In the last post, we talked about how important it is to befriend other bloggers. We talked about the importance of building your own social network of bloggers. For this post, let’s look at some details on how you can achieve this.

Communication
This is important in most any undertaking, but most especially when it comes to building your own social network. Bloggers always welcome comments. When you do get comments, however, do not just sit there and enjoy them. Make sure that you reply to these comments. You can do this in two ways – either e-mail or reply to the comment through the blog. You can even go one step further by writing a post on the comment. The important thing is that you make your readers know that you appreciate and value their comments.

Link, link, link
I am sure you browse other blogs a lot. If you stumble upon a blog that catches your interest and is, at the same, relevant to your own business blog, link! This will encourage to link to your blog as well.

List ‘em down
Actively look for blogs that are relevant to your own business blog. Do this on purpose – aimlessly surfing the Net is not the way to do it. Search for specific topics and then list down the blogs that you want to link up with. Make sure you visit them regularly and be active as well. Post comments, interact with the bloggers, and build relationships.

Who do you think your main readers are? If you answer is your customers, you just might be right. After all, that is your target, is it not? You want to reach out to your customers – both potential and existing – in order for them to know more about your company, your services or your products.

Yet have you thought about reaching out to a specific group – not in terms of whether or not they are customers or not? I am talking about the countless other bloggers – business, corporate, or otherwise.

The fact is that bloggers are one of the biggest groups that patronize other blogs. They know how it is like to maintain and promote a blog. They know what blogs contain and what their general goals are. As such, you should not isolate yourself from other bloggers.

In fact, it would be to the benefit of your blog – and thus your company – to establish relationships with other bloggers out there. This is what is called networking. You may call it what you like but the fact remains that your aim is to connect with other people who have other connections and so on.

This is what blogging is all about – getting the word out on your blog and getting the juice on other people’s blogs as well. If you do not communicate with them, then the chances are that your blog will die out – either slowly or quickly, but the end result is the same.

How do you make – and keep – other bloggers interested? Let’s look at these things in the next post.

If there is anything that business and corporate bloggers should know, it is that we should learn from those who are doing it and doing well. Ever heard of Nuts About Southwest? It is the corporate blog of the renowned Southwest Airlines. Their description:

Nuts about Southwest is all about our Employees, Customers, airplanes, and airports. We really are Nuts about Southwest and we hope that our Readers will share that passion by posting their own comments.

That in itself is quite encouraging and stimulating for their readers, isn’t it? You should make your About Page substantial and relevant with your readers – you can start with something like this.

More importantly, though, the blogging policy of Southwest Airlines includes the reviewing of each and every entry before it is posted. How does it work? So they have different bloggers coming up with their own posts. Before these are uploaded and published, one of their two top people in PR and communications takes a look at the written work.

It is nothing new, really. Most successful corporate blogs follow this in practice. It helps keep the blog in focus and avoids potential problems with regard to content (and the reaction it may elicit) in the future. More so, it goes to show that there is indeed protocol and there are processes that are being followed in the world of corporate blogging. You just don’t do it by slapping and dashing posts as you like.

How about you, do you review your business blog entries before they go live? I should hope so.

I came across this article on The Daily Herald today which caught my interest as its title was “Blogging is good business – if you have something to say.” Indeed, I was thinking to myself, this is so true. There are so many blogs out there – business and otherwise – that do not really seem to have something to say. There is no central theme or idea to the whole blog and this somehow takes away from the essence of the blog. This topic is somehow related to the last post – being focused when it comes to the theme of your business blog.

The columnist, Jim Kendall points out that the blogging fervor has somewhat died down these days. I would beg to disagree as it seems that more and more people are getting into blogging. However, it might be more accurate to state that the focus seems to have gotten lost somewhere along the way.

Business blogs are more specific in their nature and objectives than personal blogs. That is why it is important that you, as a business blogger, determine what you want to convey to your readers; readers who might be existing customers or potential customers. The obvious point here is that if you run a business, your blog will be about your products or services.

However, there are probably countless other business blogs out there who are dealing with the same topic. So why should readers choose your blog over their blogs? Here is where your innovativeness comes in. You should be able to offer more – in different aspects. Your products and services should be cutting edge. More than this, you have to share your own insights – this is what will truly set you apart from other similar business blogs. In the end, if you have something to say, there will always be people who will want to read it.

What is knowledge management? It is the control and dissemination of information relevant to an entity with regard to the people within the entity. So if you are running a business – no matter how big or small – knowledge management is making sure that the right people have the right information at the right time.

How important is this? Imagine a scenario wherein your customer service representatives have different information from the current SOP of the company. What is going to happen if a customer asks them for help? It is bound to be a disaster.

There are different ways by which a business entity can manage knowledge and information within the ranks. One easy and cost effective way is through blogging. Now I am talking about internal company blogs as opposed to the business blogs that we normally talk about, which are open to the public.

Take for example, a situation wherein a new query from a customer arises. No one has handled such a query before. The representative who takes care of the situation can resolve it and document the process in the blog, making it easily retrievable by other employees who may need the information in the future.

More so, internal blog posts can serve as an interactive tool for employees. They can exchange thoughts and ideas regarding various issues and concerns. It opens up a venue for problem solving wherein limitless ideas can be exchanged.

Of course, you would have to instill some sort of control regarding posts as things might get out of hand. Still, this is easily implemented and the advantages far outweigh the potential risk.

