Kate Kaye of ClickZ reports that spending for marketing budgets for real estate is waining in the regular newsprint of old. Realtors are spending more and more of their ad budgets online. Citing a study performed by Classified Intelligence she indicates:

So, if 58 percent of real estate agents surveyed are raising ad budgets this year, where is the money going? Where they are spending the bulk of the money online, in fact, is on their Web sites. Twenty-six percent spent 10 percent and 29 percent spent 20 percent of their budgets there. Just 6 percent did not spend at all on their Web sites.

Impressive numbers but where are they actually spending the money? Andy Beal believes he knows where the revenue is going and that is to blogs. In fact as Mr. Beal states:

While Realtors are reducing their offline spend, the report shows there is no clear winner for online ad spend.

But I know the answer. Want to know where real estate agents are investing their online efforts? Blogging! Yep, I lose track of the number of new blogs that I see each day that relate to the real estate industry. But don’t just take my word for it, take a look at these charts…

Andy makes a good point about the discussion of real estate, but what is interesting to find are blogs about real estate that are being tracked by Technorati have reached nearly 1000. The reason I find this interesting is because less than a few weeks ago I did the exact same search for a presentation to a real estate agent and it turned up only half that number. Real estate blogs are popping up all over the blogosphere and Google shows that over 91,000,000 search results come from searching blogs for real estate. After doing some other snooping around it looks like some in the real estate businesses are spending huge amounts on pay per click campaigns and for paid search. Of these companies I was unable to find any of them working natural search through blogs. Being the investigator type, I was curious if I could find a blogger on Google that was in the denver area. Real estate always seems to be on the rise here in Denver so a realtor can be found on every street corner. I searched Denver Realtor. At the time of this writing, I was able to find that the number 2 search result turned up Kristal Kraft. It just so happens that Kristal is a realtor in Denver that has a blog. Today she has a beautiful picture of balloons being launched in the blue Colorado sky. I’ve not personally talked with Kristal but rest assured, if I was looking for a realtor in Denver, she may get my call only because I was able to find her easily.
Realtors in the real estate business are clamoring for a piece of the online pie, but those realtors that hop on the blog bandwagon will find themselves out ahead of those still trying to attract the home buyers and sellers via that thing rolled up on the driveway. A very small investment has given one blogger a leg up on the competition.

This was going to a post about “Don’t blog when you’re angry”, but as I thought about it, it became, how to handle negative posts or comments.

Negative comments (especially) and posts are two of the biggest fears new business bloggers have.  “What if they say something not nice about us?”  “What if they don’t like our product or brand?”  Well, let’s face it, even Mother Teresa had critics, so don’t feel like people aren’t already saying negative stuff about you.  The question is then, what do I do?

So imagine this.  You’re skimming your Technorati feed of blog links/mentions (psst, this is a hint, you should be doing this) or looking at the new comments on your most recent post.  Then you see it.  The post or comment you’ve been dreading.  It’s negative.  It’s charged.  Maybe even saying things that they wouldn’t say in front of their mother.  Your blood pressure has just gone through the roof.  Your blood is boiling.  Basically, you’re pissed.

You get to the page.  You’re ready to respond.  You’re fingers are poised over the keyboard … STOP.  Wait.  Huh?  I thought the blogosphere was all about immediacy and stuff?  Yes, it is, but think for a moment here.  Are you in the best mood to respond right now?  Maybe, just maybe, there is a grain of truth.  Maybe there is some constructive criticism there.  So … take a break.  Bookmark it, leave it open, whatever, just step back for a moment and chill.

When you’re a little more calm, re-read the post or comment.  See if there is something good that can be taken from it.  Think of a polite response.  Resist the temptation to stoop to negativity and such.  Then, as hard and stupid as it might seem, personally e-mail the author.  Maybe you have an ally and you don’t know it.  Maybe you’ll learn something.  Maybe you’ll get kudos for just being real.

