Monday, 5 March 2007

Blogging for Business

It’s not only policemen and traffic wardens who are blogging now. Increasingly companies are switching on to the benefits of blogging and the corporate blog is becoming a familiar sight on the homepages of some of the world’s biggest companies.

McDonald’s is well known for its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) blog - one way in which the company is trying to be more open about its effect and place in the world.

Online companies such as Google also have their own blogs to tell people what they are doing and to let them know about the services they are developing. Other companies who have taken the leap include Budget Rent-a-Car, Boeing, Dell and Carphone Warehouse.

Why not try starting a blog for your own company, or suggesting it to your boss? It could earn you some brownie points and will certainly make your business look on the ball. If you do it may be worth speaking to a consultant before you begin, or simply check out these sites with some handy hints. Good luck!

Friday, 2 March 2007

Tell us about your Job Blog

To coincide with Blog-A-Job Week, we want you to tell us about your Job Blog.

Leave a link here so we can check it out and tell us why you started blogging.

Promoting Your Blog in the Blogosphere

Once you have listed your blog with Technorati and other blog search engines, taken care to write something that is relevant and interesting and treid to hook people in by promoting your blog address on your email, you can try doing a bit of marketing in the blogopshere.

The Blogosphere is the name given to the Universe of blogs that exist out on the Web. You may well be able to find other blogs that are relevant to your own musings. If so, a great way to promote your own blog is to leave a comment on something that has been written elsewhere and link back to your own blog.

Blogs are all about creating and tapping into communities, so someone reading the comments on one site may well have an interest in your own writings.

However, avoid the temptation to leave comments and links anywhere, only relevant comments will be appreciated by bloggers and readers alike.

Blog-A-Job Week

Is it me or are more and more job blogs springing up?

To coincide with the release of our book, Digital Marketing for Dummies, myself and my co-author Ben, who also blogs here are launching the UK's first-ever Blog A Job Week.

The idea is to get more people blogging and more specifically, more people blogging about what they do for their day-jobs.

I've read countless blogs by paramedics, policemen, air hostesses and doctors but where are the dustmen, pilots and landscape gardeners?

Blogging can make you an unlikly celebrity and it's also a good way of blowing off steam though make sure you write under a pseudonym! We're doing a radio tour early next week to get people blogging and we'll be charting the campaign's progress so watch this space.

Our top five favourite Job Blogs are (in no particular order):-

1- Policeman
2- Paramedic
3- Magistrate
4- Teacher
5- Traffic Warden

Thursday, 1 March 2007

Why blog?


A blog according to Wikipedia, the online encyclopoedia is 'A user-generated website where entries are made in journal style and displayed in a reverse chronological order.'
What this basically means is that a blog is an online diary where you can record your thoughts, news, information and general musings for all of the Web to see. There's no set formula to blogging as by its very nature it's open to absolutely everyone. You can use blogs to tell the world about you, your life, family, job whatever you want...

How to Promote your blog

Just like anything on the Web, the best way for people to find it are through search engines like Google so bear search engines in mind when you are posting. Remember if you are writing about something that's topical then it's quite likely that a search engine will pick up on it.
Another great way to get people visiting your blog- as long as you are happy for them to do so is to put the blog address or URL on your emai signature. If you've got a website already then add a link to it as well. The more signposts you create to help people find your blog..the better.

Where to start

First thing's first, claim your blog on technorati. It's the world's biggest blog search engine and being listed on there will give your blog a much better chance of being read!
Add a site stat counter, there are literally hundreds out there so either do a Google search and choose one of use Sitemeter, which we use and rate!
Now you're ready to start blogging...

Remember, if you want people to read your blog then it needs to be interesting so if you follow these three points then you are well on your way to becoming a good blogger.

1- Make posts open/honest and relevant
2- Make your posts topical
3- Link, link and link again (This will get people visiting your blog and linking to it)