For those of you who are thinking about taking the entrepreneurial plunge, check out Marcelo's blog post:
http://www.seattle20.com/blog/The-Ultimate-Guide-for-the-New-Entrepreneur-in-Seattle.aspx
FYI, will be at Northwest Entrepreneur Network Venture Breakfast just prior to 1st UW Advanced Interactive Marketing Program class - join me to hear Stuart Jamieson of Slipstream at
http://www.nwen.org/index.php?option=com_events&Itemid=15&id=174
Will race you to class (just so you know, I have turbo),
Bart Pestarino
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Mommy Blogs
Mommy Blogs
Source: http://bx.businessweek.com/mommy-blogs/
Mommy blogs are increasingly becoming one of the more powerful genres of blogging on the Web. With companies courting mom bloggers for endorsements on everything from shampoo to family vacations, it's no wonder mom blogging is growing by leaps and bounds and shows no signs of slowing.
Mommy Blogs is part of Business Exchange, suggested by Jennifer James. This topic contains 38 news and 22 blog items. Read updated news, blogs, and resources about Mommy Blogs. Find user-submitted articles and comments on Mommy Blogs from like-minded professionals. less
-----------------------------
My Favorite Mommy (and Daddy) Blogs
Source: http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/12/18/my-favorite-sites/?pagemode=print
December 18, 2008, 8:43 am
By Lisa Belkin
This is the 100th post I have written for Motherlode.
To celebrate, I thought I’d introduce you to some of the blogs and Web sites I visit daily, places where smart, eloquent people are sharing wisdom about parenting. This list is by no means complete. And it grows daily. So keep sending me suggestions and I will write about new-found gems every once in a while.
My web trawling falls into three categories. There are service sites, places like iVillage, Motherhood Later Rather Than Sooner (a resource for older mothers), UrbanBaby, BabyCenter, The Juggle (the life/work balance blog at the Wall Street Journal), OnParenting (the parenting blog at the Washington Post) and Please Stop the Roller Coaster (for the parents of teens) — all of which are intended to be newsy and informative.
There are blogs that showcase a variety of essayists — among my favorites are Babble (particularly the essay section), Mommy Track’d and the Moms Blog (which is subdivided into such destinations as NYC Moms, 50 Something Moms, and Deep South Moms).
And, finally, there are the personal blogs — one parent, chronicling his or her life, and teaching the rest of us in the process.
A few are mega-sites, places that thousands of other readers have discovered:
Ree Drummond’s Pioneer Woman, where she writes about the life of a city girl who married a cowboy and now raises four children on a cattle ranch (a very large, profitable cattle ranch, but still, it’s a ranch…).
Heather Armstrong’s Dooce, where she’s spent four years telling us about raising her daughter, Leta, and very photogenic dog, Chuck, (and, more recently, puppy Coco), and where lately the talk has been of morning sickness and her fear of the return of the postpartum depression that led to her hospitalization after Leta was born.
And Stephanie Klein’s Greek Tragedy, which started out, eons ago, as her way to get over a very messy divorce, and chronicled her new marriage and the arrival of her twins (who came so early and so quickly that her husband “held her hand” by phone from 1,500 miles away).
A few are somewhat less trafficked:
I need a daily dose of Mama Is, by cartoonist Heather Cushman-Dowdee. She has been the artist behind Hathor the Cow Goddess for years, and this summer, in a fit of pique over news that women give up on breastfeeding too early, she came out from behind her Hathor “mask” and created this new blog — which supports natural parenting, in a nonpreachy, downright funny way.
Another place to get a smile is Because I Said So, where Dawn Meehan manages to keep a sense of humor while raising six children outside of Chicago.
Then there are the sad tales, places I return to every day, to make sure strangers who I have come to care about as friends, are doing O.K. I hesitated before listing so many of them here, for fear of skewing a look at parenting toward the parts that are tragic, but sites like these are the work of parents who know well what matters and what can be let go. It’s good for all of us to be reminded of that.
There’s Life with Hannah and Lily , which was given its title before little Hannah drowned during a family outing. Her mother Rachel’s voice has healed and strengthened in the hundreds of posts she’s written since then, and her little sister, Lily, is growing up fast.
There’s Matt, Liz and Madeline, which Matt Logelin began as a way of spreading the news of his daughter’s birth eight months ago, but which has become a chronicle of raising Madeline alone after Liz died suddenly, the day after she become a mom.
