Forrester, which is a tremendous research center, recently published a new report which, for a lack of better explanation, paints a very negative picture as to the future of corporate blogging as a viable marketing medium. The one area of their report which continues to strike a cord with me is that they state that corporate blogs are having trouble sustaining a conversation....
You see, their findings are probably correct based on the corporate blogs that they reviewed during the research phase, but those are not an accurate depiction of what business blogging or corporate blogging really looks like today.
It is really interesting, once a prospect goes through one of our webinars, such as the one that Chris Baggott is hosting on Tuesday, August 26th on Demand Generation through Corporate Blogging, or speaks with one of our consultants, those individuals get what corporate blogging is all about. It is not about developing a dialogue, it is about generating highly engaged traffic via organic search which converts quickly into recognizable revenues.
For more on the topics of blogging for business or if you are looking for help to create a corporate blogging strategy, I recommend that you contact a consultant at Compendium or register for an upcoming webinar.
Posted Friday, July 25, 2008 by
Sarah Sedberry
Douglas Karr touched on a topic near and dear to our hearts here at Compendium Blogware in his post yesterday: Blogging for Business: New Tricks for Old Dogs.
Douglas does a great job breaking down how blogs are emerging as a marketing source for companies.
He addresses the pitfalls businesses are falling into, such as:
"Gaining authority and search engine results"
- This is part of the package with Compendium - our expertise in SEO"
"Implementing a blogging platform that guides the blogger effortlessly through the posting process"
- Our platform allows the user to easily create and post content, provides a list of keywords to focus on, and an indicator letting the blogger know how strong their post is.
"Blogging is a not an overnight success. Great blogging results require momentum and constant analysis and improvement."
- Our Client Success Team is here to provide support and guidance regarding content ideas, best practices, tips and tricks to keep the process simple and stress-free.
Another feature of our platform is that there is an administrative layer that monitors the content that ends up published.
These are all reasons why Compendium Blogware can be the best answer for any business looking to begin a corporate blog.
(Also a thanks to Douglass for the plug!) :o)
Douglas does a great job breaking down how blogs are emerging as a marketing source for companies.
He addresses the pitfalls businesses are falling into, such as:
- Dull conversations aren’t attracting readers
- Business blogs turn into regurgitated press releases.
- The topics don’t spark comments or trackbacks.
- The posts lack personality and thought leadership.
"In short, the reason why business blogs are failing are because corporations are substituting a blogging application for their content management system."
At Compendium Blogware we help focus your posts and give you the tools to help make your corporate blog successful. We stress blogging for a purpose and assist in creating a strategy with your business to get a return on your investment.
Douglas also touches on what they can do to ensure success."Gaining authority and search engine results"
- This is part of the package with Compendium - our expertise in SEO"
"Implementing a blogging platform that guides the blogger effortlessly through the posting process"
- Our platform allows the user to easily create and post content, provides a list of keywords to focus on, and an indicator letting the blogger know how strong their post is.
"Blogging is a not an overnight success. Great blogging results require momentum and constant analysis and improvement."
- Our Client Success Team is here to provide support and guidance regarding content ideas, best practices, tips and tricks to keep the process simple and stress-free.
Another feature of our platform is that there is an administrative layer that monitors the content that ends up published.
These are all reasons why Compendium Blogware can be the best answer for any business looking to begin a corporate blog.
(Also a thanks to Douglass for the plug!) :o)
Posted Tuesday, July 22, 2008 by
Eric Romer
Seth Godin has a great blog.. despite my disagreeing with his "Limits of Meta" post from last week. He's published various books on marketing, and has an amazing knack for simplifying concepts.His recent post titled "Are they ready to listen?" talks about the concept that most marketers forget:"is my audience ready to listen to what I'm telling them?"
I really like this concept, and totally agree that it's vital to a business's communication with potential customers.
This can be related to all facets of life. For example, I went to a concert on a Sunday night in Indianapolis recently. The bands were all talented, and the promoter worked hard to flyer the city and get the word out. But, people don't want to go out on a Sunday night... regardless of how good the act is.
The same thing applies to business, as Seth points out: "The tragic mistake of demographics and media planning is that they overlook the single most important issue: is the person you're talking to ready to listen?"
Guess what?? The web has changed marketing. Search engines give you (a company) the power to LISTEN, instead of shout at prospects with traditional forms of media... hoping they are ready to hear you. Business blogs allow you to be found easier in Google, engage readers with relevant, conversational content, and convert them. Simple as that.
Easy blogging software allows this process to happen with little effort. Start creating content today, and spread those two ears out over the internet. Now, you can sit back and listen... When people WANT you to talk to them, you'll be there.
To see this in action, Google "blogging solution", and see what the top 1 or 2 result (out of 11 million) is in the organic results.
Posted Friday, July 18, 2008 by
PJ Hinton
One edge that word processor programs traditionally have had over web browser based editors is spell checking. Many web-based content creation applications, including our own blog authoring software, now include a spell checking feature.
Built-in support for spell checking has been slow to make its way into browsers. Since version 2, Firefox has supported in-line spell checking (those squiggly red underlines you see under suspected misspellings). Internet Explorer 7 doesn't have this feature at all.
Still, that's no excuse to avoid using a browser based editor, because there are easy tweaks that you can employ on both browsers to give you an experience comparable to that of modern word processors. Over at CNet's website, Dennis O'Reilly has a recently published blog post that spills the details.
That's just one more reason to add to the list for not using a word processor as your blog posting software.