Just remember, don’t post or comment pissed off.  Chances are you’ll regret it.

tags: business blogging, negative comments

 You’re starting up your new business blog.  Fantastic.  Okay, who is going to write it?  If your jaw is open and you’re giving the screen a blank stare, you might be thinking … “Well not me for sure!”  Why not?  Okay, I can guess why not.  It’s more than a little daunting at first.  Yikes, lots of people are going to read this.  What if I make a fool of myself?  I don’t really “get” this blogging thing yet, so maybe we can find someone.  Good thinking.  First, let’s take some of the pressure off.  How about hire a professional blogger to help kick start your blog for you?

I got to thinking about this after I saw Chris Garrett’s post on the Performancing blog.  Here’s a good quote:

If you really want to attract bloggers to come work with you then it is important to think about exactly what you are trying to achieve. “Attract” is the important word here. Bloggers will not beat down your door in American Idol stylee, you need to make your offer attractive.  Source: Attracting Bloggers | Performancing.com

So besides money, what will make your offer attractive?  Here are the things I think about:

• Flexibility.  I really don’t like to have to post on a schedule.  Blog writing is a little different, sometimes a day or two will go by and there isn’t anything going on relevant to the topic.  Letting your bloggers post their quota (3-5 posts a week is standard) over the course of the week is easier.
• Editorial control.  Within guidelines, just let your blogger write.  Yeah this might be a bit scary, but that’s why you have guidelines for topics, linking, tags, categories.  I know I don’t like to have my work reviewed before it’s posted and reviewing means you have to read it.  For a timely post, well a day late might just lose the punch you were looking for.
• Buy in from the company and company bloggers.  The idea for hiring a pro blogger to kick-start you blog is that it’s a kick start.  It’s meant to let you see how a pro does it so you can work on posting but not worry that a week passes between your first “Hello world” post and your second.  If you’re serious about blogging, then people in your company should start blogging too.
• I blog as me.  I will not pretend that I work for a company that I’m only contracted to blog for.  I write as me.  Think of your pro blogger as a freelance writer.  Someone supplying great content for your blog, not a faux company insider.

Now if you want to hire a blogger as an employee, well the last point is mute, but don’t forget to set clear goals and expectations for the blog.  Success rarely happens overnight (I blogged for almost a year before I was “discovered” after Blog Business Summit Jan 2005).

When I started as a pro blogger years ago (yes, I was one of the first), we were making up a lot of the rules as we went, but those four points are ones that I have learned are the key ones to a successful pro blogging relationship.

tags: professional blogging

Good quality content is like the gold standard to companies wanting to be found through organic search. Many SEO experts will all agree, after you have a website optimized for search there is nothing better than good quality, relevant content to make you successful. This is what drives the robots and spiders used by search engines to find information about you and your company and eventually to your site. If you don’t have constantly updated and quality content on your site, the spiders and robots will stop visiting and stop telling the world about your business.

Why do I continue to mention quality content? This question is often asked by my clients that want to merely throw up some stuff on their website about their company without really having a voice or direction to the content. The first thing a business should recognize is that their website is often the first chance they will have at an audience for a potential customer. The content on their site should be relevant to the customer’s needs. A customer wanting to look for a replacement battery for their latest gadget doesn’t want to come to your site to learn about the history of your company and why you started business, they want that battery and they want it now. If your company is on the cutting edge of that technology you should be talking about that gadget and why your company is providing the best replacement batteries for the best cost and can have it to them when they want it. This is what the search engines can root out and find for their searching customer.

My good friend and colleague Dave Taylor has coined the term (and I wish I had done it first) “Findability.” This may seem to basic and it is beyond simple, but many companies don’t understand the concept. Taylor describes findability in his latest speech during the Affiliate Summit in Florida thus:

 

“…findability is the concept of how easily can people find you when they’re looking for your service or product.”

