I suppose a site dedicated to business blogs simply has to mention the whole Raging Cow fiasco, since it continues to be touchstone in the minds of many on the whole subject of business blogs. For those of you lucky enough to never have heard of this whole tempest in a milk bottle, the basic background is this:

Dr. Pepper / 7 Up came out with a new flavored milk product called Raging Cow, which it sought to give hip legitimacy to by reaching out to blogs. It did so, via its online marketing agency Richards Interactive, by creating its own blog and by inviting a group of young bloggers to be briefed on the product, whom it encouraged to blog about the product. As best as I can tell, where it fell afoul of the blogosphere was that it then asked those young bloggers not to mention that they had been briefed about the product, as if their sudden new enthusiasm for flavored milk was purely their own idea.

To the company’s credit, Raging Cow’s blog and blog-PR initiative was one of the first efforts by a mainstream company to use blogs for marketing purposes (only a little over a year ago, March 2003; why does it seem like a lifetime ago?). But its PR mistep was badly received by the blogosphere, to say the least. Hardcore bloggers, who apparently wear their underpants a bit too tight, went ballistic at this attempt to corrupt their integrity of blogs, and for weeks, even months, it seemed all you heard on certain blogs was vitriol against Dr. Pepper (notably this silly call for a boycott on the product, as if anyone has actually seen Raging Cow in a store).

What irritates me about this whole episode is that it has become the embodiment in the minds of many of the idea that blogs and marketing don’t mix. The problem, if it even was a problem (Richards Interactive never saw it that way; see below), however, was never Raging Cow’s blog itself, which actually wasn’t bad, as adverblogs go (I would link to it, but I notice just now that the site seems to be defunct, which I strongly suspect has much less to do with a boycott among obsessive bloggers than the fact that sugary milk can’t compete with sugary fizzy water among teen tastes). [UPDATE: I guess it was just down when I checked it when I first wrote this post. I now see it’s back, though it’s not apparent that the blog is still being updated.] The problem was bad PR: imagine asking a reporter for the NY Times or even a lowly trade magazine to write nice things about your product but not to mention that you had briefed them.

Anyway, in an effort to get the complete story on the episode, I asked journalist Kate Kaye last year to interview the folks at Richards Interactive for their side of the story, as part of our report Business Blogs: How Successful Companies Get Real Results With Weblogs. (Kate, incidentally, maintains a site called Lowbrow Lowdown, which although quite blog-like she proudly proclaims has been “blog-free since 2000,” which I gather means only that she codes the whole thing by hand and archives it via FTP for God knows what reason.)

So here for posterity, excerpted from our 2003 report, is the email interview she conducted with Todd Copilevitz, Director of Richards Interactive about the Raging Cow Blog Campaign:

When did the Raging Cow campaign launch?

The buzz campaign, which included the blogger elements started March 1 [2003]. The branded campaign launched with five markets March 15.

What was the objective of the RC campaign, specifically the blog component?

We were working with a product that had a short window for launch, and limited distribution initially. So we had to develop a strategy that increased awareness in key markets and seeded awareness in markets where we did not have distribution. To our advantage we had a strong defined character in the raging cow. As we started working on telling the cow’s story it became very obvious there was something compelling about the humor.

At the same time we did not want to try to force our way in front of teens with a typical advertising message. We know they are far more likely to respond to a message that offers some recognition of their habits and is willing to entertain. So our blog component was simply intended to make people aware of the cow — not even to mention the product. If teens recognized the cow when they saw the product or branded advertising that was all we could hope for.

The branded campaign, and the branded web site, had the broader responsibility of raising awareness of the product and increasing attendance at sampling events. At the same time the wild postings of posters on the streets were tasked with increasing sampling attendance and driving people to the web. In short, all the pieces were intertwined.

Is there a blogging software platform used to run the RC blog? If so, which one?

We licensed Moveable Type. A great product from people who know their stuff, and an amazing community of developers creating add-ins. And, yes, we paid the license fee.

Did the campaign involve any other components (ads or marketing strategies)?

Spot radio, sampling teams, street posters and extensive online advertising using page-crossing units and other large-format ads.

What did the advertiser and agency hope to or expect to achieve through the blog?

Beyond what I said earlier, we believed the blog network offered a unique and organic opportunity let teens tell other teens about the product. Of course we realized that was fraught with risk, since we had no control over the message. But to its credit, DPSU was willing to accept that.

Describe how the campaign was received, particularly by the blogging community. What about it was praised, what was panned?

