Bloggers R Us

With citizen bloggers multiplying by the minute, corporations are keen to co-opt the authenticity of this online publishing phenomenon. But while many already understand the concept (GM’s Bob Lutz, who wrote the foreword, is a blogger), many more are struggling to make sense of a fairly simple proposition: use your blog as a meaningful conduit to your customers, and watch them become your best advocates; use it as an outlet for stale press releases, and watch the world yawn or walk away. Weil provides background on blogs, offers tips on writing them (“invite a conversation”), addresses common concerns (“what if my employees are blogging?”), discusses tools and technology (including podcasts and wikis), and offers a cheat sheet for convincing the boss that it’s time to blog. Bonus resources include sample policies and guidelines, design tips, a glossary, and more. Short and sweet, this is more enthusiastic and personably written–and includes fewer CYA disclaimers–than Nancy Flynn’s Blog Rules (2006) and is more appropriate for the corporate crowd than Andy Wibbels’ Blogwild! (2006). Keir Graff
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While personal blogs take up much of the blogosphere, blogs are quickly gaining popularity in business as an inexpensive and amazingly effective marketing tool. It’s time for a practical book about business blogging: this is the first book to demonstrate how businesses are blogging and how you can use blogging technology to converse with your customers to build your brand and sell your products.

Written from the business person/designer’s perspectives, this book shows how businesses can leverage current, real-world blogging techniques, tools, and platforms to promote and enhance their ventures. The key idea is that the conversation with your market is stronger and more meaningful with a blog. Filled with practical information and a how-to approach, this book provides case studies of companies as large as Boeing or General Motors and as small as Clip-’n-seal. Readers will learn about the types of business blogs, how companies use blogs, how to sell blogs to management and IT, effective blog design, content, and conversation, pitfalls to avoid, how to develop Web presence, and more.

Everyone’s doing it — Web marketing, that is. Building an online presence is vital to your business, and if you’re looking for Web marketing real-world experiences, look no farther than Web Marketing All-in-One For Dummies.

These eight minibooks break down Web marketing into understandable chunks, with lots of examples from an author team of experts. The minibooks cover:

• Establishing a Web Presence
• Search Engine Optimization
• Web Analytics
• E-Mail Marketing
• Blogging and Podcasting
• Social Media Marketing
• Online Advertising & Pay-Per-Click
• Mobile Web Marketing

Web Marketing All-in-One For Dummies shows you how to please both customers and search engines; track your performance; market with e-mail, blogs, and social media; and more. It’s a one-stop guide to

• Maximizing Internet potential for your business and ranking high in searches
• Tracking how your ads, pages, and products perform
• Managing pay-per-click ads, keywords, and budget, and developing marketing e-mails that customers actually want to read
• Creating a blog or podcast that helps you connect with clients
• Using social media outlets including StumbleUpon, Facebook, and Twitter
• Leveraging mobile technology
• Generating traffic to your site and writing ads that get clicks

Not only that, but Web Marketing All-in-One For Dummies includes a Google AdWords redeemable coupon worth $25 to get you started! Begin developing your Web site strategy and start marketing your business online today.