The yellow pages in my home is taking up wasted space. I simply do not use them to find a business or product. I use a search engine like Google, MNS or Yahoo to get me what I want when I want it. Recently, my wife and I needed a plumber to take a look at our water heater. Where did I go to find this plumber? I went to Google and stuck in the search phrase “water heater, maintenance and plumber and Longmont, Colorado”. Within minutes of that search, I had a plumber on the way to my home and he was gone in 4 hours (I’m definitely in the wrong career option). Now imagine if you were the hot water heater guru in Colorado and every day posted a little something about water heaters, maintenance and plumbing, you could guarantee you would probably be very high on the list in the natural search results. You didn’t have to out bid that other company that came up in the paid search results. Your company was front and center on the screen because you provided that search engine quality content that was updated constantly and robots and search spiders where there waiting in line to gobble up what you have to say about your industry. Taylor in another portion of his talk in the affiliate marketing conference made me chuckle with:

“I don’t care whether you’re a marketing and affiliate program, or you’re marketing products as an affiliate, either way, if I’m searching for your product or service, and I can’t find you, you really have a problem. And for most small businesses, I think it’s absolutely the case that they’re already dead, and they just haven’t noticed yet.”

Thanks Dave and those of you that are interested in the rest of what Dave has to say about “Findability” you can see his whole presentation at the Affiliate Summit 2006 East and at his own site at The Intuitive Life Business Blog. 

Content is the gold standard of blogging.  Keep it fresh, keep it relevant, and keep it contstant.  You won’t be one of those small businesses out their walking around with the walking dead.

I found on Kevin’s LexBlog some tips from Allison Shields and her post on how to get your site noticed (it applies to blogs too):

• Practice ‘education marketing’ – make sure that your website and your other marketing materials provide value to those in your target market. Educate them about your area of practice. Let them know that you know what their needs are, and that you have a solution that will benefit them.
• Remember the ‘so what’ rule – for everything you write on your website, stand in your clients’ and potential clients’ shoes. As you’re reading, ask yourself ‘so what?’ Why should your clients or potential clients care about what you’re saying? Focus on what’s in it for them, and speak in their language – using a lot of technical legal terms will confuse your readers, and they may not come back.
• Make sure to have not only good content, but current content, on your site. If you want people to come back, they have to have a reason to think there will be something new for them when they return. Offer them something THEY want – be a resource for your target market. Become the place to go for people who are seeking answers in your area of concentration.
• Don’t try to be all things to all people – carve out your niche. To get noticed, you have to be different than everyone else out there. Showcase your unique talents, skills and personality. Make sure web visitors know why you are the one that understands their particular problem.

For me, education marketing, find your niche, and current content are key (Allison has many more tips on her blog).  For example, on my personal blog, I don’t stray too far from tech and blog-related stuff.  Sure there is an occasional non-tech post, but not often.  But the same token my science blog is about … yeah, science.  I personally use the “so what” or “this means” whenever I’m writing a marketing document or presentation. So in practice do something like … Selling point [think to yourself “which means”] we have a cure for the common cold.

What’s your best tip for getting noticed?  No, outright bribery doesn’t count.  Okay, sometimes it does.

Tags: website marketing, blog marketing, business blogging

From iMediaConnection this morning comes some hints at how to track the buzz around you and your business on the blogosphere.  The tips and techniques are good ones, but they miss a couple important things.  First let’s look at the metrics they suggest:

• Technorati: Blogs linking to your site
• Technorati: Total incoming links to your site
• Bloglines: Citation search total
• Analytics: Pageviews
• Analytics: New Visitors
• Analytics: Repeat visitors
• Analytics: Referrals
• Analytics: Organic
• Analytics: Direct
• Datasource: New Members/Subscribers/Customers
• Datasource: Revenues from (direct sales/affiliates/partners/resellers/etc.)
• Alexa: Weekly rank
• Email: Opens
• Email: Clickthroughs
• Email: Forwards

