than gimmicks and toys used by the younger generation and for time wasting by chatting with friends. The other view is that they are tools which have real potential to help HR manager
s in their work by improving internal communications and employee engagement, as well as changing how recruitment is carried out.
As you might imagine, I am hardly an unbiased observer but I will try to give an objective overview of the value of blogs and social networks here.
Using online Social Networks
When we consider “social networks”, there is a range of different ones that we need to consider. These vary from primarily social to business social and through to purely busine Read more:Blogs
Who’s visiting your Blog? Browsers, Searchers and Subscribers 2007-10-08 16:45:35 When visitors arrive on your business blog, you need to make sure that they can explore it in the way that suits them, at least as far as possible, so that they can get the most out of their visit. To do so, you have to try to preempt their requirements and their habits.
If we look to group visitors by the way that they are likely to want to explore your blog, then I think that they will fall into browsers, searchers and subscribers. To help them locate information and articles on your blog which will interest them, you should aim to cater for all of these groups and offer them methods to look through your blog which suits their requirements.
Browsers
As the name indicates, browsers are generally not looking for something specific when they arrive at your blog. Instead, they are simply following links from other blogs (from an article or perhaps via a Blogroll) to see where it takes them and whether anything appears interesting or catches their eye.
Once on your blog, browsers will g Read more:Searchers
, Subscribers
Books, media and blogs (using blogs to promote books) 2007-10-02 08:00:15 Over the weekend, I popped into Waterstones book shop in Richmond – a frequent haunt in the days before Amazon and still a favourite one. On this occasion, rather than my normal top floor seat in the business and foreign language section, I had to be content with the ground floor (baby + pram + no lift = ground floor) and so spent a few moments looking through the books on the current Best Sellers lists.
There were some authors there that I recognised, and a number that I did not. What I certainly did spot was the number of books which were connected in some way either to either TV programmes or films currently on at the cinema. Jamie Oliver at Home was at the top of the hardback list while Atonement sat astride the paperback list with Nigella Lawson, The Bourne Ultimatum and Michael Palin’s New Europe all making top 10 appearances. Now, good as they may be, one thing is certain. Without the publicity afforded by the TV shows or cinema appearances, these books would never have Read more:media
To sell on your blog, be like the Sun 2007-10-16 17:00:15
Can we use blogs for selling? I’m often asked this question and I’ve also seen a bit of a debate going on around the blogosphere about it of late, so here’s my take on it.
For me, it depends totally on what you interpret as “selling”. According to what your response to that is, then my answer will range from “absolutely not” to “yes, of course, that’s the whole reason for having a business blog”. Basically, anywhere from zero to ‘off the scale’.
Not too much help as yet, I know.
To help explain how I think selling should be done on a blog, I’d like to tell you a story – a fable from Aesop called “The North Wind and the Sun”. It goes something like this:
The North Wind and the Sun disputed as to which was the most powerful, and agreed that he should be declared the victor who could first strip a wayfaring man of his clothes. The North Wind first tried his power and blew with all his might, but the keener his blasts, the c
What could and should appear in blog sidebars 2007-10-15 17:41:39 When it comes to business blogs, our day to day focus is what goes on in the middle of the screen, the place where we write and display the posts for our readers. That’s where our effort goes and rightly so.
Nevertheless, there is more to a successful business blog than just the writing. The blog will have a business aim and we need to both maintain and direct our readers’ interest according to what our business aims are. The blog posts will do some of this but a lot of the activity will also go on in the sidebars and the header of a blog. Some of these will be to add additional life to the blog, others will help them navigate the posts of the pages of a blog and others will highlight certain aspects that we want to encourage them to look at.
There are lots of different options that we have to choose from (and space is after all limited) but here are some ideas which you might like to consider as you develop your blog:
Contact Details: could be on a separate page linked to Read more:appear
Where to find business blogs (and where to get yours found!) 2007-10-18 11:35:58 When starting a blog of our own or one for our company, hopefully we take time to plan out the content and look at what we want the blog to achieve for us and perhaps follow a process such as the one I advocated in the Green Cross Code of Blogging.
