BLOG
MARKETING

THE REVOLUTIONARY
NEW WAY TO INCREASESALES, BUILD YOUR BRAND,AND GET EXCEPTIONALRESULTS

Jeremy Wright

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C O N TEN TS

Foreword ..........................................................v
Acknowledgments ............................................ix
Introduction ....................................................xi
1

BLOGGING BASICS ......................................1

2

GETTING INTO THE
BLOGGING MINDSET ...............................15

3

THE POWER OF BLOGSFOR BUSINESS ............................................45

4

HOW YOUR COMPANYCAN USE BLOGS .........................................69

5

WHAT TYPE OF BLOGS ARE
BEST FOR YOUR COMPANY .....................93

6

USING BLOGS TO INCREASE
INTERNAL COMMUNICATION ............123
iii

iv

Contents

7

LEARN WHAT’S BEING
SAID ABOUT YOUR
COMPANY AND PRODUCTS ..................147

8

PARTICIPATING IN YOUR BLOG ...........179

9

DEALING WITH NEGATIVITY ...............211

10

HOW TO SUCCEED IN BLOGGING ......237

11

THE FUTURE OF
BUSINESS BLOGGING .............................269

APPENDIX SAMPLE BLOGGING POLICY .................295
GLOSSARY ..................................................301

Endnotes.......................................................307
Index ............................................................309

F O R E WORDW

hen a bandwagon is this large and this loud, it’s just about
impossible to resist jumping on, and blogging—in particular, blogging for business—definitely falls into that category.
Whether you read BusinessWeek, Fortune, Smart Company, Wired,or even People and Entertainment Weekly, you’ve encountered lotsof buzz about a reinvention of web pages called weblogs, or blogs
for short.
But while many people still think of blogs as online diaries orjournals, a small handful of forward-thinkers, leaders in the march
to tomorrow, have recognized the more profound impact on theworld of digital communications. Jeremy Wright is in this group,and you’re lucky to have a copy of his book in your hands: without being cliquish or presenting the information as a holy writ orbattle cry, Wright explores what blogging is and how it can help
you better and more effectively market your business in the increasingly important online world.
I should know, too. By following the advice of Wright andmany other bloggers, I now market my own management innovation and communications strategy consulting business a thousand
times more effectively than I did in the past, and without spending
a dime on adverts, sponsorships, or any other traditional marketing. You can see for yourself at my business and management blog,
v
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vi

Foreword

http://blog.intuitive.com/, which produces consulting clientsand speaking engagements worldwide, and at my Q&A weblog,
http://www.askdavetaylor.com/, which produces a significant revenue stream for my company.
Also, keep in mind that it’s really not about blog marketing, perse—that’s just the channel through which you need to reinvent
how you communicate with both your customers and your marketplace. After all, it’s the potential customers that you can’t reachthat are your best target for future growth, and dynamic, engaging,and informative business blogs are an amazing avenue for reachingthem in a way that has never been possible with other channels.
But even if you don’t want to blog, don’t want to embrace thisnew, better, and easier way of maintaining a topical and engaging
dialog with your customers and market, it’s still imperative thatyou keep track of the discussion happening in what we call theblogosphere, the world of weblogs. Thousands of active weblogs
have one characteristic that might surprise you: information disseminates with incredible speed. With blogs, ideas and news reallydo travel like the proverbial wildfire!
A quick example: Awhile back I wrote an analysis of how an
online firm had mismanaged its transition from a free service toa paid service, a discussion of how the announcement could havebeen handled more smartly and with less of a furious reaction fromthe customer community. Within 90 minutes, the CEO of thecompany had added his own response and commentary—all inless time than it would take a traditional news article to be printed
and proofread. If I’d written about your company, would you have
known about it promptly enough to respond and catch the fasttraveling buzz, or would you be surprised weeks later when a general community consensus came to your attention through thetraditional (read slow) media outlet reports?

Foreword

The world of business is changing profoundly, redefining marketing, public relations, and customer communication, among
other things. If you aren’t inviting this change into your own business, if you aren’t jumping on the bandwagon, your competitors
are, and I guarantee they’ll leave you in the dust wondering where
your sales have gone and why your customers are deserting indroves.
Wright talks extensively about “transmitting versus engaging” and “creating positive experiences with your customers” in
Blog Marketing. Pay attention! They’re vital to your very survival
as a business; I can offer you no greater advice than to read andstudy this book as if your corporate life depends upon it. Because
it does.
Dave Taylor
Publisher, The Intuitive Life Business Blog
blog.intuitive.com
Boulder, Colorado

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For Shannon, for being everything that’s beautiful in the world.
For Evan and Alex, for giving me reasons to smile, to be proud, andto be humble every day. For every blogger. You are a community ofinspiration to me. And for Will and Jacob, both of whom believedin me, no matter what.

A C K N OW L EDGMENTS

Thank you to my wife, Shannon, for being my refuge, encouragement, the love of my life, and every reason I want to get
up in the morning. When I’m not with you it feels like someone
turned the sun off. Neil Salkind, my agent, for making me believe
I could do a book, and for helping me live up to my potential.
Will Elder, for being an inspiration in life and in death. I miss you,Will. Mitch Tulloch, for hooking me up with Studio B, the rockingest agency ever. Suw Charman, Neville Hobson, Darren Barefoot, Boris Mann, Roland Tanglao, Kris Krug, Lee Lefever, andany other blogger who ever believed in me, laughed with me, listened to me, or linked to me. Sean Walberg, for opening my mind
to writing a book. Neville Hobson, for helping out on the GM
blogs bit. Nick Wreden, for lending me his insight into PR andmarketing. Michael Pusateri, for giving me all of his knowledge
into the Disney blog situation. Shel and Robert, for motivating me
to get this done on time! Arieanna Foley, for rocking it harder thananyone I’ve ever seen. Without you, this book wouldn’t be alive.
ix
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x

Acknowledgments

Yvonne DiVita, for being a great technical editor, debater, and supporter. Margie McAneny, for being the reason I chose McGrawHill as the publisher, and for never giving me a reason to doubtthat decision. Lisa Theobald, for not only being a great copy editor, but for also being a fantastic sounding board as ideas evolved(even late in the editing process). Jon Watson, for helping with research.
Steven Streight, for being a “streight shooter,” in spite of everything
and everyone. Robert Scoble and Jeremy Zawodny, for inspiring
me to start blogging all those years ago. Marc Orchant, for keeping me going in the middle of the night in a strange city with only
two weeks to go until the book was due. Jacob Murphy, for neverbeing surprised at anything I do. Evan and Alex, for being the bestsons any dad could ever ask for. And, finally, to Joe Flood (www.joeflood.com), for writing a killer little narrative to go along withthis little blogging book. Thanks for helping to make my dream a
reality, Joe! And, finally, to Dave Taylor for not only writing a fantastic foreword, but for always looking for new ways to challengeold-school bloggers into new and creative thinking.
Reviewers
Last but not least, thank you to all of the book reviewers, midpoint
reviewers, community editors, business leaders, and bloggers whohelped in making this book the labor of community that it is.
Arieanna Foley, Dave Taylor, Devin Reams, Duncan Riley, Eric
Coleman, Jake McKee, James Kendrick, Kevin Hamilton, Kevin
Humphrey, Kynan Dent, Mack D. Male, Marc Orchant, Melissa
Reinke, Michael Still, Neil Salkind, Patrick O’Keefe, Richard
Murray, Tris Hussey, Lee Lefever, Neville Hobson, Jacob Murphy,
Rick Turoczy, Rob Hyndman, Robert Jackson, Sarah Worsham,Scott Priestley, Shane Birley, Tim Slavin, Tyme White, Victoria
Martin, Wayne Hurlbert, and anyone else who participated in thisbook in any way.

I N T RO D UCTIONNews outlets today are abuzz with stories about blogs. In
January 2005, Fortune magazine featured a story called “WhyThere’s No Escaping the Blog.” In May of the same year, “Blogs
Will Change Your Business” screamed from the cover of BusinessWeek. Blogs have become so hot that some mainstream TV news
reporters are quoting from the more popular blogs on the air. Unfortunately, despite all the press coverage, little is being published
about how blogs can benefit you and your business. Blogs are not
only here to stay, but they will have an effect on your business. The
question is, will you use blogs to benefit your business, or will you
ignore them and perhaps experience a negative consequence thattakes you completely by surprise?
The power of blogging has certainly taken some by surprise.
A major bike lock company was shocked when news surfaced inblogs that a pen could be used to open one of its world-famous
locks. It resulted in a huge financial hit for the company, which
offered to exchange potentially faulty locks with different models.
Thankfully, plenty of positive stories resulting from blogs have alsosurfaced—stories of companies embracing the world of blogging
and seeing massive expansion, goodwill, and visibility as a result.
Blogging is a communication tool, a marketing technique, alistening device, and a way to interact directly with customersxi
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xii

Introduction

one-to-one on a global scale. A business can learn a lot by reading blogs to determine what customers and non-customers alikeare saying about the business. Your business can benefit by using
blogs to spread the word about what your company has to offer its
customers and to gain immediate feedback from customers.
Perhaps you’ve seen blogging featured on the covers of major
business magazines, or you’ve started seeing notices about blogging conferences around the world. Perhaps you are simply curious
about this tool that could revolutionize the way you think about
your customers and conduct business. No matter where you’re atin the spectrum, this book is for you. If you are interested in the
future of your company, you need to understand blogging.
A Reader’s Guide to Blog Marketing
Throughout this book, I’ll explore why and how companies of all
types blog and explain how you can get the most out of blogging
for your own business. Initially, I’ll cover the basics, such as getting
into the mindset of blogging. The concept of open communication with customers is a foreign idea to many companies, but theability to understand the value of blogging as a medium will help
you understand how it fits into the business world and how it fits
into your business plans.
A central concept of the book will be transmitting versus
engaging. Most corporate communications are simply one-way
missives—transmitting information to customers—whereas withblogs, the company can engage, or have a two-way dialogue, withcustomers. It can take a while for companies to make the leap
from the transmitting to the engaging mindset, so I’ll be revisiting
this concept throughout the book. Blogging is a strong engagement medium, and the people who read blogs expect to be engaged, which is one of the reasons this book is so important—few

Introduction

businesses are comfortable with the concept of engaging, andmany don’t know how to engage with customers.
Another central theme will be how blogging allows you to create
positive experiences with your customers—positive experiences cancompletely change the way your customers view you and your business. The more you value your customers, the more these positive
experiences will occur, and the more successful your business will
be. A happy customer sends other happy customers your way.
I’ll also look at how successful companies are using blogs toextend their brands, interact directly with customers, and get real
feedback on their company and products—and how you can dothe same. You’ll find that direct customer feedback is one of yourmost valuable assets. Customers know your business better thanyou ever will, and they’re usually happy to share their ideas withyou if you ask for them.
Later in the book, we’ll explore how your company can use
blogs both externally and internally, and we’ll look at examples
from numerous companies (including General Motors, Disney,and Stonyfield Farm) to see what lessons they have learned.
Tracking the world of blogs can be a challenge, which is why I’ll
spend a significant amount of time discussing how to track blogs,
what information can be gleaned from that tracking, and how to
put the information to good use. I’ll also talk about how to respondto comments on your blogs, how to respect your readers, andhow to deal with the gold mine of blogging: negative feedback.
Finally, I’ll look at how blogging will change your business, how
it will impact the bottom line, and how you can develop a successful
blogging strategy so that you will enter the market with the fewest
mistakes possible. I’ll close with input from business and blogging
leaders on where blogging is going—because it’s difficult to prepare
for the future if you don’t know what that future could be.

xiii

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Introduction

Although thousands of new business blogs are being createdeach month, until now, no solid guidebook has shown you exactly
what blogs are doing and how businesses can take advantage ofthem. Blog Marketing is the guidebook that will help you with yourblogging endeavors. It provides the framework, but only you canprovide the desire, drive, and creativity necessary to make blogs areality at your company.
The Book Blog
I’ve created a blog for this book to continue the information flow
and learning, at www.blogmarketingbook.com. Check it out to see
examples of businesses that are blogging successfully, and feel free
to share your own stories as well.
I hope this book will challenge you to rethink the way you lookat your customers, employees, and relationships, as well as yourcompany’s marketing and communication strategies. If you grasp
not just the act of how to blog, but also the concepts that are
central to blogging, you can revolutionize your business and attract more customers and the attention of competitors and entire
industry.

1

BLOGGING BASICS
Arnold Adams is the harried owner of Everywhere Signs. He has notime. His typical day is a blur of action and reaction:
7:12—checking voice mail while driving into work.
7:30—opening office and checking drop-box for orders.
8:00—getting work assignments for employees.
9:00–12:00—managing work of employees, answering phones,
taking walk-in orders.
12:00–1:00—lunching with Big Important Client.
1:00–5:00—overseeing sign delivery and setup.
5:00–6:00—accounting work, including calling customers aboutlate payments.
6:00–7:00—all other work, including answering e-mail.
So, when June Marzipan, his hipper-than-thou web guru, said
that he needed a blog, his second reaction was, of course, “I haveno time.”His first reaction was, “What the hell’s a blog?”
After five years with a website, thanks to June, he was juststarting to understand how the online world worked. He loved his
website—it was colorful, well-organized, and, more importantly,
brought in business. It was up there 24/7, 365 days a year, taking
orders from customers who loved the idea of not having to comeinto the shop to order a sign. And he loved the idea of taking theirmoney for something so easy.
But June was staring at him, with her disconcertingly pink hair
(when did that happen?). He had to say something.
1
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2

Blog Marketing“Is a blog a noun? A verb? Why do you Internet people have to
make up words?”“Both and because,” June said.
—Part 1 of “Blog,” a short story by Joe Flood,
written for this bookImagine that you could listen, like a fly on the wall, tomillions of people—your customers, employees, competitors,
partners, and the media—as they talk about your business, yourmarketing process, your advertising, and your products. Now
imagine that you could use this up-to-the-minute information todetermine what your customers want, how they want it, what they
will ultimately buy, and what they’re willing to pay for it. This is
the power of the blog.
Basing your business decisions on customer feedback and market intelligence is probably the smartest business move you could
ever make. And weblogs, also known as blogs, are allowing companies to do just that. In fact, blogs have the potential not only
to change the way you communicate with customers, raise yourvisibility, and get you direct customer feedback, but they can alsotransform the way your company does business internally. Using
blogs can help you reduce e-mail overload, facilitate the brainstorming process to generate new ideas more quickly, and simplify
a variety of project management tasks. Blogs are so powerful thatto say they will revolutionize your business is an understatement—
blogs have the power toBasing your business decisions on actual
create businesses, change
customer feedback and market intelligencethe course of political hisis the smartest business move you could
tory, and transform theever make.
way the mainstream media
looks at itself.

Blogging Basics

Like every major communication tool, blogs expand the ability
for companies to operate and ultimately to create entirely new opportunities for growth, product development, and quality control.
However, blogs take this communication a step further by bringing the best aspects of mass marketing and transforming themfrom one-way communication into a two-way dialogue.
As I write this book in the summer of 2005, between 50 million and 100 million bloggers are actively communicating on theInternet, with the number of blog readers estimated at between
200 million and 500 million, according to The Blog Herald.1 These
numbers are difficult to pin down, mainly because the only conclusive studies are for North America; nevertheless, the number ofblogs, bloggers, and blog readers is massive. In its May 2, 2005,
issue, BusinessWeek magazine estimated that about 40,000 new
blogs are posting information every day.2
Blogging grew from the ground up as a grassroots effort. What
started as a few people conversing about common interests via
real-time Internet postings has become a continuous conversation
among millions of bloggers and readers. The most powerful thing
about blogging isn’t the technology; it’s this massive community
driving the blogosphere. With millions of bloggers expressing theirthoughts, experiences, and information they’ve learned in theirfields of interest, this medium has become a worldwide forum.
Part of this conversation may be about your company, which
can be good news or bad. The worst news, however, would be if
none of the millions of voices out there were talking about yourcompany or its products.

IT’S ABOUT COMMUNICATIONThe reality is that blogging is a medium. Blogging is also a content
style. Because the earliest blogs were built on the principles of an3

4

Blog Marketing

authentic voice, honesty, and authority, most blogs are expected tohave those qualities—this holds true even more so for the corporate blog. Blog readers (even brand new ones) are so conditioned
to reading a personal voice on blogs that they expect it from companies, too. This presents unique challenges for business leaders
who want to understand blogging, as the concepts of transparency
and authenticity are not often associated with corporate communications practices.
Because they’re publicly available on the Internet, blogs are wide
open, ready to interact with all of your customers. Blogs let customers hear what is on your mind, and they create a space forcustomers to tell you exactly what they are thinking about. Blogs
are the next best thing to going door-to-door to each of your customers’ homes or offices; they give you and your company a way
to create and sustain real relationships with real people.
Past marketing efforts were always transmissions from companies—one-way communications aimed at as wide an audience aspossible, such as advertisements, popup windows on the Internet,
and the like. With blogs, however, you’re engaging with your customers, as every reader is reading your blog by choice, every reader
is choosing to interact with your business, and every reader wants
to hear more from you. This powerful new way of communicating creates and empowers customer evangelists in ways that werepractically impossible before blogs existed.

WHAT BLOGS CAN DO
An open and honest public blog, written by an authoritative voicefrom within your company, allows your business to create a different type of experience between you and your customers: it allows
you to create legitimate conversations that simply weren’t possible
before online blogging. Blogging means your company will no

Blogging Basics

longer need to depend on expensive focus groups, feedback forms,
e-mail, and other time-consuming and tedious methods used forgaining feedback.
If you want to know why your latest product isn’t selling, you
can ask your customers on your blog; they’ll tell you the truth. If
an executive was recently fired for a corporate scandal, you cantackle the issue on your blog in an open manner. Such honesty
makes an impression with your customers, which will be more
real than almost any media article on the subject. Even more
important is that any person who reads your blog is doing so
by choice—he or she came to your blog to see what you have tosay. Blogs are just about the only marketing tool for which thisholds true.
One of the biggest mistakes companies make is looking at blogs
as just another way to get out the same old marketing message.
Nobody wants to read that kind of thing on a blog. Blogging isreally about three things:• Information Telling your customers what you’re doing
and finding out what they are thinking.
• Relationships Building a solid base of positive experienceswith your customers that changes them from plain-old consumers to evangelists for your company and products.
• Knowledge management Having the vast stores of knowledge within your company available to the right people atthe right time.
Without blogs, company messages can get so filtered by public
relations or the media that CEOs and other senior management
have decided to talk directly with customers—whether it be in thecompany’s stores, on the company’s airplanes, or at special events

5

6

Blog Marketing

set up specifically for communicating with customers. The valueof direct customer feedback is obvious, and blogs provide that on
a global scale.
Blogs are effectively a form of free advertising that your customers
are begging for. Blogs are easy to track, provide a means to generate
and measure buzz, and allow you to create positive experiences, andultimately customer evangelists, simply by being real.
You can also use blogging for exciting internal purposes—tohelp employees generate and try out new ideas, involve and empower employees, and improve your ability to communicate
internally. Whether you’re a global Fortune 100 company or amom-n-pop plumbing supply retailer, internal blogs can help you
stay organized and external blogs can change the way people relate
to your business.

BLOGS WILL CHANGE YOUR
BUSINESS—WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT
One of the biggest challenges facing your company is that, like itor not, your competitors are or will be using blogs. Not only that,but by scouring the blogosphere they can get all kinds of competitive intelligence on what you’re doing, what your customers think
about you and your products, and where your company and theindustry are going. Of course, all the same tools could be yours
as well.
The question for you, then, isn’t should you get into blogs, but
how will you get into blogs and how will you leverage them tomaximize their return to your business? Blog Marketing helps you
decide how to develop a blogging strategy, how to launch yourblog, and how to participate not only in your own blog but in theoverall culture of blogging.

Blogging Basics

WHAT’S IN A BLOG?
With so many new blogging terms in use, I could write a dictionary (in fact, I included one in the back of this book). However, if you learn the following terms, you’ll look blog-savvy at
your next dinner party (or corporate meeting):•

Blog

A website comprising blog posts, or content writtenby the blogger, which are typically organized into categories
and sorted in reverse chronological order. Most blogs allow
readers to comment on individual blog posts.
•

Blog posts

Individual items posted to the blog (using blog-ware) by the blogger.
•

Blogger

The individual who maintains the blog and/or

writes blog posts using the blogware.
•

Blogosphere The community of blogs, bloggers, and blog
posts.

•

Blogware

Software used to create blog posts and manage

blogs.
•

The conversation What happens when bloggers, especially
millions of them, blog.

•

Permalinks

Permanent links attached to a particular blog

post that remain unchanged.
•

Trackbacks

URLs that other bloggers use to cite posts orparts of posts; for example, when you, Blogger A, write
about something Blogger B posted on in her blog, it’s best
to let Blogger B know she has been mentioned in your blog.
Trackbacks send Blogger B an e-mail with a notation that
her blog has been cited.

7

8

Blog Marketing

WHO’S BLOGGING TODAY
Companies are blogging at a phenomenal rate. From large companies, such as Microsoft and Boeing, to small companies, such asThomas Mahon’s tailoring business and Elisa Camahort’s marketing and public relations firm, businesses of all stripes are using
the revolutionary power of blogs to create positive experiences,increase influence, and provide continual dialogues. Some of thesebusinesses will be your competitors, others will be your partners,
and some blogs might even be written by your employees.
From GM’s increasingly popular and respected series of blogs to
the Disney Channel’s use of blogs as an internal communications
tool, more and more companies are turning to the diverse powerof blogs to meet their current and future challenges head on. Blogs
allow their customers and partners to see what companies are doing
on a daily basis, which can be a powerful motivator for customers
to continue doing business with blogging businesses.
GM’s popular FastLane Blog (Figure 1-1) spreads news, provides information for enthusiasts, and creates a community space
where thousands of aficionados can discuss what is important tothem. GM has also created a special Smallblock Engine Blog toengage customers with even more specific interests. Creating aplace where customers can talk about what’s important to themis only one of a large number of ways your business can use blogs
to increase communication, redefine your brand, and change theway you do business.
Microsoft, arguably one of the largest and most successfulcompanies in the world, knows the power of blogs. Thousands ofMicrosoft product managers, developers, testers, and executives use
blogs to talk directly with customers in a clear and authoritative
way; to listen to customer complaints, suggestions, and ideas; andto track what customers and partners are saying. In fact, Microsoft
uses blog research so thoroughly that each product development

Blogging Basics

Figure 1-1

GM’s popular FastLane Blog directly engages customers’ passions,fueling a dynamic, feedback-driven community.

team is directed to look for blog feedback before making significant
changes to applications. Blogs don’t run Microsoft, but they doprovide an unprecedented level of feedback for a company thatneeds to get real consumer information about products before it’s
too late to do anything about it.
Dallas Mavericks basketball team owner Marc Cuban started
blogging because he was tired of “giving in-depth responses to a
media question only to have the result be what the reporter or columnist intended to write and I was just fodder to help them maketheir point.” He saw blogs as an ideal way to “present my position
on a topic in its entirety and not have to worry about how they
condense a two-hour conversation into 500 words.”3 Cuban built
a blog that allowed him to express his thoughts regarding issues
and interests. His blogging passion served to energize his team’s
fan base even further.

910

Blog Marketing

If having an open conversation with customers outside yourcompany can transform your business, allowing employees space toshare their interests and work ideas and build relationships can beeven more powerful. In mid-2005, IBM turned to internal blogs
to serve its employees. IBM’s official blogging policy states that the
primary goals of this blog network are for employees to learn andto contribute.
The Disney Channel has also made innovative use of internal
blogs (Figure 1-2). While the company once used massive paper
logs to keep track of engineering changes and issues, several years
ago Disney began implementing blogs for these tasks. Now theblogs present an integrated, employee-driven solution to theimpracticability of paper. I discuss Disney’s use of blogs in moredetail in Chapter 4.

Figure 1-2 The Disney Channel uses internal blogs to manage engineering
shifts as well as other tasks.

Blogging Basics

Many employers who allow blogging internally find that employees who blog change their workdays and attitudes. They enjoy
their work more, they connect more with people outside theirteams, and they share and receive information on a whole newscale. These companies are seeing their products, processes, andquality of service increase as a result of employees being more communicative, more involved, and more outwardly focused.
Throughout this book, we’ll look at companies that use blogs
to make a real difference in business. A fair number of these companies are in the technology sector, purely because this industry iswhere blogging got its start. However, the growth of blogs among
every business is astounding—from churches to rail yards, fromyogurt and ice cream companies to retail stores, and from jewelers
to a major cable company; all are using blogs in innovative ways totransform their businesses.

BLOGGING HISTORY 101
The history of blogging is a long and convoluted one. Blogging
has been around in some form since the earliest days of the Internet. In fact, one of the first web pages was similar to a blog in thatits author, Internet creator Tim Berners-Lee, regularly updated itwith a list of all websites (only a few dozen at the time).
Blogging eventually evolved into a means of sharing both personal expression and other information that individuals foundvaluable. Since its beginning, blogging has enjoyed a slight duality: on one hand, it serves as a great online diary, and on the other,it’s a fantastic communications tool.
Until 2004, blogging was a fairly specific activity, with only
about 5 million bloggers worldwide—most of them fairly secludedin their own little niches, blogging about pets, businesses, andtech-related issues. Then came the US 2004 presidential election,

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Blog Marketingand blogs suddenly began getting mainstream attention. Bloggers
unearthed issues about candidates, blogged about all kinds of events
that journalists couldn’t be bothered to attend, and even received
press passes to the Democratic party’s national convention.
Overall, 2004 was a huge year for blogging, as business thoughtleaders such as management guru Tom Peters, author and lecturer
Malcolm Gladwell, entrepreneurial expert Guy Kawasaki, andleadership authority Steven Covey woke up to the power of blogs.
In fact, these days, no business author’s work is complete without
starting a book blog. As a result, the business magazines of theworld such as Fortune, Business 2.0, and Fast Company have awakened to the power of the blog and businesses around the world aretaking notice. While blog-related inquiries to marketing and PR
companies were initially met with blank stares, these companies
quickly caught up to the idea, and now blog consulting is a stapleof consultants large and small.
The early twenty-first century has been marked by mergers and acquisitions in the blogging space as well as a number ofscandals—but more than anything, it has been marked by growth.
If 5 million bloggers were online in 2004, more than 50 million
were blogging by the start of 2005, and that growth won’t slow
down anytime soon. In fact, the collective number of blogs hasgrown so rapidly that no one service has been able to keep up
with it, which is one of the reasons that nobody is entirely sure
how many people are actually reading blogs. Suffice it to say thata lot of people are writing them, even more are reading them, andmore still are being influenced by them. These days, the question
isn’t “Do you know what a blog is?”; it’s more likely “What’s yourblog?” or “What’s your favorite blog?”
The growth of blogs among businesses has been astronomical.
Thousands of new business blogs are being created by companies

Blogging Basics

of every size, in every industry, for just about every purpose imaginable. So, what will you do with your blog?

WRAPPING IT UP
Now that you have a clearer understanding of what blogging is,where it came from, and—in broad strokes—what it can do foryou, what’s your next step? Get into the blogging mindset. As mentioned, hearing what customers really think can be intimidating,but it’s an even more intimidating proposition for your business if
you bury your head in the sand and choose not to listen. It takes
most companies some time to get comfortable with the blogging
way of thinking, so in Chapter 2, we’ll discuss more about theblogging mindset and how you can learn to value your customer
interactions.

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2

GETTING INTO
THE BLOGGING MINDSETFor decades, businesses have tried to determine what their customers wanted by using focus groups. As the business world
got more complex and markets became more competitive, thekind of information that could be gleaned from focus groups became inadequate for most businesses. Focus groups didn’t provide
enough information, nor was the information valuable over thelife of the product.
Realizing the limitations of focus groups and similar marketing practices, companies decided that they needed to know more
about who their customers were, how they interacted with thecompany, and how the company could reach out to customers
in a meaningful way. This idea of getting a “360-degree view” ofcustomers was a nice concept, but it was never really achievable
within the limited spectrum of marketing and communication
tools that were available.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software wasdesigned to try to pull together information from various systems
to provide an idea of not only whether a customer had interactedwith your business, but what kind of interaction occurred, who
15
Copyright © 2006 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. Click here for terms of use.

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was involved in the interaction, and what it meant to the company.
Unfortunately, most companies could get only limited answers tothese questions: whether a customer had bought a company product or ever called in with a question or comment, and whether hisor her current contact information was valid.
CRM software didn’t contextualize any of the information it
collected. It simply created a repository of information. It didn’t
create any data on what the customer actually thought, nor did it
allow a way for customers to provide direct feedback. To supplement this CRM data, businesses began to hire customer relationship specialists and product evangelists—individuals whose sole
job was to make customers aware of the company products on a
one-to-one basis—to interact with customers directly. For mostbusinesses, this created some sense of value, but the practice simply
couldn’t be applied to a large number of customers. Because eachindividual customer relationship staffer had only so much time,
the staffer typically spent most of his or her time nurturing therelationships that had the greatest return—the big spenders—andthe majority of other customers were left out in the cold.

KNOW HOW TO TREAT YOUR CUSTOMERSEvery successful company uses some type of measuring stick whencomparing itself to other similar companies. Businesses looking
to succeed in the current interactive, customer- and conversationdriven marketplace must consider factors other than the financials.
Companies need to value the knowledge made available to themthrough employee and customer input. One way to do this is by
never confusing customers with the popular marketing term: consumer. A customer should never be called a consumer. A consumer
is someone you use for profit; a customer is an asset. Customers are
your best product managers, your best evangelists, and perhaps theGetting into the Blogging Mindset
Customers are your best product managers,
only people in the world
your best evangelists, and perhaps the only
who will tell you the truth
people in the world who will tell you the truth
about your company. Lisabout your company. Listen to them.
ten to them. The easiest
way to help customers become more involved in a positive, passionate, way about your business is to talk to them and treat them as equal partners.
JetBlue CEO David Neeleman realized early on that without
talking to his customers he would never be able to build a customer-centric airline. As a result of his unique approach to customer interaction, Neeleman has been featured in a variety ofbusiness magazines. When he flies, he flies just like everybody
else, in coach. He even drives himself to the airport. Once there,
he waits in line—just like you and me. He is, for all intents and purposes, just another customer—at least until the plane gets into the air.

TOO SCARED TO LISTEN?
For several of my clients, nothing is scarier than opening thefloodgates of customer feedback—until they realize that the
only thing scarier than hearing what customers have to say is
not hearing what they have to say and suffering the consequences.
If the idea of customer feedback is frightening to you, ask
yourself why you are afraid. Are you afraid your service is subpar and that you cannot fix it? You must take responsibility foryour actions. It’s better to have unhappy customers knocking at
your door than no customers at all. Remember that an unhappy
customer is a happy customer waiting to happen.

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Then he walks up and down the aisles, talking to customers, hearing what they have to say.
At the end of the day, every company lives and dies by how wellit serves, supports, and interacts with its customers. Every customer experience is put on the global scale of “success” or “failure.”
Neeleman is doing everything he can, not only to reduce the number of negative experiences with JetBlue, but to create a positiveenvironment where he leads by example—showing that employees
need to care about customers.

CUSTOMERS ARE ASSETS
Too often, businesses look at their customers as they would rows
in a spreadsheet. Businesses spend time figuring out how to get
more money out of them, analyzing how often they come backand how much they spend on each trip, and figuring out how
much a customer will spend on a particular item. But customers
can and should be much more than just an income stream.
Customers’ experiences can range from completely unhappy toglowingly positive. Both types of customer can greatly influence
your company’s reputation.
Generally speaking, customers fall into one of five categories:• Evangelists These types of folks have had so many positive
experiences with your company and/or product that whenever a subject even mildly related to your company, products, or services comes up in conversation, they just have totell everyone about it. Many different companies enjoy thistype of customer—for example, Apple Computer evangelists
can be so passionate that they’ll say Apple is a religion. These
customer evangelists are the types of passionate people thatwill transform your business, and the currency they deal inis positive experiences.

Getting into the Blogging Mindset• Regular customers These customers enjoy your product orservice. They may admit it’s not the best in the world, but they
buy it because it has value, it is the cheapest, or they haven’t
found anything better. They’ve had enough positive experiences that the negative ones seem paltry in comparison.
• Reluctant customers These customers have had negative experiences with your company—often many negative
experiences—to the point at which they simply expect anegative experience or a poor product every time. Occasionally, they’ll be pleasantly surprised and will leave contented,
but generally they simply accept that they have to buy fromyou and they move on. In many ways, these customers areliving a balance of positive, negative, and blasé experiences.
• Occasional sufferers These customers don’t enjoy yourproduct or service, but they buy from you when they haveto, and only because they have to. Some people who eat
at fast food restaurants fall under this banner—although
they will never evangelize or even talk positively about what
they’re buying, they’ll buy it when absolutely necessary.
• Saboteurs These customers have had so many negative
experiences (or perhaps only a handful of incredibly negative
experiences) that they will go to whatever ends necessary to
do whatever harm they can to your business.
Each of these personalities is created over time through a pattern of individual experiences with your company. Successful companies strive to create positive experiences for customers throughpositive environments, well-trained staff, great value, and quality
products; whatever your customers are looking for, that you areable to provide, is a potential positive experience. Do you provide
a storefront? Investing in a positive shopping space is vital. Do
you provide food or hospitality services? Smiling, courteous, and

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energetic staff are a must. Do you provide analysis or consulting
services? Knowledgeable consultants, value-added services, excellent communication, and constant follow-up will create positive
experiences for your customers.
Most customers don’t look for reasons to be unhappy; in fact, mostare looking for positive experiences, and often it takes only one ofthose in a given industry to transform the way customers look at every
single service provider in that industry. The influence wielded by businesses who create positive experiences is disproportionate to their size:Apple Computers isn’t the largest or most popular computer manufacturer (not by a long shot), yet it is one of the most-watched techcompanies on the planet. BMW and Mercedes don’t sell the most carsin America, but the consumer desire to own one is palatable. Starbucks may make great coffee, but people aren’t necessarily buying justthe coffee—they’re buying an overall positive experience.
But creating positive experiences isn’t really about being a luxury
supplier like Apple, BMW, and Starbucks are in their industries.
You can create positive experiences no matter what business you’rein by having friendly and knowledgeable staff members, offering
exclusive discounts, and generally building your business by contributing to their experiences.
Positive experiences create emotional responses, and nothingis worse than a customer who feels no emotion toward your business: no emotion means no loyalty, so customers really have noreason to stay.

TALK TO YOUR CUSTOMERSOne of the reasons blogging is such a strong phenomenon is thatit takes tools such as market research and product testing froma birds’ eye view to the one-to-one human interaction level. If a
blog about your company exists, you can simply e-mail the blogger to ask him some questions. If a blog post about your company

Getting into the Blogging Mindset

21

Blogs are all about having conversations—justconcerns you, or evenremember to contribute in a meaningful
excites you, you can takeway, and you’ll be sure to create a positive
the opportunity to creexperience for the person to whom you’re
ate a positive experience
responding and for all those who’ll read thethat’s being handed to you
post in the future.
and respond directly andappropriately.
Better than all of this, though, is that if you have your own blog,
you can directly ask your customers what they think. Thinking oflaunching a new line of beverages? Ask your customers what typesof drinks they like. Want to launch a new piece of software? Ask
your customers what features they want, what features they don’twant, and how much they’d be willing pay to get what they want.
Blogs are all about having conversations—just remember tocontribute in a meaningful way, and you’ll be sure to create a positive experience for the person to whom you’re responding and for
all those who’ll read the post in the future.

FIVE STEPS OF EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATIONYour customers are talking, your employees are talking, and yourpartners and suppliers are talking. With blogging, the conversation is potentially limitless.
The challenge for most companies who engage in customer
conversation isn’t obtaining feedback; it’s how best to deal with the
feedback, both positive and negative. At the end of the day, youneed to realize that these conversations include current customers,
potential customers, employees, and partners. If you ignore thesecomments, you are ignoring valuable feedback, potential newmarketing strategies, innovative new product ideas, and concepts
that could completely transform your business. The conversation
will go on either with or without you—and your competitors aremost certainly listening.

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MICROSOFT LISTENS
The example set by JetBlue CEO David Neeleman, while rare,
isn’t unique. Lots of companies talk directly with customers to
get their feedback and to improve on or launch new products.
Microsoft, the world’s largest software company, regularly flies
customers and industry experts to its campus in Washington
for fantastic powwows. The company invites dozens of key customers and partners to the event, where they all spend several
days brainstorming as a group. Individual product teams gain
huge value from these events—they get to engage directlywith customers, pitch their vision for the future, hear customer
responses to that vision, and interact with customers in a waythat is impossible outside the event.
Whereas, once upon a time, Microsoft’s most effective customer feedback mechanism was these onsite powwows, thecompany is now making massive use of blogs. It’s been said that
Microsoft is slow to catch on to a new trend, but fast to apply
it—and blogging is no exception.
Within the space of a year, more than 1000 Microsoft
employee blogs featured developers and product managers
talking directly to customers every day instead of just once ayear. These days, many employees are reading dozens (if not
hundreds) of blogs every day to see exactly how customers
are responding to Microsoft products and services. Microsoft
employees are also contributing to other blogs, searching forterms that are important to them that may be popping up in
the blogosphere, and generally being aware of the fact that
real people are talking about the company. Microsoft now iseasily able to listen in and contribute to the conversation on adaily basis.

Getting into the Blogging Mindset

The best way to engage in a real-world conversation is to go
through the following five steps for effective communication:
listen, understand, value, interpret, and contribute.
ListenListening is like being a sponge, and the best sponges hold water
indefinitely. Until you are ready to contribute—to squeeze someknowledge from your sponge—you need to be taking in a lot morethat you’re putting out.
UnderstandBy understanding what is actually being said, apart from any biases
or agendas—especially your own—you begin to value feedback.
You need to ensure that you keep that value. Value the conversation,

WHAT IS AUTHENTICITY?
by Aaron Brazell, blogger and social commentator (www.technosailor.com)

Authenticity is…
Passion. It is the thing that drives people to be successful inwhat they do. It is the drive of a successful blogger. Passion is theengine which powers the boat and keeps people coming back.
Conviction. It is the thing that causes people to relate to theblogger. Though the topic may not necessarily be agreeable,
conviction demonstrates that the blogger has fully bought into
his perspective.
With these ingredients, successful bloggers will secure newreaders and maintain their existing readers. There is nothingworse than a flakey writer. Readers know it and the blogger
knows it deep inside.

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the individual, and the feedback more than you value your own
opinion. If you don’t do this, when it comes time to contribute,
your comments will be out of context and will hold much lessvalue than they otherwise would.
Value
Valuing everyone’s contribution can be difficult in the best oftimes—some people in any large conversation don’t listen, don’tvalue others’ contributions, and therefore simply don’t deserve tobe talking. However, when you’re a business listening to feedback
about your company, products, and industry, it’s far too easy to
discount certain contributions as unworthy of your attention.
Don’t fall into this trap. Before you can contribute and properly
respond to what’s going on in a conversation as big as the blog
posting, you need to value everyone involved—after all, the one
person you value one time could well be your next big customer
evangelist.
Interpret
Before you take the step in becoming involved in the global conversation happening on blogs, you need to interpret and evaluate
what has already been said and determine whether you actually
have any valuable and unique insight to offer. After all, if the only
thing you have to say in a large conversation is “Yes, I agree!”, it’s
probably best to live by the adage, “Even a fool is thought wise if
he keeps silent.”
Contribute
The final step in effective communication is to contribute something of value to the group. What valuable information can you
offer? When the conversation centers on your area of expertise, you
can offer authority, passion, and a unique perspective. Unlike mostparties, where not everyone gets a chance to talk to everyone else,Getting into the Blogging Mindset

I DON’T HAVE MILLIONS OF CUSTOMERS!
You may not have millions, or even thousands, of customers,
but in the world of blogging, everyone has an equal voice. No
matter how big or small your business, or how many people areinterested in your products, blogging provides a unique opportunity for you to talk to your potential customers—at least those
who happen to be online and reading—and for them to talk toyou. Big businesses are great at yelling, but small businesses are
great at talking. Blogging allows for a balance: it allows for big
businesses to talk one-to-one with customers, and it allows small
businesses to gain visibility by using what they know to create
big-business style opportunities and growth.
Blogging can help your business grow. For example, two of
my clients are small fashion boutique businesses, who, thanks
to the increased visibility and customer feedback that blogging
enabled, have been able to open new locations. Increased visibility and online sales, and their ability to reach out to theirideal audience and figure out the best place to launch newstores, are responsible for this growth. Blogging gave thema unique opportunity to expose their businesses to fashion
aficionados, fashion editors, and newspaper columnists fromaround the country—largely because these small stores love totell stories and share the secrets of why they love fashion. Their
passion was contagious, and soon articles were being written
about them in all kinds of publications.
While your business may not have millions of customers rightnow, you never know who you might influence, who will readyour blog, and where that might lead. Act like you’re small bytalking, but think big by not forgetting that real opportunities
for growth do exist.

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thousands of blog readers and writers are waiting eagerly to hear
what you and your company have to say. Once you have properly
prepared to contribute to the conversation, you can be sure thatyou will not only be heard, but that you will get feedback.

PARTICIPATION BREEDS PASSION
While listening to and participating in the conversation can seem
intimidating and sometimes overwhelming, the benefits of doing
this are impossible to ignore. Beyond the value of simply getting
customer feedback, you can create relationships with each andevery one of your customers, which was impossible before theblog.
Participating in this conversation offers several benefits:• Creates customer evangelists.
• Builds trust among your entire customer base.
• Helps you become a thought leader in your industry.
• Lets you share and gain knowledge.
• Provides product feedback.
• Uncovers new growth opportunities and new markets.
In fact, the ways in which blogging benefits your business arelimited only by the creative ways you can find to use blogging,be they through internal blogs that get your employees the information they need to know, external blogs that help you becomea leader in your industry, or product-specific blogs that let yourcustomers interact with you in a meaningful way. Whether anindividual is a saboteur or an evangelist, every relationship you create and every time you step outside the boundaries of your company, you can create positive new experiences with each and every
individual with whom you interact.

Getting into the Blogging Mindset

CREATING CUSTOMER EVANGELISTSOne of the most powerful benefits of blogging is that it helps you
create evangelists. In their 2002 book, Creating Customer Evangelists, Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba tell us that passionate company evangelists can inform and empower your customers to carry
your brand’s message to others. Customer evangelists are powerfultools. When you give other customers the power to embrace yourbrand, they will take your brand’s message with them wherever
they go, telling others about their experiences with your company
and thereby extending your brand in a positive way that would nothave otherwise been possible.
Passionate messages can spread like wildfire; as soon as one passionate person enters a community, the dynamics of that community completely change. Most customers will become happy
evangelists for your business and products if you provide enoughpositive experiences. They need to love your company and yourproducts, even if your products aren’t “perfect.”Creating passion isn’t about making people like you; it’s simply
about using your passion to fuel more passion. The reality is thatcompanies that create a stir, live on the edge, and try new ideas aregoing to be both loved and hated. And, just as in any relationship,
sometimes you can’t be sure whether a customer is a true friend
unless you listen to what he or she has to say. A blog is the perfectplace for that.

BUILDING TRUST WITHIN YOURCUSTOMER BASE
The best way to build trust is to be consistently trustworthy.
Doctors earn trust after years of being fair, caring, professional,
and knowledgeable. Similarly, your business builds trust withyour customers in the real world by delivering on your promises.

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For example, if you promise to have the best prices but don’t, youare betraying your customers’ trust; if, however, you deliver onthat promise consistently, customer trust increases as a natural
result.
Blogs are a great way to build trust, because they allow you—a real person, and not some corporate marketing brochure—tocommunicate with your customers, users, and community moreregularly than any other medium allows. Ideally, your blog should
attract at least one posting per day—as a result, you have an
opportunity to build trust by delivering on your promises daily.

BECOMING A THOUGHT-LEADER
Thought-leadership isn’t a new concept; it was proposed in the 1960s
and finally given a name in the 1990s. The term refers to the ability to lead by proposing new and innovative ideas. The modernday application of thought-leadership with regard to business has
been applied to companies that publish respected industry newsletters, participate in conferences (or host their own), and generally disseminate information in the hopes that more people will be
exposed to the company and willing to invest in its products.
The strong appeal of thought-leadership–based marketing
makes a lot of sense, as becoming more visible relative to respected
information ultimately means more interaction with customers
and potential customers. The challenge for most companies engaging in a thought-leadership campaign is that it can be expensive.
Maintaining newsletters, attending and speaking at conferences,and remaining publicly visible isn’t easy or cheap.
Blogs provide a unique opportunity for thought-leadership inthat they allow businesses to publish information people want in
the way they want it. Add to that the ease of finding, subscribing,and contributing to blogs, and it’s obvious that blogs are one ofGetting into the Blogging Mindset

WHY BLOG?
This question is an important one. Paul Chaney, a prominent
blog consultant from Radiant Marketing Group, compiled
this list (http://radiantmarketinggroup.com/2005/05/26/blogsbeyond-the-hype/) of reasons why a business should blog:•

Search Engine Marketing Blogs give you an increased presence on major search engines like Google and Yahoo!.

•

Direct Communications

Blogs provide a way for you to

speak directly and honestly with your customer.
•

Brand Building Blogs serve as another channel to put yourbrand in front of the customer.

•

Competitive Differentiation

Because blogs give you theopportunity to tell your story over and over, they help set
you apart from the competition.
•

Relational Marketing

Blogs allow you to build personal,

long-lasting relationships with your customer that foster
trust.
•

Exploit the Niches

Blogs help you fill your particular indus-

try niche.
•

Media & Public Relations

Blogs are excellent PR tools. The

media calls you, not your competition.
•

Reputation Management

Blogs enable you to manage

your online reputation.
•

Position You as Expert

Blogs enable you to articulate yourviewpoints, knowledge, and expertise on matters pertaining
to your industry.
•

Intranet & Project Management

Blogs make great, easy-

to-use applications for internal communications within an
organization. This may be one of the least well-known andunderutilized areas of blogs.

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Blog Marketingthe easiest ways to engage in a thought-leadership campaign. The
challenge, of course, is that you still need to create material, research and comment on news, and generally discover and impart
information of value—as you would via any other medium. Most
companies that are highly attuned to their industry are aware ofthese challenges and are already addressing them.

TRANSMITTING VS. ENGAGING
Most businesses and companies function in a “transmission”
mindset. When they have a new product, they exhibit some kindof advertisement—be it a sign in the window out front or a national television ad. They try and create buzz by displaying SALE !
in advertisements and in the window, in great big letters that are
impossible to miss. The reality is that people don’t want to betalked at, they want to be talked with.
Companies around the world are beginning to realize that whiletransmission-based communication is an important part of getting out your message, far more effective tools are at their disposal.
Dialogue is a powerful way to broadcast your message while simultaneously getting customer feedback.
Before blogs, press releases were one of the best ways to communicate news about your company. You’d send the press release to a
local paper or wire service, hope that some fraction of journalists
would pick up on it, and then you’d gain some exposure for a fairly
low cost. The problem with press releases and similar transmissionstyle endeavors, though, is that after the press release leaves yourcompany, you rarely see any return. Traditional response rates fortransmission-based advertisements, such as television ads, radio
campaigns, and press releases, is reported to be a measly 1 percent.
At best, you might see an article or two in the news, though most

Getting into the Blogging Mindset

likely it will just be a regurgitated piece from your press release. Or
worse, you hear nothing at all.
Tools such as blogs allow you to go beyond the press release andtraditional media coverage. They help you engage with your customers and create a real dialogue. These dialogue-based initiatives
don’t replace press releases, advertising, or focus groups—theycompliment them.
Consider Boeing, a leading aircraft and aerospace manufacturer, which began ramping up the production and marketing of
its new plane, the 787 Dreamliner. The company used the traditional transmission-style marketing: press releases, launch parties,
media tours, interviews with engineers, and the like. However,
Boeing also allowed Randy Baseler, vice president of marketing, toblog (www.boeing.com/randy). Through his blog, Baseler was able
to extend the message into a dialogue that included information
about a Boeing competitor’s offering, the Airbus A380.
Baseler responds to posts on other blogs, discusses what otherblogs are talking about, and reads a vast cross-section of flight andaviation blogs. This blog allows Boeing to use a transmission-stylemessage, which is great for getting the cold hard facts out to theworld, as well as a personal dialogue, which is great for communicating passion, having a conversation, and listening to what customers and aviation enthusiasts think.

HOW TO START BLOGGING
When I talk to executives, business owners, marketers, or consultants, I invariably get asked one of two questions: “What is a blog?”
or “How do I start my own blog?” Hopefully, by now I’ve answered
the first question, but the second deserves an in-depth look.

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The process for contributing to any conversation goes something like this:
1. Listen to the conversation.
2. Understand what’s being said in the conversation.
3. Value the audience and the conversation itself.
4. Interpret what is being said, and evaluate what you haveto say.
5. Contribute to the conversation.
6. Listen some more.
Every successful blog follows this pattern. The first step is
to find some blogs in your area of interest and read and study
them. Suppose you own a construction company. If you’re goingto start successfully blogging in the construction industry, you
should begin by looking for other blogs dealing with the construction industry. The best way to find blogs dealing in thisarea is to do an Internet search using Google or your favorite
search engine. The goal here isn’t necessarily to find the mostpopular site, but to find blogs that give you value by readingthem. Figure 2-1 shows Google search results for construction
blogs. As you can see in the figure, a vast number of constructionrelated blogs are out there—in fact, Google found more than
3 million of them.
Many blogs contain blogrolls, a list of blogs that the blogger
reads, admires, and respects. If you find a blog you like (or don’tlike) and the blogger adds links to other blogs in the industry, you
may be able to find more hidden gems or more of what you’relooking for. Once you have found two or three blogs of interest,
start reading them on a daily basis. If you see a post in which you
are interested or one about which you have an opinion, consider
leaving a comment.

