Chapter 21

Blogging for Companies

In This Chapter

Making blogs work for your business or organization

Establishing a plan for blogging success

Exploring the technological bells and whistles

Advertising on blogs

As a business owner or entrepreneur, you're probably wondering whether blogging can help you be more financially successful or allow you to promote your company in some way. Many of today's technically savvy businesses have started blogs and found them to be terrific tools for reaching out to customers, generating buzz about a service or product, building goodwill, or just informing customers about what they're up to.

If you're thinking about adding a blog to your outreach efforts but aren't entirely confident that it'll be worth the time and effort, you aren't alone. Many companies have difficulty seeing the value in blogging. Some professionals worry about diverting time away from more crucial workplace tasks, whereas others worry about opening themselves up for public criticism.

And the truth is that even though blogging can provide a business with a really incredible tool, it isn't right for every business. Nonetheless, in this chapter, I do my best to persuade you that blogging can work for you and your company, whether you're a lone-wolf entrepreneur just starting out or a Fortune 500 executive with more marketing staff than you know what to do with.

 If this chapter piques your interest, check out Buzz Marketing with Blogs For Dummies, by Susannah Gardner (John Wiley & Sons, Inc.), which covers in depth what I can only touch on in this chapter.

Putting Blogs to Work for Your Business

A stigma still lingers somewhat around blogs. Blogs, for a lot of folks, equate with the worst kind of narcissistic navel-gazing. Those kinds of blogs do exist, of course, but in reality, the blogosphere contains so much more than that. Hundreds of nonprofit organizations, small-business owners, consultants, newspapers, and schools have moved into the blogosphere.

Why? Blogs are simple to set up, easy to publish, and have a proven track record for increasing search engine traffic to a website. For a company in which time is of the essence and accessibility is a necessity, blogs are a low-investment way to accomplish a lot. Don't believe me? Then perhaps you'll believe General Motors, McDonald's, Microsoft, Amazon.com, The New York Times, and Southwest Airlines; all these companies have added blogs to their business practices.

Considering the benefits of a business blog

For a business or organization, you can use blog software to release company public-relations documents to the public, or you can go further and introduce blogs as part of your external communications to your customers and potential customers. Some companies use blogs internally to coordinate work teams or communicate across distances. Here are a few of the ways businesses are using blogs:

• Generating conversation and buzz about the company and its products or services
• Reaching out with information and support to current customers, even resolving issues traditionally handled by phone-based customer service
• Creating new pathways to interact with the public about an industry or issue, including gathering feedback and input to guide future product development
• Defusing negative criticism or press by publicly addressing problems
• Demonstrating expertise and experience to potential customers
• Directly driving sales or action
• Collaborating across teams, branches, regions, or staggered shifts

When it comes to business, the main thing that a business blogger should consider is that blog software, implemented properly, can allow companies to improve their communications and organization with very little overhead. In some cases, blogs have even saved businesses money by delivering documents and data online that were previously delivered via snail mail.

Businesses haven't been the only beneficiaries, either. Customers have benefited from increased access to news, information, support, and dialogue with companies that have blogs.

Making blogs work for you can be simple if you have a communication strategy that's flexible and can evolve when your blog takes off. Blogs can generate sales and establish strong communication directly with customers, and marketing experts believe blogs are a friendly method of making customers happy.

Checking out businesses that blog

You know that blogging is important. You already know that it gives you a very good way to generate talk about your company. Do you need a little more convincing? Well, the following sections discuss how some other companies are blogging.

Hewlett-Packard

www.hp.com/hpinfo/blogs

You've probably owned a Hewlett-Packard product at some point in your computing life. Hewlett-Packard has built computers, printers, cameras, and high-end computer servers for years, building up incredible expertise across a range of consumer products. You can see that knowledge in the HP blogs, which claim to convey the “unvarnished thoughts of HP employees.” Topics range from computers to the Cannes Film Festival to gaming, and the bloggers come from all areas of the company's structure.

