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IMAGE: Torbjörn Sköldefors
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| What Blogging Means to Business |
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Blogging is one of the buzzwords of today's Internet-driven world. Blogging is also becoming increasingly important for businesses and this importance will grow over the next few years.
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Ted Demopoulos is the author of What No One Ever Tells You About Blogging and Podcasting and co-author of Blogging for Business.
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The Internet has changed the face of business. Nowadays nearly all organizations have some kind of Internet presence and a substantial amount of business occurs online, something that was unimaginable only a few years ago.
Until recently, the Internet was primarily read-only, or “read-mainly” if you prefer. Sure, anyone can create a website, but creating and maintaining a website requires specialized software and knowledge. And most people, even if they do have a website, don't keep it up to date. Many large companies have entire departments to work on and update their site. Put simply, it's been easy to access information on the Internet but getting it on there has been more complicated and generally the domain of “techies”.
But now we are in the next phase of the Internet. Although certainly not 100% predictable the changes are already significant. Some refer to Web 2.0 and other buzzwords, but I like to use the term the “Read-Write” Internet.
So what has changed, and more importantly why do we care? What are the business implications?
Creating content and placing it online has become easy. The easiest way to create content, and the most popular, is via a blog. There are over 70 million blogs in existence today on topics ranging from the plastics industry to marketing to the car business, and every imaginable topic in between. Bloggers create incredible amounts of content, and although some is certainly useless drivel, much of it has value and bloggers sometimes even break major news stories.
A blog is a simple website but, unlike a traditional site, updating it is as simple as sending an e-mail. No specialized tools or knowledge are necessary. Although any kind of content is easy to produce and place online, straightforward text is the simplest and therefore the most common form today. Audio blogs, known as podcasts, and videoblogs are also popular.
Most blogs are updated frequently with new content. Generally at least weekly if not more often, and the most recent information is shown first. Blogs are written in a personal and conversational tone and the vast majority allows readers to leave comments, enabling an ongoing conversation online. Bloggers also hyperlink to other bloggers' content, extending the conversations. This ease of content creation creates a series of online conversations which are changing the business world.
There are three significant reasons why blogs are of concern to your business:
1. Your customers may be talking about you and your products. If they are not yet they will be soon as the number of blogs is exploding. At the very least you should be monitoring what they are saying, if not joining the conversations yourself. Blog search engines such as Google blog search, Technorati.com and Blogpulse.com make it easy to see who is talking about you and your business.
2. People like to do business with people they know. This determines which store I buy a cup of coffee at most mornings, as well as drives business deals of all sizes. Because of the personal nature of blogs people will get to know you and your organization better and faster if you blog. I have found that blogging shortens my sales cycles as new clients feel they already know me through reading my blog, and many people report similar results.
3. Blogs can be an effective way to advertise, but first it's necessary to realize that the demographics and statistics are very different to traditional media and advertising. Even an extremely popular blog may have only 50,000 readers which is quite small by many traditional advertising demographics. However, blogs are fantastic ways to reach very targeted audiences. Many bloggers are open to running advertisements, and there are companies that can run advertisements across many different blogs for you.
In this new “Read-Write” phase of the Internet it is incredibly simple for anyone to create content on the Internet and through blogs over 70 million people are doing just that. Although some may be talking about their cat or what they had for breakfast, there are plenty of people out there blogging on business topics. At a minimum, you should be monitoring their conversations as they are, or soon will be, talking about you, your company and your products. Your company may also want to join in the fun with its own blog or blogs, or perhaps by running advertisements on others people's blogs to extend your footprint and hence your effectiveness on the Internet.
TED DEMOPOULOS
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Ted Demopoulos is …
… the author of What No One Ever Tells You About Blogging and Podcasting and co-author of Blogging for Business. He helps organizations harness the power of information through his consultancy on Internet business strategy and information security and by delivering keynote speeches.
Ted blogs at BloggingForBusinessBook.com and his blog is instrumental in selling his books, speeches and consulting services. He has been on the Internet and using e-mail since 1979, which is before the term “e-mail” was even invented. Ted lives in Durham, New Hampshire, USA.
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