Whatever your political persuasion — right, left, or center — the blogosphere is a great place for bloggers to share their political views and make plenty of friends and enemies. We try to follow the conservative, liberal, and everything in between of politics and political blogs/blogging — but only when it intersects with business blogging.
Have a read below of our latest entries on politics and political blogging…
On the surface, it may not appear that our friends at BlogBusinessSummit.com are our competitors. After all, their site is devoted to promoting the Blog Business Summit, a major event which they host 2-3 times a year.
But in a very real sense, they are our competitors: they compete with us for the mindshare of corporate business bloggers who are seeking to find a way to use blogging as a more effective tool for reaching out to their customers and keeping them informed and happy. So our biggest competitor is a conference company.
Why is that and how could you benefit through knowing about it?
Because unlike most conference sites, they don’t just spring up a few months prior to their event and start banging their drums with the conference message. Instead, they use their conference site as a blog to become thought leaders in this space.
You may not have had the slightest inclination in the middle of June to attend a Blog Business Summit, but when you did a search on Google for “business blogging”, they were listed right up there in the coveted Top Ten listings.
[Do note however, who has the Number One slot in that listing… ]
So chances are good that they are one of the resources you would have turned to, along with Business Blog Consulting, for information and guidance on business blogging. You might have bookmarked us both in your list of RSS feeds you check regularly, and if you haven’t already, you should.
But something may have happened around mid-August or September when you were reading all those great articles that Teresa, Steve, DL and our very own Dave Taylor regularly write: you might have noticed they had a conference coming up.
And then as time progressed, you might have thought you ought to go… and then, if you were one of the smart and fortunate ones who wisely reserved a seat at their conference this past week (I’m jealous: you got to rub shoulders with Jason Calacanis and schmooze with Robert Scoble and John Batelle), you actually forked out the money and went!
Well folks, that was their objective all year long. That’s why they kept blogging away in Seattle through all those miserable rainy days and nights: they wanted you to come to their conference!
So where do you come in?
You may have limited your thinking about business blogging to blogging from your CEO or key executives or just blogging about your company. That’s a good thing, but BlogBusinessSummit.com shows you how you can use effective, high quality blogging to keep your company’s products, services and even events in the forefront of people’s minds all year long… even if you aren’t talking about your company’s products, services or events.
Do it the BBS way and keep strong visual reminders about those products, services and events adjacent to, above and/or below your content. They don’t talk about their conference all year long. They talk about the issues it addresses.
And thus they become a thought leader.
And they sell a whole bunch of seats to their conferences.
And unless I’m unaware of it (always a possibility), that blog is their sole means of marketing that conference.
Amazing, huh?
Oh, one more thing…
Next time you are there, look at the right hand side of the page. They’re plugging their book.
So in your product/service/event blog which addresses the issues surrounding that product/service/event, you can plug not only the focus of the site, but related product/service/events as well!
So add that thinking to your mix. If you’re business isn’t blogging yet, maybe emulating their style would be a great way for you to start. If it is, you aren’t limited to “a” company blog. You can have a bunch of them.
You’ll find business blogging can be a beautiful thing…
Fellow Business Blog Consulting contributor Toby Bloomberg alerted me to this MySpacesque site for dogs and dog lovers: Dogster. If you thought a dog having a blog wasn’t out there enough, how about a dog with its own home page where it can share photos, connect with dog friends (a la LinkedIn and MySpace), and chat on forums as well as on its blog!
Dogster are monetizing the site through Google Adsense, banner advertisements and some sponsorship deals, but I think they have only scratched the surface of monetization with paid placement, contextually relevant text link ads and so forth.
I can’t imagine who the heck would actually pretend to be their dog talking and writing up a story from the dog’s perspective and posting it to this site or, worse yet, to maintain an ongoing DOG BLOG from the point of view of their pet. Sheesh! I imagine these are the same people who dress their dogs up in cute little dog outfits, surprise the little pooch with a dog birthday cake, and tuck them in at night into their doggie sofa beds.
The lesson for us business bloggers here is that it might make sense to think bigger picture — i.e. not just about creating a blog for our business or our client’s business, but rather expanding that vision and creating a full-blown social networking community where the blog is just a piece in the overall puzzle. Toby seems to think the concept has merit because she is offering a service to help companies create social networking communities. So give her a shout if you have an interest.