Wells Fargo

http://blog.wellsfargo.com

What could a bank possibly blog about, you ask? Apparently, banks can discuss a whole lot with their customers. Student loans, small business, and stock markets are all topics discussed on the Wells Fargo Blogs site. Wells Fargo Blogs gives multiple contributors a public voice in a variety of blogs, from The Student LoanDown to Guided by History.

Dell

http://en.community.dell.com/dell-blogs/default.aspx

The Dell community of blogs feature posts written by Dell employees and experts about topics ranging from new technology to upcoming ways to connect with Dell through social media.

Disney Parks Blog

http://disneyparks.disney.go.com/blog/ Disney Parks and Resorts as well as the Disney Cruise Line use the Disney Parks Blog (shown in Figure 21-1) as a platform to share Disney news as well as behind-the-scene first looks to fans. Rather than employing just one or two bloggers, Disney Parks Blog allows a variety of Disney Cast Members to share the projects on which they're working. This blog also gives Disney fans a rare opportunity to communicate directly with Disney.

Deciding whether to blog

Blogging for business reasons is a sensitive topic both in and out of the blogosphere. Old-school bloggers don't like seeing blogging turned from a personal outlet into a professional one, and many businesses worry that the informality of a blog looks unprofessional. And that isn't all: Some businesses also have concerns about employees who have personal blogs on which they might talk about their work or appear to be representing the company.

Blogging isn't for every corporate culture. If your company has traditionally had an open hand with communication and outreach, blogging is going to be a great tool for you. But if you have a reserved corporate culture, blogging might be too much of a stretch beyond business as usual. Still, many companies that might seem an odd fit for blogs for marketing or outreach have been happily surprised at the results they've obtained.

Businesses that need to keep information or trade practices confidential, or that stand to lose by having an open-door policy, probably shouldn't blog. For instance, some government agencies and law firms are limited by the very nature of their businesses in what they can communicate. You know best whether your corporate culture or industry can benefit from the use of a blog.

 At the very least, however, track your company and what's said about it in the blogosphere. Just because you ignore blogs, that doesn't mean they ignore you! Chapter 19 explains how you can keep tabs on what others say about your business online.

 If you're still on the fence about starting a blog, try one with a set endpoint, for an event or a product launch. After the event occurs, you can end the blog's life span gracefully and have some real data to use in assessing whether blogging was a worthwhile endeavor for you. Also, take a look at your competitors — are any of them blogging? If so, does the blog appear to be reaching visitors effectively? Are readers leaving comments? Watch how these competitors are making use of a blog and give some thought to whether you might be able to do something similar (but more effectively).

Planning for Business Blog Success

Blogging for a business comes down to planning. Don't let the ease of getting started with the technical side of blogging seduce you into jumping in without preparing. You need to decide what your goals are, figure out whom you want to actually write the blog, map out the topics that you plan to discuss, and plan how you might integrate direct action or sales.

Setting goals

Before you jump into blogging for your business, you need to set goals that define how you can know whether your blog is successful after you launch it. Decide what you want the blog to help you accomplish. Do you want to replace some of your existing customer service efforts with the blog? Are you launching a new product that needs publicity? Whatever your direction, plan your purpose prior to launching the blog.

 So many things could go into a blog, but you also have a business to run. Decide how much time you want to devote to writing and maintaining your blog. Blogging is part of your business, but it can't take away from time you need to devote to other tasks.

You might choose to define success by

• Increasing traffic to your website
• Reaching a certain number of blog comments on a daily basis
• Seeing more conversation about your company/products/services in the media or on other blogs
• Earning money from product sales or blog advertising

You might want to define success for your blog in other ways, so don't think you have to use any of these suggestions. A blog is such a flexible medium that yours might accomplish a goal I can't even imagine!

Choosing a blogger

Businesses have developed two approaches to company blogs: blogs written by one person and those written by multiple people from all over the organization. Either approach is valid, as long as everyone posting to the blog has a clear idea of the goals, ideas, and style of the blog.