Super.  Lot’s more here than just bloggy buzz, but let’s run with it.  Since I’m in charge of the metrics stuff at Qumana, well I’m usually up to my elbows in all this data.  So … what’s missing?  Well first an RSS reader.  The blogosphere is about immediacy if nothing else and you have to keep on top of it.  You need to subscribe to the RSS feeds provided by Technorati, Google, etc to be able to react and contribute to the conversation.  Bloglines and Lektora (disclosure I work for the company that makes Lektora) are two good choices.  Then for buzz and conversation measurement I really like BlogPulse.  Here is an example of a BlogPulse trend search comparing me (Tris Hussey), Debbie Weil, and Rick Bruner:

What this shows is that, well, sorry Rick … but no one is talking about you.  I tend to be talked more about than Debbie, except recently because Debbie just launched her book (man I gotta get cracking!).  Imagine doing this for your brand, CEO, competitors.  Something like this:

This compares Qumana (my company) to Ecto and Microsoft’s new Live Writer.  As you can see Qumana is talked about more than Ecto, but Live Writer is clearly a blogosphere darling at the moment.

Bottom line: check out the analytics article (there are good suggestions there), start subscribing to RSS, and add BlogPulse to your toolkit for some fast measurements on the bloggy buzz

Tags: buzz metrics, blog metric, buzz mesurement, buzz marketing, RSS

In a case which has evident implications for Canadian bloggers but also for bloggers worldwide, Kazaa Australia boss Nikki Hemming is suing Canadian blogger Jon Newton and others for defamation, on the basis of an article earlier this year on Newton’s p2pnet site, as reported in this week’s IT Today section of the national daily The Australian (not a hyperlink permalink, no guarantee it will be there indefinitely).

The suit is over material posted on p2pnet and anonymous comments on that post, some months ago at a time when Hemming was in court in a Sydney case. Included in the suit with Newton are his ISP and four John Doe, anonymous commenters. The article has since been removed from the p2pnet site.

Jon Newton is disputing the suit vigorously and observes that if Hemming wins the case ‘it’ll open the door even wider for lawsuits against Canadian bloggers’  .

Canadian internet law professor Michael Geist has commented on the case and its implications in his BBC Online article Free speech, libel and the internet age. Geist draws attention to how the legal frameworks in different jurisdictions have a variety of implications for internet intermediaries, such as internet service providers and even individual bloggers who allow comments.  

The difficult question is not whether these sites and services have the right to voluntarily remove offending content if they so choose – no one doubts that they do – but rather whether sites can be compelled to remove allegedly unlawful or infringing content under threat of potential legal liability.

The answer is not as straightforward as one might expect since the law in Commonwealth countries such as the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia varies depending on the type of content or the nature of the allegations.

Canadian media lawyer Dan Burnett also comments on the different treatments in different jurisdictions, in his statement as reported at the August 5 Toronto Freedom of Speech Online concert and benefit. Burnett sees Canada as being laggard in reforming the law and comments:

In addition to the reforms we are lagging behind already, the internet age raises some new and fundamental questions. How does the right of reply on wiki and reader-post sites affect the law? Are we going to hold site operators liable for automatic posts by others? Are (we) going to recognize a defense for a person who operates a public forum for debate?

So where are bloggers without ready resource to internet lawyers to go for advice on these matters?

It seems not uncommon for bloggers to refer, on defamation and other legal issues, to the Electronic Frontier Foundation Legal Guide for Bloggers. That’s good as far as it goes, and there is some good advice in the document, but unless I’m missing something the document is a legal guide for the United States of America, not a global guide. (Actually, from a chat today with a lawyer friend very knowledgeable in these matters, I would seriously doubt whether a comprehensive global guide of any depth in this area is likely to emerge in the near or distant future.) 

Whatever the peculiarities of various legal jurisdictions, clearly some degree of prudence is needed in terms of what we post to our blogs and what we allow in terms of comments. Dave Taylor had some good advice on this in his post last year SEO Book’s Aaron Wall sued over comments on his weblog: Dave saw the case as ‘a wakeup call to business bloggers who haven’t yet thought through their own comment and comment moderation strategies’. 