Getting into the Blogging Mindset

Figure 2-1

More than 3 million hits resulted from a search for construction
blogs on Google.

Do this for at least two weeks. During this period, you may
locate other blogs you like to read, or you may decide to use a feed
reader to follow posts (see the next section). A blogroll is a quick
and easy way for similar blogs in the same community or industry to build each others’ traffic, and it’s something you shouldn’t
ignore for your own blog. Without including a blogroll, your company’s blog may fade into obscurity. If nothing else, a list of “Blogs
We Read” can show other bloggers that you know the important
blogs in the industry, and that you aren’t afraid to read them.

FEEDS: THE SECRET TO EFFECTIVE
BLOG READING
As you’ve undoubtedly realized by now, checking more than asmall group of blogs for updates on a daily basis can be a timeconsuming process. To avoid having to search the vast Internet

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blog by blog to find what you’re looking for, you can use a feed tosubscribe to information so that it comes to you, rather than you
having to find it. Using feeds on your blog can also help readersand customers find what they’re looking for quickly and easily.
A feed is actually not intended for human usage, but is used forinterpretation by various types of applications, most commonlyreferred to as feed readers, news readers, or aggregators (all essentiallythe same thing). Feed readers allow a user to subscribe to a feed,much the same way a person subscribes to the daily newspaper—
thus, the user is automatically informed when a particular blog has
been updated and something new has been posted.
Two kinds of feed readers are available: desktop feed readers,which are applications that live on your computer, and web-based
feed readers, which are online applications that you can accessfrom anywhere with any computer. A list of feed readers and acomparison of each can be found online at Weblogs Compendium, at www.lights.com/weblogs/rss.html. The most popular
desktop feed reader is NewsGator (www.newsgator.com), which isa plug-in for Microsoft Outlook that allows you to read your blogs
as if they were e-mail messages. The most popular web-based feed
reader is Bloglines (www.bloglines.com).
After you have downloaded a feed reader, you subscribe to thefeeds for the blogs you want to read. Most blogs and feed readers
allow you to type the address of the blog into the feed reader, andthe feed reader will do the rest. Once you have subscribed to thefeeds for the blogs you read, you no longer need to check the blogs
on a daily basis. When a blog is updated, your feed reader willautomatically download the update and let you know that newcontent is ready to read.
Not only will using a feed reader save you the trouble of goingto a number of blogs, but it will also allow you to search past blog
posts written by your favorite authors for valuable content.

Getting into the Blogging Mindset

Feed readers are designed to save you time and put you in controlof the information you receive: since you no longer need to visit blogs
just to see if new content has been added, you are free to use yourtime more effectively. And because you sign up for the feed, you arein control of what kind of information you receive. If you don’t likethe material, you can simply unsubscribe to a particular blog.
After you’ve read your choice blogs for at least two weeks andmade the occasional comment, you can consider starting your own
blog, where you can effectively respond to the posts from yourfavorite bloggers and float some of your own ideas.
Read “Choosing the Ideal Blog Platform,” by blog consultant
Paul Chaney, for information on what tool or platform to use.

START BLOGGING
After you’ve chosen a platform, your next step is to start
blogging—but don’t tell anyone about it just yet. If your blogging
tool of choice allows you to password-protect your blog, I highly
recommend that you do so. As with any new venture, the first
couple of weeks can be the most difficult time, since during those
weeks you will be learning how to accomplish your goals. During
the first two weeks of writing your blog, you will learn how to use
the software, how to link and track blogging, how to make useof comments, and how to perform all kinds of other blog-related
activities. In addition, because blogging is a lot like creative writing, you may struggle to find your voice. All this is usual, though:blogging is a new medium for many, and the process of finding
your voice is important, as it’s possible that your voice as a blogger
will stay consistent throughout your blogging career.
Try to spend no more than 15 to 20 minutes each day reading
blogs, commenting on blogs, and writing your own posts. In my
experience, 15 minutes each day is the ideal period for most new

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CHOOSING THE IDEAL BLOG PLATFORM
by Paul Chaney, blog consultant (www.radiantmarketinggroup.com)

The first thing you need to know is that there is no one“ideal” blog platform. What may be useful in one situation
would not suffice in another. Which platform is right for you isdependent on your needs.
While there are many platforms available, I want to mention
the three most popular and outline a few of their features.

TypePadThough postured more for personal use, this platform (www.typepad.com) provides enough versatility to make it usefulfor business applications as well. It contains all the standard
blog platform components such as comments, categories, andtrackbacks. Its WYSIWYG editing interface makes it very easy
to use and requires no knowledge of HTML, although there isan HTML editing option if you need access to the source code.
In addition, one of TypePad’s most attractive features is its
ability to set up photo albums and incorporate them into theblog.
The TypePad platform requires a monthly fee, ranging from$5.00 to $15.00. The fee can be paid a year in advance for an
additional savings.
TypePad offers a number of standard templates, but allows
for a great degree of customization using its wizards. However,
because it is what is known as a hosted solution, fully customizing the platform to the look and feel of your existing website
can be challenging except for the most experienced designer. If
that is what you desire, the last two options are for you.

Getting into the Blogging Mindset

Movable TypeTypePad’s elder sibling, Movable Type (www.movabletype.org)
is particularly designed for business use. The platform sits on
your server and can be completely customized to fit the lookof your site. In fact, it essentially becomes another directory of
your site.
The interface is not as user friendly as TypePad and does
require some knowledge of HTML. There is a one-time license
fee for use of the platform, which varies depending on the typeof use and the number of users.

WordPress
This platform (www.wordpress.org) requires perhaps the mostsophisticated level of technical knowledge for implementation.
However, because it is open source software, WordPress is free
to use. That doesn’t mean it is lacking in features. Many professional bloggers swear by the platform and use it exclusively.
Its administrative interface is remarkably simple to use, and it
is perhaps one of the most versatile platforms available. Like
Movable Type, it resides on your server and requires the use ofa MySQL database.

bloggers, as it offers a few minutes for reading, a few minutes forcommenting, and a few minutes for blogging.
Many new bloggers feel a compulsion to write dozens of pieces
a day, read hundreds of blogs, and comment on nearly every oneof them at least once. These well-intentioned individuals quickly
burn out and abandon blogging. Instead, as a new blogger, startslowly. Don’t take on too much at once. Try not to get overwhelmed by how much you could be doing. Stay focused on why

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you started blogging and what values you and your business findin blogging.
After you have blogged privately for two weeks, consider launching your business blog site. Launching a blog is a fairly simple
process: you simply make it public and tell a few customers andfriends about it. At this point, you may be tempted to build up
traffic. But traffic isn’t what’s important at first; instead, finding
your voice, making sure blogging meets with your strategic objectives, and listening and responding to posts are most important.
As discussed in Chapter 1, blogging started as a communityof like-minded people who linked together through the Internet.
In addition to linking to others, leaving comments and sending
occasional e-mail correspondence can have a profound effect on
your network of readers. In blogging, you build your trust, reputation, and authority on your own merits. If you consistently post
opinions founded on accurate information, the number of bloggers
who link to your site will steadily grow, as will your influence.

TRACKING BLOG ACTIVITY
You can hire a million data entry specialists to transcribe all theinformation you gather from blogs, or you can use one of themany blog tracking services available today. I’ll get into these in
more detail in Chapters 7 and 8. For now, let’s take a look at a few
of the ways you can track what is happening on your blog:•••

Blog tracking systems
Feed tracking systems
Trending systems

Blog tracking systems, such as Technorati (Figure 2-2), typicallymonitor how often blogs link to each other. This gives both theGetting into the Blogging Mindset

Figure 2-2 Technorati allows you to search blogs in real time and to track how
many people are linking to you and your competitors.

blogger and the blog reader a clearer sense of their blog traffic.
More links mean not only more readers, but more credibility.
Feed tracking systems are similar but rely on the feeds that mostblogs publish. Computer programs, like feed tracking systems
and feed readers, use feeds to determine what’s new on a blog;
feed tracking systems can therefore tell you all the blogs who havelinked to you on a daily basis or return a list of blogs that mention specific terms. The largest of these are PubSub (www.pubsub.com), shown in Figure 2-3, which allows you to have search results returned to you as feeds on a daily basis so that you don’t needto search for new results every day, and Feedster (www.feedster.com), which allows you to search the millions of feeds available ina Google-like manner.

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Figure 2-3 PubSub allows you to get new links and mentions sent directly toyou, instead of needing to search for them on a daily basis.

Thanks to tools such as Technorati (www.technorati.com) and
PubSub (www.pubsub.com), bloggers can see who links to theirsites within minutes of the link being created, as shown for the
Tinbasher blog in Figure 2-4.
Trending systems, such as BlogPulse (www.blogpulse.com),shown in Figure 2-5, track conversations from their origins totheir endpoints, so you can see how a conversation grows; they also
track specific terms across a period of time, allowing you to compare that graph to other important terms. You could use a trending
system to monitor how many times your company is mentioned
versus how many times your competitors are mentioned, trackGetting into the Blogging Mindset

Figure 2-4 The Tinbasher blog’s Technorati results show the number of posts
linked to the site.

Figure 2-5 BlogPulse tracks what blogs are saying, and then graphs thoseresults over time.

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how specific company news spreads across blogs, and track how
bloggers respond to that news.
The great thing about these services is that they are all free. That
isn’t to say that you can’t pay for higher end services or pay consulting companies to produce daily, weekly, or monthly reports.

BRANDING AND CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
Far too many companies think of their brands in terms ofthe concrete: a product, a logo, a trademark. But your brandis larger than that. Your brand is the impression you leave on
your customers. Sure, your logo and corporate imagery, as wellas advertising, are a part of that. But they don’t leave the mostlasting impression of your brand.
Experiences, relationships, and trust—all intangible assets—
are the single largest source of value for your business brand.
Your brand lives in the experiences your customers have withyour company, your products, and your frontline teams. Your
brand lies in the minds of your customers, and like a wildfire,
each of your customers can spread your brand message (theway they perceive it) to others—and they often will, either
because of a positive or, more important, a negative experience.
In fact, as described in various marketing books, such as
2002’s The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell, even very smallchanges in the way customers perceive your company can haveradical effects on your bottom line.
Treat your customers with the respect they deserve, andthey’ll respect your brand, too.

Getting into the Blogging Mindset

WRAPPING IT UP
In this chapter, we have looked at the ways that you can get into
the blogging mindset, some of the benefits of blogging, as well as
how to start participating in the conversation. In Chapter 3, we’ll
explore the power of blogs for your business, including how blogs
can be used to generate new ideas, build teams, and bring in customers and affect mindshare.

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THE POWER OF BLOGSFOR BUSINESSN

ow that you are familiar with how blogs have added a new
dimension to corporate communications and how engaging in the conversation is absolutely essential for your business’s
success in the blogosphere, you are ready to begin looking at thepowerful possibilities blogging offers your business. You’ve likely
been asking yourself such questions as “How can blogging benefit
my company?” and “What would my successful blog look like?”
since you started reading this book.
This chapter covers the practicalities of business blogging andwhat it means for you, including how it can impact your bottom
line and how it will bring in customers and affect mindshare. It
also examines several companies from a variety of industries thatare succeeding at blogging; these early bloggers have paved the way
for later blogging luminaries—like you.

HOW BLOGS CAN HELP YOUR BUSINESS
Let’s get back to business basics—not because I think you don’t know
your own business, but because I honestly believe that blogging can
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help each core fragment of what makes up a successful and viable
company. The core needs for any business are as follows:••••

Decent ideas
A great product
Visibility
A well-trained team of people who work hard to make thecompany succeed

You also need good marketing, great customer relations, anawesome sales force, decent customer support, and a host ofother factors. But if you have ideas, a product worth selling, asolid team behind it, and potential customers, the rest will follow
naturally.

CREATING GREAT IDEAS
Every company has great ideas waiting to come to the surface.
The problem with bringing those ideas to the surface is threefold:giving ideas space to develop, helping ideas get improved, andimplementing the best ideas.
Often it takes only one person to come up with a great idea, but
it may take 100 or more people to support and implement that
idea. If the idea loses support, the company will need another great
idea to keep going. Great ideas can increase a business’s costs andpeople power, but they can also increase a business’s revenue andmarketing power. This is why large companies who live or die by
their great ideas employ researchers who spend their time seeking
epiphanies.
The challenge for companies who invest in ideas is often thatthe best ideas don’t get to the top, don’t get reviewed, or don’t even

The Power of Blogs for Businessget considered. This idea barrier could be killing your company.
A truly open and internally viewable idea blog, or even individual
employee blogs that allow people to float new ideas for peer review, should allow the best ideas to rise to the surface for selection and review. We’ll look at the concept of idea blogs more in
Chapter 6, as they are an exciting way to empower your employees
and generate thought.

CREATING GREAT PRODUCTS
The next challenge is deciding which great ideas get turned into
products. After all, what good is thinking up the greatest idea inthe world if your business can’t actually sell it?
Smart companies hire people who are able to turn a great idea
into a great product. These people, often called product specialists
or product managers, know customers, know the market, and know
how to deliver new products on time and on budget. However,to do their jobs well, product specialists need to talk directly tocustomers. This is where focus groups, customer demo days, andother customer-listening techniques come into play. Some companies even employ staff evangelists to work one-on-one with individual customers to maintain a good relationship.
We all know cases in which even the most well-intentioned
products underperformed. Relying on a small sample of customers to reflect what the entire world desires is risky at best, andfoolhardy at worst. If you can’t ask everyone in the world what
they want, you’re unlikely to be able to deliver what everyone truly
desires. With blogging, you can ask—if not the entire world, thenat least your entire blog readership, who are probably connected
to and/or reading other blogs from all over the planet. Once you
have insight into what a large community of readers wants, you
can begin delivering it.

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INCREASING VISIBILITY
Marketing is all about visibility—making the right people awareof the right product at the right time. Allen Weiss, founder ofMarketingProfs.com, says that marketing is about customers, andhe’s right. The hard reality, though, is that often marketing isn’t
about individual customers. Often, it’s about creating a global
message to which individual customers will respond.
New methods of effective marketing include creating “viral”
campaigns, customer-centric events, and otherwise helping customers spread the word through incentive programs and contests.
Visibility is also sought through media reports, event sponsorship,
and interactive websites.
However, these visibility campaigns lack effectiveness on the
one-to-one level. Companies assume that millions of people will
be contacted, but only a small percentage of these people will
respond. This method of marketing has its upside, but it doesn’t
do anything to create relationships with customers, create positive
experiences, or create customer evangelists.

HAVE YOU CAUGHT THE BUG?
In recent years, viral marketing has become the rage. The viralmarketing strategy encourages customers to pass along information to others, often via e-mail. It’s effective because it canbe crafted once and left up to individual consumers to spreadthe message themselves. Halo 2, a popular video game forMicrosoft’s XBox console, engaged in one of the most successful
viral marketing campaigns ever with the creation of the “I Love
Bees” pseudo-game.

The Power of Blogs for BusinessAt the release of one of the final trailers for the game, shownin theaters around the world, the final XBox logo briefly faded
to www.ilovebees.com, the website address for a heretofore
unknown honey manufacturer in California’s Napa Valley. Visitors were greeted with a series of disturbing and cryptic messages, including a countdown to some unknown event (though
astute visitors eventually guessed that it was the game’s
launch).

The campaign built up an incredible buzz that was broadcast to the world via millions of curious visitors obsessed withsolving the puzzle. Entire websites and communities sprang up
around trying to find a solution. Why? Because everyone loves
a mystery.
Campaigns such as “I Love Bees” rely on users to spread theword—something that blogs also rely on. Trusting your message to your users is one of the ways to allow them to “ownyour brand.”

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HAVING A GREAT TEAM
One of the best ways to build a great business is to create a great
team. Great teams will think up great ideas, build visibility, andspot defects in products, which they will then correct. A great teamcan fix just about any problem, given the right resources, and ishappy to take on just about any challenge.
Unfortunately, great teams can be difficult to create and keep
motivated. Anyone who’s built successful teams knows that more
often than not some particular “X Factor” will make or break theteam: often the ability to find common ground and common interests can be a make-or-break issue. A team comprising colleagues
with common interests, backgrounds, or passions will be able torely on those commonalities, even in the most adverse circumstances. The challenge is to find employees who fit together; few
employee profiles include information that will help you find thecommon ground.
To solve this dilemma, many large corporations are turning to
self-forming and self-sustaining teams. These people have foundthat they have things in common and they work well together.
Companies post internal team opportunities that “ultra teams”
can choose to tackle or ignore. Sometimes projects will be assigned
based on need, but, generally, having a team own a topic is a more
effective tactic.
The challenge for companies looking to enable these dynamic
teams is in figuring out how to enable employees to connect
based on passion. Passion is an important part of any successful
team—without passion, a team will not only find itself quickly ina rut, but it will likely find its members unable to gel, have fun, or
help the company in a meaningful way. You’ll learn how to create
dynamic internal teams in Chapter 6.

The Power of Blogs for Business

HOW BLOGS IMPACT YOUR BUSINESSOf course, creating a successful business involves more than having great teams, great ideas, great products, and increased visibility—but if your business could do only these four things right,
you’d be off to a good start. The real question is how blogging canaugment or help in each of these areas.
Ideas

Good ideas are always hard to come by. Several
adventurous companies have begun blogging for new productideas, assuming that their users know what they want better thanthe companies do. GM’s FastLane blog (http://fastlane.gmblogs.com) is a great example of this: GM runs new concepts by readers
at the site, inviting them to comment. By providing a space forcustomers to interact, you can be assured that they will interact. As
a company, you need to be ready for the feedback that will comeas a result.
Products

Traditional product development leverages a roomfulof customers to make decisions for a world full of people. The end
result is a series of focus group insights that have no real-world
applications. Blogging affords the opportunity to ask the world ofcustomers about what they actually want.
Visibility

Most traditional visibility campaigns are single
events that rarely go beyond the customer’s first experience. Even
the best viral campaigns that encourage customers to spreadthe word are really just single-interaction events. Blogs let yourreaders decide how and when to interact with you. Not only
do they give customers control over the relationship, but theyencourage customers to continue to engage with you over time,

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thus providing a multitude of experiences they can subsequently
share with friends and associates. Blogs encourage customers to
become participants and participants to become evangelists. And
they encourage everyone to come together as a community.
Teamwork

By creating opportunities for your staff members tocommunicate effectively, you create a space for more meaningfulinteractions. Blogs come in where other types of communication
fail. It’s been said that e-mail is where information goes to die.
When was the last time you actually looked at a message you’darchived awhile back, “just in case”? Blogs are where living
information resides. People in your company can find others withsimilar interests by searching topics that other internal bloggers
have considered. Creating ad-hoc connections based on content
that is created and owned by internal bloggers is a great way tokeep your teams well oiled, motivated, and in touch with people
with similar passions across your organization. Think about theefficiencies that could be gained for the whole company if theseexperts had an easy way to exchange and archive ideas.

IDEAS TO HELP YOUR BUSINESS
Beyond the core concepts of improving your ideas, products, visibility, and team cohesiveness, blogs can improve your businessdozens of other ways. Here are a few examples to wet your whistle
as we get deeper into exploring blogs.
Improve Customer Loyalty

Elisa Camahort is a passionate
blogger. She helps theatres in her area, such as 42nd St. Moon
(http://42ndstmoon.blogspot.com) by blogging behind-thescenes details, which dedicated theatre-goers love. She also
features discounts for theatres to track how effective blogging is at
driving new ticket sales. Overall, the ability to connect with their

The Power of Blogs for Businessniche audience has been a huge boon for the small theatres that
Camahort passionately serves.
Build an Early Buzz

Nooked (http://blog.nooked.com/) was
first envisioned on the blog, was built on the blog, and has grownthrough the blog. Nooked is an RSS tracking company—RSS
stands for Really Simple Syndication and refers to a format used
for easily distributing news on the Internet via feeds or channels.
At each step of the way, the Nooked blog has been full of inside
information that is devoured with abandon by those following the
project’s progress. It is the perfect example of how to use blogs tobuild a buzz early on in a product’s development cycle.
React to Negative Events

Earlier this year, General Motors
engaged in some major restructuring. GM Chairman Rick Wagoner
took a larger degree of control in the company by restructuring
selected units so that they reported directly to him—these selectedunits were previously under the care of such key executives as Bob
Lutz. Interestingly, Lutz is the primary author of GM’s exceedingly
popular FastLane blogs. Instead of being silent about the event,
Lutz was able to turn what many had considered a demotion into
a positive thing: he was able to focus entirely on what he loved—
product development. Several hundred bloggers and commenters
supported his attitude by commenting and followed his exampleof how to deal with negativity in a public forum.
Extend Your Influence to Your Influencers

For many
companies, the key to success is knowing who influences theindustry. For Microsoft, developers are first priority. To influence
developers, Microsoft launched Channel 9 (http://channel9.msdn.com), which gave a true inside look at the company throughdaily video profiles of important figures in each product group.

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The response to this blog and its video angle took everyone
at Microsoft by surprise; the blog community grew to morethan 50,000 members, making it one of the largest developer
communities ever.

HOW BLOGS BRING IN CUSTOMERSAND AFFECT MINDSHARE
The challenge that today’s companies face is one of mindshare. Mindshare is all about how many people are aware of your product. Thinkof it like market share, exCreate places that are meaningful to yourcept instead of having acustomers; only then will your mindshare grow.
percentage of the market interms of dollar value, youvalue mindshare on the percentage of people who know what theheck you do. The problem is that everyone is vying for mindshare,
and customers only have a certain amount of mindspace.

BLOGS AS MARKETING TOOLS: THE
STONYFIELD FARM STORY
Even if you are a relatively small company, your blog can havea huge effect on your company’s profile, your customer relationships, and the way customers think about you and yourproducts.
In April 2004, the Stonyfield Farm yogurt company began
blogging (www.stonyfield.com/weblog/). Stonyfield runs fiveblogs, each targeted at a different part of their market. Someare targeted at farmers and those who remember traditionalfarming nostalgically; others are targeted at parenting andhealthy living, as having a healthy image appeals to busy parents.

The Power of Blogs for Business

The focus on healthy living, the environment, and family values
are important facets of the company’s personality, something it
prides itself in having maintained, despite the company’s phenomenal growth.

Stonyfield Farm realized that customers make buying decisions at the refrigerated food section in the grocery store. Shoppers are conditioned to choose the lowest priced item for mostcommodity items such as yogurt. However, Stonyfield believes
that by tying its values to its customers’ values, it can create alasting impression that makes the extra cost per purchase seemcompletely worthwhile.
Using your blogs as a way to reflect your business’s values,
culture, and priorities is one of the best ways to ensure thatyour blog isn’t simply another vehicle for spouting the same oldmarketing drivel to which customers are becoming desensitized.
Blogs allow you to talk directly to your customers as important
people, which is an opportunity you should never ignore.

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The reality is that the more companies vie for mindsharethrough regular transmission methods, the less effective all campaigns are. The simple reason is that customers are able to dedicate less and less of their mindspace to each company or product.
The answer to the challenge is simple: create spaces where yourcustomers can consistently engage in dialogue with you. Create
places that are meaningful to your customers; only then will yourmindshare grow.

BLOGGING IS A CHOICE
Clearly, if you are not blogging, you are losing customers you
could be gaining, you are losing customers you currently have,you are losing influence you could be wielding, and you are losing out on relationships that could redefine your company. When
your customers are talking, you have a responsibility to engage
with them.
The great thing about blogging is that it can have business benefits regardless of whether or not you actually have your own blog:
you can still listen to your customers and engage with them evenon blogs that are not your own. Obviously, having your own blog
will allow greater benefits, such as customers being able to communicate directly with you, your being able to create positive experiences on your blog, and having the human voice of your blog
become associated with your company.
Every business has a choice to make: either ignore blogging or
embrace it. Blogging isn’t going away any more than regular websites are going away. Soon enough, customers will simply take for
granted that every company has a blog. Businesses will either participate and engage or ignore and distance themselves.

The Power of Blogs for Business

Increasingly, customers are looking for businesses that do morethan simply provide the lowest prices—they are seeking relationships. Companies that continue to cut prices, cut corners, and takecustomers for granted are engaging in a race to the bottom. On theother hand, businesses that value their customers, engage with them,and make them participants in the company’s future are engaging ina very different type of race—a race to the top. In which race would
you rather engage? What happens to companies who win the race
to the bottom? Do they survive, thrive, or take a dive? What aboutcompanies who win the race to the top of their markets? Time willcertainly tell. Either way, customers are taking notice. Companies
such as JetBlue and WestJet, both definitely engaging in a race forthe top, are beating out competitors as large as United and Delta in
the airline industry, primarily because these successful airlines pay
attention to their customers though blogging.
Customers are price sensitive only when you are price sensitive.
It’s far more valuable to your business and your customers to focus
on the unique value you create—the examples of Starbucks, Apple
Computers, and BMW don’t have to be unique. Price sensitivity isa creation of companies that follow what the market does; it’s far
better to define the market than to serve it.
In every industry, on every continent, companies dedicated toserving customers with an engaging customer-centric experience arefacing one common challenge: managing growth. Blogging, listening
to blogs, and participating in the conversation are merely extensionsof having a customer-centric business. Whenever you value your customers, they will become your company’s greatest evangelists andwill do your marketing for you. Blogs can do more than marketing,though; they can aid your product development and public relations,and even open entirely new markets and opportunities.

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COMPANIES THAT BLOG
Once you have established that listening to the blogosphere is anatural and valuable way of finding value in the ongoing conversation, the next logical step is to come up with something to say. The
best way to do this is to start your own blog. Most companies mustfirst determine what type of blog to establish, who should write
the blog, and other important issues. Unfortunately, the “safest”
thing that many companies choose to do is to establish the blog
as a YAMO—Yet Another Marketing Outlet. A copy writer is hired
to turn company news into glib posts, highlighting words such as
innovative and talking only about the company’s strengths.
The problem with treating your blog as another push venue isthat it does nothing to respect customers. Your customers alreadysee and hear your buzzwords in your commercials, press releases,
interviews, and via all the regular channels. If they want to hear
how innovative you are, they can go to your website. Instead, why
not help them use your blog to read your opinions on issues in theindustry, news (yours and others’ news), and insights.
Your blog needs to communicate more than just a standard
marketing message. It needs to communicate something authentic, passionate, and authoritative—the exact types of things thatcome through if you are talking face-to-face with a customer.
If you are going to create only one blog, let the passion andauthority of the author shine through in an authentic way. For
many companies, a CEO or executive may provide the best perspective. Sun Microsystems has hundreds of staff blogs, but themost widely read is the blog by Sun’s president, Jonathan Schwartz(http://blogs.sun.com/jonathan), shown in Figure 3-1. Nobody
is more passionate and authoritative on the subject of Sun than
Schwartz, and he happily tackles issues head-on in an impressive
manner.

The Power of Blogs for Business

Figure 3-1

Jonathan Schwartz often tackles difficult issues in a passionate andauthoritative way.

Be Real: The Scoble Story
On the flipside, sometimes the most important person to be blogging in your company may not be an executive. For Microsoft, one
of Sun’s direct competitors, the most important blogger is arguably
Robert Scoble (http://scoble.weblogs.com), whose site is shown in
Figure 3-2. Scoble started blogging before he joined Microsoft—
his existing blog was actually a major force in landing him the job.
In his role as a technical evangelist, Scoble has to be both authoritative and honest.
One of Scoble’s rules is to tell the truth, even if it means admitting that a competitor’s product is better or if it means Microsoft
is doing something wrong. This can be scary for an executive todo—though Sun’s Schwartz does it quite successfully. For Scoble,
this comes naturally, and the net effect is that he has become one of
the most influential people in a company with more than 55,000
employees. The external effect is that Microsoft now has a trusted

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Figure 3-2 Robert Scoble, a lowly technical evangelist for Microsoft, is one of
the most influential people in the company, thanks largely to hishonest and open blog.

voice who will give the straight and passionate answer to even thehardest questions.
The question of who in your company should blog isn’t an easy
one to answer. However, if you are going to create only one blog,
make sure your blogger has the following three characteristics: passion, authority, and authenticity. You can’t lose.
Let Your Employees Speakfor You: The Monster Story
Monster.com, a major job site, successfully illustrates the concept of empowering your employees to be your blogging voice. Its
official blog (http://monster.typepad.com), shown in Figure 3-3,
includes blog posts from dozens of staff members who contribute

The Power of Blogs for Business

Figure 3-3 The Monster blog, written by dozens of employees, is a great
example of how individual employees can express their passion
while still providing value to customers.

on a variety of topics, from their first days at work, to their pet
peeves (even with coworkers and managers), to their dreams andaspirations. Some of this is unique to the Monster blog—because
the company helps people find jobs, letting its employees discuss
issues similar to those experienced by other employees in othercompanies is a good way to relate to potential clients.
The great thing that Monster does, though, is let their employees be real people on the blog. There isn’t a lot of marketing speakor “Rah! Rah! Monster rocks!” going on. You can tell employees
are happy working at the company because of the passion andenergy in their blog posts. You can tell that employees love helping other people find great jobs because it comes across readily inthe text. Monster isn’t using its employees to gain mindshare; it’s

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empowering them to have a voice. This is valuable for a company
whose main goal is to help others find their dream jobs.

COMPANIES THAT DON’T BLOG
Having your own blog is not a prerequisite for benefiting fromwhat’s happening in the blogosphere. Sure, having direct input,
establishing yourself as a
If all you do with blogs is listen to what isthought leader, and having
happening and respond appropriately, you havean engaging location foralready gone a long way toward establishing acustomers to communicate
successful blogging strategy.
on your website is all very,
very good. But your business can get value from blogging while not having its own blog.
Nevertheless, you must realize that a conversation is goingon—and it’s a conversation to which you want to listen. By
acknowledging this basic fact, you can leverage and monitor what
is already happening in the blogosphere—whether or not you haveyour own blog. We’ll get into how to track the blogosphere morelater in this book; for now, let’s take a look at a few brief examplesof ways you can listen in on bloggers’ conversations: Technorati(www.technorati.com) and PubSub (www.pubsub.com).
Technorati watches blogs like a hawk. It allows you to searchblogs either for specific terms (such as your company name or
products) or for specific web addresses (such as your company’s
website) to see who is talking about you. Technorati also provides another vital piece of information: how many bloggers arelinking to the person who is talking about you or linking to you.
Services similar to Technorati also let you track your competitor’s
links—this could be one of the most powerful competitive intelligence services you’ve ever used, as it gives you real feedback andreal information into your competitors and the challenges they

The Power of Blogs for Businessare facing. Not only will you be able to gain wisdom based on customer input, but you’ll be able to avoid your competitors’ mistakes.
I would never suggest that you consider blogs with 1000 blogs
linking to them more important than blogs with only 10 or 20
blogs linking to them; you should be aware of every individual
blogger’s reach. Treat each and every blogger as a customer, andtreat the blogger with the respect that every customer deserves.
However, be aware that if a blogger with a large audience is pissed
off, his or her audience could be angry as well. Either way, thisangry saboteur can eventually turn into a powerful evangelist, as
every bad situation has the potential for even greater returns whenaddressed quickly, openly, and with respect.
PubSub monitors the feeds that bloggers produce. (For more
information on feeds, see Chapter 2.) As PubSub monitors thefeeds produced by the entire blogosphere, you can request that it
produce a custom feed just for you. That feed could include thenames of your products, your company name, the name of yourCEO, and even the names of your competitors, allowing you tokeep tabs effectively on your entire sphere of influence. Of course,
you may want to split these into separate feeds; PubSub allows
you to have as many feeds as you like, and you can organize them
however you want.
PubSub specializes in letting you know who is saying something
as soon as it has been said. Technorati, however, can tell you how
important a particular issue is—who is talking about it, who is
responding, and how fast is the news spreading. Using both tools
together provides a powerful arsenal for understanding and participating in the flow of conversations.
Once you subscribe to the feed PubSub has produced, youraggregator or feed reader will automatically notify you whenever
PubSub sees something new that meets the criteria you established. Never before have you had the power to react to a negative

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situation, crisis, or customer revolt as quickly as in the world offeeds. In most cases, you can be made aware of issues less than 10
minutes after a blogger blogs about it. This completely transforms
your ability to work with customers quickly and, thanks to thepower of your company blog, respond to it within minutes orhours instead of days or weeks. This can help stop negative wordof mouth from spreading; but, even better, it creates a positive
association with your company. People don’t expect pristine experiences, but they do appreciate and respect honest, authentic,
and open discussion about how a company is willing to improve
products and experiences.

RESPOND TO YOUR AUDIENCE: THE
KRYPTONITE LOCKS STORY
Companies may not effectively respond to issues happening
in the world of blogging for several reasons: they may not beaware that blogs exist, or they might be aware of blogs but
discount their importance. Kryptonite Locks is a bit of a uniquestory in that the company was aware that blogs existed, but
it simply chose not to respond to bloggers for a variety ofreasons.
In 2004, Kryptonite, maker of top-selling locks, suffered at
the hands of a blog. A blogger discovered that it was possible
to pick a Kryptonite lock with nothing more than a standard
Bic pen.
After the blogger blogged about it, the issue was quickly
picked up by Engadget (www.engadget.com), a popular gadget and geek blog with a reader base of more than a quarter
million readers a day (see the article at www.engadget.com/

The Power of Blogs for Businessentry/7796925370303347). The conversation about the issue
quickly spun out of control. Worst of all, Kryptonite had no
idea what was going on until it was too late. In short order, The
New York Times and the Associated Press had picked up thestory—and there was no turning back for Kryptonite.

Kryptonite’s business was hit with a class-action lawsuit(www.kryptonitesettlement.com/), and the company engaged
in a massive lock exchange program (www.kryptonitelock.com/inetisscripts/abtinetis.exe/templateform@public?tn=
product_exchange_faq), which will likely cost it an arm anda leg.
The question for us isn’t whether or not Kryptonite’s locks
were easily compromised; instead, the question is, “How would
this situation have looked if Kryptonite had responded in lessthan an hour, on the blogger’s original blog, on Engadget, andon its own (if it had one) blog?” Kryptonite’s crisis-management
team was completely unprepared for the realities of the new
blogosphere, where one blogger can identify an issue with the

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about it in less than a week. Kryptonite’s representatives said
that they were more than aware of the furor happening in the
blogosphere, but they were too busy responding to customer
e-mails, sorting out the lock exchange program, and figuring
out what exactly was wrong with the locks to respond. It’s difficult to blame a company for decisions made during a time ofcrisis—after all, making difficult decisions is part of being incrisis mode.
While your company is, realistically, unlikely to encounter
an issue of this magnitude, the ability to nip issues in the bud
within minutes or hours is a powerful motivator for tracking
what the blogosphere is doing or saying. If all you do with blogs
is listen to what is happening and respond appropriately, youhave already gone a long way toward establishing a successful
blogging strategy.

WRAPPING IT UP
Leveraging the power of blogging for your company involves morethan just reading blogs, tracking blogs, and writing a few posts
here and there. The first part of this book covered the foundational aspects of blogging: what it is and where it came from, theconversation and why it’s so important, and the power of blogs foryour business.
Next, we’ll cover how to get started with blogging in your business, including examples of two Fortune 500 companies who
are truly innovating in the blogging space—Disney and General
Motors—and we’ll look at the best ways your company can use
blogs both externally and internally.

The Power of Blogs for BusinessThis isn’t to say that this book will provide a comprehensive
list of every possible way you could or should use your blogs. At
the end of the day, you know your company better than I everwill. However, these next chapters will provide core principles for
successful blogging, the mindset required to implement blogging
successfully, as well as all kinds of ideas. I encourage you to dosomething different. Yes, each of these examples has worked forcompanies in the past, and they may well work for you. But don’t
do the same thing everyone else does. Figure out what is best foryour company and chase after that—even, and especially, if it’snew, exciting, and scary. You won’t regret it.

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4

HOW YOUR COMPANY CANUSE BLOGS“Make sense now?” June asked. She had explained everything in her
typically thorough and occasionally patronizing manner, as though
she were dealing with a child.
“I get it,” Arnold said. “We could use a blog to engage ourcustomers in a conversation. Plus, we could pick their brains for
ideas for new business.”“Well, if you want to put it that way,” June harrumphed.
Arnold leaned back in his chair. “After all, how well do we know
this town? All those new developments along the interstate—wholives there?”“Just remember, Arn, that this is a conversation—we have to givethem something of value.”
Arnold leaned forward in his chair. “I bet there are pizza shops,
schools, gas stations, all sorts of places that need signs up there. They
don’t know what they’re missing. That 20-foot banner we did for
Bratz Daycare—they told me their business is up 30 percent.”
June responded, “Yeah. Those are the kinds of stories that would
be great for the blog. We could provide ideas for them on how to
improve their business with some serious signage. How inexpensive
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signs can be and how color makes a big difference in grabbing thosepeople driving by. We could let them know what works and what
doesn’t work.”“What doesn’t work? Why would we want to tell them that?”
Arnold asked. “And all this story-telling… wouldn’t this be giving
away some of our business intelligence?”
Once June stopped laughing about his “business intelligence”
comment, the pair sat down to hammer out some rules for their blog.
—Part 2 of “Blog,” a short story by Joe FloodN

ow that you know the blogging basics, it’s time you figuredout exactly how your company can use blogs and what thoseuses will mean for your business. This part of the book provides thehands-on, rubber-meets-the-road, chicken-hits-the-skillet kind of
information I’m sure you’re champing at the bit to know.
As I mentioned early on, a blog is really a tool meant to achieve an
end and, as such, it is meant to support you, your business, and yourbusiness’s goals and assets. Having a blog without a goal is a lot likewalking a penguin through Central Park—sure, it’s interesting, but itprobably isn’t helping anybody.
And as with any brand new tool, you need to figure out how
to use a blog. In the next few chapters, you’ll see how you can use
blogging by including some creative and innovative tactics employed by companies both large and small to leverage blogs fortheir own strategic well-being. The only thing limiting your use ofblogs is your ability to dream up new ways to use them.

HOW DO I USE BLOGS?
LET ME COUNT THE WAYS…
I asked Arieanna Foley of Blogaholics (www.blogaholics.com) tocompile a list of uses for blogs, which she happily did in Table 4-1.

How Your Company Can Use Blogs

External

Internal

Communication
MarketingE-mail newsletter support
FAQ section
Industry news opinion
Service updates
Learning

Knowledge management and sharing
Administrative toolInternal document review
Collaboration
Idea archiving
Internal dialogue
Dynamic archiving—not stale likee-mailCorporate intelligence—knowing
what your employees are saying andthinking and seeing the patterns
Loyalty—creating identification withthe company through interaction
Status reports—what we work on,
and with whom—all tracked on each
employee’s aggregator
Top-down idea/goal setting
Bottom-up idea generation andinteraction
Creation of corporate culture of
expression, collectivity, knowledge
sharing
Getting the info out faster: Have an
idea? Frustrated with the chain ofgetting someone to listen? Post andit will get noticed, supported, andheard
Calendar sharing

Interactive journalism
Source of research
Public feedback
Custom queries/watchlists
Aggregation of news sources
Self-expression
Storytelling
Customer service
Public relations
Viral marketing
Campaigning/social reform
Community building
Sales mechanism

Brand loyalty—a human face

Table 4-1 Arieanna Foley’s Uses for Blogs (continued )

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External

Internal

Knowledge management(broad scale—ourmedia.com)

Meeting announcements
Meeting notes vs. e-mail broadcast
notices
Sharing of market intelligence
Brain-storming about strategy, feature sets, and process
Sharing customer notes
Asking others for help
Ability to segment blogs by individual or department for easy blog
subscription
Best practices
Thought leadership
Team creation—match up those passionate about an item, or match up
people with differing ideas so they
can work out the optimal solution
Organized links—categorize links
within the blog to most frequent
info, strategy, technical manual, sales
material, online learning

Trending
CRM—Customer Relationship Management
Buying behavior
Competitive intelligence
Polling
Thought leadership
Product changes
Crisis management

Table 4-1 Arieanna Foley’s Uses for Blogs

Obviously, this isn’t a comprehensive list, as companies are thinking up new ways to use blogs every day. Equally obvious is the factthat I can’t cover all of these uses in this little book. I will, however,be taking a look at some of the top ways you can use blogs internally and externally to improve your business.
As you can see in Table 4-1, the problem isn’t finding ways touse blogs, it’s finding the right way to bring the most value to yourbusiness. If your goals are internal, and you’re trying to increase

How Your Company Can Use Blogs

communication, you can accomplish them in a variety of ways. If
your goals are external, and you’re trying to increase the trust andvisibility of your company, a thought-leadership oriented blog canbe ideal.
We could get pretty deep pretty fast, but for now let’s look at twocompanies that are using blogs in innovative ways to reshape theway they do business in the areas in which the blogs are targeted.

GIVING YOUR COMPANY A VOICE:THE GENERAL MOTORS STORY
In January 2005, a milestone event happened: Bob Lutz, vicechairman of General Motors, started blogging. Lutz was the first
executive leader of a non-tech Fortune 100 company to be a primary contributor to a blog. His personal style and approachable
passion created an entirely new communication channel for GM,
allowing customers to engage with him directly about products,
services, and the future of the company. Lutz is equally passionate
about car design and his blog, which is an important part of being
a successful blogger at any level of a company, and he constantly
affirms his belief in his audience and in blogging. “We want you tokeep watching and keep talking to us, that’s why I’m out here,” Lutz
declared in his second blog post (January 7, 2005, http://fastlane.gmblogs.com/archives/2005/01/great_comments_1.html).
In just five months, the GM FastLane blog (see Figure 4-1)
became one of the most important unfiltered voices on the Internet, as the company expressed itself freely through Lutz and otherexecutives, and as customers learned that their voices were heard.
The scores of car enthusiasts who frequent the FastLane blog, as
well as GM’s earlier blogging endeavor, the Smallblock Engine
Blog, have in Lutz a willing and able communicator whose passion
for cars in general, and GM vehicles in particular, is contagious.

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Figure 4-1

GM’s Popular FastLane blog allows Lutz and other executives tohave real conversations with real customers.

Most of the posts on the FastLane blog, as well as GM’s otherblogs, attract scores, if not hundreds, of comments, creating a dynamic, passionate, and vibrant community. If there were ever any
doubts that blogging was all about the conversation that takes place
between companies, customers, and bloggers, the FastLane blog put
those doubts to rest. According to the Feedster Top 500 for August
2005 (http://top500.feedster.com/), the FastLane blog is among the
top 500 blogs on the Internet, and the willingness of the team behindthe blog to learn and adapt to blogging has been phenomenal.
GM became one of the first companies to create a podcast (anonline radio show distributed directly to MP3 players), which is a

How Your Company Can Use Blogs

hit among customers. The blogs, podcasts, and overall interaction
with customers provide GM valuable and direct feedback from
customers, car owners, and enthusiasts about what they think of
GM as a company, as a car maker, and as an innovator. This isfeedback the company would not otherwise be able to obtain insuch a direct manner.

A POSTER CHILD FOR EXECUTIVE BLOGGING
Neville Hobson (www.nevon.net) wrote a case study in early 2005,
which included information about GM’s blogging efforts as wellas the growth and lessons learned on the blogs. Hobson refers to
the GM FastLane blog as “undoubtedly the current poster childfor executive blogs.” Since FastLane’s launch, several other GM executives have become involved in the GM blog, adding a “breadthand depth of interaction developing on the blog while remaining
wholly focused on the blog’s key goal—developing dialogue about
GM’s products and services.”1
GM’s foray into blogging has been challenging as it continues
to run while still learning to walk. The blog has included trackbacks, started a podcast, and interacted successfully with bloggers
around the world. Each new step in reaching out to the blogging
community of enthusiasts has created new and positive experiences for customers. More than that, though, the GM blogs havebecome a place for customers to share their passions and positive
experiences, thus creating a self-sustaining community of productevangelists for GM.
GM has given its customers a voice in the company, but it has
also gained so much trust with customers that it, too, has a direct
and unfiltered line of communication with the marketplace thathas become indispensable.

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LESSONS LEARNED
General Motors—and, in particular, Lutz—has led the field in terms
of using blogging, podcasting, and other emerging ways of communicating directly with customers. Among the lessons that can belearned from Lutz and the crew who run the GM blogs are these:• Don’t be afraid to be honest. Several times since the GM blog
started, GM could have played dumb and stayed quiet inhopes that a negative comment or issue would simply disappear or be forgotten. Instead, Lutz and other GM blog
contributors have tackled rumors, layoffs, corporate restructuring, and product line controversies head-on. They’ve been
open and honest, and in so doing have not only got the truth
out about what’s going on at GM (as any true window blogger would do, as we’ll see in Chapter 5), but they have also
created a sense of trust with readers.
• Use blogrolls. Blogrolls show off the other blogs that you readand respect. From the first day of GM’s blog launch, a blogroll was included, not only to increase their visibility (allthe bloggers they linked to were aware of the links quickly,
thanks to blog tracking services), but also to show that GM
bloggers knew what they were talking about: the GM blog
didn’t link to every car blog in the world—only those thatmatched its passions and interests.
• Ask people what they think. If you ask no questions, you get
no answers. GM has been openly soliciting customer feedback from the beginning and has, as a result, not only culled
a huge amount of free customer feedback, but also earned
a reputation among readers and car enthusiasts for caring
about what people think.
• Be passionate. When you are speaking for your company, it
is sometimes easy to fall into a mishmash of legal-cum-PR

How Your Company Can Use Blogs

speak that uses a lot of words without saying anything at all.
Most press releases use this tone. GM has shown, primarily
through Lutz, that passion isn’t something to be feared. This
blog has shown that it’s far better to passionate about theright thing than to be dispassionate about everything.
• Be fair to competitors. It is too easy to think of your company
as the best in the business, or at least to try and convey thatto readers. GM has been unafraid to praise its competitors
on its blog. The result is that GM has built up great trust
among its readers, so that when GM does say it is the best at
something, readers tend to believe it.
• Have a genuine voice. Real people have to write your blog,
so why not let them sound like real people? GM has consistently allowed the people who write the various blogs toact, sound, and respond normally, without using PR jargon.
The relationships that have been built, and the buzz that has
been generated as a result, have been phenomenal.
This list of lessons learned isn’t a requirement for you to succeedin blogging. However, by adopting these principles, you, like GM,
can not only raise your profile among bloggers and blog readers,
but also build up a huge sense of trust, goodwill, and passion. Anycompany can produce an advertisement that says it is passionate
about its product, but GM shows it through its blogs, every day.
So can you.

USE BLOGS IN INNOVATIVE WAYS:
THE DISNEY CHANNEL STORYThe Disney Channel is kept on the air by more than 130 technicians who work a variety of shifts. These individuals take care of
the actual Disney Channel as well as operations for Toon Disney,

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SOAPnet, and ABC Family. Together, they provide more than
100 hours of programming every day.
Because of the nature of the work, each shift produces a shift
log that notes events that occurred during the shift as well as any
outstanding issues. This allows for a consistent flow of informationthat is crucial to the success of the operation. In the entertainment
business, change is constant, and that change must be communicated both to administration and to incoming shifts. In addition, as
shifts come on, they must be able to catch up quickly and easily.
The original version of the shift logs was paper-based (as shownin Figure 4-2), which meant that the various log books had tobe physically distributed and archived. Trying to read people’s

Figure 4-2 Disney’s original paper-based shift logs were not only inefficient,but they could be difficult to read and were impossible to search.

How Your Company Can Use Blogs

handwriting and not being able to archive or search the logs in any
streamlined fashion were problematic, to say the least.
As a result of these challenges to their goals, the Disney Channel
has been working on a more elegant solution for several years.

WORKING ON A SOLUTION
The first solution was a basic database that was developed inhouse. The feature set was minimal (no searching or editing capabilities), but it was certainly no worse than the paper system,
and it meant an end to the piles of archived binders stored in awarehouse. Turning to a database-driven system truly wet Disney’s
whistle for something more robust and useful.
As Michael Pusateri, vice president of engineering, tells it, atsome point someone got the bright idea of using blogging software for the shift log. At the time, the most popular blogging software was Movable Type by Six Apart (www.sixapart.com), which
the team chose to use. They installed the software on their existing Linux servers, imported the previous 9000-plus entries into
Movable Type, and began tinkering with the software. Their firstadjustment was to incorporate their existing usernames and passwords into Movable Type, so that users wouldn’t need to remember more than one password.
The new shift log system (Figure 4-3) was introduced gradually,by letting users choose to use it when they were ready. Within two
weeks, more than 100 technicians were using the new system.

NEW SYSTEM, NEW CHALLENGES
The new blog-based system quickly became popular—so muchso that users of the system started requesting new features and capabilities. In particular, users didn’t like that they had to check the

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Figure 4-3 The Disney Channel’s internal blog-based shift log system.

system for new entries, despite the fact that every previous system
required that users check the logs manually for new entries. Users
also found it difficult to forward information to others in the company or the engineering group.
As a result, Pusateri and his group made some changes to thesystem. Notably, they eschewed the temptation to use e-mail as
the notification method, and instead decided to use RSS (ReallySimple Syndication), the most popular method of producing feeds
at the time.
In conjunction with the feeds, they decided to use NewsGator(www.newsgator.com) as the mechanism for staying up to dateon the feeds (Figure 4-4). NewsGator is a plug-in for Microsoft
Outlook that makes new RSS items arrive on the screen just likeregular e-mail. The net result was that users were not only able toforward the RSS items quickly and easily, but they were in controlof subscribing to the feeds—as opposed to being automatically
included on an e-mail whether a user wanted it or not.

