1. Customer Service – your company could provide a blog aimed at improving customer service. Users can share their experiences of using the your company’s product or services but beware, not everyone will be positive about their experience giving you the perfect opportunity to resolve their issues and prove your customer service excellence in the blogosphere. Not only that but it provides the perfect forum to monitor customer preferences.  Be ready for negative customer comments and have a plan in place to deal with these when they arise.
2. Market research – your blog, the comments it gets and the blog of others in your community are vital resources that you should monitored for market research purposes.
3. Humanising – a blog can be used to put a face on your company familiarising customers and prospects with the people behind the brand and building trust. Company board members and staff members can contribute and in so doing make them seem more real – more approachable. See the effect company wide blogging had on Microsoft as referenced in Naked Conversations.
4. Internal communication portal – a blog is a great way to communicate personnel changes, policy updates, CEO commentary and company events.
5. Establish expertise – this is often the main focus of this blog i.e. to show people like you that we know what we’re talking about so that perhaps you’ll think of us us when considering your Internet marketing strategy.
6. Expand Network – a blog is a great way to expand your network. Its always good blog practice to respond to those who comment on your web page and in so doing you are establishing contact and networking.
7. Leads – A blog can build leads for your company but remember if you do this though that outright selling and self promotion are considered taboo in the blogosphere and will only annoy.  The rule of thumb for blog posts is 20% promotional, 80% value add.
8. Brand – a blog is a great way to further entrench your brand.
9. Generate revenue – many successful blogs like John Chow‘s put their traffic to good advantage by promoting related products and affiliate services to them through ads that are tailored to the intended audience and earn affiliate revenues in doing so.
10. Grow your base – a blog is a great way to extend your company’s reach beyond its traditional geographical base. This blog gets comments and traffic from people as far and wide as India and the UK.

Another friend and colleague Katy Laan, Creative Director of Seascape Web Design suggested we link to this post with tips on how to get more guest blog posts.  It is by Daniel Scoco of Daily Blog Tips. We’ll be adding our own guidelines for guest posts soon.  Thanks Katy for suggesting this and Daniel for a great blog post!

The Trick I Used to Double The Number of Guest Posts

If you have a blog, you certainly like being able to feature guest posts, right? It is a situation where everyone wins. The guest blogger wins because he gets a chance to reach your audience. Your readers win because they get to read some good content and to see a different perspective on your blog. You win because you get a free piece of content and th opportunity to network with fellow bloggers.

The only problem is that receiving quality guest post submissions regularly is not that easy. If your blog is relatively new or small, in fact, it will be pretty hard to get people sending your their guest posts.

If you are in that situation, though, here is a trick you can use. When I started using it the amount of guest post submissions I was receiving on this blog doubled. Basically you need to write a post or page outlining the guidelines for guest posting on your blog. If you want to see an example of such a page check mine here.

Once you have that, simply write a message on top of every guest post that says:

This is a guest post by John Doe. If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guidelines here.

Obviously the “check out the guidelines here” part should be linked to your page.

It is a simple but very effective tactic to increase the number of submissions you’ll get. First of all because you make it explicit that you are accepting guest posts. Second because you already inform interested people about the process of submitting and getting their guest posts approved.

If you are having trouble to get the very first guest posts submitted, on the other hand, check the post How Do I Get Others to Guest Blog on My Blog? that I wrote a while ago. It gives you some tips to get started.

The question has come up a few times lately as to how to import your blog so that it appears on Facebook.  With all the apps, tools and functionality Facebook provides, its difficult to know the right approach.

The best way is to use Facebook Notes to publish your blog RSS feed to your Page or Profile.  Here are 5 easy steps that will help you to easily do this:

Import your Blog to Facebook

Step 1 – Go to your Facebook Page or Profile,

Step 2 – Click “Edit Page” right below your profile picture, your Page editor screen will appear,

Step 3 – Scroll down the applications on your page until you see Notes – click to edit,

Step 4 – On the right hand sidebar you will see the option to “Import a Blog” – click on this,

Step 5 – Where prompted, add the web or RSS feed URL of your blog then click the permission check to begin importing your blog.