Among the target audience we had incredible response. We had numerous links to the site with extensive tracking. A brand tracking study tells us that we moved the needle in every critical factor, all positively.

There was another community of bloggers who blew their lid at our presence. They flooded us with complaints, all of which accused DPSU of being deceitful with the blog effort. Ironically there was a DPSU copyright on site. The article in Newsweek was the result of a call from DPSU. So I don’t know how we could be accused of trying to hide our hand. Of even more interest, was the forum for many of the complaints, our site. DPSU said early on that it wanted a broad and deep dialogue on the Raging Cow site, so long as it stayed on target and wasn’t obscene. I found it particularly interesting that a great many of the bloggers venting on our site don’t even offer comment capability on their site.

How has the RC blog changed since its controversial beginnings?

I’d suggest the only controversy was among those who were never our target to begin with. But along the way we eliminated links to external blog sites. In part we did so because we did not have the time to monitor all of them for inappropriate content and didn’t want our link to suggest an endorsement. That became an issue once the number of sites requesting links got unmanageable.

What’s planned for the future of the RC blog? How long will it run?

The blog tells the story of the cow’s shift from placid dairy life to a crusader against boring milk. As such it will live on through the site. While we won’t be updating it as regularly as we did in the spring, it remains a viable channel for communication.

Does Richards Interactive or Dr Pepper plan to use blogs in the future for marketing purposes? If so, would the approach be different? In what way?

I won’t attempt to answer for DPSU, except to note that they have expressed an ongoing interest in the value of grassroots communication tools. Richards Interactive was working with blogs before this and has done so repeatedly since then. We have an active database of hundreds of bloggers of all ages across the country who want to be part of marketing efforts. (You can checkout the signup information at www.projectblog.com.) As for approach, it is always different. You cannot cookie-cutter this type of communication.

In terms of using blogs for business, specifically marketing purposes, what are the challenges or drawbacks from your perspective?

Blogs offer one of the most-effective ways for small companies and companies with a defined point of view to communicate that directly with audiences. Blogs rejuvenate some of the early promises of the Internet, namely a global platform for anyone with something to say and the means to articulate it.

ClickZ’s comely columnist Tessa Wegert has written a three-part series on blogs and marketing (Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3). I might nitpick with some of its points — e.g., “At minimum, blogs should be updated daily” (ideally, perhaps, but I don’t know about “at minimum”; this blog, for example, flunks that test miserably of late), the idea that a blog isn’t a blog if it doesn’t have comments turned on (so Instapundit isn’t a blog?), or the tired old saw of spotlighting Raging Cow as a blog marketing disaster) — but by and large, it’s a sensible advice piece well worth a read.

ClickZ: Ads on Blogs, Blogs as Ads

This post on a fan blog devoted to the movie rental service Netflix is a perfect example of how poorly many companies understand the opportunities of weblogs. First of all, it’s painfully obvious that Netflix itself should have a blog. If you have any doubts about that, just check out GreenCine Daily.

But that’s not even what HackingNetflix.com is proposing. HackingNetflix already has the traffic (~1,000 visitors a day) who are interested in Netflix; all the blogger was asking to do was to forward “Ask Netflix” questions to Netflix’s PR department, but their PR department declined.

HackingNetflix’s blogger (identified only as Mike) notes that he gets on the order of 20-30,000 readers per month interested specifically in Netflix news. Yet this is not enough to register on the radar of Netflix as important? And this is an Internet-based company? Sad.

HackingNetflix.com: Bloggers & Corporate Public Relations Departments

It was just a matter of time. A month ago, Microsoft founder and richest man in the world Bill Gates raved about blogs in a speech to business leaders. Now, the Seattle Times is suggesting Bill may launch his own blog imminently.

Seattle Times: Bill Gates Could Join the Ranks of Bloggers

So, the AdTechBlog was a raving success in San Francisco. Hence, Ad-Tech has invited us to repeat our stellar performance for the Chicago show, just over two weeks from today (sorry for the last-minute notice; that’s just the way we do things around here).

Here’s the deal: you get paid nothing, and you pay for your own travel and accommodation. But you do get a full pass to the event, including all sessions, a $995 value. You have to blog a minimum of five posts, including sessions, exhibit hall activities, general conference activities and, last but hardly least, parties.

If you think you’re man or woman enough for the challenge, drop a line. Experienced bloggers preferred, and industry knowledge (Internet advertising/marketing) of some sort is pretty much a must.

