Mainstream Media
Readers are saying… The Best How-To Book on Corporate Blogging and The Best Business Blogging Book.
The Washington Post
Kudos to the Personal Branding Global Telesummit marking the 10th anniversary of the publication of Tom Peters' now iconic article: The Brand Called You. I led a session on How to Write a Great Business Blog and was one of dozens of speakers who donated their time. The Washington Post covered the event in a short article: Your Brandwidth. Reporter Vickie Elmer quoted me as follows:
"If you can write a consistently interesting and informative blog, you brand yourself as someone worth listening to, worth doing business with, worth hiring," [Debbie Weil] said.
Weil, author of The Corporate Blogging Book, said her publisher contacted her after reading her blog. Blogs help folks "get found." She said, "It's a way to control your digital identity." That's a growing part of your brand.
- The Washington Post (Nov. 8, 2007)
The Wall Street Journal
Quoted in Blog It and They May Come (August 20, 2007)
"A blog can help you…establish your credibility and expertise, and that is what encourages people to click and buy," says Debbie Weil, an author and corporate blogging consultant in Washington, D.C. "But it takes time to achieve it. You don't get instant high search-engine rankings. It's a fallacy to think you blog and you sell."
— By Sarah E. Needleman in The Wall Street Journal (Aug. 20, 2007)
The Wall Street Journal
Quoted in Executives Get the Blogging Bug (July 13, 2007)
Done well, "a blog is an extremely effective way of articulating a vision," says Debbie Weil, a corporate blogging consultant and author of The Corporate Blogging Book. … An unwittingly controversial post can set off an unanticipated fury of replies on the blog and across the Internet. "If you don't sort of take a deep breath and think about it — if you publish without thinking — you can really make some big mistakes," Ms. Weil says.
— By Erin White, Joanne Lublin and David Kesmodel in The Wall Street Journal (July 13, 2007)
The L.A. Times
Quoted in CEO postings can be hits or headaches (July 13, 2007)
Their electronic megaphones let the public "pull up the curtain a bit on corporate operations," observed Debbie Weil, who wrote "The Corporate Blogging Book." The postings humanize the CEO and tell readers how he or she thinks. "You're running a big public corporation; people want to know," Weil said.
– By Molly Selvin and Michelle Quinn in the L.A. Times (July 13, 2007)
San Francisco Chronicle
Quoted in Crossing the Corporate Line
Debbie Weil, who consults with businesses about blogging, said that partisan politics are inappropriate for a corporate blog and that the Google employee who shared her criticism of "Sicko" clearly crossed the line. Policies about what can be posted are critical, she said, as is good editing. "A corporate blog, well done, can have a meaningful conversation with customers and readers, can offer a viewpoint and a whiff of personality of the company that you can't get otherwise," said Weil, the author of "The Corporate Blogging Book: Absolutely Everything You Need to Know to Get It Right."
– By Verne Kopytoff, San Francisco Chronicle (July 5, 2007)
The L.A. Times
Recommended by Steve Broback in the L.A. Times in Read up on blogs, then start your own (May 16, 2007)
The Wall Street Journal
Quoted in How Blogging Can Help You Get a New Job (April 14, 2007)
"Job seekers who blog increase the odds that a potential employer will find information online that the candidate wants to be seen, says Debbie Weil, a corporate blogging consultant in Washington and the author of The Corporate Blogging Book, which was published last summer.
Everybody has an online identity whether they know it or not, and a blog is the single best way to control it," she [Debbie] says. "You're going to be Googled. No one hires anyone or buys anything these days without going online first and doing research."
— as quoted by reporter Sarah Needleman in The Wall Street Journal (April 14, 2007)
SmartMoney Magazine
Quoted in 10 Things Your Blogger Won't Tell You (March 2007 issue)
From #6: "Just because my name's on it doesn't mean I wrote it."
"However common it is, "ghost blogging" remains controversial. "It's a perversion of the real meaning of blogging, which is to put yourself out there," says Debbie Weil, author of "The Corporate Blogging Book."
- Daniel Cho (SmartMoney - March 2007)
The Conference Board Review
Reviewed by editor A.J. Vogl in The Conference Board Review Magazine (Jan/Feb 2007 issue).
