Blogging is easy, what about having a conversation?
Getting into the world of blogging is quite easy to do these days, all you really need is to either sign up for one of the many pre-setup blogging websites or if you’re up for the more technical type stuff, you can always download a free or commercial blogging engines and install it on your own server and experiment.
See, having setup your blog, you’re only scratching the surface as far as having any sort of conversation with anybody at all.
Personally, I don’t care what your blog looks like, as long as it is readable in various formats and browsers.
When I see people talk about setting up a corporate/business blog to have a conversation with their customers, opening up the flood doors. I stop, I think, I look around, I think some more.
Is it as easy as that? Start a blog and people will start talking and having a conversation with you about how much they like/hate your product/ideas?
It can’t be that easy, right?
Well, it is a start, but definately not the end.
You may be a little disheartened at first if you expect people to be jumping over to your blog trying to have a conversation with you as soon as you start.
Blogging does not need any spit shining or anything like that.
You can be as casual as you like, or as formal as you like, but to a certain degree.
I like the blogs where people don’t sound like robots, the same goes for a good interview. I like it when the interviewer and interviewee are quite open about the topic(s) being discussed.
I don’t like having to think too much about what’s being talked about, if it’s not really necessary to understand the particular topic.
Sometimes it’s good to pretend you’re just talking to one of your neighbours (or someone else).
With blogging you do not know who your audience is, and it’s generally a good idea to remember that anyone who does a search engine search of any of the topics you’ve discussed will sometimes end up at your blog looking for information on that topic!
Over the past week or two, i’ve received various comments on my blog and/or emails about topics i’ve posted on this blog.
I didn’t expect any of it while posting those entries, but each individual landed on the posts via Google searches for one of the topics*.
Remember that the web is very public, and that Google Loves Blogs. Many of the more popular blogs have a 5 or higher PageRank making them appear higher in the results as compared with many of the traditional websites.
What can drive web traffic? Controversy. Yes, but does that retain an attentive audience of readers?
I very much doubt so. Unless of course you can keep it up with much more interesting/unique posts.
You can also tap into the various vocal technology supporter groups. Such as the Anti-MS/Windows, the Pro-Apple, and so on.
Is that a good move? Nope. Unless you’re already an established big player in the market, forget it.
You’ll end up being just another voice in the already overcrowded room.
These days when I see an anti/pro something or other, I might read just one or two of them to see whether or not it’s really worth reading, otherwise i’ll just skip over it.
Can you bring something unique to the table? Maybe a unique/different view/perspective on a current topic related to your company/line of business.
When Telsta’s i-mode service launched last year in Australia, I blogged about it. I even got a comment from a Telstra guy.
I thought, cool.
I’m a web developer (with an interest that goes beyond just the web), so what is it that I want to know when I hear about the i-mode service? How can I make any of my future webpages i-mode proof?
Wouldn’t it be cool if one of the Telstra guys were to post a guide to various resources to develop for their i-mode service? (ok, if anyone ends up here looking for i-mode dev info, I posted about it here.)
If they had a blog, i’d like to see them write about how developers can hop onto the i-mode bandwagon, and help develop websites/web applications for i-mode. And how we can host it, and other details of that type.
Sorry, don’t mean to pick on Telstra, just using them as an example.
I’m a big fan of i-mode, and hope Telstra does much with it.
Have a product to sell? I’m sure most companies these days do have one 
Tell me about it, and don’t skip on all the cool shortcuts that you know, and the marketing guys don’t!
I’ll take the MSN Desktop Search as an example. They had a registry hack to disable all the glitzy glamour/non-essential parts of the MSN Deskbar component.
It’s something you won’t see or even read about in all the marketing stuff going around. But you will see it in the Channel9 video and the MSN Search blog.
With blogging you can target a different audience than you would in any marketing campaign. The more connected bloggers will notice that cool something your company can offer them. They will of course, being alpha-geekbloggers test out your product (if you have trial versions of software, etc…), and if they like it, then bang! they will blog about what they love, and maybe a few complaints along the way.
If they don’t, then, you’ll either hear nothing about it or, you’ll hear a few things out there saying “negative things” about the product.