Built-in support for spell checking has been slow to make its way into browsers. Since version 2, Firefox has supported in-line spell checking (those squiggly red underlines you see under suspected misspellings). Internet Explorer 7 doesn't have this feature at all.
Still, that's no excuse to avoid using a browser based editor, because there are easy tweaks that you can employ on both browsers to give you an experience comparable to that of modern word processors. Over at CNet's website, Dennis O'Reilly has a recently published blog post that spills the details.
That's just one more reason to add to the list for not using a word processor as your blog posting software.
Posted Tuesday, July 1, 2008 by
PJ Hinton
CMP trade publication Information Week ran an article today on a
recently published paper which argues that web browsers should have an
expiration date, just like perishable food.
The recommendation is based upon an estimate in the study that found over 45 percent of the internet population is using out-of-date browser software, leaving these users vulnerable to all kinds of known security threats.
The paper's authors make a provocative claim about the relative safety of different browsers:
As someone who is responsible for developing a hosted blog software service that must work on several different browsers, I'll confess to having an ulterior motive for encouraging this. Migration away from older browsers, like IE 6, reduces the need for web standard non-compliances workarounds, making the task of coding web pages a much simpler one.
The recommendation is based upon an estimate in the study that found over 45 percent of the internet population is using out-of-date browser software, leaving these users vulnerable to all kinds of known security threats.
The paper's authors make a provocative claim about the relative safety of different browsers:
Firefox 2 is considered to be the most secure Web browser because 83.3% of its users worldwide are running the most current version. Second, third, and fourth places go to Apple Safari 3 (65.3% of users running the most current version), Opera 9 (56.1%), and Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) Internet Explorer 7 (47.6%).The reason this claim is prone to controversy is because one could make the plausible argument that the latest-and-greatest browsers aren't necessarily bug free. It's more likely that they, too, have security holes. The only difference is that their security holes are still yet to be uncovered. Regardless of which side you fall on the never ending browser war, do yourself a favor by keeping your browser up-to-date.
"It is noteworthy that it has taken 19 months since the initial general availability of IE7 (public release October 2006) to reach 52.5% proliferation amongst users that navigate the Internet with Microsoft's Web browser," the paper says. "Meanwhile, 92.2% of Firefox users have migrated to FF2."
As someone who is responsible for developing a hosted blog software service that must work on several different browsers, I'll confess to having an ulterior motive for encouraging this. Migration away from older browsers, like IE 6, reduces the need for web standard non-compliances workarounds, making the task of coding web pages a much simpler one.
Posted Monday, June 30, 2008 by
PJ Hinton
Others' blogs can be a great source of blogging tips, even if they don't come right out and label them as such. Take for example a post that was published by Lead with Your Heart author Lewis Green. In discussing why it's important to give as well as get, Green talks about our natural resistance to "sharing openly" with others in personal and professional settings.
He goes on to list several examples of businesses and individuals who put this principle into practice and succeed by doing so. It's no surprise that his longest bullet point deals with bloggers who use their sites to educate and advise, not just self-promote.
If you are thinking about starting a business blog, SEO might be an attractive selling point. But one of the best blogging benefits you will reap, if you write the right kind of content, is an improved relationship with your customers. Quoting Green's closing remarks in the post:
He goes on to list several examples of businesses and individuals who put this principle into practice and succeed by doing so. It's no surprise that his longest bullet point deals with bloggers who use their sites to educate and advise, not just self-promote.
If you are thinking about starting a business blog, SEO might be an attractive selling point. But one of the best blogging benefits you will reap, if you write the right kind of content, is an improved relationship with your customers. Quoting Green's closing remarks in the post:
People like and like to do business with those they trust and those who have integrity. Sharing ourselves and what we know is the best way to build a trusting relationship, and it doesn't hurt profits.How well can you share?
Posted Friday, June 13, 2008 by
Chantelle Flannery
When embedding links in our blog to other blogs or pages, what is considered general best practice… add the hyperlinked URL to the blog or hyperlink a title or something like that?
Good Questions.
Best practice: If I am writing a post that reviews an article. I write out who published it and perhaps the author. I then create the hyperlink to the article on the title of the article.
An example of this would be for an article from the NYTimes Apple Watchers Look for a New iPhone with a URL of http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/10/technology/10apple.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&oref=slogin. Notice how long the url is… now if I put this full url into the post itself it is going to detract from the content whereas having simply Apple Watchers Look for a New iPhone in a post it is much cleaner. Rarely every should you fully write out a url and link it unless it is short, to the point, and adds contextual value to the post. An example of this would be referring to www.howthingswork.com or www.wikipedia.org.
Submit your blogging best practice via comment to this post to have it answered.
Posted Friday, June 6, 2008 by
Chantelle Flannery
Today I want to talk about RSS. You know that crazy little orange button that you see on the side of blogs and sometimes even on websites. That’s pretty much the international web symbol for RSS Feed.
What is RSS? According to Wikipedia:
“RSS is a family of Web feed formats used to publish frequently updated content such as blog entries, news headlines, and podcasts in a standardized format. An RSS document (which is called a "feed" or "web feed" or "channel") contains either a summary of content from an associated web site or the full text.”The benefit of RSS is the ability to aggregate the content from multiple web sources into one location. It also makes it possible for people to keep up with the latest news quickly and easily. RSS the technology by itself is pretty cool but its really about what you can do with it. Look for my next posts about Feed Readers and Feed Management tools.
