How To Set up a Blog for Podcasting

Wednesday, November 1, 2006 - Crull Chambless

Blogging 101 & Podcasting Basis

Quick Examples

  1. www.direct2dell.com – A blog site giving customers direct access to thoughts from dell techies.
  2. www.microsoft.com – They provide a link from their home page to their feeds page. They provide a great number of feeds/blogs on many different subjects.
  3. www.mcdonalds.com – Links to their podcasts on home page. -- a number of podcasts providing all kinds of insight into the company, primarily from a corporate/investor perspective. Also to serve their owner/operators.
KEY PRINCIPLE -- in general, the most practical reason to add blogging to your business site
is to improve trust and improve customer relations, not to generate marketing buzz.

What is a Blog?
  1. A collection of relatively short articles
  2. Generally written in a casual, informal, personal voice
  3. Updated frequently (ideally at least once per week)
  4. Existing on a website
  5. Most often allowing comments and discussion
  6. Most often searchable and categorize-able
  7. Syndicated
    1. RSS – really simple syndication
    2. XML – extensible markup language. The language in which RSS feeds are written.
    3. Feed – blog softwares generate feeds which allow you to share your blog content out in a syndicated format.
KEY PRINCIPLE -- Even if you decide you don't want to publish a blog, you should at least
start reading blogs.

Blog reader software:
    1) www.google.com/reader
    2) www.bloglines.com
    3) www.feedreader.com
    4) Personalized start pages (google, yahoo, start.com)
    5) here is a site that lists several available rss readers -- http://www.rssspecifications.com/rss-readers.htm

What is a Podcast?
  1. A blog with media files attached
  2. The feed is most important
KEY PRINCIPLE -- You guessed it, the best way to learn more about podcasting is to
subscribe to podcasts.

Podcast subscription software:
  1. www.iTunes.com
  2. http://juicereceiver.sourceforge.net/index.php
  3. Here’s a link to a site that lists a lot of available podcast softwares - http://www.podcastingnews.com/topics/Podcast_Software.html
Why would I want to blog or podcast for my organization?
[from http://www.corporateblogging.info/basics/why/ ]
  1. Become the Expert
  2. Customer Relationships
  3. Media Relations
  4. Internal Collaboration
  5. Knowledge Management
  6. Recruitment
  7. Test ideas or products
  8. Rank high in Search Engines
Additionally,
  1. Position yourself and your company as the thought leader of your field
  2. Give the impression that your company is alive and active
  3. Turn your online presence into a vibrant and interactive domain
  4. Provide current information to your website visitors
  5. Improve customer relationships and satisfaction
  6. Improve search engine ranking for your site (especially if the blog is incorporated into your complete website)
What should I blog about?

STEP ONE -- CREATE A SINGLE BLOG WITHIN YOUR EXISTING COMPANY WEBSITE, to include:
  1. Press-release type announcements
  2. Industry insight or educational articles
  3. Special alerts/announcements
  4. Follow up to special events
  5. Articles that provide helpful insight to customers
  6. Articles that solicit feedback from customers
STEP TWO -- SEPARATE OUT NUMBERS 5 & 6 ABOVE TO A "CUSTOMER SUPPORT" BLOG AND PUT IT ON ITS OWN SITE

How do I do it?

Critical commitments for blogging:
  1. You must write in a human voice -- not a corporate tone (allow multiple writers if practical)
  2. You must post frequently -- striving for at least once per week
  3. You must take steps to create a conversation, not a monologue.
  4. You must link to useful resources elsewhere on the web.
What software should I use?

Software considerations:
  • Integration with design
  • Cost
  • Discussion / Moderation
  • Ease of use
Types of available software, their pros and cons, and examples:
  1. Free, stand-alone, hosted blogging software
    1. Free -- self-explanatory
    2. Stand-alone -- the software only does blogging and it does blogging completely separately from any other website or application.
    3. Hosted -- the software is hosted for you and you don't have to maintain it yourself.
    4. Pros
      1. Easiest, fastest, and cheapest way to get started blogging
      2. Great tools available, easy to use and of course, free.
    5. Cons
      1. It resides completely separate from your existing website
      2. It doesn't look at all like your existing website
      3. Designs are templated, not custom
      4. Used so commonly for personal blogging that this doesn't make you look like a legitimate organization -- you look like an individual.
      5. Don't get the benefit of SEO on your website.
    6. My favorites in this category – www.wordpress.com; www.blogger.com.
  2. Not-free, stand-alone, hosted blogging software
    1. Same as #1 but it costs
    2. Pros
      1. Good tools available
    3. Cons
      1. All the same cons as #1, plus it's not free
      2. Generally the features you get for the extra cost are not worth the cost (in my opinion).
    4. Examples -- www.typepad.com
  3. Deployed blogging software
    1. Deployed -- you download it and install it on your own servers and serve it to the internet yourself.
    2. Pros
      1. You have the ability to integrate into your website and integrate your design -- IF you know how.
    3. Cons
      1. You have to have a web server
      2. You have to have people who know how to configure and manage a webserver
      3. In order to integrate your designs, you have to have someone who knows how to skin the software.
      4. Though the software is sometimes free, there are still costs involved in the above.
    4. Examples -- www.wordpress.org
  4. Hosted, CMS Website software with Integrated blogging
    1. CMS -- content management system
    2. This is software that runs your whole website and has blogging built in as a piece of it.
    3. This is my recommended solution
      1. Pros
        1. Your blog exists as a seamlessly integrated part of your website
        2. Your blog runs in the same design scheme as your website
        3. Good, easy to use tools available
        4. Generally not free, but ongoing monthly costs replace your website hosting costs as everything is contained in one.
        5. No need for hosting your own servers or maintaining any IT staff
        6. Feeds and blogs generated automatically
        7. You have control over not only the blog but over all aspects of your website presence.
        8. You get the SEO benefit of having your blog residing in the same place as your website.
        9. You look like a corporate blog, not an individual blogger
      2. Cons
        1. There is a monthly cost involved and usually a set-up or design fee in order to get your website/blog setup initially
        2. Requires converting your existing website onto a new platform, which can take some initial effort.
      3. Examples – ImmerseEdit 2.0 - www.immerseme.com 

Feedburner

Great tool to use when you get started sharing feeds. Find them at www.feedburner.com.

Resources:

http://www.businessblogconsulting.com/category/articles_about_biz_blogging/
http://www.businessblogconsulting.com/
http://www.corporateblogging.info/
http://support.publishpath.com/cs/blogs/publishpathsupport/archive/2006/07/31/70.aspx
www.google.com/reader
www.wordpress.com
www.blogger.com
www.feedburner.com
www.technorati.com – search blogs

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