© 2006 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Blogging for Business By Stephan Spencer, Founder & President of Netconcepts, Founder of InnSite

CONFIDENTIAL © 2006 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Blogs  Online journal, organized in reverse chronological order  2.5 billion Google search results for “blog”  3 types, according to Seth Godin –News blogs, Writers blogs, “Our blogs”  The community of bloggers = blogosphere  Blogosphere is rich with interlinkages –Bloggers always cite (and link to) their sources in their posts –Links also appear in “blogrolls”, “trackbacks”, comments, RSS

CONFIDENTIAL © 2006 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts

Why Blog?  Search engines (Google in particular) love blogs  Bloggers think of you as “one of them” –More links –More favorable coverage in their blogs  Journalists read blogs  Readers get to know you –Gives a more human face to your business than a traditional website –Provides insight into your personality –Builds trust and rapport

CONFIDENTIAL © 2006 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Why Blog?  Can position you as a “thought leader” –Get invited to speak at conferences, author articles, etc. –Builds your credibility  Can get readers “hooked” and coming back for more, thus further burning your brand into their minds –Subscribed to your RSS feed –Subscribed to your ‘blogletter’ (e.g. FeedBlitz)

CONFIDENTIAL © 2006 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts How My Blog Has Benefited Me  Inquiries from prospects  Speaking gigs and PR –e.g. a blog entry was taken verbatim by DM News and published  Credibility & thought leadership status –e.g. a recent client chose us over a competitor for online marketing services partly because of my blog –e.g. recruiting panelists for Thoughts Leaders Summits

CONFIDENTIAL © 2006 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts How My Blog Has Benefited Me  Upselling existing clients on additional services  Links from popular bloggers, in posts and in blogrolls –e.g. Robert Scoble of Microsoft  Business development & relationship building w/ other bloggers –e.g. business referrals, speaking opportunities, etc.  Search engine visibility –e.g. #1 for “rss and seo”, top 10 for “blog optimization”

CONFIDENTIAL © 2006 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts My Blog’s Traffic Trend Pageviews: Visitors:

CONFIDENTIAL © 2006 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts

What happened on June 1, 2004?

CONFIDENTIAL © 2006 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts

Unwritten Rules of Blogging  Be transparent and honest –Don’t plagiarize, hire a ghostwriter, misrepresent, etc.  Allow the submission of comments & respond to them  Quote / link to your sources  Admit to your mistakes. Don’t try to erase them.  Disclose any conflicts of interest

CONFIDENTIAL © 2006 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Encourage Bloggers to Link to You  Offer a niche-specific blogroll, tool, How-To, or compilation of news stories  Post a scoop  Expose a story as flawed or a fraud  Be a contrarian about a story, product, or prominent blogger’s opinion  Be humorous. Good topics include a bizzare pic of your subject, “10 things I hate about…”, and “You know you’re a when…” Source: Performancing

CONFIDENTIAL © 2006 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Encourage Bloggers to Link to You  Publish or commission some original research  Creative-Commons-license photos you made of an event you’re blogging about  Make available for free a theme, plugin or piece of software  Start a “meme” that others can replicate and that links back to you (e.g. buttons/stickers/tools for bloggers/webmasters to post on their sites, contests, quizzes, surveys, etc.)

CONFIDENTIAL © 2006 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Encourage Bloggers to Link to You  And of course… Have an RSS Feed!

CONFIDENTIAL © 2006 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts RSS  Better than the Inbox –Unspammable content delivery channel to individuals –Viable replacement for enewsletters  Web-wide Syndication –Propagate deep links that drive traffic and “search engine juice”  “You should be fired if you do a marketing site without an RSS feed.” - Robert Scoble, Microsoft

CONFIDENTIAL © 2006 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Slashdot headlines syndicated on Nanodot.org

CONFIDENTIAL © 2006 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts The top result was thanks to syndication via RSS

CONFIDENTIAL © 2006 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts How subscribers follow RSS  Web-based aggregator –Bloglines (now owned by Ask Jeeves), My Yahoo!, MyMSN, MyFeedster, etc.  Installed application –NewsGator (Outlook plug-in), Sage (Firefox plug-in), Pluck (IE plug-in), FeedReader, etc.

