What Are Business Blogs Good For?

Blocking blogs At The firewall is like telling your staff they can't read magazines. Clearly, there are some magazines you wouldn't bring into the workplace, but if your corporation had a policy banning magazines, wouldn't everyone roll those eyes and wonder what was in the drinking water on the executive floor?

That's one of the quotes from this piece.

It's not polite to toot your own horn, but I'm listening to this interview, and I must have taken my Wheaties that day. Karen Mattonen interviewed me for her Radio Show on Recruiter Life, and the topics we cover are incredibly relevant to corporations looking to learn more about blogs.

In fact, I'd say this interview is a perfect marketing piece for me. It's a good forum to discuss how Durbin Media approaches business blogging. It's 47 minutes long, but even if you have the first 10-20 minutes, you'll get an excellent understanding on why our clients hire us.

I should transcript this and post it to the site. Feel free to comment, both positive and negative.

Google Vanity Searches

I have to admit - one of my favorite blogging pleasures is checking the sitemeter for search engine referrals.

Today I have received my all-time favorite.

"The Influence of the Internet." We're on page one.

We're also on page one for "Social Media Consultant St Louis," and "Blog Consultant St Louis," which are important because that's what we get paid to do.

Include "AutoDealership blogs", and "interview questions to ask", and go ahead and throw "eworkmarkets" in there, even though it was posted just a day or so ago.

And that's just the first 20 entries.

Someone linked us on Wikipedia under ProFlowers.

Over 30,000 people have seen fit to visit this site in the last 12 months, an astounding number for a small business with no paid marketing. If I had told you this was happening in 2000, you'd think we were the best marketers, ever. At least for small business. But today - that's just moderate success.

I can't wait to see what happens in 2008. Maybe LifeInAVentiCup will crack 100,000.

The Right Way To Build Traffic To Your Blog

January will be our second full year of selling blogging and social media services. In that time, we've worked with over 40 clients on blogs, blog marketing, web design, social media training, RSS marketing, and even a print project or two.

One thing stands out in all those projects. As long as our clients continue writing and following our training, they are successful. Blogging is a tough sell. It's unlike most services in that much of the effort comes from the client, which leads to the inevitable realization that they are paying us for something they have to do. At the same time, the rewards for those who continue blogging always exceed the ROI numbers they get in their proposals.

Blogging changes the way you do business, in a very positive way, and that's the hard part to sell. As Franki and I have worked on client's projects, we've added several new ones for ourselves.

I started 24thstate, a political blog. Franki started Life In A VentiCup, which is very successful in traffic, and yet is one written for fun, not profit. There's a lesson in there (actually, I'll give it to you).

The lesson is Franki 1) writes what she finds interesting, 2) links to other blogs of interest, 3) comments on other people's blogs that she finds interesting, and 4) responds to comments on her own site.

That's the secret, and the point of this post. Blogging is something you pay for, it's something you do. As consultants, our job is to teach you how to avoid potholes and help you find groups of other interesting people (We also make you look good). For our clients that our writing, bless you folks - thank you for working with us.

For those that have fallen off the wagon - get back on that blog!

Some recent examples of our work:

Blast Companies: SituationalMarketing, the product blog for ConsumerDecoder.
CorporateCitizen07 - a report on corporate responsibility, sustainibility, and workforce development.
Netshare.com - a community for executives to network
Flektor-Blog: A very cool photo, video and music editing tool that also creates online poll with themes.
BearingFruitConsulting: Blog coming in a few days - its a recruitment consulting company.

Creating A Coherent Social Media Strategy: Jeremiah and Chris at BlogWorldExpo

Chris Brogan and Jeremiah Owyang are speaking on the topic of creating a comprehensive social media strategy. We can tell right from the beginning that this is going to be a good session. Before starting, they ask the audience questions about what we want to hear. They have a presentation, but want to make sure that we all walk out of here a little smarter. Good presentation notes.

So the first thoughts are on the use of monitoring. They cover the necessity of listening, and responding to information online on your brand. It’s a standard speech, but the difference is there are two people who have walked the walk. These are two industry stalwarts, and they actually showed up.

