Starting in around 2002, I began suggesting to Kentucky companies that they find a blogger to serve as their voice in the blogosphere. I also wrote about it, twice, as have every major business journal available, but it seems few around me have given it much effort.
A couple of my clients wanted to send me Word documents to “put on their blog” for them – undermining the immediacy and informality that makes blogs so wonderful.
Here’s the thing, folks – blogs don’t pop up overnight and you don’t need to hire a PR firm to create them. You need to build them yourself, slowly, like a bonsai tree. No time? That’s your call, but a completely effective blog can be created and grown in as little as an hour weekly. If you use a tool like PFFinder or Google Notebook to collect your thoughts as you surf the net, you can be fully stocked with material when it’s time to post. What you will find is that blogging will spawn new ideas in your company – you may even improve relations with your staff (providing your not posting fake or misleading content or stuff that will get you in deep sh$%.)
- Blogs are original and good.
- Splogs are just plain old crappy SPAM, and you can tell.
- Flogs are spam hidden behind realistic-looking blogs, like the Wal Mart fiasco.
No, we don’t want to hear about your kitten, really, if you’re a business. What we are interested in is specific good ideas, insights, and techniques that show you are the one we need. Google and other search engines will love your blog – as long as you provide great content and use basic keyword techniques.
If you’re truly a mega-bore, assign your blog to someone in the core of your company… and for goodness’ sake, don’t think of it as your company newsletter. It’s more like a breakfast meeting with everyone who visits your site. This is NOT a job for your secretary or administrative assistant, unless they are in-tune with your business as much as you are.
Well, I wanted to bring forward another good reason you need to start as soon as possible – Google is starting to show blog results in its main results pages to some searchers (I’ve not seen it yet, despite a fairly good effort at making it come up.) Screen shot courtesy of Andy Boyd, who seems to be the first one to see and post this.
No these results are not live yet, but the signs are clear. Still think it’s unimportant?
See also:
State of the blogosphere.
