I thought of one additional thing to add to my post earlier today about the recent hire of a full-time blogger at eBay. The additional thought is this: eBay didn’t try to outsource the blogging responsibility.

I’ve had conversations with people who think blogging is something that can be outsourced to college students or copywriters or stay at home moms or new media consultants. It can’t. None of those people know the company as well as someone who is inside the company day in and day out. They can convey the culture. They won’t have the relationships. They won’t respond as timely because they will probably be running most of their content through someone before they post…particularly if there’s an issue that demands a rapid response.

Outsourcing your blogging is not only a bad idea, it may be misleading in too. A great organizational blog conveys that your reading a person who is a true representative of the organization. Someone who lives and breathes the organization…and an outsourced blogger just won’t do that. Don’t outsource your blogging. Don’t even think about it.

Last week I found an interview with eBay’s new in-house blogger, Richard Brewer-Hay. This is an good move on their part and one that I think will become increasingly common in the future. There are a few things that were especially interesting in the interview and worth noting for any organization that has official bloggers:

• Bringing in someone from the outside isn’t a bad thing. Brewer-Hay was hired to eBay for blogging. He wasn’t a guy who had been there for a while and moved into that position. An internal person who assumes a full time blogging role isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but someone new will have less bias and likely be a bit more candid than someone who’s been in the organization for many years.
  
  LifeWay Christian Resources, here in Nashville, hired Ed Stetzer a year ago and Ed is an unofficial blogger for LifeWay but had significant credibility before being hired by LifeWay and LifeWay has received the lift it. An outsider can do that for you. The hard question then is this: when does that outsider become and insider? That’s a topic for another day.

• They trust him to say what he’s going to say. This quote really jumped out:

Question: Your blog will be linked from eBay’s PR webpage. How much influence will eBay have on what you write?

Answer: My words go straight up onto the blog, unedited. It’s got to be transparent. There’s got to be an authenticity to it, an honesty to it, otherwise there’s no point in doing it in the first place. I’m going to open up my e-mail to questions from folks. People can comment, too, and comments are going to be open. You’re going to get the good, the bad, and the ugly.

• They’re giving him time to launch. Brewer-Hay has been at eBay since January but the blog isn’t going to launch until April. They’re giving him time to build the blog, familiarize himself with the company, and get his blogging plan in place. It’s also giving them time to get the word out about the upcoming blog…hence the interview.

eBay has realized they need a blogger for all the benefit it provides both in being proactive with news and ongoing relations with the people who are most interested in eBay as well as a quick and immediate outlet for dealing with bad news. In the future most organizations with have numerous bloggers who specialize in particular areas of content but not every organization is yet ready to bring a blogger in. In October I wrote about five types of organizations that shouldn’t blog. This is still applicable for some organizations today but the good news is that they can be overcome with the right people in place.

I had the chance to give three presentations about new media marketing last week so I felt like my brain was constantly on the mantra: content is the new marketing strategy. On Thursday I had just come out of a two hour presentation and went to lunch with a friend at Chappy’s on Church here in Nashville. The food was great and the atmosphere was too. I highly recommend a cup of the seafood gumbo while you’re waiting on your meal if you ever go to Chappy’s.

While sitting there at lunch it struck me that when you create content you’re kind of like a restaurant. Both content creators and restaurants serve something for people that you hope they’re going to like. If we think of creating content more like a restaurant owner thinks about serving really good food (and experiences) to their patrons, we may be helped in making sure we’re providing valuable content and not something that’s half baked or overdone.

If you’re in the restaurant business there are three reactions you hope all your customers are going to have. If you’re in the content business, you want these same three reactions too.