How Your Company Can Use Blogs

Figure 4-4 A sample of the modified version of Outlook for Disney, which
includes NewsGator.

THE RESULTS
By making the system user-focused instead of software-focused(with the software making the rules), Disney had quick uptake
on the system and a willing community of users. Changes had amuch higher level of visibility, thanks to the combination of RSS
and NewsGator, and it moved most of the conveyance of information out of e-mail and into the blog. In addition, users could makecomments on a blog entry itself, which was a great help whenlooking up archives.
Conventional wisdom dictates that a high-end change-management system would have been best for a shift log environment.
The cost would extend beyond the software, though, to consultants and implementation costs. This approach would have cost

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The alternative was to keep it simple, see what worked, and fix
what didn’t. The blog software was not only low cost, but it wasalso up and running in less than 48 hours. The goal of the blog
project was to get to the starting point (that is, to reach the point
the other software had reached), and then focus on incremental improvements. The choice of blogging software also allowed
Disney to modify the software as needed, something many higher
end systems simply didn’t allow.
Pusateri’s advice for companies wanting to implement new solutions or paradigms is this: Don’t tell employees it’s a new solution
or paradigm. Simply tell them it will make their jobs easier. Also
assure them that whatever’s broken will be fixed.
Disney was looking for a system that
• Was computer-based, so that employees didn’t need to write
information or archive it in a physical location• Allowed for editing of past entries• Had reasonable search capabilities• Allowed users not only to be notified, but to be in control of
those notifications• Was easy to maintain, low cost, and easy to implement• Was customizable
Movable Type fit the bill, thanks mainly to the innovative andoutside-the-box thinking by Pusateri and his team.

LESSONS LEARNEDThe Disney Channel’s case study was enlightening for a numberof reasons—a variety of lessons learned in this case can be applied
to your company’s blogging strategy and growth:How Your Company Can Use Blogs• Start simple. One of the reasons that the end solution works
so well is that Disney didn’t design massive software to solve
its problem. At each step, only bare minimum problems
were solved. As a result, they eventually settled on a solutionthat worked, at which point they were able to implement
bigger features that made peoples’ lives easier.
• Think outside the box. As you are implementing your blogging strategy, it will become easy to do what everyone else
is doing. Stop and think about ways that your company canbe different. Blogs are great, but they are just tools, and as
more people use those tools it will become less and less remarkable when new companies join in. To get truly noticed,
you’ll need to do something different. Maybe you’ll produce
a weekly podcast, or you will invite industry analysts to comment on issues; maybe you’ll include employee interviews.
The way you differentiate your blog will come directly fromthe goals and objectives you create in your blogging strategy.
Dare to be unique.
• Give people what they want. The first step is to meet yourcompany’s initial goals. After that, you need to be preparedto listen, so that you can continue to respond to and meetthe needs and desires of your business, your industry, andyour readers. Don’t be afraid to re-examine your blogging
strategy, and be flexible enough to try out a variety of different solutions. People like to be heard.

ESTABLISHING A HEALTHY
BLOGGING ATMOSPHERE
As you begin to blog and appreciate the complexities, benefits,
and potential offshoots of blogging, you will undoubtedly begin
to wonder how to get your employees to blog. The first step is to

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realize that it’s entirely likelythat some of your employblogging, bloggers, and blog feedback.
ees are already blogging.
With millions of blogs in
the world, assuming that none of your employees is blogging is about
as naive as assuming that none of your employees has ever downloaded music online—it could be true, but the odds definitely aren’t
in your favor.
Communicate with your employees about blogging. For somecompanies, this may mean a staff meeting about blogging; for others, it may be an e-mail asking for input. At a bare minimum, it
should include a blogging policy and some information to managers about how to handle blogging-related issues. The goal ofany blogging policy or guideline should be to communicate what
is and isn’t acceptable. Some companies actually choose to makeblogging a required part of an employee’s day.
Creating a healthy blogging atmosphere goes beyond the policy
you create, however. Having executives who blog and who encourage blogging is a great way to introduce blogging, though it isn’t arequirement. The key to a healthy blogging atmosphere is to havethe company, leaders, and managers value blogging, bloggers, andblog feedback.
This is why having a corporate blog, product-specific blogs (ifyou make products such as cars or software), or market-specificblogs (if you create a wide variety of products) is important: itallows your customers to provide feedback in a variety of locations
and therefore allows you to use that feedback in a variety of ways.
Far too many companies who blog have only one official blog,
which is so focused it seems like just another marketing vehicle.
This approach is problematic, with the biggest problem being thatit allows customers to communicate with you via only one blog
venue instead of many.

The key to a healthy blogging atmosphere is tohave the company, leaders, and managers value

How Your Company Can Use Blogs

Building a culture that values blogs requires that you create
foundational value statements such as these:
•
•
•
•
•

We value blogs.
We value bloggers.
We value blog-based input.
We value employees who blog.
We value customers who blog.

Each of these value statements is important.
Valuing blogs means realizing that while a fair amount of noise
is being made out there, finding and reading actual customer feedback can be more valuable than any other form of customer communication. Valuing bloggers involves more than just saying “yes,they’re out there”; it means reaching out to bloggers and customers for feedback on your company and your products. Creating
passionate customers is effective, but reaching out to existing influencers and creating relationships with them will not only revolutionize your business, it will also pave the way for the third value
statement: valuing blog-based input.
The challenge with blog-based input isn’t getting feedback; it’sknowing what to do with both the positive and negative feedback,as well as having a place where you can respond to feedback in an
open and timely manner.

THE VALUE OF CONVERSATION: THE
iUPLOAD STORY
One company that values blog-based input is iUpload, which
creates content management and blogging software for enterprises such as Adobe and CTV, one of Canada’s largest television
networks. iUpload is a fairly small company, with about 20 employees, though the company is growing quickly. In early 2005,

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blogger Mark Vandermaas approached the company looking
for information on services, pricing, and other features. During
the conversation, wires were crossed and people got confused (assometimes happens in real-world communication).
Mark posted information about his experiences with
iUpload to his blog (at http://voiceoflondon.iuplog.com/default.asp?item=99350), which was, ironically, powered by iUpload:
As of today, April 11th, nearly one month after my initial request, I still do
not know the price of the Community Publisher software, and no one from
iUpload has contacted me. My wife summed it up best when she asked,
What’s the big secret? – Mark Vandermaas

iUpload had dropped the ball and he, justifiably, wanted toknow why!
Within days of Mark’s post, Robin Hopper, iUpload’s CEO,
responded (http://hopper.iuplog.com/default.asp?item=85308).
Hopper succinctly explained where and how things went wrong,apologized, and promised to make things better. He cleared up, in
public, the question about pricing and promised to take a numberof concrete steps to avoid this kind of confusion in the future.
The net result was that Mark updated his post with thefollowing:
I have to admit that after notifying iUpload’s CEO, Robin
Hopper of this post I was half-expecting that my blog’s switch would be
flipped to the off position.
Since my intent was to help rather than offend I offered to take the post
down once he had a chance to review it. This is where it gets good: not only
did he not want me to delete this post; Robin told me that he appreciated theHow Your Company Can Use Blogs

feedback, and that he wanted to post something on his blog with a trackback
to it! You can read his post by clicking on the link in his comment below.
Today, I heard from iUpload. Turns out they weren’t trying to brush me off;
I just got lost in the middle of a frenetic growth stage and misread their actions. We all make mistakes. If you’re good, you fix them. [emphasis mine] If
you’re really good you fix the mistakes and then fix the procedures that
didn’t work. But if you’re destined for greatness, you have the guts to
let someone like me tell the world what you learned from it. Well done,
iUpload! – Mark Vandermaas

This story illustrates a number of core concepts for successful
business blogging. First, Mark complained in public about what
had happened. When you drop the ball, customers will complain.
Second, iUpload wasn’t afraid to respond honestly to Mark’s commentary. Not only did iUpload leave his post on the site, but the
CEO responded to Mark’s concerns in public on his own blog.
The net result? Hopper’s response and effort transformed Mark
from a mistreated customer into a customer evangelist. And all it
took was a little bit of blog love.
Imagine the situation if Hopper hadn’t responded, or if he’dresponded by dismissing Mark’s claims. It’s entirely likely that not
only would Mark not have bought software from iUpload, but hewould have told a fair number of people in his circle of influence
about the experience.
The lesson? Creating a blog-friendly culture requires moving
past your fears. Fears paralyze us in everything from skydiving(in my case) to spiders (ditto) to responding effectively to customers. There is nothing wrong with being afraid of something
new, but taking that first step and actually going skydiving—or
blogging—is an incredible experience. Trust me!

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WHY YOU WANT YOUR EMPLOYEES TO BLOG
Listening to customers’ blogs is obviously an important part ofgrowing your business, because it gives you a window into what
they think about your company. It creates real passion and understanding. Employee blogs are similar. In “Why Internal Blogging Rocks,” Suw Charman, a renowned British expert on internal
blogging, lays out some of the main reasons that internal blogs are
critical to your company’s success.

WHY INTERNAL BLOGGING ROCKS!
by Suw Charman

The best software bends to your will. It fits in with the way
you work, rather than making you change your behavior to suitit. This is where so many big, lumbering knowledge management (KM) and content management systems (CMS) fall over:they force the user to behave in a way that is unnatural anduncomfortable, and anyone who’s coerced into using them willstop just as soon as they think they can get away with it.
Blogs, on the other hand, are inherently flexible. You canhave one blog with one author and open access, or multiple
blogs with multiple authors and a complex access permissions
system. Whatever you want, you will find software that either
just works or that you can hack into exactly as you want.
Fast and simple to implement, blogs don’t require a huge
IT budget. Even the most expensive of blogging solutions is afraction of the cost of traditional KM and CMS platforms, so
you can toy with them and if they don’t work you can just toss
them out. They’re easy to use, too: there’s no 300-page user
manual or three-day residential course to go on. If you can surf
the Web, you can use a blog.

How Your Company Can Use Blogs

Blogs are suitable for almost any purpose—for example,
event logging, cross-shift communications, team building, project management, knowledge sharing, and business conversations. Any scenario in which individuals need to share what theyknow, discuss problems, and make new connections with otherindividuals can benefit from a blog. Flexibility. Simplicity. Easeof implementation. Cost effectiveness. Just a few reasons whyinternal blogging rocks.

As with any large project, launching internal blogs in a company can be a challenge—and getting people to adopt, read, andcommunicate using them can be even more challenging. Following is a series of rules, guidelines, and advice on how to createa successful internal blogging platform, as well as how to get it
properly adopted. The first step is to reach out to your employees:
the more they own the concept of blogging, the better.
You don’t even need to call this blogging. Unless your organization is already pro-blog, you can just as easily use a more organization-specific name. Several of the companies I’ve worked with in
the past have simply called their blogging platform myCompany(where Company is the company name). This has given the employees ownership over the blog and has also allowed the company
to build the features of the blogging platform around individual
employees.

GETTING EMPLOYEES INVOLVED
After you reach out to your employees for feedback, you will
likely want to bring on a select group of employees as part ofthe planning process. These people will go back to their groups
or departments and evangelize for the new offering, as well as

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ensuring that the new internal blogging platform addresses theirneeds as employees. The goal here is to provide value to the individual
employees, to empower the individual employees, and to makefinding other similarly minded employees easy.
The most successful internal blogging platforms have the following three properties in common:• They bring value to the individual. If there is no value for theindividual employee, there will be no blog posts. And noblog posts means no value for anyone.
• They make finding other similar-minded individuals easy.
Some companies facilitate this via a unified category system
or by asking employees to create a list of interests (much like
today’s social networking services such as LinkedIn, www.linkedin.com). Others do this via an internal blog-focusedsearch engine. The easier it is for employees to find eachother, the more connections will be made.
• They make it easy to read, browse, and subscribe to the blogs.
“Find similar blogs” and “Find comments by this author” aregreat features to allow people to find others with whom theyagree. As in the wider world of blogging, connections thatare made are often more abstract than just “I’m an engineer,
and that guy’s an engineer so we should connect.” People
will connect based on personality more often than career.
Ensure that as you roll out your internal blogging system, you
don’t make it restrictive. The more control the individual employee
has, the better. While some managers will fear that employees will
use the blogs for frivolous things, if you’ve hired smart people,
they will use the technology wisely and efficiently—especially ifeveryone in the company can read it. Much as in the real-world

How Your Company Can Use Blogs

blogging community, the price for being a fool is having everyone
laugh at you—and not in a good way!
Some companies have set up project-specific and process-specific blogs, and anyone can contribute to these blogs, as opposed
to having individual blogs. The more relevant to employees’ jobs
and interests the non-individual blogs are, the more they will beread and therefore the more valuable they will be.
If you encourage employees to blog, you need to give them time
to blog. The last thing employees want is to feel like they are stealing
time away from other projects while blogging. Ensure that employees—and managers—know that blogging is part of the job and that
it is highly encouraged. This doesn’t mean that employees can blog
for eight hours a day, but it does mean that it needs to become partof their daily workload. Encourage employees to be responsible intheir blogging, and that their blog and the other company blogs are
an extension of their responsibilities, not a replacement. Be as open as
possible, and talk about it with employees or employee advocates.

TIPS FOR BLOGGING SUCCESS
Encourage employees to comment. Comments create communities and trust and spread knowledge even more freely than blog
posts. The more employees believe that they own their blog, theirideas, and their micro-community, the better.
Be aware that blogging may involve or be a catalyst for cultural change, and know that some people will be threatened bythat idea. Ensure you have a process in place not only to address
people’s concerns, but also to improve the blogging offering. It’s
unlikely you’ll get it right the first time.
Start simple. As illustrated in the examples of Disney and GM,
large success doesn’t require large plans. The simpler the solution, the more easily employees can see how it benefits them and

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their jobs. Organic growth is the best kind for any type of community or knowledge-based initiative.
Finally, have a purpose. Don’t start blogging because blogging
is cool, hip, or makes you more stylish. Have specific goals attached to the internal project, such as “to help employees connect
more easily,” or “to create an online knowledge repository for the
future,” or even “to generate new ideas.” You can then revisit the
new platform every few months and see how well it is succeedingat these goals and learn what you can do to help it along. Your
internal blogging needs to grow organically, but it also needs to beready to change organically.

WRAPPING IT UP
In this chapter, we looked briefly at how to use blogs and a few
examples of prominent companies making innovative use of blogs.
Ultimately, the options for how to use blogs are limitless. The
key is to decide where your business is going and then figure out
whether blogs are the right tool to get you there.
In the next two chapters, we’ll look at the top ways blogs canbe used internally and externally and more examples of companies
that are using each of the techniques. Hopefully, these will stir up
some thought for how your business could make use of blogs, andeven for how you could push the envelope of what is possible in
the world of blogging.

5

WHAT TYPE OF BLOGS ARE
BEST FOR YOUR COMPANYT

his chapter provides a framework to help you understand andremember the top seven ways you can use blogs to market
your business, create relationships, and create positive experiences
for your customers. Some blogs will require that you use a mixtureof these methodologies, while others will employ only one of theseseven basic blog types. No matter; as long as your business is getting value from your blog, you’re succeeding.

EXTERNAL BLOGGING PERSONALITY TYPES
Instead of providing a dry list of the top ways you can use blogs,
I’ve decided to look at blogging in a different way. I have taken the top
seven types of business blogs and personified them as different characters, or locations, within a city. Let’s take a tour of this virtual city andvisit some people and places your business may want to work with as
it discovers, experiments with, and eventually embraces blogging:• The Barber Barbers can prove to be prominent citizens—
they know the right people, have lots of wisdom from years
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•

•

•

•

of listening to customers, and have no problem sharing that
wisdom. In some ways, a barber serves as a pundit or analyst,
or perhaps an adviser. The barber deserves to be heard not
only because she sees things differently, but often because
she’s right.
The Blacksmith The blacksmith is like the barber in that
he knows the industry, except he is typically inside a company and is thus hammering industry and opinion throughthe company forge. Software developers at IBM, Sun, andother large technology companies fulfill this role as theybring their experience to bear on a problem.
The Bridge A bridge blogger is a person who makes connections, influences, and helps bring people together. She isobsessed with relationships and connecting people, and as aresult she can often function as a peacekeeper. In a corporate
setting, the public relations professional may be a natural bridge
blogger—or it could just as easily be the company secretary.
The Window A window blogger is similar to a blacksmith
blogger in that he typically works inside a company and uses
his experience to frame his opinions. The difference between
the two types, though, is that a blacksmith blogger typicallytalks about things inside the company, while a window blogger
typically talks about things inside and outside the company.
The Signpost A signpost blogger in unusual in that she
typically doesn’t share her opinions—at least that isn’t the
primary reason for her blog’s existence. A signpost blogger
points out cool things of interest in her industry. She may
not have much to say in each post (maybe only a few words
describing a topic of interest), but she may post dozens ofshort notes per day as she comes across interesting tidbits,
perhaps pointing readers to information at other sites.

What Type of Blogs Are Best for Your Company• The Pub Pub bloggers create discussions designed to bringin people from all spectrums of a particular issue to talksomething through and have a laugh at themselves or others in the process. Peter Davidson’s blog is a solid pub blog
example; “Thinking by Peter Davidson” (http://peterthink.blogs.com/thinking), shown in Figure 5-1, allows a groupof likeminded thinkers to explore a variety of issues.
• The Newspaper A newspaper blogger functions in many
ways like a journalist—attempting to do more reporting
than opining, she does her best to stick to the facts. Many
political blogs are newspaper-ish in nature, as are a few
technical blogs, such as Engadget (www.engadget.com),shown in Figure 5-2, which focuses on the latest “gadgety”
news.

Figure 5-1

Peter Davidson’s blog is a popular pub blog.

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Figure 5-2 Engadget is a popular source for gadget news.

A single blog may often include characteristics of several ofthese types; however, because blogs are generally written by one
blogger or a small group of bloggers, you can often see an overriding trend as to what type of blogger is at work. Mixed in with thesebroad areas are other types of blogs that make up the blogospherical town—the post office, where people go for a large variety of
information; the town hall, where important decisions are made;and all sorts of other oddities. A healthy town needs all types ofcitizens and places, and there are certainly more than enough uses
for blogs to go around.
Some unique mixtures of blog types include Dave Pollard’s “Howto Save the World” (http://blogs.salon.com/0002007), which is much
like a coffee shop for likeminded people to gather and discuss topics; the “New Communications Blogzine” (www.newcommblogzine.com), which provides monthly insights from marketing and communications leaders; and “Doc Searls Weblog” (http://doc.weblogs.com),
where Doc not only shares his opinions, but frames them with dozens
of other opinions from the blogosphere.

What Type of Blogs Are Best for Your Company

THE BARBER
Growing up, I was afraid of barbers. I guess I couldn’t really imagine getting any girls to like me if I was missing an ear. Even at a
young age, though, I knew that the barber was important. I knewthat great barbers weren’t the same as great haircutters or hairstylists. Great barbers engaged me, advised me, and helped me growinto a man. Each visit to the barber was a time of potential growthand change.
In the world of blogging, barbers are few and far between. Thisis largely because a barber isn’t born; he is made. You don’t wake up
one morning with the wisdom to become a barber; it’s something
you learn over years of listening, advising, and leading.
For a business, establishing a barber blog will often mean rising
above company issues and even company policies. A barber will
be honest about his company and his industry’s faults, as well as
their potential. He won’t pick sides, but he’ll trumpet every success. For being impartial, he will gain both respect and derision.
Companies don’t often intend to hire barber bloggers, but having abarber who is both accountable and honest, while still being open
and authentic, writing one of your external blogs is like finding a
Tiffany lamp at a garage sale—a true find.
A variety of bloggers have walked the line between wise andavailable, proficient and humble. In fact, such bloggers are foundin every industry. Most barber blogs are centered around one industry or a section of an industry. These bloggers don’t hide thefact that they are employed by certain companies, but they are so
open and honest that this fact generally doesn’t seem to taint theirperceptions. The value of having a barber blogger for your businessis massive but hard to quantify. How do you put a dollar figure on
not only having an expert in the field blogging for your company,
but also having him being regarded as one of the thought-leaders

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your company, be found whenever someone is looking for information on what you provide?
When you think of the world of PR and marketing, names suchas Steve Rubel and Andy Lark quickly surface. Their respective
businesses, CooperKatz and (until early 2005) Sun Microsystems,
benefit from the blogging generated by these men. The reason?
Any company smart enough and brave enough to let someone
like Rubel or Lark be open and successful, without feeling jealous,must be a great company to work with.
Overall, a barber blogger brings three key benefits to a company:• Visibility Especially for small or boutique companies,
such as CooperKatz, having an industry-defining blogger
on your staff can transform your company.
• New ideas The great thing about bloggers who are leading
their industries is that typically they interact with lots of people. As such, they are able to create new relationships, identify new opportunities, and generate new ideas effectively.
• A human perspective It’s difficult to put a value on
having a blogger who makes your company seem human,
approachable, and caring. While you may not want to seem
weak, it’s hard to argue the value of seeming real.
Prominent barber bloggers can also bring in side benefits, suchas getting you and your company invited to participate at industry
conferences and contribute to trade publications, and otherwise
raising your profile for success within your industry.
One thing that can be said about barbers is that people trust
them. Regular people, like your customers, suppliers, and employees,
trust barbers because they tell the truth, have wisdom, and aren’t
afraid to share it.

What Type of Blogs Are Best for Your Company

HAVING A BARBER ON YOUR SIDE
Back in mid-2004, nobody knew who Thomas Mahon was. The
youngest tailor of custom-made suits on London’s famous Savile
Row, Mahon allied himself with Hugh Macleod, a popular andrespected barber blogger. Through this relationship, Mahon
secured lots of interviews and incredible blog exposure; today,
as a result, he is growing his business faster than he could haveever imagined. (For more on Mahon and his blog, see “An
Authentic Marketing Voice” later in the chapter.)

While having a barber as one of your bloggers can provide astrong voice for your company, he shouldn’t be the only voice foryour company. You also need people who can convey information
effectively, people who can build relationships, people who canpoint out valuable information, and a whole suite of other people,
personalities, and places to provide input and support. An effective city isn’t built up of only barbers, and neither should be yourcompany’s external blogging presence.

THE BLACKSMITH
The barber may cut a wise figure, but the blacksmith can be an
imposing one. He works craftily with his hands, and it shows. Nobody doubts a blacksmith’s ability, as his handiwork is displayed
all over town. Similarly, blogging blacksmiths are visible in a waythat differs from barbers. A blacksmith is visible because his craft,
and therefore his talent and knowledge, are always visible. A blacksmith blogger will dive into a deeper level of knowledge of hiscraft and expertise than any other blogger; as a result, most of his

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readers are also blacksmiths. Software developers usually fall into
this camp.
A blacksmith blogger is essential to any company looking togain trust in the industry, because blacksmiths talk to other blacksmiths, creating an exchange of knowledge directly between thepeople who have it, which makes everyone’s life easier. A blacksmith can also help to solve customer issues effectively, because heknows the issue better than anyone else in your organization.
In many ways, the typical blacksmith blogger is a “ground floor”
worker. He isn’t typically in management and likely doesn’t get
much credit from within the company. But he knows his stuff,
and others who know their stuff respect him for it. While barber
bloggers are usually popular, the sheer number of blacksmith blogs
in a company will often mean they are far more effective at communicating than most people realize.
Don’t be fooled into thinking this is only a high-tech phenomenon. Individuals in law, finance, healthcare, and other industries
ruled by small to medium-sized businesses are gaining increasing
exposure for themselves and their companies solely through theirknowledge and their willingness to help.
A blacksmith blogger can help a company in a number of ways,
including these:• By helping customers Blacksmith bloggers, because theirwork is so visible, are often asked by distraught customers
how to solve simple issues. For lawyer blogs, this might be in
the form of basic law advice; for home improvement bloggers, it might be information about where to find a certain
kind of building material, for example. Blacksmiths are sharing people, and the goodwill they generate with your customers is valuable.

What Type of Blogs Are Best for Your Company• By spreading news Because of their knowledge of theircraft, when blacksmith bloggers breaks news, people listen.
Successful blacksmiths won’t just break news, though, they’ll
also tell people what it really means. When Microsoft was beta
testing its new search engine, for example, the MSN searchteam blacksmiths used the blog to announce the launch, toadmit what areas needed work, and to inform the public about
where the product was heading. This helped develop trust andexpectations of the product to come.
• By establishing relationships While barbers establish topheavy relationships with visible people in the industry, blacksmiths establish relationships with other blacksmiths, generally
fostered around mutual respect and admiration. Some of these“underground” relationships are often the most valuable ones
for a company, as they are privy to wisdom and knowledge towhich your company otherwise wouldn’t have access.
Some businesses will not be comfortable with allowing blacksmith bloggers in, largely because of a fear of openness or of sharing
information. These companies think that every bit of informationthat leaks out is value they are losing, because knowledge is power.
However, they often don’t see that every piece of information they
provide via a blacksmith blogger is also returned several times overin valued customer support.
As your secretiveness decreases, the community’s trust in yourcompany increases. This is a foundational part of employing andencouraging blacksmith bloggers. While you obviously don’t wantthem to give away anything truly secret (like upcoming productdesigns or financial issues), blacksmiths can do common sensethings to increase your customers’ trust in you, to build relationships, and to help customers.

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A PERFECT JEWEL
Rebecca Thomas owns a jewelry store and decided to starta blacksmith blog (www.rebeccathomasdesigns.com/blog) toincrease the size of her business and to share stories, patterns,
techniques, and other things of interest to her customers. Thisis her blogging story.

“As I started thinking about the presence I wanted my jewelry business to have on the Internet, I knew I wanted to include
a blog. I was already writing other topic blogs. I figured anotherone wouldn’t be too difficult.
“Where my other blogs had been born on impulse andnurtured haphazardly, I wanted this new one to be morethoughtful. After all, it was going to be my best way to develop a relationship with potential customers. I could havetaken the ‘build it and they will come’ approach, but based onWhat Type of Blogs Are Best for Your Company

my blogging experiences I knew that I wanted something thatwould engage visitors, that would encourage them to take achance on me and my work.
“More importantly, I wanted the jewelry pieces themselves
to engage visitors. Every single one of my designs has its own
story, and those stories can reach people far better than just the
pictures. At our core, we are a society of storytellers. We weave
them around us every day in our lives, and we respond to thembecause they often reflect something in our own lives.
“I blog to share the stories of my designs. I blog to sharepatterns, techniques and stone lore. I blog to share the stories
of my business as it struggles to become established. I blog tobring a human touch to my business.”

A blacksmith is key to building that trust, building relationships, and creating positive customer experiences. They aren’t areplacement for a customer support system, but they can definitely
help customers with issues that may be more or less common.
Employing or being a blacksmith takes a lot of work, but once you
see your craftsmanship displayed across town and people’s lives
made better thanks to your efforts, it’s worth the hard work.

THE BRIDGE
While a bridge may not necessarily be the most important locationin all towns, for those who need to cross it, it is absolutely essential.
In riverside cities, the presence of bridges unites one side of townwith the other. So it is with bridge bloggers. They read blogrolls sothey can find new blogs to read, and then they read hundreds, oreven thousands, of blogs. They devour these blogs so that they canbuild relationships, expand their world, and make connections.

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For your business, bridge blogging can have unexpected results.
Some bridge bloggers have facilitated conversations with people
who wouldn’t otherwise have spoken to each other, while others
have introduced people who have gone on to found incredibly
successful companies. A bridge blogger has two primary areas inwhich she finds value: relationships and making connections thatwouldn’t otherwise be possible.
Bridges create relationships with people around the world,
across industries, and across disciplines. Sometimes, these relationships didn’t exist before.
Having a bridge blogger in your business can have some interesting effects:• Create new business opportunities Because bridge bloggers are relationship oriented and passionate about who theyknow, they are incredibly good at finding unusual opportunities that either your business or your customers may nothave considered. The number of new opportunities a bridge
blogger is able to create is proportionate to the number ofrelationships she is able to build in distinct industries. The more
relationships she has, the more your business will benefit.
• Create new customers Because a bridge blogger knows
so many people and is so passionate, she is a natural salesperson. But because she rarely comes across as trying to sell,largely due to her passion and honesty, most people don’t
realize they are being sold.
In addition to building external relationships, a bridge blogger also builds relationships within your company. Much like theblacksmith, the bridge cares about people and in many ways willfunction as an advocate for customers, ensuring that the rightWhat Type of Blogs Are Best for Your Company

FROM A YAHOO TO A YAHOOLIGAN
Jeremy Zawodny is a search evangelist at Yahoo!, and his popular blog (http://jeremy.zawodny.com/blog) is a perfect example
of a bridge blog. Not only do his discussions pull in people fromall walks of life, but he also seeks out relationships with people
inside and outside his industry. In fact, Zawodny is such a natural “un-salesperson” that he has helped get people hired at
Yahoo! because he believes in the company so much.

things are done for the right people. Bridge bloggers create positive
experiences for customers, something all businesses need.
Allowing a bridge blogger to do her thing should be a naturalextension of any corporate endeavor. Relationships are basically
give-and-take, and any relationship that costs more than it provides generally isn’t worth having. Relationships take work. Bridge
bloggers are happy to do some of that work, as long as their work
is rewarded and good things happen for both parties as a result.
A bridge blogger doesn’t want to enable a one-sided relationshipanymore than you want to be part of one, which is why you needto make sure that you are valuing both your bridge blogger and thegood relationships she’s building.

THE WINDOW
A window allows people inside to see out and people outside to see
in. A window blogger is someone who gives a distinct perspectiveon the workings of your company to the outside world and, thanks
to her honesty, relays what’s happening in the outside world backto the inside.

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Jonathan Schwartz (http://blogs.sun.com/jonathan) is perhaps
the most well-known window blogger, as he often gives insight
into his company’s (Sun Microsystems) ways and means. And he’s
well positioned to do so, considering he’s the company president.
However, you don’t need to be well-positioned to be a window
blogger; you need only insight into the life of the company, which
is something most employees should be able to pull off.
Window bloggers are often seen as an odd, though respected,
bunch. They, like barbers, don’t pull any punches. They tell it like
it is, good or bad. But they also go beyond that by citing reasonsfor decisions made and why mistakes happened, or by announcing
the launch of new products. Window bloggers thrive on context
and communication.
A window blogger in your company can best be used by encouraging her to do the following:• Share background Whether a mistake has been made ora great piece of news has been announced, a window blogger
is much like a back-channel into an organization. She canprovide the inside scoop on what’s going on and why, without it sounding like a marketing pitch. Her honest opinions,which build trust over time, and her frank assessments ofcompany developments and the industry are valuable forpeople wanting to know what something means.
• Deal with complaints While she shouldn’t serve as the
only customer service department, because a window blogger knows the company, she is able to share why somethingin particular happened. Did the phone system disconnect acaller? Maybe a power outage occurred, which is somethingpeople can relate to. The intent of a window blogger is neverto spin, because most people relate to the truth.

What Type of Blogs Are Best for Your Company

ALL GOD’S CREATURES SHOULD BLOG
B rian Bailey is the web director at Fellowship Church in
Dallas, Texas. He has been blogging for more than a year at
his personal blog (www.leaveitbehind.com/home); however, his
church recently began embracing blogging as a business decision. Bailey’s blog has long been a view into a sophisticated web
technologies group, as he grappled with choices of programming languages and platforms, chose to use Microsoft’s .NET
Framework, and then moved to an open-source alternative.
Thanks largely to Robert Scoble (http://scoble.weblogs.com),Bailey’s blog has become one of the more popular Christianblogs out there.
The Fellowship Church’s blog (http://blog.fellowshipchurch.com) is a window blog, as it covers recent happenings in the
church and offers a unique view into the organization’s innerworkings. The blog also regularly interviews staff and church
members, providing a unique place for people to share experiences. In this way, the blog goes beyond being just a window.

Successful window blogs don’t always need to be written by individuals. Many companies are starting window blogs, where theyinterview executives and staff, post video interviews, and otherwise
try and give people on the outside a look inside the company.
While the use of a window to see in is an obvious benefit, successful window blogs also allow companies to see out. As people learn about your company, they learn to trust you and willoften open up and give you permission to enter their lives inways that they wouldn’t have considered before. Being bold and

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establishing a window blog or encouraging window bloggers inyour company can help build a two-way trust in unique and encouraging ways.

THE SIGNPOST
As you might imagine, a signpost points the way to useful andimportant places. Today’s real-world signposts point us to major
sporting locations, restaurants, and other items of a tourist
nature; others provide signs to ensure civil order, such as speed
limits and parking boundaries. A signpost is designed to do twothings: inform and point the way. Similarly, a signpost blogger
does two things: informs readers about useful information andpoints the way to other useful information.
While signpost bloggers may not give you the direct benefits ofother, more personally visible types of bloggers, they do provide
two important benefits:• Provide a source of information A signpost blogger issomeone people learn to trust and visit on a daily basis,
either through feeds or by accessing the blog itself. As such,the blogger is seen as a knowledge- and thought-leader,someone people seek out for a distinct point of view.
• Filter information Because people learn to trust the signpost blogger, they learn to see into his personality and values.
In fact, many signpost bloggers are incredibly influential because they’ve demonstrated their ability not just to find good
information, but also to filter out the garbage.
A signpost blogger is a valuable asset. Many companies have
set up signpost-style blogs as their official company blogs (mixing
in some company news, of course), because they work so well asWhat Type of Blogs Are Best for Your Company

YEARS OF TRUST
Roland Tanglao is a major signpost blogger from Vancouver,
Canada. He writes a variety of blogs, but his personal blog
(www.rolandtanglao.com/ ) is an eclectic mix of tech news,
advocacy, life, and pointers to other interesting things.
Tanglao’s posts typically comprise one or two sentences about
why he believes something is worth his attention, a quote, anda link to the site where the quote came from. Tanglao rarely
delves into his deep convictions or thoughts on a topic (at least
not on his blog), and he is well respected for his ability not only
to be fair, but to find things that are worth looking at—whether
you’re in business, a techie, or just curious.
It’s taken years for Tanglao to develop a sense of trust andrespect, as both a blogger and a person, and it’s something heisn’t willing to give up. Many expect Tanglao to keep up his
blogging style for many years to come.

information outlets. You can tell folks what’s going on, include atidbit of opinion, and get feedback not only on your opinion, butalso on issues that people care about.
Signpost bloggers do need to ensure that they have meat in theiroverall blogging strategy, rather than just pointing out interesting
things. Signpost blogs can help your company gain trust and adecent amount of visibility, but they won’t likely help your product development, overall image, or customer knowledge—at least
not directly. That doesn’t mean you should shy away from having,or being, a signpost blogger, however. The choice of what you
include on your blog is up to you as an individual, your time, and

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bit of time to write short posts on subjects that are worth blogging
about.

THE PUB
Pubs and bars have always been an essential part of any town.
While some are raucous places ruled by bad beer and loose conduct, the best pubs have always been a place of social unity, whereideas (and laughs) are exchanged in a more open and honest way
than in any town hall.
Pubs are gathering places where communities go to share ideas
and have some laughs. The alcohol is a secondary concern in thegreatest pubs—music may draw people in, or interesting people
may be the ticket. For others, such as authors C.S. Lewis and
J.R.R. Tolkien, pubs provided the atmosphere and the mutual
respect among creative types who frequented the venue.
Like great pubs, a pub blog can be an incredible addition to
any community. The pub blogger welcomes people, creates community, enjoys discussion, and loves laughing at and with friends
old and new. Everyone feels at home on a pub blogger’s blog,
and everyone wants to have a say, largely because everyone actually gets heard. While a pub blogger, much like any bartender I
suspect, has an opinion, she values the exchange of ideas and personalities too much to quell any discussion by forcing her opinion
onto others.
A pub blogger can be boon to a business by providing thefollowing:• A sense of equality When any individual’s voice is heard,
everyone’s voice is stronger; this is an important principle
in blogging. Equally important is that anytime you don’tWhat Type of Blogs Are Best for Your Company

provide a place for your customers to be heard, they’ll goelsewhere to sound off, even though they would probably
rather be communicating directly with you. Having a place
where all voices are equal means that all voices get heard.
• A sense of community It’s easy to know when you have atrue community behind you, but it’s incredibly difficult to
get one going. Communities are invaluable, though, as they
help information spread, they help create customer evangelists, and they create positive experiences for your company,
without you doing very much at all.
• A sense of fairness One of the fundamental challenges
facing companies today is ensuring not only that everyone
has a place to have his say and has people to relate to, but also
making sure that something gets accomplished in responseto people’s comments. Most people value fairness. Customers expect companies to do the right thing, and customers
want to be heard, especially when things aren’t right. A successful pub blogger allows people to be heard but can also
assure people that the right thing is being done—assuming,of course, that the right thing is being done.
In a true pub blog, everyone is equal and everyone has a voice.
Some larger pub sites, such as MetaFilter (www.metafilter.com)
and Slashdot (www.slashdot.org), get around the potential
cacophony by allowing anyone to submit a posting and then having a select group of editors approve the best ones for publication.
This allows anyone to submit information and ensures that a largepool of participants create an equalizing force that motivates thecommunity not only to read the best stuff but also to seek out theirown stories as well.
Creating a pub blog takes the strong community aspect of blogs
and amplifies it. For this reason, many companies looking to start

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and then having blogs run on top of those, balancing authors withthe community. Microsoft’s Channel 9 (http://channel9.msdn.com) is a pub blog, and a variety of other companies, such as
Citrix and Novell, enjoy such blogs.

THE NEWSPAPER
A newspaper is meant to be an impartial source of information.
While modern newspapers do have editorial and opinion sections,they generally provide information presented as objectively as possible. Newspapers are, by nature, heavily transmission based. Little
interactivity is going on—unless you count the crossword puzzle
or the letters to the editor section.
The point of a newspaper is to tell people what is going on in
the world and their community. This is also the purpose a newspaper blogger fulfills. She isn’t necessarily looking for feedback, nor
is she trying to build relationships, trust, and other personal commitments. Newspaper bloggers are transmitting news, and as longas they do it effectively, it’s not exactly a bad idea. Yes, engaging
your audience and building trust, community, and all that stuff isgood. However, sometimes you simply have something to say, anda blog is a great way to say it.
Thanks to the power of feeds, you can know when and what
people are reading. Feeds brings a special dynamic to news type
information, because not only can you determine who is reading, youalso know that the people who actually want the information you
are providing are getting it. One of the reasons many informationbased sites are starting blogs that provide value in bite-sized chunks
is that regular information allows readers to interact with thecompany, without any commitment on the reader’s part. With
feeds, readers are in control. Companies can still get readers’What Type of Blogs Are Best for Your Company

attention, and they still create positive experiences for the readers—never a bad thing, especially if you provide information on adaily basis.
A newspaper style blog is also a great opportunity to serve as acentral hub for information in your industry and community. You
don’t necessarily get the community together on your site like abridge or pub, but by keeping the community informed, you stayvisible, relevant, and in the center of it all.
The challenge with a newspaper blogging, as with a real newspaper, is content creation. Producing a newspaper style blog requires
a lot of time and effort. A true information source requires planning, resources, and time. Therefore, ensure that your company
will actually benefit before beginning such a blog. Yes, it’s a great
way to get information out to readers—and in a much more reliable manner than e-mail—but it’s also a lot of work. Some companies, unfortunately, jump into blogging quickly; post interesting,lengthy entries with all kinds of insight; and then eventually stop
blogging because it’s too much effort. Before you start a newspaper
blog, ask yourself if it’s what you really want.
Another way to launch a successful newspaper blog is by building traffic with another type of blog and then letting readers or theconnected community provide the content. This not only empowers the community, but it means that the blog writers don’t bear
the full responsibility for creating all the content.
No matter what kind of blog you eventually start, the firstquestion you should ask yourself should not be “What kind of
blog should I start?” Instead, it should be “What am I trying toaccomplish?” Determine your goals first and work toward themusing blogs. If you decide to share information with customers in atransmission format, a newspaper blog may be the way to go. Thatsaid, if you can produce a successful newspaper blog, you can reap
some great rewards.

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WHAT KIND OF BLOGGER ARE YOU?
Each of these profiles has positives and negatives and can be somewhat abstract—largely because you’ll likely use bits of all of thesetypes in your blogs. Sometimes you’ll want to inform, sometimes
you’ll want to discuss, and sometimes you’ll want to point out
interesting things that are going on. A healthy blog is a balanced
blog.
Let’s take a look at some popular types of blogs and how they
match up to these profiles. You can learn some interesting things
by looking at examples of blogs to see where they’re strong andnot so strong. In the following sections, we’ll look at the following
types of blogs:
•
•
•
•
•

CEO blog
Marketing blog
Aggregation blog
Staff blog
Specialized blog (marketing, business development, andso on)THE CEO SAYS…
The CEO blog is a common type and refers to a blog created byanyone in a senior position of leadership within a company. Whenthe first CEO blogs appeared, they were regarded with a lot of cynicism. After all, bloggers and readers reasoned, since when did a
CEO talk authentically or honestly? But thanks to solid examples
by CEOs and senior executives such as Bob Lutz (http://fastlane.gmblogs.com/), Jonathan Schwartz (http://blogs.sun.com/
jonathan), and Mark Cuban (www.blogmaverick.com), company
leaders now have solid examples of not just how to blog successfully, but also why to blog. Each of these leaders has embraced
the chance to shape public opinion, talk directly with customers,

What Type of Blogs Are Best for Your Company

and tackle industry and company issues head-on, instead of going
through marketing folks and journalists.
CEO, executive, and business owner blogs are powerful because
they present the mostly unfiltered views of a single blogger who is
an important part of a company. They are real people, and they are
human—at least the successful ones are.
Most successful CEO blogs are a combination of blacksmith(written by someone who knows the company well), bridge(they make connections with people), and window (they allow
people to see into the company, while letting the company seeout). By drawing on the strengths of all three types, successful
CEOs, executives, and business owners can build rapport andtrust, convey important company news, provide feedback on
the industry, and inform people about what’s going on within
the company.
It’s important that CEO bloggers resist the urge to stand on asoap box and preach to the masses. Successful CEO bloggers havelearned, through example, that the best blogs are written morefrom an “on the couch” perspective than an “on the soap box” one.
Customers would much rather interact with leaders as people thanas company mouthpieces.

AN AUTHENTIC MARKETING VOICE
The concept of the authentic marketing voice isn’t new; however, it
is still catching on. While some popular marketing professionals
write blogs, such as Steve Rubel (www.micropersuasion.com) andJohnnie Moore (www.johnniemoore.com/blog), here we are interested in blogs created specifically for marketing purposes. Somecompanies use blogs as one of their only means of marketing.
One company that uses blogs for marketing is English Cut(www.englishcut.com), shown in Figure 5-3, which was helped
along its way by popular marketing thinker and blogger Hugh

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Figure 5-3 The English Cut is popular as a tailor blog, primarily because its
author is an incredibly down-to-earth gentleman who loves chatting about his passion.

Macleod (www.gapingvoid.com). London tailor Thomas Mahon
has created quite a stir; in fact, largely thanks to his blog, he is oneof the most well publicized tailors in Savile Row history, having
been featured in dozens of magazines and newspapers.
The power of this blog is simple: it talks about that which isoften considered unattainable, $5000 custom-made suits, as if
such things are perfectly normal and totally necessary. Mahon
and Macleod don’t pull any punches: the suits are expensive.
What keeps readers’ interest is that they can tell that Mahon andMacleod sincerely love the tailor’s craft as well as that simplest of
joys: putting a smile on a customer’s face.

What Type of Blogs Are Best for Your Company

The English Cut is chock-full of talk about how suits are madeand marketed and lessons learned. As such, this young blog is agreat mixture of the barber (offering his wisdom on his industry),
the blacksmith (publicly talking about the secrets of his trade),and the pub (providing a place for people to talk about, and relate
experiences with, custom-made suits).
They key to producing successful marketing blogs is to learn togive. The English Cut not only gives away precious information,
but it even gives away suits (on occasion). While it is an anomaly
in the tailoring industry, this blog is used to create relationships
and to make Mahon’s company seem very human and down-toearth. Having marketers run similar projects is great—as long as
those marketers understand the medium of blogging.

PULLING IT TOGETHER
Aggregation is the act of pulling multiple sources into a single
destination, and an aggregation blog, which pulls multiple blogs
together into one, can be a powerful, if simple, way for companies
to become an information source in their industry. You can become a thought-leader in your industry in a variety of ways, andalthough the most effective way is to lead with your own thoughts,
many companies have begun turning to aggregation blogs as ameans of at least providing leading thoughts to their customers.
A successful aggregation blog takes information from a varietyof feeds (official mainstream media, prominent blogs, and company blogs) to provide an overview of what is happening in theindustry. You might call this the “Industry News” section of yourwebsite.
While it isn’t as powerful or trust-creating as having a barberor blacksmith blog, this newspaper/signpost style of blogging canhave value for a company. It shows that you know your industry,know the players, and value feedback, which is especially good if

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you actually do know the industry, know the players, and value
feedback.
Here are some tips on creating a successful aggregation blog:• Choose your sources well. In this style of blog, the only realcontrol you have over the content is whether you choose to
publish individual posts from your sources. So the higher
quality (and more aligned with your values) those sources
are, the better.
• Do other blogs. Having an aggregation blog is a good start,
but it doesn’t really allow you to interact with your particularaudience. It’s a good way to test the waters and make surethe software works, but you can use many more powerfulways to embrace blogging than simply being an information
source.
• Provide a personal viewpoint. If you are going to use blogs toprovide information for your customers, you should be providing your own point of view as well. As such, CEO blogs
and staff blogs are powerful tools to augment your aggregation blog—and the best posts from these fantastic companyowned sources can be included in the aggregation blog.

STAFF BLOGS: FROM THE HORSE’S MOUTH
Staff blogs can be among the sharpest tools in your company’s
toolbox. Good staff blogs can influence your industry, improveyour customers’ experiEncouraging staff blogging means cedingences, and empower yourcontrol and empowering your staff tostaff to help people. Whilecommunicate directly with the public, which isa CEO, executive, andone of the reasons clear blogging policies arebusiness owner often look
so important.
at the big picture, a staff

What Type of Blogs Are Best for Your Company

blogger can blog about day-to-day challenges and victories. If the
blogger is a software developer, as many of the earliest staff bloggers
were and still are, she’ll often blog about code snippets, the statusof new technology, and new and innovative things she is learning.
If he’s a chef, he’ll talk about new recipes, tips for success, and what
he’ll put on the menu when he opens his own restaurant. If she’s
in marketing, she’ll talk about new marketing techniques, ways toencourage real conversations, and the value of transparency.
Staff bloggers love to blog because it empowers them to help
themselves, their companies, and their customers. Staff bloggers
are the quintessential blacksmith bloggers—they share information and experience and encourage others to do the same, andtogether everyone learns more than they would on their own. It’sa little bit like any successful team endeavor: everyone works hard,and everyone eventually gets out more than they put in.
Encouraging staff blogging means ceding control and empowering your staff to communicate directly with the public, which
is one of the reasons clear blogging policies are so important.
This book’s appendix includes an example of a blogging policy.
Employers have also tailored their policies to their employees.
IBM, for example, allowed employees to write their own blogging
policy. The result was a fair and balanced dictum for empowerment that laid out the ground rules but also encouraged employees
to take risks.
Your company’s blogging policy should be unique. If you are ina highly competitive industry, you may not want your staff blogging about what is happening on a day-to-day basis. You may notwant your staff to deal directly with client issues, so your policy
may strongly recommend that they route those issues to a customer service or technical support team. The reality is that formost businesses, staff blogs will exist whether or not they areapproved. Encouraging them means leveraging their strengths.

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Discouraging them may mean losing good employees over a
simple matter of communication and trust.

IN THE HANDS OF A SPECIALISTSpecialist blogs cross a number of lines. In many ways, they arestaff blogs with the inside scoop. They are also like CEO blogs inthat they don’t typically deal with day-to-day things, but are often
in big picture mode. As such, specialist bloggers such as PR andmarketing people, managers in areas such as IT and customer service, business development professionals, and consultants overalltend to mix the approachable style of staff bloggers with the influential status of CEO, executive, and business owner blogs.
For example, hundreds (if not thousands) of successful PR andmarketing bloggers are publishing their work every day. Thesefolks have started their own knowledge repository at TheNewPR/
Wiki (www.thenewpr.com), which includes interviews and essays.
It also hosts the annual New PR Blog Week, in which the world’s
leading PR and marketing professionals contribute valuable essays
on topics that matter to them.
Not to be outdone, business professionals host a varietyof events on their blogs. The Carnival of the Capitalists (www.elhide.com/solo/cotc.htm) is a weekly event with contributions
by the top business minds who happen to blog on the Business
Blog Book Tour (www.apennyfor.com/bbbt/), which is a monthly
event in which leading business authors contribute to importantbusiness blogs.
Every industry has leading blogs, and having your bloggers
among the more high-profile members of the blogging industry
is never a bad thing. These specialist bloggers are one part barber,
one part blacksmith, two parts bridge, with just a pinch of signpost
and newspaper thrown in for good measure. They are personable,
knowledgeable, relationship-driven people who are full of valuable

What Type of Blogs Are Best for Your Company

information that they are more than willing to share. Encouraging
successful specialist bloggers is as easy as saying, “Hey, have you
thought of starting a blog?” Most individuals in these professions
are already aware of blogging and its influence, and they just needa gentle nudge to get involved.
That isn’t to say that being a specialist blogger is easy. In an evergrowing pool of experts, only the remarkable get noticed—which isone of the reasons having company support is so valuable. Very few
specialist bloggers actually blog from within a company; most are
independent and own their time. Supporting and encouraging existing professionals in these areas will not only set them apart, but will
provide a unique perspective that will make them better bloggers.

