Bloggingtricks

I get lots of requests from newbies who want to understand social bookmarking sites like Digg. I was researching an article on this subject when I came upon Pronet Advertising's great post - A Beginner's Guide To Digg. So rather than reinvent the wheel, I invite you to read Neil's well-written article.

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WordPress now offers an Enterprise Edition. The new version of WordPress is a joint venture with KnowNow. According to KnowNow:

The new KnowNow WordPress Enterprise Edition will offer enterprises a comprehensive authoring solution that includes a powerful new platform for open communications and information management. With the addition of WordPress, KnowNow offers enterprises a platform to build their customer-facing presence in the blogosphere, or an internal platform behind their own firewall to support interactive employee communication. The solution enables authoring of content that leverages the RSS format, meaning enterprises can speed the delivery of critical information to employees, partners, or customers.

Read the entire press release at: http://knownow.com/article/?id=353

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In a closely-watched case from California, bloggers have just been given some wiggle room in the event that comments on their blogs defame or otherwise harm the reputation of others.

In BARRETT v ROSENTHAL, the California Supreme Court ruled that bloggers and participants in Internet bulletin board groups cannot be sued for posting defamatory statements made by others.

The court said a federal law gives immunity from libel suits not only to Internet service providers, like AOL, but also to bloggers and other users of their services.

If this case had gone the other way, many companies would have eliminated all comments from their blogs for fear that they could be judged legally liable for the acts of others. In this common sense approach, the court has rightly decided that the person responsible for the defamation is the original writer, not the blog owner who simply allows the comment to be posted.

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Northeastern University just completed The Blogging Success Study. Here are the five factors they identified in a successful blog:

Culture
Transparency
Time
Dialogue
Entertaining Writing Style and Personalization

According to the study, a company should carefully consider all of these factors before making a decision to blog:

Culture: If a company has particular cultural traits worth revealing, or conversely, a bad reputation they want to repudiate, blogging could be an attractive option. A great example of the latter is Microsoft. Microsoft had a distinct problem - distrust on the part of many customers. The company was seen as being very big and unresponsive to customers. Microsoft used blogs to reveal that individual employees do care about customers, and they are willing to provide a lot of value by way of product and developer information. Blogging at Microsoft has worked well because Microsoft and Microsoft bloggers were able to show the public what Microsoft's culture was really like behind the big company image.

Transparency: Transparency is crucial to establishing credibility and trust with an audience. While you do not have to be completely open - it is okay to set boundaries - people want to see an honest picture of a company, and know there are not ulterior motives behind the posts bloggers write. Blog audiences respect a willingness to disclose all points of view on a subject. Thoughtful consideration of all viewpoints demonstrates an expertise, and it shows a willingness to engage in a dialogue rather than just pressing an agenda. Successful corporate blogs are those that establish their credibility well. The level of transparency depends on the industry and audience, but citing other sources of knowledge and perspectives will always bring more credibility to a blog.

Time: It takes a lot of time to set up, research and write a quality blog and engage the blogging community effectively. A company that wants a successful blog needs to identify a person who has the time or free up that person's time, or needs to leverage its resources so the responsibility is shared among a group of bloggers.

Dialogue: A company's ability and willingness to engage in a greater dialogue with the blogging community is an important determinant in the success of their blog. The Stonyfield Farm blog is a perfect example of a corporate blog used to engage an audience through discussing topics not just related to their products but also, related to organic farming, healthy lifestyle and other germane subject matter. Despite the fact that these topics are not directly related to the yogurt they sell, Stonyfield demonstrates an expertise in areas of importance to their customer base.

Entertaining Writing Style and Personalization: The writing style and how much a blogger is prepared to reveal about their life, experience and opinions in a blog post bring a human side to a blog. This helps a company build personal connections with their audience. Entertaining content, especially content that contains humor, will also bridge the gap between writer and reader. Personal connections and entertaining content help turn casual readers into return customers.

We believe that the study has identified many factors that will make a blog a success. We provide a more in-depth analysis of these and other factors in sections two and three of this paper. The reader can use this list of factors to determine the readiness of their own company to start blogging and as a roadmap to plan a strategy that will bring them the most success in current and future blogging endeavors.

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If your company is interested in blogging, but you don't know where to start, here's an idea. Why not take the resources you currently have assigned to your web site, both content and staff, and steer those toward blogging?

You'll save money and time by using existing resources and you'll get the added benefit of integration.

As your team figures out how social media fits into your company's communications goals, you can redeploy or engage new resources to make the blog work.

Be careful not to simply port existing web content onto a blog. Instead, take existing content and turn it into bite-sized, relevant chunks of valuable information. Share it willingly and encourage your audience to participate in a conversation about the information. Guess what - you're blogging!

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Pay-per-post business models are starting to pop up like weeds. Here's a new one called, ReviewMe.

While there are different approaches, most of these models work something like this. As a blogger, you get paid to blog about a product or company. For each post, you get a fixed rate. Sometimes, you get a fixed rate and/or a share of ad revenue.

In either case, beware of the ethical concerns that go along with pay-per-post blogging models.