Tucows is sending me to BBS (that’s Blog Business Summit, BTW .. where I am also speaking) to report live on the sessions. Watch the Tucows blog for posts and updates. I’ll be doing podcast interviews with folks during the whole Wednesday – Friday sessions. I might also sneak in some posts on Saturday from our special speaker/VIP event. Since there is a geek dinner tomorrow night with a lot of the speakers and other blogerati in attendance, I’ll make sure the old Cannon digicam has fresh batteries and my recorder is handy. No, it isn’t really a part of the conference proper, but I might get some hints and tastes of the sessions to come. Like Dave Taylor and character blogs (maybe?).
Oh, yeah I’m going to cross-post this in a few places so if you think you’ve read it on another blog, you probably have.
Tags: BBS, BBS06, conference blogging, Blog Business Summit, Tucows, Tucows blog
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I caught on Steve’s blog last night and via Jeff Jarvis this morning, Richard Edelman’s blog what is an interesting follow up to yesterday’s news about Wal-Mart (Walgate? Floggergate?).
From Richard Edelman’s blog:
- We are undertaking a thorough audit around the world to ensure we apply best practice guidelines to every program in every market and specialty area.
- We are requiring that all employees attend an Edelman University class on ethics in social media, hosted by members of me2revolution team as well as external experts. This will take place before the end of next week
- We are establishing a 24/7 hotline so our me2revolution team can review, provide counsel and apply best practice guidelines on social media programs before their implementation. This ensures that programs adhere to the WOMMA guidelines or best-in-class standards around the world.
- We are creating ethics materials that will be distributed to each office and all new hires.
This is just the beginning. We recognize we have further to go. You can and should be helping us. I appreciate all the invaluable feedback you have provided during this week–and we have taken action on at least of one of your comments. If there any other actions that you would advise us to consider, I would welcome them.
The question is then, is this enough? On the surface, I’d say it’s a really good start. Time is going to have to tell though. I suggested in a comment on Richard’s blog that they need to tout some successes and start a blog with a client that really follows all the principles and ethos of WOMMA. And hire some outside biz bloggers as coaches wouldn’t hurt either.
You can bet this is going to be talked about at Blog Business Summit next week!
This is not a good couple weeks to be working at Edelman. Okay, first we have the whole Walmarting across America thing and subsequent apology now, Edelman is coming clean that two more of the Wal-Mart blogs are actually flogs written by Edelman employees. Yikes. It turns out (shocker … not) that Working Families for Wal-Mart and PaidCritics.org are Edelman PR fronts (yeah there’s irony for you).
Well Shel applauds them for at least admitting it now (instead of being outed), B.L. wants their head, or at least their butt out of WOMMA, Mathew ponders if PR folks can really be transparent and do their job (good question).
I think this whole fiasco, debacle (anybody have some more words for this?) calls into question, as Mathew and Shel suggest, can PR and blogs actually co-exist? I don’t think so. At least not like this. You just can’t have “corporate fronts” as blogs. You want to reach out to critics? You want to get feedback? Then just have a regular old blog. No, a “Wal-Mart employee blog” isn’t going to fly and we all know why. I think a Wal-Mart exec blog might work, if they could take the heat, and I don’t think they could.
I have a good number of friends in the PR biz. This can’t be a fun time for them. Everyone is now questioning PR and blogs. Every company blog or blog that seems to be arms-length is suspect. Is disclosure enough? Is authenticity and transparency enough?
Steve … man I’d love to do a podcast with you on this. Just get your thoughts. Are you game?
The MediaPost broke the story, follow more on Techmeme.
Tags: flogs, Edelman, Wal-Mart, PR nightmare
It’s refreshing to see the growing interest in Web 2.0 and business blogging in South Africa. Vincent Maher, a professor at Rhodes University recently posted some good guidelines for blogging.
He says a blog is a stub for conversation and you should think about the perspectives of your audience.
Stephen Downes gives his take on these ideas here
While some bloggers may be writing for their own edification, most are in it for the conversation. And there is merit in knowing your audience. Not so you can write only what they want to hear, but to facilitate good communication. Â
Blogging is a communication. Business blogging certainly has the purpose of reaching an audience. One of the first things you learn in communication theory is to understand the person who will receive your communication. Maher’s thoughts on blog posts fit in well with the old Seven C’s of Communication written by Cutlip and Center in Effective Pubic Relations:
In a speech given at Ball State University many years ago, Phil Lesly provided these guidelines for effective communication:
1) Approach everything from the view point of the audience’s interest–what’s on their minds; what’s in it for them.
