Blogging

*Blogs are not a business elective

2008-07-30T15:00:00.004+08:00

[Image] Blogs Will Change Your Business. Look past the yakkers, hobbyists, and political mobs. Your customers and rivals are figuring blogs out. Our advice: Catch up...or catch you later

Editor's note: The May, 2005, cover story, "Blogs Will Change Your Business," continues to receive lots of attention online. But many of the details in the story are out of date. So we've called many of the original sources and asked readers to help provide fixes and updates. For the version of the story with 2008 annotations, please visit www.businessweek.com/go/08/blog.

Go ahead and bellyache about blogs. But you cannot afford to close your eyes to them, because they're simply the most explosive outbreak in the information world since the Internet itself. And they're going to shake up just about every business - including yours. It doesn't matter whether you're shipping paper clips, pork bellies, or videos of Britney in a bikini, blogs are a phenomenon that you cannot ignore, postpone, or delegate. Given the changes barreling down upon us, blogs are not a business elective. They're a prerequisite.

Source: Blogs Will Change Your Business by By Stephen Baker and Heather Green

*The SEO benefit of blogging

2008-07-17T15:35:00.008+08:00

[Image] Blogs are known to attract large number of traffic.
This is due to the nature of blogs which are very dynamic and constantly changing from time to time with new information.
This is the reason why blogs are constantly indexed by search engines and updated regularly.
If your site is using a blog format rather than a traditional website, your content will be indexed much faster.
Once you started one, you need to find ways to generate traffic to your blog.

Find out about ways to do that, at Blogging – a Fun Way to Generate Traffic

*Use your blog to help your online business

2008-07-16T16:34:00.005+08:00

[Image] So how exactly can you use the blog to help your online business?
Here are a few ideas to get you started:
• Use the blog to discuss things related to your field of business. For instance, if your business provides web hosting services, you could discuss things related to web hosting, thus showing potential customers how much of a guru you are.
• Let your employers have their own blogs to talk about your services/products. The more active blogs that reference your business, the more exposure you’ll get.
• Use your business blog to keep current customers updated on new services/products available.
• Post news about your business, as well as start rumors about potential happenings in your online business.
• Get feedback from current and potential customers on your products/services. For instance, you could make a post on a new product, giving details about it. Then your existing customers or potential customers could give their opinion on it.
• Promote your online business on your blog by making blog posts with information on what your business offers.
• Install Adsense on your blog and make extra revenue from ads clicked, thereby helping your business to be more profitable.

Source: The Benefits of Blogging by Fahwaz

*What Excuse Do you Have?

2008-07-14T13:42:00.005+08:00

[Image] Think you're too old for all this 'internet stuff' and for blogging? Be inspired by Olive.
The Australian woman renowned as the world's oldest internet blogger has made her final post, aged 108. Olive Riley, of Woy Woy on NSW's central coast, died in a nursing home just after 6am yesterday.
She will be mourned by family and an international readership in the thousands.
"It was mind blowing to her," her great grandson Darren Stone, of Brisbane, told AAP last night. "She had people communicating with her from as far away as Russia and America on a continual basis, not just once in a while."
Olive had posted more than 70 entries on her blog, or as she jokingly labelled it, her "blob", since February last year.

Read more about Olive and her wonderful contribution, at www.news.com.au

*Future of Marketing

2008-07-10T13:33:00.006+08:00

[Image] According to a recent BusinessWeek article, 11.2 percent of online adults in the U.S. publish content on a blog at least once a month, 24.8 percent read blog content and 13.7 percent comment on it. And the younger the demographic, the higher the number. The days of mainstream media monopolizing information is long gone, with certain blogs attracting millions of visitors each month as people seek out a more personal spin on information. And as the web becomes more social, people are beginning to value relationships and conversations more than the passive consumption of information. BusinessWeek’s concluding advice: “Catch up…or catch you later.”
Social media is a lot more than just blogs, however, and a combination of blogs, social news and networking sites, along with new ways of consuming media online (YouTube, Flickr, Last.fm) have changed the world of marketing and advertising.

Read more of the article by Muhammad Saleem at For the Future of Marketing, Look to Social Media

*Blogs In Plain English

2008-07-09T12:22:00.008+08:00

Are you still in the dark about blogs and blogging? This terrific short video will show you how blogs originated and what they're all about. It also outlines how you can use blogging to your advertising advantage, in your business.

The Common Craft Show is a series of short explanatory videos by Lee and Sachi LeFever. Their goal is to fight complexity with simple tools and plain language. They call their format "paperworks" and publish a new video about once a month.

Posting comments at other people's popular blogs can increase your web's traffic flow, and you can include a link to your adsonvids.com.au business page when commenting at those blogs.

*Blogs Will Change Your Business

2008-07-07T12:18:00.007+08:00

[Image] Go ahead and bellyache about blogs. But you cannot afford to close your eyes to them, because they're simply the most explosive outbreak in the information world since the Internet itself. And they're going to shake up just about every business - including yours. It doesn't matter whether you're shipping paper clips, pork bellies, or videos of Britney in a bikini, blogs are a phenomenon that you cannot ignore, postpone, or delegate. Given the changes barreling down upon us, blogs are not a business elective. They're a prerequisite.

This cover story, in BusinessWeek, may have been written in 2005, however the information in Blogs Will Change Your Business By Stephen Baker and Heather Green, is still extremely valid today.

As the Editor's note confirms ....The May, 2005, cover story, "Blogs Will Change Your Business", continues to receive lots of attention online. But many of the details in the story are out of date. So we've called many of the original sources and asked readers to help provide fixes and updates. For the version of the story with 2008 annotations, please visit www.businessweek.com/go/08/blog

*The Secrets of Corporate Blogging

2008-07-05T05:28:00.010+08:00

[Image] Web logs, popularly known as Blogs, have become one of the hottest communication tools on the Web. Offering the opportunity for anyone to create their own free Web site, encouraging opinions and interaction, Blogs provide forums for individuals to create their own highly personal presentations to the Web audience, and for consortia of all types to experience the sort of online community feeling that was pioneered by early newsgroups and by the phenomenal success of AOL in the 1990s.

Blogs have reached into the corporate and government sectors as well. A prominent federal magazine suggests that some company employees spend more time Blogging than on personal e-mail, an average of over an hour a day. What started out as an outlet for teenage expression and grassroots journalism has turned into a lucrative communications tool for small and large businesses alike.

The rest of this insightful article can be accessed at The Secrets of Corporate Blogging by Karoline White

*Start Your Own Blog

2008-07-01T09:34:00.021+08:00

[Image] There are so many sites you could explore if you're considering starting your own blog. Below, I have listed a few from which to choose. Each one has instructional pages to support you with setting up your first blog, and most of these are free for you to use.

Personally, I have used blogger.com for several years now and found them to be excellent and very user friendly. I also have a personal preference for them because they are owned by Google.

Blogger

b2evolution

If you have a site at adsonvids.com.au then I'd recommend setting up a blog, to enable a back-link to your business.

Do you have any specific questions about blogging that you'd like me to answer, or you have your own ideas and tips for other visitors to this blog? Then please leave a comment by clicking on the 'Comments' link below and I'll post a response, or post your information, if it is something that we would all appreciate knowing about.