The Wall Street Journal has an article today asking if newspapers should sponsor reporters’ blogs. So, let’s address what was said.

WSJ takes example of Matt Marshall, whose blog SiliconBeat, is sponsored by the Mercury News, where he is a reporter. Matt used his blog to raise questions about rumours of the Microsoft acquisition of Claria, a topic he was also covering as part of his regular beat. The only difference was that Matt could say just about anything he wanted on his blog, without an official review from an editor. He could raise points and facts that could not be brought to light in traditional press.

“I could definitely see how in journalism circles people could look at what we do and be a little bit nervous,” Mr. Bazeley says. But “when we sit down to write news stories, we put on a totally different hat.”

SiliconBeat (www.siliconbeat.com) and other blogs like it represent a departure from the just-the-facts tradition of mainstream news reporting… To date, it is relatively rare for newspapers to sponsor reporter-written blogs.

Why is it rare? For a newspaper to sponsor a blog of this sort, it would have to be o.k. with bias, opinions, and a whole range of commentary. A newspaper is traditionally thought of as non-partisan press - unbiased reporting. Although the owners of the press, the reporters themselves and other factors influence the selection and coverage of news in subtle ways making them partisan to some degree, it is rare for the opinions to be overt or controversial.

Read the rest of my article on the Qumana blog…

Technorati Tags: wsj, blogging, journalism

Technorati Tags: http://www.technorati.com/tags/blogging, http://www.technorati.com/tags/journalism, http://www.technorati.com/tags/wsj

Well, we gave it a shot. Tried out AdSense for Feeds for over a month. And now we’re pulling the chain. I’ve already talked about why. But now’s the time to just do it.

If ever the feed program improves in context and formatting options, I may reconsider.

But, until then, I think we’ve found a better alternative. See below:

I won’t spill all the beans yet. I’m still testing. But everything looks amazing so far…

Technorati Tags: adsense, rss, advertising

Research out of Forrester is showing a growing interest to place advertisements on blogs and/or in RSS feeds. This should be no surprise, given the mainstream business coverage of blogs that has issued recently.

Of those surveyed by Forrester, 64% would be interested in advertising on blogs, while 57% would be interested in advertising through RSS. Both these figures represent more interest than advertising on mobile devices - this just shows which way the industry is set to grow.

Forrester estimates that total online advertising and marketing dollars will reach $14.7 billion for the 2005 year - that’s 23% more than in 2004. Banners/sponsorships will grow 11% per year to $8 billion by 2010. We’ll also see a large increase in spending for search engine marketing over the next few years, up to $11.6 billion by 2010. Online marketing spending is the only area of growth in advertising spending as a whole - so interest is definitely present.

By 2010, however, online marketing will only represent 8% of total ad spending. This is not to say that there will not be a lot of online marketing going on, but perhaps just that online marketing is less costly - an ad online will not run you into millions such as television would.

So, advertisements on blogs and in RSS represent a significant growth opportunity in the market. The also represent a very relevant opportunity to bloggers who want to monetize their blogs. As a recent professional blogger, this is something I’ll be seeking for myself, as well as for others through my services.

Via ZDNet

ADV: Reliable business hosting from Yahoo! Web Hosting. Domain name included.

Darren Barefoot and Jeremy Wright of Inside Blogging just gave a presentation to the BCAMA here in Vancouver. Ianiv & I met with Jeremy Monday night for dinner and then went to The Whip to listen to a band managed by Kris Krug called The Black Torries. Absolutely fabulous band. Looking forward to hearing their CD release when it gets done professionally.

Here’s a link to the slides. Just filled with little nuggets of advice. If you missed the presentation (as I did), it might help to go look up some of the sites referenced in the presentation.

The level of blog knowledge is evidently spreading. Jeremy noted that there were a ton of people who knew the blogging “lingo” and everything. I’m glad to hear that marketing professionals are more than just curious about blogging - that they are willing, and maybe even eager, to take the step forward.

This just came up on gapingvoid:

His answer? Make the customer integral to the process, make the customer the central player in “The Flow”.

Make your customers the marketing department.

It’s a good point - if your customers are the entire reason you exist, then why don’t they exist within your organizational chart? They are not just that end part of a chain of selling, but are clearly integral to the entire development of the product/service. They are your product development department, your marketing department, your PR department, etc. So put them on your chart!

Cross posted from Blogaholics.