2) Give the audience a sense of involvement in the communication process and in what’s going on. Get them involved and you get their interest.
3) Make the subject matter part of the atmosphere the audience lives with–what they talk about, what they hear from others. That means getting the material adopted in their channels of communication.
4) Communicate with people, not at them. Communication that approaches the audience as a target makes people put their defenses up against it.
5) Localize–getting the message conveyed as close to the individual’s own millieu as possible.
6) Use a number of channels of communication, not just one or two. The impact is far greater when it reaches people in a number of different forms.
7) Maintain consistency–so what’s said on the subject is the same no matter which audience it’s directed to or what the content is.
8) Still, tailor-make each message for the specific audience as much as possible.
9) Not propagandizing but making sure that you make your point.
10) Maintain credibility–which is essential for all of these points to be effective. (Schranz Lecture, 1982)
If you view your blog as a conversation, this is evergreen advice. Take it to heart when you blog.
I’m still amazed at this situation. Edelman PR, one of the premier public relations agencies in the world and a company that not only hired sharp blogger Steve Rubel but prides itself on really understanding the new world of Web 2.0 and the blogosphere, screwed up royally, and no-one seems to be particularly upset.
The situation: They created the Walmarting Across America blog which pretended to be a couple of middle aged RV enthusiasts driving from Wal-Mart to Wal-Mart and blogging about their experiences, mostly with how wonderful Wal-Mart was. No surprise, the blog effort was a campaign paid for by Wal-Mart!
When it came out that it was a fake blog and that Edelman was being duplicitous and tricking people, it also became obvious that they’d violated the very code of Word of Mouth Marketing ethics they’d helped create.
The response of the blogosphere? Oh, Richard Edelman apologized, and Steve Rubel said he had nothing to do with the account or the campaign. And all is well. Or is it?
If you want to have an example of the class structure within the blogosphere, go and read how top bloggers like Debbie Weil, Neville Hobson and Robert Scoble are not just accepting Edelman’s apology, but being apologists for the company themselves. What the heck?
I don’t agree. I think that there’s a much bigger issue of ethical consistency, of leadership and of hypocrisy, and I write about it at length on my main blog: Edelman screws up with Duplicitous Wal-Mart Blog, but it’s okay?
At the Search Engine Strategies conference in New York earlier this year, I had a chance to start doing an interview with super blogger, past TechTV host and organizer of the Gnomedex conference, Chris Pirillo. It was to be a video interview with my new Sony Cybershot, but I didn’t have very much memory left and the interview was cut short. I’ve since corrected the problem with a 4gb and another 2gb memory stick for almost 2 1/2 hours of decent quality video on two postage stamp sized chips.
Six months later I finally reconnected with Chris (which is amazing since we’re on IM) and was able to ask him a variety of questions ranging from social media to RSS. Here’s a snippet:
“In this interview, Chris talks about his TagJag project, web traffic from social media, favorite conferences, plans for Lockergnome 2.0, his upcoming wedding with fiancee Ponzi and fun quotes like: “Google is the internetâ€?, “Email is deadâ€? and “Let’s not blog about blogging about blogging about blogs anymore, okay?â€?.”
I can appreciate the enthusiasm for RSS, but I don’t think email is dead by a longshot. RSS to email at least. In fact, during dinner last night with “Mr. RSS” himself, Rok Hrastnik and I talked about RSS being too easy to use and that it can get to a point of information overload. The closest solution is the “river of news” concept, but how many good solutions are there for that?
If you would like all the Q/A with Chris Pirillo, here is the full interview.
Speaking of RSS, if you are at the DMA 06 conference this week, be sure to check out the blogs, RSS and podcasting session from 4:30-5:30, room 135 in the Moscone North building with Stephan Spencer, Amanda Watlington and myself.
Also, there is the RSS Roundtable meeting on Tuesday night sponsored by Pheedo, PRWeb, SimpleFeed and Silverpop downtown San Francisco which should be a good discussion.