There Dear Henry, where Allen Goldberg still writes letters to his son, who died of a genetic illness at the age of 7, six years ago. (Technically Allen is not a stranger to me — I came to know his family well when I wrote a magazine piece about Henry’s fight, and you will be able to hear from him yourself later today when he writes a guest blog here on Motherlode.)
And there’s Crash Course Widow, where Candice is still reeling from the sudden death of her high-school sweetheart and husband of less than two years, in a bike race accident back in 2005. She is using her blog to cope with her grief, and to keep memories of Daddy alive for her daughter, Anna, who was less than a year old when her father died.
To end on an upbeat note, the last blog I will mention here doesn’t really fall under the category of parenting, since the “child” in question is a coyote. Shreve Stockton has been raising Charlie since he was ten days old, and his parents were shot because they were a threat to local Wyoming sheep. She puts a new photo up on The Daily Coyote every day, so I have watched Charlie grow as a coyote over the past year, and Shreve grow as his “mother”. He has “siblings” too — Eli the cat and Chloe the dog.
Where do you get advice, insight and inspiration on the Web? I am always looking for new places to explore, so send them along in the comments and I will head on over.
Source: http://bx.businessweek.com/mommy-blogs/
Mommy blogs are increasingly becoming one of the more powerful genres of blogging on the Web. With companies courting mom bloggers for endorsements on everything from shampoo to family vacations, it's no wonder mom blogging is growing by leaps and bounds and shows no signs of slowing.
Mommy Blogs is part of Business Exchange, suggested by Jennifer James. This topic contains 38 news and 22 blog items. Read updated news, blogs, and resources about Mommy Blogs. Find user-submitted articles and comments on Mommy Blogs from like-minded professionals. less
-----------------------------
My Favorite Mommy (and Daddy) Blogs
Source: http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/12/18/my-favorite-sites/?pagemode=print
December 18, 2008, 8:43 am
By Lisa Belkin
This is the 100th post I have written for Motherlode.
To celebrate, I thought I’d introduce you to some of the blogs and Web sites I visit daily, places where smart, eloquent people are sharing wisdom about parenting. This list is by no means complete. And it grows daily. So keep sending me suggestions and I will write about new-found gems every once in a while.
My web trawling falls into three categories. There are service sites, places like iVillage, Motherhood Later Rather Than Sooner (a resource for older mothers), UrbanBaby, BabyCenter, The Juggle (the life/work balance blog at the Wall Street Journal), OnParenting (the parenting blog at the Washington Post) and Please Stop the Roller Coaster (for the parents of teens) — all of which are intended to be newsy and informative.
There are blogs that showcase a variety of essayists — among my favorites are Babble (particularly the essay section), Mommy Track’d and the Moms Blog (which is subdivided into such destinations as NYC Moms, 50 Something Moms, and Deep South Moms).
And, finally, there are the personal blogs — one parent, chronicling his or her life, and teaching the rest of us in the process.
A few are mega-sites, places that thousands of other readers have discovered:
Ree Drummond’s Pioneer Woman, where she writes about the life of a city girl who married a cowboy and now raises four children on a cattle ranch (a very large, profitable cattle ranch, but still, it’s a ranch…).
Heather Armstrong’s Dooce, where she’s spent four years telling us about raising her daughter, Leta, and very photogenic dog, Chuck, (and, more recently, puppy Coco), and where lately the talk has been of morning sickness and her fear of the return of the postpartum depression that led to her hospitalization after Leta was born.
And Stephanie Klein’s Greek Tragedy, which started out, eons ago, as her way to get over a very messy divorce, and chronicled her new marriage and the arrival of her twins (who came so early and so quickly that her husband “held her hand” by phone from 1,500 miles away).
A few are somewhat less trafficked:
I need a daily dose of Mama Is, by cartoonist Heather Cushman-Dowdee. She has been the artist behind Hathor the Cow Goddess for years, and this summer, in a fit of pique over news that women give up on breastfeeding too early, she came out from behind her Hathor “mask” and created this new blog — which supports natural parenting, in a nonpreachy, downright funny way.
Another place to get a smile is Because I Said So, where Dawn Meehan manages to keep a sense of humor while raising six children outside of Chicago.
Then there are the sad tales, places I return to every day, to make sure strangers who I have come to care about as friends, are doing O.K. I hesitated before listing so many of them here, for fear of skewing a look at parenting toward the parts that are tragic, but sites like these are the work of parents who know well what matters and what can be let go. It’s good for all of us to be reminded of that.