 If you create a blog that has multiple contributors, put a single individual in charge of content on a regular basis and encourage others from the organization to chime in when they have something to say. The responsibility for the blog is in one person's hands, but the door is open for wide participation.

Occasional writers are welcome, but don't suddenly give employees brand-new job duties that they can't meet. Having multiple voices in a blog can also help you to convey the culture of your company overall, giving readers a taste of what people at all levels of the organization think about and do.

If you spread the writing around, you might be able to create a blog that has a huge amount of content and satisfies a very large readership. The multiple-voice perspective might also awaken ideas in the other writers and generate internal conversations.

 No matter who blogs, you must decide internally whether someone needs to vet posts before actually posting them, and who should do the vetting. It's a good idea to have someone who isn't blogging keep an eye on things, just to get a second opinion.

When you're considering just who should blog on behalf of the company, give some thought to

• Writing ability: You need a blogger who’s an effective writer and who also likes to write. Some companies choose to hire a blogger from outside the company who has experience and the ability to communicate effectively about topics related to that company.
• Position within the company: Who’s the right person to reach out to the public? CEOs offer one perspective, as do those on the factory floor. Try to match the goals and style of your blog with the right people within your company, and don’t be afraid to give unexpected staffers a try. You might be surprised at how interesting readers find a behind-the-curtain approach.
• Knowledge and expertise: Be sure to choose a person who has sufficient knowledge and expertise to be interesting and engaging on the subjects the blog discusses. Preferably, you want people who really know what they’re talking about and have information to share.
• Time commitments: Choose a blogger who has the time to put into the site. Don’t overload already busy staff with this new job requirement.

After you choose a blogger, you have a few more folks to identify. Don't forget to plan whom you want to review comments, deal with spam, and fix technical issues.

Deciding what to write

While you think about topics for the blog, consider how informal or personal you want to make your blog style. Although the occasional personal post can help to humanize your blog, don't be tempted down the journaling path: You're creating a business blog, so look for creative ways of covering your industry.

The goal of many business blogs is to establish (or maybe reestablish) the business as a leader in its industry. Think about how to demonstrate expertise while staying interesting and readable: You need to show that you know your stuff without becoming a stuffed shirt! Use the blog to persuade people that they should trust you without coming right out and telling people, “I'm trustworthy!”

Whoever blogs for your business needs to have a keen understanding of the goals and culture of the company, as well as know how much information to put on the blog without going too far. Many companies set up rules about topics that are appropriate for the blog as well as define what information they want to keep confidential.

Here are some general guidelines to keep in mind for your blog content:

• Keep it true. Double-check blog posts for accuracy before making them live. Like a newspaper or any other publisher, follow a process to make sure you’re publishing facts and not fiction. You can include opinions on your business’s blog as long as you label them as just that.
• Keep it relevant and real. Be as open and honest as you can in your blog. This approach to transparency can make some in your company nervous (hi, corporate lawyer!), but the more successful business blogs provide insight or communication from real people. Some even give the public access to the viewpoints and words of high-level staff the readers would normally never meet or talk to. Furthermore, whoever blogs should stay on topic and keep posts related to the subject of the blog, no matter how interesting that TV show was last night.
• Keep it informative and educational. One problem that many companies encounter when they start to blog is the fact that their blogs are (ahem) boring. You might have great information, but if people don’t also find it interesting to read about, you can’t get readers to stick around long. Try to write posts that educate with a light-hearted manner and that focus on information and news that are useful to those reading it.
• Keep it positive. Steer away from discussing your competition in your blog. If you can say something nice about another company, don’t hesitate, but you probably don’t want to point out just what other companies are doing wrong. That kind of approach can turn your blog into a giant argument, scaring off less-opinionated customers who might otherwise be interested in your products and services.
• Keep using keywords. Part of the plan of a business-related blog is to make sure the blog is useful to readers, but for that plan to work, you have to get readers from the search engine to your blog. Use your knowledge of your industry and topical news to use keywords that people are likely to use in search engines when they look for the subject of your blog or your business.

