It’s official. The BIG CHEESE has taken his personal brand to another level. Not only has David LaPlante gained control over his domain by going from davidlaplante.typepad.com to davidlaplante.com, but he has also improved the originality and visual appeal of his design. He did it with the flexibility of Wordpress, which is empowering so many people and businesses in the realm of self-expression and sharing of information.

It is going to be difficult not to sound like I am kissing up to the boss, but know this, he wouldn’t want me to do this post. If I know him well enough, he will never be fully satisfied with it, and he will continue to tweak the navigation, the plugins, the design, and basically anything you can think of. Meanwhile, I am letting you know about it.

What is the impression you get upon visiting David’s blog? For one, you can certainly get a sense of what is important to him - social marketing, branding, entrepreneurship, family, skiing, Reno, Nevada, Tahoe, to name a few. Secondly, you get the impression that this is no ordinary CEO of a successful company with a global base of customers. He is not hiding behind the corporate veil. He is actively engaging the online community, sharing his ideas, and demonstrating his personality. He is inviting people to interact with him. He is building his network and seeking knowledge.

When I first started working at Twelve Horses there was no company blog. David actively encouraged its creation and even offered Twelve Horses’ servers and expertise if employees wanted to start their own. Since then, many employees have entered the blogosphere and have grown their networks, their knowledge-base, and their sense of themselves.

I for one feel that blogging is and will continue to play a significant role in the development of my life. I am constantly learning, and it’s really cool to have a CEO that will come into your office and show you a brand new widget, plugin, or social networking application like Twitter that he has found. The only irritating part is that I have a hard time finding them before he does.

To advise clients on the use of new technologies we have to be using them ourselves. We have to practice what we preach. It is why the environment at Twelve Horses is one of constant learning, collaboration, and change. And it is not specific to one department or set of employees. It is everyone, including the CEO.

So there you have it. Add David’s blog to your RSS Aggregator, bookmark it, remember it, do whatever you do to keep organized, because I suspect he has a few things to say in the days to come.

tags: David LaPlante, Twelve Horses, blog, social, networking, brand, Reno, Tahoe, Nevada

Yesterday, eMarketer issued an article titled, “Blog Reading Is a Free-Floating Affair,” which was based off of a report by Vizu Answers and Ad Age.

The research seems to indicate that the majority of people who read blogs find them from word-of-mouth or referrals in the form of links from one blog to another. eMarketer even goes so far as to say, “Thinking of promoting a blog through search? Don’t bother.”

While I agree that word-of-mouth and link referrals are important, discounting the power of search as it relates to blogs is frankly ridiculous. Just perform a search on any number of keywords and analyze the results. More than likely, you will find a number of different blogs covering those subjects.

The research Vizu conducted consisted of running questions on 40+ English language blogs between November 20th and December 4, 2006. It does not say what type of blogs they were. However….

• 65% of 268 respondents did say the number one reason why they read blogs is for Entertainment.
• 49% of 245 respondents said they don’t read blogs for work.
• Only 11% of 281 respondents comment on or write blogs

I get the distinct impression that the majority of these survey questions were not run on business blogs.

I only have to look at the web analytics for both Twelve Horses’ blog, as well as my own personal blog to see that search is extremely important.

In 2007 alone, Twelve Horses’ blog received more than 60% of its traffic from organic search. For the same time frame, my personal blog received more than 40% of its traffic from organic search.

Blogging software has become so powerful and so malleable that it is really just a matter of semantics when someone uses the word “blog.” Weblog, blog, website….whatever, who cares? Websites and blogs use the same programming language, and they are both indexed by major search engines. The difference is the voice.

I would venture to guess that some respondents in this survey would not even know whether they were on a site built with blogging software if it did not look like a traditional blog.

eMarketer does not believe you should promote a blog through search, but in fact that is the very thing that blogs do for businesses by default. Search engines love keyword rich content that is fresh and new. Once a blog is discovered, it is up to the producer of that blog to provide quality content to keep the visitor coming back.

Want to optimize your blog for search?

• Choose a domain name that relates to the primary product, service, or location your business operates in.
• Set-up a Sitemap
• Submit your blog to Technorati
• Write blog posts with relevant titles and rich content that both contain correlating keywords that people search to find what you offer.
• And yes, get other blogs and websites to link to your blog by reading others and continuing their conversations and demonstrating your individual expertise.

