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99 Good Reasons to Read a Blog

The subhead here could be Great stuff on blogs! There’s a compilation on a blog, b5media, of great blogs recently posted on the “best” worst practices in businesses – those that will kill your business. They call it 99 Ways to Kill Your Business, and I picked up a link to it from Rachel Clarke’s Behind the Buzz blog.

My point? Lots of people still have the idea that blogs are diaries. I don’t remember how many times people have said just that to me, as in: Why would I read a blog? I don’t care what some so-and-so had for breakfast.

So here, next time the question comes up: 99 good reasons to read a blog.

Tags: Blogging, Business blogs, Online Content by Judith
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On Linked In and Linking to blogs

I was at a local meeting of the American Marketing Association (AMA) at lunch and was reminded of all of the links that bloggers create. The speaker, from LeverageSoftware.com, a company that sells online community software, talked about all of her Facebook, MyPlace, and blog connections.

I haven’t personally done a lot of Facebook or MyPlace, but I do have a LinkedIn account, and I was reminded that I had not visited it for some time. Been neglecting it. So I dropped in and I invited a few friends and colleagues to link to me (and me to them). That linking is a valuable part of this whole new Live Web. It plays into the blogging we’re doing. It’s the exciting part where I plug into your thoughts and you plug into mine. It’s that virtual clink, that LinkLinkLink we hear in the blogosphere.

Linking and connecting is the heartbeat of blogging for business.

Ultimately, the idea is to get way way beyond just shooting SEO keywords back and forth to optimize sites; ultimately, Live Web is about connecting and listening to each other’s comments.

Is that listening happening a lot? That’s something I’d like to know, something that will either make blogging a big part of my life and business, or not. IMHO, the jury’s still out on that one, but I’m rooting for success.

Tags: Blogging, Business blogs, SEO, Small Business by Judith
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Astroturfing: the Perils

In jumping from blog link to blog link yesterday (or was it the day before?) I came across this Behind the Buzz blog. I think the link started for me from David Meerman Scott’s blog.

The Sept 12 Behind the Buzz blog by Rachel Clarke is a terrific example of why NOT to astroturf. (Plant phony positive comments about your company under the guise of a concerned or interested consumer; see Wikipedia for more.) This blogger sniffed out the suspicious blog almost immediately.

And if I may digress here for a moment, in true blogger style, I used to find these same kinds of inauthentic essays from students back when I taught some English 101 classes at the community college. Writers look for the “signatures” of writers and of styles that are embedded in the writer’s language.

And Rachel, on the Behind the Buzz blog, is apparently a pro at finding those signatures.

So, even if you’re tempted to phony-up some blog comments, don’t go there. It’s just not nice, and beyond that, you’ll get caught. Notice how Rachel so easily followed the trail home on the astroturfer!

Tags: Free Advice by Judith
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Best and Worst: What’s YOUR opinion?

Great discussion going on the last couple of days on The Best and Worst Business Books. The list, posted by BNet, points to the 10 most overrated and 10 most underrated business books. I’ve read about half of the books, and I pretty much agree with the lists. I can’t help wondering why The Tipping Point is on the underrated list, though, since “tipping point” has entered the language mainstream as a result of the book. But I’m right with them on the Who Moved My Cheese book — who needs to read a whole book to get that point?

That aside, here’s an interesting exercise for anyone considering starting a business blog: check out David Meerman Scott’s blog and the comments that logged in under his posting. Then check out the Websites of the commenters. And you’ll catch just a glimmer of how a blog convo moves through the sphere.

Go ahead and jump in on the conversation, too. Here’s where your opinion as a business owner counts the most. Those books are aimed at us entrepreneurs, so go ahead and log in your thoughts.

And, ok, a few more opinions from me on those books: Next on my list is The Long Tail for more on niche marketing and then Nickel and Dimed, been meaning to read it since it came out. But I doubt if I’ll read the finance book for Dummies. Boy, am I ever sick of that series!

 

Tags: Blogging, Business blogs, Small Business by Judith
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Gotta blog a lot? Maybe not.

Just when I’m convinced that the gurus are right — you’ve gotta blog every day if you want your voice to be heard in the blogosphere — one of the top business bloggers breaks the rules.

Debbie Weil, who wrote the book on corporate blogging (The Corporate Blogging Book), is blogging less. Why, you may ask, would a leading blogger and marketing expert cut back on blogging?

Life and its hometown joys interrupted, it seems.

One comment to her blog interested me especially –From David Koopman questioning if we need to blog everyday. Search engines reward you if you do, but just between us, maybe that indiscriminate blogging is what got bloggers their rep amongst non-bloggers as narcissistic diarists blogging about what they had for breakfast.

It’s something to think about as you set up your business blog calendar.

Tags: Blogging, Business blogs, SEO, Small business blogging by Judith
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