WRAPPING IT UP
In many ways, this chapter has been unusual. Instead of examining
many of the ways you could use blogs practically, I’ve chosen tolook at external blogs from a “mindset” or “personality” perspective. It’s entirely likely that you see the benefit of nearly all of these
profiles, and that you can even identify with a handful of them.
The realty is that bloggers aren’t some predefined list of personalities any more than regular people are. Blogs are a reflection of
the people who write them, and bloggers are people who have aplace to express their voice, thoughts, opinions, and knowledge.
Using blogs as marketing tools for your business is really all about
letting people be themselves in a public space. It can be scary, exciting, and challenging. One of the biggest challenges is knowing
what to expect, and hopefully the personalities and examples inthis chapter have provided food for thought in terms of how you
believe your company can blog for success.
The best way to find out how people think isn’t to observethem—you must ask them. The best way to engage someone isn’t

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you will find the most value—is through a two-way medium.
In the next chapter, we’ll take a look at internal blogging—why
companies do it, what types of internal blogs exist, and how you
go about launching a successful internal blog. Later chapters cover
how to start blogging, how to track what bloggers are saying, andthe future of blogging.

6

USING BLOGS TO INCREASE
INTERNAL COMMUNICATIONThe concept of internal blogging poses a number of challenges
to companies that are willing to embrace it. You can use blogs
in a number of fantastic ways, some of which were discussed in
Chapter 4. We looked at the example of the Disney Channel,
which uses internal blogs in an innovative way to save money,
make people’s jobs easier, and make information easier to access.
In this chapter we go deeper into the uses of internal blogs andprovide a brief overview of how to get blogging kick-started atyour company. We look at the benefits of blogging and at how todevelop an internal blogging strategy.

HOW INTERNAL BLOGGING STARTS
Blogging will begin internally at your company either by executive
decision or by grassroots support. Both ways pose unique challenges.
As with any new idea, decreeing the use of blogs from on highcan create a challenging scenario. The tried-and-true method is
to show your employees the benefits of the new tool while getting buy-in and ownership at both the middle-management and123
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grassroots levels. Getting buy-in early from key figures at theselevels of the company means that blogging isn’t being pushed on
people, but is being made available by company leaders as well as
being championed by the grassroots and encouraged by managers.
Employees typically won’t begin blogging simply because youtell them to. That said, smart employees who recognize the value
and time-savings that blogging can provide, when properly used,will often take up the idea quickly. When you are deciding toencourage blogging, it’s important to note that not every employee
will opt to use the blog.
Many employees are already busy with other work, may nottrust management’s intentions, or may not be aware of blogging’s value or blogging at all. While each of these problems hasa solution, often the easiest way to combat these feelings is not tocombat them at all—let employees make a choice. The best bloggers, whether internal or external, are those who make the choice
to start blogging because they see the benefits of doing so, notbecause you tell them it’s in their best interest.
The second way blogging can start is more common: employees
want to start blogging. The idea comes as a grassroots level request,
with employees seeing the benefit for their team or for the company as a whole and asking to start a blog. Some teams will simply
start using blogs on their own because they see the benefits, andnothing stops them from using blogs. Others will request a newserver or space on existing servers to create blogs.
Regardless of how blogging starts, you should encourage employees to use blogs internally (assuming that it fits with your blogging strategy). Suggest new and innovative uses for blogging, suchas using blogs for document sharing or for brainstorming new
ideas. Implement official blogs. A grassroots movement means
you can honestly say that you are supporting your employees’ newideas and that you are allowing them to take ownership of thisUsing Blogs to Increase Internal Communication

exciting new tool. If you need a blogging policy, let employees
draft it. If you are aware of external employee blogs, encouragethem to blog about things they care about internally as well.
No matter how you plan to start, you eventually need to createa plan and a strategy for your internal blogs—with external blogs,
the audience is the world; the audience for internal blogs is yourcompany, which means that the people you are able to please areyour staff members, executives, and managers. Although there isn’t
really such a thing as a “popular” internal blogger, typically a CEO
blog will be more often read than an engineer’s blog (except, ofcourse, by other engineers).
A properly implemented blogging strategy will increase communication both from the company to staff members and among
like-minded individuals; reduce e-mail by allowing chronologicalpublic discussion to occur; generate new ideas; make your company more fluid and dynamic; and empower your staff. The end
result of a properly implemented blogging strategy is happier,more motivated, and ultimately more efficient employees, which
is never a bad thing.

HOW TO USE BLOGS INTERNALLY
You can use blogs internally in a variety of ways. Instead of simply
listing all of them, I’ll show the top eight ways your company canuse internal blogs. This list should stir up some thoughts about
ways that you can leverage the low-cost, high-adoption technologythat blogging can be.
You can blog internally for• Project management communication• Internal communication and marketing• Idea generation and vetting

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•
•
•
•
•

Employee involvement and connection
Team and project communication with the entire organization
Internal team and project communication
Administrative communication
Dynamic team creation

PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Project management is all about ensuring that people stay informed
and motivated while also staying on deadline. Project managementtasks fail for lack of information and lack of communication. Project management blogs strive to achieve four goals:••••

Keep everyone informed on the project’s progress.
Archive important documents.
Raise discussion points.
Involve all members of the project team.

Because project management is inherently decision-making
based on information, project management blogs allow the project manager and the team to communicate back and forth. Some
project management blogs are completely open, allowing anyone
on the team to post and comment. These are often strong ways of
ensuring that the project is pushing forward while encouraging
contributions from anyone and everyone involved. Some companies who use blogs for project management simply don’t needa project manager because the team completely owns the process
and reaps the full reward for success.
In teams large or small, document management can be one of
the most difficult aspects of project management. Finding out who
has the most up-to-date copy of an important document, who is
working on which document, and who each document has to go to
can be difficult to track, even with advanced project management

Using Blogs to Increase Internal Communication

software. Project management blogs can be set up to allow people
to contribute to documents in an organized manner.
An example of an externally based project management systemthat uses blogs is Basecamp (www.basecamphq.com), shown in
Figure 6-1. For a low monthly fee (or even for free), team members
can post messages, share documents, maintain to-do lists, and set
project milestones. Most successful project management blogs,
whether they’re externally or internally run, will allow at least thesebasic project management features.
A strong feature of project management blogs is their ability toraise discussion points. This is accomplished by putting up a postthat asks for feedback. These discussion points–based posts canFigure 6-1

Basecamp, built by 37signals, is a fantastic project management
system built around the concepts of blogging.

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often alleviate the need for a meeting, a series of e-mail exchanges,
or a conference call.
Finally, using a blog for project management is participatory.
It ensures that everyone has ownership of the process and allows
everyone to contribute. A well-oiled project management blog
should be low maintenance and highly effective. A number of solutions are available for project management, but using even a simple
solution such as Movable Type (www.sixapart.com) or WordPress(www.wordpress.org) can work well for motivated teams.

INTERNAL COMMUNICATION IS KEY
Internal communication at any sized company can be difficult.
For most small companies, it may not be too difficult to do, butsometimes even small companies want something more permanent than e-mail.
E-mail is one of the greatest communication advances in recent memory, but it is also one of the most difficult to maintain.
Between spam, scams, and general information overload, e-mailcan often be more trouble than it’s worth. Yet for most companies
it is still one of the best ways to communicate, get input, andgather consensus. E-mail is used to call meetings, review documents, announce new projects, and post new jobs internally.
Blogs have several advantages over e-mail in the communications spectrum:• Anyone can contribute.
• Anyone can comment and their comments can be seen by
everyone.
• All posts are archived indefinitely.
• Blog posts are categorized for ease of viewing.
• Past posts can be searched quickly and easily.

Using Blogs to Increase Internal Communication

Blogs are a powerful internal communications tool for a varietyof purposes. While internal blogs may not supplant e-mail as the
king of corporate communication, they are definitely finding theirplace in the royal family.
Some great uses for blogs internally are for project sites, newproject announcements, recruiting, and as a way to filter down
official company news and information from executives. One
other great use for an internal blog is as an industry aggregator
blog. (We talked about aggregation blogs in Chapter 5.) An internal aggregator blog is a fantastic way to keep your employees
informed on what is happening in the industry.
In fact, each of these areas offers a great amount of freedom, andthe software to power each of these can be as inexpensive as $500.
Starting a new blog can actually be as simple as downloading andsetting up WordPress (www.wordpress.org) or Community Server(www.communityserver.org) software, both of which are completely free to download.
The power of internal communications blogs comes from theirarchived nature and their searchability by keyword or date—alongwith a number of other benefits. It doesn’t matter whether you’re
working at Microsoft or Aunt Minnie’s Bakery, having a permanent blog location for official correspondence, industry news,
company matters, new jobs, projects, and products can be an
inexpensive and effective way to get news. In addition, because
blogs are web-based, they ensure that even people who are away
for a few days can quickly catch up on what happened while they
were out.

IDEAS MATTEROne of the challenges facing today’s companies is staying relevant
and/or ahead of the curve and generating enough new ideas to

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keep the business profitable and on the forefront of the industry. Most companies realize that if they could get their employees’
ideas out of their heads, the company would be able to accomplish
much, much more. Some companies offer significant incentives
for new ideas (such as profit sharing); others simply have a suggestions box and encourage employees to use it. No matter what
your level of commitment to employee-generated ideas, it’s hard toargue with the fact that 200 heads are better than 2.
It goes without saying that no ideas system will work unless you
actually value the feedback employees provide. One of the best
ways to do that is to acknowledge new ideas, and, if you decide
not to go with them, to say honestly why you aren’t using that
feedback right now.
For most companies, the most difficult part isn’t really what to
do with great ideas after they’re submitted, it’s finding great ideas
in the first place. And while a suggestion box can be helpful, andincentives are great ways to reward free-thinking employees, thereal challenge is in taking an idea from its original state to something that can actually be created or accomplished.
This is one of the reasons that idea blogs are taking off internally at companies: they allow anyone to contribute to an idea andthen allow anyone else to comment on the idea, refining it from its
original proposal. Much like having employees submit new ideas
can improve your business, so, too, can having employees refine
other ideas.
Some companies even go so far as to air new ideas that are proposed at the executive level through idea blogs to see if anyone canspot holes in the plans. I know of a Canadian fabric company that
ended up dismissing an entire product line because the factory
manager was able to spot a production difficulty with a new idea.
Thanks to his observations, the only cost to the company was thetime lost in meetings.

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Successful idea blogs share several common characteristics:••••

Anyone can contribute (anonymously if they so desire).
Anyone can comment (again, anonymously if they want).
All ideas get reviewed and responded to at the senior level.
Great ideas get picked, and employees get rewards for theirideas (profit sharing and cost savings bonuses being great
rewards).
• Everyone is equal.
A great idea blog may not be enough to save your company,
but then it doesn’t exactly cost you much to start up such a simple
blog. Plus, an idea blog can be a great way to communicate toemployees that you value their ideas and, by extension, that you
value them.

EMPLOYEES WHO BLOG
Internal employee blogs can be a fantastic catalyst within your company. Internal employee
blogs help forge connec- The best employee blogs keep people informed,
tions inside the company.
allow for open brainstorming and problemExternal employee blogs
solving, and improve efficiency across theare also great because they
organization.
allow employees to connect with like-minded individuals outside the company.
It doesn’t matter whether you have a dozen employees or
2000, having your staff members connect creates fantastic newopportunities—especially if you’re using idea blogs, as these pairings and groupings can often come up with great new ideas. Oneof the keys to successful employee blogs, beyond encouraging andgetting employees to blog in the first place, is to provide them a
way to connect to one another. I’ve said this time and time again,

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but blogs are equalizing forces. If a janitor has a blog, there isnothing to stop an executive from connecting with the janitor ona subject they’re both passionate about—something that would benearly impossible in the non-blogging world.
Getting successful employee blogs going requires that you provide a variety of ways for bloggers to find each other. At the least,a search engine for posts, subjects, categories, and blogger names
is essential. But some companies go so far as to provide a single
website that lists new posts, features individual bloggers, and links
comments made by a blogger to that blogger’s internal blog. The
more ways you provide for your employees to connect, the moreconnections they will make.
The challenge is that implementing these features is more
expensive than simply allowing employees to set up blogs. Although
free products like Community Server (www.communityserver.org) shown in Figure 6-2, WordPress (www.wordpress.org), andDrupal (www.drupal.org), can help, it’s likely they won’t provide
the whole solution to the puzzle. Starting employee blogs must
be considered strategically: it isn’t just about whether you value
connections, but about how much you value those connections andwhat you’re willing to do to facilitate them.
The best employee blogs keep people informed, allow for open
brainstorming and problem-solving, and improve efficiency acrossthe organization; for these reasons, IBM turned to blogs for its
more than 150,000 employees in early 2005. IBM realized that
if employees from around the world could connect on problems
and subjects they were passionate about, they could begin leveraging those connections by creating dynamic teams, which we’ll talkabout more in a bit.
Whether you choose to leverage the connections that employee
blogs allow, or you simply realize that having employees making
more connections makes them smarter, more informed, and more

Using Blogs to Increase Internal Communication

Figure 6-2 Community Server is one of a growing number of free tools that
may help your business get started on the road to blogging.

productive, employee blogs are a great way to increase the valuethat your employees bring to the table.

BECAUSE THE TEAM SAYS
Official team blogs are a pretty new breed of blog. For companies with more than 20 employees, teams can basically run thecompany. Whether product teams or task teams such as IT andmarketing, the teams in the majority of today’s companies are selfsustaining, which is why it should come as no surprise that they
are increasingly writing their own official blogs.
An official team blog is to teams what an official company
blog is to the company: a clear and concise way to describe what
is happening in the industry, to post new jobs, talk about teammatters, post memos, and discuss other important work-related

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issues. Team window blogs (see Chapter 5) provide information toother teams, individual employees in the company, and corporate
leaders. Several companies I know actually require that all teams
publish official team blogs, because it enables executives to findout what is happening in all the teams simply by subscribing tovarious feeds.
Official team blogs also allow anyone to comment on news andto provide new ideas for the team, thus increasing the team members’ ability to do their jobs and remain productive. Smart teams
can also make use of other internal blogging tools available, suchas administrative blogs, idea blogs, and project management blogs,
within their team to make them more effective, whether or not therest of the company is blogging. They also make use of exclusive
internal team and project blogs.

INTERNAL TEAM COMMUNICATION
Sometimes teams want to toss around idea among themselves—
perhaps for confidentiality reasons or because small groups can be
more effective than large ones. As a result, internal blogs designed
to be read only by team members are becoming increasingly popular. These blogs allow for document sharing, brainstorming, andarchiving thoughts and discussions.
The goal is to reduce team-wide e-mail by putting most of theofficial correspondence on the blog so that it can be archived andsearched, but the blog also allows responses to occur in a cohesive
manner. One of the problems with e-mail is that as e-mail is sent
to multiple people, it often results in multiple threads of conversation, with ideas crossing and confusion reigning. Blogs solve thisdilemma, since all comments are chronological, so that people who
respond to the original post are also responding to previous comments. This means that, generally speaking, internal communication is linear—from original thought to final thought—instead of

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jumbled among different conversational threads that then need tobe recapped so that everyone is included in the loop.
Document sharing is important among teams. Blogs ensure thateveryone has the same version of every document, that everyone
can see when new documents are posted, and generally that it’s
impossible for someone to lose a document. E-mail can be deleted,but blog posts are much harder to lose. Blog posts can also beexported—in fact, creating regular backups of the posts and files
on a blog is just as important as the blog itself.
In a blog-enabled team environment, every thought is a conversation waiting to happen and every idea has potential for
expansion. Obviously, this requires a healthy team environment
and, much as with e-mail, unhealthy teams simply won’t be able
to maximize the potential that blogs bring to the table. But evenunhealthy teams can appreciate never losing a document, always
being in the loop, and never having someone steal your idea
(because your blogged ideas are credited to you).
An internal team blog, much like an internal company blog, isan archived record of a team’s thoughts and actions. For smaller
companies, one blog may fulfill this purpose for the whole company. Whether you’re a small company or a large company using
internal team blogs for individual teams, the strengths remain: lesse-mail, clearer information that is archived and searchable, strong
document sharing, and the ability to brainstorm openly. These are
valuable assets to any team.

ADMINISTRIVIA DISTRIBUTIONYour company’s ability to communicate clearly is inversely proportionate to how large it is. The larger your company, the more difficult it can be to get the message to people in an understandable
way. Memos are a standard means of communication, but unless
you plan to e-mail everyone in your company every memo, it’s

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unlikely that the right people will always have the right information at the right time. This is where blogs come in.
Today’s administrative world is littered with status reports,
meeting notes, sales reports, and all kinds of trivial informationthat is completely essential to running the company. The challenge
is that the people who need that information often don’t have it
when they need it.
One reason that blogs are so strong at document management isthat information is never lost. Not only are blogs categorized, butthey are also searchable. Having these documents available on an
administrative blog (with permissions set so that the right people
can see the right documents) is a great way not only to decreasee-mail and get the information out quickly, but also to ensure that
documents are never lost and that people can comment on new
documents as they are posted.
In addition, a successful company administrative blog canreport on changes to HR (such as each employee getting an additional three weeks of vacation per year) and important company
meetings (such as the one you’re about to schedule about each
employee getting an additional three weeks vacation per year). An
administrative blog is, in many ways, the lifeblood of a company:
without the mundane and the day-to-day, many companies would
simply shrivel up. Thankfully, blogs make everything easy to postand easy to subscribe to.
While administrative information can be boring, having a blog
on the subject means that when employees actually need to findcertain information (such as vacation forms), they know exactly
where to go. Blogs can be like a company intranet and documentsite all rolled up into one package. And you probably don’t need
any expensive software to accommodate this, as both WordPress
and Movable Type are more than up to the task (though they may
need minor customizations if you are going to try and lock out

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certain people from certain information, such as how much vacation senior executives get).

TEAM CREATION ON THE FLY
Dynamic team creation isn’t technically a kind of blog that can becreated, but it is one of theStrange and wonderful things happen whenpossible and amazing byyou create a space for people to get together
products of a healthy interas equals.
nal blogging culture. The
most dynamic and valuable
team members are those who work well together to tackle problems
creatively. I’ve been a member of such teams, and the single truthis that there is no way to plan them. A great team simply happens.
Some teams are great, some teams are just good enough to get thejob done, and some are a hassle even to be a part of.
Because blogs allow anyone to vent his passions and interests in areal way (instead of in an “interests” column in the employee database),
people are able to connect more easily. The more easily people canconnect, the more they get to work together. A healthy blog environment will naturally create teams, no matter how small the company.
In fact, the greatest challenge to dynamic team creation is breaking
down barriers of thought. For example, I worked with a company
where the janitor was actually the perfect person to help with a teamthat was tasked with merging two companies. His perspective andpassion for people, which is why he took the job in the first place, wasput to great use in the meetings. Strange and wonderful things happen
when you create a space for people to get together as equals.
As you begin creating a culture of internal blogging, realize that
unexpected things are likely to occur. Don’t judge your teams or
assets by their covers, as even the rattiest-looking book could be a
Pulitzer winner.

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IT’S ALL ABOUT THE BENEFITSInternal blogging empowers employees, increases communication,
reduces e-mail, simplifies document management, and provides asolid framework for employees to stay informed, learn about newopportunities, and be involved in the company. But what does all
this really mean for your business?

AVOID EVIL E-MAIL
Reducing e-mail is a huge job. On average, it takes someone
7 to 15 seconds to read, process, and do something about a single e-mail message (even if that something is to leave it there todeal with it later). If you can reduce the amount of e-mail youremployees receive by even 100 messages per day, you will savethem roughly half an hour of time per day.
Blogging doesn’t simply eliminate e-mail, though, because thecommunication that is in the e-mail still needs to happen. What it
does increase is the effectiveness of e-mail. E-mail becomes about“now” items: a meeting reminder, an urgent request, or a quick
note. The blogs are the place where official, lasting communication happens and where feedback is made.
For many companies, this is a paradigm shift. And while it isn’t
necessary to enjoy the other benefits of blogs, the arguments forsaving your employees’ time, never losing a document, and getting
employees involved in the company and empowered for change
are difficult to dismiss.
Simply implementing blogs won’t do all these things, though.
You need to be prepared to raise up champions for the cause
by training people to use the blogs, supporting new ideas, andresponding to what is happening on the blogs. One of the challenges
for companies that begin making their communication more blogcentric is that everything is out in the open: all initial posts and all

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follow-up comments can be read by anyone. For some companies,
when discussions are then taken off of the blogs (as will happen),
employees can feel left out of the loop.
This is how a blog communication loop works:
1. Initial idea is created.
2. Employees, managers, and executives post comments (anonymously or otherwise, depending on your company). Somecompanies let this process last for a set period of time.
3. The idea is reviewed. For some companies, this will mean an
individual vetting each idea and then passing it up the chain.
For others, executives will meet at the beginning of the week
to go through new ideas. Some companies actually form ateam of employees who are tasked with passing new ideas to
executives, thus empowering employees not only to create
ideas but also to review them.
4. For ideas that are rejected at this stage, whoever is reviewing
them leaves a comment or sends an e-mail briefly explaining why an idea was not used. Sometimes an idea can bea catalyst for an even better idea, but if nothing else it lets
everyone who submits ideas know that they were actually
heard, which is incredibly important, especially at the earlystages of building an ideas blog.
5. A decision is made. The ramifications of that decision may
not be made public right away; however, posting to the blog
or letting the originator know is common courtesy.
The goal of all of this is to provide a complete feedback loop
so that nobody ever questions what happens to ideas. If an
idea is turned down, the originator knows about it and knows
why; similarly, if an idea is accepted, the originator is informed.

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Smart companies will let the individual be involved, where appropriate, so that each person can see an idea come to life. Just as positive
experiences with customers can create customer evangelists, so,too, can positive experiences for employees create employee evangelists. An excited employee is contagious.

LESS NOISE, MORE EARSInternal communication can be a challenge. In some companies,
too much noise exists—people send jokes and all kinds of otherunproductive e-mail—and that can wear down a company’s communication channels. The ratio of valuable communication tonoise (or useless communication) is fairly high at most companies.
For companies that don’t take control of their e-mail culture, theculture is often driven more by quantity than quality.
Blogs provide a type of solution for e-mail noise and clutter
in two areas. First, the culture around blogging is one where you
decide whether what you’re posting has value first, because anyone
in the company can read it, and posting useless drivel doesn’t govery far very fast (if nothing else, nobody will comment on thedrivel, so people eventually stop posting it).
Second, the concept of the useless message is far more hiddenin a blog post. In e-mail, the final “wow!” or “thanks!” message
appears just as visible and important as the original thought,meaning that most of the time, the original thought is lost in a seaof extraneous e-mail. But on internal blogs, the original thought is
all that is visible, unless someone chooses to take a look at the comments. And while there will likely be “thanks!” and “cool idea!”
messages in the comments, they don’t share the same level of intrusiveness that they do in e-mail, because you can skim past a dozenof them in just a few seconds; you don’t have to click open each
response.

Using Blogs to Increase Internal Communication

POWER TO THE PEOPLE
Blogs empower people. In the public world, this is debatable, but
in the world of internal blogging, it’s an essential truth. The moreblogs are properly used, the more valuable they are. I’ve talked
about idea blogs a fair amount in this chapter, because they are
all about empowerment—letting employees get involved in thehealth and future of the company. But every type of internal blog
is about empowerment. If it reduces e-mail, it allows people totake control of their inbox. If it makes document management
easier, it means your employees don’t need to go looking aroundfor the right file. If it helps everyone stay informed about mundane (yet important) administrative and company information,then nobody is left guessing.

DEVELOPING AN INTERNALBLOGGING STRATEGY
Whether you are part of a small company or a multinational
behemoth, getting the right information to the right people at theright time is important. And blogs, combined with feeds, providethat type of framework. Of course, a blog is only as good as theinformation being put into it and that information is only as goodas how it’s being put to use. So before you begin your blogging
journey, ensure that you have an internal blogging strategy. Withso much potential here, mismanaging it would tragic. Get excited.
Encourage people. Find great new ways to use blogs. But makesure you do it because you want to improve your business, not justbecause blogs are new and exciting.
Developing a strategy is a three-part exercise: discovery, exploration, and excavation. The discovery phase of creating a successful blogging strategy is laying out your current challenges, your

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values, and your objectives as a company. Any blogging activity
you take on needs to fit with these. Secondly, you need to explore:
brainstorm new ideas, determine which of the ideas presented inthis chapter work for you, and decide what types of activities you
believe will make the best use of your resources. Finally, you needto excavate: do the work, get employees involved, get them motivated, help them save time and work, and generally make theirlives easier, more fulfilling, and more exciting.

DISCOVERY
The discovery phase of any project is the most important part.
What you create in this phase will determine not only the metrics
for success, but also whether or not you’ll succeed in the first place.
Too many companies skip over this phase, which is kind of likean architect ignoring the plan of a house and looking at lighting
fixtures first.
Planning never killed a project, but ignoring planning has laid
waste to many great ideas. Your discovery phase should deal withseveral key points:
Challenges
Identifying the challenges facing your company is an importantcomponent of any new project. If something isn’t solving one ofyour challenges or meeting one of your objectives, why are you
doing it? Your challenge as a company could be that your employees are being flooded by e-mail, that you aren’t generating enoughnew ideas, or that internal communication isn’t as effective as it
could be.
Values
While most people wouldn’t add values as part of a project to-do
list, I’m a big believer in everything that your company is doing

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emerging from your values, the dream you are proposing, or thepromises you are making to yourself, your employees, and yourcustomers. If your company doesn’t have a set of overriding values,
promises, or dreams (and, no, a typical vision statement probably
doesn’t cut it here), it’s entirely possible that you are floating in themarketing wind. Values provide stability, and they’re a great metricagainst which to test new projects and ideas. Your values, dreams,
and promises might be that you love new ideas, that you will support employees’ dreams, and that you will be a market leader inyour industry no matter what.
Objectives
Setting objectives for a project allows you to determine metrics for
success. Without objectives, you’ll never know whether what you
are doing is the best thing for the project. Your objectives mustmatch to your values, and as such your objectives may be as simple
as improving communication, giving employees the information
they need when they need it, and helping to build healthy business relationships among employees and between employees andmanagement.
Metrics for Success
Metrics typically map to your objectives. If your objective is tocreate new ideas, your metric for success might be that you’ve
received at least 50 ideas during the year, that you’ve reviewed andprovided feedback on all of them, and that you’ve acted on at least
three of them.

EXPLORATIONThe second phase in developing a successful blogging strategy isto . . . well, develop a blogging strategy. Discovery was all about
setting the ground rules—most companies need to do this only

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once, and then those values and challenges can be applied to any
project. Having done that, you can now enter the three phases of
exploration: expanding, contracting, and deciding.
ExpandingThis is your brainstorming phase. Take a look at this chapter’seight great ways to use blogs internally. Then look at Chapter 4’s
big list and brainstorm ways that your company can use blogs. For
some companies, this might be a small list, for others it could be
longer than the master list in Chapter 4.
Contracting
Having expanded the possibilities for blogging at your company
as much as you can, now is the time to match the possibilities toyour values, challenges, and objectives. This may mean your list
goes from 20 possibilities to 3 possibilities. Find the areas that will
provide value to your company where it’s at right now. It’s okay if
blogging doesn’t fit right now, because you can always redo thisexercise every six months to see if things have changed.
Deciding
Having narrowed down the list, you need to decide which projects will be done and specifically what the metrics for successwill be for each of those projects. At this point, you may want
to look at proposing resources to be assigned to the project, andyou may want to bring on a project manager and/or an employee
champion.

EXCAVATION
Having decided what you’re going to do, the final phase of developing your blogging strategy is deciding how you’re going to doit. If you’re setting up an idea blog, will you allow anonymous

Using Blogs to Increase Internal Communication

posting or commenting, who will review the ideas suggested,
and will you give feedback? If you’re doing official team blogs, howwill you go about getting teams motivated to do this extra work?
Will you create time in their schedules for this or is it just anothertask they need to take care of in their already busy schedules? Nomatter what you do, the excavation part of your project is a threephase part: buy-in, execution, and follow-up.
Buy-inBecause blogs are generally employee-driven affairs, you should
get buy-in early on, as well as feedback. Launching new projects isdifficult in any company, but trying to implement internal blogs
from the top down probably won’t work. You can use a variety oftactics to get employees to embrace new blogs—simply opening
the door to choice or getting employee champions involved will
help. The success of the project depends on how much buy-in andparticipation you get, so don’t discount this phase.
Execution
Launching the various blogs your company will be using can be achallenge. Will you start them all at once? Will teams be responsible for setting up and maintaining their own blogs, or will theIT department do it? Lots of questions must be answered, but
thankfully actually installing blogs is largely an IT issue, and mostblogging software packages are fairly simple to install and configure (for trained personnel). If you don’t have the internal resources
to handle this, you may need to hire a blog consulting company orbring in general technical consultants. In fact, bringing in consultants with blogging experience, specifically blog consultants, often
isn’t difficult, especially if they simply review and comment on
your plans and do nothing else (many blog consulting companies
have a set fee for this, which is fairly low).

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Follow-up
For any good project, the worst thing you can do is never check to
see how well it’s going, whether it’s matching up with your values,
and whether the people who use the software are happy. Whether
you conduct monthly reviews or weekly reviews, make sure you
do a high-level evaluation of success on occasion, at least once aquarter. If you find that the venture is unsuccessful, you and youremployees can determine how it needs to be fixed.
Because internal blogging has such a huge amount of potential for most companies, it’s always sad when an internal blogging
project fails because of lack of planning, poor execution, or a lackof follow-up. So do your homework, and treat your internal blogging project with the same respect with which you should treat
your employees. After all, it’s most likely they who will be using
the blogs on a daily basis, and if it doesn’t make their lives easierand better, it might not be worth doing.

WRAPPING IT UP
This chapter provides reasons to do internal blogging, offers somesolid examples of ways that nearly any company could make use ofinternal blogging, and introduces some tools for you to use to set
up and maintain a blog.
This chapter closes the “how to get started with blogging” portion of this book. At this point, you should have a solid understanding blogging’s usefulness and how it can be applied internally andexternally to grow your business, improve your relationships withcustomers, and increase your visibility—among other things.
In the next three chapters, we’ll look at how to monitor what’s
being said about you and your products, how to participate inyour blog, and (the all-important) how to deal with negativity.

7

LEARN WHAT’S BEING SAIDABOUT YOUR COMPANY
AND PRODUCTS

S

ometimes the problem with blogs is that they create a lot ofnoise, and as a result you can’t tell what’s relevant. It’s a bit
like trying to find someone you know at a major rock concert—
everyone’s yelling, and the fact that you are one of the few notyelling doesn’t help you find what you’re looking for; you still get
lost in a cacophony of voices. As your company gets into blogging,
instead of being lost in the crowd, you need to know not only
what the blogging voices are saying, but what individuals within
the crowd are saying.
In this chapter, we cover how to keep track of “the conversation”
as well as how to track individual bloggers, how to monitor andestablish metrics for your blog, and how to respond to events that
happen in the world of blogs.

KNOW OR DIE
One of the challenges with blogging isn’t finding blogs, finding posts, or even finding posts about your company. A massive amount of information is available around blogging, so the147
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challenge isn’t in finding that information. Instead, the challenge
is to find the right information and apply it in a meaningful way.
Thankfully, bloggers have found a noble reason to start sifting
through the information: ego surfing. Ego surfing is an incredibly
precise art form that involves surfing the Web, specifically using
Google or other search engines, to find out who is talking about
you and what they are saying.
Early bloggers decided that searching Google on a nearly daily
basis was not only inefficient, but slow. After all, it could take morethan three days for new links to your site to show up in Google,
and that was simply unacceptable. In fact, Dave Sifry, one of theearliest bloggers, got so fed up with using Google for ego surfingthat he created his own website called Technorati (www.technorati.com) to begin tracking how blogs linked to each other.
In the summer of 2005, Technorati began tracking its tenmillionth blog, which caused Sifry to reflect by writing the following (at www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/000312.html):
The reason why I created Technorati in the first place—I wanted to know
who was talking about me and the things I cared about—hasn’t changed.…
It provides me with a drop of joy and a lot of wonder that we’ve been able tocontribute our small part to the greater good, and to help people make senseout of all of this remarkable creativity in the blogosphere.

Technorati started out small, tracking only a few thousand
blogs. As the blogosphere grew, so did Technorati’s database.
Over the years, other services have come online such as BlogPulse,
IceRocket, and PubSub, each of which is discussed in detail later inthis chapter. As this book and the blogging community matures,
these sites will undoubtedly add new features and new sites will
surely come online.
I believe that only two things will remain true in this life: People
won’t agree on God, politics, or sports; and bloggers will neverLearn What's Being Said about Your Company and Products

stop perfecting the art of ego surfing! Thankfully, your company
gets to benefit from at least one of these truisms.

FINDING VALUE IN A CACOPHONY OF DATA
As we’ll see later in this chapter, services such as Technorati, coupled with smart web analytics, can provide you with a veritable
treasure trove of data. But what do you do with all of that data?
We’ll look at specific uses for data that each system generates;
however, you’ll see that you are usually looking for three main
pieces of data as you begin to baseline and do trending:• Where, why, and how you are growing• Trends you are starting or of which you are a part• What people are saying about you and how you should best
respond
Most companies—even those using low-cost shared website environments—will have some kind of blogging and reporting package installed, commonly known as web stats. If you don’t have sucha package installed, you can use free or paid stats trackers, which
are available at a variety of websites in a variety of configurations.
None of these will be as accurate as the statistics provided by yourserver or hosting company, but they will provide you with thethree main pieces of data.
The reality of web analytics, and with blogging in particular,
is that the actual numbers matter very little. What is important is
the growth of those numbers and what that growth means. Starting out with 10 readers and progressing to 100,000 is incredibly
impressive and should be studied and acknowledged. Starting with
80,000 and growing to 100,000 is also important to note, but
the growth isn’t nearly as impressive. What matters is what the

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numbers represent: growth, links, trends of which you are a part,growing customer satisfaction or dissatisfaction, and other suchimportant issues.
“Tripping over the Long Tail” looks a bit more at why numbers
themselves matter—but in a different way than most people think.

TRIPPING OVER THE LONG TAIL
Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief of Wired magazine, first coined
the term Long Tail in a now-famous article published in the fallof 2004 (www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.10/tail.html). Chris’s
basic premise, as it applies to blogs, is that while mega blogs arecertainly out there with audiences rivaling major news organizations, the influence and size of those blogs is about the sameas all of the small blogs.
Chris illustrated this with the following graph:

Practically speaking, this graph shows that a handful of superlarge blogs exist, but also a long tail of millions of other blogs
are out there and just as, if not more, important than the largest
blogs. In fact, much of the power of blogging is found in this long
tail—conversation happens in the long tail, and your customers
are in the long tail. And, most likely, you will be in the long tail.
While knowing your numbers is important—in that they
allow you to graph your growth—they are also less important
than you might think, because ultimately what matters is how

Learn What's Being Said about Your Company and Products

the rest of the long tail responds. Don’t look only at your stats—make sure you also look at how well you are speaking to, or
pitching into, the long tail.
Check out Anderson’s blog, which details how companies areinteracting with the long tail: http://longtail.typepad.com/.

Your web stats will provide the first points of importance foryou: if, where, why, and how your blog is growing (or shrinking). The answer to the why may be fairly vague, such as “Google
is sending us more traffic.” This is where trend analysis and link
patterns start to come into play. Of the three main blog tracking
engines (Technorati, BlogPulse, and PubSub), BlogPulse is the bestat offering a historical analysis and is often able to spot the trendsof which you may be a part. Finally, services such as Technorati
and PubSub are great at finding out what people are saying aboutyou (and who those people are).
Taken together, web stats, trend analyses, and link tracking provide not only a valuable amount of information, but also clues as
to how to use that information. At the end of the day, though,your blog’s success is rarely measured by these numbers. They are
merely indicators of overall health, visibility, and the relative passion of your blogging and blog-reading audience. As such, while
important, they should be measured against your overall strategic
goals and specifically your blogging goals.

RESPOND TO FEEDBACK—GOOD AND BAD
Having tracked conversations, analyzed trends, poured over yourweb stats, and otherwise looked deep into how the blogging
world feels about your company, brand, and products, you will

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undoubtedly come to realize that actual feedback is buried inthere. Some of that feedback will be good, some will be bad, andsome will simply be questions to which you should respond. But
no matter what kind of feedback you get, all of it deserves ananswer.
Dealing with good comments can often be the most difficult
thing, because the temptation is simply to acknowledge the feedback and move on. HowThe best way to make a great impression is toever, a positive comment
respond to a comment in as short a timeframe
is an open door for you
as possible so that the comment’s importanceto move that customer
has not diminished.
one step closer to being
an evangelist for you. It’san opportunity for you to create yet another positive experience
with your company and begin building a relationship. Take that
responsibility seriously.
Likewise, a bad comment should not be ignored. I’ve said time
and time again that an unhappy customer is a passionate customer
waiting to happen. And, like the good comment, someone postinga bad comment is giving you the opportunity to interact with her.
Not only is it welcome, but in many ways it’s expected: because
she has interacted with you, ignoring the poster would only drive
her farther away. In this case, inaction is just about the worst thing
you could do.
Questions, support issues, and other customer relations typesof comments should be handled quickly. In an ideal world, allcomments—even questions—should get a response in less than
24 hours. Even a response like this is better than nothing: “Thankyou for your comment. I have routed this request to the appropriate team. If you don’t hear back from them in a few days, letme know and I’ll follow up.” When someone uses your blog toLearn What's Being Said about Your Company and Products

comment on one of these topics, she isn’t just stating that she has
an issue—she expects to get help. She is asking for you to create apositive experience for her.

RULES FOR RESPONDING TO COMMENTS
Here are three cardinal rules for responding to comments:•

Respond quickly.

•

Be human.

•

Follow up to ensure resolution.
The best way to make a great impression is to respond to acomment in as short a timeframe as possible so that the comment’s importance has not diminished. Twenty-four hours is agood amount of time, eight hours is better, and under an hour isbest. For large companies, these comments can go into existingcustomer relations pools (assuming they work well enough to produce a response that is not only timely, but respectful). For smaller
companies, treat a comment on your blog as you would treat acustomer who came into your office with a question: you would
probably drop everything to help, and someone commenting on
your blog deserves no less because she is approaching you.
Responding with a human voice, and not with an automated
reply, is important. It can also be the most difficult part of thisprocess, because some comments on blogs can become repetitive. Several companies have started responding to repetitive
comments within their own posts, and then (nicely) pointing
future commenters back to that post, with a note to the effect

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we need to improve on, and we’ve jotted down some thoughts
for how we plan to do that here: [include the link].”
Follow-up and effective customer relations go hand in hand.
This is one of the reasons having individuals responsible for blog
comments is more effective than having departments responsible for them. Allow the individuals to own a customer interaction, and allow them the freedom to ensure that customers
are properly dealt with and that they go away with a smile. The
people who respond to your blog comments are like frontline
sales people in a retail store: they offer you the best chance atmaking a great impression.

LEAVE COMMENTS ON OTHER BLOGS
While responding to comments on your blog may seem fairly
obvious, it isn’t the end of the road for feedback. As you’ve no
doubt seen if you’ve used Technorati and other tracking services,
comments about your company probably appear on other blogs.
Bloggers who post impressions of companies on their blogs arepractically begging for you to provide feedback. These posts provide an opportunity for you fix any problems and entice bloggers
to try you again.
A friend of mine experienced an incident with an airline andmissed a flight due to delays; he ultimately ended up missing a
job interview and therefore not getting the job. He contacted theairline’s customer service, but there wasn’t much they could do
about a lost job opportunity. After writing about the experienceon his blog, a senior airline executive contacted him and asked, “Isthere anything we can do to make it up to you?”

Learn What's Being Said about Your Company and ProductsThis simple response changed my friend’s outlook about the airline. He realized that there really wasn’t much the company coulddo, but the fact that someone cared enough to reach out to him
TECHNORATI RESPONDS
In the spring of 2005, my friend Stowe Boyd from Corante (www.corante.com), posted on his blog that he was experiencing
some problems with how Technorati was tracking his links (www.corante.com/getreal/archives/2005/05/16/whats_going_on_at_
technorati.php). He said he was being updated on new links, but
his overall position among the top blogs wasn’t changing.
Within a couple of hours, Adam Hertz of Technorati responded to Stowe’s comments, as shown next, explaining thatthe numbers issue was due to some growing pains—something
Technorati was working hard to fix. Hertz made no excuses, but
he was honest about the issue and the solution.

(continues)

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Not only did Hertz find Stowe’s post, and not only did he respond to it, but he also responded to a comment left by anotheruser later in the day and helped her through issues involving
her blog and how Technorati was tracking it.
Because Technorati execs are so responsive to bloggers andcustomers’ needs, user support for Technorati’s services continues to grow.

changed his entire perception of the event. Whereas it used to end
on the sour note of “that company wouldn’t even talk to me,” thestory now ends with “I can’t believe a an exec read my blog!”
Any time any kind of comment about your company or products appears on a blog, it is an open invitation for you to comment or contact the blogger directly; in fact, the blogger wants tobe contacted. Don’t be afraid to leave comments on others blogs.
Nothing makes a blogger happier than hearing from you.

HOW TO WATCH BLOGS
Some people equate watching as a passive thing—you watch TV, forexample. Others equate it as an active thing, where you are nearlya participant—like watching sports. And others like to watch after
the fact—for instance, by analyzing yesterday’s stock performance.
Watching blogs can be a similar situation: you can watch actively or passively, and you can analyze past behavior to determine
future outcomes. Active watching is done via free services such as
Technorati (www.technorati.com) and BlogPulse (www.blogpulse.com), while passive searching is done via free services such as PubSub (www.pubsub.com) and Feedster (www.feedster.com). If you
are a “next-day trader” type, you can glean similar information bylooking at your website statistics.

Learn What's Being Said about Your Company and Products

HOW BLOGS CAN DELIVER
BUSINESS RESULTS
by John Nardini, executive vice president of Denali Flavors

Denali Flavors’ Moose Tracks ice cream is a top seller andpopular with those who have tried it. Still, many people havenever heard of the product. As such, one of Denali’s businessobjectives is to generate awareness of Moose Tracks, which
would then lead to a trial of the product. Once a customer tries
the ice cream, Denali’s experience shows that the product’s
impressive taste drives the customer to buy more.
The company decided to accomplish its marketing objectives
by creating a series of blogs aimed at different consumer groups(see the illustration). The blogs would link to the Moose Tracks
website (www.moosetracks.com) and be designed to funnel
visitors to the site. This way, awareness of the product would
happen naturally. In addition, the advertising/promotion costs
would be low compared to a traditional media effort.

(continues)

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Denali developed the following four blogs to address various
consumer interests:•

Moosetopia (www.moosetopia.com)

A fun entertain-

ment blog written by the Moose Tracks moose. The blog
reinforces the fun nature of the product, and every post isan awareness-generating effort for the brand, even if theauthor doesn’t talk directly about the product.
•

Free Money Finance (www.freemoneyfinance.com)

Thisblog deals with personal finance with a tagline of “free andsimple advice on money and finance designed to maximize
your net worth.” As Denali’s top-rated blog, because of
the popularity of the subject matter, this site is sponsoredby Moose Tracks ice cream (a fact that is positioned prominently in the top-right corner).
•

Team Moose Tracks (www.teammoosetracks.com)

Thisblog details the efforts of Denali’s cycling team to raisemoney for an orphanage in Latvia. It contains biking tips aswell as details on the fundraising. This blog serves several
purposes: It gains brand exposure for Moose Tracks and links
back to the main site; it reflects positively on the company’s(and the brand’s) efforts to help a charity; and it raises a
significant sum of money to help the orphanage.
•

Denali Flavors (www.denaliflavors.com)

Denali’s mostrecent blog gives an inside glimpse at what goes on in thecompany. This site will serve to attract comments and feedback directly from consumers on a wide range of topics.
As each site was developed, it was marketed using tactics
such as posting comments on other blogs, trading links withother sites, asking other sites for referrals, and writing articles

Learn What's Being Said about Your Company and Products

on sites that link back to the blog. All of these drove traffic
to the blogs which, in turn, drove traffic to the Moose Tracks
website.
Denali measures the impact of blogging by the effects on
the main site. To date, the blogs have helped Denali achieve thefollowing results:•

Site visits up 18 percent•

Hits up 11 percent•

Total time on site up 27 percent
There’s still a lot of work to do (including potentially launch-ing additional blogs), but the initial results are positive, while
the costs are very low. In addition to the time spent by Denali’s
blogger, the company has spent less than $500.

USE TECHNORATI TO TRACK A LINK
Active blog tracking is done in real time—that is, the results ofyour searches are up-to-the-minute views of what is happening in
blogging. The most popular active blog tracking service is Technorati. Developed as blog use was beginning to explode, Technorati’s main purpose and main feature is tracking what blogs aresaying about a specific subject and what blogs are linking to otherblogs by listing the newest entries first.
Technorati ranks all blogs based on the number of links thatpoint to that blog and calls this measurement authority. If yourblog has 50 links, it has more authority than one with only 10.
Many blogs have hundreds and thousands of links.
By going to Technorati’s website and entering the address foryour blog or your website, you can see how many blogs are linking

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to your site. While Technorati doesn’t currently track all blogs, itdoes track more than 14 million sites. If, for example, you entered CNN.com as the searching entity, you’d find a large numberof links to CNN—nearly 75,000 links from more than 40,000
sources, as shown in Figure 7-1. (Throughout this chapter, we will
use CNN as an example for our searches.)
Technorati presents the following information to its users:• Number and authority of links back to a website (known asbacklinks)• The rank of the blog being searched (if you own that blog)• The number of links in the last week
• Watchlists that notify you via e-mail of new links to yourblog

Figure 7-1

CNN shows off some link muscle.

Learn What's Being Said about Your Company and Products

You can use the information from Technorati in a number ofways. You could, for example, contact the most influential bloggers who have linked to your site and ask them for feedback on
your products, service, or brand. Several companies have evengiven such bloggers free samples of new products to demo andreview. (I also recommend that you thank bloggers now and again
for their links. It’s a small gesture and takes little time, but it’s appreciated. It’s the blogging equivalent to sending a note or a boxof chocolates.)
Because Technorati sorts results based on time of creation as
well as authority, you can also respond to new links in a timely
way. You could respond to negative comments, thank the user for
positive ones, and create positive new experiences largely thanks
to the information that Technorati provides. As a result of being
able to see who is linking to you, you can begin to see the community of people who link to you and link back to them to keep
their interest. In the world of blogging, nothing says “thank you”
like a backlink.
Sorting results based on authority lets you know who are themost “important” bloggers linking to your site. While linking isn’t
the only metric of a blogger’s success or influence, it’s always agood place to start. By being aware of the popularity of bloggers
linking to you, you can also be aware of your authority in the
blogosphere.
Finally, if you sign up as a member of Technorati, you can see
your link rank relative to other links. Once again, if your rankgoes up, that means you are growing in popularity faster than theblogs next to you in terms of links—so, for example, moving froma rank of 2000 to 1000 means that not only have you grown in
popularity, but you have grown in popularity much faster than theother blogs who were in the 2000 range when you were.

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Overall, Technorati provides a helpful snapshot view of yourblog’s visibility and is very good at allowing you to stay up to dateon new links so that you can track issues quickly and easily. Using
this service wisely will not only enable you to stay on top of what
is being said about you, but it will also allow you to see the growthof your visibility to bloggers.

ICEROCKET DOES BLOG SEARCH
IceRocket emerged in 2005 as a major contender for Technorati. It
boasts many of the same core blog search features but distinguishes
itself largely on speed. To put it simply, IceRocket finds posts faster,
makes them searchable more quickly, and returns results much
faster than Technorati.
IceRocket also includes a handful of features that Technorati doesn’t
offer, including the ability to “trend” your search over time (to see how
many results there were, for example) as well as the ability to subscribe
to a search quickly and have those results returned as a feed. This
allows you to find out about new information quickly and easily inareas of interest to you or your company. Much like PubSub, which
we’ll talk about a bit later in this chapter, IceRocket’s feeds can be used
to keep you up to date about who is saying what about your company,
thus allowing you to respond quickly to customer concerns, customer
questions, media coverage, or even competitor news.
Smart companies make use of searching via feeds to keep trackof the things that matter to their business: product names, competitors products, people who are happy or unhappy about thecompany, and even media attention.

MONITOR BLOGS WITH BLOGPULSE
Like Technorati, BlogPulse is an active tool for monitoring blogs
and, also like Technorati, it is free. Among the newest entries

Learn What's Being Said about Your Company and Products

to the blog monitoring field, BlogPulse is run by Intelliseek,
one of the world’s foremost business and consumer intelligencecompanies.
BlogPulse’s main feature set centers around trend analysis. BlogPulse is adding new features at an exciting rate, and you could
definitely do worse than subscribing to the Intelliseek blog (www.intelliseek.com/blog) or the BlogPulse blog (shown in Figure 7-2).
BlogPulse’s trend analysis is incredibly useful because it goesbeyond the “point in time” figures provided by Technorati. Technorati’s greatest weakness is that while you can tell from memory
if your stats are growing, you don’t have historical context for how
quickly your links are growing as a trend. BlogPulse provides thisinformation, as well as a large variety of other trend-based figures.

Figure 7-2 Intelliseek’s BlogPulse service is strong and diverse in its trend
searching capabilities.

