The RSS Feed is one of those key underlying technologies in a blog that can do a huge number of things for us and yet most of us, myself included, are still only scratching the surface with it.

Its main use is of course to give your readers a secure and immediate way of receiving your latest posts by subscribing to your RSS feed through an RSS Reader. Nevertheless, with so many internet users still unfamiliar with RSS in spite of its many benefits, I always recommend also offering the option of subscribing to the RSS feed via email as well.

The easiest way to offer this is by using a third party supplier. Feedburner, for example, provides you with the code to create a basic sign up form on your blog and then visitors can use to subscribe to receiving your blog updates automatically via email. A similar service is provided by Feedblitz and Zookoda.

Normally, you receive these on a daily basis as posts are published. However, there is another provider, Aweber, which gives you the option to take that one step further and effectively create a newsletter with your posts.

Aweber is probably best known as an autoresponder and email service provider along the lines of Constant Contact and Vertical Response. However, last year, they also launched a service called Blog Broadcast which essentially delivers your blog posts via email but also offers other features in as well. As you would expect from a company which specialises in email and newsletter delivery, this is includes a range of templates to control the look of the emails sent out, personalisation of aspects of the message and title, and tracking of links or ads.

In addition, as of this week, they have added a scheduling feature to the service. This means that you can now use the service to send out your posts on a schedule which suits you and your readers rather than one decided by the software. For example, you can now automatically send your readers a newsletter every week or every month by email with all of your posts. A great way to use emails to help support your blog.

Granted this is not a free service but the additional benefits that this gives you are certainly worthwhile and particularly if you also use the other services it offers. For example, I use the autoresponder to deliver my Business Blogging eCourse and you can also use the email broadcast system to send other ezines or general communication to your readers.

So, if you want to do more than simply send out each post as you make it or you’re looking for an automated way to publish a newsletter to your list of readers, then this might well be worth looking at.

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Once again the time has come to put the keyboard to one side for a few days so this will be my last post before Christmas and for a few days - family duties call! I will, however, be posting between Christmas and the New Year and planning my own blogging ahead in 2008 to try to see where blogging and social media will be fitting into the business fabric over the next 12 months.

There will also be a very important series lasting most of the year which will be looking at blog promotion and general business marketing which I will be giving you more details of in the New Year.

For now, though, I’d like to really thank all of you who have been reading and commenting on Better Business Blogging during the course of this year - it certainly has been very inspiring to have had the opportunity to talk to so many of you, mainly online but also face to face, and I hope I will be able to meet more of you during the coming year.

A very Merry Christmas 2007, Happy Holidays and a Peaceful Festive Season to you!

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To say that I’m not a fan of Blogger is probably understating things a bit - when it comes to business blogs, their system is certainly way down the list of blogging platforms that I’d choose or recommend.

However, when it comes to their owner Google, then as part of their foray into the world of blogging, Blogger is a crucial part. Firstly, in spite of my reservations, they certainly helped the personal blogger (and splogger - but that’s a different story) by buying and developing Blogger when blogging was still something that the general public knew nothing about and businesses had never considered them as a serious marketing tool.

After that, they introduced a blog specific search engine which, although it doesn’t match Technorati in the level of information that it offers, is still blog specifc and is updated very quickly through pinging. Recently, they have also bought Feedburner which is the preeminent RSS tool - a key element of blogs around the world.

So what have they done now? Well, in many respects, nothing as innovative as the elements that I have mentioned above, but nevertheless, something which is significant … although it may not sound it. They have added blogs to their universal search engine.

So what is good about that? Well firstly, this is the selection that you can make on Google’s homepage which currently allows you to choose images, news, maps … etc or others. In the near future, you should also be able to choose blogs as well as an individual “category”. This is a real change and step forward for blogs because of the preeminence and influence that Google has as a Search Engine which will in its turn benefit blogs more than simply having the blog search engine as a separate entity.

So, yet again, Google leads the way in terms of accessing and referencing blogs … so let’s take advantage of the elements that they offer and use them to our advantage!

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Some articles which have appeared in the UK online press over the past week which looks at blogging (primarily business blogging) and its uses. If you find any good articles that could be highlighted here, then please post the links below or send them to me directly at mark[at]betterbusinessblogging[dot]com and I’ll do the rest.

Thousands of bloggers unite in blitz of green tips
The Blog action Day on the 15th October seems to have been a success with thousands of bloggers participating and raising awareness on climate change and environmental issues.

