It’s easy to get started blogging…today’s blogging software is inexpensive, easy-to-learn, and does most of the heavy lifting for you.

However, it’s a lot more difficult to build a successful blog: one that attracts prospects and clients, establishes you as an expert or an industry leader, and helps you attain search engine "findability."

There’s some great advice out there for big companies and CEO’s who want to blog; just check out Debbie Weil’s BlogWrite for CEOs. However, when you’re a small business owner like me, not all the advice is directly transferable.

I wish the "today" me could go back and talk to the "then" me and give him (me?) some good advice on business blogging. It would have saved me a lot of time and frustration over the past year.

If you’re interested in learning from my mistakes, check out The 11 Biggest Mistakes Small Business Bloggers Make. (Email registration required.)

Plus, if you’ve got some of your own mistakes that you’d like to share, please take advantage of our comments and trackbacks below. After all, failure (or a mistake) is a much better teacher than success.

More and more businesses are starting to discover and explore RSS (Real Simple Syndication) as an alternative to email marketing.

RSS allows you to syndicate your content very easily; it’s most commonly used in blogging and podcasting as an RSS feed is automatically created by most blogging and podcasting platforms. However, RSS can be created for your Web site as well, and is fast becoming an important communication channel for businesses.

In Your 7-Step RSS Marketing Plan, Rok Hrastnik holds your hand while you dip your toe in the RSS ocean.

Come on in! The water’s fine!

Not exactly the Bullwinkle I grew up with, but Denali is blogging!  After visiting the main page, you may be confused about where to find the company’s blogs. From it’s main flash page, you are not directed to a link to any of its blogs.  On the other hand, the blogs are linked to the main site.  A bit of free advice to the people at Denali, please put a link to your blogs on your main flash page.

Apart from the confusion on how to find their blogs, they are doing well with the blogs according to a report from Heather Green at BusinessWeek’s Blogspotting.  She states in her report:

Apparently for all of $700, John Nardini, the company’s vice president of marketing, created four blogs to hit different consumer interests. Of course, this doesn’t include the cose (sic) of blogging time. But they say they’re having a positive impact on drawing people to Denali’s main Web site. According to Denali pr, site visits are up 25.7% while the total time spent on the site is up 23.4%.

The blogs that are under the Denali wing are:

• Moosetopia;
• Team Moose Tracks;
• Free Money Finance; and
• Denali Flavors.

  The latter of the four blogs is the corporate blog that seems to be Denali’s flagship.

Continue Reading

In an article entitled What Blogs Cost American Business, AdAge.com contends that in 2005 alone, employees will waste 551,000 years reading blogs at work.

Some interesting factoids:

• 35 millions workers (25%) visit blogs and spend on average 3.5 hours a week at them.
• Time spent in the office on non-office work blogs is equivalent to 2.3 million jobs.
• U.S. workers will wast 2.3 million business work years this year alone.

What the the article doesn’t mention is if these lost hours are coming out of actual productivity, or the time we spent looking for good travel deals or checking last night’s sports scores, and will Expedia and ESPN suffer because of this.

It also doesn’t talk about the fact that most American workers work longer hours, work through lunch and take our laptops and Blackberries home with us. Don’t we deserve some time to blog off?

This story found via Blogcritics.org.

 

A group of bloggers including mainstream journalists from outlets such as   CNBC, The Nation and The New York Times are banding together to strike a blow   at established media and pick up some ad dollars in the process.

 

http://www.pajamasmedia.com/

 

"It’s
always nice to see the big players finally waking up to the power of
blog networks. Obviously everyone’s keen to see what the incredibly
creative people who are involved with PJ Media come up with but, until
we see what they actually have up their sleeves it’s a little hard to
get too nervous.

 

Even in just the 1 short month b5media
has been around, we’ve already seen 3 networks promise big launches,
only to tone back their expectations (one launched with 50 and now only
has 35, for example).

 

We look forward to the competition and new ideas PJ Media will bring.   It’s always nice to be challenged, after all."

The New York Times has an overview on a blogging phenom: brand blogs. Take Michael Marx, for example:

"I’ve been drinking Barq’s for 15 years. It’s my beer," said Mr. Marx, who started his blog, thebarqsman.com, last year to collect news about Barq’s, commercials he likes for the drink and musings on why he thinks Barq’s is the best. As
the number of blogs has grown, more consumers like Mr. Marx are keeping
Web diaries dedicated exclusively to their favorite brands.