Surveys serve as great benchmarks and foundations for plotting future directions, but they are not always representative of the entire picture, and in some cases, inherently flawed.

tags: eMarketer, AdAge, weblog, blogging, search, software

Robert and I decided at the beginning of this year that we would risk our Technorati ranking and Google juice to switch from http://twelvehorses.typepad.com to a hosted WordPress solution at the domain name http://blog.twelvehorses.com. Since we are switching domain names, there is no clean way to retain our search rankings. However, we are confident that we can recoup them rather fast and we feel the benefits of WordPress out weight the risks of changing. Granted, all this could have been avoided had we just mapped a personal domain to typepad.com to begin with…doh! Anyway, here are our reasons for switching to WordPress in no particular order:

• Plugins - Plugins allow you to extend the functionality of the WordPress blogging software. An example of a plugin is the Google Sitemaps plugin. This plugin will create an XML file that the search engines (at least Google, Yahoo and MSN) can read. The files lists the pages in your site and how often they are updated. In this way, the search engines know what pages to add to their index. The plugin automatically recreates this XML file after each posts as well as pings Google to let them know of the update. Typepad.com has widgets, which are like plugins, but far fewer and they aren’t as easy to manipulate.
• Stability - I’m not willing to say that Typepad.com was highly unstable, but they have had a few issues over the few weeks. A hosted solution allows us to control the hosting environment. If we have stability issues, we can only blame ourselves.
• Expertise - We have implemented over a dozen blogs for businesses in the last few months, and they have all been on WordPress. We’ve learned some very cool tips, tricks, and knowledge and wanted to take advantage of that on our own blog.
• Flexibility - WordPress is much more flexible than Typepad.com. It can have multiple static pages - pages not in the chronological order of the blog - as well as do things like display a different look and feel for a post based off the category it’s in.

At the end of the day, we just feel more in control with the blog sitting on our servers. This perception gives us a more active role in the blogging process instead of treating it like a 3rd party site that needs to be maintained. I hope we don’t inconvenience too many other bloggers asking them to update their links, but this will be the only time.

I picked this up today off of Steve Rubel’s blog, but you can also get if from the horse’s mouth by visiting the Google Operating System Blog. 

As the lines between traditional media and consumer generated media continue to blur, this fact could not be further illustrated by the fact that the largest search engine is now actively generating and organizing results for blog posts.

Not only does Google offer a specific blog search engine, it also allows users to simply add the word, “blog” to the end of a search term entered into the normal search field, and it will trigger a “OneBox” to appear at the bottom of the results page. There you will find recent blog posts that are relevant to your search.

The OneBox has not been perfected yet, for it does not always appear; however, I suspect Google will get it right soon.

Google’s efforts not only demonstrate the importance of blogging, but it is also an excellent strategic move. If you have a blog and like to read other blogs, why use Yahoo or MSN?  

 tags: google, blog, search, onebox, traditional media, consumer generated media

Bill Marriott, CEO and Chairman of the Board for Marriott International, is now a blogger.  His first post is well written and insightful.  He admits that he’s not big on technology or the Internet, but that this tool can’t be ignored and he looks forward to using to to talk directly to his customers.  Someone over there gets it.

Not only is this another excellent use case for blogging, - after only two days, his blog ranks number three when you do a search on his name in Google - but I’m excited to hear his stories straight from him.  This could turn into a live autobiography.

The last element I’ll point out are the comments.  I’m sure they are heavily moderated and Mr. Marriott doesn’t reply to them directly (although he does answer them via an assistant).  However, they do post them live and not all are flattering.  Mr. Marriott’s goal is to talk directly to his customers.  You can’t talk directly to your customers without doing some listening.

I can’t wait to see who starts blogging next.

P.S. Thanks Myrna for the link.

Despite this blog utilizing TypePad, Robert and I are huge fans of the blogging software Wordpress.  We both use it for our personal blogs and recommend it to our clients.  Being the techy I am, I have wondered how to better utilize it to make for the best web experience, both for the content creator as well as the web site visitor.

Today, I read a blog post by Matt Mullenweg, the creator of the Wordpress software.  He links to a new site for Ford Motors that utilizes the Wordpress software.  The site is awesome.  It’s well designed and easy to navigate.  It makes use of Flash, RSS, tags, and all the built in bells and whistles that come with Wordpress.  Having first had experience with Wordpress, I know it was quick to implement and almost all the development time was probably spent on the design and messaging.

Lately, we’ve rolled out a few sites that use Wordpress as the content management system.  I hope to roll out more in the near future.  Matt, thanks for the software.

One of the most difficult aspects of blogging for business is continuously crafting posts that are relevant and valuable to readers. Providing good content that upholds the integrity of a brand is challenging; however, this could be the distinguishing factor between one business and another.

Twelve Horses takes its clients through the entire process of blogging from strategy to design and implementation to best practices. At the end, we let the client loose to post, and inevitably they need a certain amount of direction in regards to what constitutes a good post vs a bad post.

This is understandable. Before launching an external blog, Twelve Horses practiced the art of blogging with an internal blog long before interacting with the outside world. We are not perfect, but we’ve had some practice.