Small businesses can benefit from blogging in more subtle ways than large businesses. As Harold Jarche points out, blogging is a low cost high-yield tools that small businesses can use to communicate with their customers - especially when its apparent that millions of dollars are not in the bank for traditional marketing campaigns.

A study by HP shows that 10% of small businesses are using blogs as a part of their marketing strategy. You may think this is a small number, but I’d be surprised to find it anywhere near as high for larger businesses. The study found that customer acquisition and retention were large concerns for nearly half of the respondents; this could be a key area where blogs can play a strong role.

When you look into the data more, you find that only about half of respondents have websites, the blogging figure looks pretty strong. There is indication, as well, that blogging in small businesses is not male-dominated, as it has anecdotally been remarked elsewhere. More women small business owners are blogging. And I’m one of them.

Small businesses will benefit quite a lot from SEO strategies and blog design, and that’s where people like me come in as consultants. It is an affordable and large impact solution to making that connection with customers.

No only do we see results in blogging for small business owners in the area of customer acquisition. You have the opportunity to refine and share your ideas about your industry, to get feedback, to archive your ideas in an easy way, to share your ideas with likeminded people, to raise your profile in the industry, to get news faster than the paper (I always find it crazy how true this is), and so much more. There is a lot of power to a blog.

Minimal set up, some configuration and optimization, low maintenance cost, and only your time. But you will find the tool a most powerful one, and one you’ll wonder why you didn’t start earlier.

From metacool is a good argument in favor of using blogs as a part of the marketing strategy:

any marketing website without a RSS feed should be flushed down the toilet

He’s right, and here’s why: synthetic fables created by ad firms simply can’t compete with honest, soulful stories told direct to you and me from another human being…

RSS combined with authentic, human content signals a new paradigm of marketing communications. The brands and people who will succeed in this new paradigm are the ones with real stories and the guts to tell them without the mediocrity-inducing filter of marketing “professionals”.

I agree very strongly: you must have the guts to stand up for your company and say “we need a blog” and then daily stand up and fight about the voice and content you need to deliver - at least, until the results become obvious and the “ah ha” moment arrives.

Blogs are the new wave for marketing and communication professionals. You might be thinking “well, what if it’s only a fad” or “what if it crashes,” well, think of it this way. People thought fax machines, email, and the Internet would never fly. In some ways, they may have been right - however, it is abundantly clear that each of these mediums have become successful long-term communication options. Blogs are the next phase, and the most powerful to date.

The bandwagon is moving along - jump on or be left behind.

Should I be surprised that “Big Marketers” choose to ignore the power of RSS and thereby the power of blogs? In most respects, I’m not. It’s a sad fact that the most innovative, and most effective, “marketing” (I would prefer the term communication) is done by the smaller marketing firms and companies. We are the early adopters. The ones who lead. The ones whose results will eventually force the “Big Guys” to wake up, smell the coffee, and jump in so fast they end up really messing things up. Trust me, it will happen.

We’ve seen it with the McBlog - the blog set up by the McD’s guys, complete with fake posts and commentary. So sad. And so bashed by the online community. Why did they do it? Someone probably said “we need a blog” and then it was passed off to the guys in marketing. Guys who have never done anything but expensive tv campaigns. So we get an online campaign. No knowledge of what a blog is. Nor what a true blog could have done for the McBusiness. Their loss.

Anyway, back to the point at hand. A report from JupiterResearch found that “RSS will not have a significant effect as a supplemental alternative to e-mail marketing.” Great study. Since when did we believe that RSS was only a supplement to email campaigns? When phrased like that, I wouldn’t be surprised that most people disagreed. Although it is a great complement to online marketing in general, the point of RSS and blogs is not nearly as narrow as that question would phrase it. Blogs are a new communication tool for creating relationships with customers. The study was talking to a group of businesses who likely haven’t used the word relationship in quite some time.

Back to the survey. 17% of those who use RSS for marketing (this is 17% of the 5% who do), use it to publish newsletter content. Still one way. Still carefully crafted prose. More problems. Unlike the claim of JupiterResearch, RSS is not an “alternative for newsletter content distribution” - that is not the type of content that cuts it on a blog. Very interesting.

RSS is not well suited to promotional-offer-oriented content because it does not offer the targeting and personalization capabilities of e-mail, the report said.

Can we think of more reasons why blogs are not good for promotional content? :)

And check out this lovely tidbit:

Marketers publishing newsletter content through RSS should treat it not just as a low-cost delivery mechanism, but also as a revenue opportunity. Only 19 percent of marketers told JupiterResearch they were exploring RSS for extra ad unit revenue opportunities.

I’m not the only one happy that the Big Guys don’t get it (see Seth’s post and this post on threadwatch). Let’s just wait until the Big Guys understand what a relationship is and why customers want two-way communication. Then, maybe, they will understand the full value that blogging offers.

News via Threadwatch.org

So, someone finds your blog from another blog or via a search engine. They read what you have to say on the topic at hand - but will they ever come back? This is the most important question we need to ask. We all know acquisition can be expensive - but retention, well, that should be the easiest thing for blogs! I mean, you update often and interact more closely. Right? What else do you need to know?

Here are great tips from the Blog Herald here and here:

1. implement Recent Post features - make sure people who land on one of your permalinks can see a) articles you have recently written and, I would add, b) the last and next article after the one landed on
2. Have a good number of posts on your index - 10 to 20
3. Use layout effectively - take less important features such as search out of the hot area (that area seen without scrolling)
4. Use simple features to make the eye read the important text - try making the headline font/colour different. Easier to scan for good material.

What I also do:

1. have a good design. One that is easy on the eye but also highlights all your sections appropriately.
2. Use a font that works well
3. Make sure your blog looks great on many browsers
4. Insert images into posts whenever possible
5. Break up lengthy text with text effects (bold, underline, headings, etc)

Don’t forget, while you may want your readers to stay, it would also be nice if they found your ads relevant and well placed to catch their attention… more on generating revenue with your blog in later posts.

Thanks to Darren of ProBlogger for the tip and for his commentary.

So, the question has been raised. Is Google Page Rank still relevant?

I agree with Darren, that Page Rank is relevant for some things:

Google’s Page Rank isn’t anywhere near as important as it has been previously - however I don’t completely write it off. I suspect that it still plays a part in how Google ranks sites in its results - but another important factor is that page rank can still be an important factor in working out how much to sell ads on your blog for… in terms of Search Engine Rankings I’m not sure Page Rank is as relevant as it previously has but in terms of grading the value of a blog for other purposes it remains one of the few tools people use and therefore is helpful.

I agree with all of the above, but have some thoughts to add.

First comes from my personal example: our eldest site, Blogaholics, manages to get a ton of new readers each and every day, despite being “sandboxed”. Our new readers come from other blogs, links, and come very strongly from MSN. I am sure we may grow faster if we had a stronger Google presence, but are not overly worse off for the low PageRank. In this case, I would say PageRank plays a part in the growth factor, but is not a measure to lay all your success on.

The one other thing I would add concerns where your business comes from. For some reason, certain businesses get more customers from Google than other. Perhaps has something to do with demographics and psychographics - different people using different engines. For example, though more highly rated on MSN and Yahoo for key phrases, at work we still drive nearly 80% of new customers from Google. So, in this sense, PageRank is crucial. Just some food for thought.

The world of business is intertwined with conversations - the industry is talking, your customers are talking, your competitors are talking - you need to be a part of those conversations. If you don’t, your market will pass you by. If you stay silent, people will begin to look at you as uninventive, arrogant, or secretive. I will argue for the importance of these conversations and how you can enter in a positive way.

A conversation is authentic communication with the aim to build a relationship over time. The relationship involves give and take (shared linking and comments, for example), but also much more.

You need to be a part of the conversation

Your customers are asking to be a part of your company. They are actually demanding it. Your customers are no longer satisfied with seeing your brand - they want to see the people behind your brand.

If you cannot foster dialogue with your customers, how do you expect to retain them? You need a relationship now to both sell your product/service and to retain your customers.

In gratitude for you taking a genuine interest in them, your customers are more likely to be loyal to you, to spread positive word of mouth, and to give you insight on how to improve your product.

How do you enter the conversation?

The blog is your conversation. Here are some great tips on how to make your blog your most effective communication tool.

Be authentic

You need to care about the customer enough to take down some walls. Be clear, be honest, be real. Blogs are real time - if a post takes you an hour, it’s taking too long. You are crafting far beyond your authenticity. Customers value transparency. This means that you should admit when you make mistakes, be open if there are problems, talk about your successes, and make an effort to post regularly and with some passion.

Invite interaction

Your customers are knocking on your door to talk to you. And this does not mean they want to phone you up or complain. They might just want to know what’s new, what you think, why you are the leader in what you do, and that you care.