"This is one case in which a book's subtitle has got it right. 'Everything' sounds hyberbolic, but it's actually hard to think of anything left out of Weil's book, which is both an overview of the blogging phenomenon and a manual for bloggers and would-be bloggers."
- A.J. Vogl
Download a PDF of the full review (see page 68).
U.S. News & World Report
One of the 50 Ways to Improve Your Life in 2007, according to U.S. News, is to Start Your Own Blog.
Blogs can give even non-writers a boost.
"Say you're in the running for a job at a hedge fund, and there are three candidates, and you happen to have been writing a blog with some interesting thoughts," says Debbie Weil, author of The Corporate Blogging Book. "You're going to get more seriously considered."
- Elizabeth Weiss Green (U.S. News Dec. 17, 2006)
Reuters
Yes, even Santa (make that Santas, plural) blogs, according to Reuters: Blogs give voice to season's superstar. My take on the article here.
"You have to have a really distinctive voice and personality - and in this case clever writing, I would think - to stand out," said corporate blogging consultant Debbie Weil, also author of "The Corporate Blogging Book."
While her clients tend to be real-life CEOs over make-believe ones, Weil said the end result of having a blog remains the same.
- Naomi Kim for Reuters (Dec. 16, 2007)
Belgium's De Standaard and De Morgen
Two-page Q & A on corporate blogging with reporter Wim De Preter in connection with keynote for NewsEngine PR's 10th anniversary celebration in Antwerp: "Blog-goeroe Debbie Weil: Blogs give corporations a human face."
"More and more companies use weblogs as part of their communication and marketing mix. The American Debbie Weil wrote a book on it… " Cont. (Dec. 8, 2006)
I was also interviewed by Ronald Meeus in De Morgen (PDF of article). More about the articles here.
San Jose Mercury News
Quoted in Michelle Quinn's column: Executives finding their way to blogosphere (Dec. 3, 2006)
"Readers of CEO blogs want "something authentic and smart and a little bit revealing," says Debbie Weil, a consultant and author of 'The Corporate Blogging Book.'"
CNN International.com
Quoted in a new DigitalBiz section on Companies ponder the blog option by Kevin Voigt (Nov. 29, 2006):
"The big elephant in the room for companies when it comes to blogging is fear," says Debbie Weil, author of "The Corporate Blogging Book" and consultant to CEO bloggers. "They are afraid they'll lose control of their message. My advice is: Get over it. You have lost control — so you might as well get in there."
Live interview on Sky News
Author Debbie Weil was interviewed about corporate blogging and the UK edition of her book in Sky News' London studio. (Oct. 20, 2006)
"… an assistant led me up to the gleaming blue and red news desk and sat me down next to the two correspondents anchoring the morning show." More…
Guardian Unlimited
Why CEOs should learn to love the blog by The Guardian's Business Editor Fiona Walsh. (Nov. 17, 2006)
"Weil believes that, just as no company now could afford to be without a website, the corporate blog is rapidly becoming a necessity. In time, she says, blogs will replace static, brochure-like home pages."
"Blogs make a company more human," she says. "They can also be a great recruiting tool."
"If you want to be seen as a cool place to work, then you need to have a blog. And it's not just about being cool; it shows that you believe in being open and transparent. Customers also prefer to deal with a company that is not just a faceless entity." More…
Guardian Unlimited
The Corporate Blogging Book was mentioned in popular political diarist Simon Hoggart's column. More… (Oct. 14, 2006)
CNN Money
Author Debbie Weil was quoted in Fortune senior writer Marc Gunther's column: Corporate Blogging: Wal-Mart's Fumbles (Oct. 18, 2006)
"The lesson's clear. The best corporate blogs are open, honest and authentic, according to Debbie Weil, a former journalist and Internet marketing consultant who is author of "The Corporate Blogging Book" (Penguin, 2006)."
TypePad's Book of the Month
Now this is cool. The Corporate Blogging Book was TypePad's October 2006 book of the month. Listen to the podcast interview with Six Apart general manager Michael Sippey. Read the Q & A with the author.
