Blogging can help businesses in several ways: it allows companies to communicate directly with customers, reinforce their brand, keep customers updated on products, and establish experts within the company. Setting up a company blog requires choosing a blogging platform like WordPress, using best practices such as catchy headlines and single-topic posts, and promoting the blog through social media and listing sites. Blogging is a useful tool for businesses to connect with customers and build their brand if done effectively.

1. Blogging Your Way to Success

2. Agenda Why Blog? Blogging Best Practices A Quick Tutorial Social Media Integration

3. Why Blog?

4. What Says Wordpress? Express yourself No waiting on your webmaster Be "findable" on the search engines Dialogue with your customers Customers share their comments, feedback, ideas, and concerns Leadership through blogging Showcase photo and image galleries It’s fun *Source: Wordpress

5. Blogging for Business For company leaders to communicate directly with customers For employees to communicate with customers To reinforce your brand To produce organizational transparency To keep customers updated on product issues To serve as a channel to the public in a crisis To report to a constituent audience on the company’s positions To establish yourself as a subject matter expert *Holtz & Demopolis: Blogging For Business

6. Get More Visitors

7. Get More Links

8. Get Indexed

9. Company Blogs Company blogs include: Delta Airlines Dell Yahoo! Boeing EDS General Motors IBM Johnson & Johnson Microsoft Salesforce.com Sprint

10. Changing Hands

11. House of Sparky

12. Just Roughin’ It

13. Atomic Comics

14. Valley PR Blog

15. CEO Blogs CEO blogs include: J. Willard Marriott Jr., CEO, Marriott International Michael M. Crow, President, Arizona State University Marc Cuban, HDNET & Dallas Mavericks Bob Lutz, Vice Chairman, General Motors Corporation Kevin Lynch, Chief Software Architect, Macromedia Justin Rattner, CTO, Intel Bob Parsons, President, godaddy.com Jonathan Schwartz, COO, Sun Microsystems Mike Critelli, Executive Chairman, Pitney Bowes David Neeleman, Chairman, JetBlue Airways

16. Michael Dell

17. Mark Cuban

18. A Quick tutorial

19. Tools for Blogging WordPress Moveable Type Type Pad Blogger.com Live Journal …and about 1,000 others

20. WordPress The most popular blogging tool Simple to use Free Hosted or application www.wordpress.com www.wordpress.org

21. A Word About Design Built-in Templates Hosted version has more than 60 flexible designs Custom Design Use templates Have your web designer build it Function Over Form

22. New Post

23. Linking Text

24. Categories

25. Upload Image

26. Link to Image

27. Blogging best practices

28. Keys to Better Blogging Headlines are Important Short Catchy Headlines Use Key Words Keep it Simple Single Topic Posts Keep it Short Two to three paragraphs Have an Opinion Be a “Thought-Leader” (Have a take, do not suck!) Offer Advice/Best Practices Links Photos

29. Headlines Facebook Music Rumors Google Says It’s Making Reader More Fun Impress names Luth VP What Sold me on Twitter Yahoo Answers To Go Mobile Google’s Share of U.S. Online Ads Hits 40 Percent Plaxo + LinkedIn + iPhone = Brilliant *All Headlines from TechCrunch

30. Links

31. Photos/Images

32. Trackbacks An acknowledgment sent via a network signal Facilitates communication between blogs Helps grow your audience

33. Tags Search optimization Internal External Use only a few on each post Helps people find your post

34. Promoting Your Blog

35. The Basics Tell everyone you know! Add link to blog from web site Include a link to your blog in your e-mail signature Put your blog address on your business card Announce the launch of your blog in customer communications eNewsletters, eBlasts, Store flyers, etc.

36. RSS Feeds Feedburner RSS feed e-mail option

37. Free Blog Listings Technorati Google Blog Search Bloglisting.net Icerocket Mybloglog Alltop Buzzerhut

38. Viral Tactics Blogroll Reciprocal Links Comments Always register and include email AND blog address Get a “gravatar” http://en.gravatar.com/

39. Piggybacking Read lots of blogs Write a post on your blog about something you’ve read Link to it in your post Trackback to it

40. Social Integration Linkedin WordPress module included Facebook Third Party Applications Social RSS MySpace

41. Tweet Tweet

42. Get Social Bookmark posts on Delicious Stumble posts on StumbleUpon Post a teaser on Linkedin status Use Sharethis or similar tool Digg it

43. Questions?