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easton_ellsworth — Thu, 02 Nov 2006 08:30:02 CST

Welcome to the BusinessBlogWire Wiki! This wiki is all about business blogging, whether it's blogging for a business, about a business or as a business unto itself - or even some combination of the three.

We hope to create a free and valuable information resource here for anyone interested in business blogging.

We invite you to add to this wiki!

Just contact Easton Ellsworth at (his first name) at knowmoremedia dot com for details on how to become an editor at this wiki.

UPDATE: You might be interested in the new Fortune 500 Blog Project.

Puschmann, Cornelius

easton_ellsworth — Tue, 03 Oct 2006 09:49:59 CDT

There is no abstract available for this page revision.

Networking

easton_ellsworth — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 08:53:40 CDT

Networking is an important skill for any business blogger. When you "network" with other people who share common interests or attributes with you, you create connections that can have lasting mutual benfits.

The key to successful online networking is conversation. The more fluid and meaningful the conversation, the more likely it will have a lasting impact on the conversants. This applies to your corporate blog or business blog just as much as to your own work behavior.

Here are some ways you can connect with others to promote your business through your blog:

- Enable comments and trackbacks at your business blog.
- Promptly answer comments by and emails from your blog visitors.
- Visit blogs that are similar to yours and converse with their authors via comments, trackbacks, email or personal contact.
- Join social networking sites like LinkedIn and form an online web of personal connections with other people.
- Contact other bloggers to tell them what you're working on and to ask for help.
- Be helpful and courteous toward other bloggers and visitors to your blog.

Another reason to network with other bloggers is that when they link to your blog, your blog's rankings will improve in Technorati, one of the premier blog search engines. The more unique domains linking to your blog, the better. Technorati ranks blogs according to the number of domains linking to them in the past six months.

Fortune 500 Project

easton_ellsworth — Thu, 21 Sep 2006 10:27:41 CDT

The Fortune 500 Blog Project will attempt to identify and evaluate public-facing corporate blogs by Fortune 500 companies.

Exploring

easton_ellsworth — Wed, 06 Sep 2006 08:30:21 CDT

This page is all about exploring the Web and other resources to find people, tools and ideas to help you in your business blogging. These resources include such things as search engines, feedreaders, blog directories, books, blogs, bloggers and wikis.

Blog Search Engines
Technorati - A large, multifaceted blog search engine tracking billions of posts on millions of blogs. You can use Technorati to search for blogs, blog posts and bloggers related to any topic. You can also find out what people are saying about a certain subject at the present time. Get to know this search engine well!

Technorati Blog Finder
IceRocket
Google Blog Search
Ask Blog Search - This sometimes returns results you won't find in either Technorati or Google Blog Search.

Blog Portals
Blogger - Owned by Google.
TypePad
Wordpress
LiveJournal

Feedreaders
NewsGator
Bloglines
Rojo
NewsAlloy

News Aggregators
Digg
Techmeme
Reddit
Tailrank
Findory
Popurls

Benefits

easton_ellsworth — Tue, 05 Sep 2006 08:48:49 CDT

Business blogs can benefit a company in many ways. For example, corporate blogs can:

- Help a company spread the word about its products and services
- Provide an easy way to get customer and public feedback about a business
- Enhance public perception of a business
- Make a business be and appear more personally connected and in touch with its customers
- Allow readers to contact the company directly and publicly
- Facilitate the organization of company-related events
- Offer news and information about the company
- Generate buzz around a new product or service
- Help a company address public relations crises
- Help customers get to know each other
- Let the world know what your company is working on
- Give visitors a chance to get to know each other
- Help increase product sales

Blogtipping

easton_ellsworth — Fri, 01 Sep 2006 08:43:33 CDT

Blogtipping consists of a blog post wherein you offer three compliments and one suggestion for each of three blogs. This helps other bloggers improve, guides your readers to other useful blogs, and makes you more selfless.

The first calendar day of each month is Blogtipping Day. May 1, 2006 was the first Blogtipping Day. Of course one can go blogtipping (or be blogtipped!) at any time.

May 1, 2006 blogtipping posts
June 1, 2006 blogtipping posts
July 1, 2006 blogtipping posts
August 1, 2006 blogtipping posts

Tips

easton_ellsworth — Fri, 04 Aug 2006 17:53:08 CDT

Here are some business blogging tips (this list needs to be organized):

Never stop learning!

Learn what the major blog search engines are and how to use them.

Learn where to find free stock photos and images to insert into your blog posts. Some examples:
Stock.xchng
ImageAfter
MorgueFile

Maintain a positive attitude about your blog.
Keep your blog topic sharply focused, with a clear objective.
Use free comment tracking tools like coComment or co.mments to keep track of the conversations you participate in online.

Register/claim your blog/feed at the following directories and websites:

About
BlogDigger
BlogPulse
Boing Boing
Digg
Findory
Google
IceRocket
Kinja
MSN Search
NewsGator
Plazoo
Pluck FeedFinder
PubSub
Reddit
RSS Micro
TailRank
Technorati Ping
Technorati Blog Finder
Topix
Yahoo! News
Yahoo! RSS Database
Yahoo! Search

If you want to get people to link to your blog, first create original content that they would be willing to link to. Then join their conversations by linking to them and adding to or responding to their thoughts. And contact them and tell them about your business blog. Make friends and you'll have a set of folks who are willing to link to your blog regularly. Your rankings in search engines like Technorati and Google will improve, driving more traffic to your blog.

