BLOGGING TO DRIVE BUSINESS CREATE AND MAINTAIN VALUABLE CUSTOMER BUTOW E. BOLLWITT R. Bankowa.pl

Use Blogging to Supercharge Sales, Customer Loyalty, Innovation, and Profits

Blogging can help you deepen customer loyalty, reach new customers, gain indispensable feedback, and drive more sales. This no-nonsense guide shows how to craft a business blog that does all that, and more–building your business and increasing your profits. Top e-marketers and business bloggers Eric Butow and Rebecca Bollwitt help you define clear goals, generate the right content with the right tools, attract visitors, build communities, and avoid costly mistakes. They draw on their own extensive experience, as well as the work of innovators from companies such as Intel, Wal-Mart, Google, HP, and BusinessWeek. Whatever your role in the business, you’ll learn how to:

• Launch a blog that truly represents the best of your business

• Create a comprehensive, long-term blogging strategy

• Staff your blogging initiative

• Integrate blogs with other offline and online marketing programs

• Use your blog to drive customers and prospects to the business

• Push up-to-the-minute information to customers via RSS

• Build a thriving online community–and learn from what it tells you

• Manage comments (and decide whether to have them)

• Utilize podcasts, vlogs, microblogging, and other new techniques

• Gain business value from hot new Web 3.0 technologies, including widgets, mashups, personal agents, and the Semantic Web

Eric Butow is CEO of Butow Communications Group (BCG), a Web design and online marketing firm in Jackson, California. Eric has written a wide variety of computing books since 2000, and his latest titles include User Interface Design for Mere Mortals, How to Succeed in Business Using LinkedIn, as well as custom For Dummies titles for F5 Networks and Hewlett-Packard. When Eric isn’t writing or running his business, you’ll catch him reading and enjoying the weather of the Sierra foothills.

Rebecca Bollwitt is the co-founder of sixty4media, which specializes in WordPress design and development as well as social media consulting in Vancouver, British Columbia. Rebecca has been blogging since 2004 on Miss604.com, and podcasting about music and hockey since 2005.Miss604.com was voted “Best Vancouver Blog” of 2009 in The Georgia Straight and in 2008, she was listed within the top ten “Most Influential in Canadian Social Media” by Profectio.com. She has organized social media conferences and charity fundraisers, including Blogathon Vancouver, Twestival Local, and the Best of 604 Awards.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

How This Book Is Organized 2

Conventions Used in This Book 3

Web Pages 3

Special Elements 3

There’s More Online 4

1 Why Are Blogs So Important? 5

Media Growth Is in One Area: Online 6

Get the Message Out 6

Blog Popularity 8

Hello,World! 8

Promote Products and Services 10

Reach People 12

Keep Pushing Content 13

Drive People to the Blog 13

Crowdsourcing 13

Case Studies: Intel and Adidas 15

Intel Inside Scoop Blog 15

Adidas Soccer MySpace Blog 17

Summary 21

2 Leveraging Your Blog with Marketing Tools 23

Online Marketing 24

Web Site 24

E-Mail Marketing 24

More Work… and Potential Solutions 25

Offline Marketing 29

Pushing Information via RSS 31

Getting Customers to Subscribe 33

Taking Care of Your Readers 33

Case Studies 34

City of Arvada 34

The Sacramento Bee 36

Summary 38

3 Creating a Blogging Strategy 39

Blogging Platforms 40

WordPress.com 40

TypePad 42

Vox 44

Blogger 44

LiveJournal 45

Blog Software 46

Finding the Blog Best for Your Business 49

Vlogs 49

Photoblogs 50

Podcast Blogs 51

Tumblelogs 52

Microblogs 53

Moblogs 55

Combining Blogs with Other Networking Sites 56

MySpace 56

Facebook 57

LinkedIn 58

Twitter 59

Case Studies 60

BusinessWeek 60

KCBS Radio, San Francisco 62

Summary 64

4 Blogging Responsibly 65

Listen to Your Audience 66

Two-Way Discussions 66

Listening by Sharing 67

Tools to Help You Listen 69

Comments and Responding to Them 74

Comment Forms 74

When to Moderate Comments 74

Negative Feedback Can Help You Grow 76

Dealing with Negative Feedback 77

Case Study: Molson Coors Brewing Company 78

Summary 81

5 Finding Topics to Write About 83

Writing Blogs for the Wider World 84

Creating an Industry Resource Blog 84

Create an Online Community 86

Case Study: Canucks Fan Zone 88

Creating an Internal Blog (or Blogs) for Your Company 90

Keep People Informed 90

Internal Blogs for Project Management 91

Product Blog (External) 92

Summary 94

6 Who Will Write the Blog? 95

Writing from Within a Company 96

Identifying Authors 96

Client Services and Tech Support 99

Authentic Content 101

Hiring a Blogger 102

Tips for Hiring a Blogger 102

Hiring a Blogger from Your Industry 103

Create a Blogging Position 104

Case Study: Linda Bustos: An Elastic Blog from Elastic Path 107

Summary 110

7 Getting Eyeballs to Your Blog 111

Writing Effectively 112

Editing for Word Count and Brevity 112

Be Human 114

Be Readable 115

Design 116

Reading Blogs Helps You Write Blogs 117

Commenting: More than Leaving a Calling Card 117

Blogger Outreach 118

Linking Out to Get Incoming Links 119

Search Engine Optimization 120