There’s Life with Hannah and Lily , which was given its title before little Hannah drowned during a family outing. Her mother Rachel’s voice has healed and strengthened in the hundreds of posts she’s written since then, and her little sister, Lily, is growing up fast.
There’s Matt, Liz and Madeline, which Matt Logelin began as a way of spreading the news of his daughter’s birth eight months ago, but which has become a chronicle of raising Madeline alone after Liz died suddenly, the day after she become a mom.
There Dear Henry, where Allen Goldberg still writes letters to his son, who died of a genetic illness at the age of 7, six years ago. (Technically Allen is not a stranger to me — I came to know his family well when I wrote a magazine piece about Henry’s fight, and you will be able to hear from him yourself later today when he writes a guest blog here on Motherlode.)
And there’s Crash Course Widow, where Candice is still reeling from the sudden death of her high-school sweetheart and husband of less than two years, in a bike race accident back in 2005. She is using her blog to cope with her grief, and to keep memories of Daddy alive for her daughter, Anna, who was less than a year old when her father died.
To end on an upbeat note, the last blog I will mention here doesn’t really fall under the category of parenting, since the “child” in question is a coyote. Shreve Stockton has been raising Charlie since he was ten days old, and his parents were shot because they were a threat to local Wyoming sheep. She puts a new photo up on The Daily Coyote every day, so I have watched Charlie grow as a coyote over the past year, and Shreve grow as his “mother”. He has “siblings” too — Eli the cat and Chloe the dog.
Where do you get advice, insight and inspiration on the Web? I am always looking for new places to explore, so send them along in the comments and I will head on over.
How to get traffic for your blog
How to get traffic for your blog
Source: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2006/06/how_to_get_traf.html
My friend Fred, a talented blogger, asked me for advice the other day. Here's a partial answer, with a few apologies to Swift:
1. Use lists.
2. Be topical... write posts that need to be read right now.
3. Learn enough to become the expert in your field.
4. Break news.
5. Be timeless... write posts that will be readable in a year.
6. Be among the first with a great blog on your topic, then encourage others to blog on the same topic.
7. Share your expertise generously so people recognize it and depend on you.
8. Announce news.
9. Write short, pithy posts.
10. Encourage your readers to help you manipulate the technorati top blog list.
11. Don't write about your cat, your boyfriend or your kids.
12. Write long, definitive posts.
13. Write about your kids.
14. Be snarky. Write nearly libelous things about fellow bloggers, daring them to respond (with links back to you) on their blog.