A bit of ripe linkbait has been launched by Text Link Ads in the form of a “Blog Juice Calculator“. The tool takes into account 4 metrics when calculating a blog’s popularity: RSS subscribers (Bloglines only), Alexa traffic ranking, Technorati rank, and incoming links
Here’s how the BBC group fared:
http://bloombergmarketing.blogs.com/ 6.3
http://www.bourland.com/ 1.3
http://www.flyteblog.com/ 3.8
http://radiantmarketinggroup.com/ 0.9
http://falkow.blogsite.com/ 2.4
http://www.businessblogconsulting.com 6.1
http://www.pheedo.info/ 3.1
http://hyku.com/ 2.1
http://blog.larixconsulting.com/blog 2.8
http://www.toprankblog.com 7.1
http://www.stephanspencer.com/ 5.8
http://www.intuitive.com/blog/ 6.6
http://www.onebyonemedia.com/ 2.4
http://www.danavan.net/weblog/ 4.3
http://www.thinkinghomebusiness.com/blog 3.1
http://www.debbieweil.com/ 3.2
http://wordbiz.com/.05
http://blogwrite.blogs.com/ 1.6
http://ensight.org/ 4.1
Is a tool like this useful? Even though mine did well, I’m not sure yet. I was expecting higher scores for BBC contributors all around. TLA uses this kind of data to determine how much a link is worth on a web site or blog, so I guess in some ways it might be. I’m just not 100% convinved yet.
Des let us know via our BBC contributors list that he found a site that was scraping all our content from BBC and reposting it, verbatim.
The blog in question was using our feed from Feedburner to access our content. The blog posts even included our Feedflare items (more on that later). However there is no attribution that the posts come from BBC or are written by someone else. To make matters worse, this blogger even copied all our tags and categories for his own blog. I left a comment on own of my own posts that was scraped asking this person to stop and that he was in violation of the DMCA and international copyright law (the comment is still in moderation, imagine that). So, then, what can you do about a splog scrape? This is what we’ve done so far.
Right now we’ve thrown down the first gauntlet to try to embarrass this person. We’ve added to our Feedflare items (which you can see in our feed) a CreativeCommons license, Copyright statement, and Attribution link. All of these things will make it really clear to a reader that a) the content doesn’t belong to him and b) who the content really does belong to.
Is that going to be enough? Probably not. We can also file DMCA papers to Google and his ISP, which is pretty serious stuff. Google does not take kindly to people using Adsense to make money off stolen content. ISPs also get a little edgy about this kind of stuff too. One course of action that we haven’t taken, yet, is actually altering our feed. Right now we publish a full feed (that is you get the complete content of the post). There are lots of debates about full vs partial feeds, and this isn’t the time or place. What we can do, and very easily with Feedburner, is to switch to not only a partial feed, but a partial feed with a message like “Sorry for the inconvenience, but some blogs are stealing the content from this blog so the feed has been truncated. Stealing content is wrong.”
Does this tactic work? Sure does. Jim Turner and I helped a friend of ours do this and within a few days the scraping stopped. Rather embarrassing and not good for clicks when a website visitor sees that message above.
Beyond the tactics for how to combat scrapers, how did we find out in the first place? Des was the key to this. He was looking at our Technorati links and saw something hinky. A little digging led him to this blog and the discussion began. We’ll keep you posted on how it all turns out.
Now there are legit ways to use and consolidate content from other blogs. You can list headlines from a topic, couple sentences, and a link back … doing this ads content and value to your blog, in addition to your own content. Recently I’ve been getting a lot of good traffic from a legit site in this way. Just the headline from one of my posts (about the whole podcasting – netcasting question) on a Mac site brought a goodly number of visitors and it was my #1 referrer yesterday. I’ve also seen my headlines and a few words on other sites as a “great links for the day” … always flattering to read that.
Where do you draw the line? Fair use. You can use a feed to bump up content on your site if you just use the headline, a short snippet of the post, don’t claim it’s yours, and link back to the author/original post. That’s cool and helps everyone. You may not, without permission, copy and republish an entire post on another site. Note the “without permission” part … I’ve been asked and have granted permission for a few of my articles to be republished from time to time. Again, always flattering.
This will probably be the first post of many on this affair … so watch our feed.
Technorati tags: content scraping, splogs, copyright law, DMCA, Feedburner
I was recently searching for “sprint broadband” and “Mac OS X” and noticed a very interesting problem: the matches I got from both Google and Yahoo were incorrect because the matching pages included “Mac OS X” in the editorial and were also matching on “sprint broadband”, but ephemerally: they were advertising or sponsor information and no longer appear on the page.
There are a couple of reasons this happens, notably the inevitable delay between when a page is indexed in a search engine and when that cached or analyzed copy is updated due to changes on the site, but the bigger problem is that neither Google nor Yahoo can differentiate between the editorial on a Web page and the advertising.