Image from: MITRE

Small businesses can learn a lot from the big players in the business world. If you need more proof of how a business blog can help your own enterprise, read on to find out how Cisco Systems did it – and is doing it – blog-wise.

Let’s go back to when it all started, in 2006, when Cisco was caught in the middle of a PR disaster. They were being accused of messing around with their routers in order to pacify the Chinese government. Instead of using the traditional means of getting out information, they turned to the blogosphere to get their side of the story out. It all started there and now, Cisco’s blog network has expanded to way beyond the original plan.

So what can we learn from Cisco’s experience?

Think long term.
In life, short cuts do not always work. Success in blogging takes time. You cannot expect changes to occur overnight. Neither can you expect the results you are looking for in a short amount of time. You have to be prepared to spend time and effort on building up your blog.

Get your people involved.
Do not severely limit your people from participating in your blog. In Cisco, most anyone can blog. They merely have to apply to write for the blog. There is a blog team which then looks through the applications. Having more than one person blogging provides more input and also prevents a single employee from burning out. Cisco bloggers also need to follow a policy set by the company regarding blogging.

Make the blog part of company communication.
Remember Cisco suing Apple? They discussed the issue strongly and actively in their blogs. By doing so, they were able to get their side of the story out in the mainstream. In fact, using the key phrase “Cisco sues Apple,” their blog came out as the second search result in Google during that time.

Image from: Tech Shout

It is somewhat ironic that after contextual advertising took off giving businesses an alternative to the traditional way of advertising (renting ad space from websites) it was then that businesses, both large and small, came to realize the power of blogs in advertising and thus became more willing to rent ad space. The difference this time though is that advertisers have become more picky in the websites and blogs they choose to “rent ad space” from.

Renting ad space is really profitable. However, not all blogs will be able to really profit from this scheme. To be able to make a profit after all you need to be able to attract advertisers and prove to them that the space you are offering them will be worth the money they fork out. To be able to do this your blog must be/have:

• Really popular. Big companies (meaning big bucks) will only sponsor blogs that have high volume of traffic. This means that if your blog is really new and you’re still building readership then you’d better forget about this for the moment.
• Updated regularly and frequently. Advertisers want a constant stream of traffic for more ad exposure. While you might have tons of readers, if you only post once a week then your regular readers will only be visiting that frequently as well. Advertisers prefer blogs that are updated daily.
• A very good reputation. Some blogs may be popular but if they’re popular for all the wrong reasons then most advertisers will shy away from being linked to that blog. After all, your blog’s reputation will reflect on theirs.
• A solid theme. Businesses with the same target audience as you will be the ones attracted to your site. Without a solid theme your blog will not be as attractive since the ads might not be as effective.

The other day I was talking to an Italian guy who works for one of the biggest pharmaceutical companies in the world. He works in the I.T. department and pretty soon he was telling me all about his latest pet project. I couldn’t help but notice how proud and excited he was of this endeavor – he just completed setting up a blog for the company. Naturally, that caught my interest and prodded him for more information.

One of the main things that stuck to my mind is the idea that a blog can humanize a corporation. That I.T. guy was saying that for companies as big as theirs, the consumers don’t even have the barest clue of the people behind the scenes. For us customers, all we see are the products themselves and advertisements on TV or magazines perhaps. As such, the corporation is a mere abstract idea in the minds of people – there is rarely any person associated with it.

He continued on to say that with their new blog, they are putting on a new spin to customer relations. The way he set up the company blog was for different people from within the company to contribute to the blog. In this way, there is freedom of expression. Their target is to reach out to customers so that they can see that there are real people working behind the scenes to deliver the products that they use.

I couldn’t help but agree with this guy. His arguments made sense – show the customers real people behind the scenes and they will be able to relate to the company more.

John Jantsch over at Duct Tape Marketing has an interesting post on the real competition that small businesses face – perception:

One of the most critical marketing chores your small business has is to find something that makes you unique, something that a market values, something that no one else offers and make it your defining marketing element.

He has a great point. Making your business stand out from all of the rest is the most important thing you can do. That’s why a business with a wonderful product can fail, while a business with an inferior product and a great marketing angle can do well.

If the thought of forming a corporation is overwhelming, but you are concerned about protecting some of your personal assets, you may want to start a limited liability company, affectionately known as a LLC. (When I first looked into starting a LLC, I called my state government to find out what I needed to do and made the mistake of calling it a limited liability corporation. Don’t make the same mistake I did. Apparently, it really upsets some people. The woman I was talking to literally yelled “No!? into the phone. It took me a minute to figure out that her loud response was to the use of the word corporation.)

A LLC requires very little paperwork and, with a bit of patience, you can file it yourself. However, as with anything that has any legal ramifications, you should take a minute to call your lawyer to be sure this is the right thing for you and your business. Most LLC’s can be formed cheaply, but don’t forget to find out about the cost of maintaining the company. In Maryland, you will need to pay three times the amount of your filing fee each year to keep your LLC active. I’d say it’s a good idea to ask for a breakdown of what you will need to pay to establish the company and what fees are required next year so you don’t end up with any nasty surprises.

If you file your own taxes, you’ll really appreciate one benefit of the LLC each April – you can still file as a sole proprietorship using form 1065. Just don’t forget to make your quarterly tax payments, too.

Insurance Ensures Protection

Before you make a final decision, you should be aware that an LLC does not protect you from personal injury lawsuits. If someone falls on the banana peel you tossed by the trash can, they can sue you personally. To protect your property, you should take out business liability insurance.