I heard a rumor recently that blogs are "marginal things written by wild-eyed malcontents, lovesick teenagers or obsessive narcissists." How did such a preposterous idea get promulgated!?! Everyone knows that blogs are useful tools to help businesses and companies present a particular viewpoint, create a dialog with customers and stakeholders, and build niche communities around their brand, their products and/or services. At least that's the way I see it!

Here's a tip I picked up from Nick Usborne's Excess Voice email newsletter on optimizing your blog for Google and other search engines. . .

Google loves blogs. Now think a step further...use Wordtracker or equivalent...optimize your blog titles and content.

I admit I don't get that intense about keywords, though I should. I do pay attention to keywords in titles of posts and in body copy. Using this type of strategy is a definite best practice though.

Some time ago SEO expert Aaron Wall encouraged me to focus on a specific niche related to my internet marketing efforts, particularly where this blog was concerned. My original intent had been to focus on anything and everything related to helping small businesses establish and enhance their presence on the web.

Since that time my focus has narrowed dramatically to a few subjects. Chief among them are: business blogs, RSS, and, yes, despite what I've said about the demise of email marketing. . .email marketing.

So, on this Tuesday morning, September 14, 2004, I'm christening this blog with a new direction. . .to go where no blog has ever gone before!. . .(Well, that's not exactly true. I'm sure other blogs are doing this too.). Let's put it this way. . .to go where THIS blog has never gone before.

I'm retasking the RMG blog to focus on helping small businesses that blog or that want to know more about blogging.

Click to read more ...

Finally, someone has come up with an innovative way to make money from blogging that really fits, imho, the blogging paradigm. It's called Blogversations. Here's how it works. . .

1. They match advertisers with bloggers
2. Advertisers choose a topic or question (not an advertorial)
3. Bloggers discuss the topic or question, and place a link to the discussion on their blog's front page
4. Advertisers truly engage audiences without doing evil; bloggers get paid for doing what they do best - blogging!

I know some blogging purists disdain any form of commerce, seeing it as a profanation of the integrity of the medium. While I'm not one of them, I could be their next of kin. Something has always stuck in my craw about wrapping advertising around a writer's heart-felt musings. I've tried several ways (Google Adsense, Blogads, banner ads, etc.) to monetize this site, much to no avail. So, instead of just admitting personal failure as a marketer, I justify it with high-sounding pronouncements about the evils of mixing ecommerce with journalism, blog-style! :-) Maybe my heart's just not in it.

Perhaps in an ideal world, blogs would be bereft of any form of monetization. However, need I say it, we don't live in an ideal world. So, what to do. . .what to do? How do we maintain the integrity and authenticity of voice that blogging has become famous for, and yet take advantage of our blog site as an income source?

Blogversations says "Leverage your authority and audience to earn money - without losing authority over what you've got to say. Turn your ideas, criticisms, opinions, and reader share into money - and not muddy up your site with clunky ads in the process. Engage your audience with thought-provoking issues and questions."

Sounds good to me! So much so I've signed up for it!

This is a continuation of an earlier post. . .

I spoke with Jonathan Bock, President of Grace Hill Media, a Hollywood PR firm that works with faith-based media entities and journalists to get them greater and more advanced access to screenings of mainstream Hollywood movies, interviews with producers and actors, and other publicity-related resource material. According to Bock, his is the first such agency to attempt to give this kind of access to religiously-affiliated media outlets.

He is actively seeking bloggers who write about movies and television, and not necessarily just those who do so from a faith-based perspective.

Click to read more ...

Hollywood PR firms are beginning to pay attention to the power of blogs. . .

Case in point, Grace Hill Media, a PR firm that exists to provide the faith community with influence on Hollywood, has offered a blogger friend of mine, Stacy Harp, access to free advance screenings, relevant interviews with Hollywood professionals, high-resolution screenshots for her site, and other resources they may have available. Don't ask me how Stacy got so lucky. Divine Providence, I guess! :-)

Grace Hill Media has worked on some of Hollywood's biggest releases, including The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Signs, Bruce Almighty, The Notebook, The Rookie, A Walk to Remember, Big Fish, Elf, Secondhand Lions, Seabiscuit, and many others. Their goal is to provide access to religious journalists commensurate to their secular counterparts.

Grace Hill's President, Jonathan Bock, told Stacy he had "been impressed with the writing quality and reach of blogs" and "while news sites are a viable source for general information, many readers are turning to blogs as a source of updates and opinions on culture."

Does this indicate an even further embrace of bloggers as legitimate sources of information? We are all well aware of how both the RNC and DNC gave bloggers press credentials and invited them to cover the conventions right alongside their more traditional media counterparts.

Is this yet another indication of a trend toward mainstreaming of blogs as a credible publishing medium? I believe it is. Is the "top-down" professional journalism monolith having to give sway to another breed of journalists -- citizen publishers known as bloggers? It would appear so.

BTW, Stacy jumped at the opportunity of course. Here's her first post about an upcoming PBS project called The Question of God. I've invited Mr. Bock to comment on this issue. When and if he does, I'll let you know what he has to say.

Locally focused group "metro" blogs -- compilations of events, reflections, recommendations, news and complaints -- are emerging to put a number of big cities in intimate, street-level relief.

So says a feature in the Oakland Tribune news. The article talks about local blogs that are popping up in metropolitan areas like New York and Chicago.

Click to read more ...

MarketingSherpa has an exclusive case study proving that blogs can enhance your bottom line. The company in question, T-Shirt King, showed a tripling of sales during 2003, and have continued strong in 2004.

According to the article, blog content has helped to bring in about 35% of total site sales -- 10% from the email newsletter, 20% from affiliates who often reuse the content, and 5% from Blog traffic itself. (The newsletter pointed to blog posts, which had specific URLs per Movable Type's system.)

With SEO becoming more and more iffy due to increased competition for keyword sets, and email continuing to face its woes, blogs can be an inexpensive and welcome addition to your marketing communications mix.

BTW, the article is only open for public access through September 17.

If you've read any of my latest riffs, you know I've joined the chorus of bloggers who are declaring email marketing's demise. Being an email marketing administrator by profession, I take no real joy in saying that. However, all signs point to the obvious.

Even the company that provides the email management software I use, Lyris, has added RSS feed technology as a compliment to their broadcast email program, Listmanager.

However, we are between the "now and the not yet" so far as a transition between these two technologies is concerned. It's not a black and white issue. For now, there is a grey area, and it's in that area that I believe we ought to place our focus.

We need to use the "push" technology that is email. Fraught with problems though it is, email is still the app of choice for most marketers.

But, to use push technology and not compliment it with the "pull" technology of RSS content syndication is to place oneself behind the technology curve. A curve that is shifting away from email and toward RSS.

If you're using email marketing currently, don't stop. Just add RSS feeds to it. Throw in a blog for good measure too!

If, as the "Cluetrain Gang" suggests, markets are conversations, then social software is the toolset needed to get businesses and consumers talking.

What is social software? The folks at SocialMedia.biz provide us laymen with an excellent definition.

Essentially, social software (or as they refer to it, social media) represents a new generation of tools that bring companies and users into a dynamic, ongoing conversation. They include blogs, digital stories, RSS feeds, wikis and social networks.

If some of those terms sound a bit like incantations from a Harry Potter novel, it's not so mystifying once you read what they have to say.

Markets are conversations. The internet has made it so. Therefore, smart businesses small or large need to get on board. To adapt a lyric from Cat Steven's Peace Train: "Everyone jump upon the Cluetrain. Come on now Cluetrain."

By the way, let me thank SocialMedia.biz for featuring our series on the future of blogging.