• Savor - When we savor a meal it means we’re enjoying it at that exact moment. We’re taking it in and slowing down to make sure we delight in the full flavorful experience. What if that same feeling could be said about your content? Wouldn’t you love it if people savored the content you provide? If they savor your content you know they found the immediate value of it, and regardless of which of the five content strategies you choose, that is the primary rule of good content.
• Share - Have you ever had a meal at a restaurant that was so good you had to give everyone else a bite so they knew what they were missing? Or maybe you were talking about that restaurant for the entire next week after having eaten there because it was so good. Have you ever found a video so funny that you had to send to a few friends because you knew what they were missing? Same thing isn’t it? When we find something we like we share. Digital content makes sharing a snap and when you create good content one of the best thing you can hope for after the person savors the content him/her self is that they’ll share it. Do you create content that is best positioned to be shared? If you have video on your website that doesn’t provide an embed code, you’re not making it easy for people to share. If you don’t have permanent links for blog posts or articles you’re not making it easy for people to share. If your content doesn’t meet a need that some people (even if only a small group) have, it’s probably not going to be shared…and shared content that’s shared over and over and over again is of course viral marketing.
• Save - Finally, the last reaction you want in the restaurant or content creation business is that the person will save it. If we’re talking about a meal, when they save it for later they’re saying it’s worth taking home to finish later. When they see the immediate value in your content and take the next step to save it, they are indicating that they not only appreciate the immediate value of your content but the potential value it will have for them to reference in the future. One bonus with the save reaction: when your content proves to be worth saving, you have probably earned their attention for another chance for them to savor, share, and save your content in the future.

I have recommended blogging specifically as a great marketing tool for quite a while now and I’m always excited to hear how it works for people. Back in December I spent some time with Jeff from Mossy Creek Custom, a local gunsmith here in Nashville. He was just launching the business in Nashville and was anxious to get the word out about what he does so I encouraged him to start blogging. We went over all the “content is promotion the new strategy” stuff and even had to back up with the six categories of web 2.0, but by the end of a few sessions together the light had clearly come on and we were just talking specific strategy and execution.

A few days ago he called to tell me that his traffic had tripled because his post on Friday was showing up on the first page of a Google search. It turns out there are a lot of people who are interested in modifying their Glocks. He’s been doing a great job of creating content for people who are interested in custom guns and has discovered that he’s one of only a very few people who are blogging about guns like this. Jeff is already emerging as one of the best and most helpful voices in the area of shooter information. I predict that by the end of the year he’ll be recognized widely by gun enthusiasts for his blog. He’s already made some great connections and his traffic is on a steady growth pattern. The recent post was just a big shot in the arm that’s still going strong now five days later. It’s giving him more exposure to more people with more opportunities for business.

This is a great story of someone blogging strategically with a marketing mindset. Many people would likely think that gunsmiths and blogs don’t mix but Jeff is taking the approach that content is the best (and most affordable) way to connect with people. He’s creating helpful, educational, and informative content to the readers. He’s building a base while finding his blogging voice at the same time. It’s stories like this that should encourage someone on the fence to give blogging a shot try.

I saw this morning that Target has responded to a recent request from a blogger about an advertisement complaint by saying: “Unfortunately we are unable to respond to your inquiry because Target does not participate with nontraditional media outlets.”

The ad complaint aside, this response from Target was both interesting and surprising from an organization that seems to be on the forefront of cultural awareness and at least quite conscious of what people think about them. Anyone remember when they dropped “Christmas” for the more politically correct “holiday?”

The fact of the matter is that bloggers could be Target’s best friends. Target does what it does well and could get extended mileage out of that by harnessing the power of bloggers. These ladies are a perfect example of that. They love Target.

What Target is likely thinking is that they don’t have the personnel to respond to numerous blog posts and inquiries each day. I contend that Target can’t afford not to engage bloggers. Target says they only respond to traditional media, but traditional media is increasingly following bloggers and becoming bloggers themselves. This entire story was picked up by The New York Times for crying out loud. Target talked to them of course…so it’s a case in point. Bloggers can (and do) generate mainstream news.