Amusing, Onion-style look at some blogs by second- and third-rate celebrities, including Gillian Anderson, Melanie Griffith and Al Roker.

Other celeblogs not noted in the article include Bill Maher, Dave Barry (one of the few who actually keeps at it and is often worth reading), Jeff Bridges (weird, hand-written motif), Margaret Cho, Moby, Noam Chomsky and RuPaul (nearly three years now; you go, girl!).

UPDATE:
Classic indie pop band Jane’s Addiction now blog.

The Onion: Hollyblog: A Helpful Guide to Celebrity Weblogs

Tom Hespos, an experience media buyer (and CEO of Underscore Marketing) blogs about an experience he had recently buying ads on a blog. The take-away: “Said blog kicked ass and was one of the best performers on the campaign.” Other excerpts:

Our next media plan for this client will include more blogs. This is driven by the success of the blog we tested, plus the desire to tap into audiences that haven’t seen the client’s message before. We will likely renew our deal with the first blog, and possibly increase our commitment to them from a monetary perspective.
…
If you’re not considering advertising on blogs that deal with topics of interest to your clients and their target audiences, you’re doing your client a disservice.

Sure, he’s a blogger himself (just in recent months), so he’s drinking the Koolaid, but he’s working with Fortune 500 clients and isn’t going to endorse blogvertising just because it’s “cool.” Tom is among the most respected experts in the field of Internet advertising today, I can assure you. He’s exactly the kind of booster that bloggers need, especially since he’s on the buy side.

Hespos: Yes, Blogs Are A Great Advertising Environment

Mark your calendars and call your travel agent: July 23 in Berkeley, CA at the Haas School of Business, BlogOn is an event about “The Business of Social Media,” focusing on blogs, social networks and syndication.

Speakers include Andrew Anker, EVP of Six Apart, Jason McCabe Calcanis, chairman of Weblogs, Inc., Dan Gillmor, columnist and celebrated blogger for San Jose Mercury News, JD Lasica, big deal blogger of New Media Musings, Craig Newmark, the Craig of Craig’s List, Tony Perkins, founder of AlwaysOn Network, Mark Pincus, CEO of Tribe Networks, Doc Searls, big deal blogger, David Sifry, CEO of Technoratic, and many others.

Registration costs $495 before July 1 and $550 thereafter.

Link

Todd S. has taken another approach to a directory on business blogs (which, in some sense, my site already is): he has created an alphabetized wiki. (“What’s a wiki?” you ask? It’s basically a blog that any reader can edit or contribute to. Here’s another definition, or just check out Todd’s site and you’ll get the idea.)

Definitely a different animal than my site, as all entries here have my subjective spin, plus categorization, while the BizBlogDirectory features descriptions by the site managers. My guess is it will get big fast. Something certainly to keep an eye on, and also a good place to register your blog, if you haven’t done so already.

Link

A friend, who has had an on-again / off-again blog for more than a year (mostly off-again) writes to say he’s now determined to blog every day and asks how should he go about getting more traffic to the blog. It’s a pretty basic question, one to which I have only some pretty basic points of advice, namely these:

The main thing I’d say is to stick with it. After you’ve been at it diligently for a month or so, you may be able to reach out a bit more to get in-bound links. But until folks have confidence you’re really dedicated to it they may be reluctant to link to you, if they fear you’re going to lose interest after a few weeks.

Also, periodically produce a really utilitarian post (like, for example, this one) that people are going to find particularly useful, not just interesting. Dedicate an hour or more to rounding up a lot of links on a theme or analyzing a trend in detail and debunking common misperceptions or otherwise really doing some real work of investigating, aggregating or articulating something that a lot of people are going to find useful. That is more likely to get you a lot of links to a particular post than just general posts along the lines of “Here’s an interesting article” or “Boy am I steamed about what Bush said today” or whatever. How-to pieces are good for this. Read the lists of most popular links among bloggers on DayPop, Technorati, Blogdex and Popdex to get a sense of what kind of blog posts get lots of people pointing to them. It’s a law of nature that people love lists.

Beyond that…

1) Definitely publish an RSS/Atom/XML feed. Are you still using Blogger? If so, you can click a button and turn on RSS [make that Atom, another version of XML feed, as Mike clarifies in the comment section of this post]. (For that matter, you can start an XML feed with pretty much any standard blog publishing platform.) You’ll get a lot more pick-ups that way.

