It’s odd the connections we make on the Blogosphere.  Cary of Cancer NewsWatch pinged us while we were guest blogging for Darren. As often happens we became blog buddies. His wife Lori has cancer.  She also has a blog—Too sexy for my hair- a young woman’s cancer blog. Please read her story.

Does this post sound a bit strange to you on a business blog? We talk about building community online. We talk about building relationships through blogs. This isn’t your typical BusinessBlogConsulting post.  This isn’t about business at all.  It’s about being human, it’s about doing what we can as people who when others need our help.

Lori and Cary are going through some especially hard times right now. They need the support of their online friends.

What can we do?  We can do a lot.  We can show what “community”
really means. Online or offline. We can subscribe to Lori’s and Cary’s
blogs.  We can read them.  We can click ad links.  We can lend
expertise.  We can support them. 

We may not be able to bring them brownies, or a lasagna, but as
virtual neighbors we can stop by for a visit and leave a supportive
comment.  By the way, Cary and Lori did not ask us to write this post.
We just felt it was the right thing to do.

Remember the line, oft used in superhero movies, "with great power
comes great responsibility"? This is our way of trying to help.

Signed Tris & Toby

First, thanks to Rick and to Paul for their vision in giving us a playground to talk, debate and exchange ideas regarding issues that impact our emerging new industry. And thanks for the invite to join in on the conversation.

Recently there’s been a buzz about Techorati and their search
algorithms. Just for fun I played around with a post I did yesterday on ValueClick and FastClick. Nope never made it on to their page. Noticed that my pal Dana at Pheedo, who wrote about the same topic, was listed.

Just for more fun I ran a couple of quick searches:

IceRocket picked up both Pheedo and Diva Marketing’s posts. In fact, Diva Marketing was noted before Pheedo altho Dana posted earlier.

Yahoo (beta) linked to Diva Marketing on page 1 but 5 pages in couldn’t find Pheedo.

Feedster didn’t want to play with either Pheedo or Diva Marketing.

BlogPulse didn’t link to either post.

Lesson Learned: Technorati is loosing credibility by the second while IceRocket is gaining in the search blog space.

"So I heard you were the guy that could tell me about a Blog? So what is the big deal anyway?".

I have been fielding these questions over and over since I began discussing with business owners and executives how blogs can be used as a tool for business promotion,  marketing, and as a communication tool for customers, employees, and prospective consumers.  I am amazed at the number of executives in companies that know nothing about the online environment.  They are stuck in the old school of business and cannot jump into the deep end of the pool.  They want to know a lot of basic information that as bloggers we take for granted. 

I think back to my first days blogging, and the deer in the headlights look I would have the minute that they began to discuss what publishing platform I was using or the latest in site meters, or spam and the tools used to combat against it.  HTML as far as I was concerned was the latest rock band like BTO or ELO or it might have been that new law firm that had opened its doors downtown.

When speaking to clients about the business of blogging, I first try to get a feel for their knowledge of the industry itself.  If I say, "What is the URL of your business site?", and I get that glazed over look, I know this will turn out to be a long meeting.  Sometimes we take for granted that this phenomena we call blogging is known by the world.  We assume the person sitting across from the table has an idea what RSS feeds are, what a podcast is, and how using cpanel to track stats is a decent way to watch over your blog.  If I have already lost you perhaps its time for your own education.

My point is to make sure that you don’t assume that the person sitting across the table from you is as passionate about blogging, and has the same education level as you do on your subject.  Many of the clients I speak to don’t want to appear uneducated about the internet, they are the leader of their business they need to appear to be knowledgeable about all aspects of the business world.  They certainly cannot admit to being ignorant about this thing called a blog.  I try to take a little time for education.  If they feel comfortable about what a blog is, they are more likely to, as I like to say, "Drink the Blog Kool-Aid".

We’re playing catch-up here in the next few days with some stories that broke a few weeks ago of interest to our readers, but since we were on hiatus for a few months, I figure some back-filling is appropriate. In case you missed it, Jason Calacanis, CEO of Weblogs Inc, announce the other day that of Google AdSense alone, the collective 100+ blogs in his commercial blog empire have reached a million-dollar annual run rate, in addition to what they’re earning from display ads.