I expect Target will take some heat from the blogosphere on this move. Kind of ironic they may find themselves in the cross hairs of bloggers given their logo. Target should do a couple things here:

1. Start a Blog ASAP - If Target starts a blog now they’ll have the forum for a public response in the same medium as the criticism. Likewise they’ll be prepared to address future blog requests on their own blog. This particular story would have been easily addressed on Target’s blog if they had one and they wouldn’t have had to concede if they disagreed with the ad complaint. The issue isn’t about agreeing with critics, it’s about engaging them at all. One blog and a part-time blogger could solve a lot of their problems and also make them better prepared to respond in the future. And that’s just the reactive help a blog brings. There’s a vast opportunity for Target to be proactive and positive with a blog, but that’s a whole other blog post.

2. Be Open and Honest - Here’s the thing about blogging, it’s a great medium that facilitates conversation and understanding, but if you’re not telling the whole truth, you’re going to wish you never said anything at all. I don’t think Target is trying to hide anything here, but this point is more about the tone and approach they should have when/if they start blogging. As long as they respond openly, honestly and candidly, people will see they don’t have anything to hide and that they’re willing to address concerns.

The rule of thumb is that when you’re silent or avoid questions people will assume the worst. When you address an issue head-on and quickly you don’t give it enough time to get a full surge of momentum. A well timed quick response can squelch an issue altogether. At the very least a quick response shows a willingness to address an issue publicly.

3. Ask for Help - If Target doesn’t understand how to get a blog started or how to respond to blogs, they should find someone to help. From a technical side, any blogger they find will be useful to them regardless of what their own blog is about. Someone with news or public relations experience is a bonus. This is just another reason why public relations people have a better mindset for new media marketing. It’s all converging both in medium and strategy.

[HT to Chris Abraham for this story]

If you have blogged for any time at all you have inevitable wondered about blogging frequency. You’ve probably asked questions like: Am I blogging enough? Am I blogging too much? How many blog posts should I write each week?

I’ve heard blogging referred to as “feeding the beast” and that once you start you must keep on feeding it. I agree generally with that idea and encourage bloggers to post a minimum of once a week. In my view that’s the bare minimum to show that you’re regularly active. This is not to say that if you post once every other week your blog is without value, but you can probably expect that people will learn your posting cycle and will check you blog about as frequently as you post. So don’t be surprised if your traffic is sparse and you only post twice a month.

On the other end of the spectrum are blogs that post 20-30 times a day. The average person probably won’t hit anywhere near that. Conventional wisdom (if there is such a thing for blogs) has said for the last few years that the more you post, the better off you are. That’s true to a degree if you consider that every blog post is another hook in the water for people to find you through Google searches. It also shows that your blog is very active, which is a great thing for readers to realize.

The downside to these massive posting blogs, however, is that they create pressure on new bloggers to feel like they’re failures if they don’t blog often enough. Also, that type of blog can overwhelm readers because if they miss two days of posts they’ll have 50 posts to sort through just to catch up. They’ll skim the headlines at best in that situation or may bail on the blog altogether out of a sense that the time commitment required to read the blog is more than they’re willing to give.

I look at blog posts in two ways: some are meals and some are snacks. A meal is a well thought out post that has some meat to it. It doesn’t necessarily have to be long though it very well may. A meal is a post where someone comes away feeling like the time invested in reading the post was well worth it. A snack, on the other hand, is a quick thought, idea, funny video, link, etc. to provide ongoing value to the blog’s readers yet without the time commitment as a meal. Whereas a meal blog post may take a minute or two (or more) to read, a snack may only take 10 seconds.

I personally try to make sure I serve up one meal a week and at least two snacks. Some bloggers seem to have their own working combination of the two. Seth Godin, for instance, serves several meals a week with a few snacks in between. Lifehacker, on the other hand, is virtually all snacks while bloggers like Mitch Joel and Jeremiah Owyang seem to serve up a meal with about every post. Each blogger needs to find the right meal to snack ratio for his blog but I’ve found that with this understanding of two types of blog posts, new bloggers especially feel empowered to begin blogging without any unnecessary pressure. For me it’s a mental gauge for the type of posts I’m going to write over the course of an average week.