They’re going through the specific case studies that Jeremiah worked on when he was at Hitachi Data Systems. I’m having some connectivity problems, so I’m having problems getting this posted live and following everything, but the information comes down to this: It’s not transparency that makes social media important, it’s joining a community and bringing value to your readers.

They’ve covered a number of softwares that make sense, from Twitter, to comments on Facebook, to Ning. Part of the message is that are so many different software applications, but they all work in different communities. You have to determine which Web 2.0, social media, widget based community is your best chance for success.

Impressions Of The Blog World Expo Conference

My first impressions of the BlogWorldExpo are it's a good start. I see lots of "famous" bloggers here, and have run into a lot of people that I read on a regular basis. Stephen Green, Glenn Reynolds, Rob May from Business Pundit is sitting behind me at the Cult of Blogging session from Leo Laporte.

I've also been able to say hello to Easton Ellsworth from KnowMoreMedia, Bill Owen from NutsAboutSouthwest, folks from Townhall and Pajamas Media, and I've managed to avoid even making eye contact with the Izea folks (the PayPerPost people). I still want to run into Jim Hoff from Gateway Pundit, Rohit Bhargava from Influential Interactive Marketing, and Jeremiah Owyang, the Web-Strategist.

What's great is most of the people here are all hands-on bloggers, and have moved far away from the theory of blogging into the practical applications. There is a growing movement here, and it's more than blogging, it's the sense that we can create communities and affect change in business, politics, media, and in every other sphere of human endeavor.

When I first started blogging, I was a true believer. I felt that blogging gave voice to the masses, and changed the way we communicate to each other. As I started to turn my blog knowledge into a business, some of the wonder went away. Sitting in this conference, I'm getting that old familiar feeling that I really am involved in something that is fundamentally different. It's not the rush of revolution, but it is the powerful sense of massive change, slowly making its way through the population.

That alone is worth the price of admission. Franki and I are already planning on coming back to the next one next September.

Taste the Anger

Day two of the conference. We've learned a thing or two - namely about Starbucks. It seems the 'bucks here all run independently. They don't take (or sell) Starbucks giftcards, nor do they have any across the board standards when it comes to coffee quality, creation or pricing. I have to admit, it's almost fun seeing the wild variation from location to location.

This isn't to say the coffee hasn't been good. To be fair, most of it has been the usual good Starbucks product. But today we found the renegade location. Tucked away deep in the bowels of the Las Vegas Convention Center is what we've dubbed the angriest Starbucks location in the US. Our coffee was so bitter we decided we can taste the anger (it explains the bitterness) in our respective cappuccinos and lattes. Sadly, we may actually have to return to this location a bit later, as there is no other food source to speak of in the convention center.

But not to worry, they've got plenty of Splenda. It may be angry and bitter, but it'll be sweet, angry and bitter. Just the way I like it.

BlogWorldExpo: The Benefits of Small Business Blogs

Liveblogging Scott Allen of the Virtual Handshake, listening to him discuss how Small Business blogs help support your small business.

1) Don't have ads. (we teach this too - ads make it look like your primary business can't make money).

2) Reasons to use blogs
a) search engine visibility
b) educate customers
c) Branding (personal and business)

3) Lead Generation
Not that great, but lead conversion is very, very high. Some people do get leads, but we find that there's often more people that trust you after reading your blog. Scott says this is all about trust.

4) Search Engines: The fastest way to get to the top 10 (page one) of Google is to start a blog. here's an example. Go search "labor relations consulting". The first entry is one of my clients, and they rank first in their industry.

Update:
Do's and Don'ts

Do's:
1)Commit to regular posting. It's better to delete the blog if you stop posting. A dead blog is worse than no blog at all.
2) Be Authentic
3) Spend at least 50% of your time off-blog.
4) Encourage Conversation (this is harder to do then it seems)

Don't
1) Don't beat yourself for not posting. If you miss a few days, it's okay. As long as you come back to it regularly.
2) Be afraid to Market. It's okay if you're a business blogger
3) Fall for the Field of Dreams syndrome (just because you build it, doesn't mean your marketing it done. Creating a blog does not mean that by magic, you'll get traffic.
4) Don't let people be abusive

Scott is talking about how much time you spend a week. He maintains that 5 hours a week spend blogging is a better use of your marketing time than other pieces. And that's just the direct metrics. Another guy points out that blogging also makes you smarter, as it gives you more information.