Here are a few tips:

• Consider your subject line carefully.
  • Will it entice someone to read your post?
  • Does it resonate with the reader?
  • Does it correspond with the actual post?
  • Does it describe a topic that someone might search upon?
• Write in short, distinct paragraphs.
  • A large body of text is quick to inspire boredom.
  • White space is good.
  • Say more with less.
• Do not blog for the sake of blogging.
  • If you cannot provide something of value then do not post.
  • Respect your readers by providing useful information and they will return again and again.
• Tone
  • In a conversation, a person can tell when you are disinterested with what you or they are saying. The same goes for a blog post.
  • Only write when you are in a positive mood.
• Style
• While blogging does offer the ability for a writer to practice a more informal style, posts should not appear incongruous.
• Use proper grammar to the best of your abilities.
• Approach your posts with the attitude that nothing your company produces should ever be considered sloppy.
• Do not blog in a vacuum.
• Blogging is about interacting with others, which means linking, citing, and continuing conversations.
• You will make it much more difficult to generate increasing traffic to your blog if you do not read other people’s blogs, as well as link to them.
• Have Fun
  • While blogging is a distinct strategy for businesses, it can also be quite fun.
  • Your enjoyment in sharing information and interacting with the outside world will shine through and people will respond positively.
  • Approach blogging with the attitude that it will take you and your company to the next level, because it can and will if you do it right.

Blog On!

tags: blogging for business

When I say local, I’m not just talking about Reno either.  Placeblogger.com has officially launched and is waiting for your blog to be entered.  Similar to NevadaBlogs.net, Placeblogger.com aggregates blogs by location to make it easier to find and disseminate information from a local perspective.  From their About Us page:

A placeblog is an act of sustained attention to a particular place over time
It can be done by one person, a defined group of people, or in a way that’s open to community contribution
It’s not a newspaper, though it may contain random acts of journalism
It’s about the lived experience of a place

I’m a huge fan of localized Internet.  It provides some relevance that sites going after a national or global audience lack.  I encourage everyone to add their blog now.

Looking back at 2006, I’m excited about the number of new blogs we’ve implemented for clients. It might be because I am so passionate about it, and it’s seemingly all I can talk about. But that doesn’t give enough credit to the intelligence of our clients. They see the value of communicating directly with their customers and the transparency involved. As an example, here are two new blogs that we are excited to introduce you to.

• Heavenly Ski Resort - Heavenly has been a customer of Twelve Horses longer then I’ve worked here (I’m going on my 7th year). In our most recent redesign of the site, a blog strategy made perfect sense. I won’t go into the details now as we’ve recently interviewed John Wagnon, Vice President of Marketing for Heavenly, and he does a much better job explaining the fit then I could. That podcast will be out next week.
• Cingular - John Coman owns and operates 5 Cingular stores in Reno. His web site was very basic and simply had the phone number and locations of his stores. Together, with John and his Director of Operations, Tyler Moss, we came up with a strategy to be the mobile authority of Reno. They feel that by localizing news and information about the mobile industry to the Reno area, they can help educate and bring up the level of knowledge here in town. This will help them show their expertise and be the de facto experts for all things cellular.

We have three more blogs in development that should be launching in January. I can’t wait to tell you guys about them so stay tuned.

1. Establish a branded url for your blog.
• For example, if your company’s name is Twelve Horses, then you will want to register blog.twelvehorses.com or twelvehorsesblog.com.
• Obviously, our blog url is twelvehorses.typepad.com. If we could go back in time, it would be done differently. But now we do not want to lose the valuable google juice we have built up for this url. Don’t make the same mistake!
2. Burn your blog’s branded url on Feedburner.
• Feedburner helps you manage your RSS feeds, and offers great stats on how many subscribers you have and Live Hits you are receiving.
• Once you burn your feed, take the feedburner url that they provide you, and change out the automatic feed with the Feedburner url. For example, in wordpress it is typically located in the header, sidebar, and footer.
• Now bloggers can easily subscribe to your feed and add it to their RSS aggregator of choice.
3. Add Google Analytics
• Google Analytics is a very robust and free site tracking software that will provide a detailed look at the traffic you are receiving to your blog.
• Sign up for a free account, and add the script Google provides you just above the <body> tag. For example, in wordpress you can simply put it in the Footer.
4. Begin Posting to your Blog
• You need to get some content on your blog.
• Get at least 3-5 posts down so that you demonstate some reason for bloggers to visit your site on a regular basis.
5. Submit your blog to Technorati.
• Technorati is a blogging search engine that allows you to tag your blog and your individual posts for greater search relevancy. It also shows you your overall ranking in relation to other blogs, and what other blogs link to you.
• Once you claim your blog on Technorati they will provide you with a piece of JavaScript to place on your blog (typically the sidebar).
• Technorati will recognize the code and immediately begin spidering the content on your blog.
6. Set-up a Sitemap
• Google started a site map program a while back, which is an xml file that maps out the content on your site and the frequency that it is updated.
• Last week Yahoo and Microsoft released support for Google Sitemap protocol, which now allows the top three search engines to easily index and spider your site’s content.
• For more information on sitemaps, as well as how to set one up, visit sitemaps.org.

These six steps will put you on the way to a successful blog strategy. Look out for a future blog post with more helpful tips to further your success.

tags: feedburner, technorati, google analytics, sitemap, blogging tips and steps, blog strategy, twelve horses