And however the currrent case in Canada turns out, it too is clearly a call to look at the posting and comment moderation policies for our own blogs and those of any companies to which we consult.

Adding Technorati tags to posts has never been easy in TypePad. In fact, I created a little movie a while back so that clients could watch it as many times as they like.

But now TypePad has added a Technorati Tags field near the bottom the New Post page. Just separate your tags with commas and you’re all set. No need to muck around with the Edit HTML tab.

While this is a good solution for most users, not being able to get under-the-hood does frustrate me on a few points:

• I don’t like to brand my tags as “Technorati Tags.” I prefer the more agnostic “Tags.”
• I like the flexibility of sending those links to places other than the Technorati tag pages. I.e., a tag on Search Engine Optimization could point to my page on SEO at my own Web site.
• I prefer pipes over commas. (I know, small thing.)

However, if you’re a TypePad user and you’ve wanted to take advantage of tags (which help drive additional traffic to your site) without learning HTML, this is a great solution for you.

Now, what to do with my movie?

Strumpy (aka Amanda Chapel / anonymous PR blogger / tall, athletic, Pantene shoulder-length black hair, perfect perky boobs – ed. note: you’ve got to be kidding) is all fired up today with his/her new meme: The Death of Corporate Blogging.

God, (s)he’s clever the way she/he/it writes.

But (s)he’s wrong: corporate blogging – or at least the widespread use of blogging as a business communications tool is NOT dead. And I’m not just saying that because my new book, The Corporate Blogging Book (Penguin Portfolio August 2006), is coming out next week.

Well OK that’s one reason I’m saying it.

Corporate blogging is just getting started

The real reason is oh so simple. Far from being dead, corporate blogging – the use of a blog either internally or externally as part of a company’s online communications and marketing toolkit – is just getting started.

As Ken Yarmosh, who live-blogged my Washington DC book launch yesterday, put it:

“Despite the echoes we often hear in the halls of geek-dom, the blogosphere is not saturated yet. There are many, many more voices to come, blogging on everything from finance to real estate, to yes, even air conditioners. And I know, because I’ve met them this afternoon.” – Ken Y.

Look, I’m sifting through the stack of business cards I got yesterday and here are the kinds of corporate blogging wannabes who attended (I won’t use specific names out of respect for their privacy): commercial real estate, attorney-at-law, non-profit foundation, custom publishing group, government affairs office, board of trade, three or four national associations and so on.

Strumpy, read my book

Strumpy, read my book for god’s sake and maybe you’ll get it. I make a lot of points. Three of the key ones are this:

It’s not about being cool

Corporate blogging is not about being cool. It’s about following your customers where they’re going… and that’s online. You gotta be there to interact with your customers. It’s that simple. Blogging enables an instant (or almost) conversation with them. And that’s what people want. They want to be heard. They want to be acknowledged. Then they’re more apt to do business with you and your organization.

A blog is just a publishing platform
A blog is just a platform, a powerful, simple, inexpensive Web publishing system. Why in heck wouldn’t most companies adopt this platform? Call it Web 2.0. Call it common sense. Call it budget cutting. Who needs a whole IT department that takes months to update a page on a corporate site, when a non-techie manager can do it in minutes with blogging software?

Customers are driving this – not consultants
The new world that PR practitioners, marketing strategists and other consultants are touting is here. We haven’t concocted it as a way to line our pockets with gold. Marketing has become a two-way conversation between customer and corporation. The big guys at the top have lost control or at least complete control. A lot of the best creative stuff (new ideas, great writing) is bubbling up from below.

With 40,000 or 60,000 or whatever new videos being posted everyday to YouTube, with trackbacks and tagging and RSS and digging and Technorati and del.ici.ous and all that cool stuff innovating, fine tuning and becoming easier for the non-techie to use every day… well I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that corporate blogging is here to stay.

Remember, those ordinary people are customers. They’re driving this thing. Not the corporate blogging consultants.

Sorry Strumpy, stuff it.