Do you remember the good old days when someone wanted to promote their product or company online and some intrepid individual would say, “we need a website!” Once approved, that would start the ball rolling to find the right person or company to build that site for them. Until the last few years that was really the only option you had for an online presence. Now, however, that’s not the case at all. Blogs have emerged as a free (if you choose to get a free one) and easy to use tool that gives you a web presence in many ways equal to traditional websites.

What got me thinking about this was that I met a guy this weekend who said something similar to what I’ve heard many times over the last few years. He’s looking for an inexpensive website and, as I’ve done several times in the past, I told them it wasn’t necessary. What he’s really looking for is a web presence, not a full blown website. He just wants an online destination where people can find out about his business. In my view, a blog is a great alternative for his web presence rather than getting a website.

So, when do you need a website and when could you use a blog instead? Here is a short list of items that would likely require you have a website:

• You have a lot of information to communicate (whether in volume of information or complexity of information)
• You want a highly visual and/or Flash driven web presence
• You need an ecommerce engine/shopping cart
• You need a secure login area for some people but not everyone
• You want a fully customized web presence (in design and function)

If any of the above apply to what you’re looking for I recommend you talk to my friends at Anthology Creative or New Fangled Web Factory. Both companies can give you any of that (and much more too.)

If, however, you’re just trying to get an online presence so people will learn something about what you’re selling, know, or offer, a blog is perfect for you. Blogs now do many of the things people have only thought could be done with websites. For instance, if you wanted a website because you were looking to incorporate video or audio, a blog can do all of that. If you wanted a website that’s branded for you, a blog can do that. If you wanted a website you can control instead of paying someone to update it for you, a blog can do that. If you wanted to show pictures or a variety of other visuals, a blog can do that. If you wanted to be found in Google searches, a blog can do that (and in many cases better than traditional websites too.)

The idea here is that getting a web presence is no longer just for the people who can pay to have a website built. A blog is available to anyone. You can have one up and going five minutes from now if you choose to. You own web presence is no longer an issue of accessibility or price, but is really an issue of strategy and convenience. Strategically a blog may be all you need so you can save the money you would have spent on a site and put it elsewhere. From a convenience standpoint, you may just prefer to pay someone to take care of you online presence for you, and if so, that’s really what you’re paying for.

The bottom line is that if a blog will do, why get a standard issue website built and pay the $3,000-$10,000 to do it? A blog may very well be your best strategic choice. It will almost always be the cheaper choice.

A little over a year and a half ago I met a guy named Scot Justice. He was working as the CFO of a company but had dreams of starting his own CPA firm. I was just beginning to put legs on all I was learning about new media/web 2.0 at the time and Scot was the first person I’d shared this new perspective with formally. I didn’t know much but I was already convinced there was something significant to be had leveraging the new media.

As we talked I told him what I was learning he got really interested in the possibility of blogging as a basis for starting his business so he launched the Virtual CFO blog right away. It was a way for him to begin establishing an online presence and building a base of credibility and validity to distinguish himself from all the other online competition and it worked. A few months ago Scot had the opportunity to formally launch CPA for Small Business and he’s up and running now with clients who are finding his site and blog and choosing him as their virtual CFO. Here’s part of a note he sent me so you can hear it in his own words:

By following your Web 2.0 advice, The Virtual CFO Blog is currently ranked number one under the Google search for “virtual cfo”. Having our blog ranked this high has allowed us to demonstrate our expertise in small business accounting and financial management to a larger pool of prospective clients than could have been reached through traditional marketing means.

Last month, we gained two new business clients who have a large online presence. Both told me that they chose CPA for Small Business as their public accounting firm because our website and blog demonstrated that we were tech savvy and would understood the accounting and financial management needs of e-businesses.

I should note that I’m going to start doing business with Scot when tax time rolls around. It only seems natural that my accountant is a blogger. Congratulations on the early success Scot.