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As an added bonus, the graphs are pretty enough to include in any
presentation, as shown in the visibility chart provided for CNN.com in Figure 7-3.
We’ll examine several of BlogPulse’s tools and discuss how to takeadvantage of the information they provide, including the following:
•
•
•
•
•

Link SearchComparative Search
Variable Timeframe Search
Conversation Tracker
Industry Trends

Link searching (Figure 7-4) returns a list of recent links backto the specified blog or website. Because BlogPulse tracks roughly
10 percent more blogs than Technorati, this figure will often behigher than Technorati’s estimates.

Figure 7-3 CNN.com’s visibility according to BlogPulse.

Learn What's Being Said about Your Company and Products

Figure 7-4 BlogPulse link searches provide a variety of options.

When performing link searches, a variety of options is at yourdisposal. You can search competitors, assign labels (for clearer
searching), and even modify the date range if you are hoping tocompare who is talking about what in a given time period—for
example, you could determine which news service had the mostpopular coverage of a particular event (Figure 7-5).

Figure 7-5 Links for top news services according to BlogPulse.

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The graph information provided by BlogPulse is generally noted
as a percentage of overall blog posts for that period, as opposed toa specific number of links. Here are a few examples of uses for thistype of information:••••

Comparing your historic visibility to a competitor’s
Tracking conversation about your company
Tracking mentions of your company after a crisis
Comparing responses to your press releases to responses on
your blog

BlogPulse Profiles
BlogPulse recently extended its offerings to include BlogPulse Profiles (www.blogpulse.com/profile). A profile of your blog provides
an overall rundown of important things to know: how popular itis, how many links it contains, what other blogs talk about similar
things (great for reaching out into the blogging community), anda wealth of other information. This isn’t the kind of thing you’dneed to view daily—monthly is more appropriate—but it provesthat lots of information is contained within each BlogPulse profile.
Not only is it a great tool for tracking your blog, but because profiles are public, you can also track competitors’ blogs or websites.
Track the Conversation
Another major feature of BlogPulse is the Conversation Tracker,
shown in Figure 7-6. This tool allows you to see how the blogosphere is responding to a specific event or a specific post.
Remember the Kryptonite lock scandal discussed back in
Chapter 3? BlogPulse’s Conversation Tracker shows the resultsof a search on this particular issue in Figure 7-7 (http://showcase.blogpulse.com/kryptoniteconversation.html):

Learn What's Being Said about Your Company and Products

Figure 7-6 BlogPulse’s Conversation Tracker.

Technorati’s semiregular “state of the blogosphere” report shows
the scandal in context, as shown in Figure 7-8.
Overall, BlogPulse’s service is ideal at measuring reaction to an
event, visualizing linking trends, and comparing individual blogs,
websites, or pages for popularity and visibility. BlogPulse provides
a level of context that the other search and trend services don’tallow—one that your company should take distinct advantage of.

Figure 7-7 A small portion of the Conversation Tracker results for the
Kryptonite lock scandal.

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Figure 7-8 The Kryptonite lock scandal report.

PUBSUB: TELL ME WHAT I WANT TO KNOW
While active searching is helpful, the problem with active searching is that it requires that you go out and get the information. Youmight find it more helpful if the information simply came to you
instead of you having to go find it. This is where passive searchingcomes into play.
Passive searching provides much the same results provided byTechnorati, but it provides them as a feed to which you can subscribe. Every time a new link (or whatever you’re looking for) is
found, the feed is updated so that you get up-to-the minute results
for the particular issues that interest you.
The fastest, most popular, and most versatile passive search engine
in the world is PubSub, shown in Figure 7-9.

Learn What's Being Said about Your Company and Products

Figure 7-9 PubSub’s interface provides a variety of features right up front.

PubSub allows you to focus on one or more areas of interest,
including press releases and newsgroup posts, as well as the allimportant weblog entries. If we do a search for CNN, we get a very
different type of response from PubSub, as shown in Figure 7-10.
Unlike other search services, PubSub doesn’t actually display
search results. This is because PubSub isn’t designed to search the
past—it’s designed to search the future. PubSub’s database growsby thousands of entries every minute and, as it does, PubSub notifies you by updating your personal feed.

Figure 7-10 PubSub doesn’t display your results; it simply produces a feed towhich you can subscribe.

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Blog MarketingYour Subscription Stack, shown in Figure 7-11, is a list of theitems for which you are searching, the results of which will be
displayed in your feed reader, thanks to your own personal feed.
You could add other terms here, such as BBC News, Fox News,ABC News, and so on. You could also search for specific products,
phrases, or other specific information. There is no search too small
for PubSub to track for you.
After you have created your Subscription Stack, simply subscribe to the feed and wait. As PubSub finds new items related toyour queries, it will notify you by updating the feed.
You can use this information in a variety of ways. Most important, though, is that this information allows you to be able
to respond to issues in a timely manner. If you find out within
20 minutes that a customer is having issues getting your productto work, it prepares you to respond to that issue more effectively
than if the first time you hear about it is in The New York Times.
By the time an issue hits the wider blogosphere, you are alreadyin crisis prevention mode. Subscribing to PubSub feeds means you
can find out about issues faster than most bloggers, and it means
you can take care of issues before they become crises.

Figure 7-11

PubSub’s Subscription Stack lets you combine searches into
one feed.

Learn What's Being Said about Your Company and Products

SUGGESTED PUBSUB SEARCHESYou can use PubSub in a variety of ways. Here is a list of somevaluable search ideas:•Your company name•Your main products•Your competitor’s names•

I love followed by your company name•I hate followed by your company name•

Similar I love and I hate searches for your main products,
your competitors, and your competitor’s products

CHOOSING HOW TO SEARCH
As you can see, a vast array of blog search engines are out there,
and the information I’ve presented so far doesn’t cover all of them.
You’ll find blog search offerings from Feedster (www.feedster.com), Bloglines (www.bloglines.com), and even Google (http://
blogsearch.google.com). This space will continue to grow over the
coming months, fueling new innovations, better tools, and better
tracking and ultimately providing the information you need when
you need it.
Most companies use a balance between active searching via services like BlogPulse, Technorati, and IceRocket and more passive
searching via services like PubSub, Feedster, and Google’s Blog
Search. Using each tool to its fullest potential, and being awareof new tools as they emerge, will help you not only stay on top of
who is talking about you, but will ultimately enable you to participate more effectively in the conversation.

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WEB STATS, YOUR WAY
The best way to view what’s happening on your website or blog is
to view the statistics related to your site. Looking into the past fortrends, inflection points, and depressions can be incredibly valuable both in the predictive sense as well as by providing a framework for making decisions. Depending on how your website isconfigured, you can check the stats for your blog and your overallsite in a variety of ways.
Three key types of past activity statistics can provide important
information:• Web stats Such as those about who is accessing your site
and what they’re doing• Position stats Such as where you fit into the rest of the
web based on visibility• Google stats Such as how many people are linking to you
Web stats are generally used with some kind of tool that aggregates what visitors to your site have done, where they camefrom, and various kinds of information about your computer. Like
reading the Wall Street Journal or The New York Times to see how
your stock is doing, you aren’t really seeing individual trades, orvisits—you are seeing the overall result of a day’s worth of trading,or visiting. Web stats programs are similar in nature: they display
a variety of information, a summary of what has happened thatday or month.
If your website is not configured to disclose web stats, you can
use external statistics tools such as StatCounter (www.statcounter.com) or 3DStats (www.3dstats.com). Both of these require thatyou modify your site to contain a snippet of code that tracks visitors
the same way a regular web stats package would. The only downsideis that because of the way the code snippets work, many of theseLearn What's Being Said about Your Company and Products

are not as accurate as more traditional web stats programs. Eitherway, as long as you have the stats, you can begin to analyze them.
The important thing with web stats isn’t the numbers themselves—as with stocks, the upward or downward trends matter.
In addition to general web stats, you can track the value yourblog is bringing to your company by using Google stats to track
how many people are linking to your site (use the search term
link:mysite.com), how many pages Google is of aware of on yoursite (use the search term site:mysite.com), or even how many otherpages are aware that your site exists (use the search term allinurl:
mysite.com).
You can also use other services that provide position stats, suchas Alexa and MarketLeap, to gauge your visibility in your industry
relative to that of your competitors.

ALEXA, MY DARLING
Alexa (www.alexa.com) provides a set of tools designed to help you
ascertain the popularity and visibility of your site. On the downside, Alexa stats are based on the traffic behavior of it 50 million
users, which, while good, isn’t necessarily accurate. The goal with
Alexa stats is to look at upward and downward trends more thanspecific figures.
One of the key pieces of information Alexa provides is overallrank. Generally speaking, it is more important to know what classof rank your site belongs to than actually monitoring the rank
specifically. A site outside the Top 150,000 is considered irrelevantto the Internet at large. A Top 100,000 site is visible and likely
popular within a niche. A Top 50,000 site is visible to the wider
Internet, and so on and so forth. The rank isn’t the most importantpiece of data, though in CNN’s case, as shown in Figure 7-12, a
rank of 24 means it is a very, very popular site.

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Figure 7-12

Alexa presents basic information about CNN.com.

On the main Alexa results page, you can also see what similarsites users are visiting, some general stats, and user reviews. The
meat of what Alexa provides is located under the See Traffic Details link.
While experts debate the actual usefulness of Alexa’s stats overall, the stats do have a unique way of capturing exactly the typeof data you may be looking for. Not only does Alexa plot andgraph (up to two years in the past) page views and Alexa rank,
it also establishes a “Reach” rank, which represents how manyusers out of an average million are not only aware of your site,
but visiting it.
Alexa also provides information about similar sites, which
can be useful for finding sites like yours, as well as information
about sites linking in, which provides a list of sites that link toyours. While this information is useful, more effective ways offinding this information, such as IceRocket and BlogPulse, areavailable.

TAKING THE LEAP
While Alexa is largely a measurement of visibility, it is not the only
measure of visibility. Marketleap (www.marketleap.com) provides

Learn What's Being Said about Your Company and Products

a series of tools designed to verify your search engine visibility.
Because most people arrive at new sites via search engines, mostindustry experts consider search engine visibility at least as important as overall visibility.
Unless you are a search engine expert, the only tool you will
likely want to use will be the Link Popularity Check. This tool
will rate your site based on the number of links through all searchengines to your site.
In addition, you can select an industry so that you can see where
your site is positioned within your industry, and you can evencompare your site’s results to other specific sites. You enter othersites’ URLs, as shown in Figure 7-13, and Marketleap will provide
information about your site’s visibility relative to these sites.
Marketleap counts each of the links in a selection of top searchengines and then adds those figures together to determine the overall score, as shown in Figure 7-14. This allows you to determine
your overall Internet visibility, as determined by search engines.
While this figure isn’t as pretty as Alexa’s, it is more accurate interms of how easily users can and will find you.
These figures are interesting to watch as you begin blogging, as
blogging makes you several times more visible to search engines
than just having a regular website.

Figure 7-13

Marketleap allows you to see your site’s visibility relative to competing sites.

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Figure 7-14

Marketleap shows CNN.com relative to other major news sites.

GOOGLE IS KING
Google (www.google.com) is the Internet’s most popular searchengine, by several orders of magnitude. You can use Google in avariety of ways to determine your overall visibility as well as yourimportance to Google. Generally speaking, you can look for three
key measurements from Google:• Number of backlinks• Number of pages indexed• Your Google PageRank
More backlinks are better than less, because Google counts
backlinks to determine how important your site is overall. This
“how important” measurement is then reflected in a subjective figure called your Google PageRank. You can see your Google backlinks by entering link:mydomain.com, as shown next—whichshows that CNN.com is linked to more than 150,000 times.

Obviously it’s important for this figure to grow. The more people link to you, the more people find you, and the more Google
sends people to you. It’s a glorious circle of visitors and visibility that, ideally, grows over time. This number of links is then

Learn What's Being Said about Your Company and Products

reflected in the subjective Google PageRank. PageRanks are numbered 1 through 10, with each one being an order of magnitude
more important than the last, much like the Richter scale. If it
takes 100 links to get a PageRank of 3, then it takes 1000 links
to get a PageRank of 4, and 10,000 links to get a PageRank of
5—you get the idea.
To check your PageRank, download the Google Toolbar (http://
toolbar.google.com). Then go to your website, and the PageRank
will be displayed as a green bar, as shown here (you hold yourmouse over the bar for a second to see the numerical rank).

You don’t need to check PageRank very often, as it isn’t updated by Google very often. By checking it once a quarter, or once
every six months, you will see if your site is rising from obscurity
to mega-importance in Google’s eyes. A PageRank of 5 to 6 ishealthy, a PageRank of 7 to 8 is amazing, a PageRank of 9 to 10
puts you among a handful of top sites on the Internet.

WRAPPING IT UP
In this chapter we looked at how and why you should monitor
your overall and blog presence and how to respond to comments effectively. We also looked in depth at a variety of tools
and how they can be used. Each of the tools outlined in thischapter allows you to respond to different issues in different
ways, as well as providing context for the success of your blogging endeavors.
Knowledge is power, and the information gleaned fromthese search methods will give you a major advantage over your

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competition, because you will instantly know what your customers,
partners, and the media are saying.
In Chapter 8, we’ll look at how to participate in your blog, including how to start your own. Then, in Chapter 9, we will lookat one of the most important tools in your toolbox: negative comments. Most companies are afraid of negative comments, but thereality is that a negative comment might just save your company,
if you respond to it in the right way.

8

PARTICIPATINGIN YOUR BLOG

The blog had been up for a month before the trouble began. Everyday, Arnold had posted a different idea about how companies could
use effective signage to improve business. Writing the blog had beensurprisingly easy—he just followed the conversational format that
June had recommended. He usually blogged about whatever cameup during the day.
Late in the week he had blogged about a sign he had made forZylon Industries. It was a beautiful piece of work, an enormous
banner that stretched across the front of the Zylon building
downtown. The sign had been printed in pieces and then assembled
on the site. It featured a multicultural assemblage of people and the
tag line, “Employees—Our Greatest Asset.”
On Monday morning, he saw a very nasty response to his post:
u suck! zylon crooks defraud investors and laid off lots of their“assets” last yr! i hope they don’t pay u like they don’t pay us. signs
stupid. u stupid.
Friday 11:12 PM by anonymous

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The comment had been up all weekend! And several morecomments of the same vein were all undoubtedly from past Zylon
employees and all displayed some rather colorful profanity. Anyof his customers who had visited his blog would’ve seen this—not
to mention Zylon bigwigs, who were probably wondering why hewould allow such defamation on his blog. And they werea $100,000-plus account.
“June!” he yelled. “We have to delete this immediately.”
June read the post over his shoulder. Her hair was now fluorescentgreen. “Not so fast, boss.”—Part 3 of “Blog,” a short story by Joe FloodT

he key to succeeding in this new blog-enabled world is to go
beyond simple awareness into monitoring what’s going on,
respecting the people involved, and participating in the conversation. It simply isn’t good enough to know that a massive community of people who are important to your business are all blogging,reading blogs, and being influenced by bloggers. You need to begin
creating meaningful and memorable experiences and conversations with your customers.

DON’T TREAT PEOPLE AS CONSUMERS
Your customers are not just consumers. They are your marketing department, your product development specialists, and thesecret to your success—anSuccessful blogging means that you treat
untapped resource waiting
people as people and not just customers.
to be invited to the table.
The concept of involving your customers in your business isn’t
a new one; blogging just takes it to a new level, largely because youoften aren’t inviting just one or two people to become involved,

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you’re inviting the whole world. By inviting the whole world, youopen yourself and you business to a great opportunity to create
positive and memorable experiences with your customers and toestablish long-term relationships, thanks to those experiences.
As long as you can remember that people are people, and notjust customers or consumers, you will be able to meet them where
they’re at—whether they are having a bad day and just need a little
help and understanding or they are so happy they’re floating on
air. Successful blogging means that you treat people as people andnot just customers.

MEETING CUSTOMERS WHERE THEY’RE AT
My friend Paul loves to bike. He claims that he spends roughly$2000 a year on his mountain bikes, adjustments, parts, andgear—and based on the looks he gets when he’s riding in the street
I believe him. Until recently, Paul was a typical consumer: heshopped all over town looking for minor savings here and there,
grilled salespeople on the minutiae of mountain biking, and generally was a pain in everyone’s behind. That is, until a fateful day
in late 2004 when his front tire blew out on a country road in the
middle of nowhere.
Paul stood around for nearly an hour debating whether heshould hide the bike, walk home, and pick it up later, or stickaround a wait for someone to help, but he felt paralyzed by the fear
his bike would be stolen. While he was agonizing over the decision, a friendly samaritan came along. He offered to put the bikein the back of his truck and take it to the nearest bike shop; Paulgratefully accepted.
It wasn’t until they arrived at the bike shop and the kind citizen
went to the back of the shop to find Paul the right tire and tube
that Paul realized the samaritan was actually the shop’s owner. This
small businessman not only went out of his way to help Paul, but

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at only one store with no grilling, no bartering, and no hassling.
He trusts that the business owner won’t rip him off, will keep him
informed, and will be a partner in his passion.
This business owner is an example of some of the best relationshipbased, customer-centric marketing possible—the quintessential
example of a business owner who respects his customer. First andforemost, he respected Paul, his situation, and his passion. He also
went above and beyond the call of duty to meet Paul where he wasat. If he hadn’t seen Paul standing on the side of the road stranded,
he would never have earned Paul’s trust and, ultimately, would
have lost a lifelong ally.
When approaching blogging, bloggers, and your customers
who are participating in or reading the conversation, respect is themost important component. Once you’ve learned to respect yourcustomers, their experiences, and their input, you will be able tocontribute effectively to the conversation in a real and meaningful
way. Thanks to blogs, you can find customers who are stranded on
the side of the road, and you can offer them a lifelong relationship.
The challenge for you is in realizing that customers are people,
too, and they deserve respect.

DIRECT FEEDBACK
When you blog, you’ll receive customer feedback in three ways:• E-mail or comments posted on your blogs• Comments posted on other blogs• Posts on their own blogs
You succeed in respecting these people in the same three ways.
Each of these presents unique challenges but also unique opportunities for success and for creating positive experiences.

Participating in Your Blog

Generally, comments on a blog are short and succinct. Some
comments may be long, but the vast majority will be simple feedback that comes in at under 100 words. Some people simply aren’t
comfortable leaving comments or aren’t aware that comments areeven possible, which is one of the reasons having a clear way to email your company from every page is essential. These e-mails willoften be longer than a blog comment would have been, purely because e-mail is the type of medium for which a 100-word response
isn’t enough; that’s because in e-mail, people provide context, whilein blog comments they mainly provide reaction.
In a blog comment, someone is reacting directly to your post,
sometimes viscerally, often without providing context. This is one of
the reasons it’s important for you to respond to the comments you
receive regarding your blog.
Ten Tips for Comment Response
Here are 10 tips for responding to e-mail or comments successfully:• Thank them for their feedback. Realize that it took effort bothto find you and write a comment or e-mail. It’s importantthat you respond with thanks instead of anger, annoyance,boredom, or any of the other emotions that are so easy toslip into when dealing directly with people—especiallyangry people.
• Acknowledge the issues. This doesn’t mean you have to say youwere wrong when you weren’t; it means you acknowledge
that the person has had an issue, and that you will do yourbest to resolve it.
• Admit where you’ve failed. Admitting failure can be difficult
for companies, especially in these days of massive lawsuits
and the like. However, being real will not only calm people
down, it will likely dissuade further anger.

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Blog Marketing• Solve any problems. Having admitted that someone is upset
and admitted any failures on your company’s behalf, solve theproblem. People are accustomed to responses such as “That’s
our policy” or “We regret any inconvenience this may havecaused.” You can do better than this.
• Take ownership. Treat the problem as if it were your own. Callin resources as necessary. Note how processes aren’t working
and get your company in gear to fix them.
• Respond quickly. Responses in under 24 hours are the mosteffective. If it’s taking you more than 24 hours to respond toa query, you’re having problems. Responses in under an hour
are a conversation, and conversations are powerful vehicles
for positive experiences.
• Answer questions. Sometimes, people just want to know asimple answer. Instead of dismissing a question as unimportant (after all, the customer isn’t upset), look at it as anopportunity not only to create a positive experience, but tobegin a dialogue with the questioner and start a relationshipbetween that person and your company.
• Be friendly and courteous. Treating customers with the respectthey deserve, and treating them with the respect you’d appreciate from others, is central to any customer responses.
• Don’t use form letters. As a rule, people do not like to be toldthat your time is more precious than theirs. A form letter
does exactly that: it says that you didn’t have the time tocraft a personal response, so you’ve sent them a canned one.
People not only feel disrespected when they receive form letters, it’s almost a betrayal of trust when they come directly to
you with an issue in a comment or an e-mail and you dismiss
it with a form letter. Be personal. Be real. Be human.
• Follow-up on any issues or questions. It may be that someone
isn’t actually having an issue at all. Maybe he or she just has

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a suggestion or wants to thank you for being so great. Eitherway, check back with people after a few days or a week tomake sure that issues are resolved to their satisfaction, thatsomeone has responded to their suggestion, and that there’s
nothing more that needs to be done to create even more positive experiences for them.
Most of these principles are simply common sense—good business and customer service practices. Some might be antithetical toyour company’s policies, but most likely they are already part ofyour customer service mentality—or they should be. Problem is,sometimes these things don’t transfer onto blog comments or into
e-mails related to blog posts, often because customers can be very
raw in their responses, something that is difficult to respond to in
the best of times. Treat all your customers as people, and they willtreat you and your company as a valued part of their life.

RESPONDING ON OTHER BLOGS
Responding to comments on your blog is fairly easy, largely
because if you decide to take the conversation into e-mail, you
can easily do so. Responding to comments on other blogs is much
more difficult, because the only place to respond is in the actualcomment postings. As a result, you get only one chance to make an
impression that conveys respect and deals with the issues.
To set the stage, here are some examples of great responses
from companies in blog comments. Here’s a comment made on
a blog after a user explained that he couldn’t install QuickBooks(from http://jkontherun.blogs.com/jkontherun/2005/05/intuit_
responds.html):
I’m the QuickBooks Online Edition General Manager as well as the Acting
Leader for our Community efforts (another fancy title :-) for QuickBooks

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Blog Marketingcustomers like yourself. Speaking on behalf of our new team of Community
employees, as well as for the good intent within all Intuit employees, your pain
and vocal advocacy did not go unnoticed. While I’m not yet involved in fixing
this specific problem, I will share that this pain of yours is making the roundsof executives and will be used with many Intuit employees as a powerful example of how Intuit employees can do more right by more of our customers.
Again, thank you very much for taking the time to write it down. I believe
the power of blogs like yours isn’t so much that it enables people to have avoice that compels companies respond, but that it’s so easily visible to findout the pain in the first place that solving the problem becomes an easierprocess. While unfortunate that the world works this way today, blogs andpeople like you move us forward towards a better place.

And here’s a comment in response to a user having issues withher site (from www.corante.com/getreal/archives/2005/05/16/
whats_going_on_at_technorati.php#23458):
Kim, please see my comments on your blog. For some reason, we classified
your blog as spam and stopped updating it. I reclassified it just now, so you
should be seeing your recent posts in our index in a little while. Sorry.

Here are some tips for responding to a comment on someone
else’s blog:• Apologize. You don’t necessarily need to say you were wrong,but saying “I apologize that you had to go through this experience” can be enough.
• Ask the commenter to e-mail or phone you. Leaving your contact information means you’ve provided an opportunity forthat person to contact you directly. It’s their choice to pursue
the matter, and the ball’s in their court.
• If appropriate, leave an explanation as to what happened andwhat is being done to fix it. This works only if there was a
failure on your part that is already being addressed or soon

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will be addressed. Use this response sparingly. It’s good to
get that message out in public, but it’s bad if the situation
doesn’t get better eventually (that is, you say something will
be fixed and then it isn’t).

HOW NOT TO RESPOND
The story of Joi Ito, a prominent blogger, and SMS.ac, an SMS
communications company, is a great example of responding
badly to a blogger. Joi, though, is one of the top 10 most popular
bloggers on the planet, which makes this an even bigger misstep. Joi had complained about the service SMS.ac was offering.
The company’s response? A cease and desist letter!
Joi chronicles the story on his blog (http://joi.ito.com/
archives/2005/02/22/letter_from_kevin_b_jones_of_smsac.html)
in an open and engaging way. He received more than 70 comments and more than 20 trackbacks (links on other blogs pointing out this story). All considered, more than 200 comments
about this issue are spread across various blogs. And what did
the letter from the SMS.ac attorneys say?
UNLESS YOU IMMEDIATELY CEASE AND DESIST YOUR ILLEGALACTIVITY, YOU WILL BE PROSECUTED

While responding effectively to negative comments can bechallenging, as we’ll see in Chapter 9, a unilateral cease and desist (without any details of the “illegal activity”) probably isn’t
the best way to deal with the situation. The key to responding
to comments on other blogs is to keep the response short andsweet. Don’t indulge your desire to write a long letter (rememberthat the typical blog comment is less than 100 words).

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RESPONDING DIRECTLY
Since we have already examined how to find other bloggers who
are linking to you, you may now be aware of some cases in which a
blogger perhaps wasn’t entirely happy with your company, service,or products. These things happen; it’s impossible to be perfect evenon the best of days.
You can easily find posts about your company; the challenge isto respond to them appropriately and effectively. A blogger’s post
is an invitation to dialogue, because bloggers are accustomed to(and value) conversation and relationships. As a result, the single
best way to deal with a blogger’s comments is to respond directly
to them.
Here is how to respond to a blogger who has written something
about your company to which you need to respond:• Send the blogger an e-mail using the tools outlined in responding to comments and e-mails earlier in the chapter.
• Offer something that is appropriate, given the blogger’s
state of mind. (Later in this chapter we’ll look at how Intuit
offered James Kendrick a free upgrade of its software
package.)• Leave a comment on the post noting that you’ve e-mailed
the blogger. This will let others know that you care and are
dealing with the issue.
All of the rules of courtesy and respect hold true during thisexchange. Some bloggers like to publish the e-mails and lettersof companies who contact them, so be aware that this may happen, and be sure to word your letter with that in mind. Don’t see
this as a threat—bloggers are typically honored when a company
responds directly to them (unless the response is a cease and desist
letter, of course).

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At the end of the day, each of these interactions offers you an
opportunity to create a positive experience and to lead a blogger tobecome a passionate evangelist for your company.

CREATE PASSION
All of this talk about creating positive experiences is really all about
one thing: turning people from consumers of your product (andtherefore takers) into pasThe key to creating passionate customers is
sionate evangelists and to evoke an emotional response in them and to
customers evangelists (andgive them a healthy outlet for that emotion.
therefore givers).
The process that defines the creation of passionate customer
evangelists is an interesting one, as it involves contact with customers as people, positive experiences that reinforce their desire to havea relationship, a reason to be passionate, and a space in which toexpress that passion.
Creating true passion in your customers requires more thanthem being aware of you and having a positive experience. It evengoes beyond a fantastic experience that exceeds their expectations.
The key to creating passionate customers is to evoke an emotional
response in them and to give them a healthy outlet for that emotion. A public blog should, at a minimum, hit these two points. It
must evoke an emotional response and it absolutely has to be a safe
location for your customers to convey that emotion.

VALUE YOUR CUSTOMERS
To get to this place, you need to go beyond the typical “customer”
mindset. You need to make your customers mean more to you
than your business does.
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participate in your company. Moving from a consumer to customer
mentality is important, because consumers are a faceless groupwhose sole purpose is to spend money. Customers aren’t faceless,but they are still a large nameless group that is hard to pin down.

The challenge with consumer evolution is that the changes
that are required don’t happen in customers—they happen in you.
And not only that, but the changes become exponentially moredifficult the closer you are to valuing your customers as owners.
Moving from a consumer to a customer isn’t too hard, as it’s just a
simple change in perspective. But going from a customer to a person requires that you not only treat each customer as an individualwith unique needs, moods, and passions, but that you be prepared
to anticipate those needs and respond to them. Valuing your “persons” as contributors takes an even larger step, as it means valuing
the input they provide for your company, even (and especially) inways you don’t like and in places you don’t want them to see.
Truly valuing your customers as owners takes even more effort,
as it means realizing that they are actually more important thananything else. For you to transform your customers into owners,
you need to expend at least 10 times the energy keeping current
customers happy that you spend acquiring new customers.

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Thinking of your customers as owners is very much like how
you treat your partner or spouse. If the only way you communicated was via newsletters you left on the fridge or neon signs on
the front lawn, how valuable, important, and intimate would yourrelationship be perceived? Imagine talking to your customers as
individuals every day and running important decisions by them.
How healthy, valuable, and even (gasp!) profitable would yourcompany become? Every customer would be just as responsible foryour success as you are and would be just as prepared to promote
your business, passionately advertise what is going on, and thinkcreatively about ways for you to succeed.

DEVELOP A BLOGGING STRATEGYPart of respecting the conversation you’re about to begin havingwith your customers (or contributors or owners) is to participate
with a purpose. The number of companies who simply hop into
blogging and post whatever they want scares me.
One particular client of mine seemed like a dream opportunity. The company was willing to try new things, totally into thepossibilities of blogging, and seemed to have that most elusive oftraits—they really “got” blogging. However, after several monthsof working closely with the team, the company ended up doing its
own thing—and doing it very badly indeed.
Originally, they launched their blog with the advice my associates and I had given them: they provided a “weird and wacky
news from around the Web” kind of blog, largely because that’s
how they marketed themselves—“virally,” via word of mouth. A
week later, they changed the blog to a pornographic blog, arguingthat the traffic would be higher. The final week, it degraded evenfurther into a tangled mess.

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Obviously, I don’t feel comfortable naming this client, both fortheir sake and because it won’t benefit the point of this story. The
point is, if you don’t know what you’re doing, don’t know where
you’re going, and don’t have a real strategy in place for getting there,
you’re more likely to flounder around making a fool of yourself
than actually getting any real returns from blogging.
As you begin looking at blogging, you need to start thinking ofyour blog in a strategic way. Do you have a public relations goal?
If so, you need blog relationships. Do you have media tracking? If
so, you need blog tracking. Do you have a business plan? If so you
need a blog plan. Everything you do on your blog needs to havea reason, and you need to use metrics and measures for success. If
you have no goals, then you can’t determine whether you are succeeding in your blog or not.

CRAFTING A STRATEGY
Any successful blogging strategy includes a number of importantconsiderations, and yours may have more or less of the following:• Reasons for starting This includes your values, vision,
objectives, goals, and motivating factors (such as competitors, market pressures, or parent company directives).
Knowing how the blogging idea came up in the first placeis important, because while it may have been the original
motivating factor, that doesn’t mean it’s the best one youneed to have in going forward.
• Ways to determine success What ideas are being proposed? What drivers can be evaluated and turned into metrics? Who do you need to relate to (the media, your partners,
your contractors, your suppliers, or your customers)? How
often will your success be measured? Ultimately, you needParticipating in Your Blog

to know what blogs are being written, for what reason, andhow you can ascertain their individual and collective levelsof success.
• Ownership and accountability Who is in charge of yourvarious blogs, and to whom do they report? Do the blogs serve
purely a marketing function, will they fall under IT (as many
website activities do), or will they be addressed at the senior
management level? Accountability is even more important
than who will run your blogs, as accountability determines
the long-term success of your blogs. Even if you have the rightteam running your blogs, if the wrong person is dealing withissues that come up, the blogs may be unsuccessful.
Many other considerations lead to a successful blogging strategy, but once you identify what you’re trying to accomplish, how
you’ll get there, and how you’ll know when you get there—as wellas figuring out who will write which blogs—you’re off to a goodstart.
Beyond creating your initial strategy, you also need to createa strategy for each blog. I’ve talked about GM’s blogging several
times in this book. GM has allowed each blog to take on an identity, and individuals and teams grow that identity through meansother than blogs, such as via podcasts, video, and other consumerdriven media. Perhaps the goals for one of your blogs would be
best served by adding a message board system, or maybe you want
to invite some of your readers to contribute from time to time.
Maybe you annually fly out a dozen of your most active commenters for a day of brainstorming. Whatever you decide to do,make sure you let each blog stand on its own and grow on its own.
You will generate good ideas for not only one of your blogs, but
for all of them.

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THE ELEVATOR PITCH FOR BLOGGINGIn April 2004, the Social Software Weblog (http://socialsoftware.weblogsinc.com) hosted a contest to see who could write the“perfect corporate weblog elevator pitch,” as judged by a panelof experts. The pitch would convince the executive “to sponsor
and resource a critical mass of weblogs in his/her organization
so that their benefits can be demonstrated in a meaningfulway.” Following the illustration is the winning pitch, written by
Lee LeFever of Common Craft (www.commoncraft.com).

First, think about the value of the Wall Street Journal tobusiness leaders. The value it provides is context—the Journal

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allows readers to see themselves in the context of the financial
world each day, which enables more informed decision making.
With this in mind, think about your company as a microcosmof the financial world. Can your employees see themselves in thecontext of the whole company? Would more informed decisions
be made if employees and leaders had access to internal news
sources?
Weblogs serve this need. By making internal websites simple
to update, weblogs allow individuals and teams to maintain online journals that chronicle projects inside the company. These
professional journals make it easy to produce and access internalnews, providing context to the company—context that can profoundly affect decision making. In this way, weblogs allow employees and leaders to make more informed decisions throughincreasing their awareness of internal news and events.

Beyond the Blog
Don’t stop at blogging. Once you’ve begun a conversation withyour customers, you can’t stop doing it. Look for other ways
within your company to involve customers as evangelists, productdevelopers, marketers, spokespeople, and other roles. If there’s one
thing blogging will teach you, it’s that people not only want to tell
you how to run your company, they also want to tell you how togrow it.
Part of learning to listen, then, is learning whom to listen to. We
covered the technicalities of searching earlier in this book; having
a strategy for searching, and a process for dealing with what you
find, are important components of an overall successful blogging
strategy.

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DEVELOPING COMMENT GUIDELINES
As you begin to blog, you will receive comments to your posts. It’s
great to know how to respond to those comments, but at somepoint you need to lay out the commenting ground rules—after
all, you don’t want to see comment spam, nor do you want to see
distasteful comments on your blog.
Aspects of successful comment policies include the following:• Identify who owns the content. As a foundational legal matter,
it is important that you spell out whether the commenter oryour company owns his or her content. If the commenterowns it, he or she can ask for comments to be removed at any
time, while if the company owns it, your company will likely
have to review each individual comment to ensure you aren’t
engaging in libel against other companies, for example.
• Establish what types of comments aren’t allowed. Most blogs
don’t allow spam (comments that promote a product or service, unless of course it’s related to the discussion at hand).
Some blogs don’t allow any comments whatsoever. Others
don’t allow links. Figure out what types of comments are or
aren’t allowed, keeping your blogging strategy in mind.
• Determine whether or not comments are moderated. Many companies, and an increasing number of bloggers, have begun
moderating comments. This means that a comment won’t
show up on a blog until a human being at your company reviews it to make sure that it isn’t spam, isn’t vile, or isn’t illegal.
A moderator can protect your blog from all of these things.
However, using a moderator may slow down the conversation. While this is a choice your company needs to make, it’salso something you can revisit at a later date (for example, you
may choose not to moderate comments until you begin toexperience issues with spam or inappropriate comments).

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• Decide whether or not you will allow anonymous comments.
Anonymous comments are an interesting issue in the blogosphere. Until recently, most blogs allowed anyone to post as
anyone, even anonymously. Increasingly, though, as people
have begun posting either anonymously or as someone theyclearly aren’t (for example, Bill Gates, Bill Clinton, George
W. Bush, or Michael Jackson), some blogs are beginning to
remove comments that are obviously not from the actual person who left them, along with those that are anonymous.
• Decide how you will deal with questionable situations. If someone posts hateful comments, spam, irrelevant notes, or racist
or other inappropriate information, how will your company
deal with it? Will you remove these posts? Will you leavethem on the blog? Will you edit the comments?
A proper set of comment guidelines is important to your blogging strategy, so ensure that as you begin to look at how you’ll
accept comments, how you’ll respond to them, and how or if you’ll
remove them, you keep your blogging strategy close by to makesure that the comment guidelines match the tone, guidelines, andobjectives of your strategy.

SEARCH FOR INFORMATION
When you are conducting searches, whether it’s via Technorati, PubSub, BlogPulse, your web stats, or even new methods that have yet
to be invented, it’s important that you search for the right things.
Generally speaking, you want to search for four things:• Positive posts from people who love your company and/or
products• Comments about your competitors

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Each of these searching goals is a distinct challenge and presents
a unique set of opportunities for interacting with your customers
and creating positive experiences.

THEY LOVE ME! THEY REALLY LOVE ME!
Searching for people who love you and your company is one of theeasiest things to do—not because the technology for these searches
is unusual, but because all of us love to hear good things said about
us and the work we’re doing. It can be exciting, uplifting, and atrue joy to hear about how much people admire you and yourcompany. It can be a vindication to hear people say you’re on theright track, and it can make your day when you or your products
improve someone’s life.
But don’t let this be the only searching you do. If you hear only
the positive comments, nothing about your business will change
for the better. Because the blogosphere is enormous, you can easily
construct your own little echo chamber by seeking out blogs andrunning searches based solely on concepts that reflect well on you
and your company, on your frame of mind, and on how you see
the world. Although it’s important to stay in touch with the people
who love your company, you need to get the full spectrum of input
to make intelligent business decisions.
When you’re searching for information about your company,
you need to do three distinct things:• Read blogs Whether you’re looking for new blogs written
by passionate advocates for your company or blogs written

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by people who hate everything you stand for, subscribing
to the feeds of people who are in the trenches is absolutely
essential to getting real day-to-day feedback.
• Run searches Using PubSub, Feedster, or other tools discussed in this book, you can search for specific terms, depending on your goals.
• Invite feedback Ask for feedback on your own blogs. Or
e-mail bloggers that you know and respect and ask them for
feedback. The world of blogging isn’t passive, so get involved
in figuring out where your company is at.
Searching SuccessLet’s consider two popular consumer companies: General Motors
and Starbucks. Each company makes unique products for uniqueconsumers, and the Internet blog search results for either company
would therefore be very different.
In terms of blogs, try running searches on Starbucks blog andGM blog. Starbucks has a quite popular fan blog called “Starbucks Gossip” (http://starbucksgossip.typepad.com/), shown in
Figure 8-1, while GM has no single particular fan blog—rather,because the company makes a variety of products, its fan blogs
tend to be based on specific products, product lines, or types of
products.
Starbucks has company fans, while GM has fans of specificproducts, product lines, or types of products. To find GM’s particular fan blogs, you need to search at the individual product,
product line, or type of product level. Search for Corvette Blogs andChevy Blogs, and you’ll find that each returns a number of results.
Next, you can search for particular words with regard to GM
and Starbucks. This search is pretty easy; it involves adding thecompany name, product, or product line name with descriptive

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Figure 8-1

Starbucks Gossip is the blog to read if you’re Starbucks (or into
Starbucks).

words, such as love or great, as well as actions that people do withyour product, such as drink and drive (not together, obviously!).
Here are some suggested word searches that you could use for
GM and Starbucks:• GM Search for love corvette, corvette rocks, love chevy, drive
chevy, car ride, road trip, and test drive. Each of these searches
will result in responses that include positive comments aboutareas in which GM is interested—specific products, productlines, and activities people engage in with their vehicles.
• Starbucks Search for love starbucks, venti, morning coffee,
drink coffee, and star bucks. Each of these searches tries tofind information about the company, products, and activities in which the company is involved.

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The challenge with running such searches is that many resultsappear to have nothing to do with what you’re looking for, which
is why you need to continue refining the searches so that you getboth a wide range of results as well as useful ones. You don’t wantto narrow your searches so much that you don’t find all the comments, but you also don’t want to have to sift through hundreds ofuseless results with every search.
Finally, inviting feedback and creating dialogue is an importantconsideration. GM does this pretty successfully with its existing
blogs, though the company could begin branching out to otherproducts and product lines to expand this discussion. Starbucks,
however, often relies on other means of direct customer feedback.
One of the challenges for a company like Starbucks can be thatthe actual quality of products and service customers receive islargely dependent on individual stores and store managers. Starbucks needs to reach beyond the individual consumer level to the“passionate coffee drinker” level. Perhaps including searches for
addicted to coffee or coffee addict, and regularly talking with people
who write reviews at blogs like CaféGeek (www.cafegeek.com)
about how the company is doing, what they think of the products,
and so forth, would be a good idea.

SPYING ON THE COMPETITION
Knowing what your competition is doing, knowing what people
are saying about your competition, and knowing how people feel
about your competition are at least as important as knowing those
things about your own company. Your company will live or die on
its ability to outmaneuver, outthink, and outposition the competition, and blogs will help you do that like no other tool (except
perhaps bribing competing officials, which I don’t advocate).
The first rule of thumb is that for every search you run on yourself and your business, you should run a mirror search on your

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competition. If you want to know how much people love the Corvette, you’d better know how much people love the Mustang as
well. If you want to know how much people love having WiFi inyour coffee shop, you’d better know what the trendsetters think of
WiFi in all coffee shops.
Consider the following when spying on your competition:• Watch them like a hawk. This means knowing as much about
what the blogging world is saying about them as you can.
Search for every mention of their company names, for example, and have those results returned to you daily as a PubSub
feed.
• Know how they compare to you. The statistical analysis you
do weekly or monthly as part of knowing what people think
about you is important, but knowing those same things
about your competitors is an important leading indicator.
• Know what customers expect out of your competition. Often
times, customers will be begging for new features, innovations, and so forth. Apple Computer users have, for example,
begged for a G5 (Apple’s most powerful processor) laptop
for years. Knowing this allows Apple’s competitors to position their laptops as being “powerful enough for those whowant a G5.”
Watching your competition like a hawk can be a challenge, but
it can also be uniquely rewarding. One company with which I
consult actually ended up starting a blog that cataloged all the information they were gleaning. As a result, many of their competitors’ fans and passionate advocates began coming to this new blog
to talk about why they loved the company. The net result was thatthey had more information on their competitors’ most valuable
customers than their competitors did.

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Having the information on your competitors and their customers, and knowing what to do with that information, are two very
different things. First, of course, you can make comparisons: how
many people talk about your competitor on a given day versus
how many talk about you, and how does that trend map on a dayto-day and week-to-week graph? Are they getting more popularthan you? Did they get a larger response after the last tradeshow?
Do people more readily compare them to another valuable brand?
Do they compare your two companies side-by-side? All of thesetypes of questions are important, and properly researching yourcompetitors will prepare you to answer them.
Running searches on your company name and their company
name will show you all blog posts containing both names, which
is an important thing to see; it will tell you, for example, which
products or company customers believe is of greater value, is moredesirable, and is more “buzzworthy.”
Overall, the tools you use to watch your competitors are feedbased systems such as PubSub and Feedster, active search systems
such as Technorati and BlogPulse, and any other “creative” means(such as setting up a fan site for your competition) that you may
start. Each of these will yield different types of results and should,
therefore, be responded to appropriately.

THE STATE OF THE INDUSTRY
Knowing what people think about you, your company, and yourproducts is important, and knowing what they think about yourcompetitors and their products is crucial, but just as important as
either of these is knowing what people think about your industry.
People, in this case, can be analysts, industry experts, prominent
figures, and leaders in the industry, all the way down to the regularfolk who actually keep you employed by buying your products

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requires that you listen to all of these levels of voices. You can subscribe to industry leaders’ blogs (industry analysts, for example,
love starting blogs, probably because they love seeing their words
in print); for others, you may need to do searches.
Look in the following five places for industry information to get
you a good idea where your industry is going:• Analyst blogs These are a gold mine. Successful analysts
are actually quite smart. The folks at Jupiter Research, forexample, host a number of successful blogs, including analyst blogs like David Card (http://weblogs.jupiterresearch.com/analysts/card/) and Joe Wilcox (http://weblogs.jupiterresearch.com/analysts/wilcox/); industry blogs such as
Media (http://weblogs.jupiterresearch.com/toplevel/archives/
cat_media.html), Marketing (http://weblogs.jupiterresearch.com/toplevel/archives/cat_marketing.html), and Commerce(http://weblogs.jupiterresearch.com/toplevel/archives/cat_commerce.html); as well as a blog by Jupiter Media CEO
Alan Meckler (http://weblogs.jupitermedia.com/meckler/).
• Press release wire services All of the major press release wire services supply feeds these days. As a result, you
can either subscribe to all press releases for an industry or
you can search on the feeds. Because press releases are so
popular, PubSub allows you to search specifically on press
releases, and it automatically filters out all other content (www.pubsub.com/pressreleases.php). You can also do this withblogs (www.pubsub.com/weblogs.php) or even newsgroups(www.pubsub.com/newsgroups.php). Heck, you can evensearch based on U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission(SEC) filings to stay truly on top of your industry (www.pubsub.com/edgar.php).

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• Industry blogs While finding industry-defining blogs canbe a bit of a challenge (you’ll likely need to poke around alittle bit in blogrolls of bloggers who write on your industry),
subscribing to overall industry news, information, and insider details saves you a lot of time and effort. In reality, a
successful feed, search, and blog system means you likely
won’t have to read the newspaper to get this information—
unless of course you want to.
• Feed searches Try to do smart searches on PubSub orFeedster for terms that define your industry. You want to get
an overall, high-level view of where your industry is at on a
day-to-day as well as big-picture level.
• Yahoo! News feeds Finding out specifically what’s new
day-to-day can be a challenge. Most people rely heavily
on the newspaper, TV, or radio for this. Thankfully, you
can also get your news delivered via a feed. Efforts areunderway to let you download news to your MP3 player
and then have it read back to you (like a radio show).
Yahoo! News provides all of its news as feeds, including
specific industries and categories, and it offers the capacity to search the news for specific keywords and have thosearticles returned to you as a feed (just as Feedster does).
You can access Yahoo! News feeds at http://news.yahoo.com/rss.
Searching your industry, like searching for your company name,can provide a wealth as well as an overabundance of information,
which is why you need to start small, limiting your individual
searches until they are relevant and useful, and then build on that.
Otherwise, you’ll find yourself having to sift through quite literally thousands of results every day, which doesn’t help you or yourcompany make smart decisions.

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You may choose to work with a blog consulting company or a
media clipping company that specializes in blogs to create summaries of these for you on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. If you areable to do this yourself, having a hands-on view of your industry,competitors, and your company is invaluable; however, make sure

THE WEB VS. BLOGGING
Andy Lark, a prominent marketing consultant and speaker,
is often contrasting the world of blogs with the traditional
corporate and marketing worlds. He compiled the following
comparison list to show some of the main differences between
traditional websites and blogs.
Web = Organized

Blogosphere = Chaotic

Web = Predictable

Blogosphere = Unpredictable

Web = Find

Blogosphere = Browse

Web = Comprehensively

Blogosphere = Incompletely

shallow

deep

Web = Broad

Blogosphere = Niche

Web = Slow/ Web-time

Blogosphere = Instant/Blog-time

Web = Cold

Blogosphere = Warm

Web = Transmission

Blogosphere = Conversation

Web = Place

Blogosphere = Community

Web = Anonymous

Blogosphere = Personal

Web = Company

Blogosphere = People

Web = Content

Blogosphere = Expression

Web = Cookie Cutter

Blogosphere = Individual

Web = Closed

Blogosphere = Participatory

Web = Unresponsive

Blogosphere = Gives thanks

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it doesn’t bury you in information. Being aware and being productive can sometimes be two very different things.

NEGATIVE SEARCHING
The goal of searching isn’t necessarily to feed your ego. The goal of
searching for what your customers and potential customers are saying is to create more positive experiences, improve your products,
and become able to relate to your customers more effectively.
In Chapter 7, I discussed how you can use a variety of tools tofind information. More than any other search, the negative search
will bring direct value to your company and blog because it presents situations you can tackle head on, in an honest and authoritative way.
A negative comment found in a search is like suddenly realizing
your roof is leaking. It demands immediate attention. Thankfully,
most of the people who send negative comments are in fact asking for you to make the situation better. They are commenting or
posting about the experience because they believe they’ve run outof options.
Intuit, makers of QuickBooks and other financial software, is ashining example of the power not only of blog searching, but also
negative searching. Earlier this year, James Kendrick blogged that
he was having trouble activating his copy of QuickBooks. He had
recently upgraded his computer and had to reactivate the software.
But the QuickBooks website wasn’t working for him, and when hecalled Intuit, he was told to update his information on the website. In utter frustration, he wrote about what was going on in his
blog (http://jkontherun.blogs.com/jkontherun/2005/05/when_
activation.html):
At this point I cannot use my accounting software and am really stuck. Thisis a travesty considering the fact that QB is business accounting software

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the time in office settings. There is no one I can talk to, nowhere I can go formanual activation, nothing that I can see I can do at this point. Well, except
switch to another product.

Within hours, Intuit’s on-the-ball team found his post, sent him
an e-mail, and resolved the situation. Less than 24 hours after theoriginal event, James posted the conclusion (http://jkontherun.blogs.com/jkontherun/2005/05/intuit_responds.html):
After ranting about my difficulties activating my copy of Intuit QuickBooks
2003 I was contacted by an Intuit customer advocate (nice title) who not
only personally made sure my program was properly activated and registered but also informed me they were sending me the latest version of the
program. This was all unexpected and a very fast response to my original
blog post. I must commend Intuit for looking for customers who are having
problems with their programs and then taking the steps necessary to makesure they are happy with the results. Maybe they should take a hard look at
the current activation scheme and do what they can to improve the system
to minimize potential problems such as the one I experienced.

