Recently I was meeting with a couple of blogging clients and one asked me, “How do I get the most out of Technorati?”

I thought that was a great question, and worthy of a few posts. Although I’m sure there’s more than what I’ve written below, this is a good start for any one who’s interested in driving more traffic to their blog and finding like minded business bloggers. I’ve even included a couple of how-to movies.

• Technorati: Business Blogging Tools for You
• Technorati: How (and Why) to Claim Your Blog
• Create a Watchlist at Technorati (movie)
• Tagging Your Posts in TypePad (movie)

If you have any Technorati specific questions or issues leave a comment below, and I’ll try and add them to this list.

With some of the recent attention towards blog relations, there’s no question that buzz marketing through blogs and similar consumer generated media is on the rise. Blogs are many things including marketing tools for business and also voices to be heard – consumer voices that provide insight into a marketplace. Availability and ease of communications along with creative tools make consumer generated media (CGM) a force to be reckoned with.

Recently Al Gore’s Current TV announced that they are looking for consumers to create commercials for its commercial sponsors (AdJab). I think you’ll see more of that as marketers and consumers embrace the medium.

At the Search Engine Strategies conference in New York last week, Rebecca Lieb of ClickZ moderated a session including Dave Balter from BzzAgent, Pete Blackshaw from Nielsen BuzzMetrics (Intelliseek) and Jim Nail of Cymfony who presented on creating and measuring buzz using blogs and word of mouth (WOM).

Some interesting stats and insights from the session:

• According to a study by McKinsey, two thirds of the U.S. economy is influenced by word of mouth.
• 50% of negative WOM happens because of a feeling of injustice on behalf on the value of the brand.
• Blogs are indexed at a faster rate and will enter search results more quickly. Brands have an oppotunity to leverage this to acquire more “shelf space” in the search results.
• Just because journalists are not writing about an issue or event, doesn’t mean it’s not being talked about.

Overall it was an excellent session. Here are notes on the entire session on CGM and Blog Buzz.

The New York Times reports on efforts by Wal-Mart and its PR firm, Edelman to influence public opinion by providing information to bloggers. Nothing wrong with that, but apparently a number of the bloggers picking up on the information are posting it word for word and not citing the source.

Pitching blogs is picking up steam as a public relations activity by companies big and small. Wal-Mart’s Mona Williams is quoted on MediaBuyerPlanner.com: “As more and more Americans go to the internet to get information from varied, credible, trusted sources, Wal-Mart is committed to participating in that online conversation.”

While the issue getting attention stems from the way in which bloggers are posting the news and information, it’s Wal-Mart and Edelman that are left to deal with all the less-than-desired blog buzz that will result.

This is just another lesson for corporate PR on the right and wrong way to implement blog public relations and WOM marketing.

Malcolm Gladwell, author Blink and The Tipping Point, (two of my favorite books that I read last year,) has started blogging over at http://gladwell.typepad.com.

This only makes sense, since Gladwell has long been providing bloggers, especially business bloggers, with fodder for their posts.

What I love about Gladwell (and Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner and Seth Godin) is how he makes you reflect on your own world view. You won’t always agree with these guys, but it does cause you to examine your own preconceptions that you might be holding onto out of sheer laziness.

BTW, I had never visited Gladwell’s home page before today, but I’m pretty sure he stole the idea from us.

Welcome to the blogosphere, Malcolm. Glad to hear your voice in the first person!

Blog posting errors are rarely discussed in blogging circles. They are a bit of a dirty little secret, you might say.

You know the errors that creep into your blog posts. We all make them at one time or another. Minor blog posting mistakes may be spelling errors; incorrect or misleading photographs; wrong names of people or blogs; links that are missing, don’t work, or go to the wrong blog; or simply neglected pings.

More important blog post problems involve knowingly posting incorrect information; predictions or opinions that turned out differently than claimed or expected; failure to cite and link references to blogs or static websites; or claiming someone else’s ideas as your own in the form of plagiarism. These, of course, are only a few examples of the errors that can creep into your blog postings.

The question then arises as to what to do about the mistake. The all too obvious answer is to return to the problematic post and change history. Sometimes correcting a blog error is acceptable, and even the proper thing to do. For example, any non-working or misdirected links can and should be repaired as a service to the linked blog. If an intended link was overlooked, and missed in the posting, it’s good to return to the post and create the missed link. The cited blogger’s traffic and SEO linking benefits shouldn’t be reduced because someone messed up a link to their blog.

Spelling errors are the source of some controversy among bloggers. While some bloggers believe that spelling errors and typos should be left intact, I see no problem with going back and fixing those proofreading problems. This is especially important if the typo is a misspelling of someone’s name. There is one provision on this recommendation, however. Only the typo can be corrected. No other changes can be made to the post that might change its meaning or intention.

For more serious errors, including incorrect information, the original post must not be altered to change history. Instead, the blogger has a two choices. One option is to make the correction, apology, or retraction in the blog comments section for that post. A second option is to write another post that retracts, corrects, or apologizes for the previous error. The new post should, however, quote the problem area of the previous post, and also link back to the previous post. The link back to the old post is essential.

Posting without crediting sources, or claiming their work as your own, is not acceptable blogging practice. While some would argue that “other bloggers do it”, that is no excuse. Maintaining good blogging technique helps everyone in the blogging community. If bloggers want their writing to receive respect, then proper”>http://www.penmachine.com/techie/corp_weblog_manifesto.html”>proper credit must be given to others. Linking to, and properly citing your sources, is simply good blogging practice. It should be practiced by everyone.