In the most recent issue of Fast Company (August, 2005) Jory Des Jardins interviews Elizabeth Albrycht and Andy Lark in a small piece called Business Blogging for Beginners.

The conceit is that creating a business blog is like hosting a cocktail party. Based on the amount of navel gazing that goes on in the blogosphere, the metaphor is helpful.

The advice isn’t about what platform to use, or pinging, or marketing your blog, but rather good, basic advice on how to improve your blog, all couched in the cocktail party metaphor: "a good hosts connects guests…be authentic…dress business casual…."

I also liked Lark’s term "blinking": posts of snippets of commentary with links. Hadn’t heard that one before.

When noted offline direct mail copywriter and author Bob Bly launched his blog about 6 months ago, I felt that business blogging had indeed tipped (A nod to Malcolm Gladwell’s popular book, the Tipping Point).

Now, even the most cynical holdouts have more proof that blogs mean business. Forbes.com recently released the annual "Best of the Web" issue and the feature story was titled "Blogs That Matter."

From the Forbes article: In this Summer 2005 edition of Forbes.com Best of The Web, our editors have trained their sights on the rapidly expanding world of blogs, collectively known as the "blogosphere."

Editors from Forbes spanned the blogosphere and unearthed 6-10 favorite picks in 20 categories ranging from Art and Literary Blogs, to Small Business, Marketing, Shopping and Music Blogs. Each blog was given a brief review and a quick what’s best and worst about the blog blurb. The collective list, totaling 100 blogs, is a virtual road map of the established blogging landscape. Without a doubt, there are omissions of deserving blogs in every category but, as a tool to advance the spread of business blogging, they have done the blog world a good deed.

Blogging longevity and previous blog notoriety seemed to score high marks in the selection process as a scan of the winners turned up many very established blogs. But, every category also seemed to possess one or two little-known titles. (At least little-known to me)

A scan of winners in the technology category, for instance, gives us a list that likely already appears in many a blogger’s RSS reader, mixed with one or two new finds.

• Slashdot
• BoingBoing
• Engadget   
• Gizmodo   
• Kuro5hin       
• Lifehacker       
• O’Reilly Network       
• Think Secret

       
The Forbes name carries with it some major credibility for the world of blogging and I, for one, can attest to the fact that this type of mainstream media exposure for business blogs is advancing the form and function of blogging at an increasingly rapid pace.

Everyone likes to wax poetic about the million reasons why a business should get into blogging, and why a weblog is the cornerstone of a smart Web site. Heck, even I’m not immune, I’ve been writing – and lecturing – about this for years now.

But sometimes, truth be told, there are businesses that shouldn’t be blogging, and there are people in businesses who shouldn’t be writing entries for the company weblog, and even specific topics that just are not appropriate for a corporate weblog. Let’s have a look, shall we?

First off, let’s agree that the goal of a good business blog is to raise your visibility in your customer community or market segment, to increase your credibility as an expert and to humanize your company and present yourself in the best possible light. Reasonable?

Are you a gardener? You could blog about taking care of gardens, flowers, plants, fertilization, smart techniques for mowing lawns, winterization, etc. A funeral director? Oh, that’s an industry rife with con artists and shady businesses, so talking about funerals and how to ensure that you have the death ceremony you want would be a terrific weblog subject. Maybe you’re the gal who drives the ice cream truck around the neighborhood? Write about children, play, and the changes in our society you can see as you get a unique glimpse into children, parents, and guardians (not to mention children’s manners!)

So, seemingly, there’s not a business you could be in where a blog wouldn’t help you gain visibility and credibility. But there is an assumption in what I’m saying here: that there’s a story and that you can figure out how to tell it online.

Imagine two opticians. One says “I take care of eyes. There’s lots of medical info on eyes out there, so my Web site will be a digital brochure, and that’s good enough for me” while the other says “I get the same questions from every patient, and there’s so much confusing information online, I’m going to try and shed some light on eye care and eye health by writing about it. But not with a newsletter, how 90s!, but with a blog.”

Now, a slight aside: I believe that the future of business is findability, and if your business doesn’t appear when your potential customer looks for you online, you’ll eventually wither and die. Given that, you can guess which optician I think is going to be more successful in 24 months.