Not only that, but Intuit’s online general manager, Paul Rosenfeld,
dropped by to apologize for the issue and to point to the official
QuickBooks blog (http://quickbooks_online_blog.typepad.com/
blogmain/).
Overall, Intuit is a fantastic example of a company that not
only listened, and not only resolved the situation, but also went
above and beyond by creating a positive experience for Kendrick
by offering him a free upgrade. Obviously, it would have been best
if the situation had never occurred in the first place. But the nexttime Kendrick talks about Intuit and QuickBooks, which do you
think is he more likely to mention: the fact that he had a hard time
activating his product, or the fact that two separate Intuit reps

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helped him with his problem and they upgraded his software freeof charge?
Rules for Negative Searching
A number of lessons can be learned by Intuit’s example. The process
for dealing with a negative comment can be best summarized byusing the FIND concept that I learned early in my customer service
career. FIND stands for Find, Investigate, Neutralize, and Deliver.
The idea behind FIND is that you’ll never be able to create
positive customer experiences out of negative events if you first
don’t look for and find the negative events. Second, you need toinvestigate the event to see what the customer’s issue was, where
the failure was, and what you can do to alleviate the customer’s
concerns. Next, you need to solve, or neutralize, the customer’s
problem. Finally, you need to deliver a positive experience. WhenI taught this in university, I’d argue that we should actually strive
to over-deliver, as that creates not only a positive experience for thecustomer, but a memorable one. Under-promise, over-deliver, andthereby create fantastic experiences and memorable relationships
in the process.
Dealing with negative comments using the FIND methodology
allows you to ensure that not only is the customer properly treated
for their distress, but that he or she is rewarded for helping yourcompany become better at what you should already be best at:treating people like people.
But, if you aren’t looking, you can’t FIND it.

WRAPPING IT UP
Participating in your blog can be an exciting and scary business. How do you find and respond to comments, how do you
treat your users with respect, and how do you ultimately create

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passionate and engaging customers are all questions that businesses struggle with in or out of the world of blogging. In the next
chapter, we’ll deal with the biggest challenge, and opportunity, of
all: negative feedback. It can make or break any business. We’ll
look at examples, tips, and solid ways to turn negative feedback
into a positive experience not just for your customers, but for yourbusiness as well. After the next chapter, you won’t fear a negative
comment or a frustrated customer again—you’ll revel in them!

9

DEALING WITH NEGATIVITY

Throughout this book, I have discussed reasons for dealing
with the negativity that may or may not come with yourbusiness blog. Dealing with negativity requires that you make achange, often at the deepest levels of your company. Ask yourself
what promises your company makes and how any negative issues
that crop up reflect on those promises.
Having a promise and standing by it can be the most difficult
challenge in any business. Microsoft came to realize this early in
the growth of the company. The company promise was, and always has been, to create great software that makes people’s lives
easier. At the beginning, all it took to realize this dream was topresent an easy-to-use graphical system with which users could interact. These days, making great software has become synonymouswith making perfect software, a shift for which the company simply
wasn’t prepared.
Measuring Microsoft’s fall into popular culture derision is adifficult task, but the results are unmistakable. For example, theopen-source software movement had, for many years, a primary
goal of destroying what they called “Micro$oft,” “Microshaft,” or211
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returns millions of results in Google. (Open source software is free
software that isn’t created by companies but instead by thousandsof volunteers. The Open Source movement is infamous for its zeal
in mocking and deriding companies such as Microsoft.)
As with all truly great changes, Microsoft’s response to the criticism started out small. At first, Microsoft employees began participating in newsgroups, which scared many developers, because
they’d have to deal with real people. Then Microsoft began creating communities in which developers could interact with larger
groups of users. Finally, Microsoft found blogs, which allowed
company bloggers to ask the entire community directly what they
were looking for, instead of asking a small subset of people todefine the worlds’ desires.
Trying to understand why people can be so negative toward yourcompany, specifically on blogs, is a difficult thing. Jeremy Pepper, aleader in the world of public relations, chimes in with his piece “Why
Negativity Happens.” Over the course of this chapter, we’ll examine
the whys of negativity, as well as how to respond to negativity and how
to ensure you’ve properly dealt with potentially damaging issues.

WHY NEGATIVITY HAPPENS
by Jeremy Pepper, blogger and president of POP! Public
RelationsWith the ability to post anonymous comments on blogs, toset up blogs with a nom de guerre, or to pretend to be someone
you are not, the inherent nature of anonymity in the blogosphere lends itself to bravado. It is human nature that when

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one is hiding behind the pen—either via e-mail or on a blog—that the truer sense of one’s self will emerge, and with the easeof posting to a blog, the chance to tear down and be negativeis brought to the forefront.
How does a company deal with such negative attacks,
whether legitimate or not? For the legitimate attack, likely
worded in a less than sincere or kind way, the company should
respond. That’s just part of basic crisis communications. But
what of the unwarranted attack and negativity on a blog that
potentially can spread throughout the blogosphere? Should
a company respond to false allegations, or is a response justgoing to fan the flames? In the new nature of blogs, the lackof a response unfortunately can appear to be acquiescing andconfirming the complaint. And then the false allegation will
spread like wildfire. Containment at the beginning is the bestroute to take, to quash and respond to the false rumors andnegative attacks.
Attacking someone or something via a blog is easy. Beingthat forceful in a face-to-face situation is a different thing
altogether, and since it is easier to stand on a soapbox on theInternet—where no one knows who you really are—we will
begin to see more negativity and attacks on blogs.

THE VALUE OF NEGATIVITY
As Pepper mentions, and as I’m sure you’ve realized by now, being
in business sometimes means customers will be unhappy. In
Canada, where I live, one of the national landmarks is Tim Horton’s,a coffee and donut store. Tim Horton’s makes coffee that regular
Canadians love. To a coffee aficionado, it probably isn’t the best

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coffee in the world, but to most Canadians it’s soothing and reminds us of home, whatever that may be for each of us. However,even a place known for great coffee sometimes makes a bad pot,
just as even the best software companies have bad releases, etc.
So it should come as no surprise that sometimes customers
aren’t impressed by these lapses in quality. The traditional response
is something along the lines of “fix it, and make the customer
happy.” Sometimes that will mean giving a poor, cold Canadian abetter cup of coffee. Other times it might mean a refund.
Once, at one of Toronto’s better restaurants, I reached the bottom of my bowl and found a ladybug and an ant, both dead. I was
so disgusted that the manager gave our entire party their meals freeof charge, and then he gave us a $50 gift certificate. Sometimes,
fixing the situation and making the customer happy can cost you.
But letting an unhappy customer leave unhappy will cost you evenmore, as they’ll tell their friends of their bad experiences, which
will undoubtedly hurt your business more than a simple refund.
The restaurant in question managed to turn an extremely negative experience into a generally positive one. Each negative experience your customers have is ultimately an opportunity for you toturn it into a positive one, and therefore get your customers one
step closer to becoming evangelists for your company.

OTHER TYPES OF NEGATIVITY
It would be nice to think that every type of negative experiences isdue to minor lapses in quality. However, that simply isn’t the case.
Generally speaking, negative experiences can be grouped into four
different types.
Lapse in Product Quality
Whether it’s bad coffee or a fresh, new shirt with a loose hem,
sometimes products aren’t what they are supposed to be. Either

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way, most customers understand these lapses, unless, of course,
they get poor service or get lost in a inefficient process when they’relooking for things to be made right.
Poor Service or Support
Most customers have experienced bad phone service, such as interminable wait times or confusing phone systems. These are thebaby steps that lead to poor service. Worse is having customer
service reps yell at customers, tell them they’re lying, or simply
refuse to help. It happens, and these negative experiences are often
enough to cancel any positive ones built up with a customer. It’s
been said that it takes four positive experiences to cancel out a negative one, so ensuring that customers get the best possible support(especially when they’ve experienced a minor inconvenience, suchas a lapse in product quality) is essential to your business. It’s also
well-known that customers are more likely to report an unhappy
experience than a happy one, and they’ll report those experiences
to more people.
Lapse in Process
Lapses in process are the worst possible negative experiences a customer can have. If a customer is having her cable installed at homeand needs to take half the day off to do it, and then the technician
doesn’t show up, doesn’t have the right tools, or simply can’t makeit happen, the customer is unlikely to be impressed. Similarly, if
a customer is required to register for a new software product online, can’t do it over the phone, and the website is broken, a major
lapse in process has occurred. Some lapses are minor. But someare so major that customers leave unhappy and establish a mental
boycott against your company. Sadly, such lapses in process often
happen to customers who have had a bad service experience or
who have encountered a lapse in product quality.

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Abusive or Criminal Activity
These types of negative experiences are rare even in the worst of
businesses; however, they do happen. Mechanics overcharge forwork that was never needed in the first place, a real estate agent
doesn’t disclose issues with a home buyer, or a retail store sells adamaged item at full price. No matter when abuses or criminal
activities happen, they are the worst type of negative experience acustomer can have.

BLOGS CHANGE THE EQUATION
Whether the negative experience is a major one or a minor one, it
has still happened. In the world before blogs, those negative experiences would be told to a few friends and, if it was bad enough,those friends would tell other friends. Experiences such as customers finding a dead rat in a new couch, having to wait three
weeks for a new phone hookup, or finding out about corruption inyour company may go even further: to the press. Generally speaking, though, most bad experiences before blogs were confined togroups of roughly a dozen people. They would affect your bottom
line, but not to a degree that would actually hurt your business.
With the advent of the Internet, and blogs in particular, customers now have a completely different kind of influence. Thanks
to the visibility of blogs, the audience that bloggers naturally gain,
and the ease of publishing new posts, customers who have negative
experiences can now broadcast that to hundreds or even thousandsof their readers instead of just 10 or 12 of their friends.
Add to that the bloggers’ propensity to link to other sites, andeven minor customer service issues may be seen by thousands ofpeople, while major lapses in service that would never have been
picked up by the mainstream media are suddenly viewable tomillions, simply because so many people are now reading blogs.

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RESPONDING TO NEGATIVITY:YOUR CHOICE
When you are responding to negativity, you have a choice: you
can ether create another negative experience for your customer
and likely lose him or her forever, or you can create a positive
experience that could, if nothing else, negate the negative
experience.
If the positive experience is strong enough, you may gain ahappy customer or even a customer evangelist.
Even better, by creating a strong positive experience in blogs,
you allow other customers to experience it and be influenced by itas well. As negative experiences spread through the blogosphere,
so do positive ones. Bloggers love to point out companies who“get blogs,” and examples of companies who not only read blogs,
but also respond on them, are few and far enough between thatyou’ll benefit from a lot of linking and perhaps even more eyeballs
than had read the original story of the negative experience.

Blogs make negative experiences exponentially more visible, whichmeans that your company needs to be aware of the issues being raisedin blogs, needs to be able to respond to them quickly, and needs tomake sure the issue is fixed and that the original unhappy customer
is made happy. Doing this in the public space can be both scary anddangerous, but there is a power to it that cannot be ignored.

HOW NEGATIVITY LOOKSTo understand how to deal with negativity that arises in blogs, youmust first understand what that negativity looks like, where it canbe found, and what type of negativity you are likely to encounter.

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CUSTOMER TYPE AND RESPONSE
Back in Chapter 2, you were introduced to the five types of customers: saboteurs, occasional sufferers, reluctant customers, regularcustomers, and evangelists.
Respond to all of your customers on blogs like
Each of these customers isthey’re evangelists, or potential evangelists.
created based on his or her
negative or positive experiences and, as such, will respond in completely different ways.
Each of these types of customers will express their displeasure at
negative experiences, but they’ll do it in unique and varyingly passionate ways. More passionately negative customers will generally
see any negative experience as reinforcing their perceptions of yourcompany, while generally positive ones will see it as a one-off mistake. Either way, you need to treat these customers with respect,
fix the problem, and make them happy.
Saboteur
A saboteur will treat any negative experience in a “last straw” typeof manner and will broadcast the experience as loudly as he or she
can. Most saboteurs are simply regular customers who have had
either a few too many negative experiences or an overwhelmingly
negative one, such as an abusive or criminal experience. These
individuals can be expected to post comments whenever theyencounter the name of your company, to blog about their experience, and to, at best, be sarcastic whenever they blog about yourcompany in the future. While dealing with saboteur-type customers
in blogs can be a challenge, you can realize a huge benefit not only
by fixing the problem and making the customer happy, but also by
turning him or her into a customer evangelist.
Occasional Sufferers
These types of individuals have had negative experiences with yourcompany. They may or may not blog about their experiences, butDealing with Negativity

they will definitely tell their story whenever someone else has anegative experience with your company, thus amplifying the effect.
If they have a blog, they may have blogged about their experience
when it happened but are unlikely to bring it up over time. Thesetypes of customers are often the types who have run into lapses inprocess or several lapses in product quality. They are important tothe sustainability of your business, because they would normallybe regular customers and regular purchasers of your products.
Reluctant Customers
Reluctant customers typically haven’t had any truly negative experiences with your business, but they haven’t had any truly positive
ones, either. They shop at your business when they have to or
when you offer the lowest price, but they feel no sense of commitment to your business. As such, these are the types of people
who will be influenced watching you interact with other customers and will easily interpret those positive experiences as reflectiveof your company. These customers won’t really post negatively or
positively about your company in comments or their own blogs,
largely because they have nothing overwhelming to say. As a result,it’s difficult to reach out to these customers and push them along
the path to becoming evangelists directly, but indirect positive
experiences they see will, if nothing else, make them more awareof your business.
Regular Customers
Your regular customers keep your business going. Whether you’rea small-town bakery or a huge box store, your regular customers
are likely a significant percentage of your revenue and, as a result,keeping them happy and dealing positively with their negative
experiences is key. Regular customers will blog about their negative experiences with businesses at which they enjoy shopping,largely because they don’t expect to have those negative experiences.

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They expect generally positive ones and, as such, are prime targets
for you to make happy. These types of people blog about the positive experience you created and spread the news around in future
posts about your company—but they wouldn’t necessarily do thatwith negative experiences.
Evangelists
Your customer evangelists can, and will, change the face of yourbusiness. These people may eat at a certain restaurant three times
a week, constantly trumpet the works of their favorite authors,
and are the kinds of folk who buy only one kind of car becausethat manufacturer has always exceeded their expectations. Yourevangelists will be downright shocked by any negative experiences—some will even try and contact you directly about them.
It’s important to remember that any negative comment you comeacross in your searches and travels could be from an evangelist.
The worst part of an evangelist’s negative experiences means thatthose people will quickly progress down to reluctant customers
and, if the experience is bad enough, all the way to saboteurs. An
unhappy customer is a happy one waiting to happen, a saboteur
is an evangelist waiting to happen, and a negative experience
with an evangelist is a saboteur waiting to happen. Respond to allof your customers on blogs like they’re evangelists, or potential
evangelists.

FORMS OF NEGATIVITY
Beyond the individual profiles of your customers, negative feedback can come in any number of forms, including e-mail, blog
posts, and comments on blogs. Each of these shows a varying degree of commitment to expressing a given customer’s concern over
his or her experience.

Dealing with Negativity• E-mail For non-bloggers who haven’t read a blog post that
set them off, e-mail is the method of choice for communication, specifically if a phone call hasn’t worked in the past.
E-mail is fantastic at one thing in particular: it allows you to
respond directly to customer inquiries.
• Blog comment A blog comment typically means thatsomeone has read a post and been reminded of his or her
own negative experience. If it’s recent, it may be passionate,
or it may simply be a “oh, yeah, something like this happened
to me, too!”• Blog post A post on a blog shows that, as with e-mail, thecustomer was upset enough to set aside time to write down
the experience, and this person does, in fact, want to hearfrom you. A blog post is an open invitation for response
from anyone, including the business that created or allowed
the negative experience.
Each of these methods of feedback poses unique challenges.
E-mail is difficult largely because it’s a text-based medium as well as
because company representatives typically get so much e-mail thata single one is easy to dismiss or forget about. Blog comments are
difficult because they don’t publicly provide you with an individual’scontact information, while blog posts are difficult because they are
happening in a public space (although nothing says you can’t e-mailthe blogger to sort through the details). This means that it can require
some research to find information about the blogger, and sometimes
it means that directly contacting the individual isn’t possible.

HAVING THE RIGHT MINDSETAt the beginning of this book, we looked at how to develop a blogging mindset, which focused on developing respect for customers,

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valuing the conversation that happens in the blogosphere, wanting
to contribute, and being meaningful in how you do so. This is an
important mindset for success in the blogosphere.
Similarly, mindset is an important ingredient for success indealing with negative comments. This mindset focuses on respect,
but also on valuing the feedback for its potential for change bothin your company and in the customer, valuing fast and effective
responses to that feedback, and understanding that the customer
has made a sacrifice of time in merely responding to you. Unless
you are the only business in town that sells your particular type of
product or service, customers have a choice and can do businesselsewhere. Unless you can create positive experiences, fix negative
ones, and always treat your customers respectfully, you might findthem voting for their favorite business with their feet.

AGAIN, RESPECT
I’ve talked about respect a great deal in this book—respecting yourcompany enough to consider adding value to it by listening tocustomers, respecting cusFor customers, negative feedback is simply
tomers enough to valuea reflection of the fact that they do not believe
them and their contributhey have been treated fairly.
tions, respecting blogging
enough to listen at least but hopefully to blog yourself, and now
respecting negative feedback.
For most people, negative feedback is a personal affront to thequality of their work, their ability to produce results, and even
their ethics. However, for customers, negative feedback is simply
a reflection of the fact that they do not believe they have beentreated fairly.
Our mothers may have told us that life isn’t fair, but that doesn’tmean people don’t measure your business based on how fair it is:
prices must be fair, issues must be handled fairly, wait times must

Dealing with Negativity

be appropriate, quality of products must be of a level equal tothe price, and a fair amount of parking must be available at yourstore.
Unfair treatment really offends people—your prices are
20 percent higher that those of others and the quality is the same,a customer feels mistreated by a rude associate, or the hotel room
doesn’t have enough towels and requests for more go unmet. People expect fair treatment, and they react quite strongly when it
doesn’t happen. As a result, you’ll notice that most of the negative e-mail, blog comments, or blog posts you see during yoursearches of blogs will have a general undertone of the individual
being personally offended that a situation has occurred. As a result,
your ability to assuage their concerns, admit where your businessfailed them, and be conciliatory is paramount in turning the negative experience into a positive one. The more respect you have foryour customer, his or her situation, and the mistakes your business
may have made to allow the situation to happen, the greater yourchances for stopping the slide into negativity and possibly eventurning it around.

FAST RESPONSES
In the traditional world of customer service, a 24-hour response
is considered optimal. That premise assumes, though, that customers aren’t expecting a faster response. Now that you’ve learned
to value conversations as dynamic and fluid relationship-builders
and positive experience-makers, it should be obvious that while a
24-hour response is better than a 48-hour one, or a seven-day one,the timeframe isn’t very conversational.
True conversational e-mail responses means a response time ofunder an hour. For most businesses, that’s difficult to achieve. I
once owned a service-based company, and one of our promises wasthat we’d respond in under an hour, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

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That was difficult. But nothing builds loyalty, positive experiences,and relationships like conversational styles. Our company suffereda massive hardware failure, so much so that we couldn’t provide
services for nearly two weeks, and in spite of that, less than 1 percent
of our customers left us for another service.
Fast, effective, and personal responses rooted in conversationbuild the kind of loyalty that most businesses can’t even imagine.
That said, if 24-hour responses are the best you can do, then excel
at those 24-hour responses. However, if you have the resources,
passion, and people necessary to respond more quickly, the returns
are exponentially higher the closer you get to a true conversation
with your customers.
In the blog world, fast and conversational are even more important, as people are used to fast communications. A blog entry
is posted, and typically responses to that post appear in minutes;
the author of the post then responds again in minutes, and a conversation ensues. If you aren’t part of that conversation, or if you’re
absent for most of it, you simply aren’t making the type of impact
you could make if you were participating.
Posting only one response a day is about as effective as trying
to participate in a conversation at a party by writing down yourresponses on a piece of paper and passing it around. It’s disjointed
and ineffective. The best way to participate in an active conversation is to be actively listening. This takes time. But it also creates
relationships, value, and positive experiences that simply aren’t
possible if you respond only once a day.
Tom Peters, a respected management consultant, writes a blog
(www.tompeters.com), shown in Figure 9-1, that often experiences 20 to 50 comments at a time, eagerly discussing the principles he’s blogging about, sharing wisdom, and learning from eachother. This is the type of conversation that brings great success to a
blogger and his or her company.

Dealing with Negativity

Figure 9-1 Tom Peters’s blog is a great example of empowering people not
only to learn from you, but to learn from each other through mass
discussions on your blog.

EFFECTIVE RESPONSES
Several factors are involved in formulating an effective response,
whether it’s in an e-mail or a blog posting. Most of these focus on
fixing the problem and making customers happy. Everything you
write in your responses has to be from one of these two perspectives—
anything else is not only ineffective, it’s just as likely to be filed
under the “cover your backside” category as “just doing your job,”neither of which is helping your customers.
An effective response has three main parts:• Acknowledge the issue Even if you aren’t prepared toadmit any wrongdoing, at least admit that the customer had
a hard time. It’s better, however, to admit to wrongdoing,

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because a customer already knows he or she has been treatedbadly, and admitting it will make the customer feel a lot better. Sidestepping won’t do that, and it may even make thecustomer more upset.
• Provide a fix Whatever can be done to fix the problem
should be covered. At this point, it may be too early to offer
a solution, as you may not have all the context you need to
do so. At the very least, offer a way for the person to get incontact with you (if you aren’t already in a one-to-one conversation, such as when you’re commenting on a blog post).
• Follow-up Good follow-up puts the shine on a great solution, because it shows that you care. Everyone feels special witha follow-up, largely because a business doesn’t have to followup, so you know that the businessperson has taken time out of
his or her busy day to make sure that the situation is still okay.
All of that said, many businesses do a few things wrong, eventhe smart ones. Once again, if any part of your response is not designed to fix the problem or make the customer happy, you needto evaluate exactly why it’s there. Here are some examples of how
to ensure successful responses:• Empower anyone who talks directly to customers to solve problems. Customers shouldn’t need to talk to multiple people toget one problem fixed.
• Don’t send form letters or responses. Form letters do save time,
but they don’t actually do anything for the customer. Every
response you generate needs to provide value to the customer;
otherwise, you’re not helping the customer or your business.
• Put real people on the phone to talk with customers. There isnothing like a real person answering the phone on the firstring, especially if that person is able to solve a customer’s
problem. This creates a massive positive experience.

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VALUING YOUR CUSTOMER
No matter what form of communications occurs with your blogbased customers, you need to value the conversation you’re havingwith them and with the blogosphere, and you need to value eachcustomer as a person. It’s far too easy to think of people as numbers, potential sales, and recurring customers. Truth is, customers
are simply human.
Customers like to hear “I’m sorry,” “Thank you,” “I’ll do mybest to get this fixed for you,” and “Does this help at all?” They
don’t like to hear “Sorry, but that’s our policy,” “There’s nothing

TEXT IS AN AWFUL MEDIUM
One of the greatest challenges with responding to e-mails fromblog readers, responding to bloggers, and responding to comments on blogs is that all of these methods of communication
are text based. So much of real communication comes fromtone of voice and body language that it’s incredibly easy to misunderstand someone based purely on cultural things, such aswhere a comma is placed, usage of certain words, or sentence
structure.
During my more than 10 years on the Internet, I’ve gotten
into numerous disputes in e-mail, blog comments, and forums
purely because I assumed the writer meant one thing, when really they meant something else entirely.
Text is an awful method for communication in the modern
world. So when you get a message, make sure you aren’t looking for the worst interpretation—look for the best one instead.
Not only will it make your response more pleasant, but thatpleasantness will likely make the person on the other end feel
more valued.

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further I can do,” and “You’ll need to talk to customer service
about that.”
Whether you run your business or you simply help make itwork, whether your company is a Fortune 500 or your own little
corner of heaven, you always have a choice about how you treat
customers. You can create a negative experience or a positive experience, and whether you help a customer to become a saboteur
or an evangelist, or something in between, is up to you. Rememberthat sometimes you’re a customer, too, and you need to treat customers with the same value and respect you expect when issues
come up with the companies you deal with, as they so often do.

REVIEWING NEGATIVE COMMENTS
You’re starting on a new trend, you’re opening up a new gateway tocommunication, and you’re starting to engage directly with yourcustomers. You will at some point receive negative comments. Be
prepared for this reaction. If you aren’t evoking both negative andpositive responses, you’re being mediocre, and mediocre doesn’t
cut it.

STANDING UP FOR YOUR CUSTOMERSAs Joe Flood illustrates in the short story that appears in thisbook, if you’re talking about your customers or clients, you may
well get flack on your blog about them, which can be an uncomfortable place to be in.
Responding to negative comments about someone else’s
company requires a tactic different from that used to respondto comments about yours—primarily because you can’t actually
fix the situation or make the customer happy. All you can do isDealing with Negativity

acknowledge the comment, stand up for your customer (or not,depending on the situation), and be honest.
This is a communications issue: You need to pass on the feedback to your customer, perhaps even encourage him or her toblog and maybe even post a response. If the charge is serious,and true, it may cause you to re-evaluate your business relationship. In that case, consider blogging that information as
well—not as a warning to future customers, but as a message
to your readers and your customers that you care about how
they are treated.
At the end of the day, responding to claims against a client or
customer’s company boils down to communication, discretion,and doing your best to stand by your values. You also need tovalue not only your relationships with your customers but also
your partners. Don’t dump partners and customers every timesomething bad is said about them. Use wisdom and respect tocreate positive experiences all around.

THE PROCESSA distinct, and successful, process is necessary for responding tonegative feedback—whether it’s in a blog-related e-mail, on a blog
post, or in a blog comment. Here’s the seven-step lowdown:
1. Find the value. First and foremost, you need to find the value ina negative comment. If a comment says “Your product is junk!”
finding value may be incredibly difficult, if downright impossible. However, most comments will be grounded in some formof truth or experience that you can fix, and you should be able
to counter with something that makes the customer happy.
Look for the value in the comment, even if it’s buried deep.

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2. Find the problem. Having found the value of the comment,
determine exactly what is the problem. Is it a temporary
lapse in process? Poor service? Was the customer mistreatedor abused? Determining the actual problem and the cause ofthat problem is necessary before you can begin to solve it, fix
the issue, and make the customer happy.
3. Find the person. When responding to issues, it’s too easy toforget that real people are involved—both the customer who
had the negative experience and possibly even the peopleinternally at your company who may have had a hand in
it. Remembering that people caused the issue, and people
suffered, will make your response more real, human, andcaring.
4. Find the solution. Whether the problem was a lapse in product quality that has already been fixed or an internal processthat will take weeks or months to fix, the solution to theoverall problem and to the customer’s specific issue needs tobe discovered and addressed.
5. Fix the problem. Where possible, implement the fix to yourinternal processes or training, or whatever caused the issue.
Where a fix isn’t possible, acknowledge that you’re working
on it. For the customer, fix whatever happened. If it’s a deficient product, replace it. If poor employee training or a lapse
in process was the cause, apologize and make it right.
6. Make the person happy. Once again, real people here. Be empathetic, and, when it comes time to respond, do so in a waythat makes the person believe that you’ve not only fixed the
problem, but that you care.
7. Respond. Now respond to the comment, keeping all of thesesteps in mind. I won’t give you some weak form-letter response to follow, because that wouldn’t be real. But if youDealing with Negativity

actually followed all of the previous steps, you shouldn’t haveany problem fixing the issue, making the customer smile,
and improving things internally so that these types of issues
shouldn’t crop up again.
The goal of responding is to create a space for positive experiences. The first response may, in fact, not be the last. Maybe your

THINGS TO REMEMBER WHEN RESPONDING
Beyond making use of the tips and tricks discussed in this chapter, you can ask yourself a number of questions when you receive
a new e-mail, find a blog post, or read a negative comment:•

Is this reader part of my target market?

•

Are other readers saying something similar?

•

Do these suggestions make intrinsic sense?

•

Do they fit with my business’s values, promises, andfuture?
People care enough about your business to tell you what

they think. And if they’re making suggestions on how to improve your business, they care enough to help your businessgrow. Several companies I work with actually offer both employees and customers a share of any profits or savings that
result from ideas they generate. And why not? What better way
to build a relationship based on value, respect, and communication than to value and respect your customers enough to say
thank you with something of value to them?

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first response will be to apologize and ask for more details so thatyou can fix the issue, or maybe the initial customer response wasdetailed enough that you can go through the entire process andfix the problem. Either way, dealing with real people can be difficult, and it requires a process that adapts to people’s individual
needs.
Your business depends on your ability to create positive experiences, and dealing with customers who have had negative experiences is one of the most powerful tools at your disposal. Use thattool well, and you’ll start creating customer evangelists, but misuse
it and you’re more likely to create saboteurs.

KEYS TO DEALING WITH NEGATIVITY
Dealing with negativity is ultimately about balancing the personalneeds of the individuals involved in the situation with the actual
needs of your company. You can’t, for example, solve a customer’s
angst by giving him or her a new car. It might make them happy,
but it won’t help your business survive if you give a car to every
unhappy customer. Nor can you go to the other extreme and soprotect your business that you don’t actually fix the problem ormake customers happy. Effectively dealing with negativity is allabout walking the fine line between real customer service and realbusiness principles.
That said, you can never really let any negative comment,e-mail, or blog post slip by. The one you don’t respond to may end
up being the biggest scandal of your business life. You need to beaware of what is being said and be able to respond effectively, even
if you aren’t able to fix the customer’s issue to the degree that might
be ideal in a perfect world.
As such, here are more tips, tricks, and thoughts on how to deal
with negative comments effectively.

Dealing with Negativity

Don’t Answer Instinctively
Before you answer any type of negative feedback, stop, look at thecomment, and go through the process defined earlier in the chapter (if only quickly) so that you have the right perspective when
responding. Some comments need responses quickly, but taking
5 minutes to refocus yourself on the right priorities will turn a fast
response into a fast and effective one.
Evaluate Every Comment on Its Merits
As part of finding the value, ensure that you look at each comment
as its own distinct feedback. Did the customer have a negative
experience? Was your business at least partially to blame? Is there
a way to fix the situation?
Don’t Personalize
For too many of us, the instinctive answer to criticism is defensive
in nature. This is the wrong type of reaction, as it simply reinforces
the customer’s innate belief that you won’t do anything to fix the
problem.
AnswerAny time anyone offers you feedback, it includes an underlying question. Sometimes this will be “Can you help me?” or “Do you care?”while other times it will be “Do you realize this product doesn’t actually work for me?” or “Are you going to fix this?” Make sure that any
response you give is the answer to that underlying question.
Be Aware of Possible Outcomes
Before you click Send or Post, be aware that each response you
provide is going to do one of two things: create a positive experience and properly represent the company so that your customer
hears the truth, or create a negative experience that makes the issue
a personal battle between the customer and the company.

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Passion Is Good
Most people who respond to events via blog or e-mail possess
some degree of passion about the experience. It may be complaints
about your product or your company in general, a mistake that’s
happened, or even a personal treatment. Either way, they do havepassion, and passion is a good thing. Respond effectively, and that
passion could be working for you. Respond poorly, and it will only
work against you.
Expect Negative Feedback
Get used to it: negative feedback will happen. If you make thebest product in the world, some people still won’t like it. Even
the best fashion designers and chefs in the world don’t please all
the people all the time. Even the most sought-after automobiles
have their fans and their detractors. No matter how good yourproduct, company, or service, you will receive negative feedback.
Don’t be shocked when it happens.
People’s Expectations Are a Paradox
On the one hand, all customers hope for a near-immediate response on the Internet. At the same time, due to their experiences,
they have an expectation that responses will not only be poor, butthey will be late and completely unrelated to the frustration theyexperienced. A fast experience is a good thing, because it exceeds
a customer’s expectations, but you are delivering exactly what they
expect when you respond quickly and impersonally. Your response
needs to make the person feel human, valued, and respected.
All Feedback Is an Opportunity
Whether it’s an e-mail, a comment, or a blog post, every bit offeedback is an opportunity for you to create a relationship. If you
respond quickly, properly, and in a friendly fashion, it proves that

Dealing with Negativity

your company (and you, by association) is about real people making
real products for real customers.
The First Response Isn’t the Last
Your first response needs to be as good as it can be. However, agreat first response should lead to a second response, in which acustomer (when treated properly the first time) will be willing toengage in a constructive dialogue. If you’ve identified the problem,
run the solution by your customer to determine whether he or she
believes it will help now and in the future. Your customers are yourbest product designers, because they buy your product.
People Transfer Blame
Whether or not it’s your fault, people transfer blame for all
past poor customer service onto you and your company. As aresult, simply responding in a “good enough” fashion isn’t goodenough. Your response needs to be so extraordinary that theperson knows he or she is dealing with a company that respects
its customers.
Responding Takes Skill
Most responses will come in one of two flavors: a problem thathas happened or an opinion being expressed. The potential for
dialogue and relationship in dealing with a problem typically
only goes as far as the solution to the problem, unless you reallydecide to get the customer involved in your business. With an
opinion, though, you can acknowledge and respond to it, but
begin a dialogue with the individual. An opinion expressed isa customer asking to be involved in your company. The best
responses, no matter whether they’re to an opinion or to a problem, get your customers to feel a sense of ownership and participation in your business.

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Poor English Isn’t Bad
Most businesses are accustomed to receiving feedback in only one
language. On the Internet, though, you may receive feedback frompeople who do not speak English as their first language. In fact,
thanks to online translation services, you may get feedback fromsomeone who doesn’t speak English at all. Although translation
services are helpful, the translation often makes the feedback appear as though it’s coming from a child using a dictionary to soundimportant.
For example, using AltaVista’s translation service (http://world.altavista.com), the English phrase “I don’t appreciate your lack ofquality control. I’d really appreciate it if you fixed this business issue”
translated to Dutch and back to English generates this mangled
masterpiece: “I do not appreciate your lack of quality control. I’dappreciate it really as you this company question confirmed.” Do
not assume that simply because the quality of language is poor thatsomeone’s experience and ability to recognize an issue is also poor.

WRAPPING IT UP
All feedback is good feedback—even negative feedback. It’s far
better to have an unhappy customer than to have no customers at
all, so deal with every response as an opportunity to create a positive experience. This chapter should have given you not only theperspective necessary to deal with negative feedback effectively,
but also the tools necessary to do so. It really all comes down to
one little word, though: respect. If you can respect your customers
enough to value all of their feedback, you’ll do well even on theworst days.
In the next chapter, we’ll look at how to apply blogging to yourcompany, set up smart goals for your blog, measure your blog’s
effectiveness, and make sure your blog succeeds.

10

HOW TO SUCCEEDIN BLOGGING

B

y this point in the book, you should have a clear perspectiveon what a blog is as well as how to blog. You should also beaware of how to track blogs and how to respond to comments,
and you should be comfortable developing a blogging strategy.
This leaves you asking that most pressing of questions: “How do
I succeed?”
Most of the questions I receive via e-mail, when I’m speaking atconferences, or when I’m talking to clients concern one thing: how
to succeed in blogging. Some questions are about how to build traffic, others are about how to build relationships, and others ask how
to increase overall visibility. Granted, blogs do these things naturally, but once you get a little bit of traffic, a little bit of relationship,
and a little bit of visibility, you quite naturally want more.
The word success in relation to blogging is an odd one in myopinion, because success in blogging isn’t like success in business,
which is measured by money; success in entertainment, which ismeasured by fame; or even success in life, which can involve a
number of things. Succeeding in your blog simply means you’vereached your goals.
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For your company, success may be defined purely by the factthat you can now post company news more easily. For other companies, success may be based on specific increases to sales that are
tracked through whatever means necessary. Still others will measure their success in blogging in more pragmatic terms: numberof relationships, connections, customer evangelists, and positive
experiences.
This chapter tackles some fundamental questions about successthat people and businesses who blog might ask.

TEN TIPS FOR SUCCESSFUL BLOGGINGMost successful bloggers can offer some tips for successful blogging. Some people develop methods based on experience. Others
simply offer what they’ve been told—like post often, link often, andbe yourself (once identified as the three cardinal rules for successful blogging). What follows are my ten tips for achieving a popularand successful blog within your industry, whatever it may be.
Be RealKnowing yourself and your audience are extremely important aspects of successful blogging. Too many bloggers start out trying toblog about everything that interests them and, in doing so, quickly
burn out, largely because there is simply too much to blog about
when you blog about everything. Identify who you are as a blogger,
what you’ll be blogging about, and who your audience will be;these are key to a successful blog.
Be Passionate
Passion breeds passion. If you aren’t enjoying what you’re blogging
about, it’s difficult to be passionate, so blog about things you truly
enjoy. Find a voice that you enjoy writing in and stick with it.

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The passion that comes from writing a blog and connecting withdozens, hundreds, or thousands of readers is contagious.
Write Often
Writing often isn’t just good for the blog, it’s an absolute requirement for success. Anything less than once a day (during weekdays) is abandoning the potential of your blog. Updating yourblog is often rooted in two major facets of blogging: search engine“juice” and the fact that readers love new and fresh content. Searchengines love fresh content and will revisit your site more often the
more it’s updated. The result is that your blog will get searched
regularly and will carry more weight with the search engines once
they trust your ever-changing content.
Link Lots
Links are called the “currency of the blogosphere.” Most bloggers link for one of two reasons: either they are interested in thesubject matter or they respect the blogger to whom they are linking. Links carry an inherent value, so providing links shows yourreaders and users what interests you—and the higher the qualityof bloggers to whom you link, the more respect readers and otherbloggers will have for you and your blog. Combine that with theability for bloggers to find out who links to them via services such
as Technorati and PubSub, and you can see how a link can be agreat way to show who you know and to let people know thatyou exist. Many of the top bloggers I know have confessed thatthe way they most often find new blogs is after those blogs linkto them.
Leave Comments on Other Blogs
Creating a community of interest is key to blogging successfully at the business or personal level. For most businesses, the

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community will be a mixture of existing bloggers, news sources,
and influential people in the industry, combined with employees,
partners, suppliers, and customers. Your community of interestis the community in which you are interested as well as the community that is interested in you. By commenting on blogs in yourcommunity of interest, you are letting existing bloggers, and theirreaders, know that your blog might be of interest to them. One of
the most common ways that people find new blogs is through links
in comments—get involved, and you’ll reap the traffic rewards andbuild relationships with other bloggers and their readers.
Have Fun
Blogging is meant to be fun. Yes, it’s serious business that will radically change the way your business is presented online while alsochanging the way your customers view and relate to you, but it’salso about having fun. Try new things and link to fun and interesting sites.
Push the Envelope
One of the challenges with blogging is that it’s new. Try something
unusual, and if you do the “wrong” thing, it will get you someattention (bad or good). Any new communications tool that remains stagnant ultimately dies, so don’t be afraid to make changes
and ask questions. Entirely new types of cutting-edge communication, such as podcasting and video blogging, were created whensomeone asked, “Why does blogging have to be just text?” Ask
your own “why” questions and see if you can come up with exciting ways to use blogs.
Ping
Pinging is something your blog software does to tell several services
that you’ve posted something new. This quick note, or ping, is usedHow to Succeed in Blogging

to produce lists of the most recently updated blogs to let Technorati
and PubSub know to come by and see what you’ve posted andgenerally to make sure the blogosphere stays connected.
If you ping only one service, make it Ping-O-Matic (www.pingomatic.com). This neat, and free, little tool by the creators of WordPress (www.wordpress.org) allows you to pingPing-O-Matic, which then pings all of the most important services for you, instead of you having to do it. This cuts down on
your effort, but it also means you don’t need to worry about
whether you’re pinging the right places. Ping-O-Matic takes
care of it for you.
Use Feeds
Whether you choose to use full-text feeds or provide some of
the text, make sure you are providing feeds. I’m a big fan offull-text feeds, because they create less of a boundary for yourcustomers to read your ideas. Feeds make it easy for people toread your content on their own schedules—while traveling on an
airplane, via audio as they’re driving home, or generally however
and whenever they want to hear what you have to say. Feeds are
all about lowering the barriers to getting at quality information,
so do whatever you can to make sure you aren’t putting up any
artificial barriers.
Create Meaningful Titles
Titles are absolutely essential to blogging successfully: good titles
mean search engines find you and send you more traffic; attractive
and useful titles entice readers to read your stuff, and this translates
into more links. Every blog post title should give readers a reason
to want to read the entire post. If you own a fashion company, forexample, “Exquisite shoes” is probably a bad title, while “Ferragamo
designs exquisite shoes!” is far more descriptive.

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RUBEL’S TEN COMMANDMENTS
OF BLOGGINGIn June 2005, Steve Rubel, a prominent public relations blogger, wrote these “10 Commandments” for PR professionals(see www.micropersuasion.com/2005/06/10_commandments.html), but they are also great starting points for achieving true
success in the world of blogging:
1. Thou shall listen. Utilize every avenue available to you tolisten actively to what your public has to say and feed it backto the right parties.
2. Remember that all creatures great and small are holy. It
doesn’t matter if it’s The New York Times calling on youor an individual blogger, both have power. Take them allseriously.
3. Honor thy customer. Create programs that celebrate customers and they will celebrate you.
4. Thou shall not be fake. Keep it real; don’t hide behind characters and phony IDs.
5. Covet thy customers. Don’t sue your fans. You will alienatethem.
6. Thou shall be open and engaging. Involve your customers
in the PR process. Invite them to help you develop winningideas and become your spokespeople.
7. Thou shall embrace blogging. It’s not a fad, it’s here to stay.
Be part of it.
8. Thou shall banish corporate speak. People want to hearfrom you in a human voice. Don’t hide behind corporate
speak. It will soon sound like ye olde English.

How to Succeed in Blogging

9. Thou shall tell the truth. If you don’t tell the truth, it will
come out anyway.
10. Thou shall thinketh in 360 degrees. Ask not what you can dofor your customer, but also what your customer can do foryou.

BUILDING TRAFFIC
Because a blog is a website, and because websites have tangible metrics such as the number of visitors per day, number of pages thosevisitors visited, and where
While traffic may not be the best overall
those visitors came from,metric, it isn’t a bad one to track. Plus, it’s
one of the standard meaalways nice to see those traffic graphs goingsures for growth and successup month by month.
in any blog is traffic—that
is, the number of visitors
who come to your blog, generally measured daily and monthly.
However, traffic doesn’t matter all that much, because if you’rebuilding a valuable conversation, it doesn’t really matter if it’s with
2 people or 200. Also, the number of visitors doesn’t matter as muchas the quality of those visits, how influential visitors are, and how
much they contribute to the conversation and to your company. All
that said, more traffic typically does mean more conversation, more
influential visitors, and more contributors. So while traffic may not
be the best overall metric, it isn’t a bad one to track. Plus, it’s always
nice to see those traffic graphs going up month by month.
Traffic on blogs generally comes from one of three places:• Links from other websites, specifically blogs• Search engines• Traditional marketing efforts

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CONVERSATION BREEDS TRAFFIC
Blogs are linking machines, and bloggers love to link. Dependingon the readership of a blog, a single link to your site from anotherblog may mean five more people or 5000 more people will visit
your site. Those who follow links on other blogs will typically be
one of three types: another blogger, a new reader, or a “drive-by”
visitor.
It is good to have other bloggers come to your site, because thatgives you higher odds of securing yet another link. Blog-driven
traffic tends to be exponential in nature. If one blogger sends fivevisitors your way and one of those is a blogger who links to you
and sends ten other bloggers your way, and three of those are bloggers who link to you and send six more visitors your way…. Well,suffice to say that even a link from a minor blog can result in hundreds, if not thousands, of new visitors to your blog.
The second type of visitor to your blog is a new reader. These arealso valuable readers, largely because once you’ve secured a reader,
you have an opportunity to turn him or her into a customer, anevangelist, and a contributor to your company. New readers are alittle bit like shareholders in a company: they want to hear what
you have to say and they want you to do well.
The final class of visitor is the drive-by. These visitors hold little
inherent value (about as much as someone who sees your ad in a
newspaper or hears it on the radio), but a series of impressions may
eventually lead them to recognize your company and brand andbecome either a customer or a reader. Don’t dismiss the value ofdrive-by visitors.
Ultimately, a link on a blog—any blog—is very, very good. The
biggest reason for this is that typically visitors who come fromother blogs are coming because they’re interested in what you’ve
said in the past, which opens a huge door for them to be interested
in what you’re saying now. One of the keys to designing a blog

How to Succeed in Blogging

properly is to provide visitors who see only one page (the one they
arrive at from a search engine or from another blog) to find thenewest content, the most valuable content, and related content.
This will help you turn drive-by visitors into readers.

SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION
For most bloggers, traffic they receive is split somewhere around30 percent from other blogs, 30 percent from search engines, and40 percent from their regular readers. As a result, appealing tosearch engines is incredibly important, because it can mean you
gain (or lose) massive amounts of potential readers, customers, andcontributors. The practice of making your site as search engine
friendly as possible is known as search engine optimization (SEO
for short). This is a bit of a dark art, but if all you do is the following three things in your blog, you’ll hit most of the high pointsof SEO:• Have “good” blog post addresses. Search engines love blogs forwhich each post has its own page. Most blog packages like
WordPress, Movable Type, TypePad, and Expression Engine
do this for you. They like it even more when those addresses
are meaningful. So www.myblog.com/about-our-business.html is more meaningful than www.myblog.com/5313.html, because the first URL contains recognizable words(separated by dashes). Search engines find your page moreeasily when the page address describes what’s on the page,and most blog packages allow you to do this with someminor configuration.
• Link back to your blog home page and main home page. Most
search engines today use a Google-style of page ranking:more links to a page means more importance for that page.
So linking to your blog home page and your main home

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page as part of the template for your blog could mean hundreds or thousands of distinct links (the more you post, themore links there will be). Some blog systems will create theselinks for you “automagically,” while others will require youor the person who maintains your website to make the links
part of the blog setup. Providing users with a way to getaround your site and your blog is critical.
• Use good page titles. Most search engines display the title ofthe page as part of the search results. If the title for your pageis just your company name, people who find your page via
search engines may not know it contains the answer to theirquestion (even though it’s in the list of results). Great titles
include two things: your blog or company name as well as thetitle for the post. If you’ve constructed meaningful post titles,
new visitors will know not only what they’re going to see when
they arrive, but also who they’ll find when they get there.

MAKE THE MOST OF A VISIT
Once visitors find your site, it’s your job to make it easy for themto find information, ask questions, and ultimately build relationships with you. (Hint: having an actual e-mail address on every
page is much, much better for new visitors than having to go toContact Us, clicking on E-mail, and then filling in a form.) You
can make it easier on your new search engine visitors (and all firsttime visitors) to make the choice to begin a relationship in threeways:• Include an “About the Author” page. If this is your official company blog, include information about your company (shortand sweet is good, you can always link to your main “About
Us” page on your website). Make sure that each blog author

How to Succeed in Blogging

is a person, has a name, and includes basic information about
him or herself. Large companies with dozens of employees
blogging on their main blog tend to link the profile back to
the individual contributor’s blog or link back to the first post
the contributor made. Either way, the goal is to provide newvisitors an idea of who the author is and who the company isin such a way that they want to find out more.
• Provide relevant links. While most blogs’ templates are thesame for the main blog page or an individual post page, I’ma big fan of having some different bits of information on thepages for individual posts. If nothing else, include a small
welcome message that tells visitors where they have arrived
and how they can find similar information (for example, see
Jason Kottke’s blog, shown in Figure 10-1). You may also

Figure 10-1

Jason Kottke (www.kottke.org) uses a contextual area on the sideof his blog to tell new visitors where they’ve arrived.

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to other blogs, and other information. Provide relevant links
and context so that new visitors can explore your blog if they
like the content.
• Turn visitors into readers. Providing first-time visitors witha way to subscribe to your blog (either via e-mail or feeds)
is key, as it allows them to establish a quick relationship on
their terms. You may want to include a page that explains
how to subscribe, or you can include a “syndicate this site”
link, with the orange XML icon that many blogs use to showthat a site is subscribable. You can also provide alternative
ways for users of specific feed readers to subscribe to yourblog. NewsGator, Bloglines, FeedDemon, and most otherfeed readers include these buttons, which make it easy forusers to subscribe to your feeds using those services. Empower your readers to make a choice to subscribe to yourblog. Lower the barriers as much as possible so that visitors
can become readers.

IT’S THE MARKETING, STUPID
Another way that new visitors will arrive at your blog is via traditional marketing methods. If you have a personal blog at yourcompany, include it on your business card. If your official blog
is valuable, include it on your business card. Your business cardshould be a way for people to connect with you, and including“blog: www.mycompany.com/blog” on all of your employees’
business cards is a great way to get people to check out your blog.
You can also advertise your blog using traditional marketing
techniques. If your blog is the best way for people to establish a relationship with you (other than meeting you in person), be proudof your blog and tell the world about it.

How to Succeed in Blogging

Anywhere that you post your website address should also include
your blog address. Similarly, you should advertise your blog prominently on your website. If nothing else, it should be part of themain navigation, and it should be one of the most important elements of that navigation (don’t put it way down by “Contact us”).
Advertising your blog in this way will bring in drive-by visitors. But if they’re potential clients, a well-written blog will not
only provide them with yet another positive experience (hopefully
their first contact with them was positive, right?), but it will show
them that you are authoritative, passionate, and you know yourindustry. If partners, suppliers, or customers see your blog in yourtraditional advertising, they have another way to build a relationship with you and your company and will likely open the door
for further conversations, which could range from “So, how’s thatblog working for you?” to “Isn’t that blogging thing a fad?”