In my book, that’s a problem, and a search on the matching phrase “connect at blazing speeds with the sprint mobile broadband card.” you’ll doubtless be surprised just how many matches there are!
At least Microsoft caught the problem (or just lucked out and didn’t see the Sprint advertising on the page): their Live Search did not show the same erroneous results from Infoworld.com as one of the top three matches.
As i say in my main blog post about this subject — Why can’t Google differentiate editorial from advertising? — the problem is just a matter of expectations more than anything. I rely on Google to offer up good matches to searches and this was a failure on their algorithm, one that’s repeated at Yahoo.
What do you think? Is it critical for search engines to differentiate between editorial and advertising when analyzing and scoring the content of a page?
There is a new arrival on the corporate, indeed Fortune 500, blog scene – the IT@Intel Blog.
The site will probably not appeal to people who want the full array of possible effects – audio, video mashups etc. Because unlike the groovy, dancing main Intel site, the IT@Intel blog is visually and organizationally sparer, along the lines of the related IT@Intel web site.
The blog uses MovableType’s Enterprise 1.3 platform, but again the graphic presentation is quite unlike some other corporate blogs using MT Enterprise, such as the rather jazzy GM FastLane blog.
The appropriateness of the IT@Intel Blog’s very neat design becomes evident when you see that, although this is a public blog, it appears to be aimed not so much at the general public as at the IT community and people with related interests.
And although I am not an IT engineer, and I like my rococo in its place, for me the visual spareness of the blog’s layout reflects a pleasingly elegant clarity of architecture and navigation.
There is a simply stated manifesto of guiding principles:
For anyone who thinks that’s a bit light on for a corporate blog, never fear. There is a more extended and decidedly heavier statement in the legal page, whose phrasing, with its caveats and warnings, reminds us that this blog is indeed a corporate one.
The neat architecture is expressed in the simplicity of layout. The navigation menu along the top has just five items, so whatever your interest in the blog you can find your way there quickly – no need for head-scratching:
And as indicated above, other than the almost monochrome banner there are no pictures, no audio, no videos.
One other comment on underlying concepts and architecture is that the URL structure, http://blogs.intel.com/it/, allows nicely for any number of additional blogs to be created within the Intel blogs framework. Admittedly that’s not a big revelation from an IT engineering-based company, but it is a handy reminder of the value of thinking through structure and architecture before launching any blog in the business space.
There are four bloggers listed and posting at the IT@Intel blog, enough presumably to spread the load but not so many as to make it a case of “everyone’s responsibility is no one’s”. All have titles that indicate a high, or reasonably high level of seniority in the corporation (I don’t know the corporate structure or Intel’s policy on titles). And all are apparently working in an IT engineering or user experience framework. No one from marketing.
It is noticeable that there are no buttons or icons, not even a modest orange button for XML/RSS.
I like the way they have set up the sidebar with six elements, each in its own text box: Most Popular Tags, Recent Comments, Most Active Posts, Blogroll, Related Links, and Subscribe.
The treatment of the tags is interesting – no cloud in the sidebar, just four tags and a link to All Tags for anyone who really needs a cloud to make their day. There are only seven blogs in the Blogroll (that would have been an interesting discussion to be a fly on the wall for, surely – who’s in, who’s out?), only six Related Links and a simple, linked list of basic feed options in the Subscribe box, including a “What are feeds?” text link to a clear explanation on a separate page.
And content? Style?
Early days, but I liked what I read. Four individuals, each with a different style and each evidently keen to make his (yes, all males) mark as a blogger.
But they might have to up their rate. Four posts on October 9 and, at this posting, none since, is not exactly off to the races, guys. But those four posts have already attracted a number of supportive comments. So I hope the bloggers are encouraged by that and produce more, and more frequent, posts.
Pickedup from a Techwhack story via Google Alerts.
Alright, BBC community, here’s a question for you: How do you create an effective and valuable mastermind group?
Let me explain…
If you’re in business like I am, you spend a lot of time making your own business decisions without much advice from peers or mentors. Sometimes that’s cool, but sometimes you can really make big blunders and move your company or consultancy in just plain the wrong direction. Larger companies have a group of executives who can be counted on to analyze strategic and tactical decisions, and the smartest of them have a Board of Directors, a group of senior people who offer sage advice (except, maybe, for HP, but that’s another story) and help the company grow smart, strong and true.