If you have a commercial relationship with the people, places or things you are blogging about, be sure to disclose that relationship on your blog. Otherwise, you'll have less than zero credibility with your audience once they find out. And they will find out.

So be honest and open about your commercial affiliations, and you can do pretty much anything that makes sense for you, your partners and your audience.

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I've written before about BlogHer. Based on my research and the reports I have received, it was the premiere blogging event of 2006. The ladies are back. In 2007 they'll hold the BlogHer Business 07 in New York City.

You can keep track of their plans on the BlogHer Conference Blog.

I will once again not be able to attend, and once again I am really sorry I can't go. Luckily, I will have at least one, if not two, sources at the conference, blogging about it right here on BloggingTricks.com.

Whether you're a man or a woman, if you're interested in blogging, particularly if you're interested in business blogging, I am sure you won't want to miss this event.

NOTE: I am not affiliated in any way with these folks. I don't even know them and I don't receive any commission or fee for promoting them.

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Here's a common question we receive at BloggingTricks.com...





Q: Who at our company would be at the right level to write a blog or host a similar conversation? CEO, a division V.P., a product manager, etc?

A: A CEO blog can be very compelling if the voice is authentic and the content is interesting. However, the level may not be as important as the content and the person and the commitment that is behind it.

Sometimes, the lowest level people in the organization will be closer to the audience than the managers. Authenticity is more important than stature in the social media space.

Any professional communicator with an authentic voice and permission to speak on behalf of your company can be the face of a blog/podcast. Obviously, it helps if this person presents well and is someone your audience can identify with.

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The Pew Charitable Trust has conducted a telephone survey of bloggers and has issued an interesting report called Society and the Internet.

Here are some highlights...

1) Eight percent of Intenet users blog.
2) 39% of Internet users read blogs - up since 2005.
3) Real life experiences are the most popular topic.
4) Politics was the second most popular blog topic.

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Technorati has come out with its State of the Blogosphere report.

Here is a summary:

*Technorati is now tracking more than 57 Million blogs.
*Today, the blogosphere is doubling in size approximately every 230 days.
*About 100,000 new weblogs were created each day.
*There is a strong correlation between the aging and post frequency of blogs and their authority and Technorati ranking.
*The globalization of the blogosphere continues. Data appears to show both English and Spanish languages are a more universal blog language than the other two most dominant language, Japanese and Chinese, which seem to be more regionally localized.

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While this site is aimed at beginning bloggers, if you've been with me from the beginning, you've probably learned more than enough to start thinking about professional blogging.

And the reason I know this is I am starting to get e-mails from readers about this subject. Most of them go something like this...

"Can you make money as a blogger? How much? How long does it take to make a site profitable? Are there any secrets?"

So here are the answers:

1) Yes you can make money as a pro blogger. Some companies have even created such positions within their employment roster. Still other people freelance and still others write their own site and then go sell ads.

2) I have been blogging for more than a year and have built up a nice audience on my blogs. In addition to the blogs I own, I write for O'Reilly Digital Media's blog. Combined, I am making about $2,200 a month strictly from blogging. While not enough to support me, it sure makes it worth sitting down and banging out a few posts every day.

There are people making a living at this. It's possible. But it's like everything else. In order to make money, you have to invest time, energy, passion, skill and patience.

3) There's no hard and fast rule about how long it takes to make a site profitable. It depends on the niche, the content and the marketplace. In my case, nine months seems to be a magic number.

4) There are no secrets. It's hard work. You have to write really meaningful posts. You have to have a niche and stay on topic. You have to show your readers that you have passion for your subject. You have to take a stand. You have to stick with it. You have to have credibility.

The good news?

If I can do it you can do it.

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This is part six of our two-week long series of blogging myth busters. This is the final post in the series and is co-written by Scott & Jana Bourne.

Myth #6 - My industry is regulated and blogs can't be checked by legal.

All of your company's blog content can be approved by legal and/or compliance before it's posted.

Many current blogging applications and platforms allow you to write and review blog posts before publishing them. This ensures that the content is not only edited for grammar and punctuation, but also compliant and approved before it is posted.

You can simply set up a process whereby your legal team reviews each post before it goes live to the web.

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This is part five of our series of blogging myth busters. This series will run over the next two weeks and is co-written by Scott & Jana Bourne.

Myth #5 - My company faces too many legal risks from blogging.

To reduce risk, you can create corporate blogging guidelines for employees, contractors, vendors and investors. Legal risks fall into two categories: The first one is confidential information, such as financial information and trade secrets. The solution is to educate people with blog access on these topics. They need to be aware of how to behave with company information no matter what the situation, whether they are writing a blog post, an e-mail, or holding a conversation.

The second main risk is if bloggers post information that would lead to a lawsuit, including violations of copyright, libel and privacy issues. It's a good idea to help your bloggers understand copyright and fair use laws.

You should know that even if you don't have a corporate blogging platform, many employees have personal blogs. You may want to ask them to post a message on their personal blogs that says it is not connected with the company, especially if they are mentioning the workplace, which they probably will over time.

You should have blogging guidelines, including bloggers' responsibilities inside the corporate blogosphere and how to handle references to the workplace on external blogs.

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