 Pay special attention to the words that you use in the titles of your blog posts: Search engines often weight these words most heavily, so hit the highpoints in your titles. Informative is better than cutesy!

• Keep linking. Business blogs should also link to related articles and websites. You can link to resources on your business's own website, but don't hesitate to point folks to good information that isn't on your website. If you're a source for information that they need or can get them to the information they need effectively, you don't lose them for long.

  Also, look for chances to link the blog to itself! A lot of bloggers are clever about linking to old posts on their own blogs so that new readers know where to go deep within the blog archives. This kind of linking can increase traffic and also inform and educate your readers.

• Keep posting. Post on a regular basis and don’t stop. Don’t worry about an absolutely right number of posts per week, but most experts agree that two to three posts a week is enough to keep your blog active and useful without overwhelming your readers. Other bloggers post less frequently, and others post multiple times a day. Do what works for you and for your readers, but be consistent so that your readers know what to expect from you. If your blog has long silences followed by short bursts of posting, you create a recipe for low readership numbers.

Generating sales or action

Asking potential customers to check out your services after they read something on your blog can turn those readers into actual customers. If you see a logical link to a product or service that you offer, it only makes sense to let people know. But you need to do more than simply push sales. You tread a fine line between a blog that points out possible purchases, along with providing content, and one that isn't anything more than a big ad.

 Keep one idea in mind: Meet the needs of your readers. If you can put yourself in the shoes of a blog visitor, you might be able to successfully discriminate between a reasonable link to a product sale and one that's too blatant.

Some blogs don't try hard to get people to pull out their wallets. Instead, the blog's purpose might be to gather feedback and get people to participate in an event or contest. Again, try to be genuine and inviting, rather than pushy. Get readers involved and invested in your goal.

Gussy Sews (www.gussysews.com) is a site that skillfully pairs a personal blog with a home business. Maggie — known to her fans and customers as Gussy — candidly shares the ins and outs of her daily life with her husband, Zack, their sweet boy, Max, and even their dog, Bauer. However, Gussy Sews isn't all about Maggie discovering the joys of motherhood. One click on Shop Gussy (www.shopgussy.com) takes you to the flip side of this blog — the store. Here you can purchase the wares of the family you've fallen in love with through Maggie's blog, from zip pouches to totes and bags. Genius!

Delivering with Technology

You might be thinking about how you, as a blogger, can make connections with potential customers by using your blog. Words are a great start, but technology can also be your friend! A lot of the standard blog bells and whistles are designed to get people involved or to make it easy for them to consume your blog.

Use the tools in the following sections to get readers to return to your blog again and again.

Enabling comments

Comments are a double-edged sword for companies that start blogs. On the one hand, they do a great job of starting conversation and interaction. On the other hand, they can be a source of a lot of work because you have to keep them free of spam or inappropriate conversation. Many businesses are tempted to start a blog and keep comments turned off, but that cuts out a huge part of the benefit of a blog: hearing from your readers and interacting directly with them.

My advice? Turn on the comments! But take precautions by setting up a good policy about what kinds of comments are acceptable and implement some of the very good spam-fighting tools discussed in Chapter 10.

Creating RSS/web feeds

Before the advent of web feeds, blog readers had to remember to visit the blog periodically to see whether the blogger had posted a new entry. This dangerous method made it easy for people to forget to visit. Web feeds, or RSS feeds, give you a way to let people know quickly, easily, and automatically that you have new content available on your blog. Blog visitors simply subscribe to the feed by using a newsreader, which tracks the feed and updates it every time you update the blog, giving instant notification to the reader.

Users can set up web feeds, usually formatted as RSS (Really Simple Syndication), quickly and easily. In fact, most blog software packages automatically include an RSS tool, so you can set it up once and never think about it again.

I talk more about web feeds in Chapter 16.

Podcasting

Podcasting is a relative newcomer to the blogosphere, but it's proving to be a powerful blog ally. Podcasting, the recording and distribution of audio and video files to subscribers, has a tremendous potential to give your business blog a boost by providing multimedia presentations to your readers. You can add personality and a face to your blog. Posting interviews, discoveries, tutorials, and other adventures that your company has had can boost your visibility higher than a text-only blog can.