2) Engage with other bloggers, particularly in their comment sections. Also email them. Politely make them aware of your blog, especially in context (e.g., “Joe, nice comment. You may be interested in something I wrote along similar lines…”)

3) Register your blog, and your RSS feed, everywhere possible. Here’s a list of such sites to start with.

4) Create a “blogroll” list of your favorite bloggers in the margin. Bloggers like the quid pro quo when it comes to links. Just by virtue of listing a bloggers does NOT mean s/he will link back to you, but it certainly improves your chances. It also makes it more likely that you will come to their attention, as they will likely see traffic from your site in their logs and maybe the link itself on Technorati.

5) Of course, plug your blog in your email signature, and, for that matter, on your business cards, if it’s really that important to you.

6) Consider your headlines carefully for the kind of phrases that people may search for on search engines. Remember, B.L.O.G. stands for “better listings on Google.” Also, along these lines, make sure to set your archives to list each entry on a page of its own (possible with Blogger only in its more recently updated version).

Here are some other similar pieces of advice:

• Eugene Volokh on Promoting One’s Blog
• Blog Search Engine’s Blog Promotion for Newbies
• Blog Business World’s Observations From a ‘New Blogger’
• Blog Business World’s Website Marketing Plans: You Need One
• Blog Business World’s Three Quick Ways to More Visitors in One Week
• WizBang’s How to Get an Instalanche
• Nurse Ratched’s Notebook’s Drawing Blog Traffic
• The Truth Laid Bear’s Blogging for Links

I’m sure there are lots of other posts out there along similar lines. I welcome anyone who can point some more out to please do so in the comments, and I’ll update the good ones here in the main body of this post.

UPDATE: Here’s the latest on this from Dave on the “transition plan.”

NEW, IMPROVED UPDATE: God bless the Internet. Waxy.org has put out a challenge for folks to product remixes of Dave’s audio note. Hilarity ensues. This one is the funkiest so far.

ORIGINAL POST: Dave Winer frequently claims to be the first weblogger. As the architect of the RSS XML syndication protocol, organizer of BloggerCon and the founder of Userland, which makes Radio and Manila blog publishing tools, there is no doubt he has had a great impact on the blog trend. He’s also something of a prickly personality who has both many admirers and many critics. The latter camp are certainly on alert with Winer’s recent decision to shut down Weblogs.com as a free web hosting service for some 3,000 sites with this brusque announcement:

I can’t afford to host these sites. I don’t want to start a site hosting business. These are firm, non-negotiable statements.

Winer invited people who have sites hosted on the service to leave a comment on the above entry and that he will export the content of the sites for them to do what they will with the data. In similarly tart style, he wrote at the top of the comments thread:

Groundrules: Personal comments, ad hominems, will be deleted. And no negotiating or whining. Just post the url of your site.

Winer does provide considerably more perspective about his decision in a separate audio essay, in which he explains, among other things, the stress of keeping the servers going out of his own pocket is taxing his health (he suffered a heart attack a couple of years ago). Doc Searls, one of the most prominent webloggers who still uses the Weblogs.com domain, also offers his thoughts on this development, which is basically forgiving (Doc is a really nice guy).

This sorry episode just goes to show the liability in using a free host for a blog or other kind of web site, all the more so if it’s a “business blog.” Recently I wrote to someone who pointed to their blog as an example of a business blog for inclusion in my directory, and when I noticed it was a Blogspot blog, I wrote back saying that it looked unprofessional as a business blog, in my opinion, to be hosted on Blogspot, akin to hosting a business site on Geocities some years ago. I doubt Google would abandon its million-plus users of the Blogspot system as uncerimoniously as Winer has done with Weblogs.com, but you never know. Me, I’m happier paying a real host with a track record and business model and cash flow, where I have a greater confidence the data still will be there tomorrow.

Link

John Jantsch

Running a small business myself, I think “Duct Tape Marketing” says it all. John Jantsch has been running this blog for almost a year in support of his consulting service aimed at marketing services for small businesses. He recently was recognized by MarketingSherpa Readers’ Choice Best Blog Awards for the small business category.

Link

Interesting. The NY Times is conspicuous in its reluctance to start a blog of its own, unlike many other traditional media companies that already have blogs, but the paper can’t seem to get enough of writing about blogs. As if to underline that point, it has recently started advertsing via Google AdWords/AdSense on the topic of blogs. I recently saw the ad pictured here on Duct Tape Marketing’s blog. The ad links to this NYT story about Nike’s new blog.