If you have done this right, your blog will automatically post to your Profile or Page and to the feeds of your friends or fans.  Good luck!

This year’s State of the Blogosphere report by Technorati took a different format from previous years which is why it has taken me a  while to post about it.

In the report there are a number of very valuable interviews with industry leaders (like Seth Godin) that you should check out in addition to the findings of the Technorati research contained in the report.  However some of the gems of information I expected based on past years reports was buried in the new format or not apparent at all:

Highlights:

• Only 13% of those who responded to Technorati’s research had found no benefit in blogging with 65% saying that the blog has helped their company to be seen as a thought leader in their industry.
• Only 1% of businesses update their blog less than once a month – the rest post more frequently.
• Bloggers are a highly educated and affluent group predominantly male and they listen to the radio.
• 33% of respondents had been blogging for 2-4 years.
• There is a correlation between top ranking bloggers and blog frequency.

Today is blog action day and all around the world bloggers are coming together to raise awareness about an important issue. This year’s issue is climate change and we are taking part.

There’s no escaping the fact that we take our world for granted. You just have to look around you to see examples of our complacency when it comes to the world we live in. We drive every where, we leave lights on, we love the convenience of plastic and we do these things without giving a thought to their impact on the environment. Worse, many of us think that as individuals or organizations any small changes we do make will have little or no impact. What a cop out. We should be ashamed of ourselves.

There’s a saying that a little something is worth more than a lot of nothing. Lets stop making excuses and start doing something to make a difference. The sooner we do this the better.

Since I am no expert on climate change, I’ll will leave it to those who are.  Here are some great tips we found on The David Suzuki Foundation website highlighting some of the things businesses can do to make a difference.

What businesses can do:

• Manage your greenhouse gas emissions (measure, reduce, offset), and even become carbon neutral.
• Purchase energy-saving models of office appliances and equipment, such as EnergyStar-approved computers, LCD monitors, printers and photocopiers. Not only will this help save energy, but it will save money too.
• Design for lighting intensity of 1.0 watts per square foot or less. Over-lighting wastes energy and produces glare.
• Install lighting controls to turn lights on only when needed and to provide the required amount of light.
• Encourage staff to commit to taking alternative modes of transportation for their daily commute at least once a month. This can include options such as car-pooling, cycling, taking public transit or walking where possible. Visit Go Green to help your company reduce vehicle trips to the workplace.
• Reduce your staff’s environmental impacts from air travel by using video-conferences for meetings.
• Create a recycling program and decrease paper use.
• If you have a fleet of vehicles, try to use the most energy-efficient models possible.
• Energy-efficiency upgrades and retrofits to office buildings can have long-term paybacks.
• Visit Cool Companies or Power Smart for businesses to find out how your company can cut pollution and save money with clean, efficient energy technology.
• Take the Nature Challenge @ Work!

David Suzuki Foundation on Twitter

This fantastic blog post from Calgary’s Mud Creative is a must read for anyone with a blog. Thanks for allowing me to share it Louise!

A blog can be an endless sea of words or an alluring spot where readers want to lose themselves for a little while. In my own efforts to turn my blog into something of a guilty pleasure for visitors (not that I’m there yet!), I’ve found some fun toys that I’d like to share:

1. Have “Bruce” read to you – slowly

Proofreading is great – and absolutely necessary. But you know how it is. When you write something, you get very close to it. Sometimes, even the most eagle-eyed of us will overlook an obvious spelling or grammar mistake. However, if you have your computer read your post back to you, your keen ears might pick up things your eagle eyes have missed!

This is easy to set up on a MAC. Go to Apple > System Preferences > Speech and choose your preferred voice (such as Bruce or Viki) and the speed at which you want it read. Then set your key command (I use “command shift s”).

When you want to hear your text, highlight it in your document and press your command.

2. Catch the eye of search engines

It’s no secret that the right keywords can help your blog get noticed by the search engines, hence sending more traffic your way. However, when writing a blog post, working in popular keywords related to your topic isn’t always in the forefront of your mind. If you’re on a roll, you just want to write and publish, right?

