Who

Jerry Richardson (http://jerryr.com/), reading blogs for 12 years, dating back to slashdot.org

Favorite Blogs

• Buzzfeed: http://buzzfeed.com/
• Deadspin: http://deadspin.com/
• Signal vs. Noise: http://37signals.com/svn
• Uncrate: http://www.uncrate.com/

What

A blog (a contraction of the term “web log”) is a type of website, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse- chronological order. “Blog” can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog (via Wikipedia)

Why

Internal vs. External

• Facilitate Authentic Conversation with Stakeholders
  • External: Customers, Prospects, Shareholders, Media
  • Internal: Employees, Franchisees, Suppliers
• Increase Perceived Expertise
• Increase Perceived Transparency - window into the corporate culture
• Rapid Response - PR, Product News
• Increase Exposure Online
  • Substitute for a Web Site
  • Google rewards high-quality content and punishes phonies

When?

Today, of course.

Where?

Pick a Place and Get Started

• Blogger (http://blogger.com/)
  • best ratio of complexity to power
  • Easiest Path to Google
• WordPress (http://wordpress.com/)
  • More plugins and themes
  • Self-Installed vs. Hosted (auto-updating)
• Tumblr (http://tumblr.com/)
  • Easiest to get started, Built in Community
  • Comments not built in
• Custom Domain Names
• Sitemap.xml

How?

Narrow Your Niche

• In the Google World, Narrower is always more effective

Be Authentic

• Be Yourself, but Punctuate appropriately
• Talk about Things You Care About
• Be judicious with the YouTube (http://youtube.com/) videos and cat pictures (http://icanhascheezburger.com/)

Identify and Use Your Keywords, But don’t get spammy about it

Keep the Conversation Flowing

• To be the Blogger, You Must Read Some Blogs, so use Google Reader: http://google.com/reader
• Post Regularly - reusable content for e-mails, summary posts
• It Takes Two?
  • Comments
• Spread the Word
  • Tweets about New Entries - http://twitter.com/
  • Dump into Facebook - http://facebook.com/
  • RSS feeds (Feedburner: http://feedburner.google.com/)

Monitor Traffic - Google Analytics (http://google.com/analytics)

Business and the Social Media Age

Explore the tools and trends of social media, with a focus on how businesses are using Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to open two-way conversations with their customers.

Learn how to avoid common pitfalls and maximize your reach with a primer on the etiquette of the fastest-growing online communities. Case studies of global enterprises and one-man-operations will highlight social media at work in Finance, Manufacturing, Retailing, Media and more.

Session 1: Creating Conversations - Web 2.0, in Theory and Practice

• Web 1.0 vs. Web 2.0
• Web 2.0, Chronologically
  • Social Thinking: Blogs, Bloggers and Blogging
  • Social Links: Delicious, Stumble Upon
  • Social Media: You Tube, Flickr
  • Social News: Digg, Reddit and The New York Times

Session 2: Tools and Techniques for the Social Media Age

• Today’s Industry Standard
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
• The Next-Generation:
  • Location Based Tools - Gowalla, Foursquare
  • Social Music - Last.fm, Lala.com
  • Social Television - Boxxee