HBO produces podcasts to accompany many of its top shows (http://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/hbo/id118405710). A quick run through the selection reveals interviews with directors, stars, on-set interviews, episode clips, and more.

You can read more about creating a podcast in Chapter 13.

Starting a wiki

Wikis are collaboratively built websites that any visitor can edit. Although this collaborative format may unfortunately allow for misinformed information, businesses and organizations have found that wikis can complement blog sites nicely. Blogs allow for comments, but a wiki can provide a little more flexibility because visitors can both post pages and leave updates in a wiki, contributing to everything from documentation to news coverage.

Wikis are terrific collaborative tools, and if you've been trying to figure out a good way to share knowledge within an organization, you might want to use this approach. Many companies have found wikis useful for group learning purposes, such as building documentation or setting up procedural tasks. One of the most well-known examples of a successful wiki is Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.org), an online encyclopedia to which anyone can contribute content or edit existing content. You can even find it available in multiple languages.

Joining a social network

Adding your company to a variety of social networks can also help to boost your visibility in the blogosphere. Businesses tend to shy away from social networking as a valid form of online advertising, but using these mediums properly can add a viral component to your communication strategy. (Viral marketing is advertising that consumers actually spread themselves. For example, when you forward a funny video created by a company, you've spread the “virus.”)

A lot of social networks exist, so be sure to choose those that are most pertinent for your industry and approach, not those frequented by 14-year-old girls (unless that suits your business!). LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com) and XING (www.xing.com) are good places to get started.

To get started with LinkedIn, follow these steps:

1. Use your web browser to go to www.linkedin.com.
2. Fill out the registration form and click the Join Now button.
3. Fill out the required fields, including your name, business information, and where you went to school.
4. Click Join LinkedIn.

   LinkedIn creates an account for you.

   After you're a LinkedIn member, be sure to click the Expand Your Network button at the top-right of any page in order to invite colleagues or see who in your e-mail address book already uses LinkedIn.

Be sure to check out the social media platforms where your customers are spending much of their online time, namely Twitter and Facebook. Ready for the next step? Head over to Google+ and Instagram. And if you have a product and want customers, run, don't walk to Pinterest. I introduce social networks and what they're all about in Chapter 18.

Advertising on Blogs

Traditional marketing strategies include advertising, and blogs are no exception. But these aren't your father's ads: Blog advertising runs the gamut of everything from text links to full sponsorships.

In the past, taking out a typical advertisement meant that you'd go to the local newspaper, select an ad size, and choose a section in which you wanted your ad to appear. Maybe people saw the ad, maybe they didn't, but you got charged by how many newspapers were printed, not how many sales you made.

Online advertising offers more accountability to the advertiser: Because of the way websites work, you can track how many times readers’ computers load an ad, when a reader clicks it, and what the person does after he or she clicks that ad. Because advertisers like this kind of measure of effectiveness, printed material has seen a significant decline in the purchase of ad space, whereas online advertising has grown hugely. You can use several methods to get your name or even your blog URL seen on other websites and blogs.

Going contextual

Contextual advertising is the practice in which an ad-serving tool matches the advertisements based on the content that appears in the blog. For example, a blog about candy would have ads for candy, and a blog about movies would show ads for upcoming films. If the website visitors are interested in the content of the website, they're likely also interested in goods and services related to the topic of the website, and thus they're more likely to click the ads.

The first major player in the contextual advertising game was Google AdSense. The program was popular from the start, and after a few rocky periods of users abusing the system, it has proven to be quite a moneymaker for successful bloggers. Many professional bloggers make their living almost entirely on the income received from Google AdSense revenue. Search-engine marketer Alexandre Brabant uses Google AdSense on his company website, eMarketing 101 (www.emarketing101.ca). The Google AdSense program ads appear below the navigation bar of his site, as shown in Figure 21-3.