TIPS FOR BUILDING TRAFFIC
Provide a reason for people to come back to your blog, for bloggers
to link to you, and for people to tell others about a great new
post on your blog. You can build traffic in many different ways.
Although traffic isn’t the only measure of success you should haveon your blog, more people reading your blog means more peopleinteracting, commenting, contributing, and generally being
aware of your company—which is the goal of most business blogs
in the first place.
Following are tips for building traffic to your blog.
Provide Comment Notification
Many people who read your blog will comment. Thanks to feeds,
they can stay up to date on your newest post. If I’m interested inyour post asking for opinions on how to fix one of your products

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Blog Marketingand I leave you a few ideas, I’d be very interested to know yourresponse. However, there is currently no blog-based way (such as
feeds) for me to stay up to date easily on whether you (or anyone)
have responded to my post.
You may want to allow readers to receive an e-mail notifying
them when someone replies to a post to which they’ve responded.
This notification of a new comment (hence, comment notification)
should be optional (in case a user doesn’t want to receive thesetypes of e-mails), but for those who choose to use it, it’s a great way
to keep the conversation going.
When people know a conversation is happening about something of interest, they’ll often contribute even more. Thanks tocomment notifications, posts that normally would have had only
two or three responses may suddenly get 20 or 30 responses as yourreaders engage in a discussion on your blog. In fact, the day I added
comment notifications to my blog, traffic jumped by 20 percent.
Conduct Interviews
Interviewing important people in your company is a great way
to let your readers know who works at the company, that smart
people work there, and that ultimately the company employs real
people with real passions. For example, Microsoft’s Channel 9(http://channel9.msdn.com) was created expressly to give readers a view into the lives of people working inside the company.
Your interviews may not be video based, and they needn’t appear
frequently, but adding interviews (especially with real people whowork on real products) is a great way to help your readers relate toyour company. As an added bonus, bloggers love linking to interesting interviews.
Ask Questions
The absolute best way to get someone to participate in a realworld conversation is to ask a question—and blogs are no different.

How to Succeed in Blogging

Asking your readers “What do you think?” and “How would you
have handled this?” doesn’t show (as some may fear) that you don’tknow what you’re talking about. On the contrary, it shows thatyou know that even the smartest people in the world sometimes
need to bounce ideas off others—and your blog readers are thebest people for this, since they want you to succeed. Bloggers love
to say “Company x is looking for some ideas on their newest product, so go tell them what you think.” And people love to offer
opinions.
State Your Opinion
The second best way to get someone to participate in a real-world
conversation is to state an opinion. Stating an opinion gives people
three options: they can agree, disagree, or propose a different opinion. The more conversation you can get happening on your blog,
the more people will return and the more people will link to it.
Take and Answer Reader Questions
Regularly respond to reader comments, questions, or e-mails as
a post. You may do this by saying “Ask a question” (as Microsoft
recruiter Gretchen Ledgard does with her suggestion kitty, as illustrated here), by asking a reader who e-mails you a question if you
can use that question on your blog or by taking a question a reader
posed in a comment. This answers readers’ questions and does it
publicly. Open-ended “What would you like to know?” questions
are also great ways to solicit this type of feedback—and they arealso the types of posts to which bloggers enjoy linking.

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BUILDING RELATIONSHIPSWITH BLOGGERS
Blogging is built upon a foundation of relationships. From theearliest bloggers through today’s modern bloggers, relationships
are a key reason people love to blog (and they are also one of thereasons bloggers love blogging conferences so much). Establishing relationships with bloggers can be a valuable part of your blog
strategy for a number of reasons, including the following:• Allows blogger to be an expert on your company. Many of thebest blogging companies work with people who serve as
blog “groupies” or blog fans. These bloggers watch what thatcompany does and regularly report on the interesting tidbits.
Many have inside contacts at the company, do interviews
with staff members on their blog or podcast, and generally
get and stay involved. Neville Hobson (www.nevon.com)
covers GM’s blogs, for example, and his insight was valuable
as I was putting together information in Chapter 4. Having
these blog experts work with your company is powerful because they will not only frequently link to you, but they’ll
compare other companies who blog to how well you blog,
and then blog about the differences. You can read your blog
experts’ and blog fans’ blogs to find out how you can better
use your blog.
• Offers feedback on how well you are blogging. Having bloggers read your blog, and establishing relationships with bloggers, means that they have no problem helping you out withyour blogging—like a musician teaching you a new chordon the guitar or a new melody on the piano. As you begin
establishing relationships with bloggers, feel free to ask questions, because giving and receiving is part of every successful
relationship.

How to Succeed in Blogging• Builds positive experiences with a blogger who has a public
profile. Most bloggers aren’t publicly recognizable, but that
doesn’t mean that individual bloggers don’t have a measurable amount of influence. As you build positive experiencesby building relationships with these bloggers, they will happily use that influence to help your company. Most bloggers
believe that any company who is willing to ask for help andto establish real relationships is worth talking about.

STEPS FOR BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS
While no single process can be used to build relationships with
bloggers, as with other types of relationships, most blogging relationships follow a natural progression:
1. Read the blog. For most non-business bloggers, a blog is agreat way to get to know someone. Reading the blog or subscribing to the feed will give you occasional, if not regular,
insight into who the blogger is, what he or she likes, and hisor her personality and passions. This foundational framework of understanding already puts you miles ahead of when
you are first introduced to someone in real life, and provides
a great framework for conversation going forward.
2. Comment on the blog. After you’ve read a blog for awhile, thenatural next step is to comment on the occasional entry. You
don’t need to comment on every entry, but leaving a noteor an opinion on half a dozen posts over a couple of weeks
should be enough so that the blogger at least recognizes yourname, and he or she will likely click through to read yourblog.
3. Link to the blog. Since links are a measure of respect, one of
the best ways to show a blogger respect is by linking to his

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4. E-mail the blogger. After learning about the blogger, reading
his or her blog, and participating in it, followed by linking,you’ve established enough of a basic relationship to e-mailthe blogger. This isn’t to say that you couldn’t begin a great
relationship with a blogger by sending e-mail, as most bloggers love e-mail as much as they love a link. But building
a foundation of respect and conversation means that when
you do begin using e-mail, the first message won’t be something like, “Uh, hey, you don’t know me but….” You cansimply extend the conversation you’ve been having in comments in posts into e-mail, and then grow it from there.
5. Talk to the blogger. If it isn’t obvious by now, bloggers love totalk. Blogging is an extension of the blogger’s desire to participate in conversations, especially with interesting and engaging people (like you). So don’t be shy about asking for aphone call to talk things over, and don’t be afraid to try otherreal-time methods such as Skype. (See “What the Skype?”for more information on this software application.)
6. Meet the blogger. The absolute best way to build a relationship with a blogger is to meet the blogger face to face. Most
every blogging conference sells out because bloggers love totalk with other bloggers. In fact, hosting a blogging conference for your industry may be a great way to get to know
bloggers who are interested in your business. Blogging conferences are rarely just about blogging; they’re about thesocializing—the drinks, the chats, the dinners, and theparties. Consider attending a blogging conference either tolearn more about blogging or meet interesting bloggers fromaround the world.

How to Succeed in Blogging

WHAT THE SKYPE?
Skype (www.skype.com) is an instant-messaging application,
similar to Windows Messenger or Yahoo! Messenger, with atwist: it’s also a phone. Using Skype, you can place free calls anywhere in the world to other Skype users (more than 100 millionof them). This free little application also lets you call the regularphone network (for a nominal fee), receive calls from that network (for a minor monthly fee), and have a voicemail system(for a small fee). Most bloggers love Skype because of its simple
design and because it lets them make phone calls, send instantmessages, and send files—all things bloggers love to do. Consider using Skype as an alternative to telephoning a blogger, as
Skype can be less intimidating since it’s more socially oriented.

Some of these tips may not be practical for you, and if bloggers
actually initiate relationships by sending you e-mails or posting
about your company, you’re already there. The goal of establishing a relationship should be so that both you and the blogger findvalue, so whatever gets you to that point is a good thing.
In addition, you can, of course, include other steps, such as asking
for help, interviewing the blogger, being on his or her podcast, or interacting in dozens of other ways. You know you’re establishing a real
relationship when you begin caring less about how the relationshipaffects your business and more about the person on the other end.

PITCHING TO BLOGGERS
Pitching bloggers is in many ways similar to pitching journalists,
but it’s also completely different. Pitching to journalists is called
media relations, which is one of the reasons that I affectionately call

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pitching to bloggers blogger relations. Both are powerful sourcesthat help you spread the word about your company, so when
you are looking for them to mention you specifically, you wantto make sure you’re being as effective as possible in making thepitch.
Public relations and marketing professionals first started waking
up to blogs in 2004, and, as such, the principles and tactics thatare being tried to maximize blogger relations are fairly diverse—it’s
all so new that nobody’s sure how to do it best.
In early 2005, as I was starting to get daily pitches from PR
professionals, I wrote a post on this subject offering the following
top three things to know about pitching bloggers:• Make it personal. My blog provides more than enough information for anyone to know my interests and to provide acursory understanding of who I am. Any pitch to a blogger
should at least sound like it was written to the individual.
(Hint: it’s even better if it is individually written.)• Make it applicable. Don’t send me pitches for industries inwhich I’m not interested. Not only is my blog clearly labeled
as a business and technology blog, but it’s also immediately
obvious to anyone who reads it that those are my passions.
Don’t pitch me on new innovations to panty liners (which
I’ve received) or gardening (also received).
• Make it short and sweet. Generally, the shorter and more concise a pitch to a blogger, the better. There’s no real point
to sending the press release and hoping it will have an impact. Tell me why I should be interested in your news in 50
words or less, and then provide a link to more information.
If you can’t tell me why this new thing is interesting to me in
50 words, you probably can’t do it in 500.

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Steve Rubel noted the following (located at www.micropersuasion.com/2005/02/how_not_to_pitc.html) in response to my post:
The only thing I would add here to what Jeremy wrote is leverage exclusivity. Plant a powerful idea with an influential blogger and then ride theLong Tail (www.webpronews.com/news/ebusinessnews/wpn-4520041117HowToPitchIntoTheLongTailNewsCurve.html).
Note: Rubel has written extensively on the subject of pitching. See“How to Pitch Into the Long Tail News Curve,” at www.micropersuasion.com/2004/11/how_to_pitch_in.html; and “Abandoning Email in
Favor of RSS,” at www.micropersuasion.com/2004/07/dan_gillmor_
to_.html.

CRAFTING EFFECTIVE BLOGGERRELATIONSHIPS
Nick Wreden, author of ProfitBrand: How to Increase the Profitability, Accountability and Sustainability of Brands, noted sevenkeys to crafting an effective blogger relations strategy.1 His postfrom February 2005 is excerpted here (with permission):•

Never pitch, personalize. A longstanding tenet of effective PR
has been to read the publication and, ideally, the reporter’swork. That has been like preaching abstinence to teen-agers:
great in theory, but not very applicable to the real world. No
PR person could be expected to read all publications pertaining to a company or an industry, much less of a reporter’swork. But a blog has everything a blogger has written, complemented by relevant links. There is absolutely no excuse for

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not knowing what a blogger’s passions and idiosyncrasies are
before you converse about—not pitch—a concept.
•

Respect a blogger’s time and intelligence. Start emails withan informative subject line. “Press release” is grounds for
immediate deletion. Make emails short and concise. Avoid
attachments. Especially avoid PowerPoint attachments. If
anyone can show me a corporate PowerPoint presentation
worth the bandwidth it takes up, I will personally clean yourcat’s litterbox for a month. Do not send HTML email, which
has dangerous potential. Do not kowtow; remember it’s aconversation. No more “read your great post” or other pickup lines. Do not send an email to a blogger until your website
is in order, with the information and a contact easy to findand read.

•“A blog is not about you, it’s about me.” Never, ever use
the words, “I think your readers would be interested in thisstory.” To a large extent, bloggers are more interested in apoint of view or the power of an idea than they are “readers.” While the thought of a worldwide audience is certainly
an ego rush, many bloggers would continue blogging for an
audience of one. Think less about what I can do for you andmore about what you can do for me [and for your readers].
Can you get immediate access to a top exec? Provide a customer to talk? What about metrics?

•

Quality, not quantity. Here’s a new rule for agencies. Neversend out more than one or two communications to blogs
a day. Use the remaining time to research the industry andrelevant issues, study the blogger’s hot buttons and crafta finely tuned email. Make the email seem like it’s comingfrom a knowledgeable best friend, not a direct mail house.

How to Succeed in Blogging•

Feed the food chain. In the distant days when I had a PR
agency, clients would ask, “How do I make the cover ofBusinessWeek?” First step: Make the cover of your industry publication, and inevitably coverage in better-known
publications will follow. Already, almost every industry has
its blogging superstars, the go-to bloggers for both insightand buzz. Instead of stuffing their inbox, start by conversing
with the bloggers who are likely being read by the superstar. That’s not hard; just read blogrolls of the superstars.
Not everyone has blogrolls, but for those who do, it can provide insight into who they value, as well as providing greatreading material.

•

It’s no longer about the media. Many PR professionals focus
on the prominent journalists and influencers who haveblogs. That is understandable. But remember that customers, prospects, suppliers, industry associations and others
who can influence your brand also have blogs. Converse intelligently with them as well. It needs to be recognized that
pitching influential bloggers is just another method of getting in front of their face, something they are dealing withon a growing level every day, online and off. Respect andconsideration is key: the last thing you want to do is become
yet another “junk mail” sender—it’s far better to invest thetime to establish a real relationship.

•

Keep learning. According to a blog monitoring organization, the number of blogs worth tracking has grown from
1.5 million to 7.5 million in less than six months. This emerging field is changing so fast that even these tips will have tobe revised in a year. Keep up by reading at least the blogs of
two experienced and thoughtful professionals: Tom Murphy
and Steve Rubel.

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Tip: A great source for all kinds of blog-related information is the
NewPRWiki (www.thenewpr.com/wiki). Originally designed to contain PR-specific info, it now contains a wealth of business blogging information, including a large roundup of information on how to pitch
bloggers, available at www.thenewpr.com/wiki/pmwiki.php/Resources/
PitchingBlogs.

ADVERTISING ON YOUR BLOG
The topic of advertising on your blog is a sticky one, primarily because blogs are about conversations, and most advertising is reallyabout transmitting instead
One of the best ways to advertise anything inof engaging with yourblogs is not to advertise it at all.
readers via conversations.
That said, sometimes you’ll want your blog readers to be aware ofthings happening in your company, and using effective advertisingtechniques is definitely one way to do that.
Following are some thoughts for advertising on your blog, if
you are inclined to advertise there. Remember that all blog ads
ultimately need to be grounded in respect. If you can both respect
your audience while bringing value to your company, your blogbased advertising will be a success.
• Don’t distract from the content. In the world of online advertising, you can use a variety of techniques to get users to click
ads; most of these involve getting increasingly in users’ facesby overlaying ads on top of the main content, having a pageof ads users have to see before they can see the content, andusing other tricks of the trade. On your blog, your content
is your only means of gaining trust, building relationships,
and relating to your customers. Don’t let your ads hide yourblog. Most customers who have a relationship with you via

How to Succeed in Blogging

•

•

•

•

your blog will want to know interesting new things about
your business, so figure out ways to tell them without overpowering your content.
Why not write a post about it ? Instead of placing a fancy ad
for a new product or something you want to highlight, consider writing a post about it. This provides room for discussion and lets you tell your readers why you’re passionate
about what you’re advertising. This technique will not only
result in more people clicking an ad link (because you’ve
given them a reason to), but it will also fuel discussion andincrease trust. Users like to be told why you like a new product or service.
Don’t use ads in your feeds. Many executives at some point
realize that lots of people are reading their feeds. In fact,
if your blog is like most blogs, more people will read yourfeeds than go to your website. Resist any temptations toforce people to go to your site or to put advertising in yourfeeds. Remember that traffic isn’t the inherent value in yourblog, it’s the conversations that build relationships and trust.
Doing anything to compromise that is a bad idea.
Place the ad well. If you put an ad on your blog, place it in alocation where people who are “looking around” your blog
will find it. This can be in the top section of your blog, along
the side, or even at the bottom below all the content. As longas it doesn’t interrupt the content, a number of options forplacement are possible.
Give people a reason to click the ad link. If you put an ad on
your blog, give people a reason to click it. Don’t use standard
advertising techniques like “Fantastic new product!” and“This will change your life!” Respect your readers enoughto tell them the truth in your advertising. Consider offering blog-specific promotions, having contests for the best

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feedback on the product or ad, or offering other activities
around the product or ad. People enjoy being part of yourcompany, so leverage that in your advertising.
• Give customers ownership. I’ve talked about Microsoft’s Channel 9 site several times in this book. In early 2005, Channel 9
ran a contest for Microsoft’s annual developer conference.
Anyone could enter, and anyone could win an all-expense
paid trip to the conference (worth roughly $2500) if they
blogged about the conference and displayed a little graphic
promoting the conference. This allowed the readers and participators at Channel 9 not only to enter a cool contest, but
to carry the message beyond the original blog. Giving yourcustomers ownership of advertising and allowing them tocarry that advertising is a powerful way not only to get buyin, but also to create a community around an event, product,or service.
• Don’t advertise. One of the best ways to advertise anythingin blogs is not to advertise it at all. Bloggers love finding
secrets, telling others about those secrets, and posting about
secrets. This technique of “hiding” a new product or anotherannouncement in content is extremely effective. It’s a little
bit like reverse-psychology: you don’t tell bloggers what you
really want them to do. For example, if you were operating
a clothing company and blogged about some of your favorite fabrics, you might note as an aside that you’re using the
fabrics in your new product line—which you aren’t talking
about.
• Be passionate. Many blogs are inherently advertising andmarketing tools: you create them because you want to increase your visibility, build relationships, drive sales, increase
your interactivity with customers, and for all kinds of otherreasons. This is one reason why simply having a blog andHow to Succeed in Blogging

not in any way leveraging it to advertise is such a powerful method of actually advertising. A large number of bloggers have put their companies on the map simply by being
incredibly smart on their blogs. Joel Spolsky’s blog (www.joelonsoftware.com/) is just about the only means of advertising his company, Fog Creek Software (www.fogcreek.com) uses; Joel’s passion and intelligence is all the advertising Fog Creek really needs.
• Have a cause. Another great way to advertise is to get involved in a cause or a charity drive. Many of our clients havesuccessfully promoted blog-based fundraisers for charities tokick off new products they’re launching. Bloggers, in general, love to link to interesting charity events happening onother blogs.
• Interview the person behind the ad. Instead of simply announcing a new product, you can get readers interested in
the product by having a blog or podcast interview with theperson in charge. It’s the equivalent to director’s commentary on a DVD and a great way to see into the mind, andthe passion, of the person who brought whatever it is you’re
advertising from an idea to reality.

BUILDING A BLOG COMMUNITY
All businesses, whether they like it or not, operate in communities.
In some businesses, these are called industries ; in others, they’recalled vertical markets. But all businesses also operate in a more intangible community: the community of ideas centered around theirbusiness. Your community of ideas is made up of your company,
your employees, your partners, your suppliers, your customers, andany industry analysts, reporters, or bloggers who are interested. This
community of ideas includes all the people who have any interest

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A healthy community of ideas and interests builds itself up: itmeans two clients who may have supply and demand opportunities (a new business who needs business cards and a printing
company, for example) learn about each other and work together.
Your blog is one of the best ways to unite that community aroundyour company. Having a blog written either specifically for this

BLOGGING CONFERENCES: THE FAST-TRACKTO BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS
Blogging conferences are to bloggers what going out for adrinks on a Friday night is for many people: a way to connect.
Blogging conferences are held every month (or every week) all
over the world, and they are generally attended by 200 to 300
bloggers and people in various industries. These conferences
are primarily about three things:•

Meeting people who blog or want to learn how to blog•

Listening to talks, generally while blogging about them•

Meeting people who blog or want to learn how to blog
For most bloggers, the conference itself is really beside thepoint. Blogging conferences are about solidifying relationships,
catching up on gossip, meeting new people, and talking tocompany reps who are present. Higher profile bloggers will also
conduct press interviews, podcasts from the conference floor,
panel sessions, and open-ended discussion sessions (these comein various flavors).

How to Succeed in Blogging

group or at least with this group in mind allows you to tap into thepotential that is created when companies, individuals, the media,
bloggers, customers, and government work together to come up
with great ideas—and it allows it all to happen on your blog.

WHAT COMMUNITY LOOKS LIKE
A community of ideas or community of interest blog is a fairly
new phenomenon and one that few companies are using (yet);however, it’s an incredibly powerful tool.
The community spreads news about what’s happening in thecommunity. If you own a sign-making company, your community
may comprise a large variety of businesses, most of which might
be in a fairly specific geographic area. It may also involve suppliersof the materials you use, readers of your blogs, employees, and any
government officials who work with you. It may involve competitors (if you have a relationship with them). A healthy community
blog will list interesting things happening in all of these factions:from a new shish-kabob restaurant, to new government issues that
affect businesses like yours and those of your community, to a new
type of product that either you or other businesses in your community would find interesting. By spreading news about what’s
going on and what’s applicable, everyone stays in the loop, andeveryone’s business benefits.
Community advertises new opportunities. A healthy community blog will post new job opportunities in the businesses involved,
post new contracts that are available, post links to new government
grants that may be applicable, and generally keep everyone informed as to opportunities that may be of interest. Obviously, thisdoesn’t have to be to the detriment of your business, but if some
information will help everyone, it’s worth posting.
Community offers challenges. I know of a business that wasburglarized, and the insurance company refused to cover the

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site, and several businesses stepped in to offer help; the businessthat was robbed repaid the favors in new business and a variety ofother ways. In another community, one of the owners of a twoman printing shop was diagnosed with cancer. When this news
was posted to the community, several people offered part-time
staff (to be paid by the printing shop, of course) who could help
one or two days a week. This isn’t about generosity so much as
about realizing that a large and healthy community helps all businesses involved.
Community shares important information or tips. Whatever
information is relevant to the community industry, the geographic
location, or a school of thought should be posted to the community blog. Perhaps a new conference is of interest, or a major
department store is coming to town that people may want to support. Sharing this information makes everyone’s business stronger
and more able to compete.
In many ways, community is like an advanced contacts systems
online—like LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com)—where everyone
tries to be available to help everyone else. As the old saying goes,“A rising tide raises all ships.” By hosting this community of ideas
or community of interest, you not only get to be identified as thebusiness that’s doing the actual sharing, but you get to establish
stronger relationships with all of these businesses as you maintaincontact, share ideas, and ultimately build everyone’s business to agreater degree than would have happened without you and without
the new community blog.

WRAPPING IT UP
Ultimately, whether you buy into my overall vision for blogging
or not, blogging is still valuable for your business in that it does
increase your visibility (when done well), and it does allow youHow to Succeed in Blogging

to experiment with all kinds of interesting customer interactions.
What you choose to do with your blog is ultimately up to you, andhow you succeed with your blog will be decided by how committed
to it you and your business are.
In the next, and final, chapter of this book, we look at the future of blogging and how blogging is challenging various businessparadigms. I’ve talked about many such paradigms throughout
this book—such as transmitting versus engaging, treating yourcustomers as participants instead of wallets, and so forth. In thenext chapter we look at how blogging will ultimately evolve as it
collides with these and other paradigms.
My hope is that this book has provided you with food forthought, the information and examples necessary to develop a
blogging strategy, and the excitement needed to take a leap into
something as new and sometimes scary as blogging can be. Chapter 11 is meant to provide you with some forward-thinking information to make that leap just a little bit easier.

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THE FUTURE OF BUSINESSBLOGGING

The blog was an unqualified success. By posting examples of how
a good sign could impact business, Arnold had inspired a wave
of sign-buying in the town. Businesses were now competing to see
who could have the best sign. Even the new developments along theinterstate were getting in on the act. A falafel shop had placed anorder for a big stand-alone sign for the front of the store.
Zylon had appreciated the tactful way Arnold had defended thecompany in the “u suck” incident. Zylon was a good corporate
citizen as far as Arnold was concerned, and he was glad to say
so. It had been a learning experience all around. Until the nasty
comments on the blog, the leadership at Zylon hadn’t been awareof the poor relationship the company had with the community,
and the CEO vowed to address it. He had started his own blog to
explain the Zylon side of the story and to reach out to the town.
Zylon had even started an internal blog to improve efficiency andto make employees feel like valued partners.
“I understand the web. I even understand blogs,” Arnold explained
proudly to June, whose hair was now a pale shade of peach.

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Blog Marketing“Don’t rest on your laurels yet,” June said with a smile. “We’re justgetting started.”—Part 4 of “Blog,” a short story by Joe FloodM

uch of this book has focused on what blogging is and canbe. I would be remiss in not telling you where I, and manyin the industry, believe blogging is going. After all, it won’t remainstagnant—as new companies engage in the blogosphere, new communities begin to form, and new methods of pushing the envelope
emerge, a considerable amount of change, tension, and growth
will ensue.
It’s been said that the measure of a man is how quickly he accepts change. I believe the same is true for blogging. Blogging
started out as a way for people to communicate; to update eachother on important, relevant issues; and to establish relationships.
From the earliest days of blogging, the purity of relationships wasvalued above everything else. Similarly, most bloggers believe thatthey are agents of change, helping the world come to appreciate
blogging.
However, these agents of change don’t realize that by involving
more people, the very thing they love will change.
As change is inevitable, this chapter is dedicated to providing
some insight and best guesses into what those changes will be andhow they will play out. I can’t render judgment on whether certain
approaches are good or bad. Ultimately, it requires risk-takers andpeople ready to push the envelope for us all to see what blogging
can and will become.
While hundreds of small and large changes to blogging are certain to occur during the years, I’ll touch on three specific trends as
this book nears its close:

The Future of Business Blogging• The shifting focus from accuracy and relationships to communication and relationships• The growing trend of businesses wanting to build “real” relationships with customers• The principles of “awareness publishing” and how companies can relate one-to-one with customers on a global scale

TRENDS FOR THE FUTURE
Authenticity, relationship, and honesty—you’ll remember thesethree themes since they’ve been included as a consistent part of thisbook. Bloggers, who are a representation of your audience, value
these themes above all else, primarily because bloggers value relationships above everything else, and they rightly believe that any
relationship that isn’t authentic and honest probably isn’t worth
having.
This focus on realness and authentic relationships is one of thereasons blogging grew so quickly. As people tired of the mainstream media’s perspective, they could get an authentic report on
events, people who wanted real financial advice without any spin
could get a real opinion, and voyeuristic people who wanted topeer into someone else’s life could do just that—all by using blogs.
In the beginning of blogging, nearly everything was real.
As your company enters into blogging, you must be aware of
how important these values are to your audience, and as thesevalues shift slightly, you need to be aware that peoples’ reactions
will change. Some companies that haven’t been aware of thesevalues have tried a number of things to appeal to blog readers,ultimately ending in fairly disastrous “lessons learned.”
First, character blogs were written by novelists trying to create“real” people online. One of the largest of these was “Plain Layne,”

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painful memory that readers had followed and offered help with
were fakes.
Next came companies who started “blogs” that were entirely
and completely fake. Not only was no real person behind them,but their sole purpose was to get people to believe in an ad campaign. McDonald’s, for example, engaged in this type of activity
with a blog about a French fry that looked like Abraham Lincoln
and was sold on eBay (see www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/
weblog/comments/2450/).
And, as always happens in our capitalist society, the change
from a relationship-driven community to one that still valued relationships but also wanted to make money slowly crept in. First it
was ads on individual pages; then companies paid bloggers to blog
about them; then companies sponsored entire blogs.
Each of these changes shocked the blogging world but alsobrought about a more natural balance. Yes, sometimes bloggers
will tell stories. And, yes, some bloggers want to make money.
Overall, most bloggers eventually accepted these facts, as longas bloggers and companies disclosed that this is what they were
doing. The word disclosure became so important that not disclosing whether you were receiving corporate money or not disclosing
a relationship with companies you were blogging about was a shotagainst your authenticity and your character.
All of these trends will continue to collide in the future. Companies will want to pour money into blogging. Bloggers will wantto make money off of blogging. Fake blogs, character blogs, andinauthentic blogs will appear. But these will not prosper unlessthe writer behind them is authentic. Authenticity will continue
to drive serious blogging for many years to come, which is a good

The Future of Business Blogging

thing for your business, because it allows you to relate to your customers directly—something that smart businesses crave.
I believe that several minor trends will collide with interesting
results in the future:• Accuracy versus timeliness• Relationships versus readers• Purity versus income
In the past, reporting things in an accurate fashion was highly
prized by bloggers who reported events. They knew that even if it
took an extra half hour to do so, verifying the facts was an important part of what they were doing. In many ways, they were acting
as micro-journalists—or as citizen journalists. However, some individuals and groups have realized that others out there are doing
similar things on blogs; as a result, some bloggers have become
more like mass media in general in that they not only strive to
publish something before the mainstream media (which is surprisingly easy to do), but also to publish it before other bloggers. This issometimes at the expense of accuracy. I see this trend continuing
for some time, at least until bloggers decide to take a stand for thetruth instead of blogging for attention.
The pressure on increasingly popular bloggers is immense. Most
bloggers start out with just friends and acquaintances reading their
new blogs. Then readers who don’t know them find their blogs, anda community of hundreds or even thousands of readers can develop.
When a blogger has that kind of reader base, what follows is pressure
to write about certain topics in certain ways and to do all of this on avery frequent basis. The challenge for bloggers who enter this stage is
to continue to value relationships ahead of readers. However, the lureof readers, fame, and fortune can be strong, and quite a few bloggers
have either given up or even stabbed their friends in the back seeking

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Like it or not, blogging fame can distort your view of reality to thepoint where the reason you started blogging in the first place becomes less important than the things you can get by blogging.
On a similar vein, I believe the purity of blogging will start tobe called into question, specifically by those who started blogging
the earliest. Many of these early, and very vocal, bloggers will see
the increasing presence of media and corporations in the worldof blogging as a bad thing. This is ironic, considering they once
claimed it would become vital to those same corporations. However, many newer bloggers will eschew this purity in favor of income, reputation, and visibility. Not that they will necessarily be
any less interested in authenticity, honesty, and other themes, butthey will be looking for something that gives them benefits and notbenefits just to the entire blogosphere.
Overall, expect the blogosphere and bloggers in general to become more professional, more money and visibility focused, and,in spite of that, to continue to resist change. (Sounds very much
like the open-source movement!)

ACCURACY VS. TIMELINESSOne of the hallmarks of blogging is its accuracy —not necessarily
in the traditional mainstream media type of accuracy, but accuracy
as to what the blogger is experiencing. When bloggers write reports,
they do so largely from an experiential and emotional point of view.
They state their opinions, show off other opinions, link to a variety
of sites, and somehow come together with writing that is real, honest, and accurate—at least to the blogger who wrote the post.
This focus on accuracy is one of the reasons that bloggers andblog readers don’t enjoy hearing what they call “marketing speak,”which is effectively the canned, hyped-up type of talk that goes

The Future of Business Blogging

into press releases and that emphasizes the “new” and “innovative”
and “world-changing” nature of some new product a company
is touting. Bloggers, and to a growing extent the general public,
would rather hear why your company is doing something, why it
excites you, and what you believe it will do for customers.
Blogging is also an incredibly time-sensitive activity. In themainstream press world, it’s a big deal if you are behind on a story
by a few hours (in TV), or a day (in newspaper), or a week (in amagazine). In blogging, you lose the advantage if you’re off by
minutes. For bloggers whose traffic, reputation, and style is built
on their ability to find news first, minutes matter.
As a result, I’ve seen occasions in which these two paradigms
collide: nobody can be the fastest and the most accurate—one or
the other needs to be the priority. As you begin to explore blogging
further, you will undoubtedly encounter this phenomenon andyou’ll likely wrestle with the desire to write something first insteadof writing it right.

THE VALUE OF FAST
Generally speaking, the blogger who finds and posts something
first gets recognized as such by receiving the most incoming links
on the subject. People look at the original post more than any
other, primarily because that’s assumed to be the one that has themost information.
The value of getting information out quickly is a double-edged
sword, though, because it’s difficult to include every perspective,
to verify information, and to form a full opinion if you have only
seconds or minutes in which to write the post. These posts willoften be framed in a “I just came across this . . .” or “This is just arumor at this point . . .” style of post.
That said, unlike mainstream media, blogs can be edited live,
so many bloggers begin adding context, accuracy, opinion, other

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perspectives, and such well after their original post appeared. Nevertheless, this value on fast over right does play havoc with the first
readers to a post who don’t necessarily get all the accurate information on the story.
Gawker Media (www.gawker.com; see Figure 11-1) is an interesting blog network, in that it is highly focused on the “fast”
side of blogging: lots of rumors, lots of unconfirmed stories, andlots of sensationalism appear on this blog. Gawker is based on theconcept of fast reporting, possibly with more in-depth reporting
being provided later (if there’s anything new of interest). In many
ways, it’s similar to a tabloid, and we all know how much tabloids
improve the value of the mainstream press.
As you begin blogging, you will often encounter the choice of
whether to report everything or to report something. Whicheverchoice you make, be aware that you are making a choice, and that

Figure 11-1

Gawker Media focuses largely on the “tabloid” side of news:
rumors, leaks, and interesting celebrity news.

The Future of Business Blogging

you are (in many ways) setting a precedent; so make sure it’s theprecedent you want to set.
Ultimately, the choice of valuing fast or right needs to be considered as you’re developing your blogging strategy and blogger
relations strategies. True niche blogs have the ability to be first andforemost, since breaking stories will often be sent their way before
being offered to the mainstream media.

THE VALUE OF RIGHTIn blogging terms, right is about two things: the facts and thecontext. Facts are facts; context is your opinion or the opinion ofothers, what the situation at hand means to your company andindustry, and anything that might matter to your readers. Compiling a full contextual post often means considering topics from avariety of angles. In the beginning of blogging, context was purely
about the individual and what he or she thought and how things
applied to him or her, but with a business, you need to provide
more depth: readers want to know your opinion, what it means tothe company, and what it means to the industry.
That said, you can provide context in three ways:• Opinion By providing your or your business’s opinion ona matter, you offer readers your beliefs about what the situation or event or news means. Is it important? Will it change
the industry? Is it merely a “good to know” piece of information? Your opinion is key to positioning the situation in yourcustomers’ minds.
• Perspective Perspective is all about stepping back and asking “What does this mean?” as well as “Are we looking at thisthe right way?” One of my earliest bits of business reporting
regarded the Canadian Bre-X gold scandal in the late 1990s,
wherein a Bre-X geologist’s fake report indicated that a huge

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the scandal made the mainstream news, everyone was talking
about what it meant to investors and to the gold industry,
while I was seeking to lend a different perspective—what it
meant for trust in Canadian business, and how could such asituation be averted in the future. Perspective is really about
taking what is being said elsewhere and asking different questions to provide a different kind of value.
• Meaning Whenever a scandal happens in politics, one of theinvolved parties’ first responses is “This isn’t important.” While
this typically means the scandal is important, it’s also a great example of assigning meaning to a situation. For example, rightly
or wrongly, US President George W. Bush wrapped national
security, terrorism, and patriotism into one big ball that can’t
be undone; whenever anyone tries to challenge one of these,
he insists that they must be challenging American democracy
and freedom. Hopefully, when you provide meaning, it won’t
be in such black-and-white terms; providing the answers to“why?” and “what does this mean?” questions is one of yourkey responsibilities when blogging to your customers.
Blogging is a fantastic platform for communicating with yourcustomers and for getting their feedback. Make sure you write
your posts in such a way that both of these can happen, and recognize that going forward with the two paradigms of right and fast
will collide, largely with unexpected results.

THE PARADIGMS AT PLAY
Blogs were founded on the value of right. For most blogs, thiswas about individuals being authentic, and therefore true to themselves—but even the earliest blogs sometimes pointed out new
stuff as interesting, without necessarily reporting all the facts.

The Future of Business Blogging

In fact, the earliest blogs really didn’t put a lot of value on factual
accuracy, at least at the community level. Blog authors obviously
weren’t trying to deceive anyone, and they weren’t reporting untruths, but few people questioned what other bloggers wrote.
This collision of paradigms between fast and right is a natural byproduct of blogging growing up: as time passes and more questions
are asked, people become more cynical and skeptical and start to ask
more questions (valuing right)—plus, people are looking to get traffic, reputation, and advertising dollars (valuing fast). Fundamentally,
the paradigm shift is the result of a movement away from the valueof a single person’s truthful (to themselves, at least) account, opinion, and perspective, as well as a complete valuing of relationships
and people, and a shift toward truth, security, and integrity (which,without authenticity, is an interesting thing to desire).
For your business, this shifting paradigm means that bloggers
will have different expectations of you, depending on their perspectives. Some will expect you to comment right away on a new
scandal, product, or development, while others will be content
waiting for a few hours or a couple of days while you get your facts
together. (That isn’t to say that waiting is always the best thing todo.) Ultimately, values will collide in unusual ways, so that saying“valuing right is always best for your company” in the future is adifficult call to make.
Be aware of these shifting paradigms and reader and blogger
expectations, and take advantage of them. For example, if yourcompany is facing a major scandal, why not acknowledge it on yourblog, updating your readers as events happen internally? Here isan example snapshot of how one of my clients handled a recent
scandal using a blog:
Day 1
10:00: Posted acknowledgement to blog.

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1:00: Posted about filing of lawsuit on blog.
3:00: Posted (from a trusted source) a denial, promising moredetails tomorrow after he’d had a chance to go over exactly
where the company was at.
Day 2
9:00: Posted detailed overview of what led up to the lawsuit.
11:00: Posted an interview with the individual inside the company who had mishandled the situation (this was not a criminal
lawsuit and ended up being a minor civil one).
2:00: Posted an apology to customers, the customer who had
been mishandled, and the industry at large.
Day 3
Remained a source of objective news on the subject.
This client ultimately tried to balance fast and right. Because
this was a lawsuit issue, the company obviously consulted withlawyers at each step of the way, but my clients really, really wanted
to maintain a sense of being the first and best place to get information on what had happened, why it had happened, what was goingon inside the company, and where this experience was taking thecompany.
A lawsuit is an extreme example, but a good one: if you have to
make a choice, you can choose to do both fast and right by making
it clear to readers that you’ll be posting more information as you
can. Making a time promise is also a good idea, if you can keep it.

RIDING THE TRENDS
It is difficult to say exactly how and when these trends will collide, but the first precursors to that collision are beginning to appear. In many ways, these types of trends are to be expected—any

The Future of Business Blogging

time something goes from niche to mainstream growing pains andshifting values always ensue. Thankfully for your business, you cantake advantage both of the current focus on authenticity and relationships as well as dedicating resources into the coming trends oftimeliness and depth of reporting. There isn’t any reason you can’tride both of the trends, which will ultimately give you a deeper
and more meaningful message in the conversation.

RELATIONSHIPS VS. READERS
When blogging began, relationships were a huge focus. This hasn’tchanged much over the years, as bloggers still love to get together,find new blogs, talk to new people, interact with new companies,
and generally be social butterflies. However, things have begun tochange as the value of the blog becomes less about the actual blogger and more about how many people read the blog.
Some attempts to counteract this trend have been made byblogging’s originators, who try to focus on who is reading a blog
rather than how many are reading it, figuring that having 10 “influential” people reading your blog is exponentially more powerfulthan 1000 “non-influential” folks. However, for most blogs, thisargument simply doesn’t hold up, as most blogs don’t have even10 influential people reading them. This trend has become more
and more visible, as high-profile bloggers begin posting their traffic levels publicly and the blogosphere begins to be separated into
two distinct groups: those who have (traffic, that is), and those
who have not.
Realistically and historically, a mild bit of the class system has
crept into the blogosphere. A-List bloggers are the most popular
people in any given niche. These people were, almost without exception, the first to start blogging in that niche. Those who started
later enjoyed nowhere near the popularity of the A-List bloggers.

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This class system, though frequently mentioned in the blogging
realm, generally didn’t matter much, since even the A-List bloggers valued relationships (even if it was generally with other A-List
bloggers). Eventually, B-List bloggers—those who were making
waves but weren’t really popular enough to be on the real A-List—and even the C-List—those who had traffic, but weren’t making
waves and were not extremely popular—were mentioned.
In mid-2005, a site showed up claiming to have compiled thedefinitive lists of A to C Lists; Blogebrity is shown in Figure 11-2
(www.blogebrity.com). This site was actually meant as satire, but
the lists are still posted and remain the closest to any documented
blogger class system.
Despite the popularity contest, relationships still do matter tobloggers, and even though the trend toward measuring the importance of a blogger by his or her traffic will likely increase (as people

Figure 11-2 Blogebrity produced a documented list of the top classes of
bloggers.

The Future of Business Blogging

like to measure how important they are), there will continue tobe measures taken to “preserve” the blogosphere. Some of thiswill focus on reminding bloggers and readers what blogging reallystands for, and some will focus on defining your own “personal
A-List” of people who matter to you.
These trends are important for businesses not because a business needs to get sucked into either of these debates, but because
these subcultures of people (those who value traffic, and those whovalue relationship) will visit your blog and will look for signs ofwhether you measure up in their eyes.

MEASURING YOUR BUSINESSBLOG’S SUCCESSThe pressure to measure a blog’s success by external standards (suchas links, Technorati ranking, PubSub ranking, traffic, comments,and list ranking) is high, and it is also incredibly natural. We humans tend to look for ways to compare ourselves to others, either
to make us feel better by beating the other guy or to stop us fromfeeling bad because we’re not as bad as the other guy. This tendency
is natural in blogging, too, but your business must fight it.
Developing a blogging strategy that focuses on your metrics for
success is important. If the only way you measure success is by traffic and other external measures, you could easily shut down yourblog in spite of the importance of the relationships you build, thecommunication that happens, and the real value to your businessthat blogging brings.
Part of that set of metrics will almost certainly be external measures, and that’s fine, because it’s good to know your reach, youraudience, how many pages people are seeing each visit, and otherstatistics. It’s all valuable marketing information. However, youalso need to figure out ways to measure the value blogging is bringing to your business via other factors: How many customers did

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blogging let you help? How much buzz did the blog create? Did
comments from customers bring more clarity to how a productshould work (or why it doesn’t)? These are all important pieces ofthe successful blog puzzle. Simply measuring success by traffic islike measuring the success of a baseball team only by how many
pitches get thrown: it’s good to know, but it doesn’t help you determine whether you should stay in the game.
Projecting Your ImportanceThe challenge for business blogs is that some readers will careabout how “important” the business is and more specifically how
important the blog is. This may happen not in obvious ways, but
subversively. By defining your success publicly, defining how well
you’re doing publicly, and projecting that you value blogging, you
can project your importance and meet this challenge.
Show that you value your readers and that you value blogging, perhaps by papering a wall in your office with postcards ande-mails sent by readers, and then regularly taking pictures of thatwall and posting them on the blog. Or tell the world about things
posted on your blog, and then point the world to your blog. Or
sponsor contests. Ultimately, readers need to know that you value
your blog not for the traffic it brings or for how visible it is externally, but for how it affects them—the readers.
Pleasing Everyone
As you go forward in your blogging, you will encounter internaland external challenges. You will also encounter wildly different
expectations from your readers, customers, and partners. Somewill think you’ve lost it for starting a blog or for posting certain
information to the blog, while others will think you’re great for
doing the same things.

The Future of Business Blogging

We all know that there’s no way to please everyone, and this is thebiggest reason for defining your own success instead of letting theblogosphere, analysts, or even your blog’s readers define it for you.
As long as you have created and can continually refer back to yourblogging strategy, you’ll know whether or not you’re succeeding.
Just as you should be cautious when entering blogging, to makesure you’re doing it for the right reasons, so, too, should you be
cautious as you’re blogging: don’t let anyone else define your success; otherwise, you’ll let them also define your failures.

PURITY VS. INCOME
Many of the paradigms and trends we’ve discussed in this chapter
are about “old values” versus “new opportunities,” and the arguments of purity versus income are no different. Until 2004, seeing
any kind of ads on blogs was an anomaly, and the blogger who allowed ads was generally regarded with some level of disdain. When
Google launched its AdSense program, which let even the smallest
blog publishers earn money from their websites, blogs started toinclude more advertising.
During the 2004 US presidential elections, advertising became
prominent on many types of blogs, as both political parties andall kinds of action groups tried to saturate the blogosphere with
opinion, “facts,” and diatribes. Since then, advertising on blogs
has become fairly commonplace. Some blogs have understated ads
that barely cover the costs of running the blogs, while other blogs
are proudly for-profit endeavors. Some bloggers, such as Darren
Rowse (www.problogger.net), even make a living purely by their
blogging efforts, and entire networks of for-profit blogs such as
Weblogs, Inc. (www.weblogsinc.com) and Gawker Media (www.gawker.com) have shown up. Even blog-specific ad networks,

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Blog Marketingsuch as Blogads (www.blogads.com), AdBrite (www.adbrite.com),and Pheedo (www.pheedo.com), are increasing in number.
Advertising has become an accepted practice on blogs, but that
doesn’t mean everyone’s happy about it.
In 2005, a crisis occurred in blogging regarding the use of ads inblog feeds. While ads in blog feeds was probably a natural evolutionary step for blog-based advertising, it still riled many original
bloggers to the point where Dave Winer, one of blogging’s founders, got sponsorship for a talk he made at a conference just to show
how silly he believed ads in feeds were. Still, bloggers and blog
publishers went ahead with the ad feed program. Readers didn’t
end up clicking many ads, though, so many publishers eventually
removed them entirely, but not before a certain cadre of bloggers
got upset enough to kick up a minor fuss.
The argument for purity is largely that any attempt to advertise products on a blog will diminish the blogger’s ability to speakhonestly—after all, if you’re being paid by some company to talkabout it, are you really likely to be objective and honest? Also, notall blogs talk about ads that appear on the site. Blog ads can bemuch like magazine ads—a relevant company asks to post an ad
and the publisher includes it for a fee. By giving the blogger final
say-so over which ads are posted, though, the issue of being objective is moot. The ads become as authentic as the blog content. Of
course, many people say they just ignore the blog ads anyway.

WORKING IT FOR YOUR BUSINESSThis collision of ideals will probably never be truly resolved: people
who refuse to believe bloggers or businesses should make money
are unlikely to change that stance, and people who believe thatmaking money from something you spend a heck of a lot of time
doing is natural are unlikely to concede.

The Future of Business Blogging

However, this trend is important to note for your business blog,
because it could shape your customers’ expectations of how you
deal with the public, how and why you blog, and what benefit
you’re receiving. If the vast majority of readers begin wanting amore “pure” blog, they may tell you that your business shouldn’t
receive a direct financial benefit from blogging either.
Preparedness is key. Public opinion constantly changes, andbeing prepared and flexible will make your response that much
more valuable and measured.

AWARENESS PUBLISHING
Blogs empower people to be able to write their own thoughts
quickly and easily online as a “personal publishing” forum. Blogs
are equally powerful for companies, though, as we’ve exploredthroughout this book. Business blogging isn’t really about personal
publishing at all—it’s a different kind of publishing power: I call it“awareness publishing.”
Using the blog, companies small and large are in charge of generating awareness and visibility and attracting attention. Before
blogs, communication occurred through the media, public relations, and marketing. With blogs, businesses and business leaders
can talk directly to customers and build relationships in entirely
new ways, with great results.
Awareness publishing, and business blogging, are important because they put companies in control. Company blogs create a newdegree of interactivity with customers that had rarely been experienced before blogging, especially since most interaction occurs ona small scale with a few dozen or a few hundred of your customers.
Now, though, you can interact with anyone—your customers aswell as hundreds or thousands of potential new customers—all at
the same time, and you can allow them to respond to you directly.

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In addition, your audience can be in control. One reason blogs
work so well is because people get to respond in the commentsarea of the blog. Comments create a great two-way conversation,
allowing your blog to interact with clients instead of just being a
way to push your ideas onto your clients. As a result, customers
are empowered to choose to read and participate in your blog andare therefore empowered to begin a relationship with you, which
would have been much more difficult in other circumstances. In
other media, communication is about your business selling something to the customer, while blogs are really about communication,with no strings attached.
Awareness publishing also helps spread the message. As goodas your message may be, and as good as communication on yourblog will surely become, your business needs to reach beyond thefour walls that surround your physical offices into the larger world.
Blogs spread the message in a variety of ways, with tracking tools
such as Technorati to bloggers’ tendency to generously link tointeresting tidbits, and this gives your message a greater ability to
spread naturally and quickly throughout your community.

NEW AWARENESS
The concepts of awareness publishing aren’t just about raising
your company’s visibility; they’re also about raising awareness inareas for which your customers and readers may not otherwise beable to access. Blogs provide a way for you to shed light on what
your company is really doing, and what your company is reallyabout. It doesn’t need to come in the form of announcements orpress releases; instead, it should be in the conversational tone of
the blog. If a customer asks about your civic-mindedness, for example, you can let him or her know that you honestly care about
the community so much so that you’ve decided to sponsor a local

The Future of Business Blogging

park, and that you’re donating employee time to help with a local
wetlands issue.
Blogs shouldn’t be used as a pulpit for this type of thing, butthey do offer a way to engage your audience in areas of which they
may not otherwise be aware. Use this capacity wisely: You don’t
need to brag about your company’s philanthropic events or otherdeeds. Remember that real conversations are based on respect,
and that your feedback is most wanted and most valuable whenit’s asked for. So while your wetlands project may be great for thecommunity, boasting about your community-mindedness is notnecessarily the best way to respond to someone who posts a message like “You stink!”

