Customer Reviews

Blogging for Business: Everything You Need to Know and Why You Should Care

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Companies like Boeing, IBM, and Stonyfield Farm make it part of their business communication strategy. With over 30 million blogs in cyberspace, businesses need to understand how blogs work and affect their own organizations. _Blogging for Business_ targets business bloggers as well as businesses who want understand the importance of tracking blogs and perhaps start one.

Bloggers talk about everything including good and bad experiences with businesses. The authors explain how blogs differ from other online tools, how businesses use blogs both internally and externally, and why and how businesses monitor blogs.

Businesses take advantage of the blogosphere (blog world) by sending pitches to the bloggers in hopes they write about their product or services. Just like pitching to the media, there are right ways and wrong ways to go about communicating with bloggers. About half of the book covers how businesses use blogs.

The other half discusses creating and managing a blog from planning through legal issues. The authors show how to make money with a blog, create one, promote it, use search engines, and measure the results. The authors look at blogging apps that don't require one drop of programming knowledge as well as those that do. They cover the options available for building a blog and guide the readers through the technical parts without scaring them away with HTML-speak.

The authors don't talk down to the reader even though the book is a quick and flowing read. The conversational writing uses stories to show how businesses handle blogs. [...]

Experienced bloggers will find the creating blog half familiar, but the other half could prove priceless as businesses tracking and communicating with other blogs is new. Organizations big and small will value the tips on tracking and responding to blog conversations.

Since many employees have blogs, executives need to understand what they're about in case they need to create policies to ensure employees maintain the companies' integrity. Holtz and Demopoulos did a fine job of explaining blogs and why businesses should care about them. Readers will easily absorb the contents and concepts so they can take action.

I followed the advice from this book, and sure enough got fairly quick results! It increased my Internet traffic, lead to more sales/profit, and my pre-existing customers love to leave comments on my new blog. Previously I had trouble getting ANY feedback from them.

Shel and Ted make it seem too simple, but it IS simple when you follow the advice in this book.

It also is a fun and easy read, even for a technophobe like me.

I found Blogging for Business to be enjoyable and quite helpful. I don't have a technical background and I thought I might find the content confusing and/or tedious, but the authors have made it easy for Luddites like me to get on top of this blogging thing. Now I'm using blog data regularly for business purposes (although I have yet to set up one of my own) and it's been surprisingly useful.

I've no doubt we'll be seeing an overabundant supply of books published on this topic, but I recommend you pick this one up. The language is breezy and droll, which makes it a fun read, but the business application is quite powerful.

"Blogging for Business" explains how and why blogs are popular and why a business might consider blogging as part of its communication strategy. The book (companion site: www.bloggingforbusinessbook.com) offers a number of bon mots, including "Blogging is every bit as much about listening as it is about posting" (p. 106).

A major point of emphasis: "The best business blogs were implemented in support of some business goal. Determining the kind of blogs you might consider begins with a review of your goals and issues in order to identify where your opportunities may lie. One kind of blog you should never launch is the "let's launch a blog" blog. Any company blog should be viewed as a part of the company's communication strategy." (p. 22)

"Blogging for Business" analyzes the blogging phenomenon and shows how a business can take advantage of the power of blogging. It's aimed at the person who will be responsible for a company's blogging strategy, the person who want to start a business blog, and the person who needs to understand the impact of blogs on an organization.

Coauthor Shel Holtz is principal of Holtz Communications + Technology and cohosts the popular business/PR podcast "For Immediate Release." Ted Demopoulos is a consultant who blogs about on information technology, security, and business at "The Ted Rap." Shel and Ted share their rich business experience and technical knowledge in a crisp, lively style.

Chapter topics include Business uses of blogs, Monitoring and tapping into the blogosphere, How to make money with blogs, Planning and promoting your blog, Using search engines to promote your blog, and Measuring the results of your blog, among others.

Although I'm in the education sector I find quite a bit of useful information here.

Paul Baker
http://pbaker.wordpress.com

The authors provide a good, practical introduction to the world of blogging, though some of the information is not as deep as this reader would have preferred. Also, I was put off by too many "self examples" from their own blogs, rather than third-party case studies which would have been seen as less self promoting. However, would definitely recommend this as a good guide, particularly for small, medium enterprises and sole proprietors.

This is a book by business people for business people. Whereas Naked Conversations (also fantastic) takes more of a high-altitude look at business blogging, Blogging for Business gets right into the trenches and provides highly practical advice for conceptualizing, creating, administering, promoting, and monitoring a business blog. The authors mainly use Blogger to illustrate blog set-up, so if you use or plan to use that platform, the book will be extra helpful; however, if you don't use Blogger, the book is still very much worth reading. Besides sound advice, the authors describe a number of solid online sources for blog registration, marketing, searching, etc. They even offer a bit of instruction on HTML programming! A must-read for any business thinking of starting a blog.

This book is authoritatively written and does not pretend to offer any 'secrets' of blogging. But the emphasis on the book is for blogging for already established companies. Much of the book focuses on the importance of establishing a web presence for corporations, and uses as examples, CEO's and other managers, who use blogging to keep the news of their companies up-to-date and to create a more 'intimate' relationship between the agenda setters and stakeholders. It isn't particularly valuable for one-person business operations, and has little discussion of the fine points of various software programs. There are about 10 pages of basic info. about Google's blogger, but nothing you wouldn't find on the Blogger help page. It also does not instill confidence to see the authors plugging their own businesses by using as examples their own blogs. The overarching metaphor of the book is that a corporate blog serves pretty much the same purpose as a intra-corporate video distributed by the CEO to his/her employees and customers--the difference being the blog can be continually updated. Basically just a 'user friendly' version of what is or was called 'corporate communication'; it's old wine in a new bottle.

If you are blogging, or thinking about it, or just want to know more about it, then buy this book!

The authors cover all the bases with great insight and humor, it's an easy read, but it will also stay on your desk as an excellent reference.

They cover important things that you may not realize you should worry about, like protecting your work, and what NOT to blog, as well as how to build and promote a blog.

Highly recommended!

Bob Porter

As a new blogger, I needed straightforward answers to successfully launch my blog and found exactly what I needed in blogging for Business. The chapters on Monitoring The Blogosphere, Tapping Into The Blogosphere, How A Blog and Measuring The Results Of Your Blog To Create I found most helpful. I highly recommend this book for anyone who wants to quickly understand how to create their own blog.

If you are new to blogs or an experienced blogster, I recommend having this book on your reference bookshelf. I suggest that you refer to it often. Its a GREAT How To reference guide.

I read this book before Naked Conversations. I think it should be the other way around. The most valuable part of this book is after you have a strategy and focus. Blogging for Business has a couple of chapters that are pure gold and should be reviewed continually especially the section on search engine optimization.