More than shilling product
posted by DL Byron on February 07, 2004
Thinking of Blogging for Business, I recalled that I had a personal site for years that became a blog when I started using MovableType instead of Homesite or BBEdit, posting almost daily, adding comments and archiving, and feeds.
I know many of my peers did the same thing and there are still a few that are not actually using blogging software (Zeldman for one).
I’ve explained to a few clients to think of a business blog as that email newsletter you send out every month, but with a personality, more immediacy, and client interaction. Most of them still think blogging is someone posting about their pets, but that’s certainly changing.
One of my business blogs got attention because we just talked to our customers about what we were doing, much like Macromedia does and now Microsoft. And our entire marketing budget is blogging and Google adwords (small business). We see little direct sales from the blog but do see brand recognition and that’s what our goal was – we spent little and got a big return.
Interestingly, I read a "don’t believe the hype" article in the New York Times and heard a story on NPR about Howard Dean. The conclusion of of the two pieces is that the web (blogging and community) brought Howard Dean up and traditional media brought him down.
We’re on another media convergence of the old and new and I’m not sure where it’s going, but it’s definitely more than just people loving their pets, shilling product, politics, instant pundits, or wardrobe malfunctions.
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