I’ve gone to two blogging conferences this year — BlogHer and the Blog Business Summit.
BlogHer was about the blogging experience, focusing on how it relates to women, of course. The Blog Business Summit was about how to understand blogs — what they can do for businesses and how they’re being used today.
The people I met at BBS seemed to be either from PR & Marketing firms, or from big businesses. I met very nice people from Visa International, Nordstrom, and Mastercard, to name a few of the big corps that are checking out blogging.
These folks are still figuring out how best to use blogs — some want to use it internally, some to converse with customers or suppliers.
There were some small business bloggers at the panel on blogging for small businesses, moderated by Jory Des Jardins. The panelists included Kevin O’Keefe of Lexblog, Stan Mackey, (who’s real estate blog I wrote about in June) But for some reason, I personally didn’t meet any folks from non-tech and non-PR smaller businesses who wanted to use blogging to help them.
On the attendees list of the conference, I also found:
So I know a few of these folks were there, I just didn’t try hard enough to find them.
I think some of the early feedback from the conference was that people wanted to hear more case histories and stories from larger companies who were blogging, not tech insider stuff (but I love that techy stuff!). Perhaps there should be a track on that as the conference grows. These folks wanted to know how other companies handled the internal resistance to blogging, for example.
This conference is something smaller businesses who are thinking about blogging should check out, too. The price for the conference wasn’t bad, especially if you got in on the early-bird rate. Of course, for Connecticut and environs, Seattle was a long way to go.
I think there’s still plenty of needs that these conferences can address for large and small businesses. But Blog Business Summit is definitely on the right track! I’m glad I went and I look forward to the next one.
But I never did find out why “Blog Business Summit” and not “Business Blog Summit.”
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October 30th, 2006 at 10:38 am
Different web address but same Heather!!
In the practice here at Cumulo I meet alot of new start up businesses, or at least youngish businesses, that are struggling to get to grips with marketing, advertising on a small budget - or just getting the messge across. I often talk about what benefit they might derive from a blog - more than willing, as I am to offer any tips or advice we have picked up along the way. Its always a curious, but standoffish approach we encounter - like we are perhaps these oddball geeks that should be nodded to, but not interacted with actually doing it for themselves - despite my now polished ’schpeel’ - I never have any takers - even those desperate for a new marketing angle.
Heather
October 31st, 2006 at 8:57 am
I agree, Heather, It’s still early days for business blogging.
I’m not sure what it’s going to take to reach the blogging “tipping point,” where people finally get it without a big long explanation.
On the other hand, sometimes people need to read and hear things over and over before they finally take an action. Look at me — now I’m finally checking out the Tax Blagger site. Looks great! Of course, you made it easier with that link.
October 31st, 2006 at 6:58 pm
Hi Sabine,
Sorry we didn’t get to meet you. So far, we are the only credit union that is actively blogging (that we know of). We consider it a way to talk to our members beyond the usual newsletter and marketing speak. And, our employees seem to enjoy the outlet as well. While the conference was on the techie side, I enjoyed it but would have liked a little more talk on how to get the “average” Internet-using non-blogger to check out blogs in the first place.
October 31st, 2006 at 7:39 pm
Hi, Laurel. You’re ground-breakers for sure. That alone will get you some inbound links, which will certainly help you on search engine ranking.
I think there’s more than one audience for these blogging conferences. I personally love the geeky stuff and was happy to see Robert Scoble, and Matt Mullenweg (my hero!), founder of WordPress.
But I know that there are plenty of people more interested in the results than the tech. There’s room for all.
Getting people to check out blogs is still a bit of a hard sell, too. But I keep telling folks not to think of them as “blogs” but as web sites that are fequently updated. That’s the cool part, and the real draw, I think.
Once people start getting more familiar with doing more on the internet, it’ll happen.