Tippins, Robyn

easton_ellsworth — Thu, 03 Aug 2006 09:36:55 CDT

Robyn Tippins writes at SleepyBlogger.com.

Pages to Add

easton_ellsworth — Thu, 27 Jul 2006 11:27:19 CDT

A directory of corporate blogs, each linking to Google Finance info, official corp website, etc., contact info for the blog, and its history and stats (e.g. how many posts, comments, etc.)
the plus and minus of each corp blog
how to guides - e.g. how to post photos, audio, video, etc.
bios of prominent bloggers
conference info
mentions of corp blogging in the news
how to choose a blog host
how to choose a domain name
a master list of useful and relevant sites - with descriptions, links and links to their feeds (and thumbnails)
blogging and SEO (search engine optimization)
types of ads you could put on your blog
the history of biz blogging
map mashups that show blog events
blog networks
consulting services
corp blogging in diff countries
research papers and surveys and studies on blogging
a glossary of basic blogging terms
how to respond to negative blog posts or comments

Posting
Make sure pings work
Use trackback properly
Text formatting
Photo/audio/video insertion (rem. to strip the link from the photo)
extended entry, excerpt use
link using anchor text
Make text visually appealing (lists, bold, etc.)
Link to your own posts
Link to popular bloggers/posts
When you publish, click thru the links - to make sure they work and to make the link appear in the other blogger's traffic tracking tool
before publishing, dblcheck the post title, category, tags, date/time, etc.
know the MT buttons and functions
post ideas ... (a general resource)
Place first two or three paragraphs in first excerpt field; place rest of text in next field
Assign categories wisely
Use correct formatting other
Saving a draft, inserting photos Exploring
Tabbed browsing: open up multile windows in tabs to jumpstart your blogging time
ego feeds: how to make 'em and grab 'em into bloglines
how to use OPML to import/export subscriptions
how to use delicious
how to use flickr
how to use (tons of tools)

need to trawl:
http://theblogconsultancy.typepad.com/techpr/2006/07/crisis_pr_blogg.html#comments

co.mments

easton_ellsworth — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 10:17:08 CDT

co.mments is a free blog comment tracking tool.

coComment

easton_ellsworth — Thu, 20 Jul 2006 12:17:24 CDT

coComment is an excellent comment tracking service that is especially useful for active blog commenters. coComment tracks conversations that you participate in so that you don't have to remember what's been said or by whom.

Tools

easton_ellsworth — Thu, 20 Jul 2006 12:15:38 CDT

There is no abstract available for this page revision.

Demopoulos, Ted

easton_ellsworth — Tue, 18 Jul 2006 09:41:03 CDT

Ted Demopoulos co-authored Blogging for Business with Shel Holtz.

Holtz, Shel

easton_ellsworth — Tue, 18 Jul 2006 09:39:42 CDT

Shel Holtz co-authored Blogging for Business with Ted Demopoulos.

Publishing

easton_ellsworth — Sat, 15 Jul 2006 09:16:50 CDT

Think about how your blog benefits readers. Are you offering breaking news? Are you entertaining your visitors? Are you providing helpful information/analysis? Try to do at least one of those things with your business blog.

Here are some ideas to help you think of blog post topics:

- Do some research about a topic and report your findings to your readers.
- Find several blog posts that discuss a hot topic and respond to all of them in one post, adding to the conversation.
- Pull together unsorted information from around the Web and organize it into an easily digestible and useful format.
- Analyze a trend, a skill, a blog - anything, really - and provide an in-depth look at it for your visitors.
- Answer the question: "What should I do if ... ?"
- Offer something unique - something that hasn't been published before.
- Argue for something. Then, maybe, argue against it in a follow-up post.
- Ask your readers a question.
- Start a group project and invite your readers to participate.

Other publishing tips:

- Schedule a regular time for writing your posts. This will help you focus.
- Brainstorm regularly. Think up new post ideas and ways to engage your visitors more personally.
- Make it easy for people to find your contact information.
- Schedule your posts for publication at peak traffic times - weekday mornings, for example.
- If you make a mistake, correct it and update your post with an explanatory note.
- Link liberally to other blogs and websites. Many bloggers find out quickly when you link to them, and will frequently link to you in return. Don't make this your primary reason for linking to others, but remember that as you sow, so shall you reap.

Israel, Shel

easton_ellsworth — Wed, 12 Jul 2006 08:56:18 CDT

Shel Israel is the co-author of Naked Conversations, a book about corporate blogging, with Robert Scoble.

Strauss, Liz

easton_ellsworth — Tue, 11 Jul 2006 08:25:25 CDT

Liz Strauss writes about successful blogging, net neutrality, writing well, and other topics relevant to business bloggers at Successful Blog.

Sansone, Mike

easton_ellsworth — Tue, 11 Jul 2006 08:23:16 CDT

Mike writes about business blogging at Converstations.

Rubel, Steve

easton_ellsworth — Fri, 23 Jun 2006 09:50:49 CDT

Steve Rubel blogs at Micro Persuasion about how blogs, wikis and other tools are changing businesses.

More about Steve