CONFIDENTIAL © 2006 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts

RSS  What will help subscribers keep their finger on the pulse of your business/industry and compel webmasters to disseminate to their visitors? –News alerts, latest specials, clearance items, upcoming events, new arrivals, new articles, new tools & resources, search results, a book’s revision history, top 10 best sellers, project management activities, forum/listserv posts, recently added downloads, … –For blogs: latest posts, latest posts by category, latest comments per post, …

CONFIDENTIAL © 2006 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Subscribe to search results on MSN Search

CONFIDENTIAL © 2006 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Subscribe to search results on Yahoo! News

CONFIDENTIAL © 2006 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Subscribe to deals with online retailers

CONFIDENTIAL © 2006 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Subscribe to articles

CONFIDENTIAL © 2006 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Subscribe to podcasts

CONFIDENTIAL © 2006 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Subscribe to a feed personalized to you

CONFIDENTIAL © 2006 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Podcasts  “Time shifted Internet radio”  Mainly for downloading MP3 audio clips, but video can be podcasted as well  Podcast-capable RSS reader automatically downloads audio/video clips and syncs them to your MP3 player

CONFIDENTIAL © 2006 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts

Vlogs  Vlog = Video blog  Posts video clips on blog and in RSS feed  Subscribe to vodcast feed with iTunes or FireANT vlog reader

CONFIDENTIAL © 2006 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts

Moblogging  Sign up for a free Flickr.com account  photos from your cameraphone to your blog  Subject line becomes the title; message body becomes the body of the blog post

CONFIDENTIAL © 2006 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Tagging  Folksonomy = collaborative categorization by users  Tags = keywords applied to content by users or authors  Pioneered by Flickr & Technorati  Tag clouds – an alternative nav & great for SEO  Swickis & buzzclouds – by Eurekster

CONFIDENTIAL © 2006 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts

Search Engine & Blogs  Google has become “the operating system of the Internet”  Rankings can be manipulated  “Implied endorsement” effect  Combination of on-page and off-page factors  On-page –Body copy, title tags, headings, etc.  Off-page –Links act like votes. Votes weighted (e.g. A-list bloggers). –Link text very important (“Google bombing”)

CONFIDENTIAL © 2006 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts SEO & Your Blog  Naming your blog (Think: keywords!)  Titling your posts (Think: keywords!)  Writing your post content (Think: keywords!)  Linking to your blog (Think: keywords in the link text!) –Add a link to your blog from your main site –Links to you from Trackbacks or Comments won’t help  Tagging your posts (Think: keywords!) –To Technorati tag pages and internal tag pages too

CONFIDENTIAL © 2006 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts SEO & Your Blog  Your domain name  Your URLs

CONFIDENTIAL © 2006 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Case Examples  Positive buzz –President Carter’s blog –Somerville Gates –Voltaic backpack  Negative buzz –Raging Cow –Kryptonite –Dan Rather

CONFIDENTIAL © 2006 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts President Carter’s blog  8 days of blogging during a trip to West Africa  138,000 results for “carter west africa blog” in Google  Blog was marketed via press releases, through partner organization Web sites, and via the Google AdWords program  “garnered significant increases in visits to our site, resulting in an average quadruple our normal daily average. We have sustained a significant increase in Web traffic since February 2004” - Carter Center

CONFIDENTIAL © 2006 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Somerville Gates  “a micro sendup of the saffron extravaganza in New York's Central Park”  $3.50 in art supplies  Received over 4 million hits  Invitation from Tufts University for juried art show

CONFIDENTIAL © 2006 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Voltaic Backpack  Solar-powered backpack from a small start-up  Blogging friend Treehugger blogged about it  Then got picked up by CoolHunting  Then got picked up by Gizmodo  A flurry of orders ensued.

CONFIDENTIAL © 2006 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts

In Summary  Welcome to the “conversational Internet”  Join the conversation, or be on the outside of it  Become more real and human to your visitors  Reap the benefits in more PR, better search engine rankings, and more bookings  Don’t want to? You risk becoming the next Kryptonite

CONFIDENTIAL © 2006 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Thank You!  It’s time for some Q & A!  Put “blogging” on the back of your business card and leave it with me if you would like a copy of these Powerpoint slides