In most cases of blog posting errors, common sense will dictate the proper course of action. If fixing a post or link helps another blogger, then it’s an acceptable blogging practice.

The best idea, of course, is to always proofread your posts before clicking the Publish button.

Not making the error in the first place means it doesn’t have to be corrected.

 

Scott McNealy has a terrific piece in today’s Wall St Journal, Software Hardware that should have all of us thinking, then joining the demand to keep our documents open.

No one would argue that content you create belongs to anyone but you. But, in fact, it doesn’t.

That’s the dirty little secret behind much of the software people use today. In business, in government, in schools and in homes all around the world, we entrust our work to software applications: word processors, spreadsheets, presentation programs and all the rest. And, too often, that’s where we lose control of our own words and thoughts — simply on account of the way we save our documents. Because we tend to store information in formats that are owned and managed by a single dominant company, in a few short years we may no longer be able to access our files if the format is “upgraded.” Or we may be required to buy a new expensive version of the software just to access our own thoughts.

—-

 

There is now an open, international standard for common personal productivity applications — spreadsheet, presentation and word-processing programs — called the OpenDocument Format (ODF). Approved by an independent standards body, ODF has the backing of a broad community of supporters including consumer groups, academic institutions, a collection of library associations including the American Library Association, and many leading high-tech companies, but no single company owns it or controls it. (A “standard” created and controlled by a single company is not a true standard.) Any company can incorporate the OpenDocument Format into its products, free of charge, and tear down the barriers to exit.Imagine being able to open any email attachment, read it and make changes, even if you don’t have the exact program it was created in. That’s the kind of interoperability the OpenDocument Format is designed to foster.

If this standard is to become a reality, we must insist on it. In the U.S., Massachusetts has been leading the way with a mandate that all software purchased by the commonwealth comply with ODF. Globally, 13 nations are considering adopting it. The reason is simple. The data belongs to the people, not to the software vendor that created the file format.

If you don’t think this is an issue, take a look at what happened after Hurricane Katrina. People needing emergency services information found that some government Web sites could only be accessed from a single brand of Web browser. Important, publicly-funded information — in some cases life-saving information — was unavailable unless you used that specific brand. That’s like being told you can’t use the highway because you aren’t driving a Ford truck. It seems to me that this is one of those times when a government mandate makes sense — so that we can all use the road and choose what car we want to drive.

Here are the applications that support the OpenDocument Format (ODF).  You won’t see any Apple or Microsoft programs there.   Time for all of us to demand accessibility to our own content.
Think ahead five years, ten years.  Don’t you want to be able to read what you wrote today?

No doubt I wasn’t the only Australian blogger to hope that the ‘To Blog or Not to Blog’ segment on the Nine Network’s Business Sunday TV program, February 26, would have something worthwhile to show and say about the state of the Australian business blogosphere. Nothing too profound, mind you. Screened at the decidedly non-peak hour of 8.30am every Sunday in the ratings period, the program is not usually very mentally taxing. In the event, it was quite interesting for me, although I can’t help wondering what corporate executives would have made of it, in terms of the usefulness and desirability of their companies establishing a blog.

There is a link here to the transcript of the program. That is regrettably not a blog permalink, so it will presumably only stay on the web for a limited time. A handy resource for anyone reading the transcript is the post with links to the sites of the people interviewed: this was put up by one of the main interviewees, dedicated Microsoft Aussie Blogger Frank Arrigo, and is a blog permalink.

As the transcript shows, Frank and others, including Trevor Cook, had some very useful comments to make. But what I found a real downer was that the last two people interviewed, before a final comment from Frank, were Australian lawyers from global partnerships, emphasizing the downside risks of corporate blogging and explaining why their firms weren’t blogging. No serious discussion of risk management, just a ‘flick to the too-hard basket’ approach.

Knowing from experience how what is actually said in interviews from such programs can become scarcely recognizable when the program is aired, it may well be that the lawyers – both very knowledgeable in the IT space – actually contributed a more nuanced commentary. Snip! Sorry (not really) about that!

Actually, the final comment from Frank was pretty neat, pointing out that corporates actually can’t afford not to be in the blogging space. But my own feeling is that half-awake corporate execs chomping on their breakfast toast at 8.55am or so would have been inclined to be more influenced by the do-nothing-new, cautious words we heard from the attorneys.

Of course, one Sunday morning television program cannot tell the whole story. I’m tremendously keen for business blogging to kick off in Australia and I’m optimistic about that happening soon. I’ve been encouraged in this by indications such as the invitations I have to present at various events this month and next and then later in the year.

It’s quite possible however that not a lot has changed since Trevor Cook’s excellent State of Australian Blogging  post five months ago:

Overall, blogging in Australia lags behind the US and probably behind some Asian and European countries. Why? One reason is that we usually do. Australia’s population is made up of a few thousand people who have a genuine global view and who are very much at the cutting edge but the bulk of the population are followers of international trends (we’ll try something when it becomes the rage overseas).

Trevor concluded that post with an expression of optimism about how things would be this year. So I find it sobering that a conference on blogs, wikis and rss, at which both Trevor and I are scheduled to speak, has now been re-timetabled from the end of this month to a date six months hence.

Are we there yet? I don’t think so.