There are certain benefits that you can measure easily and clearly. Then there are those which you cannot really quantify but you KNOW that they do exist. The same goes with blogging – there are those benefits which you can place figures to while there are those which just makes you know you are gaining somehow.

I came to this realization when I read Rachael Herrscher’s post on “Another Reason To Start Your Own Blog.” At the beginning, I was thinking – oh great, here is another post on why we all should blog. Do we really need another post like that?

I really appreciate how she put things in perspective, though:

But blogging for your business or blogging about your industry gives you opportunities and a level of credibility with others that you wouldn’t have had otherwise. It also gives you access to a whole new network of people whom you would have had no excuse to talk to before. And of course, for those of you searching for someone to talk about you and your business, blogs are a vast new outlet to receive online coverage of your business.

I’m a small fish in a big sea of bloggers, but my various blogs never cease to serve up great contacts for me. Even on a person-to-person level (the real-life stuff), I’m able to meet people because of my blog. We have blogger dinners in our community, local blog networks and, of course, the huge network of bloggers available on the World Wide Web.

So if you’ve been putting off starting your business blog or blogging about a niche in your industry you are passionate about–it’s time.

You hit the nail right on the head with that post, Rachael!

We’ve come to the end of this series about the Four Ps of Effective Business Blogging, as Tom Pick has explained. To recap the first three, they are Personality, Persistence, and Passion. The last of the bunch is something more measurable and quite practical – Promotion.

With every business venture, promotion is one of the most important activities. To realize how important promotion is, it is necessary to go back to the core goal of the business activity. For blogging, why are you in the blogging business? Or rather, why are you maintaining a blog for your business?

The answer is simple – you want to reach out to the countless people out there who could be potential readers. For business blogs, you want to extend your business’s reach and let the whole world know that you exist and inform them of what you have to offer. The main role of a blog is to achieve this goal and the main way by which you can do this with your business blog is to promote the blog.

There are many ways by which you can promote your blog – SEO practices, making use of social networking sites, exchanging links with other blogs and sites, and so on. All these do not happen by themselves, you need to exert some effort in order to make your blog known to the world.

Now wouldn’t you want to be part of this network? I believe that any business blogger would jump at the chance to be included in the new blog network that Forbes has launched. It is not that easy though. Based on the news report by Brand Republic, it seems that not everyone can join Forbes’ new baby:

Participation in the blog network is by invitation only and Forbes said that all blogs are vetted by its editors to ensure appropriate content and that it is in keeping with the Forbes editorial brand.

According to Forbes, the launch of the network is recognition of the growing importance that blogs and networks of blogs have within the media landscape.

Jim Spanfeller, Forbes.com president and CEO, said: “There is no denying the growing importance and influence of blogs within the media landscape. Forbes.com can ensure advertisers are reaching a hard-to-find and very desirable audience within safe, well-lit environments by exclusively inviting ‘best of breed’ business and investing bloggers to our new Business and Finance Blog Network.”

I think that instead of being detracted, business and finance blog owners should see this as a challenge. It is true that it will not be easy to become part of the network but IF one reaches that goal, then it would be a huge achievement in itself, don’t you think?

Some people involved in business or corporate blogging have long wanted some sort of standardization or organization when it came to this particular activity. Reasons vary, of course, depending on the individual or group. Earlier this month, there was some activity regarding an organization for corporate blogging. Reactions have been mixed – some welcomed it although some just didn’t seem to care.

For your information, here is some information on the newly formed Blog Council. It is up to you what to do about it. I have pasted the press release from their own site:

The Blog Council, a professional community of top global brands dedicated to promoting best practices in corporate blogging, officially launched today. Founding members include the leading companies from a diverse range of business sectors: AccuQuote, Cisco Systems, The Coca-Cola Company, Dell, Gemstar-TV Guide, General Motors, Kaiser Permanente, Microsoft, Nokia, SAP, and Wells Fargo.

The Blog Council exists as a forum for executives to meet one another in a private, vendor-free environment and share tactics, offer advice based on past experience, and develop standards-based best practices as a model for other corporate blogs.