Posted Wednesday, June 4, 2008 by
PJ Hinton
Charles Cooper at CNet's news.com website has a thought provoking article about commenter rights. He mentions a blog post at Disqus' corporate weblog that proposes a bill of rights for comments. Support for comments in business blogging software is important because it fosters one of the most important blogging benefits -- customer engagement.
I took a look at the list of rights he mentions, and while the question is interesting, I think that the scope of the rights as proposed verges on overkill.
A comment posting feature helps to encourage reader participation. Where I think the commenter rights goes off the deep end is the implicit assumption the comment area is the sole venue by which the conversation must continue. I think it is just one channel, and to make commenting as feature rich as proposed would turn a blog into a bulletin board where only one user is allowed to initiate a thread.
Rather than a complicated system of post, edit, track, and remove operations, backed with policies that determine whether an after-the-fact edit is OK, why can't we just live with a simple social contract? A blogger shall allow comments from anyone. A commenter is free to write what he or she wants. Either party may delete the comment, but once the removal has been done, it's irreversible. That saves the commenter from regret for posts written in the heat of the moment, and at the same time it prevents the airbrushing that Cooper worries about in his post.
In other words, the relationship between blogger and commenter is that of a host and a guest in a house. The host invites guests, and has the right to dismiss them for bad behavior.
The question of comment ownership from a copyright standpoint is a bit tougher. Of all the comments that I have left on blogs, I've never felt a sense of ownership in the sense that I thought a blogger would needto seek permission to republish my content. If a reader is that passionate about retaining the right to determine whether the blogger can republish, he or she should probably write the comment as a full post on his or her own blog and then post a link in the comment section.
The level of discussion that the bill of rights has raised should give pause to companies rolling out a corporate weblog. Let your readers speak freely and don't be too quick to decline comments. Your customers may not always be right, but they are definitely worth listening to.
I took a look at the list of rights he mentions, and while the question is interesting, I think that the scope of the rights as proposed verges on overkill.
A comment posting feature helps to encourage reader participation. Where I think the commenter rights goes off the deep end is the implicit assumption the comment area is the sole venue by which the conversation must continue. I think it is just one channel, and to make commenting as feature rich as proposed would turn a blog into a bulletin board where only one user is allowed to initiate a thread.
Rather than a complicated system of post, edit, track, and remove operations, backed with policies that determine whether an after-the-fact edit is OK, why can't we just live with a simple social contract? A blogger shall allow comments from anyone. A commenter is free to write what he or she wants. Either party may delete the comment, but once the removal has been done, it's irreversible. That saves the commenter from regret for posts written in the heat of the moment, and at the same time it prevents the airbrushing that Cooper worries about in his post.
In other words, the relationship between blogger and commenter is that of a host and a guest in a house. The host invites guests, and has the right to dismiss them for bad behavior.
The question of comment ownership from a copyright standpoint is a bit tougher. Of all the comments that I have left on blogs, I've never felt a sense of ownership in the sense that I thought a blogger would needto seek permission to republish my content. If a reader is that passionate about retaining the right to determine whether the blogger can republish, he or she should probably write the comment as a full post on his or her own blog and then post a link in the comment section.
The level of discussion that the bill of rights has raised should give pause to companies rolling out a corporate weblog. Let your readers speak freely and don't be too quick to decline comments. Your customers may not always be right, but they are definitely worth listening to.
Posted Tuesday, June 3, 2008 by
Lynsey Rosencrans
What are blog readers really looking for? They are looking for YOU! Blogs provide the ability for a company to show their human side and present information from your point of view. You don’t have to be a natural born writer to write a blog. Here is a quote from a recent article in the Dallas Morning news:
"It's clear that when it comes to traditional authority figures – whether they're chief executives or heads of state – people trust them less," says Mr. Edelman. "Employees are the new credible source of information. We have data that shows an employee blog is five times more credible than a CEO blog – and I say this as a CEO blogger."
Click here to view the full article: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/bus/columnists/chall/stories/DN-Hall_16bus.ART.State.Edition1.463ac30.html
People are wanting to know what you have to say AND they are looking for it. You don’t need to be a published writer in order to create fantastic posts -- write just like you are speaking to a friend, tell stories, be humorous, and keep it simple.
"It's clear that when it comes to traditional authority figures – whether they're chief executives or heads of state – people trust them less," says Mr. Edelman. "Employees are the new credible source of information. We have data that shows an employee blog is five times more credible than a CEO blog – and I say this as a CEO blogger."
Click here to view the full article: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/bus/columnists/chall/stories/DN-Hall_16bus.ART.State.Edition1.463ac30.html
People are wanting to know what you have to say AND they are looking for it. You don’t need to be a published writer in order to create fantastic posts -- write just like you are speaking to a friend, tell stories, be humorous, and keep it simple.
Posted Tuesday, May 27, 2008 by
Chris Baggott
So don’t tell my family, but a big part of my limited brain capacity was spent this 
weekend
thinking about Stephen Baker (pictured) & Heather Green of
Business Week regarding his latest cover story: Beyond Blogs (sub
context…social media will change your business), a follow up to his
fantastic 2005 article; Blogging Will Change Your Business.
Let me start by saying this 2005 article had a huge influence on me. Additionally, Steve’s cover story of Janury 2006: Why Math Will Rock Your World is the reason I subscribe to the paper version of Business Week…the only paper subscription I have.
Let me be clear from the start that I'm a fan of Steve's, love his work and he is one of the few Print Journalists I feed to my homepage....I just think this story misses the mark.
This
weekend I also read “The Last Lecture” by Randy Pausch. I’m sure
most of you have heard by now about this book highlighting a final CMU
lecture by a dying college professor. Here is the video….
