Opening Doors With Business Blogs 
Area businesses are using Web logs to increase exposure to clients and communicate with their own employees.

Opening Doors With Business Blogs
Area businesses are using Web logs to increase exposure to clients and communicate with their own employees.

By Ellen Jensen

By now, almost everybody has heard of Web logs, or blogs, even if they are not blogging themselves. Blogs started out in the mid 1990s when programmers created pages to communicate recommendations for surfing the Net, and software developers communicated changes to each other by posting to a Web site or server.

"It was a communications tool for techies," said John Jantsch, president of Duct Tape Marketing, a marketing services company. Other people started using the same tools to talk to their friends. The blog evolved into an online diary where people kept a running account of their personal lives. Blogs soon became a communications tool for information exchange between people with common interests.

Blog Benefits
Now, businesses are using blogs to reach out to their customers. Nick Davis, president of iNDi Business Solutions, which helps small businesses harness the power of the Internet, started a personal blog about two years ago. Last year, when he started his company, he took the benefits of his personal blog and transferred them to a business blog.

 "A blog brings transparency to a business," Davis said. "With the Internet, people are looking at you through a machine, so the casualness of a blog brings the business to a more personal level."

Blogs also allow companies to remove marketing jargon and be real with people, said Rachel Platt, interactive marketing analyst with PlattForm, a full-service marketing and advertising agency for the education industry.

"You can open up a dialog that otherwise is not there," she said. "You can even end up changing people's opinions about a product where a traditional marketing message or brochure might not do it."

Blogs help build trust, said Debby Allmon, vice president of Schloegel Design Remodel. The company started a blog because it wanted to track a project to show potential clients the entire remodeling process. The Schloegel blog reads like a continuous saga with all of the players-project managers, carpenters and homeowners-adding their pieces of the story along the way.

Benefits for Employees
Blogs provide benefits from a human resources perspective as well, said Kevin Kuzma, public relations/publications manager for PlattForm, which just started its blog a couple of months ago. He said newly hired or potential employees might not understand what the company does, especially if it has a niche business. PlattForm's blog offers a unique perspective about what it is like to work at the company, as well as the kind of work the business does.

"The PlattForm Web site was industry-specific, focused on clients and their understanding of the services," Kuzma said. "A blog would have been helpful for someone like me to learn about what I could do for the company and what other people think about it."

Increased Exposure
Software development company VisionPace has been running its blog for about a year. Chief Operating Officer Doug Bliss said they were a little bit wary of starting a blog because of the time commitment. They looked at the blog as a newsletter, which they constantly would be struggling to put together on a consistent basis.

However, Bliss was convinced when Jantsch, the company's marketing consultant, told him that search engines love blogs. Since starting the blog, VisionPace's search engine rankings have gone up, and the company has gotten new business because of the blog.

 "One of our largest projects last year came because somebody found us through a search engine as a direct result of one of our blog posts," Bliss said.

It's important to make it simple to subscribe to your blog through an RSS reader, Jantsch said.

"Like any sort of marketing practice, you need to make it as easy as possible for people to consume your information in ways they are familiar with so they will come back more often," he said.

Search engines are attracted to new information, so the key to blogging is frequent posting. Blogs offer businesses an easy way to add new information and develop frequent, casual communication with their readers.

 "Blog posts are indexed more quickly than static Web pages, but since your blog typically is linked to your Web site, those pages will actually benefit from the blog too," Jantsch said.

Jantsch said he averages a post a day. Bliss said VisionPace tries to put something out at least once a week, and PlattForm updates its blog on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

Share the Duty
Although multiple people can-and perhaps should-contribute, somebody needs to champion the blog, Jantsch said. Your blog needs to have a voice and a personality. The blog also needs to be meaningful.

"Posting once a month or simply republishing your newsletter in blog format is not going to pick up much readership," Jantsch said.

Shloegel Design Remodel has started a new blog called "Just Ask Jake." The handyman column started out as a means for people to e-mail remodeling questions to Jake Schloegel, company president, from the Web site, and he would respond by e-mail directly to that person.

Allmon said they have turned that Q&A into a blog, so that everybody can benefit from the information.

To make it easier to keep the three-day-a week posting commitment, as well as to offer readers variety, PlattForm has six main authors from various departments post to the blog, but any employee can be a guest blogger. At VisionPace, managers have a mandate to post once a week, but all employees are welcome to post. Bliss said VisionPace even has added blog posting to the list of items that are tied to the company-wide group bonuses.

"It's really a good way for people to understand how we go about building software, and it's a good way for employees to see what others are doing," he said.