15. Be sycophantic. Share linklove and expect some back.
16. Include polls, meters and other eye candy.
17. Tag your posts. Use del.ico.us.
18. Coin a term or two.
19. Do email interviews with the well-known.
20. Answer your email.
21. Use photos. Salacious ones are best.
22. Be anonymous.
23. Encourage your readers to digg your posts. (and to use furl and reddit). Do it with every post.
24. Post your photos on flickr.
25. Encourage your readers to subscribe by RSS.
26. Start at the beginning and take your readers through a months-long education.
27. Include comments so your blog becomes a virtual water cooler that feeds itself.
28. Assume that every day is the beginning, because you always have new readers.
29. Highlight your best posts on your Squidoo lens.
30. Point to useful but little-known resources.
31. Write about stuff that appeals to the majority of current blog readers--like gadgets and web 2.0.
32. Write about Google.
33. Have relevant ads that are even better than your content.
34. Don't include comments, people will cross post their responses.
35. Write posts that each include dozens of trackbacks to dozens of blog posts so that people will notice you.
36. Run no ads.
37. Keep tweaking your template to make it include every conceivable bell or whistle.
38. Write about blogging.
39. Digest the good ideas of other people, all day, every day.
40. Invent a whole new kind of art or interaction.
41. Post on weekdays, because there are more readers.
42. Write about a never-ending parade of different topics so you don't bore your readers.
43. Post on weekends, because there are fewer new posts.
44. Don't interrupt your writing with a lot of links.
45. Dress your blog (fonts and design) as well as you would dress yourself for a meeting with a stranger.
46. Edit yourself. Ruthlessly.
47. Don't promote yourself and your business or your books or your projects at the expense of the reader's attention.
48. Be patient.
49. Give credit to those that inspired, it makes your writing more useful.
50. Ping technorati. Or have someone smarter than me tell you how to do it automatically.
51. Write about only one thing, in ever-deepening detail, so you become definitive.
52. Write in English.
53. Better, write in Chinese.
54. Write about obscure stuff that appeals to an obsessed minority.
55. Don't be boring.
56. Write stuff that people want to read and share.
How to Blog Your Way to Small-Business Success
Friday, December 26, 2008
How to Blog Your Way to Small-Business Success
http://www.usnews.com/articles/business/small-business-entrepreneurs/2008/09/26/how-to-blog-your-way-to-small-business-success_print.htm
It seems like everyone has a blog these days—but most business owners don't. They should
By Matthew Bandyk
Posted September 26, 2008
It might seem like everyone has a Web presence—a blog or a Facebook page—but that certainly isn't true for small-business owners. Only about 41 percent have their own interactive websites, according to a 2008 survey by small-business advisory service Warrillow & Co. So, if folks can't even manage the E-commerce basics, a blog is probably low on their priority list.
To some business owners, blogging can seem less worthwhile than a website because of some bloggers' reputation for being self-absorbed and trivial. "I associated [blogs] with pretentiousness and blowhards," says Justin Kenagy, an Atlanta-based cofounder of Onyx Consulting, a computer services firm with 15 employees.
But Kenagy's tune changed once he actually gave blogging a shot and began updating his own last year. He quickly found it a great way to drive Internet traffic to his business's Web page and get more people to notice Onyx. Blog-generating services like Typepad or Wordpress automatically format blogs in such a way that search engines can pick up on words and phrases. And, of course, the more you update , the better chance you have of turning your blog into a must-read site. For those reasons, "a blog gives a small-business owner the ability to show up much higher in the Google rankings than any kind of static website," says John Jantsch, a blogger since 2002 and author of the Duct Tape Marketing Blog.
Getting Google hits can be a marketing plan in and of itself, simply because so many potential customers turn to Google before anything else when looking for a service. "Small businesses are starting to understand that people don't come to your main Web page. They ask Google," says Chris Brogan, who has blogged since 1999. His blog, about social media and business, is in blog tracker's Technorati top 200 on the Web.
But blogging can be a time sinkhole. Joel Libava, a Cleveland entrepreneur who runs his own franchise consulting business, started the Franchise King blog four years ago. He says that only in the past year has he noticed a big impact from his blog writing. All that typing finally paid off. "As opposed to going out to seek franchise candidates, I found that they seek me now," Libava says.
So how does a busy small-business owner make sure the valuable time or she spends blogging isn't going to waste?
1) Be a reader of blogs. Blogging has its own unique language that is different from other forms of writing. To understand how to speak that language yourself, it helps to regularly follow at least a few other blogs. Find blogs in your areas of interest by searching for them with Technorati or Google Blog Search. Becoming a fan of blogs paid off for Libava because it gave him plenty of places to post comments—which directed people to his blog.
2) Don't stress about it too much. Even though being a successful blogger takes work, trying to do too much can be almost as bad as never updating your blog. "I see a lot of people struggle that they have to write 700-word feature articles," explains Jantsch. "A lot of people who have that mentality never get down to writing the thing." Jantsch recommends short, breezy, and conversational posts. He thinks that posting three to five times a week is adequate.
3) Don't do adspeak. Even if you're blogging to promote your business, you can't seem like you are only interested in promoting yourself. That is a big turnoff in the blogosphere. A better way to approach blogging, Brogan recommends, is to give the readers what they want: useful, specialized information that comes from your own experience. Business owners who deal with practical issues every day are in a unique position of knowledge to write top-10-style "how-to" lists. That format often gets a lot of attention on the Web.
4) Tell a story without ranting. Many blogs on the Internet have a personal diary-like quality to them, where the author keeps a daily track of what's going on in his or her life. It can be good to add a personal touch to your blog about your business topic because it humanizes you and might make the reader more interested in your business. But don't overdo it. Long rants about personal subjects will get in the way of conveying the information that makes you sound like a credible source—which is why most business people start blogging in the first place. "Let people know enough about you to connect," recommends Jantsch.
