While personal blogs take up much of the blogosphere, blogs are quickly gaining popularity in business as an inexpensive and amazingly effective marketing tool. It's time for a practical book about business blogging: this is the first book to demonstrate how businesses are blogging and how you can use blogging technology to converse with your customers to build your brand and sell your products. Written from the business person/designer's perspectives, this book shows how businesses can leverage current, real-world blogging techniques, tools, and platforms to promote and enhance their ventures. The key idea is that the conversation with your market is stronger and more meaningful with a blog. Filled with practical information and a how-to approach, this book provides case studies of companies as large as Boeing or General Motors and as small as Clip-'n-seal. Readers will learn about the types of business blogs, how companies use blogs, how to sell blogs to management and IT, effective blog design, content, and conversation, pitfalls to avoid, how to develop Web presence, and more.

Table of Contents | Index

		Copyright
		Acknowledgments
		Chapter 1. Meet the Blogs
			What Exactly Is a Blog?
			How Did We Get Here?
			Why Should You Blog?
			Blogging Is Easy
			Blogs Are a Marketer's Dream
			Why Shouldn't You Blog?
			What's Your Blog Focus?
		Chapter 2. Determining Your Focus
			A Marketing Focus
			A Public Relations Focus
			A Customer Focus
			Measuring Success
			Start Blogging Now
		Chapter 3. How Much Blogand How Often?
			What's It Going to Take?
			Assessing Resources, Barriers, and Culture
			Fostering Corporate Buy-In
		Chapter 4. Designing for Readers
			Essential Features
			Other Features to Consider
			Design Considerations
			Iterative Design
		Chapter 5. Tools and Implementation
			Assessing Your Blogs
			Selecting a Software System or Service
			Publishing Your Blog
			Enhancements and Add-ons
			Ads on Your Blog
		Chapter 6. Writing Your Blog
			Passion and Purpose
			Starting the Conversation
			Making an Impression
			Posting Process
			Time to Blog
		Chapter 7. Launching Your Blog and Getting Noticed
			Hit the Ground Running
			Making it Interesting
			Getting the Conversation Going
			Findability Rules
			Posting Isn't Enough
		Chapter 8. Monitoring and Managing Your Blog
			Watching Traffic
			Discovering Trends
			Comments and Interactions
		Chapter 9. Beyond Blogging
			Blogging Everywhere
			Blogging Anywhere
			Small Teams, Big Things
			Mainstreamed and Mainlined
		Index

Table of Contents | Index

		Copyright
		Acknowledgments
		Chapter 1. Meet the Blogs
			What Exactly Is a Blog?
			How Did We Get Here?
			Why Should You Blog?
			Blogging Is Easy
			Blogs Are a Marketer's Dream
			Why Shouldn't You Blog?
			What's Your Blog Focus?
		Chapter 2. Determining Your Focus
			A Marketing Focus
			A Public Relations Focus
			A Customer Focus
			Measuring Success
			Start Blogging Now
		Chapter 3. How Much Blogand How Often?
			What's It Going to Take?
			Assessing Resources, Barriers, and Culture
			Fostering Corporate Buy-In
		Chapter 4. Designing for Readers
			Essential Features
			Other Features to Consider
			Design Considerations
			Iterative Design
		Chapter 5. Tools and Implementation
			Assessing Your Blogs
			Selecting a Software System or Service
			Publishing Your Blog
			Enhancements and Add-ons
			Ads on Your Blog
		Chapter 6. Writing Your Blog
			Passion and Purpose
			Starting the Conversation
			Making an Impression
			Posting Process
			Time to Blog
		Chapter 7. Launching Your Blog and Getting Noticed
			Hit the Ground Running
			Making it Interesting
			Getting the Conversation Going
			Findability Rules
			Posting Isn't Enough
		Chapter 8. Monitoring and Managing Your Blog
			Watching Traffic
			Discovering Trends
			Comments and Interactions
		Chapter 9. Beyond Blogging
			Blogging Everywhere
			Blogging Anywhere
			Small Teams, Big Things
			Mainstreamed and Mainlined
		Index