Oh yeah, once you get into blogging, you better get good at either scouring the web to find some mention of your product, or you can get acquainted with tools such as PubSub, Google Alerts, Technorati and so on, to help monitor the blogosphere and the web in general of any mentions of what you’ve mentioned in your blog.
Not every blogger will point your way when they mention you. Though, those that want to have a conversation with you, will find a way of doing so.
So what’s this whole conversation about anyway? Well, open communication, about all things. Secrets that can be found out by end users that you know about, but marketing disregards (and won’t land you in hot water) should be let out of the bag through your blog.
Since it is a “feature” or shortcut that you already know about, which the end user after using it a fair bit, finds out about. Don’t you think it is only fair to let the others who may not have known about those “features”, actually know about it?
In my opinion, if it can be found out by end users after a little playing around, they deserve to know about it without “hacking” around.
Marketing shouldn’t care, as long as they can still run their campaign (if they still think it is necessary to reach other audiences).
So rather than dive in head first, have a bit of a think before you post that first couple of posts…
- What can you offer to the blogosphere?
- What can you do to get your readers back, time and time again to check for new posts?
- And not just read, but also how to get involved with your conversation. A conversation requires two way communication, not one!
- Offer the readers a way to keep track of your new posts. It will keep them coming if they are interested. RSS is one of the more popular ways these days.
- Turn on comments, but be careful about comment spams. And also enable trackbacks, but also be aware of trackback spam. (It’s hard to have a conversation without at least one of these, and an email address)
Remember to have fun with blogging, it doesn’t need to be a chore.
People hate chores, so the blog tends to get neglected after awhile if it was started “because everyone else is doing it”.
* I’ve gotten 2 good blog comments in recent weeks, and 2 good emails relating to something i’ve blogged about.
One of the comments was from Brett Gilbertson of Major IT who commented on my post about Tablet PC’s and also sent me an email which seemed like the same as the comment.
Though I should probably have replied to the comment, at the time, I just emailed him directly because I noticed what his initial google search that landed on my blog was about. And asked if he found what he needed (because my blog only skimmed through that topic).
Anyway, it turns out he sells Tablet PCs through his company. Cool!
I also posted up something which in the back of my mind at the time, seemed logical, use technology to work out when the footy passes through the Goal posts, even if the ball is above the posts.
It sounded good at the time, but I got a comment from Justin Merrett who works at Advent Goal Posts Australia saying that there was no accuracy in the idea, and they had thought about that as well. And in the end, they thought it was overly costly to pursue that idea, and extending the goal posts alone would be sufficient and a cheaper solution.
Well, I got an answer to my question. Which is handy info, and now you all know why that solution was decided upon.
I know that Fifa are trialling putting a microchip of some sort into soccer balls to help umpires determine more accurately if a ball has indeed crossed the goal line.
I know, a different game, so more issues involved.
I know that having too much technology in the game kinda ruins it a bit. So let’s not over do it, but i’m sure there are some areas where it could indeed help.
I also got an email, which asked two questions, the first was what was the difference between the i-mate SP3 and the SP3i. (For the curious, they are using much the same hardware, just a different exteriour). And the second question was about whether or not SP3/SP3i had Windows Media Player 10 (from what I’ve managed to dig up, neither of these versions being sold in Australia have Windows Media Player 10… Though, not 100% sure on that).
Blogging not only starts a conversation, it can also help you build a deeper connection with others who you may otherwise not be able to reach.
March 15th, 2005 at 10:33 am
Okay. You got me started. Here’s your conversation. I’ll sit and wait for a reply. Dum. de. dum. dum. What no reply? It would be nice to know if after I’ve commented there is a way to know if you (or someone else) has commented back. Some times I add what I consider a BRILLIANT post to a weblog and I keep coming back to see if the blogger or other have commented. It is kind of a pain in the ass. I haven’t found RSS very easy to implement for the endusers and the readers that I’ve used didn’t really impress me that much. I’m NOT a web developer, but I’m pretty technically savvy. Rss is still to much for some people to figure out.
I love the idea of having technical people blog. Marketing people don’t always get that more information at the technical level is a good thing. I will however suggest that if you are working for public company or a soon to be public company that you insist that your technical people are aware of the blogging guidelines for the company. There is a possibility that something that you consider no big deal on the technical side are in fact considered “material’ events by the lawyers and IR people.
