IN THIS ISSUE: March 24, 2004 To Archive Index Best Business Blog Examples and Why Your Company Needs One Report: Essential Internet PR Strategy Internet Sales Copy That Sucks The Best Resources Online

BEST BUSINESS BLOG EXAMPLES AND WHY IT'S HIGH TIME TO THINK ABOUT A BLOG FOR YOUR COMPANY

By B.L. Ochman

While many businesses are still getting used to the idea of having any kind of Web presence, forward-thinking companies are looking to blogs as simple, self-sustaining Web sites and Intranets. If you're not thinking about how to use blogs in your business, you're missing a big opportunity.

Blogging can be a remarkably effective marketing tool. It's also an excellent way to stay in touch with customers and hear concerns that can be an early warning system of potential problems.

WD40, the smelly but remarkably useful spray, is celebrating its 50th anniversary with a Website, and has missed a great opportunity for a blog. On the site, a Fan Club Board of Directors made up of customers who are WD40 fanatics point out WD40's thousands of uses -- from keeping pigeons off the terrace (they hate the smell) to keeping toilet bowls clean. Visitors can suggest their favorite uses at the site.

While the site is a font of information, if it were a blog, the Fan Club would be interactive and the thousands of uses for WD40 would be searchable. You'd be able look up a WD40 cure when you're in need. On a blog, customers could add their profile information and recommended uses of the product into a searchable database.

The WD40 Fan Club Board members include Thomas Livermore, a WD-40 history nut; and Jonathan Knopp, a retired teacher from Milwaukee; and Kevin Meany, a Volunteer Fire Chief, who likes to "spray WD-40 on the hinges of my cooler so I can sneak a beer in the middle of the night." The site even has a downloadable WD40 Spray Game that you just have to try.

Good Business Blog and Intranet Examples
Some companies making good business use of business blogs include: Scene Embassies brands a European fashion label by having 18-28 year old bloggers around the globe spot trends in their cities and blog about them.

Fast Company Magazine, trying to regain their once ultra-hip image, has writers blog their short takes on news and offer opinions that might be edited out of articles in the magazine.

DaimlerChrysler employs blog intranets at a few of its U.S. plants, where managers discuss problems and keep a record of their solutions. And, according to FastTake, American Airlines, where only 20% of the company's highly mobile workforce has corporate email, uses blogs as a way to give employees more channels to management.

Forty field technology managers of The Hartford Financial Services Group are using blogs in a mobile group of shared information about e-commerce features and solutions to technology problems.

At IBM, more than 500 employees in 30 countries use a blog Intranet to discuss software development projects and business strategies.

Beta-7 a marketing blog from ESPN and Sega, is set up to appear to be the blog of a beta tester for ESPN NFL video game. It has an active following of gamers and includes lots of video clips, some of which those supposedly of commercial out-takes and rejects.

Bold Career Blogs is where career coach Ian Christie blogs to promote his consulting service and online career assessment tool. Categories include career management, personal networking, and a job search tune-up.

Hammock Publishing publishes client magazines and on this blog CEO Rex Hammock focuses on the magazine industry, custom publishing and business communications.

More than a dozen analysts for Jupiter Research use this blog to discuss the Internet media trends they cover in reports.

Jeffrey Zeldman's Daily Report is a blog covering Web design and information architecture. Zeldman runs Happy Cog a Web development agency.

Marketing Ladder Marc Cenedella uses blogs as a customer service tool for his three web-based job search services for $100,000+ executives. No, he's not a headhunter. And the site is not really a job board, either. If you said a job spider you'd be closer. He's turned the typical job listing business model on its head. His sales, marketing and finance lists are sent out to his 43,000 subscribers with about 800 new listings each week. The subscribers pay $25 a month for the service, and the companies with job openings pay nothing.

What could your company do with a blog? Lots! And it's high time to start thinking about it!

 

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SALES COPY THAT SUCKS

Would you buy anything from copy like this?

"Despite the fact that it's easily worth over $2000, (the retail cost of the five interviews by themselves) and that it could translate itself into several thousands of dollars (with hard work of course. Don't let anyone lie to you)... If you order today, you pay not one red cent more than $27."

"New concept in business automation! Discover the cutting edge secrets that can easily triple your net profits and cut your workload down to a bare minimum!"

Different sites, but the common denominator is a high degree of deception about the value of the products.

What's the point of bullshit sales copy and why is it so much the norm for selling e-books and reports online? Yecch!

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THE BEST RESOURCES ONLINE

Research Blogs is an annotated list of blogs used for research. Also available through the blog is a PDF paper on blogs in research, Blogging Thoughts: Personal Publication as an Online Research Tool.

Fling the Cow a fun way to waste many hours. :>)

Self Esteem Booster My dear friends Joan and Lydia Wilen sent this to me one difficult day, with a note that said "Do it and believe it!" Click on the link and type in your�first name.

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