The blogging duties also are shared at Cornerstone360, which offers wealth advisory, insurance and CPA services.

"We coined Cornerstone360 and made that the entrance point for all three of the businesses," said David Imhoff, managing partner. "It makes sense because we write about all of those subjects in the same place."

Imhoff posts wealth advisory issues, while another partner, Keith Heil, handles the insurance advisory posts. Some of the other certified public accountants write on tax-related issues, and the company's administrative assistant is the final gatekeeper. The assistant has others check the blogs from a technical perspective, and he checks the information from the compliance perspective before the blogs go live.

Possible Pitfalls
Bliss said he gives the VisionPace blogs a once-over before hitting the publish button to make them available to public.
"We don't have any big concerns, but someone potentially might want to talk about a project and inadvertently include sensitive information," he said.

There's always the danger and fear of negative comments and feedback from employees or clients, Platt said. But those from clients can be turned into a benefit by the way you handle them.

"You need to let those comments go live, but then you need to respond to them honestly," Platt said. "If somebody has a valid complaint with your company, you acknowledge the mistake and then explain what you're doing to fix the problem and make sure it doesn't happen again. That honesty can turn out to be beneficial in the long run."

Even though it could be risky to have homeowners involved if they became upset or frustrated, Schloegel Design Remodel decided that it was worth the risk to keep the story real.

"We are not afraid of anything we do, so let's get it out there," Allmon said. "There are always issues that come up in projects, but we deal with them professionally."

The company also has chosen not to have a gatekeeper checking comments before they are posted. Allmon said she is not scared of what people will say, and allowing them the freedom is comforting for them.

"It gives them a level of trust," Allmon said. "It's also personal. People like to talk about what's happening at their house."

Another possible pitfall is spam, which now has reared its head in the blogging world. Davis said tools are available to help fight the problem and suggested blogger.com as one place to look for help.

"There was a blissful period where spammers hadn't discovered the blogosphere, but now they have picked up on it," Davis said. "The spam battle has moved to another front."

Getting Started
The best way to learn about blogging is to start reading blogs, Jantsch said. He suggested visiting bloglines.com, which is a directory that allows you to search by keyword and turns up only blogs. You can create a free account and subscribe to as many blogs as you want. Then, instead of checking multiple blogs, you can go back to bloglines, log in and read abstracts of new content in your chosen subject areas.

To set up a blog, you can use a hosted solution such as TypePad, Jantsch said. This technology allows you to set up your blog on their servers. He said the other option is to download software onto your server. That way, the blog remains on your domain and you have complete flexibility on how the blog works. Examples include Moveable Type and WordPress, which offers both hosted and software products.

"Going the software route is a good solution if you have some information technology support or are willing to pay $400 or so to have somebody set it up for you," Jantsch said.

Bloggers for Hire
If you can't commit to updating blog content consistently, or you just want help getting your blog off the ground, professional bloggers are available. You guide them toward the type of content you want, and they put the information together.

Bliss said VisionPace hired a professional blogger to help them create content as they got started and then took over after a few months.

"We wanted them to report on industry news items and trends in our industry," Bliss said. "For example, we wanted the latest news out of Microsoft. We sent them to a few Web sites, and they would go out and pull the information together and create commentary on key topics."

Bliss said it helps to have somebody familiar with the industry. The blogger Bliss hired was involved in the software development industry. Bliss said they found a number of people across industries offering blogging services, so unless a business is specialized, most can find somebody that's a fit.

"Hiring a professional blogger might be a good way to try it out," Bliss said.

Blogging Tips
 Here are some down and dirty tips to making your blog successful:

•  "Carve out as tiny a niche as possible," said Nick Davis, president of iNDi Business Solutions. "There's a worldwide audience now trying to compete. If your blog is specific, you are more likely to be at the top of search lists."
•  "A blog isn't something you can just decide you're interested in doing-you've got to put some effort into it, or it's not going to have the quality you need," said Kevin Kuzma, PlattForm PR/publications manager. "People will see right through the manufactured approach."
•  "Blogs are not a place to sell, but a place to educate," said John Jantsch, president of Duct Tape Marketing. "You should also build a network around your blog with others in your industry. Link to their blogs, point out interesting posts on other blogs. Be the go-to place for information."
•  "The key is getting somebody to post content consistently, otherwise it goes stale, and it's hard to get value out of the blog," said Doug Bliss, COO of VisionPace.

Ellen Jensen is the managing editor of Kansas City Small Business Monthly magazine.