The concept of the authentic marketing voice isn’t new; however, it is still catching on. While some popular marketing professionals write blogs, such as Steve Rubel (www.micropersuasion.com) and Johnnie Moore (www.johnniemoore.com/blog), here we are interested in blogs created specifically for marketing purposes. Some companies use blogs as one of their only means of marketing. One company that uses blogs for marketing is English Cut (www.englishcut.com), which was helped along its way by popular marketing thinker and blogger Hugh Macleod (www.gapingvoid.com). London tailor Thomas Mahon has created quite a stir; in fact, largely thanks to his blog, he is one of the most well publicized tailors in Savile Row history, having been featured in dozens of magazines and newspapers. The power of this blog is simple: it talks about that which is often considered unattainable, $5000 custom-made suits, as if such things are perfectly normal and totally necessary. Mahon and Macleod don’t pull any punches: the suits are expensive.

What keeps readers’ interest is that they can tell that Mahon and Macleod sincerely love the tailor’s craft as well as that simplest of joys: putting a smile on a customer’s face. The English Cut is chock-full of talk about how suits are made and marketed and lessons learned. As such, this young blog is a great mixture of the barber (offering his wisdom on his industry), the blacksmith (publicly talking about the secrets of his trade), and the pub (providing a place for people to talk about, and relate experiences with, custom-made suits). They key to producing successful marketing blogs is to learn to give. The English Cut not only gives away precious information, but it even gives away suits (on occasion). While it is an anomaly in the tailoring industry, this blog is used to create relationships and to make Mahon’s company seem very human and down-toearth. Having marketers run similar projects is great as long as those marketers understand the medium of blogging.

PULLING IT TOGETHER

Aggregation is the act of pulling multiple sources into a single destination, and an aggregation blog, which pulls multiple blogs together into one, can be a powerful, if simple, way for companies to become an information source in their industry. You can become a thought-leader in your industry in a variety of ways, and although the most effective way is to lead with your own thoughts, many companies have begun turning to aggregation blogs as a means of at least providing leading thoughts to their customers. A successful aggregation blog takes information from a variety of feeds (official mainstream media, prominent blogs, and company blogs) to provide an overview of what is happening in the industry. You might call this the “Industry News” section of your website. While it isn’t as powerful or trust-creating as having a barber or blacksmith blog, this newspaper/signpost style of blogging can have value for a company. It shows that you know your industry, know the players, and value feedback, which is especially good if you actually do know the industry, know the players, and value feedback. Here are some tips on creating a successful aggregation blog:

• Choose your sources well. In this style of blog, the only real control you have over the content is whether you choose to publish individual posts from your sources. So the higher quality (and more aligned with your values) those sources are, the better.

• Do other blogs. Having an aggregation blog is a good start, but it doesn’t really allow you to interact with your particular audience. It’s a good way to test the waters and make sure the software works, but you can use many more powerful ways to embrace blogging than simply being an information source.

• Provide a personal viewpoint. If you are going to use blogs to provide information for your customers, you should be providing your own point of view as well. As such, CEO blogs and staff blogs are powerful tools to augment your aggregation blog and the best posts from these fantastic companyowned sources can be included in the aggregation blog.

STAFF BLOGS: FROM THE HORSE’S MOUTH

Staff blogs can be among the sharpest tools in your company’s toolbox. Good staff blogs can influence your industry, improve your customers’ experiences, and empower your staff to help people. While a CEO, executive, and business owner often look at the big picture, a staff blogger can blog about day-to-day challenges and victories. If the blogger is a software developer, as many of the earliest staff bloggers were and still are, she’ll often blog about code snippets, the status of new technology, and new and innovative things she is learning. If he’s a chef, he’ll talk about new recipes, tips for success, and what he’ll put on the menu when he opens his own restaurant. If she’s in marketing, she’ll talk about new marketing techniques, ways to encourage real conversations, and the value of transparency. Staff bloggers love to blog because it empowers them to help themselves, their companies, and their customers. Staff bloggers are the quintessential blacksmith bloggers they share information and experience and encourage others to do the same, and together everyone learns more than they would on their own. It’s a little bit like any successful team endeavor: everyone works hard, and everyone eventually gets out more than they put in. Encouraging staff blogging means ceding control and empowering your staff to communicate directly with the public, which is one of the reasons clear blogging policies are so important. This article’s appendix includes an example of a blogging policy. Employers have also tailored their policies to their employees.

