By Nettie Hartsock
If you want to start blogging about your white papers or your company, then here’s a quick primer. With all this talk about blogging, you might be feeling a little bit overwhelmed. Here’s the secret about blogs in the corporate and writing world - a lot of us high-tech savvy marketing and writing folks still don’t know where to start when it comes to blogging.
The good news is that’s really OK. Just like anything else technical, you can get the hang of it, and remember, it’s always good to stay ahead of the curve, or at least somewhere on the curve. (Think about how Landis patiently stayed with Lance Armstrong all those laps until this year when he was ready to claim the Tour de France.)
For those of us who might be blogging neophytes, this article will help you find the tools you need to start out on your own path to blogging.
Why Should I Blog?
If you blog, they will come. Maybe it will take awhile, but blogs are here to stay. Why not take advantage of the power of blogs and what they can do for you as a writer? Whether it be a simple showcase of your work or an in-depth look at your arena, a blog is an easy way to get the word out about all that you’re doing. Keep in mind you have to build your audience one post a time and stay honest and clear in what you write about.
How Do I Start?
Blogs start one post at a time, so the best thing to do is make that first post. Go ahead! If you do, you’ll be in the company of Robert Scoble, Guy Kawasaki, Bill Gates, Debbie Weil and others who lead the way.
Start by checking out other blogs. This Yahoo link has plenty to look at.
Here are some good places to pen your first blog:
Blogger.com is a great fr-ee site for starting your blog. Do a search on subjects and get a feel for the different formats and options available to you as a blogger. This site serves up some easy-to-use templates and guides you step-by-step.
Blogtext.org is another free blog, video blog and photo blogging service that allows users to create and share ideas, images and graphics.
Blogthing.com is also a free blogging service for starting your blog.
Wordpress.org is a popular open-source blog publishing system that is free and must be installed on your site. The site has tons of good resources under the “about” link for why and how to start a blog.
Wordpress.com is a bloggers’ site where you can pen your own blog using the Wordpress publishing system and Wordpress.com as the host.
Terms for Bloggers
Not sure you fully understand pings, trackbacks and other blogging language? Wikipedia offers a great terminology guide for beginning bloggers. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_blogging_terms.
How Do I Market My Blog?
Here are a few useful sites for marketing your blog:
Problogger.net - Darren Prowse is my favorite blogger on all things marketing and his site truly serves up fantastic and empowering content for bloggers at all levels of experience.
Blogwriteforceos.com - Debbie Weil’s blog is full of very useful information on how to tackle blogs from an executive level.
How Do I Track My Blog?
Technorati.com is the place to submit your blog and measure how it’s doing with other blogs. It’s a very informative site for watching which blogs are most popular and learning how to best target your efforts in blogging. It currently indexes more than 50 million blogs.
Blog on White Papers
A great blog on white papers and the industry is Michael Stelzner’s Writing White Papers blog at WritingWhitePapers.com/blog/.
Now go and blog!
DISCUSSION: Discuss this topic at the WhitePaperSource forum.