Marketing people are starting to jump on the blogging train and they are often times more interested in promoting the company than protecting it. Lawyers don’t want anyone to talk to anyone ever unless they can vett the conversation. I think that as long as the techincal staff know the guidelines they SHOULD have technical conversations with uses. I got an email from the developer of Clipmate (an great add on product, I might add) and it was really great. It will help me be a fan of his products due to the openness of his company.
Well I’ve been blogging for awhile and I have 12 readers. Maybe someday I’ll break into the 20s until then take care.
P.S. I found you from
The Norwegian Spam Huntress – Ann Elisabeth. I’ve been getting hits from someone with the IP address 12.163.72.13. I’m also worried about the whole issue of blog comment spam.
I think that with the entry of marketing into blogging they will increase the noise to signal ratio and spaw a lot of crappy “I’m the CEO of CrapCo” blogs. They will have a ‘conversation’ with the users in the same way the annual report is a conversation. I went to a conference on blogging in which the PR people said, “Turn comments off. And if you want to jump start the hits and up the page rank all you need to do is pay a bunch of people to start a blog and link to you and your product.” Prepare for Astroturf blogging.
March 15th, 2005 at 12:28 pm
spoko:
In regards to comment replies, I was thinking about using one of the wordpress plugins (called WP Subscribe To Comments) which allows users to subscribe to the comments. There’s also a threaded-comments plugin which allows for easier viewing of comment replies to your own.
The subscribe to comments plugin sends you an email each time someone adds a comment to that post, after your comment.
You could always just post the comment on your own blog, and then do a pingback/trackback to the original post. This way you can contribute to the conversation existing, as well as starting your own with others. With the pingback/trackback leaving a link on the original post to your post.
In regards to the PR “fake” blogs, have a look at this site.
One way to discourage the fake blogs that are appearing is to discredit them. Some people say “hey, any publicity is good publicity”.
The page rank won’t be automatically increased just be starting a blog. You’ll need to get people linking to you. The more people who link to you, along with the page rank of those who link to you will also be a factor in how high/low your page rank will be. The no-follow tag helps in this regard.
A link that uses the no-follow tag will tell the search engine not to follow that link. When a search engine follows a link it’ll take into account the current pages’ page rank when calculating the page rank for the linked to url.
I guess with noise, you’ll have to dig deeper using tools such as pubsub for something more specific to what you’re after. I use technorati these days when i’m looking for blogs on certain items.
I agree with your stance of a corporate blogging guideline. But I think you’d want something not too restrictive, giving the blogger a level of freedom.
I think most bloggers should be given something that says “we’re ok with you giving comments and tips on things relating to product x, but we strictly forbid you to mention anything that is private and confidential including the company’s financial status, upcoming acquisitions, and be sure to respect the privacy of your co-workers, and clients”… maybe a bit more than that. But most of it “should” be common sense.
One thing I know many bloggers don’t do is re-read their post(s) before hitting the submit/publish button.
If there is a preview button, hit that before submitting it to the actual blog for the public to read. It’ll help you make sure there isn’t too many spelling mistakes, and that what you wrote is what you intended it to be.
You may say you have 12 readers, but I don’t believe you. Ok, 12 regular readers perhaps, but there’s always those who may read you via an online rss reader such as bloglines.
That’s a hidden number. (Actually, server logs usually show the bloglines agent, and it shows how many users are subscribed via it to your blog).
And then there’s the many that chance upon your blog via a search for something which you’ve mentioned in your blog. They are in a sense, readers too
Comment spam is a major issue, I personally really hate it.
I get more comment spam than email spam at the moment.
WordPress has helped me eliminate much of my comment spam problem using their comment word filtering list(s).
Thanks for dropping by.
March 15th, 2005 at 03:54 pm
See, now THIS is a conversation! It is so nice to talk to people who have some depth of knowledge on some of the issues and can see the big picture. Thanks for the link to Flogs (fake blogs). I have some knowledge of page ranking and the constant battle to get search engines to rank you higher using sneaky techniques. Check out my post on a new scam that was tried on me.