BENEFITS OF AWARENESS PUBLISHING
When I envisioned this book, the concepts of awareness publishingwere incredibly important to me. Problem was, they were largely
concepts until my editor began pushing me for the real benefits.
As we brainstormed on these benefits, it became clear that blogging was about more than just raising your business’s awarenessand visibility.
Gaining AwarenessAs discussed several times in this book, the measure of your brandand your business’s advertising effectiveness is really about how
much mindshare you have with your customers. Conversations are
great ways to increase mindshare, and your blog provides a greatmechanism for at least kick-starting those conversations.
Getting Feedback
The more people are aware of you and your company, the morethey talk about you and your company. By providing a place
for people to talk to you, and each other, about their joys and

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frustrations, you not only create a community of people who getto hear directly from you, but you get to participate in some great
feedback sessions.
Presenting Your Side of the Story
Several high-profile executives, such as Dallas Mavericks owner
Marc Cuban and Sun Microsystems’ Jonathan Schwartz, haveturned to blogging as a way to express the real “whys” behind astory. Too often with the mainstream press, the truth of the story
can get lost in the reporter’s “angle.” Blogs provide a fantastic way
for you not only to say exactly what you mean to say, in context,
but also to provide answers to why your business is doing what it’sdoing in an open and honest way.
Creating Opportunities for Dialogue
Much of blogging is about dialogue. A lot of talk happens in the
blogosphere, but one of the great benefits of blogging is that it
can kick off person-to-person conversations. Text is great for getting introduced, but nothing beats a phone call, a lunch date, or around of golf or tennis for really getting to know someone. Blogs
are great for introducing yourself, establishing relationships, andkick-starting conversations that create new opportunities.

WHERE BLOGGING IS HEADEDSo where is blogging going? We looked at some of the trends thatwill begin converging (or diverging) earlier in this chapter, but our
final area of discussion in this book will be about where blogging
is going and what’s going to take it there.
I’ve done hundreds of interviews in magazines, newspapers, andradio shows about blogging. I’m frequently asked this question:“Where is blogging headed in the next five or ten years?”

The Future of Business Blogging

Blogging is just so new that it’s hard to say exactly where it willbe by, say, 2010. Typically, when asked, I’ve offered one of three
responses:• Blogs will disappear. Blogs will become so ubiquitous thatthey’ll be forgotten as a buzzword. Everyone will have a blog,
it will be a natural extension of every website, and it will benatural for people to post comments on all kinds of content,
including news articles and movie trailers.
• Blogs will change everything. This one is sometimes used justto precipitate discussion, but I’ll sometimes say “Blogs willcompletely redefine everything businesses do” to start a real
conversation on the merits of blogging. The fact is, blogs
could easily change many of the facets of how people react
to, and expect to interact with, businesses from corner storesto major corporations. Blogs are the embodiment of theconsumer’s ability to discern, and the business’s ability tolisten: together, these two forces could easily change how all
businesses interact and converse with customers.
• Blogs are a communications medium and will never die. Earlyin the process of writing this book, I had a mild epiphany:blogs are a communications medium. I realized that nocommunications medium that reached the mainstream
has died—not the fax, not the telegraph, not the letter, notthe phone. OK, so some have died—we rarely use carrier
pigeons or smoke signals anymore—but the point remains:once something is mainstream, it takes years, even decades,
for it to change, even if something better comes along.
Blogs will change. Lots of companies will have blogs. Blogs are
revolutionary. But no matter what happens, blogs will be a communications medium for many years to come. As long as you keep

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BLOGS REPLACE WEBSITESOne of the main schools of thought relative to where blogs
are going is that they may eventually completely replace mosttypical corporate websites. Instead of having an “About Us”
page that stays the same, companies will have an “About Us”
category on their blogs that gets updated at least once a monthwith new company-related information. Instead of having an“About the CEO” page, the CEO will have his or her own blog.
At their core, blogs are simply websites that empower
communication. Why wouldn’t a company want to empower
communication across its entire website?

communicating with your customers using your blog, and even if
blogs go out of style and you keep using them and communicatingwith them, they can still bring value to your company; there may
never be a reason to stop using blogs.

WRAPPING IT UP
Each of the trends in this chapter is important; however, exactly
how these collisions will play out and what the changes in blogging will mean to your business are uncertain. Does it even matter
if a blogger makes money off his or her blog, as long as the blogger
stays authentic? Can a blogger not find a way to be both fast andaccurate? Can traffic matter to a business, as long as relationships
still matter?
All of these questions will be answered with time. Your businessneeds to keep its finger on the pulse of blogging; you need to know
why you are blogging, why you’re succeeding, and how best toThe Future of Business Blogging

use this exciting medium, publishing platform, and communications tool to your advantage. Some of that will be internal to yourcompany and some of it will be external to the world. Either way,though, you need to find out how you can use blogging to help
you and your business.
This glimpse into the future of blogging brings this book to aclose. I’ve included an appendix with a sample blogging policy,
as well as a glossary of blogging terms, should you need them.
Hopefully this book has provided you with insight into how
blogging can best be used. If you have questions, please see thebook’s blog (www.blogmarketingbook.com) or my blog (www.ensight.org), or send me an e-mail (jeremy@ensight.org).
Good luck in your blogging endeavors!

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This page intentionally left blankAPPENDIXSAMPLE BLOGGING POLICY

T

hroughout this book, I’ve mentioned the importance of creating blogging policies to guide you as you blog. Blogging
policies can be complicated strategies that consider both legal andcultural issues, and, unfortunately, no “one-size fits all” blogging
policy works for every business. For example, some companies willencourage employees to blog, while restricting posting information about financial topics, while other companies won’t want employees to blog externally about work-related topics whatsoever.
Regardless of the details, you do need to communicate with youremployees regarding the boundaries of what is acceptable in blogging at and for your company. Some companies, such as IBM, ask
their employees to write their own blogging policies, which thecompany then reviews and approves, if appropriate.
This appendix looks specifically at the blogging policy of theThomas Nelson publishing company.
Thomas Nelson’s policy takes the bold step of not only allowing employees to blog, but encouraging them to do so, and thecompany provides a central location where employees can go toread employee blog posts so that non-bloggers can stay up to date295
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without the need for a feed reader. This community-centric blogging policy is a great example providing advice (start with a service, write as yourself, and be nice) and boundaries (what you say
is your own responsibility, keep secrets, and respect copyrights).
Overall, it is one of the best blogging policies I’ve ever seen—it’ssimple, it’s clear, and it communicates.

THOMAS NELSON BLOGGING GUIDELINES
At Thomas Nelson, we want to encourage you to blog about ourcompany, our products, and your work. Our goal is three-fold:• To raise the visibility of our company,• To make a contribution to our industry, and• To give the public a look at what goes on within a real live
publishing company.
Therefore, we have established a “blog aggregator page” that is
linked to the ThomasNelson.com Web site. “House Work,” thename of this page, contains links to employee blogs, along withthe first few sentences from the most recent entry. The page is automatically updated whenever a blogger creates a new post. Thisway readers can quickly scan new entries, click on those that interest them, and then read the entry on the blogger’s site. This makes
it convenient for people who are interested in reading employee
blogs. It also helps publicize individual blogs and generates traffic
for everyone.
In order to give some direction to employees who wish to blog,
we have established a “Blog Oversight Committee” or “BOC.”
This is a group of fellow-employee bloggers who are committed
to promoting blogging within our company and making sure that
the Company’s interests are served.

Blogging Policies

If you would like to have us link to your blog, you must submit
it to the BOC. Before doing so, you should design your blog andwrite at least one entry. Once you have done this, send an e-mailto Gave Wicks with a link to your blog. The BOC will then review
your blog and notify you whether or not it meets the criteria.
In order to participate in this program, you must abide by thefollowing guidelines. (Please keep in mind that review by the BOC
and participation in this program does not absolve you of responsibility for everything you post.)
1. Start with a blogging service. We do not host employee blogs.
We think it adds more credibility if the Company does notofficially sponsor them. Therefore, please use one of the many
third-party blog hosting sites on the Internet. Some of theseare free, such as Blogger.com, LiveJournal.com, Blog-City.com, Xanga.com, and MSN Spaces. Others charge a nominal fee. Examples include TypePad.com, SquareSpace.com,
BlogIdentity.com, and Bubbler.com. If you use one of thelatter, any expense is your responsibility.
2. Write as yourself. In other words, please use your real name.
We don’t want people writing anonymously or under apseudonym. Your name should be prominently displayedon your blog’s title or subtitle. This will add credibility
with your readers and promote accountability within ourcompany.
3. Own your content. Employee blog sites are not Company
communications. Therefore, your blog entries legally belong to you. They represent your thoughts and opinions.
We think it is important that you remind your readers of
this fact by including the following disclaimer on your site:“The posts on this blog are provided ‘as is’ with no warranties and confer no rights. The opinions expressed on this site

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Blog Marketingare my own and do not necessarily represent those of myemployer.” You assume full responsibility and liability for all
actions arising from your posts. We also encourage you to
put a copyright notice on your site in your name (e.g., “©
2005, John Smith”).
4. Write relevant. Write often. Whether you know it or not,you are an expert. You have a unique perspective on ourcompany based on your talents, skills, and current responsibilities. People want to hear about that perspective. Also,in order to develop a consistent readership, you should try
to write on a regular basis. For some, this will be daily; forothers, it may be weekly. The important thing is consistent
posting. New content is what keeps readers coming back.
You may also write on company time, provided it doesn’t
become excessive and doesn’t interfere with your job assignments and responsibilities.
5. Advertise—if you wish. While there is no requirement to
run ads on your blog, you are free to do this if you wish.
Some of the free blog services run ads as a way to offset theircosts. If you use such a service, you won’t have a choice. On
the other hand, if you pay for your service, you can avoid
advertising altogether or participate in a service like Google’s
AdSense or Amazon’s Associate Program. These types of programs will pay you based on “page views,” “click-throughs,”
or purchases made on participating Web sites. You mightwant to ask the BOC or fellow bloggers for suggestions. The
only thing we ask is that, to the extent you have control, you
run ads or recommend products that are congruent with ourcore values as a Company.
6. Be nice. Avoid attacking other individuals or companies.
This includes fellow employees, authors, customers, vendors,
competitors, or shareholders. You are welcome to disagree

Blogging Policies

with the Company’s leaders, provided your tone is respectful.
If in doubt, we suggest that you “sleep on it” and then submit
your entry to the BOC before posting it on your blog.
7. Keep secrets. Do not disclose sensitive, proprietary, confidential, or financial information about the Company, otherthan what is publicly available in our SEC filings and corporate press releases. This includes revenues, profits, forecasts,
and other financial information related to specific authors,
brands, products, product lines, customers, operating units,
etc. Again, if in doubt, check with the BOC before posting
this type of information.
8. Respect copyrights. For your protection, do not post any
material that is copyrighted unless (a) you are the copyrightowner, (b) you have written permission of the copyrightowner to post the copyrighted material on your blog, or (c)you are sure that the use of any copyrighted material is permitted by the legal doctrine of “fair use.” (Please note: this is
your responsibility. The Company cannot provide you withlegal advice regarding this.)
9. Obey the law. This goes without saying, but by way of reminder, do not post any material that is obscene, defamatory,
profane, libelous, threatening, harassing, abusive, hateful,embarrassing to another person or entity, or violates the privacy rights of another. Also, do not post material that contains
viruses, Trojan horses, worms, or any other computer codethat is intended to damage, interfere with, or surreptitiouslyintercept or expropriate any system, data, or information.
10. Remember the Handbook. As a condition of your employment, you agreed to abide by the rules of the Thomas Nelson
Company Handbook. This also applies to your blogging
activities. We suggest you take time to review the section
entitled, “Employee Responsibilities” (pp. 36–39).

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If you do not abide by the above guidelines, we reserve the rightto stop linking to your blog.
Note: More examples of blogging policies can be viewed at www.blogmarketingbook.com

GLOSSARYT

he following is a glossary of commonly used blogging terms
and their meanings.

biz blogs

Also known as business blogs, these blogs are written bybusiness people about business topics and day-to-day operations
to impart wisdom from within a company, offer education, andprovide industry information.
blog/weblog

Blog is a contraction of weblog, and is a series ofindividual comments, called posts, that generally appear in reverse
chronological order. A blog is a means of communication and,as such, most often includes comments available for each post,
though they are not required. See internal blog; post.
Web analyst Steven Streight defines a blog in a more abstract
sense:1
A communications, connectivity, and interactivity platform that enables
users with no HTML skills to quickly and easily publish web content fora global audience, thus the democratization of web content publishing, therevolutionary rise of universal access to internet content. In short, a blog is
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like a “thin website”—all of the power of a full website, without having toknow all of the technical details.

blogger

A person who owns or writes in a weblog.

blogosphere

Blogging extends beyond individual blogs toa larger community of people who blog and their blog sites, allcalled the blogosphere. Blogs are a publishing mechanism. What
separates blogs from other media is the communicative andconnective nature of the larger blog community—that is, theblogosphere.
blogroll

A list of links that generally appears along the side ofa blog page that can be clicked to link to other blogs that theauthor(s) respect and/or like. Also, a blog link management systemsuch as www.blogrolling.com. See also sidebar.
comment

Comments are submitted by users on individual blog
posts, thus extending the author’s thought through the communityof readers. Comments usually appear at the bottom of a post, withthe oldest comments listed first so that readers can read the post
and then read the ensuing discussion in chronological order.
comment spam

Spam is defined as unsolicited e-mail of acommercial nature; comment spam is unwanted comments that
attempt to drive users to another site. Comment spam is typified
by being completely off-topic and is often created by a programthat automatically sends comments to thousands of blogs withhundreds of comments each. Numerous anti-comment spamsystems are in place, most of which rely on specific keywords thatthe spam originators use, which have to do with gambling, various
drugs, and a variety of illicit activities.

Glossarycommenter

An individual who leaves a comment on a blog.

feed

The XML-based system that allows a reader to be updated
automatically when a new post is created on a blog, typically byusing some kind of feed reader application. See feed reader.
feed reader

As you can access e-mail via web-based e-mailand via your desktop e-mail client, feeds can be read either via a
web-based feed reader or a desktop feed reader. Both types of feed
readers work equally well. Some feed readers can be added to otherprograms such as Microsoft Outlook, Internet Explorer, Mozilla
FireFox, and a variety of other popular applications.
HTML

Hypertext Markup Language, the language in which
web pages are created. HTML allows for formatting changes, suchas making text bold or italicized, changing font styles, and so on.
An advantage of blogs is that they generally do not require that theblogger know HTML to create pages, although many blog tools
allow the use of HTML for people who want more control overtheir post’s appearance.
internal blog

While external business blogs are often created forcommunication or marketing purposes, internal blogs are generally
dedicated to increasing the effectiveness of communication within
a company and among individuals, teams, and departments. Also
known as K-logs (Knowledge logs), typical uses include knowledge
management, project management, and project awareness.
permalink

Because of the number of individual posts most blogs
create, it would be impractical to include all of them on one page.
As a result, archives exist for nearly all blogs. To make it practical tolink to individual blog posts, permalinks were created. A permalink

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no longer on the blog’s front page. A permalink gives the blogger away to help the reader easily determine what the blogger is talking
about.
ping

Pinging allows you to notify other sites that your blog has
been updated. Ping-O-Matic (www.pingomatic.com) is a usefulservice that broadcasts the news that your site has been updated
to all of the most important blog updating services, including
Technorati.
podcastJust as blogging allows individuals to publish forthemselves and their audience, podcasting allows individuals
to create online broadcasts for themselves and their audience.
Podcasting is the technique of creating a show as an MP3 file, andthen updating a feed with the location of the show. A special feed
reader then automatically downloads the show to a music device.
Podcasts are provided by amateurs around the world and can be fed
directly to your portable music player. The beauty of podcasting isin the convenience: no more missing an important show because
you aren’t near a radio. Listeners are in control of when they listen
to the program.
post

A single entry of content of any length, which could begraphics and text on a blog.
referrer

As in real life, where you can be referred to a doctor,
a referrer is the person who sent you to a specific blog. It can beimportant to know who is sending you traffic so that you are awareof who is talking about you. Services such as Technorati, PubSub,
and BlogPulse can also track this information for you.

Glossary

RSS, RDF, AtomRSS (Really Simple Syndication), RDF(Resource Description Framework), and Atom are standards thatmake up the overall scheme of feeds. While the differences between
these are important for software developers, for people who use
feed readers, the differences are negligible. Atom is the newest andleading format, with RSS and RDF being the original formats inwhich feeds were created. Dave Winer, one of the earliest bloggers,
is generally credited with popularizing, if not creating, RSS as well
as feed systems for podcasting.
sidebarOne or more columns along either, or both, sides ofa blog. These columns may contain the blogroll, a list of links,
contact information, lists of recently updated posts, books theblogger is reading, and other information pertinent to the blogger
or the topic of the blog.
trackback/pingback

A trackback or pingback is the techniqueof sending a ping to another site to let a blogger know that you arelinking to his or her site. Trackbacks are one of the mechanisms
for the virtual links that form between blogs, as they allow
conversations to be seamlessly distributed between blogs. If
Johnny posts information on his blog, and Timmy writes about
it, Timmy can trackback to Johnny’s blog so that both Johnny
and Johnny’s readers know that Timmy has posted on the subject
as well.
URL/URI

Uniform Resource Locator/Uniform Resource
Identifier. The specific web address of a web page, which can
include both the domain name (such as http://blogmarketingbook.com) or a specific file or web page on a website (such as http://
blogmarketingbook.com/category/blogging-for-your-business/).

305

306

Blog Marketingwiki

A collaborative online environment that allows readers to
add content to a subject. Typical wiki uses include encyclopedias,
product documentation, and help systems. While not directly
related to blogs, the concept of social interaction is strong in wikis,
as well. Companies who embrace blogs often eventually begin
using wikis for internal projects.
XML

Extensible Markup Language. A web language used for avariety of tasks. The various feed standards (RSS, RDF, and Atom)
are all XML-based standards that feed readers understand andtranslate into a human-readable format.

ENDNOTES

Chapter 1
1 From Duncan Riley, The Blog Herald: “Blog Count for
July: 70 Million Blogs,” July 19, 2005, www.blogherald.com/2005/07/19/blog-count-for-july-70-million-blogs/.
2 See “Blogs Will Change Your Business,” by Stephen Baker andHeather Green, at www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/
05_18/b3931001_mz001.htm.
3 Mark Cuban’s response to the question “Why are you blogging?” from the I Want Media website, September 6, 2004,
www.iwantmedia.com/onequestion.html.
Chapter 4
1 Neville Hobson, “The GM FastLane Blog,” September 2, 2005,
www.tle.us.com/weblogs/nevon2wp/new-media-focus/thegm-fastlane-blog/.

307
Copyright © 2006 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. Click here for terms of use.

308

Blog Marketing

Chapter 10
1 Nick Wreden, “7 Habits of Highly Effective PR, FusionBrand,”February 24, 2005, http://fusionbrand.blogs.com/fusionbrand/
2005/02/nbsp_nbspnbsp_n.html.
Glossary
1 Steven Streight quote taken from a Wall Street Journal article
and included in “Still in the Dark About Blogs,” Vaspers theGrate website, May 26, 2005, http://vaspersthegrate.blogspot.com/2005/05/wall-street-journal-still-in-dark.html.

I N DEXA
About the Author page (blog) 246–247
Accuracy vs. timeliness of a blog, 273,
274–281
Active blog tracking service, 159
Active searching (of blogs), 171
Active watching (of blogs), 156
Ad links, giving a reason to click,
261–262
Administrative blog, 135–137
Administrivia distribution, 135–137
AdSense program (Google), 285
Advertising on your blog, 260–263,
285–286
Advertising your blog, 248–249
Aggregation, 117
Aggregation blogs, 117–118, 129
Aggregators, explained, 34
Alexa’s visibility measurements, 173–174
A-list, personal, 283
A-list bloggers, 281
AltaVista’s translation service, 236
Analyst blogs, 204
Anderson, Chris, 150–151
Anonymous comments, 212
Apple Computer, 18, 20, 202
Arieanna Foley’s Uses for Blogs, 70–72
Assets, customers as, 18–20
Authentic marketing voice, 115–117

Authenticity, explained, 23
Authenticity of individuals, 278
Authority of links, 159–161
Awareness publishing, 287–290
benefits of, 289–290
dialogue, 290
gaining awareness, 289
getting feedback, 289–290
new awareness, 288–289
your side of the story, 290
BBacklinks, 160–161
Bailey, Brian, 107
Barber bloggers, 93–94, 97–99
benefits to a company, 98
on your side, 99
Basecamp project management
system, 127
Baseler, Randy, 31
Berners-Lee, Tim, 11Blacksmith bloggers, 94, 99–103, 119
Blacksmith bloggers’ benefits to acompany, 100–101
B-List bloggers, 282
Blog activity, tracking, 38–42
Blog aggregator page, 296
Blog comments. See Comments
Blog communication loop, 139309
Copyright © 2006 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. Click here for terms of use.

310

Index

Blog community, building, 263–266
Blog Herald, The, 3
Blog monitoring, 162–168
Blog Oversight Committee, 296
Blog platform, ideal, 36
Blog post address, SEO for, 245
Blog posts (see also Comments)
defined, 7
negative, 221
number of linked to a site, 41
writing your own every day, 35
Blog reading, effective, 33–35
Blog responses
effective, 225–226
ensuring successful, 226
fast, 223–225
posting on other blogs, 185–187
ten tips for, 183–185
Blog responses to negativity, 232–236
acknowledging the issue, 225–226
answering, 233
being aware of possible outcomes, 233
don’t answer instinctively, 233
don’t personalize, 233
evaluating every comment, 233
expecting negative feedback, 234
feedback as opportunity, 234–235
first response isn’t the last, 235
follow-up, 226
and paradoxical expectations, 234
passion is good, 234
people transfer blame, 235
poor English isn’t bad, 236
providing a fix, 226
skill in, 235
Blog success, measuring, 283–285
Blog tracking, 38–42, 159
Blog tracking engines, 151
Blog tracking in real time, 159
Blog tracking systems, 38. See
also Technorati
Blog trafficbuilding, 243–251
tips for building, 249–251
Blog types that are best for yourcompany, 93–122
Blog visibility, snapshot view of, 162
Blog watches, 62
Blogads, 286

Blogaholics, 70
Blogebrity, 282
Blog-friendly culture, in your business,
85–87
Blogger feeds. See Feeds
Blogger relations, explained, 256
Blogger relationship building
comment on the blog, 253e-mail the blogger, 254
link to the blog, 253–254
meet the blogger, 254
read the blog, 253
seven keys to, 257–259
talk to the blogger, 254
Bloggers, 7building positive experiences with, 253
building relationships with, 252–255
classes of, 282
growth of, 12
kinds of, 114–121
number of, 3offer feedback on your blog, 252
pitching to, 255–260
respecting their time andintelligence, 258
steps for building relationships with,
253–255
treating as customers, 63
valuing, 85
Bloggers’ conversations, listening in on, 62
Blogging (see also Successful blogging)basics of, 1–13
can help your business grow, 25
doing something different, 67
elevator pitch for, 194–195
finding your voice, 35
future of, 269–293
getting employees involved in, 89–91
giving employees time for, 91
having a purpose, 92
history of, 11–13
how to start, 31–38
how to succeed in, 237–267
ignoring or embracing, 56–57
information, 5
knowledge management, 5pleasing everyone, 284–285
reasons why a business should be, 29
relationships, 5

IndexRubel’s ten commandments of,
242–243
some employees already are, 84
starting simple, 91
starting slowly when new to it, 37
ten tips for successful, 238–241
time-sensitivity of, 275
valuing, 284
where it is headed, 290–292
who is doing it today, 8–11
you don’t need to call it blogging, 89
Blogging atmosphere, establishinghealthy, 83–87
Blogging basics, 1–13
Blogging conferences, 264
Blogging guidelines, 296–300
Blogging mindset, 13, 15–43, 221–228
Blogging personality types, 93–112
the barber, 93–94, 97–99
the blacksmith, 94, 99–103
the bridge, 94, 103–105
the newspaper, 95, 112–113
the post office, 96
the pub, 95, 110–112
the signpost, 94, 108–110
the town hall, 96
the window, 94, 105–108
Blogging policy, 295–300
of Thomas Nelson publishing,
296–300
Blogging and reporting package (webstats), 149
Blogging software, 82
Blogging strategy, 62, 66, 141–146
crafting, 192–195
developing, 191–197
discovery phase, 141–143
excavation phase, 142
exploration phase, 142
vs. floundering around, 192
Blogging success, tips for, 91–92
Blogging terms, 7, 301–306
Bloglines, 34, 171
Blogosphere
defined, 3, 7
motivation for tracking, 66
preserving, 283
BlogPulse, 40–41, 148, 151, 156,
162–168

Conversation Tracker, 166–168
link search options, 165
Profiles, 166
Blogrolls, 32–33, 76
Blogs, 2, 7
active watching of, 156
advantages over e-mail, 128, 134
advertising on, 260–263, 285–286
advertising yours, 248–249
are really about communication, 288
are searchable, 136
as commitment, 195
as marketing tools, 54–55
bringing in customers, 54–56
businesses having a number of, 84
can be edited live, 275
company issues or lapses revealed in,
216–217
with contextual area on the side of, 247
delivering business results, 157–159
employee, 88–92
empowering people, 141
for-profit, 285
foundational value statements, 85
growth of, 12
how they can help your business, 45–50
how they impact your business,
51–54
how to use internally, 125–137
how to watch, 156–170
how your company can use, 69–92
increase internal communication,
123–146
industry-leading, 120–121
launching, 38
leaving comments on, 154–156
linking to other, 253–254
making public, 38
not another push venue, 58
number of links that point to, 159
number of posts linked to, 41
once you’ve begun you can’t stop, 195
ownership of and accountability, 193
participating in, 179–210
passive searching of, 156
password-protecting, 35
popular types of, 114
power of, 2, 45–67

311

312

Index

Blogs (cont.)
projecting your importance, 284
qualities expected of, 4reading, 198–199
reading and commenting on, 35
reasons for starting, 192
responding on other, 185–187
search for on Google, 33
specialist, 120–121
that are linking to your site, 159–160
uses for, 70–73
using feeds on, 34
using in innovative ways, 77–83
valuing, 85
ways to determine success of,
192–193vs. websites, 206
what they can do, 4–6
will change everything, 291
will change your business, 6
will disappear, 291
will never die, 291
will replace websites, 292
working for your business, 286–287
Blogware, defined, 7
BMW, 20
Boeing’s Randy Baseler, 31
Boyd, Stowe, 155–156
Brainstorming, 144
Branding, and customer experience, 42Brazell, Aaron, 23
Bridge bloggers, 94, 103–105
Bridge bloggers’ benefits to acompany, 104
Business (yours)
blogs will change, 6building a culture that values blogs,
85–87
core needs of, 46
creating great ideas, 46–47
creating great products, 47–48
having great teams, 50
having a number of blogs, 84
how blogs can help, 45–50
how blogs impact, 51–54
ideas to help, 52–54
increasing your visibility, 48
searching for information, 197–209
searching for information about yourcompany, 198–199

Business Blog Book Tour, 120
Business blogging, future of, 269–293
Business communities, 263
Business growth through blogging, 25
Business opportunities, bridge bloggers
and, 104
Business owner who respects his
customer, 181–182
Business results, blogs delivering, 157–159
BusinessWeek magazine, 3Buzz, building early, 53
C
CafeGeek, 201
Camahort, Elisa, 52
Card, David, 204
Carnival of the Capitalists blog, 120
Cause, getting involved in, 263
Cease and desist, 187
CEO blog, 114–115
CEO perspective, 58–59
Chaney, Paul, 29, 35–36
Channel 9 (Microsoft), 53–54, 112
Character blogs, explained, 271
Charman, Suw, 88
Christian blogs, 107
C-List bloggers, 282
CNN.com, 160
Alexa basic information about, 174
relative to other major news sites, 176
visibility according to BlogPulse, 164
Comment guidelines, developing,
196–197
Comment notification, providing,249–250
Comment policies, 196
Comment reponses. See Blog responses
Comments (see also Blog responses;
Feedback)
anonymous, 212
hateful, 197
leaving on other blogs, 154–156,
239–240moderated or not, 196
negative, 221providing feedback to, 152–154
rules for responding to, 153–154
types of that aren’t allowed, 196
whether to allow anonymous, 197
Common Craft, 194

IndexCommunication, 3–6, 288
blogs increase internal, 123–146
downside of text-based, 227
by e-mail vs. blog, 128, 134with employees about blogging, 84
five steps of effective, 21, 23–24, 26
window bloggers and, 106
Communication loop (blog), 139
Community
building, 263–266
sense of, 111
what it looks like, 265–266
Community of interest, 240
Community Server software, 129,
132–133
Companies that blog, 58–62
Companies that don’t blog, 62–64
Company. See also Business (yours)
acknowledging a major scandal, 279
best types of blogs for, 93–122
giving it a voice, 73–77
how it can use blogs, 69–92
individual experiences with, 19
responding to negative blog
comment, 188
what’s being said about, 147–178
who in should blog, 58–60
Competitors
fairness to, 77
spying on, 201–203
tracking their links, 62Complaints, window bloggers dealing
with, 106
Complete feedback loop (blogcommunication), 139
Consumer evolution, 190
Consumers
customers should never be, 16
don’t treat people as, 180–189
Contact with customers, 189Content, ownership of, 196Content management systems(CMS), 88Context
ways to provide, 277–278
window bloggers and, 106Contextual area on the side of theblog, 247
Contributing (in communication), 24, 26

Conversation, 7
benefits of participating in, 26
breeds traffic, 244–245
listening in on, 62
tracking, 147–178
value of, 85–87
Conversation Tracker (BlogPulse),
166–168
Conviction, 23
CooperKatz, 98
Copyrights, respecting, 299
Corante, 155
Corporate blogs. See Blogs
Covey, Steven, 12
Creating Customer Evangelists, 27
Criminal activity, negative experience
from, 216
CRM (Customer RelationshipManagement) software, 15–16
Cuban, Mark, 9, 114
Customer evangelists, 18, 27
Customer experience, branding and, 42
Customer feedback. See Comments;
Feedback
Customer help, from blacksmith
bloggers, 100–101
Customer loyalty, 52–53
Customer trust, building, 27–28
Customer types, 218–220
Customers
as assets, 18–20
as a nameless group, 190
blogs bringing in, 54–56
bridge bloggers creating new, 104
business owners who respect, 181–182
categories of, 18–19
contact with, 189
creating positive experiences for, 19–20
creating true passion in, 189
direct feedback from, 182–185
engaging with, 4
giving ownership to, 262
knowing how to treat, 16–26
meeting them where they’re at,
181–182
needing a reason to be passionate, 189
positive experiences of, 189
regular, 19
reluctant, 19

313

314

Index

Customers (cont.)
respecting, 222
should never be consumers, 16
space in which to express passion, 189
standing up for, 228–229
talking to, 20–21
thinking of as owners, 191
360-degree view of, 15
treating bloggers as, 63
treating fairly, 222–223
types of, 218–220
unhappy, 17
valuing, 189–191, 227–228
D
Dallas Mavericks’ owner, 9, 114
Davidson, Peter, 95
Definitions of terms, 301–306
Denali Flavors ice cream, 157–159
Desktop feed readers, 34
Dialogue, 30
Diatribes, 285
Direct feedback from customers, 182–185
Disclosure, blogging and, 272
Discovery phase (of blogging strategy),
141–143
identifying challenges, 142
identifying objectives, 143
identifying values, 142
metrics for success, 143
Disney Channel case study, 77–83
lessons learned, 82–83
new system new challenges, 79–81
paper-based shift logs, 78
the results, 81–82
working on a solution, 79
Disney Channel’s internal blogs, 10
Disney Channel’s shift logs, 77–83
Doc Searls Weblog, 96
Document management, 126, 136
Document sharing, 135
Drupal, 132
Dynamic team creation, 132, 137
E
Effective communication, five steps of,21, 23–24, 26
Ego surfing, 148–149

Elevator pitch for blogging, 194–195
E-mailblog advantages over, 128, 134
negative, 221
reducing, 136, 138–140
E-mail culture, 140
Employee blogging (see also Internal
blogging)
as empowerment, 62
communicating with employees
about, 84
and connecting to one another,
131–132
getting employees involved in,
89–91
giving them time for, 91
some are already doing it, 84
why you want them doing it, 88–92
Employee blogs, 131–133. See alsoInternal blogs
as equalizing forces, 132, 137
benefits of, 88–92
Empowerment (of people) throughblogs, 62, 141
Engadget blog, 64–65, 96
Engaging, vs. transmitting information,
30–31
Engaging with customers, 4, 30–31
English Cut tailor blog, 115–117
Equality, sense of, 110–111
Equalizing forces, employee blogs as,132, 137
Evangelists, 18, 27, 220
Events, reacting to, 53
Everyone included in the loop, 135
Excavation phase (of blogging strategy),142, 144–146
buy-in, 145
execution, 145
follow-up, 146
Expectations, 279
Exploration phase (of blogging strategy),
142–144
contracting, 144
deciding, 144
expanding, 144External blogging personality types,
93–112

IndexF
Facts, 277, 279, 285
Fair treatment for customers, 222–223
Fairness, sense of, 111
Fairness to competitors, 77
Fashion boutique success story, 25
Fast and right (blogging), 280
Fast vs. right (blogging), 279
FastLane Blog (GM), 8–9, 51, 53,
73–75
Feed readers, 34–35, 170
Feed searches, 205
Feed tracking systems, 39. See also
Feedster; PubSub
Feedback (see also Negative comments)
as opportunity, 234–235
bad comments, 152business decisions based on, 2
direct, 182–185
good comments, 152
inviting, 199
opening the floodgates of, 17
from people with poor English, 236
responding to, 151–156
Feeds, 80
PubSub monitoring of, 63, 169
using for successful blogging, 241
using on your blog, 34
Feedster (feed tracking system), 39,
156, 171
Feedster Top 500, 74
Fellowship Church blog, 107
Filtering of information by signpost
bloggers, 108
FIND concept, for dealing with negative
comments, 209
First and best, 280
Flood, Joe, 2, 70, 180, 270
Focus groups, 15
Foley, Arieanna, 70–72
For-profit blogs, 285
Future of business blogging, 269–293
Future trends, 271–274
G
Gawker Media, 276, 285
General Motors (GM)Bob Lutz at, 53, 73–77, 114

Chairman Rick Wagoner, 53
searching for information about,
199–201
General Motors blogs, 75, 193
FastLane Blog, 8–9, 51, 53, 73–75
lessons learned from, 76–77
Smallblock Engine Blog, 8, 73
Genuine voice, 77
Gladwell, Malcolm, 12, 42
Glossary of terms, 301–306
Good comments, providing feedback to,
152–154
Google, 32, 171, 176–177
AdSense program, 285
key measurements from, 176
PageRank, 176–177
search for blogs on, 33
Google stats, explained, 172–173
Google Toolbar, 177
Growth of blogging, 12Growth of number of visitors, 149
H
Halo 2 game, 48
Hertz, Adam, 155–156
Historical analysis, 151
History of blogging, 11–13
Hobson, Neville, 75
Honesty, 76
Hopper, Robin, 86–87
Hosted solution, explained, 36
How to Save the World blog, 96
Huba, Jackie, 27
Human perspective, from barber
bloggers, 98
I
I Love Bees campaign, 48–49
IBM, 132
blogging policies of, 295
internal blogs, 10
IceRocket, 148, 162
Idea barrier, explained, 47
Idea blogs, 47, 129–131
characteristics of, 131
and staying relevant, 129
Ideas to help your business, 52–54
from barber bloggers, 98
from blogs, 46–47, 51, 98

315

316

Index

Ideas system, 130
Individual experiences with yourcompany, 19
Industries (business communities), 263
Industry aggregator blog, 129
Industry blogs, 205
Industry information, 203–207
Industry-leading blogs, 120–121
Influencing the influencers, 53–54
Information, blogging and, 5Innovations in blog use, 77–83
Instant messaging, 255
Integrity, 279
Intelliseek blog, 163
Internal blogging (see also Employee
blogging)
benefits of, 138–141
having a purpose, 92
how it starts, 123–125
starting simple, 91
why it rocks, 88–89
Internal blogging platforms, propertiesof, 90Internal blogging strategy, 141–146
Internal blogging success, tips for, 91–92
Internal blogs, 10–11, 134–135. See also
Employee blogs
Disney Channel, 10
how to use, 125–137
IBM, 10launching, 89
Internal communication
blogs and, 123–146
importance of, 128–129
Internal team blog, 134–135
Interpreting and evaluating (incommunication), 24
Interviewing, 250, 263
Intuit, 188
Paul Rosenfeld at, 208
QuickBooks blog, 208
QuickBooks product, 185, 207
Inviting feedback and creating
dialogue, 201
Issues, nipping in the bud, 66
Ito, Joi, 187
iUpload, 85–87
iUpload’s CEO Robin Hopper, 86–87

J
JetBlue CEO David Neeleman, 17, 22
Jewelry store success story, 102–103
Jupiter Media CEO Alan Meckler, 204
Jupiter Research, 204
K
Kawasaki, Guy, 12
Kendrick, James, 188, 207
Knowledge management (KM), 5
Knowledge management systems, 88
Kottke, Jason, 247
Kryptonite lock scandal, 64–66,
166–168
Kryptonite lock scandal report, 168
L
Lark, Andy, 98, 206
Launching a blog, 38
Launching an internal blog, 89
Learning from each other, 224–225
LeFever, Lee, 194
Link Popularity Check (Marketleap), 175
Link rank, 161
Link search options, in BlogPulse, 165
Link searches, 164–165
Link tracking, 151, 155
using Technorati, 159–162
your competitor’s, 62
LinkedIn, 266
Linking back to your home pages,
245–246
Linking a lot, for successful
blogging, 239
Linking to other blogs, 253–254
Linksauthority of, 159–161
providing relevant, 247–248
for top news services, 165
Listening (in communication), 23
Long tail, tripping over, 150–151
Loyalty, customer, 52–53
Lutz, Bob, 53, 73–77, 114
M
Macleod, Hugh, 99, 115–116
Mahon, Thomas, 99, 116
Market intelligence, business decisions
based on, 2IndexMarketing information, blog
information as, 283–284
Marketing speak, 274
Marketing tools, blogs as, 54–55
Marketing voice, authentic, 115–117
Marketleap, 174–176
McConnell, Ben, 27
Meckler, Alan, 204
Media coverage, 31Media relations, 255
Mercedes, 20
Message board system, 193
MetaFilter, 111
Metrics for success, 283
Microsoft
blogs, 8–9
Channel 9, 53–54, 112
customers and, 22
negativity about, 211–212
Robert Scoble at, 59–60, 107
Mindset (blogging), 13, 15–43,
221–228
Mindshare
blogs affecting, 54–56
explained, 54
Mindspace, 54, 56
Monitoring blogs with BlogPulse,
162–168
Monster blog, 61
Monster.com, 60–62
Moore, Johnnie, 115
Moose Tracks website, 157–159
Movable Type, 37, 82, 128, 136
MP3 players, podcasts to, 74
Mystery, popularity of, 49
NNameless group, customers as, 190
Nardini, John, 157–159
Neeleman, David, 17, 22
Negative comments (see also Negativity)
answering, 233
evaluating, 233
FIND concept for dealing with, 209
process for responding to, 229–232
questions to ask yourself about, 231
responding to all, 233
reviewing, 228–232
searching for, 207–209

Negative events, reacting to, 53
Negative experience
positive experience negates, 217
types of, 214–216
Negative issues, nipping in the bud, 66
Negativity (see also Blog responses tonegativity)
customer types and, 218–220
dealing with, 211–236
forms of, 220–221
how it looks, 217–221
keys to dealing with, 232–236
value of, 213–217
why it happens, 212–213
New Communications Blogzine, 96
New PR Blog Week, 120
New system brings new challenges,
79–81
NewPRWiki, 260
Newsblacksmith bloggers spreading, 101
tabloid side of, 276
News readers, explained, 34News services, links for, 165
News sites, relative visibility of, 176
NewsGator, 34, 80–81
Newspaper bloggers, 95, 112–113
Noise-to-valuable-communication
ratio, 140
Nom de guerre, anonymous comments
using, 212
Nooked blog, 53
Number of visitors, vs. quality of, 243
O
Occasional sufferers
as a customer category, 19
negativity from, 218–219
Official team blogs, 133–134
Old values vs. new opportunities, 285
Online radio, 74
Open Source movement, 212
Opinion, 251, 277, 285
Opportunity, feedback as, 234–235
Overall rank, Alexa, 173
Owners, thinking of customers as,
191, 262
Ownership of content, 196

317

318

Index

P
Paradigms at play, 278–280
Participating in conversation, benefitsof, 26
Participating in your blog, 179–210
Participation breeds passion, 26–31
Passion, 23, 76–77, 262–263
as good, 234
creating, 27, 189–191
how blogs can help with, 50
participation breeds, 26–31
reason for, 189
space in which customers can
express, 189
in successful blogging, 238–239
Passive searching (of blogs), 156,
168–171
Password-protecting your blog, 35
Past activity statistics, types of, 172
People are not just customers or
consumers, 180–181
Pepper, Jeremy, 213
Permalinks, defined, 7
Personal feed, 170
Personal publishing forum, 287
Personal viewpoint, in aggregation
blog, 118
Perspective, 277–278
Peters, Tom, 12, 224–225
Pheedo, 286
Pinging, 240–241
Podcasts, 74
Pollard, Dave, 96
Poor service or support, 215
Popularity, 282
Position stats, explained, 172–173
Positive comments, 198
Positive experiences
as currency, 18
building with bloggers, 253
creating for customers, 19–20
creating a space for, 231–232
of customers, 189
that negate negative experiences, 217
Post office bloggers, 96Power of blogs for business, 45–67
Presidential election (2004 U.S.),
11–12, 285

Press release wire services, 204
Press releases, 30–31
Price sensitivity, 57
Process lapse, negative experience
from, 215
Process for responding to negative
feedback, 229–232
Product managers, 47
Product quality lapse, negative
experience from, 214–215
Product specialists, 47
Products, how blogs can help with,
47–48, 51
Project management blogs, 126–128
goals of, 126participatory, 128
Pub bloggers, 95, 110–112
Pub bloggers’ benefits to a company,
110–111
Publishing before other bloggers,
273, 275
Publishing first instead of right, 275
PubSub, 39–40, 148, 156, 168–171, 204interface features, 169monitoring blogger feeds, 63
ranking, 283
Subscription Stack, 170
suggested searches, 171
Purity vs. income, 273, 285–287
Pusateri, Michael, 79
Push venue, blog as, 58
Q
Quality of visits, vs. number of, 243
QuickBooks, 185, 207
QuickBooks blog, 208
R
Radiant Marketing Group, 29
Ranking of links, 161
Reach rank, Alexa, 174
Real time blog tracking, 159
Regular customers, 19, 219–220
Relationships, 5
blacksmith bloggers establishing, 101
vs. readers, 273, 281–285
valuing ahead of readers, 273
Reluctant customers, 19, 219

IndexReporting everything, vs. reporting
something, 276
Respecting customers, 222
Responding. See Blog responses
Riding the trends, 280–281
Rosenfeld, Paul, 208
Rowse, Darren, 285
RSS (Really Simple Syndication), 81
RSS feeds, 80
RSS tracking, 53
Rubel, Steve, 98, 115, 242–243, 257
Rubel’s ten commandments of blogging,242–243
S
Saboteur, as a customer category,
19, 218
Schwartz, Jonathan, 58–59, 106, 114
Scoble, Robert, 59–60, 107
Search engine optimization (SEO),
245–246
Search engine visibility, verifying,
174–176
Search method, choosing, 171
Searches, suggested PubSub, 171
Searching blogs, 136
goals of, 197–198
for information, 197–209
for information about your business,
198–199
for negative comments, 207–209
passive search, 168–171
for people who love you, 198–201
Searching for blogs
on Google, 33
with IceRocket, 162
Seaching links, 164–165
Securities and Exchange Commission(SEC), 204
Self-forming and self-sustaining teams, 50
SEO (search engine optimization),245–246
Sharing of background, by window
blogger, 106
Shift logs, blog-based, 77–83
Sifry, Dave, 148
Signpost bloggers, 94, 108–110
Signpost bloggers’ benefits to acompany, 108

Skype instant-messaging
application, 255
Slashdot, 111
Smallblock Engine Blog (GM), 8, 73
SMS.ac, 187
Snapshot view of your blog’s
visibility, 162
Social Software Weblog, 194
Sorting results based on authority, 161
Source of information, signpost blogs
as, 108
Sources, choosing for aggregation
blog, 118
Specialist blogs, 120–121
Spying on the competition, 201–203
Staff blogs, 118–120. See also Employee
blogs
Starbucks, 20
searching for information about,
199–201
Starbucks Gossip blog, 199–200
Starting simple, 83
StatCounter, 172
Stats trackers, 149
Stonyfield Farm yogurt, story of, 54–55
Successful blogging, 237–267
being passionate, 238–239
being real, 238
creating meaningful titles, 241
having fun, 240
leaving comments on other blogs,
239–240
linking a lot, 239
pinging, 240–241
pushing the envelope, 240
ten tips for, 238–241
using feeds, 241
writing often, 239
Suggestion box, 130
Sun Microsystems, 98, 106
Sun Microsystems’ CEO Jonathan
Schwartz, 58–59
Syndicate this site (link), 248
T
Tabloid side of news, 276
Tailor blog, 115–116
Talking to your customers, 20–21
Tanglao, Roland, 109

319

320

Index

Team blogs, official, 133–134
Team communication, internal,
134–135
Team creation on the fly, 137
Team window blogs, 134
Teamscreating dynamic, 132
how blogs can help with, 50
self-forming and self-sustaining, 50
Teamwork, blogs’ impact on, 52
Technorati, 38–41, 63, 148, 156
blog watches, 62
using to track a link, 159–162
Technorati ranking, 283
Technorati responds, 155–156
Ten commandments of blogging,242–243
Terms used in blogging, 7, 301–306
Text, as an awful medium, 227
Text-based communication, downsideof, 227
Thinking outside the box, 83
3DStats, 172
360-degree view of customers, 15Thomas, Rebecca, 102
Thomas Nelson publishing, blogging
policies of, 295–300
Thought-leadership, 28, 30
Tim Horton’s coffee and donut store,
213–214
Timeliness vs. accuracy, 273, 274–281
Time-sensitivity of blogging, 275
Tinbasher blog, 41
Tipping Point, The, 42
Titles, creating meaningful, 241
Tom Peter’s blog, 224–225
Town hall bloggers, 96
Trackbacks, defined, 7
Tracking blog activity, 38–42, 151, 159
Tracking the blogosphere, motivation
for, 66
Tracking links, 62, 151, 155, 159–162
Tracking what blogs are saying, 41
Tracking your competitor’s links, 62
Translation services, 236
Transmission mindset, 30
Transmitting vs. engaging, 30–31
Trend analysis, 151, 163

Trending a search over time, 162
Trending systems, 40. See also BlogPulse
Trends, 271–274, 280–281
Trust, building with customers, 27–28
TypePad platform, 36
U
Understanding (in communication),
23–24
Unique value, providing, 57
User-focused systems, 81–82
V
Valuable-communication-to-noise
ratio, 140
Value, finding in a cacophony of data,
149–151
Value of conversation, 85–87
Value of fast 275–277
Value of right, 277–279
Valuing bloggers, 85
Valuing blogging and blogs, 85, 284
Valuing everyone’s contribution, 24
Valuing relationships ahead ofreaders, 273
Valuing your customers, 189–191,
227–228
Vandermaas, Mark, 86–87
Vertical markets (business
communities), 263
Viral marketing, explained, 48
Visibility
according to BlogPulse, 164from barber bloggers, 98
blogs’ impact on, 51–52
how blogs can help with, 48
snapshot view of your blog’s, 162
Visibility campaigns, 48
Visibility measurement by Alexa,
173–174
Visibility relative to competing sites,
175–176
Visibility to search engines, verifying,
174–176
Visitors
asking questions of, 250–251
giving them context, 247–248
giving them relevant links, 247–248

Indextaking and answering theirquestions, 251
turning into readers, 248
Visitsmake the most of, 246–248
number of vs. quality of, 243
Voicefinding when blogging, 35
genuine, 77W
Wagoner, Rick, 53
Waiting before writing, 279
Web analytics, 149
Websitesvs. blogs, 206
blogs replacing, 292
Web stats, 149, 151, 172–177
Web-based feed readers, 34
Weblogs. See Blogs
Weblogs Compendium, 34

Weblogs Inc., 285
Wilcox, Joe, 204
Window bloggers, 76, 94, 105–108
Window bloggers’ benefits to acompany, 106
Wired magazine, 150
Word searches, 200–201
WordPress, 37, 128–129, 132, 136
Wreden, Nick, 257–259
Writing, waiting before, 279
Writing first instead of writing right, 275
Writing often, for successful
blogging, 239
YYahoo! News feeds, 205
Yet Another Marketing Outlet(YAMO), 58
Z
Zawodny, Jeremy, 105

321

A B O U T T H E AUTHOR

Jeremy Wright is an internationally recognized authority on blogging who focuses on how businesses can best use blogs to broaden
their financial and customer horizons. Wright has worked withcompanies ranging from Microsoft and eBay to BusinessWeek and
CanWest Global, as well as dozens of small businesses, to determine how blogs can best work for them. He has also written hundreds of articles on this topic for dozens of publications, and hehas spoken at numerous blogging conferences. His blog, Ensight.org, is read by more than 250,000 people every month.
About the Technical Editor
Yvonne DiVita is a successful writer and blogger who has been
widely quoted and interviewed regarding business blogging. She
has been blogging for business since 2003 and uses her own blog
as a critical marketing tool. Yvonne runs a blog on writing andpublishing at http://windsormedia.blogs.com/aha and maintains a
blog to support her focus on marketing to women online at http://windsormedia.blogs.com/lipsticking.

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