SEO Blogger is a Firefox add-on created by Wordtracker that actually suggests the right keywords to use while you’re writing your blog.

This free tool provides real-world search data. It opens in a sidebar panel where you enter a keyword or keyphrase and SEO Blogger gives you keyword suggestions ranked by popularity. You decide which to use in your post.

I have a WordPress blog, but according to Wordtracker, SEO Blogger works with whatever blog publishing software you’re using.

3. Get personal with a Gravatar

Your Gravatar (Globally Recognized Avatar) is an image that follows you from site to site, appearing beside your name when you comment or post on a blog other than your own. It could be your photo or an image that represents your business. I use my pink rubber boots for mine.

The nice thing about the Gravatar is that it gives you control over the image that is used. Otherwise, your comment will be accompanied by a generic symbol or gray silhouette. Your Gravatar shows a little bit more of who you are, and can even encourage people to click through to your site. Readers are more apt to connect to a face rather than a name.

Go to www.gravatar.com to add some personality to the comments you leave on other blogs.

Note, though, that if you’re leaving a comment on a blog that does not have the “Show Avatar” setting selected, your Gravatar won’t show up. But the use of Gravatars is catching on across the blogging community, so it’s only a matter of time!

Mud Creative Gravatar

4. Share the luv

One day I was leaving a comment on another blog, and when I hit “submit,” a link to the last post I’d written on my own blog at Mud Creative was added to the bottom of my comment. That means that anyone who reads my comment can click on the link and visit my blog!

Always a wealth of information, Tzaddi over at Thrivewire informed me that it was a WordPress Plugin called Comment Luv.

Comment Luv is a great way to “share the luv” by promoting other people’s blogs. Plus, it encourages them to visit the Mud Creative blog and leave me a comment when they want to contribute to the conversation.
Luv luv luv it!

5. Be Social-able

OK, this may a no-brainer for many bloggers, but it is worthy of repeating.

Add a social bookmarking widget plugin to make it easy for readers to bookmark and share your posts on their favorite social media channel like LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter. The more people you have sharing the news about your posts, the more your audience will grow.

My blog uses the AddThis plugin, (One of the many helpful nuggets from Glenn Murray of Divine Write in his terrific book, SEO Secrets) which adds a globally recognized button at the bottom of each post. Readers simply click on it and a box of social media choices comes up, enabling them to spread the word.
I loved this post from Calgary’s Mud Creative so much I had to share it with you:

It’s always nice to share, and even better when you make it so easy to do. What toys have you discovered to make your blog more sexy and attractive to others?

Blog Action Day is an annual event that unites the world’s bloggers in posting about the same issue on the same day on their own blogs with the aim of sparking discussion around an issue of global importance. Blog Action Day 2009 will be the largest-ever social change event on the web. One day. One issue. Thousands of voices. Will you blog for climate change on October 15th?

Another Friday Funny from Being Five – a boy and his blog.

I’ve been a bit lax over the summer with our regular month end new media reasons to be cheerful post, not because there are no reasons simply because the sun was too blinding.  Now that it has gone away, it back to business with a longer than usual list of the gems discovered this month.

Wibiya – I’ve just activated my Wibiya beta and am trying out their toolbar for blogging.  It promises to add great functionality.

Aviary – online tools that let you edit audio clips, images and more.

Free Press Release – an alternative to traditional PR promotion, this tool allows you to submit press releases online.

Boxee – a new way to watch TV

Blogcrowds – for some great blog templates.

Twitterjobs – search for or post a job on Twitter.

Marketing Profs – I continue to find value in this online resource for marketing types.

Slim Timer - I love their tagline: make love not timesheets.

Naked Alarm Clock – a free online alarm clock

TinEye – Find out where an image came from.

Flickr -  is an ongoing source for pictures that make me smile, like this one byRerinha – thanks!.

Because if life doesn’t smile at you, then your breakfast will!

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This week one of my favorite tech cartoons was highlighted in PC World.  To celebrate locally based Noise the Signal  posted the cartoon’s greatest hits (so far) on their blog.  These are all really funny but this is the one that resonated most with me.  Enjoy and thanks to Rob for entertaining us with his doodles!