Randy has some great lessons here, but one that kept coming back to me was to “focus on the fundamentals.”
This is what kept nagging me about Stephen & Heather’s updated Business Blogging article…they really seemed to ignore the fundamentals.
There are basically two big problems with reporting on Social Media that it seems all journalists fall into...(wait! I just thought of a third…)
By no means do I want to minimize the power or potential of these new tools. Internal Wiki’s are perhaps the greatest thing to happen to internal organization communications and collaboration since the telephone…or at least the Outlook Calendar. Both BT and Best Buy have great cases to make. But the reality is that every CEO on the planet wakes up with one thought first and foremost….sales.
What’s missing from the conversation about Social Media is how any of this affects the actual numbers. It’s almost like it would be ‘dirty’ for anyone to talk about how a business should use social media to drive sales.
Sales happen when there is a need and a solution that comes together for mutually agreed value. (I value that flat screen more than I value my $1,000 in cash)
What’s been lost from traditional marketing since the advent of TV has been a fundamental premise we all learned from Zig Ziglar. People buy from People. Marketers have been corrupted by “Brand” and “Consumer” for so long that they forgot about the people on both sides.
The greatest gift of Social Media is the ability to reintroduce people to the mix. Email, Search & Employee Blogging all are social media….and all drive better relationships, higher engagement and more business. That’s what the entire Social Media phenomenon is telling us. We trust people more than we trust institutions.
weekend
thinking about Stephen Baker (pictured) & Heather Green of
Business Week regarding his latest cover story: Beyond Blogs (sub
context…social media will change your business), a follow up to his
fantastic 2005 article; Blogging Will Change Your Business.Let me start by saying this 2005 article had a huge influence on me. Additionally, Steve’s cover story of Janury 2006: Why Math Will Rock Your World is the reason I subscribe to the paper version of Business Week…the only paper subscription I have.
Let me be clear from the start that I'm a fan of Steve's, love his work and he is one of the few Print Journalists I feed to my homepage....I just think this story misses the mark.
This
weekend I also read “The Last Lecture” by Randy Pausch. I’m sure
most of you have heard by now about this book highlighting a final CMU
lecture by a dying college professor. Here is the video….Randy has some great lessons here, but one that kept coming back to me was to “focus on the fundamentals.”
This is what kept nagging me about Stephen & Heather’s updated Business Blogging article…they really seemed to ignore the fundamentals.
There are basically two big problems with reporting on Social Media that it seems all journalists fall into...(wait! I just thought of a third…)
1. Chasing the newest thing. There is a lot changing in social media. But the big story for business isn’t Twitter or Facebook, it’s new and more effective ways to use the basics: Email and Corporate Blogging. Randy talks about his early youth football days. How a coach made them practice with no balls because, like Vince Lombardi says, this game is about fundamentals. In Randy’s talk a kid asks why they have no footballs. Coach answers: “how many people on the field don’t have the ball?” Answer: “21”. Right says the coach: “We are going to focus on what those 21 people are doing.”
What happens with getting hung up on the newest widget or Twitter is it distracts from what the vast majority of people are doing online…..email and Search. There are amazing strides being made in data driven email dialog and blogging is revolutionizing Search Engine Optimization and engagement.According to the Pew Interent and American Life research, (see graph) this is where the people are. This is where business needs to be focused. Yes, keep an eye on new things, but focus energy on perfecting what is working today. Search and Email are the biggest parts of the Social Media mix and present the largest opportunities for business.
2. Celebrity. So many journalist covering Social Media focus on Celebrities and celebrity bloggers. There are 20,000,000 businesses in the United States…and this doesn’t count non-profits. Hearing stories about Jimmy Wales, Michael Arrington, Kerry Miller or Jonathan Schwartz is great if you’re People Magazine, but this is Business Week. Tell me about real businesses using these tools. The story at Sun Microsystems isn’t the story of a CEO/Celebrity blogger (Jonathan's Blog), the story is the thousands of normal everyday Sun employees that blog. Who are they? What are the benefits to the organization? (hint…it’s not touchy-feely....the ROI is found in winning searches and converting those visitors to prospects….)
There was a great quote from Richard Edelman in the Dallas Morning News the other day:
“It’s clear that when it comes to traditional authority figures – whether they’re chief executives or heads of state – people trust them less,” says Mr. Edelman. “Employees are the new credible source of information. We have data that shows an employee blog is five times more credible than a CEO blog – and I say this as a CEO blogger.”
This is the big story in Social Media as it relates to Business.
Fundamentals are about focusing most of your effort on the things that are most important…with Social Media as it relates to business, that is the amazing strides being made with Email driving engagement through data and Search made through widespread employee blogging.
3. Journalism. Journalists can be forgiven for sticking close to home when considering Blogging and Social Media. A quote like this is typical:“According to a recent study by Forrester Research, only a quarter of the U.S. adult population even bothers to read a blog once a month."
Journalists think in terms of circulation…. of a fan base that is going to be loyal to a given author. This doesn’t work in business. More importantly it’s shouldn’t even remotely be a measure of success for business. Again, this makes people like Kerry Miller or Arianna Huffington interesting to Journalists but not really relevant to the other 19.9M organizations that are not involved in publishing.
Businesses measure success based on metrics like traffic, engagement, conversion, leads, sales…that sort of thing. How is social media being successfully executed against those metrics…..now that’s a story.