Update: See here.
Technorati: the corporate blogging book , corporate blogging , debbie weil

I love getting new books to read. All my friends know that I am a voracious reader. Well today I received Steve and DL’s book in the mail (book blog here). I’ve only flipped through it, but at first skim it looks interesting. The book is titled “Publish and Prosper: Blogging for Your Business”. I think most of us here would agree (and maybe now I’m stepping into a contentious issue) that business blogs are really just now starting to catch on. I think small biz blogs are doing well, it’s the big guys that still have some work to do.

And well Canada Post has been painfully slow this week so I’m still waiting for Debbie Weil’s Corporate blogging book (book blog here). Sigh. Well at least I know I’ll have reading material for a while.

Not to be left out I’m also writing a book, but not about blogging but working from home. Have a visit over to Daddy Wears Slippers to Work, I’ll make sure I put the coffee on for you.

Tags: blogging, blogging books, book blogs, Debbie Weil, Steve Broback, DL Byron

For those of you looking for rules (I hate that word–how about “guidelines?”), case studies and advice on how to market with blogs, you may want to clear your calendar for this Thursday, July 27th at 12pm EST.

Co-blogger Jeremy Wright is hosting Truths of Blog Marketing: Reaching Customers, Building Your Brand, a Web seminar for MarketingProfs.

The seminar goes for $99, or is free for Marketing Profs’ Premium Plus members. Another argument for becoming a member is Kelly Goto’s Tuesday, July 25th seminar: Demystifying Website Usability: Rapid Research for Marketers.

A nascent blog directory, iBlogBusiness, has recently launched to serve people looking specifically for business blogs.

The concept isn’t revolutionary, but it could become a good resource for those looking for other business blogs.
Since adding your own blog is free, it’s probably worth the two minutes it takes to submit your URL to iBlogBusiness.

Getting quality incomings is essential to good search engine ranking; since iBlogBusiness hasn’t been around long enough to provide good PageRank, you should also submit to the blog directories listed in Robin Good’s Best Blog Directory and RSS Submission Sites page.

Way to go, Brian! It’s exciting when a fellow author hits publication day and can announce the official release of his book: Lead Generation for the Complex Sale (McGraw-Hill, ISBN 0071458972, $24.95).

2.0: the new way to publicize your book release

• press release
• podcast
• blog
• Amazon blog (or is it a “plog”?)
• email blast to colleagues

Just got an email from Brian with a link to today’s press release about the launch. (He uses PRWeb which I’ve also used and recommend highly. Inexpensive and reliable; your release gets picked up by Google and other news sources.)

Cleverly, he’s also released a matching podcast through PRWeb Podcast. [Note: Brian’s PRWeb podcast is 7:41 mins and links directly to an MP3 file that is 7.1 MB. Wish there were an interim download page for this.]

Notice that Brian also has a big-name publisher, McGraw-Hill. These days, that isn’t enough. You’ve got to market your book as imaginatively and aggressively as if you were self-published. In fact, proving that you can do that is one key piece in getting a book deal.

About the book

Brian sent me a preview copy. It’s a handsome hardcover that packs in everything you could possibly want to know about creating and sustaining a lead generation program. If you’re in big-time sales with long lead times — or managing anyone who is — you gotta have Brian’s book on your desk. Order on Amazon.

More about the book and other ways to order.

A lot of small business owners are interested in blogging, but they afraid of starting a blog for fear of not knowing what to write about.

Often, when we’re consulting with a client on their blog we create a “recommended reading list.” It’s usually a combination of blogs from the client’s industry, similar industries, and a “usual suspects” list of blogs on blogging, like Business Blog Consulting (or my own blog, dammit!)

Well, I think I’ll be adding Pajama Market to my usual suspects. It’s a combination of “Small Business Blogs of the Day” and interviews with those small business bloggers. And yes, the “Web site of the Day” concept is sooo 1997, but for small business owners interested in blogging, this is a valuable resource.

