Invasion of the Blogs: Is a blog right for your business

Lemmings are cute but dumb. If you tell them to jump off a cliff, they will, just like the people who start blogs because everyone is doing it. Guess what happens after a little while? The blogs die.

In managing a list of many Web sites, most of which are blogs, I deleted countless sites from the list because the sites and blogs no longer existed. The people ran out of steam or had no reason to start them in the first place.

How do you know when a blog is right for your business? Learn why people start blogs, how they find their niche and how blogging tools can be used for more than blogs.

Blog content is king.

Some people like to read blogs; others like to read newsletters. Still, others want to rely on feeds; some read a few or all of them. No matter how the information is distributed, each medium has one thing in common: content. Having a blog connects your newsletter and your business with all these readers and delivers important content in a particular style.

I've been blogging since June 2000. Reviewing my early blog entries in meryl's notes, you'll notice they're more personal. When blogs first hit the scene in the late '90s, they were personal diaries and journals. Like the blog business, my blog has transformed from private to business speak, although I still add personal notes here and there.

A few bloggers tend to talk about their work, their products, and their little world. That might work for celebrities where fans want to know everything about them, but it doesn't work for the average business person. Other business people want information on how to succeed, and when a blog spends time hawking products offering information of no value, few people will return. The people whose products sell well are the ones who provide valuable information. Readers already know what kind of information they're getting, so they trust that it will be of the same or better quality when they buy something. This value must be reflected in their blog. It's much like people who only sign up for a newsletter after seeing an example.

Who should venture where one has not blogged before?

No one wants to be a lemming (I would hope). How do you decide whether or not to set up a blog? The answer isn't black or white (what did you expect?). Ask these questions:

Can you regularly update it -- at least five times a week?

Do you have something to say other than just linking to others?

Do you read other blogs or feeds?

Can you provide information of value to others, not just yourself?

How large is your newsletter subscriber list?

How many unique visitors do you get on an average day, week, or month?

The big decider is whether or not you can write on the blog almost daily. The people behind the high-traffic blogs post multiple times a day. Though resourceful, merely linking to other sites doesn't give visitors much reason to make an effort to visit yours. Reading other blogs or feeds is a great way to learn how to carry on a discussion. Find other blogs covering topics similar to yours and check them out. Disagree with their opinions? Write about it and explain your reasons. Cross-blog discussions are common, and that's where trackback comes in handy.

Trackback is a blog feature. If you decide to comment on another blog posting instead of on that blog'oncomments page, you link to the conversation through the trackback link. Trackback is similar to the permalink, the permanent URL for the blog entry, but it has a different URL for copying and pasting your blog's trackback box.

Aside from the technical aspects of operating a blog daily, subscriber list size and Web site traffic are good indicators of what kind of reaction you'll get when opening a blog. Starting from scratch with little traffic means you have a long road ahead and lots of work. There is no magic formula anyone can sell you for $97 to make your blog an overnight success. But with perseverance and ingenuity, your blog can engage many prospects and clients.

Pick a niche

Considering numerous blogs, pick a niche topic when starting a blog for a better shot at attracting and keeping an audience. Meryl's notes focus on webby, geeky, and wordy. In reality, this is too much. What I need to do for my readers is create three separate blog entry points, so those interested in writing, newsletters, and Internet marketing get nothing but wordy entries. Those interested in Web design get the webby stuff, and the technophiles receive the geeky content.

I also manage a personal blog separate from meryl's notes. It's about cochlear implants and deafness. This could fall under the geeky category, but it's a personal blog and doesn't belong in meryl's notes. This blog is written for a different audience.

The blogging tools for both of my blogs come with syndication capabilities, so those using feed readers or aggregators can read the content through the software. For an explanation of syndication and feed readers, refer to What Is This RSS, XML, RDF, and Atom Business? When sending a new issue of a newsletter, comment on it or link to it in the blog; that way, the blog and feed readers will get the goods, so all three bases are covered.

Blogs in disguise use the same tools

Blogging tools aren't just for, well, blogging. Such tools are an excellent way to help you update your Web site more often than you otherwise would. I use it to manage the list of tableless Web sites. Using blogging tools is much easier than I handled before, updating the HTML files by hand. Though using a blog tool, it isn't a blog. In this case, the blog tool has become a content management system (CMS).

Small business owners don't need the fancy and pricey CMSes out there. They find it easier to use blogging software to manage their sites or hire someone to adapt the tool for their site.

Blogs have found a place in businesses, and people are finding creative ways to use them. Some companies have a blog on the intranet for communicating project status, jeopardies and metrics. They're used for knowledge management. With information pouring in, blog tools provide a way to share, organize and process the data.

Being a follower can be good or bad. No one wants to walk off a cliff with the lemmings, but everyone wants to succeed. Best practices won't help since the decision to blog is based on the organization's mission, needs, and goals, along with its target market's desires and needs. A blog about lemmings? There is one, sort of. Or maybe you'd like to start your own and talk about dumb business moves.