By no means do I want to minimize the power or potential of these new tools. Internal Wiki’s are perhaps the greatest thing to happen to internal organization communications and collaboration since the telephone…or at least the Outlook Calendar. Both BT and Best Buy have great cases to make. But the reality is that every CEO on the planet wakes up with one thought first and foremost….sales.
What’s missing from the conversation about Social Media is how any of this affects the actual numbers. It’s almost like it would be ‘dirty’ for anyone to talk about how a business should use social media to drive sales.
Sales happen when there is a need and a solution that comes together for mutually agreed value. (I value that flat screen more than I value my $1,000 in cash)
What’s been lost from traditional marketing since the advent of TV has been a fundamental premise we all learned from Zig Ziglar. People buy from People. Marketers have been corrupted by “Brand” and “Consumer” for so long that they forgot about the people on both sides.
The greatest gift of Social Media is the ability to reintroduce people to the mix. Email, Search & Employee Blogging all are social media….and all drive better relationships, higher engagement and more business. That’s what the entire Social Media phenomenon is telling us. We trust people more than we trust institutions.
Posted Friday, May 16, 2008 by
jeff lefevere
I love blogging. Let me say it again – I love blogging.I love blogging for a number of reasons, but related to business, I love it because I would not be sitting in this chair were it not for a personal wine blog I started two years ago.
In January 2006 I was a technology sales and marketing guy with a nice, albeit safe career.
Creatively, however, I was stagnant. I’ve always been more proactive than reactive and working for a Fortune 150 company, in large part, was stifling: put your time in, connect the dots, suffer the politics, don’t veer too far to the left, hope your bonus hits and wait for the 3% merit increase.
Yawn.
So, I started a wine blog (www.goodgrape.com) to simply give myself something creative to do as an outlet. Mind you, I was simply a guy that lived in the middle of the country that happened to enjoy wine, and I studied it a bit as an enthusiast. I had and have no special powers and no magic palate.
Two years later I have a nationally recognized wine blog, good traffic, influence in my niche and some amazing things have happened: First, people seek my opinion out on matters of wine and marketing, frequently. Two years ago I would have never been qualified to provide a marketing strategy to a wine importer … which I did just prior to joining Compendium. I’ve been both a winner and a finalist in the American Wine Blog Awards … my site is featured monthly in a wine business magazine called Wine Business Monthly … I have a wine book idea that has been validated by a publisher … The Executive Editor of Wine Spectator has commented on my site. Celebrity chef Michael Chiarello has commented on my site, numerous winemakers have commented on my site … and, they send me wine samples. Last week I received three wine books in the mail from three different publicists … I am fully networked in the wine industry and able to send dozens of emails to people asking for a favor or a tip, and I would get a helpful response.
Whodathunk?
I bring this up not as a chest-thumping exercise (so please take this with my humility in mind), but because this same opportunity exists for everybody!
We all have expertise in our particular niche and writing authoritatively, consistently and thought-provokingly will lead to success. Let me say it again – blogging will lead to success for your business. In fact, you have a greater foundation to build from because you are a business!
The Compendium solution adds that additional “secret sauce” ingredient because developing a blog takes time, cultivating a readership takes time, finding your “voice” takes time.
However, our focus on search engine optimization short circuits through a lot of that cultivation and gives you the ability to drive traffic much quicker than the “slow and steady wins the race” mentality that I had.
There is a real difference between being a “citizen journalist” which I am as a wine blogger and being a business blogger, but there are some shared tenets in terms of creating a sphere of influence and driving to success metrics. It starts with content and ends with content. And, Compendium helps you do it the right way.
But, don’t take my word for it (though you could). Find out for yourself. Blog consistently with good content for a year and I’ll give you a personal guarantee that your business will be richer for it. If it’s not, I’ll buy a bottle of wine of your choosing. In fact, when you realize that your business is better off, I’ll still give you a bottle of wine. It might be a sample I received, though.
Posted Thursday, May 1, 2008 by
Kristen Hanschu
Now more than ever small businesses are able to compete with larger organizations. It is all about being found on the web. The easiest way to be found on the first page of Google is by creating a blog. A blog can help a business in a number of ways:
- Blog software is easy to use. Simply write your thoughts, link to resources, and publish to your blog, all at the push of a few buttons. Blog software companies such as Compendium all offer easy blogging tools to get started.
- Blogging is a low-cost alternative to having a web presence. For small business owners without the time to learn web html or the money to hire a designer/developer, blogging offers an inexpensive method to get your company's name out on the Internet.
- Updating the weblog is a much quicker process than contacting a web designer with changes or doing the coding and uploading yourself.
- Business blogs provide your small business with a chance to share your expertise and knowledge with a larger audience. A powerful benefit for consultants and knowledge workers.
Posted Wednesday, April 30, 2008 by
Ali Sales
This question just came up during a webinar that Chris Baggott hosted today (5 Compelling Reasons SMB's Should Blog. Slides coming soon), and I couldn't resist responding to it myself.So here is the question: Is allowing your employees to blog at work a bad use of their time?
Well, yes and no. (You thought I was going to give a firm no, but hear me out). Let me give you two scenarios to demonstrate the different ways this can play out.
Scenario A: Your employees are using the blogging platform of their choice (one geared toward citizen journalism like Wordpress or TypePad or whatever their heart desires). There is no consistency. The employees write about whatever they want. There is no administrator to review content before it is published.
Do I think this is a good use of time? No way. And you shouldn't either. Now how about this example...