Recent featured blogs include Green Cine Daily, featuring movie reviews from a DVD rental company, Wool Winders, a knitting blog from a knitting store, and The Tap Room, a blog from a London pub. How’s that for variety?

If I have one complaint (and apparently I do) it’s the dearth of categories. Currently there are only four: Blogging Info, Personal, Small Business Blog Interview and Small Business Blog of the Day. It would be great if there were some categories that covered the type of businesses, such as “Retail”, “Service Industry”, and so on. As small businesses fall of the home page they tend to disappear.

Still, if you’re a small business owner and you think there’s nothing for you to blog about, be sure to check out Pajama Market first.

If you are already blogging your small business, well maybe you should submit your blog for consideration!

Today, for the first time in over a year, there’s a new post on Bloglet’s home page.

Bloglet began as a hobby of mine to help manage the random blogs I’d read on a daily basis. This was back when words like “blog” and “rss” had yet to enter most people’s vocabulary.

Now “blogs” are being mentioned on the Daily Show, but Bloglet still remains a hobby. It’s obvious that I don’t have the time to turn this hobby into something that offers a fair level of service to users.

Bloglet, for those of you who don’t know, was an early free service that allowed visitors to subscribe to email versions of your post. The service was always a bit spotty, and I remember on several occasions having to log into Bloglet and resetting my account after realizing that it had been a week since I received my last update.

If you’re still using Bloglet, Feedblitz is offering a Bloglet-to-Feedblitz converter of all of your subscribers, which is now promoted on the Bloglet home page.

Other options include Feedburner and AWeber.

Any business still relying on Bloglet needs to convert their subscribers sooner rather than later, as Bloglet says they may be phasing out the site entirely over the next few weeks.

BtoB Magazine and Marqui are hosting a webcast May 18th on blogging for business – practical recommendations and strategic advice. The online event promises to inform you on:

• how blogging can impact your business – from a strategic perspective
• understand the spectrum of blogging activities you can engage in – based on your profile
• practical advice tailored to your company’s readiness and needs

Speakers include Shel Israel (co-author, with Robert Scoble, of the book Naked Conversations); PR professional Lynann Bradbury, Waggener Edstrom’s Sr. Vice President; and Marqui’s business blogging expert Michael O’Connor Clarke.

You can register here.

It was only a matter of time. Just as employers have clauses in their HR documentation about drug and alcohol use, it appears that blogs may soon join the ranks of contraband in the halls of some corporations.

According to an article in ABC NewsOnline, Australia, the authors of a new book “Uses of Blogs” have a detailed chapter on blogging and the law which highlight the wishes of some employers to ban blogging in the workplace. This is common sense -don’t blog on personal time. However, the lines could, and will, quickly blur as to how far this extends into the personal lives of employees.

“Employers are now considering including specific blogging provisions in employment contracts,” the authors write in Uses of Blogs, a book to be published later this year.

While I’m not an attorney, I’m projecting that the real enforceability of a no-blogging clause in an employment will be vetted in court after someone’s fired for a breach of contract.

Would anyone say, “sorry, I have to decline your offer as working for your company would keep me from blogging.” We’ll see…

The article Defending yourself against the blogs from Multichannel Merchant (May issue) offers some good advice to merchants on how to more effectively manage their brand in the blogosphere.

The article opens with a story of how Greenpeace successfully pressured Gorton’s parent company Nissui to pull out of the whaling business by inciting a blogstorm against Gorton’s. I feel so ‘out of it’ — reading the article was the first I’d heard of this and Gorton’s, & Gorton’s Fresh Seafood are clients of mine! (well, not mine personally, but of my web dev / SEO agency Netconcepts)

Also included in the article are some comments (from yours truly!) on how to enter the blogosphere effectively:

