Buzz Marketing with Blogs

About This Book

Chances are the fact that you bought this book means you have some ideas about starting a blog — and I want to get you started right away! You don’t have to memorize this book or even read it in order. Feel free to skip straight to the chapter with the information you need and come back to the beginning later. Each chapter is designed to give you easy answers and guidance, accompanied by step-by-step instructions for specific tasks.

The first part of the book is designed to set the stage by giving you a taste of how blogs can work for your business, how buzz marketing and blogs go hand in hand, and how to go about planning a blog project.

If you need to know whether blogs are the right path for your company, and quickly, the first three chapters help you make that assessment quickly. They also give you a taste of some of the important issues covered in later chap¬ters. Even if you don’t read anything else in the book, the first three chapters ensure that you understand just what goes into a successful business blog and how you can get started with one today.If you want to create a more customized blog or need to know more about the legal issues that have arisen during blogs’ short lifespan, you can go directly to the chapter that relates to your situation. Want to find out just how real businesses are using blogs in ways you can be inspired by? I’ve included case studies of real-life blogs and bloggers. I concentrated on finding blogs that are pushing the boundaries and doing so successfully so that you can benefit from their knowledge.

Blogs, Web logs, blogrolling, RSS — this industry is just packed with jargon, tech terms, and concepts most people never run across. I’ve worked hard to make sure these terms are clearly defined for you, including examples of best practices (when there are any!). If you run across a term that you don’t understand while visiting a blog, check the glossary at the back of the book for help. And if you don’t find information there, I created a book blog where I’ll keep you abreast of the latest trends in the blogging industry. I hope to see you there soon!

How This Book Is Organized

To ease you through the process of building a blog, I organized Buzz Marketing with Blogs For Dummies to be a complete reference. This section provides a breakdown of the parts of the book and what you can find in each one. Each chapter walks you through a different element, providing tips and helping you understand the vocabulary of Weblogs.

Part I: Getting Started with Business Blogs

This part introduces you to the general concepts of using blogs to create buzz and better customer relationships for your business. In Chapter 1, I show you some good business blogs and give you some backgroundabout this very young industry. You find out what’s involved in creating a blog and take a quick tour of the legal issues they’ve raised. Best of all, I tell you just what a blog can do for your business — and what it can’t.

In Chapter 2, I give you some background in buzz marketing itself, with a spe¬cial focus on how buzz occurs online. More important, I take a look at just how buzz and blogs work together to form a powerful marketing tool.

While reading Chapter 3, you find out about planning and building a good business blog from the ground up. Discover more about who makes a good blogger, how to name your blog, and some basic HTML tags indispensable for all bloggers. Most importantly, I talk realistically about when it’s time to hire a Web designer rather than trying to do everything yourself.

Part II: Setting Up a Business Blog

If Part I is about getting you up to speed on blogging and buzz marketing, Part II is devoted to getting you blogging. In Chapter 4, you make your biggest blogging decision (aside from defining its purpose) by deciding which blog¬ging software solution is right for you and your company. I explain what your options are and how to balance budgets while still getting the functionality you need. In addition, I show you how to register your own domain name so that your blog has a unique identity that people can remember.

Chapter 5 is devoted to getting you started blogging right away using the industry standard blogging tool Blogger — for free! Step by step, I walk you through starting up a blog, creating a post, adding links, and inviting others to contribute to your blog. In addition, I give you information about other blog solutions that get you started quickly and tell you about some common technologies that you may want to include in your blog.

In Chapter 6, I help you take control of your blog by introducing you to some serious blogging software that will let you customize every aspect of your blog. This powerful software can be technically complicated to install and configure, but you gain flexibility, expandability, and even blogosphere cachet when you use one of these solutions. If you have some blog experi¬ence and want to take your blog to the next level, this chapter will give you some strategies to pursue.
Part III: Minding Blog Etiquette and Culture

Part III is dedicated to making sure you know how to get the most out of your business blog without committing any serious etiquette breaches. In Chapter 7, you define your audience and find out how to target your blog toreach that group most effectively — and keep them coming back for more. I give you some specifics on tracking your users with traffic software and how to interpret your log files.

In Chapter 8, I introduce you to the blogosphere, the community of bloggers worldwide. They are a talkative group with sharp eyes, but they reward hard work and honesty with respect. You also learn how to participate in the dia¬logue of others’ blogs in a way that conveys your message but doesn’t get you branded as a spammer.

Chapter 9 helps you avoid some common business blog pitfalls and traps. I show you how to develop some standards that can help you create a blog that serves your customers without giving away your trade secrets, and I talk about how to handle corrections and mistakes.
Part IV: Positioning Your Blog

In Part IV, you find a series of chapters that help you make the most of your blog. In Chapter 10, I focus on making the most of the informal blog writing style, with some specific tips for making sure your posts are serving the needs of your readers.

Chapter 11 is devoted to developing excitement and buzz around your blog by making sure the public knows about it. I look at some of the technologies that have sprung up to support the trading of links and comments that make the blogosphere such a small world.

In Chapter 12, you find out how to keep things legal and ethical but still inter¬esting. This chapter covers the ways in which blogs might create new legal liabilities for your company, with some strategies for preventing those prob¬lems before you can experience them the hard way.

Part V: Making the Most of Your Blog

Part of what makes blogs so exciting is technical innovation. In Chapter 13, I show you just what technologies make your blog the best it can be, and how you can make good use of photos, audio, and RSS feeds.

Chapter 14 puts business tools in your hands, including ways in which adver¬tising services, links, and affiliate programs can make your blog a source of revenue. Find out about the many tools available specifically for bloggers to make some money with their blogs.In Chapter 15, I look at using blog software for more than it was intended and running intranet Web sites, Web stores, and entire Web sites off powerful blogging software solutions. You may be surprised by how much more than blogs blog software is good for!
Part VI: The Part of Tens

In The Part of Tens, you discover ten ways to break a blog posting dry spell; the ten traits of good bloggers; and best of all, ten outstanding blogs making the most of technology and the Internet.

Part VII: Appendixes

Appendix A is a glossary to all those confusing blog terms that have sprung up in recent years. Appendix B walks you through making the best use of the book blog to get the latest information about blogs, blog technology, and trends.

Use Appendix C during your research into the right blogging software solu¬tion for you. Appendix D is a quick refresher on how domain names work so that you can make the most of yours. In Appendix E contains case studies to help you further understand how to create a great blog.

I include a unique feature in Buzz Marketing with Blogs For Dummies — case studies of today’s best business blogs. I interviewed successful bloggers and gathered information about their experiences. I also asked each of them to give you their best advice for potential business bloggers. You find some invaluable information about what does and doesn’t work for a business blog that can help you avoid making the same mistakes.
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