How your organization can benefit from a blog-based web site
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I’ve created this entire blog, from set up with the host to producing 25 entries in about 4 hours.
What could you create for your customers in a few days? How does that compare with your last web design process?
The web is a fast, fun place. Is your current web site structure slowing you down?
For beginning organizational bloggers, I usually suggest that comments be turned off.
You don’t need the distraction until you get your feet under you.
In the long run, they are one of the most powerful reasons to blog. When you allow you customers to comment on what you are saying, your marketing power goes way, way up. It proves you have dedicated customers who love you enough to take the time to interact with you via your blog and it proves you have nothing to hide.
The best benefits are that your customers feel heard and involved and that they can say great things about you that no one would believe if you said them about yourself.
RSS is an acronym for Really Simple Syndication.
Syndication being the distribution of content, be it your latest post or an re-run of I Love Lucy.
What this means is that your customers and your community can very simply keep in touch with what you post to your blog, as you post it.
They can either pull the content, as in the Bookmarks tool bar in Firefox or use an RSS reader like GoogleReader.
Readers act like a custom-made newspaper on-line… all the latest entries from your favorite blogs are presented for your reading pleasure. Nice!
Wouldn’t you want your content presented to your customer base right along side the news from the BBC, their friends, etc, etc? Blog sites include this function free and automatically. There’s nothing for you to do… just let your clients subscribe and you’re on their A-list.
It’s about using free new blog software to, all at once:
The old days were all about the slick sales guy putting on a big show after guessing what you wanted and needed.
Now, the web is about what others are saying about you, right now. It’s not about fancy, it’s about:
Is your richness, depth and excitement of your unfolding story better told by a few finely wrought sentences of text surrounded by some fancy design or by the “cloud of meanings” formed by your latest victory celebration, video of your work in progress, images of your open house, and a testimonial by a happy customer?
OK, but how do I put all that on the web without breaking the bank?
Blogs, because even the creation tools are web-based, allow anyone you authorize to create, edit, and manage content for you from anywhere, anytime.
How might that relieve your marketing production bottle necks?
Now, you can even blog from anywhere you have cell phone service.
Blogging is simply an easy way for non-technical people to create and manage web content (words, images, links, etc.)
It’s essentially a very simple word processing interface over a database that separates out the content from the presentation.
This means YOU can write and edit anything you want, any time for free, even over the phone.
This means you can change the look of your site with a couple of clicks…
Oops, there goes my designer with the tiny glasses, the funky shoes, and the bad attitude. 
Basically, Web 2.0 is the internet as tool for unleashing people’s creativity and interconnectedness. Don’t take my word for it, check in with the great Web 2.0 success story, Wikipedia.
It’s actually harkening back to the internet before http:// To my first on-line community, The WELL in San Francisco. The WELL (The Whole Earth ‘Lectronic Link) was a community of creative, social tech-types that started back in 1985 when you logged onto the internet and got a command line prompt.
In the intervening years, things have got a lot easier and richer.
Examples of Web 2.0 tools today:
Facebook and MySpace – the ability to comment and to connect with others (guilt or goodness by association)
Amazon - customer reviews and discussion groups
Craigslist - Suddenly newspaper classified ads seem cumbersome and expensive
YouTube – See what the world is videoing
Flickr or Google Picassa – post and share your images
Google Maps – link content and locations see: www.soundfood.org
Any or all of these can be integrated into your blog site.
First, let’s back up and talk about what the goal of marketing really is.
Behind all of these concerns lie bigger issues of visibility and budget. Every business and every community service organization works with the same challenges.
We all want to influence our customer’s or audience’s behavior somehow; to use our services, to support our cause, to buy our products.
As a young man, I read Bertrand Russells’ Power: A New Social Analysis, in which, I recall discovering that power (influence in our case) is gained by doing things that are, at once,
For instance, if, in a community with an food shortage, I anonymously donate books on farming to the library, that’s a good thing, but won’t necessarily gain me power or influence in the daily functioning of the town. On the other hand, if I drove a truck full of food into the middle of town and started handing bags of rice to hungry people, I would immediately begin to enjoy increased influence in the community.
All three components are required. People televised on Jerry Springer or Cops are visible and unique, but not relevant to most of our lives and therefore gain little from their exposure. Anonymous givers gain no influence from their gifts (which makes them all the more worthy of the praise they will never receive).
We’ve got relevant and unique, now what?
Increasing visibility on decreasing budgets