But I don’t have anything like that. Like many other entrepreneurs, I’m flying solo, so while the idea of a Board sounds good, I don’t really want to put anyone in the fiduciary line of fire for my business (there are legal responsibilities when you’re a board member).
Instead what I want to create is a small group of entrepreneurs and business folk here in Colorado who have the savvy and experience to help me steer my business in the right direction and, hopefully, I’ll be able to help them do the same. It’s basically a board of advisors, but I’m going to refer to it by the more appealing name of a mastermind group.
And so my question. Are you in a mastermind group of any sort? If so, please do share logistical details like how often you meet, how long the meetings are, how many members you have, what membership criteria you use, etc etc. If you aren’t, why not consider creating one in your own local community?
I’m not fishing for people to join my mastermind group as I already have a couple of sharp and successful colleagues with whom I’ve been noodling this idea, I’m more just interested in the logistics, in the pragmatic day-to-day implementation of a mastermind group for successful entrepreneurs.
Thanks for any insight you can offer!
According to a recent press release Google has agree to purchase YouTube for $1.65B in stock.
The press release:
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., October 9, 2006 – Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) announced today that it has agreed to acquire YouTube, the consumer media company for people to watch and share original videos through a Web experience, for $1.65 billion in a stock-for-stock transaction. Following the acquisition, YouTube will operate independently to preserve its successful brand and passionate community.
The acquisition combines one of the largest and fastest growing online video entertainment communities with Google’s expertise in organizing information and creating new models for advertising on the Internet. The combined companies will focus on providing a better, more comprehensive experience for users interested in uploading, watching and sharing videos, and will offer new opportunities for professional content owners to distribute their work to reach a vast new audience.
"The YouTube team has built an exciting and powerful media platform that complements Google’s mission to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful,â€? said Eric Schmidt, Chief Executive Officer of Google. “Our companies share similar values; we both always put our users first and are committed to innovating to improve their experience. Together, we are natural partners to offer a compelling media entertainment service to users, content owners and advertisers.â€?
“Our community has played a vital role in changing the way that people consume media, creating a new clip culture. By joining forces with Google, we can benefit from its global reach and technology leadership to deliver a more comprehensive entertainment experience for our users and to create new opportunities for our partners,� said Chad Hurley, CEO and Co-Founder of YouTube. “I’m confident that with this partnership we’ll have the flexibility and resources needed to pursue our goal of building the next-generation platform for serving media worldwide.�
When the acquisition is complete, YouTube will retain its distinct brand identity, strengthening and complementing Google’s own fast-growing video business. YouTube will continue to be based in San Bruno, CA, and all YouTube employees will remain with the company. With Google’s technology, advertiser relationships and global reach, YouTube will continue to build on its success as one of the world’s most popular services for video entertainment.Â
The number of Google shares to be issued in the transaction will be determined based on the 30-day average closing price two trading days prior to the completion of the acquisition. Both companies have approved the transaction, which is subject to customary closing conditions and is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2006. Â
In other news, our own contributor here at BBC Jeremy Wright and his group at b5.media have secured financing from Brightspark and Rick Segal’s group at JL Albright Venture Partners for $2M. This has caused quite the conversation to take place about the funding and Aaron Brazell has a good recap of what is being said about the funding. Congratulations to Jeremy, Darren, Duncan and Shai on this great news. I for one am excited for the prospects and I am also excited to see what blogging brings next.
Tags: Google, YouTube, Jeremy Wright, b5.media, Brightspark, Rick Segal, JL Albright Venture Partners, Aaron Brazell
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Shel Israel has put it eloquently in his post about Charlene Li and her attempt to measure blogging’s return on investment. This is probably one of the most often asked questions when discussing business blogging. Many executives today are always wanting to quantify blogs and stack them neatly in the corner and count them with the rest of the widgets to be indexed and categorized and their value put on the bottom line to report in the year end accounting.It’s just not quite that simple.Â
Sure we can quantify traffic numbers through the use of site tracking applications, but how can you measure the return you get from communicating your company message to potential customers? You could ask them how they heard about your service through surveys and questionnaires but is that really accurate? Charlene discusses this:
One of the hardest things to do with blogs is to quantify the benefits, mainly because there’s a blog for almost everything under the sun. For example, you cant compare the ROI of Direct2Dell.com to Microsoft’s Jobsblog as they have completely different goals. Hence, measuring just traffic to a blog or the number of comments on a post means little unless the traffic or the comments are linked to value creation. This gets at the task of measuring intangibles – what does it mean for an additional visitor to come to the blog or contribute a comment?
