A great way to build your brand online is through blogging.
My favourtite and the only blogging platforms I recommend:
TypePad - get your blog up and running today – you don’t even need a webdesigner. I use TypePad to hist my Women in Business podcast.
Wordpress – open source (free) software that enables you to host your blog on your corporate website which is the strategy I would recommend if you want to enhance your search engine rankings of your corporate website, increase the opportunity of being found online and add content easily and quickly without knowing any HTML code.
Blog training that I recommend so you can your enhance your skills in blogging:
If you are using TypePad, I highly recommend my good friend Andy Wibbels Business Blog Basics programme to get your started, followed by Easy Bake Weblogs (the course that got me started blogging, and if you are really going for it, progress to Andy’s Six Figure Blogging programme.
If you want to use Wordpress and install it on your website Wordpress Tutorials by Sherman Hu provides you with great video tutorials you you can DIY.
How do you ensure that your blog is found by people who are interested in the content you write about?
Then you need to register your blog at blog directories.
Disclaimer: Please note that these directories may change ownership or may cease to exist. If you note that there is a problem with the link I provide, do let me know and I will update this list.
Here are a few of my favourites:
Blogher – where women bloggers are
Delightful Blogs – cutting through the blog smoke
I Blog Business – a directory of corporate and business blogs
And if you are interested to know who else is blogging for and about business, check out the following lists:
Business Podcasts – companies who are using podcasting as part of their communication strategy
CEO Blogs - a list of CEO’s and business leaders from across the globe who blog
Corporate Blogs – a list of corporate organisations who blog
Government Blogs – a list authored by govenment organisations or people in official capcacities with governments across the globe
Product Blogs – a list of blogs about products
If you are interested in trends in blogging:
Blog Pulse is an automated trend discovery system for blogs. Access trends and statistics from the blogosphere.
Technorati provides you a great resource to find out what is happening in the blogosphere. You can create a list of your favourite blogs, and don’t forget to claim your own blog at Technorati.
How do you subscribe to blogs you want to follow?
If there is no email subscription field usually rovided through Feedburner or Feedbitz on a blog, you need to grab the RSS (really simple sindication feed).
Bloglines is a server-based RSS aggregation system. Bloglines allows people to subscribe to these feeds. Bloglines will monitor updates on those sites for you – you need to first register on their site here.
