BLOG MARKETING THE REVOLUTIONARY NEW WAY TO INCREASE SALES, BUILD YOUR BRAND, AND GET EXCEPTIONAL RESULTS Jeremy Wright McGraw-Hill New York Chicago San Francisco Lisbon London Madrid Mexico City Milan New Delhi San Juan Seoul Singapore Sydney Toronto Copyright © 2006 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. Manufactured in the United States of America. Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publica- tion may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval sys- tem, without the prior written permission of the publisher. 0-07-147950-3 The material in this eBook also appears in the print version of this title: 0-07-226251-6. All trademarks are trademarks of their respective owners. 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DOI: 10.1036/0072262516 For more information about this title, click here CONTENTS Foreword ..........................................................v Acknowledgments ............................................ix Introduction ....................................................xi 1 BLOGGING BASICS ......................................1 2 GETTING INTO THE BLOGGING MINDSET ...............................15 3 THE POWER OF BLOGS FOR BUSINESS ............................................45 4 HOW YOUR COMPANY CAN USE BLOGS .........................................69 5 WHAT TYPE OF BLOGS ARE BEST FOR YOUR COMPANY .....................93 6 USING BLOGS TO INCREASE INTERNAL COMMUNICATION ............123 iii iv Contents 7 LEARN WHAT’S BEING SAID ABOUT YOUR COMPANY AND PRODUCTS ..................147 8 PARTICIPATING IN YOUR BLOG ...........179 9 DEALING WITH NEGATIVITY ...............211 10 HOW TO SUCCEED IN BLOGGING ......237 11 THE FUTURE OF BUSINESS BLOGGING .............................269 APPENDIX SAMPLE BLOGGING POLICY .................295 GLOSSARY ..................................................301 Endnotes .......................................................307 Index ............................................................309 FOREWORD hen a bandwagon is this large and this loud, it’s just about W impossible to resist jumping on, and blogging—in par- ticular, blogging for business—definitely falls into that category. Whether you read BusinessWeek, Fortune, Smart Company, Wired, or even People and Entertainment Weekly, you’ve encountered lots of buzz about a reinvention of web pages called weblogs, or blogs for short. But while many people still think of blogs as online diaries or journals, a small handful of forward-thinkers, leaders in the march to tomorrow, have recognized the more profound impact on the world of digital communications. Jeremy Wright is in this group, and you’re lucky to have a copy of his book in your hands: with- out being cliquish or presenting the information as a holy writ or battle cry, Wright explores what blogging is and how it can help you better and more effectively market your business in the in- creasingly important online world. I should know, too. By following the advice of Wright and many other bloggers, I now market my own management innova- tion and communications strategy consulting business a thousand times more effectively than I did in the past, and without spending a dime on adverts, sponsorships, or any other traditional market- ing. You can see for yourself at my business and management blog, v Copyright © 2006 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. Click here for terms of use. vi Foreword http://blog.intuitive.com/, which produces consulting clients and speaking engagements worldwide, and at my Q&A weblog, http://www.askdavetaylor.com/, which produces a significant rev- enue stream for my company. Also, keep in mind that it’s really not about blog marketing, per se—that’s just the channel through which you need to reinvent how you communicate with both your customers and your mar- ketplace. After all, it’s the potential customers that you can’t reach that are your best target for future growth, and dynamic, engaging, and informative business blogs are an amazing avenue for reaching them in a way that has never been possible with other channels. But even if you don’t want to blog, don’t want to embrace this new, better, and easier way of maintaining a topical and engaging dialog with your customers and market, it’s still imperative that you keep track of the discussion happening in what we call the blogosphere, the world of weblogs. Thousands of active weblogs have one characteristic that might surprise you: information dis- seminates with incredible speed. With blogs, ideas and news really do travel like the proverbial wildfire! A quick example: Awhile back I wrote an analysis of how an online firm had mismanaged its transition from a free service to a paid service, a discussion of how the announcement could have been handled more smartly and with less of a furious reaction from the customer community. Within 90 minutes, the CEO of the company had added his own response and commentary—all in less time than it would take a traditional news article to be printed and proofread. If I’d written about your company, would you have known about it promptly enough to respond and catch the fast- traveling buzz, or would you be surprised weeks later when a gen- eral community consensus came to your attention through the traditional (read slow) media outlet reports? Foreword vii The world of business is changing profoundly, redefining mar- keting, public relations, and customer communication, among other things. If you aren’t inviting this change into your own busi- ness, if you aren’t jumping on the bandwagon, your competitors are, and I guarantee they’ll leave you in the dust wondering where your sales have gone and why your customers are deserting in droves. Wright talks extensively about “transmitting versus engag- ing” and “creating positive experiences with your customers” in Blog Marketing. Pay attention! They’re vital to your very survival as a business; I can offer you no greater advice than to read and study this book as if your corporate life depends upon it. Because it does. Dave Taylor Publisher, The Intuitive Life Business Blog blog.intuitive.com Boulder, Colorado This page intentionally left blank For Shannon, for being everything that’s beautiful in the world. For Evan and Alex, for giving me reasons to smile, to be proud, and to be humble every day. For every blogger. You are a community of inspiration to me. And for Will and Jacob, both of whom believed in me, no matter what. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS hank you to my wife, Shannon, for being my refuge, encour- T agement, the love of my life, and every reason I want to get up in the morning. When I’m not with you it feels like someone turned the sun off. Neil Salkind, my agent, for making me believe I could do a book, and for helping me live up to my potential. Will Elder, for being an inspiration in life and in death. I miss you, Will. Mitch Tulloch, for hooking me up with Studio B, the rock- ingest agency ever. Suw Charman, Neville Hobson, Darren Bare- foot, Boris Mann, Roland Tanglao, Kris Krug, Lee Lefever, and any other blogger who ever believed in me, laughed with me, lis- tened to me, or linked to me. Sean Walberg, for opening my mind to writing a book. Neville Hobson, for helping out on the GM blogs bit.