Charlene breaks down blogging’s ROI into three different categories;
As I began to think of the benefits, costs and risks, I was able to make my own mental list of things that companies should consider in the measurement of success of a blog and its return on investment.
These of course are basic categories but for the most part it is a good model to get started. She raises some good points to consider in these areas, and I am looking forward to seeing the results of her study. If you have any metrics you can provide to her for her study she is asking for feedback and a discussion.
Tags: Shel Israel, Charlene Li, ROI, Blog Investment, Corporate Blogging, Blog Risk, Blog Benefits, Blog Costs
Blogs are increasingly competitive sources of information for users’ time online compared to mainstream media and many marketers and public relations practitioners persist at stumbling about the blogosphere like bulls in a china shop.
Since my own blog gets about 5-10 pitches per week on average, I think I have a pretty good idea of the variety of ways blogs in general are getting pitched these days. The verdict? Not good.
The emergence of such blogs as The Bad Pitch Blog which is updated a lot more frequently and far more popular than The Good Pitch Blog goes to show that there’s simply not enough attention paid to what constitutes a good pitch. And we all know what Rick thinks about a crappy pitch.
On the topic of blog relations, you hear a lot about being careful of pitching bloggers and that you shouldn’t pitch blogs the same way as you would a print journalist. That’s true for the most part, but there are also many similarities.
To help pros and flacks alike, here are a few of my own tips on pitching blogs which may help PR practitioners resonate more with the blogging community.
Here are a number of additional resources on blogger relations and pitching bloggers:
In case you’ll be attending the DMA06 conference in San Francisco later this month, be sure to check out the session on Blogs, RSS and Podcasting with Dr. Amanda Watlington, BBC co-contributor Stephan Spencer and myself where I will be presenting on using blogs for public relations.
Are you wondering how large companies can tap into the popularity of social media, Web 2.0, and other contemporary trends in the online world? Well, they could just pay $50,000 and set up a commercial MySpace account (no kidding, that’s the base fee for a fancy professional profile) or they could actually be inspired and tap into the popularity of YouTube or Flickr and do something really cool…
That’s exactly what auction giant eBay did when it created an admittedly cheesy 75 second introductory movie promoting an upcoming course they’re offering to the eBay seller community. They filmed the movie then simply uploaded it to YouTube and mentioned it on the eBay Chatter weblog to help drive more customers to the training course: check it out. Cool!
Nikon did something even more cool, though: it picked out a group of existing Nikon digital SLR photographers from popular photo sharing site Flickr and sent them brand new Nikon D80 camera setups. Their assignments? Take pictures, send us your best. The result? Stunning Nikon. A very savvy marketing effort!
I applaud both companies for experimenting – and succeeding – with social media and look forward to more companies tapping into the wisdom, enthusiasm and verve of popular social media.
Nearly two thirds of adults intend to do their holiday shopping online this year. Take a tip from the major eTailers’ marketing playbook:-blogs, RSS feeds and viral marketing are what you need to drive all those eager online shoppers to your site.
Nearly half, 41.6 percent, of retailers will incorporate blogs or RSS feeds into their holiday marketing strategy, and 79.5 percent will use viral marketing at social networking sites, like MySpace and Friendster, says the 2006 eHoliday Mood Survey released Wednesday. The study was conducted by BizRate Research for Shopzilla and Shop.org.
And don’t be misled by the perception that these sites are only for teens. More than half the visitors to MySpace are now 35 or over–up from less than 40 percent last year, reveals new data from comScore Media Metrix.Â
Of course they have to find your website – so 97.4 percent of eTailers invest in search engine optimization and marketing.
Since shoppers show signs of starting their holiday spree early in November, now’s the time to get your blog and feeds up and running.  Plan a holiday content strategy and create RSS Feeds that will raise your search rankings and distribute your content into the news aggregator sites, making it easier for the online holiday shopper to find you.
