Blogging for Business

I’m currently organizing a large blog initiative for my company and I keep hearing, “I don’t know what to do and I don’t know where to start…“

I decided to draft a simple introductory document that explains how to start. I’m still working on the final product, but here’s a draft:

Introduction

Given the recent rise in popularity in business blogging, it is important to establish a proven game plan to ensure that each blog created is able to maximize its true potential.  This document outlines this accepted game plan.

Business blogging is a vital tool for creating Amplified Word of Mouth (AWM) with your clients.  In this case, AWM will be defined as a social media campaign designed to encourage or accelerate WOM (Word of Mouth) in existing and new communities.  The ultimate goal of AWM:

• Creating communities and enabling people to share opinions
• Motivating advocates and evangelists
• Giving advocates information that they can share
• Using advertising or publicity designed to create buzz
• Identifying and reaching out to influential individuals and communities
• Researching and tracking online conversations

Before beginning you business blog, establish what the blog will be about and how it relates to your audience.  It is also vital that the proper resources are committed to to maintain the life of your blog.

Next, choose the appropriate blog service:

• Free Services (e.g. Blogger.com and WordPress.com) are great but bear in mind are great but you get what you pay for. In addition, since the blog is housed on their server, they own it.
• Paid Services (e.g. Typepad.com, Blogharbor.com) cost a small monthly fee and offer more bells and whistles from the free services, however, the blog is still housed on their sever.
• Downloadable Services (WordPress.com and MoveableType) are services you can download to your own sever. This is recommended for business blogging.

Basic Architecture – Once you decide on a topic and service along with a commitment to working on your blog, follow this basic architecture:

• Banner – Use one and make it relative to the topic of your blog. If this is a sponsored blog, this is good real estate for it.
• Most blogging services offer multiple page layouts. Use two columns with the content body on the right and the left gutter for plug-ins and widgets.
• Apply the appropriate color palate for your desired audience.
• Decide on the font for your blog and stick with it throughout. Most services allow you to determine font in the majority of modules you control. Remember, you can also use CSS for this. It is recommended to use Verdana, black and 10-12 pts. 
• Decide on the format of your individual posts and stick with it. Some bloggers include pictures, links to rss subscriptions, book marking tools, etc..

“Must haves” – To create a “stickiness” factor of your blog, make sure you do the following:

• Register your blog wherever possible. Some sources are: Technorati.com, Findory.com, Blogwise.com, Blogflux.com and TTLB ecosystem.
• Include both an “About Me” and “About the Blog” section. Both give the reader instant insight about who is writing what.
• All blogs should have a blogroll. This is a list of blogs that you either currently read and/or recommend. For a blogger, this is one of the best resources for “stumbling” upon new blogs. It’s also great for link love.
• Utilize the “big orange” RSS button and make it easy to find. This is the universal button that acknowledges that you have a RSS feeds and all the User has to do is click on it.
• Offer a full feed RSS with easy access for your readers. Use a button like feedbutton.com.
• If possible, let your readers subscribe to your feed via email.
• At the end or each post, entice your readers to subscribe to your RSS feed via a quick “warm and fuzzy” sentence and/or RSS button.
• If possible, use a plug-in at the end of each post that identifies related articles in your blog. This will help keep the reader interested.
• Make sure that your blog has a “search this blog” function.
• Offer Archives, Recent Posts and Recent Comments (once you get them) in your right side gutter
• Ask your readers questions through your posts. This will encourage comments.
• Make sure that readers have a way to reach you other than posting a comment. If you don’t want to use a personal or business account, simply take out an account just for this purpose.

Widgets & Plug-ins – These are great, but are they practical?  Yes, but it depends upon your audience – just make sure it’s relevant.  Some resources for widgets are MajikWidget.com and Widgetbox.com.

Posts – This is the soul of your blog so this is where the majority of your effort will go.

• First, establish a posting schedule for your blog and stick to it. This where most blogs fail.
• Start with a good headline. Make it short, relevant and keyword worthy.
• The first 2-3 sentences are very important as most readers skim. Also bear in mind on how the post will read via a RSS aggregator.
• Use reasonable keyword integrity. For example, if you’re posting about social media don’t do something like this: “…Mark Krupinski (a social media novice who used to write Social Media on the Fly) attended a social media conference to learn about social media.” Do the same with the use of bold and italicize font for your keywords.
• Utilize good category names and do everything possible to tie them into your keywords.
• Use link integrity. Just like keywords, use links when appropriate and avoid overkill.
• As for the length of your post, size does not matter – relevancy does.

Comments & Engagement - Some of the best content found on a blog are found in the comments.  Think of these as little focus groups who want to be heard.  In addition, most services offer different settings for comments and what the reader can and cannot do.

• Remember, establish your blog rules when you begin and stick with them. This includes comments – will you moderate before posting, is there anything that’s unacceptable, etc…
• Feel free to engage with your readers – be professional, polite and honest. Better yet, be helpful.
• Assume everything you write (posts & comments) will be blogged by someone in the blogosphere.
• If faced with a “cranky” or “combative” blogger, remember your rules, stick to them and assume your response will be blogged

Participation – In addition to writing posts for your blog, you should spend a fair amount of time reading and commenting on other blogs.  These can be your competitors or simply the thoughts of others in similar fields.

• This is very important for: understanding “what’s going on” right now in the blogosphere in relation to your topic, how others are using their blog to communicate and this will help you establish “link love” when you comment on other sites.
• Find other blogs via engines like Technorati or Google Blog Search. Then start subscribing to RSS feeds to the ones that interest you. As time goes on, you’ll realize the ones that are important to you and you keep those and start identifying the blogs that influence them.
• Remember to use blogrolls as a valuable resource for finding what the author subscribes to and follow the same path as above. It’s a simple meandering through the blogosphere.
• When you do comment, make sure you add to the conversation. Comment’s are like a cocktail party – You don’t just walk up to a conversation about the business potential of Twitter.com and start talking about what ate for dinner last night. Make it relevant.

Proposed Measurements – If you’re blogging for business, obviously you need to establish some measurements to determine a ROI.  Outside of your time, here are some metrics that are recommended

• Authority via Technorati. Once your blog has been indexed by Technorati, this measurement identifies the number of other sites that link to your blog (a.k.a. “link love”) which search engines love – hence, “authority”.
• Conversation Index – This is the number of reader comments in relation to the number of posts you author. Since blogging is a form of two way communication, your baseline should average at least 1:1. If you don’t agree with this last statement, forget blogging and stick with press releases.
• Unique Visitors & Subscriptions – By combining these two you have a good understanding of what you are able to drive to your blog along with individuals who what to subscribe to what you have to say.
• Social Search Engines – Some examples of these are Digg.com and StumbleUpon.com. How to harness these rankings is still open for debate.
• Regardless of which and/or combination of measurements you decide upon, establish realistic goals from the beginning.

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