Business Blogging - How to Build A Better Blog

Big Time Consultant Dead Wrong About Blogs & Social Media?

Are you famous because you blog? Or is your blog a success because you're already famous and have a great brand? Which comes first, the brand or the blog? In a twist of the chicken or the egg question, some pretty famous experts are in a heated debate online.

Debbie Weil of BlogWriteforCEO asks, "Which comes first, generally speaking: a brand or a blog? And, the central question, is social media effective at reaching a corporate audience if that's who your intended clients are?"

Weil gives a great summary of a heated debate going on over at Million Dollar Consultant Alan Weiss' ContrarianConsulting Blog. Newt Barrett of Content Marketing Today also does a great job of writing up the issues and summarizing the arguments.

Here's what stirred up the hornet's nest. Alan Weiss wrote this in a post called Blogs, Facebook, Twitter, and Chance on June 4, 2008:

"Blogs are only effective if you already have a brand. People come here, or go read Seth Godin, or Marshall Goldsmith, or Jeffrey Gitomer, or David Meister, because we’re all well known in our areas of expertise. That is, a blog follows a brand, not the other way around. You can’t create a brand just with a blog, unless you’re ridiculously lucky, and business can’t be based on luck."

With over 64 comments, Weiss' blog post achieved some pretty strong reactions from a few of the Internet's most successful bloggers, notably Seth Godin and Robert Scoble. They weren't very well known before they started blogging and they've since created strong personal brands through blogging.

TweetDeck Manages Twitter for You

If you're part of the micro-blogging set, you may be interested in checking out TweetDeck. This is a desktop application that manages your Twitter tweets for you. I learned about it last night (amazing how many US people were tweeting on 4th of July evening -- I wonder what that says about us).

TweetDeck is in beta; it's simple and fast to download to your desktop. You then install it and enter your Twitter username and pass so it can access your account. The interface is better than Twirl in my opinion. Your Twitter time line and replies are in columns so you get an at-a-glance view of what's going on. You can also create groups of followers which makes it simple to track specific people and their conversations.

I have two gripes: tweets are not refreshed frequently enough (every 4 minutes) and I find the white on black color scheme difficult on the eyes. The developer seems to be pretty responsive to feedback so I'll keep my eye on this one.

Follow me on Twitter. Watch a video about TweetDeck by Carol Dickson-Carr for an overview of the app.

Execs Prefer Coffee & the 'Net Over Morning Newspapers

"I'm not so sure my clients read blogs or use the Internet," said one of our clients who is a  consultant to high level executives. To which we had to pull out some recent research that proves otherwise.

According to an online study from Forbes.com and Gartner, the Internet continues to be the most influential and important source of business information for C-Level executives around the world, at 67%.

Instead of morning coffee and the newspaper, CEOs prefer the 'Net.

This information was brought to our attention by colleague Newt Barret of Content Marketing Today, and quotes a Media Post report. (registration required)

The research shows that “the Internet continues to be the most influential and important source of business information for C-level executives around the world."

Here are highlights from the research as quoted in the MediaPost blog:

• 67% of c-level execs say the Internet is their most important source of business information.
• That’s an increase of 37% since 2004.
• First thing in the morning Internet use is up 22%.
• First thing in the morning newspaper readership is down 11%.

Blog Etiquette & Commenting: They go hand in hand

"When you write comments on other people's blogs, is it okay to include a link to your own blog? If not, what's an acceptable way to give your blog URL?" Cheryl in Santa Clara asked in our Law of Action 2.0 program.

Recently several people have commented on this blog leaving their blog addresses and referring to their own posts on their own blogs. I had to go in and edit them in cases where I felt they were using the comments section primarily to market their own stuff.

I had a hard time deciding and each comment needs to be discerned on the basis of the intention.

Look at it this way: if you were having a conversation with someone at a party, would you jump right in, start talking about your own stuff, tell everyone why they should go read your post, turn around and leave? Would you think that would be smart and effective?

This is a great question Cheryl asks and there are no easy answers. Here are some smart ways to use comments on other blogs: