Northeastern University recently released a study on business blogging, coming up with 5 factors of success for business blogging.

Those 5 factors include:

1. Culture
2. Transparency
3. Time
4. Dialogue
5. Entertaining Writing Style and Personalization

All of these are critical points of interest for anyone thinking about starting a business blog.

One idea I would propose is a group business blog where multiple contributors are involved. Even a small business with 5 employees can pull this off; get all 5 employees blogging regularly — that shows culture, obvious transparency, and creates dialogue. The time factor (of being too busy) is less of an issue because there are multiple people responsible for blogging, and with each unique voice you’re bound to get a ton of entertaining content and see real personalities shine forth.

Back to the report — they interviewed a bunch of business bloggers and highlight the success factors for a number of great business blogs, including:

• SuccessFactors
• Stonyfield Farms
• Stone Creek Coffee
• Mississippi Hospital Association
• Gourmet Station
• Conference Calls Unlimited
• BzzAgent

Go check out the report on business blogging then come on back and see what Business Blogs Now can do for you!

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Tags: business blog, weblog, business blogging, corporate blog, corporate blogging, blog success, great business blogs, business strategy, online marketing

Ted Demopoulos has a funny (but important) story on why local businesses need blogs.

He was searching for the phone number of his lawyers.

He rents office space from them — he could have walked upstairs to see them. Instead, he went looking online just like millions of other people do when they’re looking for local information.

When I need the phone # of a local business — including taxi service, restaurants, etc. — the first thing I do is search online. Often I’ll use the Yellow Pages online service, Canada411, but Google is still preferred.

Ted eventually did walk upstairs (go Ted!) but as he points out, “…what if I was looking for an attorney to help me? I never would have known they exist.”

A blog can increase the findability of your business many times over.

And in a sea of lazy people who don’t want to get up from their computers (no offense Ted!), and who instinctively type “www.google.com” when they want to find something, your ability to be found and stand out from the crowd is crucial to your business success.

Tags: ted demopoulos, business blog, weblog, blogs, corporate blog, corporate blogging, business blogging, local searches, google

From the Web Chef comes some information on a study recently completed about small businesses in the United States. They’ve got some statistics on blogging that are interesting:

• Only 13% of owners/managers read blogs related to their business.
• Only 7% maintain a blog for their business.

Ouch. Those numbers are way too low.

Blogs can be a great resource of information for your industry…even if only 7% of the people in your industry are actually blogging. Wait till that number goes up!

Even with the lack of small business blogging, bigger players are blogging, as are industry associations, research companies, etc. — and the information is free, easy to find and can be extremely helpful for running your business.

Tracking / reading blogs is a great way of getting the pulse of your industry. It’s great for competitive research (call it spying if you want!)

More small business owners need to be blogging. I suspect we’ll see a marked increase in the percentages of small business bloggers in 2007.

Tags: small business, blogging, blogs, weblog, small business blogging, online research, industry research

The popularity of real estate agent blogs is growing. In the book What No One Ever Tells You About Blogging and Podcasting, Ted Demopoulos has at least 1 story of real estate agents blogging to raise their local profile and provide value add services to their customers.

And not surprising, there’s a website design company focused strictly on real estate agents. FamousAgents.com is a niche web design company for real estate agents. What’s great is that they’ve got an active blog with all sorts of useful business blogging content - for real estate agents and others.

I’ve heard numerous times from business people, “Blogging sounds interesting but what would I write about?

Um…take a look at The Ultimate List of Content Ideas for REALTORs. Go through that list and tell me after that if you can’t think of something to write about. FamousAgents.com has served it up on a silver platter for real estate agents and it’s a great example of what business bloggers can do with a bit of preparation, creativity and passion.

Tags: real estate blogging, corporate blogging, business blogging, corporate blogs, business blogs, famous agents

Business blogging might not be suited for every business in every industry. But with a bit of creativity and thought, you can find lots of value in corporate blogging across many industries.

Take health professionals as an example. They’re blogging in increasing numbers, and there’s even a book written specific to the industry by Dale Hunscher titled, Business Blogging For Health Professionals.

And on December 11, 2006 there will be the first-ever conference on business blogging for health professionals in Washington, DC. Check out the information on the Healthcare Blogging Summit 2006.

The benefits of blogging for health professionals are similar to those gained by others. Each industry might initially say, “I don’t see the value,” but with a bit more education and guidance it becomes obvious.

Dale writes a good post titled Why a Business Blog? Again, he’s speaking to health professionals but the reasons apply across the board:

…business blogging is much more: it is a state-of-the-art medium for professional communication that empowers you to build a professional practice and enhance your reputation in your field.

Reasons to blog:

1. Exchange ideas, insights, techniques, and horror stories with others in your profession.
2. There is no faster or easier way to build a website for your professional practice.
3. Show off your knowledge, skill, and compassion for future employers to see.
4. Buiild credibility with your current and future clientele.
5. Give your patients or clients a 24/7/365 way to benefit from your professional wisdom and skills.

I suspect we’ll see more and more industries get onboard with blogging, creating niche content, holding conferences (or unconferences!) and generally uniting to explore the value of corporate blogging for themselves.

Tags: business blogging, business blogs, corporate blogging, corporate blogs, dale hunscher, health professionals, healthcare blogging summit, health blogging