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Well Dave already spilled the beans (here and here), yep I’m speaking at BBS at the end of the month. The question is, then, just what the heck am I speaking about. RSS Metrics. Oh boy, yeah. I wrote a bit about it on my blog already, but essentially what I’m going to help people work out is how to measure their audience on their blog. This, btw, is no mean feat. The reason Feedburner has been so successful is that they do give those metrics. But, my talk isn’t going to just be “Use Feedburner. Thank you. Any questions?”. That’s more than a little lame. Don’t ask me how I’m going to simplify the discussion, because I’m still noodling that around in my head (ouch).
The reason, besides I was stupid enough to agree, that I’m talking about RSS metrics (and maybe blog metrics in general), is that as businesses get into blogs, bosses want to know what impact the blog is having. Who is reading it, how often, when, what … And while it might seem easy to dismiss these things, it really isn’t. It is important.
If you are interested in biz blogging, BBS (as Dave said) is a great time to learn and network. Pick the brains of folks already doing it. Hang out with fun folks and just bask in the general blogginess. I know that after BBS you will have a ton of new ideas and ways to start blogging or improve your blogging.  Now let me sweeten the pot a bit. If you want to go I have a discount code for you worth $100 off any package. When you register use code LCAS06 and the discount is yours. There are deals to be had for hotel rooms (I use Hotwire myself) and I’ll be there Tuesday night and for the workshops and conferences. Stop by and say hi. I’m sure Dave and I will be hanging out somewhere chatting (look for the tall guy with the beard and the shorter geeky guy with glasses).
Tags: BBS, BBS06, Blog Business Summit
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I’ve been pestering Gerry McGovern — one of the foremost experts on website content and author of the books Content Critical, The Caring Economy and the upcoming book Creating Killer Content — for a while now on why he doesn’t start blogging. I recently pinned him down on this question. I also asked him whether he thinks this whole blogging thing really has something to it, or if it’s all a bunch of hot air. And does he encourage any of his clients to blog. Here’s what Gerry had to say in my email interview of him…
You’d never know I might start one yet! In fact, because of your constant prodding, I’m talking with a group of my partners about starting a joint blog. I think blogging is amazing, and such a positive reflection of an open, inquisitive, questioning culture. There will always be a role for the book but the blog is the conversation where the next book might just be born.
Everything in its place. Let’s not get carried away. Blogging is a new form of conversation; a rough and ready way to share knowledge. It’s a form of research, a way of getting down and dirty and digging into the roots of an idea. To watch a brilliant thinker and writer blog is very illuminating. But I find that quality blogs–that I can go back to time and time again–are pretty hard to find.
I have so far not encouraged any of my clients to blog. Most of my clients–and they include some very large organizations–are still mastering the basics of how to manage content professionally. Blogging may seem simple, but it’s quite a sophisticated strategy, and it requires a very open, sharing culture.
I was surprised to learn that Gerry doesn’t encourage any of his clients to blog, even though he thinks blogging is amazing. I agree with Gerry that business blogging is a sophisticated strategy and it’s not for everyone, particularly when so many companies can’t even cope with managing their traditional web content. But I don’t think it’s all that hard to pull off. If Gerry starts blogging, I bet he’ll start recommending blog strategies to his clients! 😉
You can read my full interview with Gerry here.
Business Blog Consulting is a site devoted to demonstrating how effective weblogs can be for communicating with customers and marketing to new customer prospects. You will find here lots of examples of business and corporate blogs, as well as resources to help you learn more about the topic.
Looking for a company that offers consulting on corporate and business blogging, including design, development and strategy? Consider Netconcepts.
Other stuff? Email us.
Toby Bloomberg of Diva Marketing
Andy Bourland of Bourland.com
Rich Brooks of Flyte
Paul Chaney of Blogging Systems Group
Sally Falkow of Expansion Plus
Josh Hallett of Hyku
Tris Hussey of Larix Consulting
Lee Odden of TopRank
Stephan Spencer of Netconcepts
Dave Taylor of Intuitive Life for Business
Jim Turner of One by One Media
Dana VanDen Heuvel of BlogSavant
Des Walsh of Thinking Home Business
Debbie Weil of WordBiz and BlogWrite
Jeremy Wright of Ensight
Rick E. Bruner is co-author and principal analyst on this report
Our own contributor Jeremy Wright is the author of this book
"The Corporate Blogging Book: Absolutely Everything You Need to Know to Get It Right" with a foreword by GM's Bob Lutz..and the rest by Debbie Weil.
Produced by contributor to this site Debbie Weil. Rick E. Bruner is one of the featured experts in this report
This report is written by contributor to this site BL Ochman
I guess this was inevitable