Should blogging be on your marketing to-do list?
I think we know that the answer is yes, but this is a nice gentle introduction to one aspect of how blogs can be used while recognising the range of opportunities they offer.

B2B journalists turn to blogs for info
Another insight into how journalists view blogs and whether they are using then and the information they offer to best effect.

Blogs give business a global reach
While I really can’t recommend then Google Translation tool which suffers from the same shortcomings as other online tools, there are some other good comments here.

Blogging is good for business if you have something to say
Good pieces of advice here from Jim Kendall. Remember that blogging is like talking to people - if you don’t have anything worthwhile to say, it’s often best to keep quiet and listen until you do.

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Last year, there was lots of talk about fake blogs (aka “flogs”) and one or two notables (“Walmarting across America” and “All I want for Xmas is a PSP” particularly come to mind) which rose up above the flog mediocrity to be truly awful. There were also some high profile companies amongst them and both they and the marketing companies which initiated them on their behalf were roundly berated by the blogosphere as a whole, and the blogs (or should I say flogs) quickly closed down and withdrawn.

Generally this is the way that the blogosphere has policed its own. However, in Europe, as from the start of next year, the courts are lending a hand as a new EU directive comes into play which would make this type of activity punishable by law as reported in The Times early this year and The Register more recently.

In fact, the Directive is not specifically designed for blogs, fake or otherwise. It casts its net much wider than this and is concerned generally with media where someone “falsely represents themselves as a consumer”. In the online world, these could be testimonials on websites, book reviews on Amazon, reviews on hotel or holiday sites or presumably any online media including forums, blogs etc. where organisations leave favourable comments under a false name to try to influence other consumers.

So, while it’s encouraging to see the European Union leading the way in anything to do with “online”, a couple of things come to mind.

Firstly, is this something that is really necessary either in its proposed form or indeed at all? Is it not possible to maintain a type of self regulation which the blogosphere has shown itself to be particularly adept at when it feels that companies have overstepped the mark.

Secondly, I also worry that the whole thing is quite “un-policeable” with the huge number of online areas where this type of thing could be going on … and of course if cases are not followed up then why attempt external policing in the first place?

However, what is clear is that this is a very open confirmation of the importance and influence of Word of Mouth and, by implication, of “Word of Blog” as one of its principal online incarnations. So make sure that you don’t overstep the boundaries and fall foul of the law, but at the same time do make sure that you are using your blog to support and develop your online Word of Mouth and marketing activities as a whole.

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Some articles which have appeared in the UK online press over the past week which looks at blogging (primarily business blogging) and its uses. If you find any good articles that could be highlighted here, then please post the links below or send them to me directly at mark[at]betterbusinessblogging[dot]com and I’ll do the rest.

Thousands of bloggers unite in blitz of green tips
The Blog action Day on the 15th October seems to have been a success with thousands of bloggers participating and raising awareness on climate change and environmental issues.

Going the Whole Blog: The Benefits of Social Networking
Jackie Cameron explaining why blogging and social networking work so well together for her and in her work. Nice personal account.

Newlyn processor joins seafood ‘bloggers’
Another sector looks at blogging for a range of different uses - and it’s good to see a sector such as this trying blogging. As the article states, “It’s a great example of using modern technology to promote the industry in an unusual and engaging way”. I can think of some other industries that would do well to follow the example.

Slow Starters: Blogging in the Building Industry
As Phil Clark so eloquently puts it, “The construction world isn’t exactly full of bloggers, but if even Sir Terry Farrell is chatting away online these days, it might be time to start taking it all a bit more seriously.” A second hurrah!

Playing Footsie with bloggers
CEOs should be considering whether corporate blogs are important - a little controversial in places but underlines the potential influence that blogging has in business and people’s perception of businesses if nothing else

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Well, clearly Amazon believes that they have an important role to play in guiding potential customers to their site. They have just launched a series of widgets that bloggers and online social network users will be able to use, primarily as part of Amazon’s affiliate program.

And just why is this avenue so important to retail organisations? The reason is that the personal recommendation is a powerful tool for retailers - in fact probably THE most important one they have if used correctly. Quite simply, we all rely very heavily on the opinion of friends or colleagues that we trust when making a buying decision.

Online word of mouth, as I mentioned in Blogs, Peer Review and the Retail Market, holds enormous sway with customers and is going to be increasingly important. This is primarily down to the massive increase in the levels of online communication via blogs and social networks. But, importantly, this is not only the case with the so called Generation Y but with people of all ages as the increasing average user age of both MySpace and now Facebook is clearly demonstrating.

