To Blog or Not to Blog?

Blogs are hot.

But what is a blog and why should you care?

A blog is a web log, a form of online journal with the most recent items posted on top. Merriam-Webster’s Online defines a blog as “a Web site that contains an online personal journal with reflections, comments and often hyperlinks provided by the writer.”

Dan Gillmore, the author of We the Media and a long-time blogger, describes blogs as “in-groups talking to other in-groups.”

Blogs exist on virtually any topic, ranging from politics and religion to pets and travel. Some of the most popular blogs deal with public affairs, consumer products or technology topics.

• They are a form of personal journalism, letting you bypass the media. Blogs let you talk directly to your audience, strengthen your relationship with them, and amplify word-of-mouth marketing.
• Blogs can give your organization a human touch.
• Blogs let you fine-tune a message for small groups, a decided advantage given our increasingly fragmented population. Such fine-tuning would otherwise be prohibitively expensive for many organizations.
• Blogs are great for research. They let you rapidly test new concepts.
• Because they present the opportunity for dialogue, blogs are great for feedback. They can help you understand your audience better.
• Blogs help you know what people are saying about you.
• Unlike websites, blogs can be published “on the fly,” making them very timely.
• A blog can help you get a wide audience for your information and opinions.
• Unlike email newsletters, blogs are not affected by spam filters.
• Blogs can dramatically improve your rankings in search engines. This is true whether you host the blog on your website or on a blog-hosting service, because readers click the headline in the news reader and go to your website to read the story.

You can subscribe to blogs on the blogger’s website or go to a blog newsreader or aggregator, such as Newsgator (www.newsgator.com) or Bloglines (www.bloglines.com), where you can search for blogs by topics.

As Bacon’s “Beyond Blogs” white paper explains: “The power of the news reader is that it brings information from numerous and assorted websites into one place, an excellent alternative to the time-consuming task of visiting websites individually to determine if new information has been posted.”

I subscribed to some PR and news blogs on Newsgator and Bloglines. When these blogs publish new content, a headline, abstract or full article is sent to the newsreader, which marks the items as unread in the same way as most email programs mark email messages.

Many newsreaders will notify you when new information is available. I chose to forego the notification. (I get enough email.) Instead I just visit the news aggregators periodically, where I click on the notification of the posts that interest me and go to the blogger’s website to read the full entries.

• Determine your topic. Many of the most effective blogs are geared for very specific interest groups. Entire blogs are devoted to topics such as jewelry boxes and baby strollers. Decide on your focus and stick to it.
• Create a title for your blog and a description that will attract the people you want to reach.
• Select your blogging software, which is similar to web-content-management software.
  
  Blog-hosting services typically provide free blogging software. Alternatively, you can host your blog on your website, but this requires you to manage the technology yourself.
• Virtually all blogging software includes RSS or a similar technology. RSS, which stands for Really Simple Syndication, turns blogs into web feeds. To have any impact, your blog needs to have this syndication capability, which lets you get your information to people who have expressed interest in your topic. RSS makes that syndication possible.

• Write fresh, relevant content often, at least a few times a week. (This is the hard part about blogging.)
• Keep your postings short. If you have a lot to say, do separate postings. (That will also help with the challenge of posting frequently.)
• Write well. Make your copy lively and tight. A blog is no excuse for sloppy writing.
• Carefully proofread your content. Ideally have someone else review it as well.
• Link to other relevant blogs, websites, articles and the like.
• To increase traffic to your blog, email other bloggers you think might be interested in your topic and encourage them to link to you.
• If you feel you can’t make the “blogging commitment,” consider contracting with a professional writer to blog for you. Obviously you will need to work closely with the writer to make sure the blog reflects your views.

• First determine which bloggers are important to you. Search for mentions of your company or competition on services such as www.technorati.com, www.pubsub.com, www.feedster.com or www.pubsub.com, all which track millions of blogs. Additionally, PR services such as Cision’s MediaSource are now tracking bloggers.
• Become familiar with the blogs in your “space.” Read through the postings. This is the same process you would use when reviewing any publication’s coverage of your company.
• To find out whether the blogger has influence, do an online search for the blog title and see how many times it shows up.

• Participate in the blog first. Initiate a dialog. Develop a relationship. You can alert the blogger to developments, but keep things personal and conversational.
• Do not send news releases. Summarize your information in a short email. You can always link to the full news release.
• When you post to a blog, make your headline informative and to the point. Do not use the words “news release” in your subject line.
• Keep your posts short, 250 words or less.

And a final note. Like any tool, blogs aren’t for everybody. But when they fit, they can be an extremely powerful addition to the PR program.

©2005, Communications Plus

I grant you permission to reprint this article in whole or in part, as long as the following credit appears with live links to my Web site and email address: “Reprinted with permission from Kay Paumier of Communications Plus, www.communicationsplus.net, info@communicationsplus.net.” Please let me know where the material will appear.

—Kay Paumier, Communications Plus