Scott could have read our training documents, because he's saying the same thing that we teach in our Blogger Boot Camp. Best speaker so far in terms of content.

on Ghost Bloggers: it's okay to hire bloggers that speak in the company name, and it's okay to have someone edit your writing, and it's okay to have someone write posts for you, and then you edit it. As long as you are involved in the process, it's okay. Scott doesn't agree that there is some weird kind of taint because someone edits for grammar.

BlogWorldExpo Liveblogging: Yamaha Motor Case Study

Liveblogging from BlogWorldExpo, we're in the Yamaha Motor Corporate Case Study, a session describing the way in whichYamaha used a product blog to get in front of snowmobilers.

Snowmobilers live on forums, talking about what they like and dislike about the snowmobile world. Yamaha Motor went in with the intention of harnessing that passion, and decided on a blog for message management. The session is being run by Maggie Fox, who is a Canadian, eh?

Four reasons they wanted to start a product blog:
Support product launches
Platform for Yamaha online
Business Intelligence Gathering
Affecting customers before they engage in the product purchasing cycle.

How To Get Corporate Buy-In

Sell directly to corporate management
Cover risk management
Ask the question, What's the worst that could happen? Discuss this honestly.

Look of the Blog:
SledTalk, the blog

The Number One Concern: Comments.
What happens if people are nasty? A: Clear terms of service on the page, you can delete them. They've had to delete one. Only 8.5% negative comments.

What if we get too many comments? A: You should be so lucky

Results: 8 weeks post launch. Indexed in google immediately - traffic increasing. Results are so good, they are launching a second blog - one for Yamaha Bikes. Higher engagement from blogs than from forums (engagement measured as 100 readers, three commenters, equals 3% engagement). That's a good metric.

Lots of Anecdotal evidence about good things that have happened.

Live At The Blog World Expo: Tracking Reputation In The Blogosphere

Franki and I are here, blogging at the courtesy of free WiFi in the Las Vegas Convention Center. After a great breakfast at the Grand Lux Cafe, and a restful night at the Paris hotel, and a pretty decent sushi meal late at night (Shibayu at the MGM Grand), we're here at the conference and in a session with filtrbox, umbria, collective intellect.

These three companies are talking about the need to perform constant monitoring of the blogosphere if you are concerned about your brand online.

The general speech is simple. More information is out there, and the cycle of time that you have to respond is now measured in days, maybe hours, instead of several weeks.. Howard Kaushansky, Robin Seidner, and Ari Newman are speaking.

Robin is saying now that the time to perform online monitoring is before you have a crisis. You need to understand a baseline of what the current chatter is so you can identify a crisis (or an opportunity!).

Also, understand who the influencers are. Now this is the tough part. The definition of influence is much harder. Robin does a good job of explaining that influence has to be eyeballed, one-on-one. Her presentation also makes the point that companies should be proactive, instead of reactive, and corrective, while remaining authentic.

Conference Note: Arianna Huffington is on the cover of a free issue of Blogger and Podcaster magazine, which is funny, because Arianna blew the conference off to speak at another, fancier venue.

Update: An interesting use for Twitter. Rather than spamming people when you write a new post or want to push an idea, put it on Twitter, and it's not considered spam. Interesting.

(More of this panel is listed over at StlRecruiting.com)

Heading To BlogWorldExpo

Franki and I are off to the BlogWorldExpo conference today. I hope to get some liveblogging done from the convention floor, as well as in the sessions.

Our goal is three fold:
1) Meet other bloggers face to face.
2) Find a couple of employees for our blogging projects.
3) See if any companies involved in blogging get our vision for social media.

Political blogs, business blogs, and mom blogs are our three favorites, but sports blogs and GodBlogs won't go unnoticed.

Drop me a line if you're going to be there. We're staying at Paris.