Juicy detail: Coca-Cola (owner of Barq’s) didn’t know about the blog. Free tip: Use Feedster, y’all.

Isn’t this the Holy Grail of marketing? Customers freely promoting and glorifying your brand?

Most consumers are searching for unbiased opinions, a niche that blogs
can fill. A testimonial from one blogger can speak directly to readers
in a way advertising does not.

Granted, bloggers can still criticize the brand with the same tools.

Also mentioned:

• Starbucks Gossip Blog
• First in Thirst (Gatorade blog)
• The Disney Blog
• Tracking Trader Joes

Next Tuesday, October 4th, 11 am Pacific (Noon M, 1pm C, 2pm E) I will
be interviewed on a free teleseminar hosted by Steven Van Yoder, author
of Get Slightly Famous, on the – The Basics of Business Blogging (and why every business should have a blog)

Here are some of the things we will discuss on the call:
– An easy-to-grasp explanation of blogs and blogging
– The benefits of blogs over e-mail newsletters
– How to cost-effectively start and maintain your own blog
– How to brand your blog with great writing, audio, and video
– How to use your blog as a new income generator

Blogging has become an integral part of my marketing and is responsible
for generating significant revenue, leads, PR, awards and even a book
deal! Maybe it’s time to learn how to harness this powerful tool.

Click Here To Register

Not soon after I posted It’s the End of the Blogosphere As We Know It (And I Feel Fine), I read this article at Wired called Can Bloggers Strike it Rich?

Jason Calacanis, founder of Weblogs, claims his writers make $200 – $3,000 each month. "Think a scuba diver or video-game player making $500 to $1,500 a month writing about scuba diving or video games."

Hmmm…maybe he should read Dr. Del’s article on video game networks.

In any case, read both sides of the story and make up your own mind.

Dr. Del Dhanoa posted an interesting article called The Implosion of the Blogosphere.

In it, he’s not predicting the end of blogging, or really even the blogosphere, but rather the way some bloggers make a living.

He uses the history of the video game networks, i.e., Gamespy, as a way of extrapolating what may happen to blogging networks such as WeblogsInc.com, Gawker Media and the like.

In short, he’s concerned that like video game networks, blogging
networks will accelerate the boom/bust cycle, paying bloggers more and
more money to jump ship, driving up ad rates, until the bottom drops
out. Basically, he’s warning against speculation.

It’s an interesting idea, and the article is well written. I’m currently reading "Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister,"
which is told from the perspective of Cinderella’s sister, and takes
place during the tulip bust that destroyed many fortunes in Holland and
beyond. I think it’s safe to say that whatever the market is,
speculation is a risky business that ends in a zero sum game, or worse.

For me, personally, and for most of the business bloggers out there,
we’re blogging for our business, not for a network. Whether blogging
networks succeed or fail in the long run, the blogosphere and blogging
should continue as long as businesses are interested in connecting with
their prospects and clients.

I just bumped into a splendid example of how at least one smart company in the senior healthcare space is monitoring the world of blogs and closing the loop with customer commentary.

My friend and colleague Jeff Miller runs the Senior Safety Blog which focuses on issues of dealing with health and safety for, you guessed it, senior “citizens.” While this could be just a litany of products for sale or a depressing series of updates on people who are slowly becoming more infirm and dying, in fact it’s interesting and worth reading for both seniors and those who are involved in senior care.

In a recent posting with the rather wordy title A walking cane helped Edie with her walking problem, wheelchairs helped…how about a Hugo?, one of the contributors on Jeff’s Weblog, Ellen Sacks, wrote:

“I don’t know about you, but I watch those shopping channels. I guess I don’t really watch, I flip the remote to a shopping channel during commercials. So, I’m flipping and I see the perfect walking companion for Edie. The Hugo. The Hugo is a small cart with four wheels, a padded seat with a basket underneath to carry your essentials. It also has hand brakes that lock so it’s steady when you sit down…”

This was posted back on August 24th, and about three weeks later here’s the comment that appeared on the weblog…

I had lunch today with an interesting chap who is between gigs (a fancy way of saying “unemployed”, I know) and we started talking about his deep and extensive knowledge of the medical and pharmacological industries from a marketing and business development perspective, and how it overlapped with his background and legal training too.

When he got around to explaining how he’s trying to find a job but hasn’t landed anything yet, I wasn’t surprised when he asked for my suggestions on how he might leverage the blogging phenomenon to help generate both visibility in his target marketplace and some income.