Scenario B: Your employees are all using the same blogging tool (like Compendium). They understand that their content is the driving force behind the company's ability to acquire leads and customers through the search engines. The employees are encouraged to write about topics that are relevant to their position within the company, but can still add their personal touches and keep a genuine voice. An administrator can review the content before it's published
So do I think this kind of business blogging is worth the time? You bet.
With the right blogging software, end goals, and focus that you provide to those who will be writing the content, Scenario A can easily turn into Scenario B, which is hugely beneficial to every kind of organization.
And yes, the picture above are some of Compendium's favorite bloggers.
Posted Thursday, April 24, 2008 by
Lynsey Rosencrans
This week, my colleague and I decided to hold "Operation Content Creation" This email campaign was created in hopes drive content up amongst our clients who state they don't have the time to devote to blogging. Each day we sent out an email that provided a daily tip on creating content around the office.
One of my daily tips suggested to keep your posts short and simple. I suggested this partly because of the time restraints given by our clientele. Most people who blog have the preconceived notion that the post has to be a page or two long, but not true. Most blog readers are “scanners” and don't have enough time to read a lengthy, indepth post. Get to the point quickly. Publishing short posts more frequently is a better format than publishing lengthy articles every few weeks. Short posts do keep readers engaged and you'll see they will come back again and again wanting to read your quick insights and daily thoughts.
One of my daily tips suggested to keep your posts short and simple. I suggested this partly because of the time restraints given by our clientele. Most people who blog have the preconceived notion that the post has to be a page or two long, but not true. Most blog readers are “scanners” and don't have enough time to read a lengthy, indepth post. Get to the point quickly. Publishing short posts more frequently is a better format than publishing lengthy articles every few weeks. Short posts do keep readers engaged and you'll see they will come back again and again wanting to read your quick insights and daily thoughts.
Posted Saturday, April 19, 2008 by
Kristen Hanschu
Using keywords in blogs is one of the most important factors in winning rankings in Google. Blogging for search engine optimization requires determining and using keywords in blogs that will benefit your organization most. Not only is it important to use them in the blogs themselves, it is also important to use them in the blog titles.
A recent article by Daren Rowse says that:
"One of the things I’m constantly amazed at is how many web publishers miss one of the easiest ways to maximize their positioning in Search Engines by simply including the keywords that they’d like to be found for in their post titles.
At Compendium, we go a step beyond this. We advise you to use they keywords not only in the blog titles, but in your post titles as well. The more that search engines, such as Google, index these words and see that you are using them in multiple places, the more of a chance that you will rank on the first page. Remember these rules the next time you post a blog, it can make a difference when blogging for SEO.
A recent article by Daren Rowse says that:
"One of the things I’m constantly amazed at is how many web publishers miss one of the easiest ways to maximize their positioning in Search Engines by simply including the keywords that they’d like to be found for in their post titles.
I spend a lot of time looking at online articles written on blogs, newspapers and websites and some days it seems that every second or third one has a title that is either cryptic, clever or cute at the expense of Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
To put it bluntly - when it comes to blog SEO I believe that your page and post titles are incredibly important. Google in particularly seems to value the words in your title incredibly highly."At Compendium, we go a step beyond this. We advise you to use they keywords not only in the blog titles, but in your post titles as well. The more that search engines, such as Google, index these words and see that you are using them in multiple places, the more of a chance that you will rank on the first page. Remember these rules the next time you post a blog, it can make a difference when blogging for SEO.
Posted Wednesday, March 26, 2008 by
PJ Hinton
It's understandable businesses might be nervous about allowing their employees to maintain blogs. Decision makers contemplating a corporate blogging strategy might be tempted to throw their hands up in the air and ask rhteorically, "Is it really worth the risk?
For those who might be baffled by this and similar questions, it helps to know that you are not the first to face these questions, and you are not alone. In fact, you're in good company.
For a good case in point, check out a recently published article on CNet's news.com website. If you're considering an enterprise blog or are in the process of rolling one out, this article is a must-read.
CNet writer Ann Broache uses as a starting point the legal issues that Cisco Systems is facing after one of its employees was outed as an anonymous blogger. The article does a good job of driving home the significance of transparency, discretion, and delineation.
Transparency is ensuring that when employees post content related to their employer on the net, the employee clearly identifies him- or herself as an employee of that company.
Discretion means that employees don't disclose information that would compromise trade secrets, violate confidentiality agreements, or expose the company to further legal liability.
Delineation involves making clear what aspects of an employee's writings are representative of the company and which are the views of the employee alone.
The article also is valuable because it discusses how several large companies and organizations have dealt with this question. Links to corporate blogging policies and net conduct guidelines for companies such as Cisco Systems, Sun Microsystems, Dell, Yahoo, IBM, Google, and the BBC are provided in the story. With big names such as these, the story serves as a great launching point for identifying blog best practices.
One of the best ways to ensure transparency, delineation, and discretion is to provide a common corporate blogging platform like Compendium Blogware. Employees get the ability to write original content while being clearly identified as a company employee. Compendium's post approval feature helps mitigate the risk of inappropriate content.
For those who might be baffled by this and similar questions, it helps to know that you are not the first to face these questions, and you are not alone. In fact, you're in good company.
For a good case in point, check out a recently published article on CNet's news.com website. If you're considering an enterprise blog or are in the process of rolling one out, this article is a must-read.
CNet writer Ann Broache uses as a starting point the legal issues that Cisco Systems is facing after one of its employees was outed as an anonymous blogger. The article does a good job of driving home the significance of transparency, discretion, and delineation.
Transparency is ensuring that when employees post content related to their employer on the net, the employee clearly identifies him- or herself as an employee of that company.