“Major corporations use blogs differently while abiding by the same rules and etiquette,” said Blog Council CEO Andy Sernovitz. “Individual and small-business bloggers don’t face the same issues. For example, we still need to deliver a responsible and effective corporate message, but we need to do it in the complicated environment of the blogosphere. We have to speak for a corporation, but never sound ‘corporate.’ And we have to learn to do it live, and in real-time.”
Representing thought leaders from corporate departments as diverse as corporate communications, global communities, marketing and customer service, the Blog Council’s advocacy role functions as a collective voice in support of responsible, ethics-based corporate blogs. Other issues the Council will address include:

• How do global brands manage blogs in more than one language?
• What do you do when 2000 employees have personal blogs?
• What is the role of the corporate brand in a media landscape increasingly geared toward consumer-generated media?
• What is the correct way to engage and respond to bloggers who write about your company?

“Every major corporation is struggling with the question of how to use blogs and engage the blogosphere the right way,” said Sean O’Driscoll, General Manager, Community Support Services for Microsoft. “The Blog Council brings together precisely the people who need to explore these issues together, in a productive and private networking environment. We can work together to develop model policies that set the standard for corporate blogging excellence.”

Blog Networks have become popular for a good reason. By collaborating with other bloggers, either as independent bloggers or as company bloggers, blog syndication becomes a lot easier giving you a wider readership as well as more incoming links.

Joining blog networks is not always easy though since many of the bigger and more established networks do not just let anyone join with new bloggers’ only able to jump in on the band wagon after being invited by a member blogger. There are even blog networks that do not allow new bloggers to join at all and simply encourage participation from non-member bloggers in the comment section. Although networks like this won’t give you much exposure in terms of writing by commenting regularly on such blog networks you can hope to gain much too since other readers will probably check your blog out. Despite the difficulty in joining the more established blog networks there is really no dearth of networks to join since there are plenty of newer ones that are looking for new bloggers to join them. However, when signing up to join newer blog networks make sure that they satisfy the following criteria:

1. They are composed of reputable bloggers - You do not want to be associated to spammy, low quality bloggers.
2. The network generates a healthy amount of traffic - Otherwise the network (hence you) won’t really make any money.
3. The payment model used makes sense - The network might make money but will you be properly compensated for it?
4. Their reputation regarding payouts is good - Will the money reflected on your account actually reach you?

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.

I was watching two guys digging a hole to locate a pipe in my yard this morning. They were tossing the dirt out of the hole and directly onto the ground beside it. They went four feet down and dug a hole that was about 8 feet long by three feet across. Then, one of them found a pipe…and the elbow joining it to the pipe they really wanted to find. Anyone want to guess where the new pipe was? Under that massive pile of dirt. This brings me to a great business principle:

Don’t move the same dirt twice.

When you start a new task, take some time to plan things out so you can do the job right the first time. You don’t want to find that you’ve gone in the wrong direction and will have to re-do hours of work. I’m sure the guys in my side yard are wishing they would have tossed their dirt into a few wheelbarrows right about now. Then, they could have just dumped those wheelbarrows back into the old hole instead of slowly shoveling it back in.

Spam, or unwanted emails, are a consistent challenge in the business world. Sorting through spam takes time. You can set up filters, but that risks losing valuable emails as well.

It seems that the battle will continue. Just as we have gotten the upper hand, new developments have come forward.

Since knowledge is power, I recommend you read the following article to learn about the future of what you’ll see in your mailbox.

Click Here

As the Justice Department continues to draw fire, the more people are slowly curling their tails and wanting out from being caught in the limelight. The latest withdrawal came from Senior Justice Official Monica Goodling, who passed her resignation as counselor to the attorney general which will take effect on April 7.

Goodling is known for invoking the 5th amendment in her refusal to testify before congress. This in turn had raised a lot of controversy, placing her on the hot seat. Topping it all off was her sudden resignation which as usual, triggered widespread confusion since no reason was given by Goodling and at the same time was caught unaware.

At the moment, no clear reason could be pinpointed to her reason. But if there is one person that will surely suffer from this development, it would be Atty. Gen. Gonzales who is seemingly slowly losing his grip on the said department.

As expected, all key personnel associated with the poor medical service given to the injured US troops. Army Surgeon General Kevin C. Kiley was the third high ranked official to step down due to enormous pressure for the mess and it does not seem to be getting any sweeter for all people connected with the scandal that has been brought out in the open.

It will be recalled that the first two officials, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Army Secretary Francis Harvey, voluntarily resigned due to the mounting pressure especially when it concerns one of the critical issues today that of which is all issues surrounding the US troops and the war in Iraq.

This issue has surely become a big mess and a big dent on the credibility that the Bush administration has at the moment. While the people responsible for it are slowly being pinpointed one by one, the damage has been already done.