So as a small business looking at retailing online, what can you do? Well, we will be looking at this in more detail next week as part of the Small Business Series on Better Business Blogging. But in the meantime, take a leaf out of the “big boys” book and think about making your own widget which you can distribute yourself to help publicise your online shop or products.

For some ideas on creating widgets yourself, have a look at All about Widgets which is an excellent start point - it will also direct you to places and resources that you really should visit.

In the meantime, try to keep an eye on what the main players in your own market sector are doing and, where possible, employ similar tactics to raise your own profile!

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Firstly, a thousand apologies for being a little quiet of late - I wish that I could blame it on a long summer break but alas it’s been a case of catching up on work having over stretched myself over the past weeks on a number of fronts. I guess there’s always a balancing act in managing all the elements of running a small business world and sometimes the seesaw just tips too far one way or the other.

I’ve also been taking the time to catch up on some reading as well as planning some of the elements that I want to write about here. So I thought that I would share those with you.

In amongst the other posts, there will be two short series over the coming weeks focusing on Specific small business uses for Blogs and also on RSS.

Specifically, for the Small Business series, I’ll be trying to look at:

• Blog websites rather than simple blogs for small businesses
• Blogs as a Search engine optimisation aid for local search
• Blogs complementing a small business’s online shop
• Internal blogs as intranet alternative

The RSS series will address:

• RSS made simple
• Benefits of RSS for the publisher
• Benefits of RSS for the subscriber
• RSS working for small businesses
• Marketing with RSS

Hopefully both will have elements which will be of interest. I’m certainly looking forward to getting back to the blog this week and starting the series next week, so hope you’ll tag along!

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Some articles which have appeared in the UK online press over the past week which looks at blogging (primarily business blogging) and its uses. If you find any good articles that could be highlighted here, then please post the links below or send them to me directly at mark[at]betterbusinessblogging[dot]com and I’ll do the rest.

Welcome to our new look site
Clearly convinced of the medium, Technology Guardian has relaunched and redesigned their blog as part of their overall site rebranding apparently taking it from Web 1.5 to Web 2.0. So I guess that’s only half a redesign then?

Blogging is ten, maybe twelve, or twenty-four years old
A little bit of navel gazing on just where this blogging thing came from and how old it might be together with a reference to the Wall Street Journal’s article “Happy Blogiversary which discusses it further.

Air Cargo Blog Goes Live
Feels a little bit like the guest publication round from “Have I got News for You” but Air Cargo News has launched its blog with its coverage of ‘every major issue affecting the Air Cargo industry’. Link to the Air Cargo blog here. Good luck to them , I say!

Playing by modern marketing rules
Interesting short piece from “Director of Finance Online” which acknowledges the change (and need for change) in advertising and marketing practices with new media forging ahead.

Builder’s blog to report on progress
Nice use for business blogs from an unexpected source in that technology hotspot that is Norfolk. Builders keeping clients updated on building work and asking for feedback - whatever next?

How blogs and social networking sites can be used to commercial advantage
Good piece looking at a BT roundtable event which looked at blogs and social networking sites as well as BT’s BTTradespace offering.

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Some articles which have appeared in the UK online press over the past week which looks at blogging (primarily business blogging) and its uses. If you find any good articles that could be highlighted here, then please post the links below or send them to me directly at mark[at]betterbusinessblogging[dot]com and I’ll do the rest.

The 50 best business blogs
I’d have to take issue with the title of this blog but there are some excellent ones in there along with at leastone that probably doesn’t even deserve the name “blog”, but there that’s probably me being fractious. If you spot them, leave me a comment! :0

The best business blogs - the readers strike back
Clearly had comments back about their original list but we really need to be getting a few more from the UK in here - also I have issues with semantics about what a business blog really is. Looks like some people want it to be a blog about business topics such as leadership, productivity etc. Absolutely not a pre-requisite for a business blog in my opinion.

Blogging smashes job prospects
Comes back to being sensible - in a business world, if you are not prepared to stand by what you say, then you’re better off not saying it at all. Surely that’s an important rule on or off line?

Buyers look to blogs for advice
It seems that both blogs and their social media partner, podcasts, are having a larger impact on buyers of HR services than traditional forms of advertising.

Pupils lead the way with blogging
… and who are tomorrow’s consumers and corporate employees?

Blog lets you hone business ideas
Another interesting way of using blogs in business, I feel.

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