Blogs are a very easy tool. You have your comment box. Your customers will use it. And the media will also get involved here too. If you show them you know your stuff, it will pay off. Make sure to watch your comments - interact back online so others can see. At the same time, take it to the next level by sending off an email. Say thanks for the comment - get that conversation going to the next level. You never know when it will pay off for a big sale or a great article about you.

Trackbacks are your conversations too. It’s your way to jump into a conversation - you link to others in your topic, they link to you. Suddenly you have a web of knowledge.

How can you post to invite conversation?

- post relevant information, fairly often (it’s best to start posting a lot at first to attract the spiders and your biggest readers)
- offer some insight and opinion
- ask questions
- link to people who’ve talked on the same topic - supplement their arguments or go against them, either is fine
*linking out attracts linking in
- weigh your posts as a mix of short timely posts and longer more authoritative posts
- use your strongest key phrases in the titles of your articles
- although your content may revolve around your industry, leave self promotion to less than 25% of your posts

The best tip - write with energy and a passion for what you do.

Blogging for business overview
Part 1 - Why blog?
Part 2 - How to start blogging on the right foot
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So, you know you should have a blog but you don’t quite know how to set it up or how to make it an effective communication and SEO tool. Here are some great ideas to get you started:

1. Choose your categories as logical tags

If you use a blogging software such as Blogware, your categories are your tags. What is a tag? It’s a logical name for a category, post, or picture. Think of it as a filing system. It’s the way you tell yourself and others what you are talking about.

You can add tags to any post or category and your post will then come up in Technorati for that subject. For example, if your category is “Sunset photos” and somebody searches Technorati for “sunset photos,” they will find you. Your categories should be logical and should flow from what you know about how people find you when searching.

2. Subscribe to & read other blogs

Use an aggregator such as Bloglines or NewsGator to subscribe to other blogs and news sites that have RSS feeds - make sure to organize and prioritize your content into folders or hierarchies. Choose sites that have content relevant to your business or interests. You should also subscribe to the RSS feeds of key words or phrases such as your company name, your name, tags, or industry key words. You can do this using PubSub and Technorati.

Knowing your news is the first step to having an opinion on it, writing about it, and using it to make your business decisions.

3. Create your blogroll

It may seem like a simple thing, but telling someone you like their blog is as easy as adding them to your blogroll. If they do what I’ve suggested in point 2 above, they will know you’ve done this. So, they see you like their blog. They check you out. Maybe they like what you have to say. You both comment on each others’ blogs. They add you to their blogroll. And there you have a relationship. A blogroll is your way to connect with the “important” people in your industry - but it’s also a great way to share Google juice between friends. Remember, inbound links count in SEO strategies.

4. Plan your content choices

Who are you writing for? What can you talk about that offers useful insight? What do you have an opinion on?

Play to your strengths here. If you are interested in what you’re writing, it will show. You will have done point 2 and know what there is that is hot in your industry. Comment on it. Be argumentative if you wish. Opinion is good. Don’t forget what your blog is about - your categories should connect with what you talk about. If you write something and don’t know where to put it, it’s likely not the right blog for that post.

But set some limits. Remember, what you say will be read by many, including your customers, your investors, and your competition. So set some boundaries. Know what is proprietary and what is not. What is insight and what is heated opinion. Especially when it comes to your competitors - know how far you want to take this talk - some of your opinion here, especially negative comments, can be considered flaming.

One other little tidbit is to decide on your angle. Will you be the person who writes about all the new stuff happening in your industry? Or will you be the person who chooses carefully what to write, forms an opinion, and offers out a well thought blog post? You must choose what mix of bredth and depth suits you best.

Blogging for business overview
Part 1 - Why blog?

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Why blog? Because it’s easy. And it’s just about the easiest marketing tool out there.

1. One more tool in your toolbox

Not only is blogging one more tool you can add into your marketing mix, it also increases your efficiency overall. Think of it as one more way you have to stick out your hand and grab some customers. The more hands, the more customers.

As an online tool, I venture to say it is your strongest tool ever. Your brochure website is dead. It won’t work. If you update it daily, great. But why would you spend all that labourious time doing so? Blogging is the new content management system that offers easy access for everyone to do it. Blogging is powerful by its nature of easy, fast updates and by its interactivity - comments and trackbacks are your conversations.