Discretion means that employees don't disclose information that would compromise trade secrets, violate confidentiality agreements, or expose the company to further legal liability.
Delineation involves making clear what aspects of an employee's writings are representative of the company and which are the views of the employee alone.
The article also is valuable because it discusses how several large companies and organizations have dealt with this question. Links to corporate blogging policies and net conduct guidelines for companies such as Cisco Systems, Sun Microsystems, Dell, Yahoo, IBM, Google, and the BBC are provided in the story. With big names such as these, the story serves as a great launching point for identifying blog best practices.
One of the best ways to ensure transparency, delineation, and discretion is to provide a common corporate blogging platform like Compendium Blogware. Employees get the ability to write original content while being clearly identified as a company employee. Compendium's post approval feature helps mitigate the risk of inappropriate content.
Posted Saturday, March 22, 2008 by
PJ Hinton
Search engine optimization (SEO) is a field aflood with consultants of varying degrees of reputability. There is no shortage of people who will be all too happy to take your money, promising the secrets to a high ranking result in return. It's a marketplace where the phrase "buyer beware" is the most valuable advice to follow. System gaming gimmicks may work today, but they will send you to the bottom of the barrel tomorrow.
Inbound links are a path to getting better organic search results, but not all links are created equally. Manipulative approaches that get tagged as spam do more harm than good, so it's worth paying attention when Matt Cutts, the guy at Google who is in charge of sifting out the spam, writes about the subject. In a recent posting on his blog, Cutts offers up tips for getting links. Quoting an excerpt from the post:
Noting that the post was written originally back in 2005, Cutts concludes:
Inbound links are a path to getting better organic search results, but not all links are created equally. Manipulative approaches that get tagged as spam do more harm than good, so it's worth paying attention when Matt Cutts, the guy at Google who is in charge of sifting out the spam, writes about the subject. In a recent posting on his blog, Cutts offers up tips for getting links. Quoting an excerpt from the post:
Become a resource:Publishing the kind of tutorial and background information that the higher ranking translation firm was providing would be an excellent use of a corporate blog.Provide valuable information. Be the first. Be the first means coming up with a creative idea that catches the fancy of the web.
- You can do this with a personal or company blog. Blogs are a great way to get link love or just to get your word out.
- If blogs sound scary, start out with newsletters. Or studies. Or surveys. Or white papers.
- Once a company (I’ll call them site A) that does language translations asked me why they didn’t rank as highly as another website (I’ll call them site B). When I checked it out, site A had very little content, just 5-6 pages with contact info and a short description of what they did. It was like an online brochure. So what did site B have? They offered a tutorial about the difference between Katakana, Hiragana, and Kanji, plus they showed how to write a few characters. Who would you link to, the empty brochure site or the site with tutorial pages?
Noting that the post was written originally back in 2005, Cutts concludes:
[There you go. I think most of these ideas have aged pretty well.]Corporate blogs -- a legitimate SEO tool for yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
Posted Tuesday, March 18, 2008 by
PJ Hinton
Two recent articles, published a day apart, on two seemingly different topics... One was written by Clay Shirky, an expert on collaboration on the internet... the other written by Bruce Schneier, one of the most respected names in information security. Shirky wrote about the regulation of media, and Schneier wrote about protecting privacy. The questions they address in their works are really two sides of the same coin.
At the heart of the matter is information and what can be done with it. Information enables actions both benign and malign. Knowing that that an airline is running a discounted fare promotion when planning travel can help save you some money. Your credit card number, expiration date, and verification number in the hands of a thief can result in the rapid increase in your debt structure.
The widespread availability of broadband networks and affordable data storage has given rise to a situation with data that futurists once predicted with fusion and energy. Transmission and retention of information is almost too cheap to meter.
Shirky highlights a recent injunction and reversal against wikileaks.org to make a point. He sums things up by writing:
Schneier looks at the flipside of the issue, criticizing the notion of a "Transparent Society", which might be summed up as "Fine, we'll let Big Brother watch us as long as we get the same ability to watch him." Schneier bases his argument on the idea that power follows from information, and that relationship might be asymmetric.
For information to be usable by humans or machine, it must be recorded (observation) or synthesized (creativity) and then processed. Getting from there to here is not always easy, and it's not always cheap. But once that information is in a usable form, it can enable better decisions.
Technology has made cheap the accumulation and duplication of information, eliminating the barrier of media scarcity that helped sustain the livelihood of those who profited from distributing information. In a free market, scarcity (lack of supply) applies upward pressure on prices. When an item can be duplicated cheaply, scarcity decreases. While distributors have been the most powerful and outspoken lobby on this issue, oftentimes claiming they are doing it to protect those who gathered, dreamed up, and analyzed the information, those other parties have often themselves been shortchanged by the distributors.
The approach taken by those who benefited from copyright law is to push the idea that information is "intellectual property." To assert their rights to property, a whole genre of technology has sprung with the goal of restoring artificial scarcity. Sometimes referred to as "digital rights management", such products attempt to lock down media so that only those who have authorization from the "owner" of intellectual property can access the media. Many of these technologies wind up having flaws that make them breakable by talented and determined minds. Others wind up infringing on the rights of consumers with horribly invasive technologies.
I've always been uncomfortable with the idea of "information ownership" as a right akin to physical property. Information duplication is cheap, so it's not something that's of limited supply like water or energy. If we follow the idea to its logical conclusion, the only way to prevent the "theft" of ideas is to regulate the function of human minds. Think of it as Big Brother not only watching you but also getting into your head. It's the kind of power imbalance that Schneier writes about, taken to a whole new level.
