A few months back I was invited to attend, as a speaker, an event on corporate blogging where the people in the audience were mostly PR Managers for different companies in my country. Along with the PowerPoint presentation, I have decided to also give those who attended the event more information on corporate blogging through an eBook I wrote at that time.

The following post is the first chapter of that eBook, translated into English. The rest of the chapters will be also published, over the next few days, except for the weekend. Now, let’s see what corporate blogging is about and if it is the right tool for you and your business.

1.1 Blog, Blogging, Blogosphere

The term blog, contracted form of weblog, defines a certain type of website where texts, photos, audio or video content are published in chronological order, much like an online diary.

The first blogs date back to 1993 when the term was first introduced, but they only started to be used more frequently in 1998 when the first blog community, Open Diary, appeared.

The true hit of the online mainstream happened around 2002-2003, when the first blog reactions regarding the Iraq war were published and when Google acquired the Blogger.com platform, which allows any person with Internet access to create and maintain their own blog.

The Blogosphere comprises all public blogs and is defined as a community based on the theory that all existing blogs are somehow interconnected, often through blogrolls or links inserted in their content.
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Tweetmeme buttons, plugins to show latest tweets on blogs, Twitter accounts linking to the owner’s blog, new posts being tweeted, and blog addresses and twitter links in signatures. If that’s not enough, I don’t know what else would show that blogging and tweeting go hand in hand for tons of people. If you think of names, blogging and microblogging, you kind of see the connection. If you think microblogging appeared later, you’d think much of the blogging knowledge is applicable. But how can you be on both platforms and make them work individually and as a team?

1. Spot the similarities

Blogs and Twitter are of the same species. They come from the world of the social web where the same rules apply. You know, give before you ask, be nice, share relevant information, never, ever, ever limit yourself to broadcasting, be conversational, help out. It’s not rocket science and it’s definitely not new. To make it more clear, here’s the example section: comment on other blogs before you expect comments – or – retweet before you expect your followers to retweet your 140 characters of content.

Catchy and interesting content is crucial for both. If your blog post is a big hit, make your tweets the same. “New blog post + link” won’t make a lot of people click. “Star Trek is real! We can all now teleport! + link + Fresh from the blog” might work a lot better.

They both need frequent updates. If you’re planning to create a blog and never post after the first time, you’ve failed. If you’re planning to get a Twitter account to say hi and have a cool button on your blog without ever doing anything more, you have failed. People expect updates from both bloggers and microbloggers.

Both need monitoring. You need to check responses, reactions and trends to be on top of your game. And if you’re blogging and tweeting right, that will take a whole lot of time.
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Let’s play! Today’s post is a fun, creative exercise that I’d be happy to complete with your help through the comments section. What is the exercise about? Blogging tips, of course.

This post is part of the change I wish to bring to Blogsessive and get closer to you folks, your needs and thoughts!

What I will do: Using the ODD letters (A, C, E, G, I, K, M, O, Q, S, U, W, Y) of the English alphabet I will list 13 blogging tips, each in a sentence starting with that letter.

What you could do: Share your tips and views by completing the sentences starting with EVEN letters (B, D, F, H, J, L, N, P, R, T, V, X, Z).

I’m sure that each and everyone of you has something to share with the community, so let’s get creative!

The Blogging Alphabet of Blog Tips

A. Acknowledge the latest trends in your area of blogging. Always stay up to date, informed.

B. …

C. Connect with other people, with bloggers in your niche. Offer help. Network. Friends are some of bloggers’ greatest “assets”.
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A few weeks ago I was driving down the highway. It was late at night and I was tired. The radio was starting to put me to sleep. Suddenly a song come on that woke me up – I could not believe what I was hearing. The song was that bad.

I am no expert when it comes to music. The last time I played an instrument was in grade 6 music class. It was the xylophone – I simply had to hit a a couple keys with a wooden mallet whenever the teacher pointed at me. I do not know anything about timing, rhythm or beat. But I do know how to listen to music. I know what music should sound like.

What I heard on the radio was not music – it was painful noise. No rhythm, no beat and the singing was nothing more then a girl squealing forced rhymes. I listened to the whole song just to find out if it was some kind of joke. Would the DJ admit that it was something his 5 year daughter composed and asked daddy to play on the radio? But at the end of the song the DJ only said, “… and that was The Shaggs”

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Yesterday, Syed Balkhi published one of his best posts lately: “Consistency & Frequency Are The Ultimate Downfall of Blogging“. While Syed was probably looking – as he stated at the article’s end – for a bit of controversy, he actually managed to create a very thoughtful post that made me write a follow up, something I rarely do.