Here are two ways that you can get involved with Google's contextual advertising tools:

• Sign up to put ads on your blog or website. Use the Google AdSense program www.google.com/adsense. Chapter 18 introduces this program.
• Submit your blog or website for display. The Google AdWords program www.google.com/adwords lets you present your blog or website in the ads displayed on other websites.

 If you want to find out more about leveraging Google AdSense for your blog or business, check out Google AdWords For Dummies, by Howie Jacobson (John Wiley & Sons, Inc.).

Yahoo! and several other companies also have contextual advertising programs. Do a web search for contextual advertising programs to see what's on offer.

You can add contextual advertising to your web (RSS) feed or put yourself into other web feeds by using the FeedBurner Ad Network (http://feedburner.google.com).

Advertising via ad networks

A number of advertising middlemen can help successful bloggers put ads on their blogs. In most cases, you can choose between text and graphic ads in a set of standard web-advertising sizes. You create the ad, the ad network serves it up, the blogger posts new content, and his or her visitors see your ad.

If you want to advertise on some of the most successful blogs around, check out one or more of these ad networks:

• Blogads ( www.blogads.com): Offers ad placement on more than 3,500 blogs and allows you to choose an audience to target (for example, parents or news junkies).
• ClickZ ( www.clickz.com): Offers ad placement on the ClickZ family of news, opinion, and entertainment sites.
• Crisp Ads ( www.crispads.com): Offers advertising across blog categories (such as autos and food) or on specific blogs. More than 10,000 blogs are enrolled.
• FeedBurner ( http://feedburner.google.com): Offers placement on blogs and in RSS feeds; choose from categories of blogs and/or target specific times of day or geographic regions.

Each of these services offers you an array of popular blogs and ad formats to choose from, organizes the deal, and handles the transaction. Rates are negotiated based on the level of advertising, the blogs that you're placed on, and how many times your ads are viewed or clicked.

Sponsoring a blog

For a splashy way to be seen on a blog or website, consider sponsoring the site. Sponsorships for popular blogs have gained a lot of notoriety in the blogosphere. Some bloggers call accepting sponsorships “selling out,” but others regard it as a great way to get paid to do what they love. Sponsorships tend to get you coverage on other blogs, even if it's just speculation about the amount you paid to sponsor a blog, but as they say, “Any publicity is good publicity.”

Sponsorships usually entitle you to occupy any and perhaps all advertising slots on a blog, and they often earn you mentions in the text of the blog, as well. Few blogs actually advertise that they accept sponsorships, largely because sponsored blogs are still fairly rare. If you want to sponsor a blog, contact the blogger directly with an inquiry. He or she can let you know whether the blog is open to a sponsorship, and you can go from there.

Sponsorships can be expensive to do. Be prepared to negotiate with the blogger about the length of your sponsorship and the amount of money you're willing to pay, but think bigger than you would for advertisement. In some cases, sponsors assume the operating costs of a blog, in addition to paying the blogger for his or her time and audience exposure.

As a sponsor, you're entitled to more than just a prominent ad placement (though you should get that, too!). You can consider requesting exclusivity — that you're the only advertiser in your industry on the blog, the only sponsor, or the only advertiser. You can request mentions in the copy of the blog, or any other arrangement you think is good for both you and the blogger. For many sponsors, having a prominent logo placement and label at the top of every blog page, and no other advertising on the blog, fills the bill.

Topics to discuss with any blogger you're considering sponsoring include the following:

• What topics the blog covers: Know what kinds of content the blog you're sponsoring typically has and what kind of language it uses. Because readers associate your brand with the blog, you need to be comfortable with the way the blogger expresses him- or herself, as well as what subjects the blogger may raise.

  You might also want to discuss how you plan to handle situations in which the blogger has blogged about a topic with which you have a problem. Understand that the blogger is likely to resist giving you editorial control, and be clear about what, if any, say you want to have in the content of the site.

• How you want the blog to acknowledge your sponsorship:
• How other ads or monetization occur on the blog: