CT Biz Blogs

If you’re concerned about the amount of time you might need to spend writing and posting to a blog, you can share the burden– blogs can have more than one person posting. This is known as a multiple-author blog.

There are many blogs which use multiple authors. Two of the most common types of blogs with more than one blogger are:

• blook blogs, when the book is written by more than one author. Freakonomics blog is an example of this type of blog.
• topic or subject blogs which are working on gathering readership around a particular topic, such as Learning Circuits or Successful Blog

It’s usually not difficult to add authors to a blog — every blog has an administration section where you can give permission (via user name and password) to other folks. For example, in Blogger, you’d go to the Settings tab, and click on “members.” Then click on “Add Team Members” to bring up a form where you enter the email addresses of new authors. They will get an email with instructions on how to access the blog. Then they can post as well.

There are advantage and disadvantages to having multiple authors. I’ll delve into that tomorrow.

When you first begin blogging, you’re pretty much talking to yourself. It takes time and effort for readers to appear. When you talk to yourself, it’s easy to forget that the people you want to talk to have a different context; you tend to make assumptions about what people already know, and what they might want to know.

For example, I started this blog for small businesses getting into blogging — to help newcomers understand why and how a blog could help them, and to serve as a resource. I’m focusing on my home state of Connecticut because I think there’s a great need for blogs in this state. CTBizBlogs can help in many ways, including networking with other blogging businesses.

I began by writing a couple of weeks’ worth of posts and going to some business networking meetings, giving out cards with the blog’s web address (URL).

At one of those meetings someone told me, “I looked at your site…but I still don’t understand. What is a blog?”

Wake-up call! That was exactly what I needed to hear. There was a “hole” in my blog, to use a phrase from this useful article, Blog Review Checklist, from what is fast becoming one of my “must read” blogs, Successful Blog. (Plus, they also use WordPress as their blogging platform, which I use and love.)

You get a hole in your blog when you don’t write for your audience. And this checklist is a great way to review your blog, see if you have any holes, and get ideas on how to fix them.

I’ve started taking steps to better help folks who are completely new to the blogging phenomenon, such as creating a page called “Blogging Basics.”

But I know there’s more I can do, and I’ll start with this checklist and see what happens. Let me know what you think!

I’ve come across some good articles that help explain blogging better than I can. There’s much more out there; these are just a few that I’ve seen in the last week or so.

• Dvorak’s Blogging Primer. This is a good basic article explaining all the elements of a blog — posts, calendar, etc. Be sure to look at the graphic link at the top of the page: Anatomy of a Blog. This one is about the What of blogging.
• Blogs as Marketing Tools. Here’s an excerpt:
  

  Blogs are powerful. Examples of the power of blogs to directly impact consumers are popping up with increasing frequency and intensity.

  This site is the blogging companion to a book called Blog Marketing. I haven’t read it, but it sure looks good. This is about the Why of blogging.

• Creating Blog Evangelists. This post is from Steve Rubel’s Micro Persuasion blog. Steve is one of the first, and maybe is the first, PR person to really understand the power of blogs. His blog is a constant source of informative and inspiring posts for folks interested in working with blogs. Check out the great chart on this post, with blog marketing tactics. This is about the How of blogging.

After posting my article on Monday on keeping track of blogs with webfeeds, I listened, during my commute, to a podcast from Amy Gahran, a writer and “infoprovocateur.” Her blog, Contentious, is one of the blogs that got me interested in blogging and RSS.

She recently gave a talk to the Public Relations Society of America about The Future of Technology: What PR Pros Need to Know. It sounds daunting, but her talk was a very down-to-earth, ungeeky, and informative look at blogs, RSS, and podcasts. It’s an excellent overview, and a great introduction for any newcomers to the blogging world, not just PR folks. I highly recommend it.

You can get the details on how to listen, and links to her handouts at her site.

Amy is also the one who came up with the term “webfeeds,” as a more informative, less in-need-of-translation term than RSS.

Bonus: If you’re a writer, Contentious is an excellent example of how to use a blog to build your business.

While I did write briefly about how to subscribe to a blog, I didn’t really touch on why you should be reading blogs.

You should be reading blogs for several business reasons: to see what others in your field are saying; to see how other businesses are using blogs; and to keep tabs on what is being said about you, your company, and your products.

In the Cluetrain Manifesto, the authors state that “markets are conversations.” And blogging is one way to start a conversation with your clients and customers, present and prospective. But if you’re new to blogs, you may not realize that there’s a conversation going on already. (more…)

I’ve been focusing lately on more technical issues, such as domain names and ways to subscribe to blogs you want to read.

These are important because when you blog, you need to work on two main fronts: content and technical.

And you have to evaluate each of these for usability, usefulness, and marketing issues. A blog not only gets your ideas out there, but, done correctly, it also gets your ideas (and you) noticed.

The content is the fun part for most people — it’s where you get a soap box on which to stand, hold forth, and awe the wandering crowd with your wisdom.

The technical aspects are also fun for geeks like me. Yes, I think computers are fun, and the internet is even more fun. (more…)

There are so many blogs and more appearing every day. How do you keep up with the ones you want to read?

You can have bookmarks in your browser, but then you have to remember to check them from time to time. Sometimes there’s a new post, sometimes several, sometimes none. Not very efficient.

You can get an “aggregator” of some sort — a program or service (like Bloglines, which I use) that will keep track of the blogs to which you subscribe, and keep them organized for you. (See my Bloglines subscriptions in the right sidebar — the “Blogs I read” link in Bookmarks.) But you do have to remember to use it and to make time in your day for opening the aggregator to read the posts. (more…)

If you’ve decided to try blogging with Blogger, Google’s free blog hosting service, the day may come when you want to move up, say from Blogger to WordPress. (WordPress has a utility that will move your Blogger pages to your WordPress blog.)

For example, maybe you started your blog on Blogger, just to dip your toe in the water. But now you want more features that Blogger has to offer, and you’re willing to spend a little money to do that. You might realize one day that you really want categories, which Blogger doesn’t have. Categories help readers find posts by grouping them according to some topic name, and they also help search engines decide what your blog is about.

There’s a problem with moving your blog to a new platform, because, just like moving your home, your address will change. (more…)

The great thing about blogs is that they don’t have to spring, full-blown, from your head. They evolve and grow as you get into the swing of it — learn the ins and outs of your blogging platform, learn how to make time in your day for writing, learn to dance in public.

You’ll make a mistake or two; that’s inevitable. Things will be less than optimal at first. But unless you are a total loss as a human being and a complete fool, it’s still better for your business that your blog be out there than not. And luckily, when first you blog, you will have some small grace period before the crowds start hanging from your every word.

As your blog grows, so will your audience. Of course, neither will happen automatically. There is some work involved, but not a lot. Blogging is set up to offer a community you can join for a small payment in time and effort (and for free, with services such as Blogger).

You can do it by yourself, or you can get someone to help you.

My plan for CTBizBlogs is to write about the ins and outs of blogging for your business as I work towards offering my services to other small businesses who want to get into blogging, but don’t have the time or the inclination to do it themselves.

I’m having fun so far! I’ll let you know how it goes; you can read all about it right here.

For small, small businesses that have little money for advertising and don’t have a Web site, a blog can become your Web presence…

I mentioned this excellent article back in August. It’s a great introduction from the San Francisco Chronicle to why small businesses should blog.

One of the examples they cite is the Green Cine Daily, a blog for GreenCine, an online DVD rental and video-on-demand company.

According to the article, Dennis Woo, the owner of GreenCine, has doubled his business in 2004 because of the weblog. (more…)