One of the key parts in this process is the “look and listen” phase. This is when you take time out to research what is already going on and what is being discussed around the blogosphere in your industry or area. By following other blogs which address the same subject areas as your own, you should get a better feel for some key elements which will help you with your own blog, such as:
what others are writing about
what conversations are ongoing,
what topics are already being covered and by whom
who the main players are
which are the key blogs to read and be seen on
ideas on how to present your own blog
But of course first of all, we have to find them!
So what are the best places to find what blogs are already out there in th
11 ways to sink your corporate blog, Titanic style 2007-10-22 03:00:08 Companies are discovering the benefits of communicating with customers through corporate
blogs, and are setting them up in ever greater numbers. There are many places now where you can find help in setting up and developing successful blogs - indeed I hope that Better Business Blogging is one of them! However, I have found a dearth of places with practical information on sinking a blog, although the blogosphere seems to be littered with real life examples of dead or dying blogs.
So I decided that it would be good to post some pointers to help those determined to professionally sink their blog. These have been tried and tested by some of the most expert blog “scuttlers” around so, with pens and keyboard at the ready and without further ado, I give you:
1. Don’t focus on any one subject area: keep your readers on their toes by switching between posts on “Thermal Dynamics” and who is likely to win “The X Factor” or “American Idol”. Maintain Read more:Titanic
Blogging in the News - 20 October 2007-10-20 15:53:33 Some articles which have appeared in the UK online press over the past week which looks at blogging (primarily business blogging) and its uses. If you find any good articles that could be highlighted here, then please post the links below or send them to me directly at mark[at]betterbusinessblogging[dot]com and I’ll do the rest.
Thousands of bloggers unite in blitz of green tipsThe Blog action Day on the 15th October
seems to have been a success with thousands of bloggers participating and raising awareness on climate change and environmental issues.
Going the Whole Blog: The Benefits of Social NetworkingJackie Cameron explaining why blogging and social networking work so well together for her and in her work. Nice personal account.
Newlyn processor joins seafood ‘bloggers’Another sector looks at blogging for a range of different uses - and it’s good to see a sector such as this trying blogging. As the article states, “It’s a great example of using mod Read more:Blogging
Apologies for absence 2007-11-01 16:37:33 A short apology for my absence
from the blog over the last 10 days or so which has been caused by a mixture of work pressures and family pressures - it’s one of those times when you wish that you had a few posts already written which you can schedule in on occasions such as this. I must add that to my list of suggestions and my own to do list I think!
I hope to be back into the groove at the weekend and have a series covering RSS nearly ready to go which I hope you’ll find interesting. It won’t be technical as I’m no techie myself, but hopefully will give some thoughts on how we can best benefit from it, both as publishers and as subscribers.
Until then, thanks you all of your continued support - I very much appreciate it.
Was this post useful? Then please share it!
Google and UK Blog Search Results 2007-11-06 15:11:30 Getting your blog indexed by Search
Engines is relatively easy - you write, get linked to and the Search Engines follow the links and find you. Et voila! However, for most bloggers, ranking highly is more important and doing so on Google
in particular - for some it’s for bragging rights ("egosurfing' and the like) but, for business bloggers, it is for commercial reasons. Let's be honest, getting found means more potential readers and so more potential customers.
However, although we tend to use Google in the singular, there are many different Google search results for the same phrase, the primary factor being where you are searching from.
We know that Google operates Google.com as the global search engine and then a large number of individual country search engines, the UK one, for example, sitting at www.google.co.uk. The results at Google.com and Google.co.uk vary quite markedly with more relevance given to sites which are country specific in the google.co.uk results. Read more:Blog Search
"Ello "ello "ello - EU looks to police fake blogs 2007-11-05 16:10:24 Last year, there was lots of talk about fake blogs (aka "flogs") and one or two notables ("Walmarting across America" and "All I want for Xmas is a PSP" particularly come to mind) which rose up above the flog mediocrity to be truly awful. There were also some high profile companies amongst them and both they and the marketing companies which initiated them on their behalf were roundly berated by the blogosphere as a whole, and the blogs (or should I say flogs) quickly closed down and withdrawn.
Generally this is the way that the blogosphere has policed its own. However, in Europe, as from the start of next year, the courts are lending a hand as a new EU directive comes into play which would make this type of activity punishable by law as reported in The Times early this year and The Register more recently.