Inmyzip scam
One of things that I’ve found is there is a level of knowledge that people need to have to take advantage of various tools. I tweaked my page a bit (color changes mostly) but when it looked like I needed to add code in php or css I just glazed over. I remember when the web was new and HTML was simple. Lots of pages with grey backgrounds and blinking tags. The easy tools to create webpages lagged the tools that were available in word processing and desktop publishing. It was like going back in time to the word processing program WordStar. You might not be old enough to remember it, but we had to use a lot of tags just like raw html commenting on blogs!
When I first noticed the online gaming jerks doing comment spam posting I wondered what the deal was and how they worked. I read a story about how the people from Blogger and others got together and created the no-follow tag. I don’t really understand how it works, but I’m glad they did something about it.
One day I was getting upset about how blogging was being subverted by PR and marketing types and I realized that I was a “believer” that I WANTED there a way people can talk about issues and not find out that someone was “working the system” like the way the Bush White House works the media and works the pundits.
The current pay for pundit scandal is interesting only in that it was so blatant that they got caught. There are more subtle ways that they subvert communications all the time. If you understand how the media works, what they want and how to provide it to them you can make huge strides in shaping opinion.
Blogs have even less accountability than media. Even if who is saying what is transparent, we have no ways of knowing that the person who is commenting isn’t paid off.
In the US there was a story about a memo that Dan Rather used in a news piece about Bush’s National Guard service. Before the show was even over some blogger said that it was fake. He went on about why he thought it was fake and had several examples. It wasn’t until weeks later did we find out that this guy had ties to the Republican Party. Now we don’t know how deep those ties were, he was never put under oath. Was he tipped off? Did someone tell someone to tell him that the memo is dicey?
The bloggers comments got picked up by more “respectable” blogs until the partisan media, Fox News, ran the story. Then the mainstream media felt the need to comment on the comments. For all the investigation later about the story I doubt there was ever any investigation about the first person to spot it. He was never under oath and even then the guy who told him won’t have to tell the truth on why he suggested it.
Spreading rumors via blogs is an easy thing. What I haven’t figured out is ways to defeat the rumor once they are out there. Shining light on them is useful, but that doesn’t work for the millions who don’t see the follow up that says, “Oh and this never happened.”
Oh and yes I know I have more than 12 readers, but I play the modest midwest game so I “Don’t get a big head”.
I’m adding you to my reading list so you can count me as one of your readers.
If I can ever figure out how this trackback, comment thing works I’d do that. The two blogs that had the “send emails if someone replys” that I post on are not very helpful. One isn’t threaded so that I’ll get an email for EVERYONES comments. The other one works okay.
I do try and reread my posts. I just took most of this post out and put it in Word to spell check. Really important posts I also run through a text to speech program because I find I hear mistakes that I often make. For example I type you instead of your ALL the time. Spell check won’t catch it and often I won’t catch it when I proofread. It would be nice if I could integrate my spelling tools and text to speech tools with the website comment boxes I post on. Blogger’s spell check software is the pits. I have to use it sometimes because cutting and pasting messes up the formatting. Often times what I think will be a short post turns into a long post (like this one!). Well I better sign off now. I have to work on a post about the subversion of the media via letters to the editor.
Nice talking with you.
Spocko
March 17th, 2005 at 10:44 pm
How do you defeat a rumour spread via blogs?
Well, you could try running the “truth” by the a-list/influential bloggers.
If they find it interesting, then they’ll blog about it.
You could so something like, “the truth about “, and hope people see it and then post an update to their blog. (Not always the case, but does happen with certain topics).
I guess you have to be careful when reading the blog that you know who the author is as well as their background.
Perhaps we need a blogging guideline of some sort which outlines that for a blog to be considered credible, the author must be identifiable with a real name.
It doesn’t mean that you can’t blog anymore if you don’t put your name out there.
But it’ll mean if you want to be heard, and want to put credibility behind your blog entries, you’ll need to put your name and perhaps some background out there. Hopefully if that idea ever takes off, then you can always call into question the motives of the writer, and judge for yourself whether to believe what is written as truth of just crap.
Oh, and the spell checking… Maybe if you’re using IE, you can try ieSpell…
Although i’ve been thinking about adding the subscribe to comments, i’ll just leave it as it is for now. You could always subscribe to my comments feed (which can be found at the bottom of this page) if you want to be notified of new comments. (But this shows you all the comments that others have posted here).