What stuck in my head, however, was that his background gave him a unique ability to tell an interesting story. After all, isn’t the best marketing and, yes, even public relations, fundamentally all a throwback to our days around the campfire trying to influence and sway people based on our ability to communicate in a more interesting and engaging manner than the next person?

Then I thought about how some work I’m doing with entrepreneur and gadabout Jeff Miller on his Senior Safety Blog really boils down to the same thing: while his company may sell emergency notification devices for the elderly and infirm, it’s the stories that…

Although there are plenty of tools for checking the popularity of your blog, for many of us Google provides much of our blog traffic.

Darren Rowse of ProBlogger reports that Google’s currently updating their backlink and PageRank. What does this mean to you?

Backlinks, also known as incoming links, are the number of links from
other Web sites or blogs that point to your Web site (or blog.)
PageRank is Google’s rank from 0 – 10 of the value of incoming links
and is part of their algorithm for determining how your blog ranks.

To determine your backlinks type "link:www.yourdomain.com" into the
Google search box. (Do I really need to say "without the quotes?") As
you may know, the number and quality of incoming links effects how your
blog ranks at Google and other search engines.

(In case you’re interested, Business Blog Consulting has 3,260 incoming links and a PageRank of 7.)

Darren goes on to talk about one of my favorite page rank tools, Keyword Tracker.
With this tool you can find out how your blog ranks for specific terms,
such as "business blog" or "blog marketing". Darren says you have to
run the report each time you want it updated, but if you have access to
a cron you can have your server run the request for you.

A while back I wrote a Keyword Tracker tutorial that will walk you through the setup process.

The disaster of Hurricane Katrina is mind-boggling. My heart goes out
to all those affected. Like so many folks, I have a special feeling for
the city of New Orleans. Inconceivable to think of 80 percent of the
city being underwater.

I’m writing a
chapter in my book that considers the crossover of blogging from the
realm of the personal to that of small business and corporate
America.

One reason is human behaviour. In a crisis, people increasingly are turning to blogs to get an account of what’s really happening. They
expect a blog to tell them in an in-the-moment, ragged, authentic voice, typos and all. They
expect to see photos and video, however raw and unedited. It seems more real than the packaged report of a reporter in a wind-whipped anorak.

That’s what mainstream adoption of a new technology or phenomenon
means. It’s based on reflexive behaviour, not on a carefully planned
marketing strategy.

The connection to business is obvious, don’t you think? Just as we turn
to Google and an online search to answer almost any question these days
( …when was the last time you trekked down to the public library?), so
blogs and blogging are becoming a habit.

Useful Links for Hurricane Katrina disaster relief & information

KatrinaHelp wiki

Blog for Relief (see Paul Chaney’s post)

NoLa.com blog (dozens of stories submitted by survivors)

List of disaster relief agencies

There’s a very good article by eMarketer’s Ezra Palmer on iMedia today about harnessing the power of blogs. From reputation management to customer service, Palmer describes the opportunity companies have to connect with the slice of the population the best responds to the blog format.

I wondered when ClickZ was going to enter the blogosphere, now they have. I know Search Engine Watch was blogging, but now they’ve added the ClickZ News Blog. Here’s an article explaining why it took them so long and what the blog will be used for.

Clever article by Susan Kuchinskas for InternetNews.com, Entering the Corposphere, gives a good overview of today’s sessions at the Blog Business Summit. Some excerpts:

“… corporate communications pros and public relations account execs gathered to grok the rules of engagement with the blogosphere.”

and

“Blogger relations can be more critical than public relations, according to Robert Scoble, Microsoft’s chief blogger.”

and

“(DL Byron) turns off comments on his (Clip-n-Seal) blog and advises clients to do likewise,
to avoid having yucky stuff like porn spam showing up under the brand.”

The anti-blogging blogs (or the reality-check blogs–take your pick) continue. This one is from Jim Logan and his post The Temptation and Reality of Business Blogs.

Jim rightly points out that blogs are probably not the tool a small business and solopreneurs should use to immediately grow your revenue. He also gives a list of some marketing endeavors that might have a more immediate impact on your company.

However, I would argue that business blogging should fall into Stephen Covey’s second quadrant: important but not urgent.

I don’t think many people would argue that a business blog alone is
enough marketing for any company…even a business blog consultant.
However, it can be a great, long-term investment for companies and
businesses looking to have a conversation with their prospects and
clients.

Where do you rank business blogs in importance when it comes to your company’s marketing?