Debbie Weil is a corporate blogging and social media expert, online marketing consultant, speaker and author of The Corporate Blogging Book (Portfolio). She consults with large companies, CEOs and senior executives on how to create blogs that connect with customers and attract media attention.

Had a blast this week moderating IABC’s blog panel here in D.C.

It was wonderful to meet several corporate bloggers face to face that I’ve been emailing and speaking with by phone: Paul Rosenfeld, Intuit’s blogging evangelist and the force behind the QuickBooks Online Edition blog; GM’s Bill Betts representing the Fastlane blog (Bill is Web Services Manager for GM’s global corporate communications office in Detroit); and Kevin Holland (VP in charge of the Air Conditioning Contractors of America’s ACCABuzz blog).

Paul flew in from Calif. for less than 24 hours (as did Bill) in order to participate. A huge thanks from me and from a filled-to-capacity and attentive audience. I’m sorry we couldn’t get to every one of your questions.

After offering a brief overview of corporate blogging, I posed some (vaguely) provocative questions and then let the three panelists do most of the talking. I framed our discussion around "fear of blogging" and asked each panelist in turn: "Why aren’t you afraid of blogging, why are you doing this and what results are you seeing?"

Interestingly, Steve Broback, creator of the Blog Business Summit, is thinking of using the same theme ("getting past the fear of blogging") for his Blog Business Summit Aug. 17 - 19, 2005 in San Francisco. (This is a  great event if you’re looking for a useful business blogging conference. I’ll be there as a speaker.)

Some of my questions for the panelists:

Thanks to IABC conference blogger Jeremy Popper for his write up of our session.

Remarkable stat courtesy of an HP Small Business Survey released last week. Thanks to CorporateBloggingBlog and Anita Campbell’s Small Business Trends blog for the link. Anita makes a key observation: while 10% of small biz owners may be including blogs in their marketing plans, half of all small businesses do not even have a Web site! The takeaway: think of a blog as a kind of Web site. If you need to make a choice? It’s a no-brainer. Launch a blog in minutes with a service like TypePad. You’ll instantly have a more powerful presence online than if you build a static site from the ground up.

As this is “debbie’s blog” I couldn’t resist noting that I’m Debbie #3 on Google, after U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich) and Little Debbie snacks. Kinda cool, huh?! The point is that blogging gets you noticed by the search engines. Blogging is the most effective, least costly SEO (search engine optimization) tactic going these days. See Got Google juice? on BlogWrite.

Excellent article by Bill Flitter on Pheedo’s blog. I particularly like his point that blogs can be compared to white papers as a way to showcase your company’s expertise. But blogs go a step further. He writes: “However, blogs allow for an ongoing conversation. They can be updated more frequently allowing you to contribute more information and further your position as a resource in your particular market.” Be sure to click on the resource links that Bill includes. This one’s great: a table by Alex Barnett comparing email with RSS.

In case you had any doubt. The WSJ’s Riva Richmond contends that blogs may be most useful for small companies. She writes:

“Blogs offer little-known small businesses name recognition, and the chance to boost traffic well beyond what they’d get if they were simply offering goods and services for sale.”

Thanks to Blog Business Summit for the pointer.

At some point in the near future I’ve gotta get a grip on the reality of publishing two blogs… is it possible for a small company (i.e. me) with limited resources (i.e. time)? I don’t have a definitive answer. For now, I’m putting everything related to writing a blog into BlogWriteForCEOs. The rest gets published to this blog. But it’s not very scientific. So for today, be kind enough to go here to read “Why blog and what makes a blog successful”?

Thanks to John Jantsch for hosting a lively audio conference with me last week on blogging. Apparently 200-some folks tuned in. John has cleverly posted a page of basic blogging resources on his DuctTapeMarketing site.

Thanks to Stephan Spencer for the heads up! He writes:

Hi Debbie,

Just thought I’d let you know that you (not your site, but you) show up on Google Video as the #1 result for “blog”, with a photo of you next to the search result.

http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=blog

Kinda cool!

It’s from the segment of the Nightly Business Report you appeared
on (Jan. 14, 2005).

Cheers,
Stephan Spencer
web: www.netconcepts.com
blog: www.stephanspencer.com

Just got a call from Nightly Business Report’s Washington Bureau Chief Darren Gersh. They interviewed me in September, 2004 for a story on corporate blogging. And are just getting around to airing it tonight. You can catch it on your local public TV station, starting at 6:30 PM Eastern. Go to the NBR site to get your local channel and time (click on About, then click on TV Stations).  And yes, Darren is a blogger!

According to BoingBoing, close to two dozen companies (yes, some are brand names) have fired or punished employees for blogging. Get the list here. Includes Delta Air Lines, Wells Fargo, Starbucks, The Houston Chronicle, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Nunavut Tourism, , the Committee on Degrees in Social Studies, Harvard University, Maricopa County Superior Court of Arizona Self Help Center and Library, Sen. Mike DeWine (R-Ohio, (he fired the Washingtonienne), ESPN, Minnesota Public Radio, Friendster, International Olympic Committee (banned bloggers) and the NBA (National Basketball Association)- Mark Cuban’s blog. I added the links to the specific instances I know about. Do you know of others? Please comment below if you can add a link. As to what this all means…
Continue reading “Is your company blogophobic? Should it be??”