Many people think of a business blog as a way of advertising your business. It is. But the content of the blog doesn’t have to be focused on your company, its services, its successes, etc.

In fact, more and more business blogs are more loosely tied with the core business from the perspective of services, offerings and certainly from sales pitches.

Business blogs can do so much more than be glorified sales pitches:

1. Highlight your brand, uniqueness and identity
2. Give consumers an inside look into what you’re about and what you care about
3. Provide information resources to earn trust and respect

iMedia Connection has a good review of two business blogs run by Wells Fargo. The first, The Studen LoanDown is all about college financing and financial aid. I’m sure Wells Fargo gives out student loans by the bucketload, but they don’t overly brand the side or emphasize their services.

They’ve picked a specific topic, one that smartly targets a younger audience (heavy into blog reading), and they’re developing a good information product. Yes, there are plenty of links back to Wells Fargo, but this isn’t Wells Fargo talking about Wells Fargo.

Incidentally, if you’re interested in the subject of financial aid and student loans go check out Chris Penn’s podcast The Financial Aid Podcast.

The second Wells Fargo blog is called Guided by History, which focuses on disaster relief. This is a far cry from any Wells Fargo-related services, but it helps to accomplish point #2 above — show customers and prospects what you care about, and why they should care about you.

A successful business blog can focus on any number of secondary topics or corollary subjects to your core business. It gives business owners the opportunity to spread their wings, expand their brand and get into the world without having to be hammering home a sales pitch every second of the day.

Tags: wells fargo, imedia connection, business blogging, corporate blogging, business blogs, corporate blogs, weblogs, sales, branding, business success

Take a look at CEO BlogWatch.

Brandon, the publisher, states the blog’s goal simply:

My goal is to make CEO BlogWatch the first official chronicle of corporate and CEO blogs.

A couple of great posts, include:

• GoDaddy’s CEO & His Censorship Woes
• The Weekly Whip - Corporate Blogs in Focus

CEO BlogWatch is a great way to get a handle on what others are doing in the blogging world. And while the bulk of the content and references are related to big business, there’s absolutely no reason smaller companies, solopreneurs and budding business folk can’t learn a ton from what the big boys are doing.

Tags: ceo blogwatch, corporate blogs, business blogs, blogging, weblog, ceos

Easton Ellsworth at Business Blogwire points us to a report published by Edelman on the value of blogging on an international scale.

If you don’t think the world is paying attention to blogs, you’re dead wrong. In fact, Steve Rubel points out in his summary of the report that 74% of Japanese read blogs. In the US, it’s 27%. And it would seem in Asia it’s influencers that read blogs, which means those blogs are having more impact on the mainstream.

Although I’m curious why they didn’t look at blogging in Canada (don’t worry, I’m not offended) the report is a great summary of blogging overall, and how it can play a huge role internationally. Tons of small businesses and entrepreneurs work internationally, so this report shouldn’t just be taken into consideration by big, multinational organizations.

Tags: business blogwire, business blogging, business blogs, weblogs, edelman, steve rubel