Let’s be frank, though. The first optician above should not blog. They aren’t going to be engaged, interesting, or informative, and they’ll find that the exercise of setting up a weblog and having a blank “input box” staring at them each morning will be more than they can handle, and they won’t stick to it and work on their blog for at least six months before they ask “am I getting results?” Better for them not to start at all.

I actually encounter a lot of businesses that have this philosophy, what I call the “let the customer come to me” approach to business. They’ll pay for an 800 number, they’ll print up a newsletter, but the level of their engagement with their market is fairly minimal. Many of them are also hourly professionals — think psychologists, acupuncturists and massage therapists, for example — and their response is “I’m already booked, why would i want more customers?”

If their goal is to fill up their appointment calendar, then they’re right, and they certainly shouldn’t blog or, perhaps, even have a Web site at all.

But what if they could be selling their expertise rather than their hours? What if they could be blogging about their profession and upselling high quality, professional ebooks that cost them time + $500 to produce, and net them $25k annually? That’s a smarter way to look at these professions, isn’t it?

Being completely honest, there are also people who lack coherent writing skills. They may be delightful in person, but put them in front of a computer (or a podcasting mic) and they freeze up, become dreadfully boring, or simply have nothing interesting to say. That’s a real problem, and is one of the rarely mentioned downsides of the entire blogosphere. Put frankly, most bloggers stink as writers. If your company has these sort of communicators, keep ’em far away from your blog! After all, it’s more trouble, more cost and certainly more ineffective to have a boring, dull, tedious blog than to just have a regular old “brochureware” Web site.

Finally, there are specific topics that I believe you shouldn’t blog about, even if you’re the most zealous and enthused of business bloggers. Personnel issues? Customers suing you? Spouse just ran off with someone else? Kids thrown in jail? Have a strong partisan reaction to political news? All of these are topics that should stay far, far away from any sort of business blog. (this isn’t to say that you shouldn’t blog about them, but please, keep it separate. I blog about parenting at The Attachment Parenting Blog, but it’s kept quite separate from my business weblogs The Intuitive Life Business Blog and Ask Dave Taylor, for example)

Some blog experts believe that you should follow the digital version of “let it all hang out”, writing about any and everything that strikes your fancy, but I think they’re wrong. But then again, maybe they aren’t, and maybe I’m wrong!

What do you think?

I’m pleased to announce DoubleClick’s first blog, the DART Motif Blog. It’s part of the roll-out for the new web site supporting Motif, DoubleClick’s rich media advertising platform. I’m still working on getting a business blog of my own launched around here (stay tuned), but this one is written most capably by Ari Paparo, Motif’s product manager and an experienced blogger in his own right.
 

Link

I get this question several times a week these days so I thought I would address it here.

The answer to this question is part advice, part marketing 101 soapbox speech.

So, what will a blog do for your business?

In most cases, little to nothing.

Now, before you fire off an email to ask if I’ve gone crazy, read on.

Most business folks will approach blogging like they approach every other form of marketing. Put up a blog, make a few entries and wonder why it didn’t work.

Blogs are not THE marketing tool, they are simply another marketing tool, but a very powerful one if used correctly.

Using a blog correctly for most small businesses means these things at a minimum

• Post almost daily – keep at it for months
• Answer the questions your clients ask you in your posts
• Promote the heck out of your blog online and offline
• Build a network of users and connectors around your blog
• Read and participate in other blogs almost daily
• Integrate your blog into your web site, ezine and marketing materials
• Update the non-post elements of your blog frequently

If you’ve read this far then maybe you have come to the conclusion that a blog can be a powerful part of your marketing mix and know that I unflinchingly recommend a blog for every business but, like all marketing strategies, unless you commit to using it long term to build momentum, it will be just another distraction.

First off, can I just say how stoked I am to be included in this list of blogorati? This must be how Lupus felt taking the field in The Bad News Bears.

And yes, I just said "stoked" with no intended irony.

As a supplement to a blurb in its UpFront section, BusinessWeek interviews Technorati’s David Sifry online. The print version (check your local news racks) describes him as a "serial entrepreneur"; is that a good thing or a bad thing?

In reading the beginning of the interview, it’s hard to know if Sifry is trying to kid the readers or himself. However, he finishes strong talking about the purpose and possible future of Technorati.

As has been noted elsewhere, some people are already reporting the
death of Technorati due to the upcoming competition from Google, MSN
and Yahoo into the blog search arena. Of this competition, Sifry says,

Is
it really competition?….You go to Google and type in wine, and it
will tell you the best places to buy wine. But if you really want to
find out what the world’s leading wine experts are talking about,
Google isn’t really built to do that.

Ummm…being a
bourbon drinker I’m not overly concerned about what wine experts are
saying, but I’m guessing that after a couple of Google searches I could
uncover it.

Even if what Sifry [thanks, Peter!] says is true to a degree, I find it hard to believe that Google couldn’t figure this out in about a week if they put their collective mindpower to it. Plus, they have server resources that few companies on earth could compete with. (Those companies include MSN and Yahoo.)

Near the end of the interview, Sifry talks to the mission [statement] of Technorati:

Hey we’re a Web site, [but] we also have to be providing some real value to people, because that’s what being of service is really about. And that doesn’t mean controlling or owning, because when you’re of service, you’re supporting. If you’re providing people with something that they like and that they value, with that value comes money.

B.S.? Maybe, but I bought it.

Sifry finishes up with a couple of ideas that might keep him ahead of the more established "traditional" search engines, at least for a little while. He obviously "gets it"; let’s hope this serial entrepreneur cools his heels for a little while and figures out how to continually improve an already cool service.

[Hmmm…I must be nervous. I always blog a lot when I’m nervous.]

When I first started blogging one of the first sites I latched on to was this one. On a daily basis it kept me up-to-date on trends in the blogosphere, written from the candid, often humorous perspective of its creator Rick Bruner.

When Rick announced his semi-retirement from the blog some months ago inwardly I groaned. To say that I had learned a great deal from him would be an understatement. That’s why it’s terrifically exciting to be part of this revival, or more precisely, this reinvention. Business blogging has come a long way since I first started reading this site back in early 2004. Much has changed. The medium has matured.

I believe this site will continue to provide great value to the business end of the blogosphere. Some of the greatest minds in the industry will be contributing to it regularly. As such, you will get a panoply of opinion and commentary. Yet, we will adhere to Rick’s original vision as being "directory for news and advice on business blogging."

This blog is a landmark of business blogging’s past. With this new iteration it’s my fervent belief it will continue to be an integral part of its future as well.

It seems that the higher your profile in the blogosphere, the more prone you are to attracting nasty, raw and outright rude comments, as evidenced by Robert Scoble’s recent back-and-forth with ‘Arnold’.  The profile of this has received a number of links, but angry, rude
communication is not the way to win your case (doubly so in the blogosphere). In fact, for the most
part, people will turn away and won’t even hear what you’re saying. Not something you’re shooting for on your first foray as a corporate blogger.

I think that there’s a lesson here that political candidates have already learned about bloggers and their ability to launch nasty screeds from the launchpads of their keyboards. What they’ve found in some recent face-to-face interactions with bloggers is that they’re not so mean once they come out from behind the keyboard.  In fact, they can be downright docile, and even helpful, once you’ve got them in a room together.  A once raging blogger can become an advocate and a cheeky writer can become an inquisitive, thoughtful interpreter of your message.

As ever more companies launch their own blogs into the market, the determined digital detractors and on-screen vigilantes will grow in proportion to your popularity, as evidenced by the history of high-profile blogs.  If a customer complaint is a mere gift, as purported by some, then a raging blogger vigilante could be a virtual endowment of opportunity to engage ‘the other side’ and see what your company has been missing.

Good article in Inc.com last week runs down the "Top Ten" things you should know before starting a small business blog. Author Carole Matthews did her homework. I had a great conversation with her and she also quotes Paul Chaney (now contributing to this blog) and Anita Campbell. She lists the usual cautions:

– Understand that a blog is a two-way conversation
– Know what topics are off limits
– Use keywords in your titles and posts so your blog will get found by the search engines

She also mentions a pet peeve of mine: "Yes, you do need to be able to write." That’s not to say you need to be a published author before starting a blog. Far from it. But you do need to write coherently, succinctly, interestingly. And that’s a skill you can learn by blogging, er writing, a lot. Your thoughts?? Leave us a comment below.

P.S. I learned from Carole that Inc.com has maintained a blog, Fresh Inc., since August 2003. Funny… I had never run across it.