A Guide to Blogging for Business

Blogging

Why Blogging is good for Business

“Historically publishing has been undertaken by professionals. Now with the internet everyone can be a publisher. It is estimated that since 2003 there have been 70 million blogs.”

the blog herald

“The way we use the web is shifting in a fundamental way. Instead of primarily being passive consumers of information, more and more Internet users are becoming active participants. Weblogs allow everyone to have a voice.”

Technorati.com

Blogs form communities as they interact with each other on similar or same subjects. Blogs are becoming increasingly influential as growing numbers of people post opinion and comment online.

Crowd-sourced content:

In Technorati’s list of the top 100 Blogs (March 2009) 2 of the top Blogs worldwide were dedicated to Apple, both are independent and not officially affiliated to Apple:

#24 The unofficial Apple Weblog (www.tuaw.com)

#81 MacRumours (www.macrumours.com)

Apple supports its followers and realises the strength of their voice. The official Apple website in the UK, links to over 40 non-official user groups and online communities.

Blogs can be found through directories:

• technorati.com• blogsearch.google.com• sphere.com• blogcatalog.com

There are many blogging platforms to chose from. Much software is free and ‘open source’. All you need is something to say and some time to invest in order to create a basic blog.

Snapshot of the blog platforms used by Technorati’s Top 100 Blogs (Jan 2009)

data source: pingdom.com

There are many reasons to blog:

• to improve Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

• to gain visibility as a thought leader

• to generate dialogue

• to display brand personality

• for market research

• for customer service

• to share company announcements

Search Engine Optimisation:

• Optimise for keywords

• Search engines like Google like sites that regularly update content

• With greater content, there may be increased benefits from the long tail of search

• Blogs act as “link bait” and thusincrease traffic to your site

Source: Flickr.com

Gain visibility as a thought leader:

• Make your best content freely available. By enabling people to pass on content they like/value, they’ll do your marketing for you

• Use web 2.0 tools to make it easy for your blogs to be searched, bookmarked, rated and shared

• Seth Godin’s Blog is the perfect example of how to use a Blog to gain credibility as a thought leader. Seth’s Blog is in Technorati’s Top 20 Blogs

Generate dialogue:

• Remember, Blogging is about enabling discussion, not broadcasting. Make sure you are engaging your audience in 2 way conversation

• Interact with, listen to and learn from your audience

• Through conversations, relationships and trust are built up

Display brand personality:

• Just like having a face to face conversation, your blogdoesn’t have to be word perfect. Blogging allows yourbusiness to show its human side

• Think about your brand voice and keep communications natural

Share company announcements:

Perhaps your business has a small/niche target audience. As a small player, your news stories might not compete well against big brands for editorial coverage, but Blogs give you a platform to tell the story... the way you want to.

Here are some examples highlighting how big

brands are using blogs...

Dell offers news, blogs and community sites on Twitter:

For market research:

At My Starbucks Idea, customers can post suggestions about ways to improve the Starbucks experience. Others can vote and comment on suggestions made. This is a low cost way for Starbucks to keep pace with customer demands and monitor customer satisfaction.

Beechwood are a full service marketing agency specialising in the technology sector. To discover how we might guide your business to success in a Web 2.0 world, let’s start a conversation...

For more information:

+44 (0)20 8547 4229

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www.beechwood.uk.com

Beechwood 2009