There are few organizations that shouldn’t be blogging. Yes, I know that last week I said there are five characteristics of organizations that shouldn’t blog, but I firmly believe every organization should do it and then deal with the other issues they have. That being said, Feedburner is a great case in point of why an organization should have a blog:

Over the weekend there was an issue with Google’s Feedcatcher service and it basically messed up everyone’s Feedburner subscription numbers. For bloggers who use Feedburner (like me), it’s a constant gauge to see how how many people have chosen to track what you’re talking about.

Now if you don’t use Feedburner or aren’t a blogger you may be thinking this is no big deal. The fact of the matter is, however, that tracking RSS feeds is one of the only reasons Feedburner exists, so when it can’t track feeds their main service isn’t working right and all the people who expect it to give them timely and accurate stats are going to see something vastly different. That’s a big deal to many bloggers because they (and I’ll include myself here) want accurate stats at all times. In this case it wasn’t even Feedburner’s fault, yet it still was their company who would be getting all the questions so they recognized the issue and wrote a blog post about it Sunday morning as a means to communicate to people what the problem was.

This was a win for Feedburner because they showed they’re attentive to people’s needs and proactive in giving information. The blog was simply the most logical place to get the message out. If your organization doesn’t have a blog yet, how would you have responded? Would you have been able to proactively communicate the issue on a Sunday morning just as easy as any day of the week? Feedburner did.

I find myself recommending blogs on a regular basis. I think it’s a great idea for almost every organization but I have also realized there are organizational characteristics that would lead me to say they shouldn’t blog. Here’s my list of those who should not blog (or use other social media for that matter):

Organizations that don’t trust their employees. If your organization doesn’t trust employees then a blog strategy will constantly be plagued by the legal department’s involvement or management trying to control the message. If the organization doesn’t trust the employees to represent them well without micromanagement, don’t start blogging.

Organizations that don’t want to hear bad news. Blogging and other forms of social media are inherently interactive and conversational. Once you decide to jump in you should prepare to respond as needed. If a corporate blogger gets negative feedback or criticism on a service, product, strategy, etc. the right thing to do is respond truthfully and candidly. That doesn’t necessarily mean a concession either. The organization’s blogger can totally disagree with the the feedback without being disagreeable. What this interaction shows is that the organization isn’t afraid to hear and engage people even when it can be negative. If you’re not ready for this, don’t start blogging.

Organizations that want absolute control over their message and reputation. Organizations can’t, and never have, been able to control what people say about them. To think otherwise is foolish. New media tools allow those conversations that may have previously been private to be more widespread and more easily discovered. If your organization is determined to control every message about it and is under the delusion that it can also control what other people say about it, don’t start blogging, it will only create frustration when the facade of control begins to crumble.

Organizations that create by committee. I have been a part of numerous “writing by committee” situations and almost every single time the final message is so diluted from the original intent it becomes a shell of what it could have been. Blogging by committee is not good for at least two reasons. First, it will take forever to get a post done by the time you get everyone involved and consider their revisions and debate what should stay and what should go. Second, it will very likely not be a candid, fully engaging post, but rather something diluted. Contributors to a blog are good, committees are not. It’s not a bad thing to have multiple bloggers for a single blog as long as it’s clear to all that the blog was set up that way. If your organizations writes by committee, however, don’t start blogging.

Organizations that are slow. One of the true benefits to blogging is that you can create a post in a matter of minutes so there is a wonderful opportunity to respond quickly to a situation in the event that it’s necessary. Depending on the industry, response time can make or break how a something is perceived. For instance, if an company had some negative press they could use the blog to respond quickly and provide their perspective. By doing so, the blog post will be part of the news and balance the original negative story. Without the blog the organization will issue a less timely press release if they respond at all and possibly miss a window of opportunity. If the organization isn’t prepared or comfortable with a quick response then they will not be fully utilizing the blog. If your organization is stuck on slow, don’t start blogging.