Web Marketing Today
A thumbs-up review by Ralph F. Wilson in his widely-read e-newsletter on Web marketing. Circulation is over 100,000.
AP
Quoted in an AP story on CEO bloggers by reporter Rachel Konrad that ran in dozens of papers: Sun CEO among the few chiefs who blog. More about the article on my blog. (Sept. 16, 2006)
"Ultimately, a good blog is good writing. Most CEOs are not good writers," said Debbie Weil, a Washington-based consultant and author of "The Corporate Blogging Book."
"The packaging and controlling of the corporate message has always been done for them, so often they don't realize that writing well is hard work and takes time and thought and practice," said Weil. - AP article by Rachel Konrad
Entrepreneur
Quoted in Entrepreneur Magazine in an article about Top New Marketing Trends (August 2006 issue).
"You don't need to blog to offer an RSS feed," says online marketing consultant Debbie Weil, author of The Corporate Blogging Book. "But you should have a blogging mind-set. Show the reader what's in it for them. Write clear and interesting headlines. There's a bit of an art to writing RSS [content]." - Entrepreneur Magazine
The New York Times
Quoted in the Sunday Business section of the New York Times on the topic of CEO blogging in the Digital Domain column by Randall Stross (July 30, 2006)
Ms. Weil, the author, spoke with me last week about the reluctance of Fortune 500 executives to share their thoughts on a public blog, and could find no acceptable excuse for their silence.
“They should come down from the mountain and communicate in their own words — without handlers,” Ms. Weil said. “For what they’re paid, is that too much to ask?” - Randall Stross in The New York Times.
Beyond Blogging 2006
Beyond Blogging 2006 interview with Chris Heuer (May 18, 2006)
Fortune
Quoted in sidebar on corporate blogging in Fortune 500 Special Issue of Fortune (April 17, 2006)
"So why aren't more FORTUNE 500 companies joining the [blogo]sphere? … Debbie Weil of blogwriteforCEOs.com chalks it up to uncertainty. 'What's the ROI on blogging?' she asks. 'Nobody knows yet.'" Fortune Online "Corporate Blogging: Do's and Don'ts" (Feb. 28, 2006)
Toronto Globe and Mail "CEO blogs: the new company water cooler" (Feb. 6, 2006)
Debbie was interviewed about business blogging on TV's Nightly Business Report (January 14, 2005)
Crain's BtoB "Successful corporate blogs strive to keep marketing copy out" (Jan. 13, 2006)
Westchester Journal News "Big Blue bit by the blogging bug" (Jan. 6, 2006)
Harvard Business School Working Knowledge "Does Your Company Belong in the Blogosphere?" (Nov. 28, 2005)
Inc. Magazine (July 25, 2005)
Chicago Tribune "Marketing latest field to get ideas, attention from blogs" by Ann Meyer (behind a firewall - July 25, 2005)
USA Today (cover story May 10, 2005)
Crain's BtoB Magazine (May 2, 2005)
Knight Ridder "Blogs carve out niche in business" (April 25, 2005)
Quoted in The Washington Times special report and featured in front page photo: What's all the blog about?
"All you need to do is be useful, and useful can be as simple as linking to another Web site." - DW
Can Blogging Help Market Your Product? by Bob Bly in DMNews.
The Wall Street Journal's StartUp Journal interviews Debbie Weil about "why words matter."
WordBiz Report wins Gold Award from The Newsletter on Newsletters for 2nd year in a row.
WordBiz Report listed as a resource to grow your business in the February 2004 issue of Entrepreneur Magazine. (scroll down)
UK search engine guru Mike Grehan interviews Debbie Weil in e-marketing-news.
Quoted in Worker blogs raise some company concerns by Jon Swartz in USAToday.com (Oct. 5, 2003)
"Making blogs more than just what's for dinner" WordBiz and debbie's blog in the Digital Capital column of The Washington Post (Sept. 11, 2003)
Seven Nitty-Gritty Tips to Publish a Monthly E-newsletter in Inc.com.
Use E-mail Newsletters to Reach Out to Your Clients by Reid Goldsborough - American Massage Therapy Association
