The Value of Blogging in Business

The Value of Blogging In Business Charleston Area Alliance CEO Roundtable April 4, 2007 Skip Lineberg – Maple Creative Matt Ballard – Charleston Area Alliance Robert L. Coffield – Flaherty, Sensabaugh & Bonasso

Audience Participation
Are you a blogger?
Do you have a corporate blog?
Do you have an employee who blogs?
Do you read blogs? How often?
I haven’t raised my hand because I don’t know what a blog is.

BLOGS AND BLOGGING
User generated content (by non-tech public)
Regularly updated journal (reverse chronological)
Contains text, images, video, audio and links
Permalinks for each post
High search rankings and optimization
Allows commenting and an open online conversation (electronic social networking and collaboration)
Millions of people and businesses publishing content and sharing ideas
Low cost and little maintenance

BLOGGING DEMO: 101

THE BLOGOSPHERE
1994 Justin Hall – recognized by Time Magazine as “founding father of blogging”
Technorati: The pulse of the blogosphere
100,000 blogs created every day (Oct 2006). Number of new blogs doubling ever 5-7 months
New blogs stats:
October 2003 – 1 million blogs
October 2005 – 19.6 million blogs
January 2007 – 63.2 million blogs
1.3 M posts per day (54,000 posts per hour)

BLOGS AND BLOGGING
Personal hobby that has become a powerful media, business and technology tool
Broad readership vs. niche topics (long tail)
New vocabulary: posting, tagging, blogroll, permalink, commenting, trackback, blawg, carnival, Instalanche
Statistics from Pew Internet & American Life Project:
2004 – 44% Internet users were creating content online
2005 – 57% of teens now create content online
Among 21 year olds, 61% of web content they view was created by someone they know

Audience Participation
Do you know what this means:
How many websites do you visit per day to looking for new content? 2? 5? 10?

RSS (Really Simple Syndication)
Automated web surfing ( R eady for S ome S tories)
Push technology or customized content delivery (replaces surfing, email and e-newsletters)
Allows busy people to immediately receive updates to web based content of interest
User subscribe to a “feed” using a “feed reader”
Keyword searches using RSS (client/business)
Readers: Bloglines, Google Reader, MyYahoo, Feedburner, NewsGator

HOW TO RSS: 101
How do I find and subscribe to RSS Feeds?
The new standard/universal RSS feed icon:
Other RSS icons still in use:

HOW TO RSS: 101

BLOGGING AND WEB 2.0
Transforming the WWW to Live Web
Reading and interacting with your neighbors (next door and across the globe)
Everyone becomes a webmaster and controls content on the web
RSS is the key to disseminating information, learning, following blogs and tracking information from Web 2.0 applications

WEB 1.0 vs. WEB 2.0
Web 1.0
Hyperlinks
Static Content
Controlled message
Read
Webmaster
Search
Central data
Example:
Britannica Online
Outlook
Ofoto (Kodak)
Web 2.0
Posts and comments
Dynamic and user generated
Mental chatter & wisdom of crowd
Read, write and collaborate
Everyone and anyone
RSS/Subscribe
Decentralized data
Examples:
Wikipedia
GMail
Flickr

Example of Live Web At Work

Ten Reasons to Blog Thoughts on the Potential Benefits for Your Business Skip Lineberg - Maple Creative

Ten Reasons to Blog
Provide a
creative
outlet.

Ten Reasons to Blog
Sharpen & improve
your
writing
skills.

Ten Reasons to Blog
Harness the power of publishing.
Your message - Your timing

Ten Reasons to Blog
Reach the world.
Great blog and congratulations for winning that award. I too have a blog about Indian brands much in the same style as yours. keep the great work. June 26, 2006. 4:22 a.m.

Ten Reasons to Blog
4a. Or reach across town – do either … do both!
Thanks for the nice comments. I am also looking forward to the presentation for to CEOs from the Charleston area on blogging. Hopefully, together we can inspire them to learn more about the benefits of business blogging and not be frightened by the fact that an employee is blogging.
March 26, 2007. 5:21 a.m.

Our Solicitation Nation

Ten Reasons to Blog
Pull instead of push.
Subscriptions instead of spam
More ethical, more user-focused
Web 2.0 – we are driving

Ten Reasons to Blog
Create a powerful new touch point
for your customers.
Show your approach, philosophy
Provide more information, advice, and value
Demonstrate your credibility or expertise
247365

Ten Reasons to Blog
Earn honors, awards & recognition.
Positive publicity for your business!

Ten Reasons to Blog
Improve your search engine visibility.
Connections on the Web very important to search engines - hyperlinks in/out, blogroll
Relevant, fresh content can boost your rankings with spiders, bots & Web-droids

Ten Reasons to Blog
Drive traffic to your Web site

Ten Reasons to Blog
Networking -
Make valuable business connections !
New vendor
Helpful, supportive partner
Your next hire
Your next customer

BLOGGER LAW
Legal Guide for Bloggers (Electronic Frontier Foundation) covers:
intellectual property rights
defamation and freedom of speech
Section 230 (permit hosting of content of others without being liable for defamation/libel)
privacy and confidentiality
bloggers rights as journalists
labor law issues and employee blogs

BLOGGER LAW
Corporate/HR approach to blogging at work should be treated similar to advent of email and internet usage policies
Current trend toward creating corporate blogging policies (business sponsored blogs vs. personal blogs)
Common characteristics of pro blogging policies:
personal responsibility
abide by existing corporate rules
keep business secrets and protect privacy
be nice

The Value of Blogging In Business Charleston Area Alliance CEO Roundtable April 4, 2007 Skip Lineberg – Maple Creative Matt Ballard – Charleston Area Alliance Robert L. Coffield – Flaherty, Sensabaugh & Bonasso

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The Value of Blogging in Business

by Bob Coffield on Apr 05, 2007

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