Blogging “Experts” always preach that you must be consistent with your blog, and you should post frequently.

This is how Syed starts his article, making it clear where he’s going to hit, the famous “Be consistent, write frequently” blogging tip. While he makes some very good statement on consistency, I would have loved to see a more detailed explanation of what should be understood by “being consistent with your blog”, and since I did not find those, I’ll share my views in this article.
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You know, planning a new blog post can be one of the most common problems for a new or recurring blogger. At the same time, the quality of one’s content can dwindle if you don’t take the proper time to consider what it is you want to write about, and stay on task. So how do you go about creating that perfect post idea?

Write When You’re Most Productive

To start, you should try writing when you’re the most productive. If you really want your content to sizzle, you need to be on top of your game, ready to outperform. For example, sitting in a comfortable chair and listening to music might be the best writing environment, while a silent library works for others. Naturally, it’s impossible to be able to sit down and be in perfect writing form 24/7, but being prepared to write is important to developing exceptional content.

Before you begin writing, why not try arranging your desk area in a way that suits you? Make your environment as comfortable as possible to get yourself into the writing mood. Try opening a window. Sounds crazy, right? Whatever you might think, creating an atmosphere that you feel at ease in will make you that much more productive.
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Ever since blogging has become “mainstream”, companies have discovered a new marketing tool in blogs. Some took blogs even further and transformed them into brand elements and it proved to be a winning decision, as blogs have the power to give a voice and a personality to a company.

But even so, corporate blogging has not always been the best choice for some. Just as with any other marketing tool, it needs to fit your company’s profile, needs and expectations in order to be truly effective. Is a blog really going to help your company? Ask yourself these 3 essential questions before taking the step and launching a new corporate blog.

This post has been revised and included in the Corporate Blogging Guide.
You can read the revised post here.

There are billions of blogs in the blogosphere. People always say that creating another blog might not be the better thing since almost everything online is saturated. Of course, that’s a complete baloney! Fortunately 60-70% of blogs don’t get traction and just couldn’t seem to make progress. And it’s because of several reasons which I wouldn’t want to talk about here.

Most people fall into this big misconception about blogging. This misconception is about “post and publish”. People think that the key to getting traffic is by creating a killer post, then publishing it. We all know it’s not the case. If no one reads your blog, then no one is even going to notice you created a good post! Obviously the one thing you have to do is to let people know “you” exists in the blogosphere. How? By spreading your content. Today I would like to talk about how you can possibly triple your traffic by spreading your content. Without further “fluff” here they are:

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How to blog? How to promote content? How to attract readers? How to keep them coming back? The are hundreds of blog offering blogging tips, and Blogsessive is only one of them. But, while running back and forth through the abundance of information, most times we forget about the basic principles of blogging.

Most times, we focus so much and invest too much of our time doing only one thing (ie: writing, promotion etc.) and we forget that blogging is actually a 3 step process, and all 3 steps should get the same level of attention.

These 3 primary steps of blogging are what I call the 3 C’s of blogging, or the 3C process:

1. Create
2. Communicate
3. Collect

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Yesterday, Fi (Fantasy Interactive) sent out alpha invitations to their new product, Kontain.

This is one product I’ve signed up and (not very) patiently waited for its launch, as it should be pretty revolutionary in terms of user-friendliness. Basically, it’s the first Flash-based blogging platform open to world wide free public access.

Here’s how the folks at Fi describe Kontain:

Kontain is a free destination for users to media blog and share photos, videos and audio with friends, family, colleagues and even beautiful strangers. The core of each user's experience is media-driven and Kontain takes the everyday concept of blogging to a wider audience by making it easy for users of all demographics to "kontain" and share their life online. Simple enough for Mom and Dad, yet flexible and sophisticated for a web veteran, Kontain aims to be the Internet's premier destination for user-generated content.

The Alpha launch features (which would soon be backed up by a lot more features that are currently under development) as listed on the Kontain website are:

• Easy to Kontain your life
• Upload Photos, Videos and Audio
• Explore Kontain’s most popular
• Search the media way
• Personal dashboard
• Ratings and Popularity
• Commenting
• Basic privacy settings

A look into what’s in development shows us high resolution media uploads, galleries and collections, messaging, groups, subscriptions, stats, possibility of having your “kontainer” embedded on other websites, multimedia comments, rich(er) text editing, notes over multimedia and many more features.
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