Like Shirky, I don't have a lot of answers to these questions, but I think that whatever resolution emerges should have two components:
At the heart of the matter is information and what can be done with it. Information enables actions both benign and malign. Knowing that that an airline is running a discounted fare promotion when planning travel can help save you some money. Your credit card number, expiration date, and verification number in the hands of a thief can result in the rapid increase in your debt structure.
The widespread availability of broadband networks and affordable data storage has given rise to a situation with data that futurists once predicted with fusion and energy. Transmission and retention of information is almost too cheap to meter.
Shirky highlights a recent injunction and reversal against wikileaks.org to make a point. He sums things up by writing:
There is a tension between freedom of speech in general, and restriction of certain kinds of speech; how can society let people say what they like, while still restricting things like libel or publication of trade secrets? And although the law around these issues hasn't changed, the economics of media have been so transformed that the old legal bargains between freedom and restriction are breaking, and we have no easy way of replacing them.Shirky rightly notes that many of the assumptions that gave rise to social contracts like copyright and trade secret law no longer apply, and he doesn't see any easy resolutions to the problem.
Schneier looks at the flipside of the issue, criticizing the notion of a "Transparent Society", which might be summed up as "Fine, we'll let Big Brother watch us as long as we get the same ability to watch him." Schneier bases his argument on the idea that power follows from information, and that relationship might be asymmetric.
It's not enough to open the efforts to public scrutiny. All aspects of government work best when the relative power between the governors and the governed remains as small as possible -- when liberty is high and control is low. Forced openness in government reduces the relative power differential between the two, and is generally good. Forced openness in laypeople increases the relative power, and is generally bad.Shirky and Schneier's pieces are worth reading and pondering, because they go beyond the simplistic notions that lie at the extremes, where you hear blowhards screaming slogans like "information wants to be free" and "ideas need the same level of protection as physical property".
For information to be usable by humans or machine, it must be recorded (observation) or synthesized (creativity) and then processed. Getting from there to here is not always easy, and it's not always cheap. But once that information is in a usable form, it can enable better decisions.
Technology has made cheap the accumulation and duplication of information, eliminating the barrier of media scarcity that helped sustain the livelihood of those who profited from distributing information. In a free market, scarcity (lack of supply) applies upward pressure on prices. When an item can be duplicated cheaply, scarcity decreases. While distributors have been the most powerful and outspoken lobby on this issue, oftentimes claiming they are doing it to protect those who gathered, dreamed up, and analyzed the information, those other parties have often themselves been shortchanged by the distributors.
The approach taken by those who benefited from copyright law is to push the idea that information is "intellectual property." To assert their rights to property, a whole genre of technology has sprung with the goal of restoring artificial scarcity. Sometimes referred to as "digital rights management", such products attempt to lock down media so that only those who have authorization from the "owner" of intellectual property can access the media. Many of these technologies wind up having flaws that make them breakable by talented and determined minds. Others wind up infringing on the rights of consumers with horribly invasive technologies.
I've always been uncomfortable with the idea of "information ownership" as a right akin to physical property. Information duplication is cheap, so it's not something that's of limited supply like water or energy. If we follow the idea to its logical conclusion, the only way to prevent the "theft" of ideas is to regulate the function of human minds. Think of it as Big Brother not only watching you but also getting into your head. It's the kind of power imbalance that Schneier writes about, taken to a whole new level.
Like Shirky, I don't have a lot of answers to these questions, but I think that whatever resolution emerges should have two components:
- Information that could be used to cause real, measurable harm to one's life, liberty, or physical property should be considered personal property, protected from the abuse by government, corporations, and individuals alike.
- Copyrights assigned to individuals should be non-transferable. Individuals can enter into agreements with distributors for a time limited exclusive agreement, subject to renewal upon completion, but the right can't be sole or given away. This weakens the distributor's incentive to shortchange the the creator and infringe on the privacy of consumers.
Posted Tuesday, March 4, 2008 by
Chris Baggott
I was really flattered to be called yesterday by the Wall Street Journal for an interview on Corporate Blogging and Blogging Best Practices for Employees.
All in all, I'm happy with the the story but thought that it went a little too far by focusing mostly on the idea of Blogging for Search. There is no question that I feel that one of the great and tangible blogging benefits is SEO, however, we also recognize that SEO is a result of great content. Blogging success comes from great and targeted content, and lot 's of it.
At the end of the day what we are suggesting is that by allowing your employees to participate and use your blog publishing software you not only get some great content, you also should increase the likelihood that you will rank well around the terms they are blogging about.
But hey, one of our employees actually said this better in his blog post last week.
What makes this post so great is not only the fact that it is well articulated, but that it was written by one of our software developers. Yeah a code jockey.
When was the last time you invited your developers to participate in a marketing communication?????
All in all, I'm happy with the the story but thought that it went a little too far by focusing mostly on the idea of Blogging for Search. There is no question that I feel that one of the great and tangible blogging benefits is SEO, however, we also recognize that SEO is a result of great content. Blogging success comes from great and targeted content, and lot 's of it.
At the end of the day what we are suggesting is that by allowing your employees to participate and use your blog publishing software you not only get some great content, you also should increase the likelihood that you will rank well around the terms they are blogging about.
But hey, one of our employees actually said this better in his blog post last week.
What makes this post so great is not only the fact that it is well articulated, but that it was written by one of our software developers. Yeah a code jockey.
When was the last time you invited your developers to participate in a marketing communication?????
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