Huh? Here’s an idea: if you want bloggers to think your publication is cool and relevant, start a frickin’ blog instead of advertising about the stories you write about blogs!

As I noted in an earlier post, Six Apart, the software makers of the popular Movable Type weblog publishing tool, got a lot of negative reaction to their original pricing scheme for recently updated version 3.x of the system. As expected, they have now revised pricing (see comments from the company’s president, Mena Trott, in the link in the headline of this entry).

In short, the system will remain free for personal use for a maxium of one author and three weblogs. For personal use with multiple authors (up to five) and unlimited weblogs, the price is now $69.95, or $99.95 for unlimited personal use.

For commercial use, the price scales from $199 for as many as five authors and up to $1,299 for up to 50 authors (with three other price points in between). Custom solutions for blogs with more than 50 authors or multiple servers are also available upon request.

I would say this pricing is fair and not complicated and should (not that it will, but should) end the complaints from disgruntled users.

Six Apart: Announcing Pricing & Licensing Changes to Movable Type

In yet another example of how every industry and professional association should have a blog, the ACCA has been blogging up a storm (albeit a refreshingly cool, breezy storm) of industry and member news for the past several months.

Link

Debbie Weil of WordBiz is producing a half-day seminar about business blogging in the Washington DC area on June 30, 2004. Some of the extensive web site copy reads:

Learn how adding a blog to your site can increase its value for your customers, prospects or members, put your online marketing on steroids… and make your job easier!
You will leave this highly-practical seminar with a blue print for how to launch and maintain a business blog and how to integrate it with email & e-newsletter marketing.

The seminar costs $249, which includes several sweeteners, including a Business Blogging manual by Don K. Crowther and an earlier teleseminar WordBiz conducted on business blogging.

UPDATE:
Debbie writes me: “For those who can’t travel or leave their office, this event is now a 90-minute Audio/Web conference on Thursday July 1st at 1 PM Eastern. … This is a highly-practical event that will explain what a business blog is, how a blog works technically, how it can complement an e-newsletter, what to write about, etc. A meaty intro to business blogs.”

WordBiz: The Uncool Blogging Seminar

General article on blogging from Time Magazine that does a reasonable job answering the perpetual question “What are blogs?” Nothing much new here to those of us who have already been at it for a while, but a good mainstream overview of the phenomenon.

Time: Meet Joe Blog

Interesting piece about a British school that has introduced roughly half of the students in the school to blogging, including those as young as seven, and the students’ academic performance, particularly in the area of IT, has improved markedly.

BBC: The Seven-Year-Old Bloggers

I hadn’t really intended to track the whole trend of using blogs for intranets / knowledge management here in this directory, as my specialty is more customer-facing marketing, but what the heck. It’s obviously a great use of blogs, which a lot of companies are pursuing.

Along those lines, this piece provides a great case study as to how InfoWorld themselves are using blogs internally. Picking up halfway through the article, Chad Dickerson, CTO of InfoWorld, writes:

[M]y team has been using the blog-driven IT roadmap in weekly staff meetings as a platform to discuss the initiatives we have completed and to look ahead to new ones. Our meetings no longer have agendas or redundant handouts, because we don’t need them. Of course, some items have dropped off our master plan altogether, and new ones have been added, but the important point is that our master plan is always updated and readily available on our intranet, and any changes are distributed via RSS to anyone who wants to see them.

InfoWorld: Blogging Behind the Firewall

I probably should have noted Adrants a while ago, as it is quite a popular blog in the marketing blog category. The reason I hadn’t till now, I suppose, is that I am trying to catalog mostly blogs that act as channels for customer service and marketing for businesses, as opposed to simply hobby blogs about business by people who aren’t necessarily using the blogs to promote their business. There are simply too many hobby business blogs to try to include them all, and what I’m really interested in is the trend of businesses using blogs for customer support and promotion.

When Steve Hall first started producing Adrants, it was clearly a hobby site, as he had a full-time job at an agency that he didn’t even mention on the blog, so I declined to include it here before, despite the fact that Steve is a good friend. He’s now, incredibly, been out of a job long enough that I think he qualifies as a consultant at this point, so I now consider it apt for inclusion.

Besides, the blog is getting so popular, and it’s so good, it was conspicuous in its absence. Evidence of its quality and popularity, it was just voted Best Individual’s Blog on the General Topic of Marketing and Advertising (how’s that for a snappy title) by MarketingSherpa Readers’ Choice Best Blog Awards 2004. Way to go, Steve!

Link