In fact, the Directive is not specifically designed for blogs, fake or otherwise. It casts its net much wider than this and is concerned generally with media where someon
How many people does it take to develop a great blog? 2007-11-08 09:48:04 Do you run your own business blog? Then you are amazing, absolutely A M A Z I N G !
Why's that I hear you cry? Well, just think about all the different activities that go into develop
ing and maintaining a successful business blog. Larger companies will probably have a small team working on their blog or blogs but you have to run it all on your own. And you manage to do it … usually without even realising all the things you are doing automatically and the different hats that you're wearing.
But if we break it down, it's really quite impressive!
Researcher: keeping an eye on the RSS feeds and Google Alerts can help speed up your research as you plan and build your own posts. Phew - a full time job in itself.
Writer: right at the centre of everything, there’s the writer in you who actually puts pen to paper and without whom you just don’t have a blog!
Storyteller: no, not in the sense of “telling lies”. Shame on you. People love stories so if you can con Read more:people
Ladder of Goodwill for blogs 2007-11-20 15:10:01 Unless we are in a very fortunate position, then when we start a business blog we are likely to be faced with the challenge of how to attract visitors to it, how to encourage them to become readers and then how to build their trust and confidence in us and our blog over time.
This comes through building, developing and of course maintaining a relationship with our blog readers and it’s a process that I’ve been trying to represent visually for a while. Recently, I came across something that I feel comes very close while flicking through some books at home and one in particular called “How to Succeed as an Independent Consultant” which is written by Timothy RV Foster.
In it, I found a diagram and section entitled the ‘Ladder
of Goodwill’ which the author had developed to explain the developing relationship a supplier has with its clients. The various rungs on the ladder were described as ranging from ‘Nowhere’ at the start where a customer has no knowl
Visualising your Blog Planning 2007-11-19 16:08:05 As you may well have gathered, I’m a great advocate of planning your business blog before you set out and actually write it. It’s also good to keep that development going so that you can keep track of the different subject strands you are working with and allow you to expand them further.
Previously, I’d always done this with pen and paper but have recently started to try something again that I first dabbled with a number of years ago as a student - and no, this is not going to be a politician-like cannabis related admission!
What I’m actually referring to are mindmaps. They work really well in helping to develop different subject areas as well as extending the boundaries of what your blog could be doing for you - all without losing track of the key elements that you want to concentrate on and that your audience is looking for.
Granted they are not for everyone but for someone like myself, who is very visually focused, they are an excellent way to visually rep
Keyword Phrases and help to find them 2007-11-27 07:50:25 I should say right from the start that you should always write first and foremost for your readers - that’s Rule #1 when it comes to creating a successful blog.
Nevertheless, we shouldn’t forget that a blog is also an important tool in helping our positioning and Search Engine ranking for keyword phrases which are important to us and our business. These may be ones which cover central themes in our blog and our business activities, or they could be targeting areas that we would like to benefit from as part of the “Long Tail” effect that blogs are excellently positioned for.
The key first step is identifying the right keyword phrases is going to be key to our efforts to get better rankings through Search Engine Optimisation. This will allow us to focus our articles at areas which we know will appeal both to our readers and to the Search Engines at the same time. It can also help to achieve a more comprehensive coverage in our chosen area by identifying keyword p Read more:Keyword
, Phrases
Blogging in the News - 25 Nov 2007-11-25 10:28:18 Some articles which have appeared in the UK online press over the past week which looks at blogging (primarily business blogging) and its uses. If you find any good articles that could be highlighted here, then please post the links below or send them to me directly at mark[at]betterbusinessblogging[dot]com and I’ll do the rest.
Thousands of bloggers unite in blitz of green tipsThe Blog action Day on the 15th October seems to have been a success with thousands of bloggers participating and raising awareness on climate change and environmental issues.
Should blogging be on your marketing to-do list?I think we know that the answer is yes, but this is a nice gentle introduction to one aspect of how blogs can be used while recognising the range of opportunities they offer.
B2B journalists turn to blogs for infoAnother insight into how journalists view blogs and whether they are using then and the information they offer to best effect.
Blogs give business a global reachWhile I really Read more:Blogging
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