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“Blogging”

By Rita Mikusch, Webmaster

Blogging, an abbreviation of “web-logging,” is one of the latest rages to hit the Internet. A blog is an online diary that is organized in reverse chronological order and includes comments, announcements, links, or anything else of interest to the blog's writer (the “blogger”).

The ease with which someone can just start blogging has led to an explosion of blogs on the Internet. Parents have created blogs about their families; teenagers have created blogs about whatever's cool; people of all ages have posted blogs about their interests or hobbies; and many businesses have begun using blogs to communicate with customers.

Blogging for business

Businesses can take advantage of blogging in a number of ways. For instance, the blog's more intimate and immediate format can be ideal for creating and maintaining relationships with current and potential customers. Here are a few applications:

• Technical support: Use a blog to offer your customers daily tips and provide answers to frequently asked questions.
  
• Be an expert: Use a blog to demonstrate your expertise and establish yourself as an authority in your field.
  
• Newsletter: Create a newsletter for your customers and email them every time you upload a new edition.
  
• Area of interest: Create a blog on an area of interest to your customers. For example, if you run a ski lodge, you could create a blog about the local skill hill.
  
• Project organization: Use a blog to help communicate the details of a project within your project group.

Things to consider

The immediate and spontaneous nature of blogs makes it easy to libel someone, misrepresent yourself and your company, or reveal proprietary information. Make sure you create guidelines for your employees on the appropriate content for any business blogs they create. Employees also need to make sure anything they say on their own personal blogs is stated as a reflection of their own ideas, and not their employers.'

If you're going to create a blog for your business, be upfront about it. Don't try to misrepresent your blog as the creation of a happy customer—the blogging community will recognize your fakery, and you will suffer a huge backlash. Be upfront and honest about the fact that yours is a commercial blog and you should have no problems.

To create a successful blog, you should also appreciate the difference between business communication and blogging. Blog readers want links, and including links helps you demonstrate your knowledge of the subject in question. After all, readers probably found your blog through a link on someone else's website, and they'll appreciate links on your site that enable them to continue their virtual travels in cyberspace. You must also be mindful of your word count—keep it short, because a computer screen is much harder to read from than a piece of paper.

I recommend going out and reading some blogs to get good ideas on how best to communicate in this new medium. In the accompanying sidebar, there are a few samples.

Tools for blogging

If you want to blog, you're going to need the right program.

The simplest option is to use a blogging program hosted on another website. One of the better known blog-hosting services, “Blogger” by Pyra Labs at www.blogger.com, is a web-based tool that will allow you to start blogging immediately, without having to install programs or create your own website. It has a basic free service, as well as a pay service with more features. (Interestingly, Pyra Labs was recently purchased by Google.)

Another option is to get your own website and install your own blogging program. A popular example of such a program is “Movable Type” by Six Apart at www.moveabletype.org. Some technical skills are required to install and set up Moveable Type on the web server, but it has good documentation and a lot of features. Moveable Type is free for non-profit and personal use, but commercial use requires a licence.

A third way to set up your blog is to install a blogging program on your desktop computer, then upload the posts to a website. One example of such a program is Radio Userland by Userland Software at http://radio.userland.com. You can upload your blog to your own website or take advantage of the free year of hosting included with this package.

More resources are provided in the sidebar below. And, of course, if you have any friends who blog, ask them what programs they find easiest to use.

Sample Blogs & Blog Resources

Many different blogging packages are available. Here are some online resources to help you learn more about blogs and blogging programs:

www.blogroots.com/resources.blog: Blogroots' resource page offers a list of tools, accessories, books, and other resources.

www.lights.com/weblogs/tools.html: Weblogs Compendium's resource page offers an alphabetical list of links to websites that offer blogging tools and accessories.

www.blogue.com: Two Vancouverites run this site, and they offer a paid service to help you set up and host your blog. They also offer a list of links backing up their argument on why companies should blog.

http://bigblogcompany.net: This is another company offering to help companies set up their own blogs. They have examples of law blogs or “blawgs,” marketing blogs, tech blogs, and journalist blogs. The site has a lot of content, and it's updated frequently.

www.blogscanada.ca: This site offers a listing of Canadian-authored blogs. You can search according to topic or region. There are no corporate blogs here, but you can get an idea of what some typical blogs look like.