Apart
from the chat rooms,
instant
messengers and electronic mails created for communication and dialogue
beyond
turf are the emerging innovations that help man build opportunities for
interaction. The need for a personalized
and human face aspect of building online communities is slowly changing
the
technological landscape of the Internet.
Blogs
/
?weblogs? or blogging are the
newest gift of Internet technology to people all over the world. These
are
updated posts, crop up entries or personalized life snippets, of
mundane or
bizarre in nature. For most, a ?blog? is a personal, unedited, and
authentic
journal meant to be shared in an online community. Blog site is a place
where
bloggers can publish anything; his thoughts, feelings, photos, special
events,
experiences, comments on issues and so on. It is more of an online
diary with
videos, links, documents, newsletters and opinions on just about any
topics you
are interested.
Blogs
are made
to welcome the insights and
opinions of all and therefore, should not be written to sound
intimidating and
too formal. This kind of blog is a sure way to put off the readers. In
the
basics of blogging, conversational tone would be more appropriate to
reach the
desired audience.
Blogging
is
all about individuals reaching
out to other individuals. Having a blog has its own set of advantages:
- Freedom
of Expression. If you want people to hear you out and give their own
opinion,
this is the best way to create a line of communication.
Networking
is at its best. Having a blog is a good platform for exchanging genuine
ideas
from consumers to you as marketer of a certain product. Sound opinion
and point
of view is better than just showing the price quote.
Excellent
advertising platform. Blogging is a new way to advertise products, a
refreshing
change from the traditional advertising outlets and it is
cost-effective.
Gauging
public
opinion on products and services. The key is nice and catchy
titles with new ideas presented in your content. This is an assurance
of quick
and repeated responses from your readers.
Blogs is an excellent spot for the
exchange of ideas
between the seller
and the consumer. Good for measuring public opinion regarding services
and
products, even political and business matters alike.
Useful
tool for internal communication. This will help your company to build a
knowledge-based community of employees. Also good for harnessing
employee
relations and identifying human resource issues in advance.
Other
benefits like search engine optimization (SEO) will help your blogs to
be seen
often by as many people as you wish. This is very good exposure for
your
products and services.
Many
blog
hosting services are available
on the Internet. But the basic question is which one of the services
will be
the best to start off your business blog program? Business people are
usually
clueless to recent technological innovations which would help them
maximize
their marketing potentials. For these beginners, it is best to study
first the
services offered by blog hosts. An ineffective business blogging
program may
damage marketing opportunities instead of enriching them
A
company may
decide to do the following
depending on its capacity and needs:
Host
their own blog service.
Pay
someone else to host the service, or
Setup
a ?blog aggregator page?
and ask
the employees to select their blog hosting services individually.
There
are
paid and free services available for individuals.
For
business
blogs, they are required to
have the latest blogging features; if not, this will prevent them from
maximizing their marketing, public relations and SEO potentials.
Keep
in mind
that blogs should have the
following basic essentials:
COMMENTS.
Welcoming comments provide opportunity
for dialogue. In
business blogs,
they are a good customer feedback mechanism. This helps develop better
customer
relations based from loyalty and trust. Blogging is an innovative way
to
converse with your customers.
TRACKBACK.
This
helps in maximizing
company and product exposure. Through this service, consumers can get
back to
you for more posts and updates without the difficulty of locating you.
If your
blog is popular in a specific online community chances are links going
back to
your blog site are everywhere online, other blog sites or even websites.
CATEGORIES
AND TAGS.
These both help in
classifying blog searches for ease of navigation and on site search.
Categories
act as libraries because it classifies posts by subject matter such as
business, distance learning, e-commerce, online auctions, etc. Tags,
help in
the classification, especially in the blog search engine Technorati.
Possible
customers and new clients locate blogs about certain topics of interest
by just
clicking the tags.
RSS
FEED. Really
Simple Syndication is the
feed from your blog that is sent out over the internet, and collected
through
the various newsreaders and aggregators.
If
your
company is to establish a business
blogging program, considerable options should be made available by the
hosting
companies shortlisted for the services. Free blog hosting services are
popular
but they are much appropriate for individual online journals. Paid blog
hosting
services offer unlimited packages best for your company?s needs. You
may want
to suggest checking out some blogs that use the host first, read and
examine
their layout and design. Another important thing to consider is a
reliable
technical support the host has.
After,
choosing the blog host, a team
should be ready to plan the design and structure of the blog: The team
should:
create
a style that meets the needs of the audience;
establish
an open, credible tone;
schedule
weekly updating of blog - ideally, a few times a week;
include
weblinks of other website and blogs;
blog
post should be in the ?first person;?
focus
on the business blog objective; and,
maintain
an honest, engaging conversational quality.
Remember,
whatever the look,
style and
content found on your blog is a reflection of you and your company.
Copyright ©
Ferdinand Martinez
About
the Author
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ferdinand
Martinez is the owner of the HomeBiz-Resources
Website. To
find the best home based business
ideas and
opportunities so you can work at home
visit:
http://www.HomeBiz-Resources.com
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