Think of blogging as DIY PR - anyone can get right in there and vouch for your company! Unlike PR, blogging is not (and should never be!) flack! Blogging MUST be authentic. And perhaps the most powerful assertion for this new PR: people come TO your blogs because they want to hear what you have to say; your traditional PR is pushed out to people who most naturally block it.

2. Google Loves Blogs! SEO/SEM

SEO is guiding development so that your site comes up high in natural/organic search results. Google, for example, measures website ranks based on their PageRank system. This PageRank looks at the inbound and outbound links from a site as votes. The more votes that come in, the better your site must be. And the more votes that come in from sites that themselves have high PageRank gives you a better vote.

So, why are blogs good with Google? Because bloggers are very open with their linking - not with the usual focus of giving people good rankings, but just as a matter of course. Bloggers link to others who have talked on their topic or those who come up in the writing process. It’s a natural part of the writing. Blogs are conversations. Bloggers don’t often link to non-blogs.

I have personally seen a corporate blog take a corporate site up from page 3 on key phrases to page 1 in little more than two months. It is a powerful SEO tool.

3. Creating conversations
* With your customers
* With your competitors
* With your partners/investors
* With the media

People are talking about you and your industry. You need to be a part of the conversation before it outruns your company and you get lost in the dust and before your customers get fed up with your monologues. I will talk more about this in another post later.

4. Industry Insight

By listening to the conversations you will see new opportunities, be able to let your customers lead your development, spot the trends (the stronger the trend, the more you will see it coming up in blogs), and perspective. What you hear on the news or read in the paper is, unfortunately, quite restrictive. Blogs give you the perspective of opinion and you will notice time and again bloggers who have researched the topic historically for insight.

The process of blogging is your strongest research method.

5. Reputation capital

Being real, relevant, and authentic ups your reputation capital more than any PR spin could ever do.

Caveat: do not blog only for the sake of marketing & sales
Don.t set up a blog if all you want is another way to get customers. It acts as an effective marketing tool, but it won.t work unless your focus is on communication, relationships and authenticity.

This is Part 1 of the Blogging for Business series. The overview is available here.

Read more: Part 2 - How to start off on the right foot
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Why should you have a blog?

1. One more tool in your toolbox
* Dialogue not monologue
2. Google Loves Blogs! SEO/SEM
3. Creating conversations
* With your customers
* With your competitors
* With your partners/investors
* With the media
4. Industry Insight
5. Reputation capital

Caveat: do not blog only for the sake of marketing & sales

How to get started

1. Choose your categories . tags, Technorati
2. Subscribe to & read other blogs . RSS
3. Create your blogroll . link to your friends and colleagues
4. Plan your content choices
5. Set some guidelines
6. Monitor the blogosphere - PubSub, Feedster

Enter the conversation

1. Relationship building
2. Authenticity
3. Customer interaction
4. Trackbacks and comments
5. Posting tips
*link to sources & competitors
*title phrases
*be authentic and interactive

How to get results
1. Syndication and RSS
2. Promote your blog
3. Follow the posting tips
* authenticity * linking * shared knowledge * key phrases
4. Comment on other blogs
5. Watch your trackbacks
6. Submit your URL to directories
7. Have good features
8. Link to yourself
9. Avoid link exchanges!

What you can achieve:
1. strong SEO results
2. differentiation
3. leadership
4. more traffic
5. customer interaction and loyalty
6. new business, if done right!

Continued…
Part 1 - Why should you have a blog?
Part 2 - How to start blogging on the right foot

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I spoke tonight at the IIMA on how blogging is emerging as the new tool for online marketing, and, well, for business in general. I am a bit of a fanatic for the power that a blog can bring to businesses large or small, so it was a great experience for me to be able to share some of my opinions and ideas. I met some really great people and got to explore some good new frontiers with my fellow panelists and with the attendees as well.

I have to say that the commentary at the event was superior - I was very impressed with the caliber of responses and with how people responded to the usefulness of blogs. I am very excited by the number of people I saw leaving the series with aims to start their own blogs. Some wanted to communicate with customers, some to build their name, some to get that great Google juice.

So, here is how it goes. I am going to post up my presentation tonight. I will probably link to the presentations of Tris and Roland tomorrow with some insight on what they had to say. Every couple of days or so I will revisit the topics in my presentation one by one with more of what was said in my presentation verbally, as well as a ton of my notes that never made it quite as far as the actual presentation. I hope to be able to offer some useful solutions to individuals and businesses especially who want to start to blog and don’t quite know where to start.

If you have any special requests on topics, please feel free to email me or post a comment.

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