IBM, for example, allowed employees to write their own blogging policy. The result was a fair and balanced dictum for empowerment that laid out the ground rules but also encouraged employees to take risks. Your company’s blogging policy should be unique. If you are in a highly competitive industry, you may not want your staff blogging about what is happening on a day-to-day basis. You may not want your staff to deal directly with client issues, so your policy may strongly recommend that they route those issues to a customer service or technical support team. The reality is that for most businesses, staff blogs will exist whether or not they are approved. Encouraging them means leveraging their strengths. Discouraging them may mean losing good employees over a simple matter of communication and trust.

IN THE HANDS OF A SPECIALIST

Specialist blogs cross a number of lines. In many ways, they are staff blogs with the inside scoop. They are also like CEO blogs in that they don’t typically deal with day-to-day things, but are often in big picture mode. As such, specialist bloggers such as PR and marketing people, managers in areas such as IT and customer service, business development professionals, and consultants overall tend to mix the approachable style of staff bloggers with the influential status of CEO, executive, and business owner blogs. For example, hundreds (if not thousands) of successful PR and marketing bloggers are publishing their work every day. These folks have started their own knowledge repository at TheNewPR/ Wiki (www.thenewpr.com), which includes interviews and essays. It also hosts the annual New PR Blog Week, in which the world’s leading PR and marketing professionals contribute valuable essays on topics that matter to them. Not to be outdone, business professionals host a variety of events on their blogs.

The Carnival of the Capitalists (www .elhide.com/solo/cotc.htm) is a weekly event with contributions by the top business minds who happen to blog on the Business Blog Article Tour (www.apennyfor.com/bbbt/), which is a monthly event in which leading business authors contribute to important business blogs. Every industry has leading blogs, and having your bloggers among the more high-profile members of the blogging industry is never a bad thing. These specialist bloggers are one part barber, one part blacksmith, two parts bridge, with just a pinch of signpost and newspaper thrown in for good measure.

They are personable, knowledgeable, relationship-driven people who are full of valuable information that they are more than willing to share. Encouraging successful specialist bloggers is as easy as saying, “Hey, have you thought of starting a blog?” Most individuals in these professions are already aware of blogging and its influence, and they just need a gentle nudge to get involved. That isn’t to say that being a specialist blogger is easy. In an evergrowing pool of experts, only the remarkable get noticed which is one of the reasons having company support is so valuable. Very few specialist bloggers actually blog from within a company; most are independent and own their time. Supporting and encouraging existing professionals in these areas will not only set them apart, but will provide a unique perspective that will make them better bloggers.

WRAPPING IT UP

In many ways, this article has been unusual. Instead of examining many of the ways you could use blogs practically, I’ve chosen to look at external blogs from a “mindset” or “personality” perspective. It’s entirely likely that you see the benefit of nearly all of these profiles, and that you can even identify with a handful of them. The realty is that bloggers aren’t some predefined list of personalities any more than regular people are. Blogs are a reflection of the people who write them, and bloggers are people who have a place to express their voice, thoughts, opinions, and knowledge. Using blogs as marketing tools for your business is really all about letting people be themselves in a public space. It can be scary, exciting, and challenging. One of the biggest challenges is knowing what to expect, and hopefully the personalities and examples in this article have provided food for thought in terms of how you believe your company can blog for success. The best way to find out how people think isn’t to observe them you must ask them. The best way to engage someone isn’t through a survey it’s through a question. And the best way to establish real communications the two-way variety, which is where you will find the most value is through a two-way medium. In the next article, we’ll take a look at internal blogging why companies do it, what types of internal blogs exist, and how you go about launching a successful internal blog. Later articles cover how to start blogging, how to track what bloggers are saying, and the future of blogging.