1. Create a “safe haven” for employees to experiment with blogging. Set up a private blog on your intranet or extranet, or start a blog that’s password-protected. Then offer access to that test to a selected audience. Your inexperienced bloggers will feel more comfortable knowing that all your customers and competitors are not watching their every move.
2. Decide on a permanent home for your blog. The Web address you choose should be one that you will be happy with for years to come. Remember that it will become difficult to switch blog services if you allow the service’s name to be part of your URL. Ehobbies.blogs.com, backcountryblog.blogspot.com, and sethgodin.typepad.com are all examples of blogs that are forever wedded to their blog platform, for better or for worse. If they switch platforms, all the links they’ve earned will be unavailable to their new blog. Links are the lifeblood of your search engine visibility, so the significance of this cannot be overstated.
3. Select a scalable, flexible, and user-friendly blog platform. There are so many solutions to choose from! Some are hosted services, such as TypePad, Blogger, and WordPress.com. Some are software packages that you install on your Web server, such as WordPress, Drupal, or Movable Type. You can pore over comparison charts (such as the one at www.ojr.org/ojr/images/blog_software_comparison.cfm), though I suggest you simply go with WordPress (the software package, not to be confused with the hosted service at WordPress.com). WordPress is free, so the price is right. It’s highly configurable, since it’s open source, and it has a plethora of free, useful plug-ins written for it.
4. Decide on a posting schedule. Try to post at least three times a week. Allow several hours per week for this. I typically spend two to three hours a week blogging. Don’t hire a ghostwriter for your blog, or you’ll get slammed by bloggers for lack of transparency (an unwritten rule in the blogosphere). As far as retaining readers, recency is more important than frequency. A couple weeks of inactivity makes the reader feel like nobody’s home. Conversely, having the latest post be only a day old makes the blog appear “fresh.”
5. Build relationships with respected bloggers. Not only will they be more likely to link to you, but they will also offer advice and bolster your street cred. Posting thoughtful comments on their blogs is only the first step. Attend blogger conferences such as BlogOn and Blog Business Summit and meet bloggers in person. Keep the dialogue going through e-mail and through phone or Skype conversations. Become an evangelist, and you will really get them on your side.

You may also want to check out on my own blog the unabridged version of my ecommerce blog tips that I had sent to the Multichannel Merchant journalist. It further expounds on the five tips.

Here’s a truism about corporate blogging: generally, nobody cares about your widgets. What people do care about is stuff related to your widgets – cool things you can do with them, related lifestyles, corresponding industry issues, etc. This is where it gets a bit trickier. Should you be deadly serious? Can you have a bit of fun??

The cleverest tack I’ve seen lately is one taken by the Ethics Crisis blog. It’s the marketing companion to a business called SRF Global Translations. (The blog appears to be the company’s Web site, as well.)

SRF is a family-run business established in 1976 that provides “mindful, nuanced, professional multilanguage translations” of unglamorous materials like corporate codes of ethics and compliance documents.

Not the kind of widgets that make you say “cool” but certainly a very useful service.

So what’s the blog about? Well, there are sections for serious discussions of global ethics. But the fun part is an Ethics Confession page where you can type in — anonymously — the most unethical thing you’ve ever done at work (“we’re not talking about taking home the office pencils,” the blog advises).

After you’ve submitted your 250-word anecdote, readers vote on how egregious your actions were… More

It is easier to build a relationship with your reader and engage with them if your blog is sticky. A sticky web site compels visitors to come back again and again, and to stay longer too. My blog is reasonably sticky because the author is so good and has such insightful things to say. 😉

But in all seriousness though, there are things you can do to engage your readers more effectively. For instance, you can form a community where they all talk to each other. Most blogs, unfortunately, are abysmal at that. Even my blog really doesn’t do a very good job of bringing readers together and involving them in a group discussion. It’s entirely too easy to be up on one’s soapbox, to start a conversation and also finish it.

Here are some practical suggestions for making your blog sticky, courtesy of Performancing:

1. Design for repeat visits
2. Keep advertising minimal for repeats
3. Provide a recent posts list
4. Answer your comments
5. Use the right language
6. Post frequently
7. Have a private message system
8. Allow member posts
9. Include members in decisions
10. Don’t neglect the distributed community