5) Keep it simple with search engine optimization. That's the term for getting the most out of Google searches for your site. There are countless ways to figure out how to make your blog more search-engine friendly. But trying to know everything about it is almost a second job. "That's probably something that it wouldn't be in the best interests for a small-business owner to know how to do inside out," says Brogan. Just do the few things that matter the most for search engines. A biggie is prominently using phrases that will cater to the potential customers searching for you. "I guarantee that people in town are going online first to find products and services," Jantsch says. So if you're blogging about plumbing and you are based in Buffalo, don't just blog about "drain clogs": Write about "drain clogs" and "Buffalo." Another easy thing to do is to insert links to other pages in your posts, which also makes Google searches more likely to find you.
How to Blog Your Way to Small-Business Success
http://www.usnews.com/articles/business/small-business-entrepreneurs/2008/09/26/how-to-blog-your-way-to-small-business-success_print.htm
It seems like everyone has a blog these days—but most business owners don't. They should
By Matthew Bandyk
Posted September 26, 2008
It might seem like everyone has a Web presence—a blog or a Facebook page—but that certainly isn't true for small-business owners. Only about 41 percent have their own interactive websites, according to a 2008 survey by small-business advisory service Warrillow & Co. So, if folks can't even manage the E-commerce basics, a blog is probably low on their priority list.
To some business owners, blogging can seem less worthwhile than a website because of some bloggers' reputation for being self-absorbed and trivial. "I associated [blogs] with pretentiousness and blowhards," says Justin Kenagy, an Atlanta-based cofounder of Onyx Consulting, a computer services firm with 15 employees.
But Kenagy's tune changed once he actually gave blogging a shot and began updating his own last year. He quickly found it a great way to drive Internet traffic to his business's Web page and get more people to notice Onyx. Blog-generating services like Typepad or Wordpress automatically format blogs in such a way that search engines can pick up on words and phrases. And, of course, the more you update , the better chance you have of turning your blog into a must-read site. For those reasons, "a blog gives a small-business owner the ability to show up much higher in the Google rankings than any kind of static website," says John Jantsch, a blogger since 2002 and author of the Duct Tape Marketing Blog.
Getting Google hits can be a marketing plan in and of itself, simply because so many potential customers turn to Google before anything else when looking for a service. "Small businesses are starting to understand that people don't come to your main Web page. They ask Google," says Chris Brogan, who has blogged since 1999. His blog, about social media and business, is in blog tracker's Technorati top 200 on the Web.
But blogging can be a time sinkhole. Joel Libava, a Cleveland entrepreneur who runs his own franchise consulting business, started the Franchise King blog four years ago. He says that only in the past year has he noticed a big impact from his blog writing. All that typing finally paid off. "As opposed to going out to seek franchise candidates, I found that they seek me now," Libava says.
So how does a busy small-business owner make sure the valuable time or she spends blogging isn't going to waste?
1) Be a reader of blogs. Blogging has its own unique language that is different from other forms of writing. To understand how to speak that language yourself, it helps to regularly follow at least a few other blogs. Find blogs in your areas of interest by searching for them with Technorati or Google Blog Search. Becoming a fan of blogs paid off for Libava because it gave him plenty of places to post comments—which directed people to his blog.
2) Don't stress about it too much. Even though being a successful blogger takes work, trying to do too much can be almost as bad as never updating your blog. "I see a lot of people struggle that they have to write 700-word feature articles," explains Jantsch. "A lot of people who have that mentality never get down to writing the thing." Jantsch recommends short, breezy, and conversational posts. He thinks that posting three to five times a week is adequate.
3) Don't do adspeak. Even if you're blogging to promote your business, you can't seem like you are only interested in promoting yourself. That is a big turnoff in the blogosphere. A better way to approach blogging, Brogan recommends, is to give the readers what they want: useful, specialized information that comes from your own experience. Business owners who deal with practical issues every day are in a unique position of knowledge to write top-10-style "how-to" lists. That format often gets a lot of attention on the Web.
4) Tell a story without ranting. Many blogs on the Internet have a personal diary-like quality to them, where the author keeps a daily track of what's going on in his or her life. It can be good to add a personal touch to your blog about your business topic because it humanizes you and might make the reader more interested in your business. But don't overdo it. Long rants about personal subjects will get in the way of conveying the information that makes you sound like a credible source—which is why most business people start blogging in the first place. "Let people know enough about you to connect," recommends Jantsch.
5) Keep it simple with search engine optimization. That's the term for getting the most out of Google searches for your site. There are countless ways to figure out how to make your blog more search-engine friendly. But trying to know everything about it is almost a second job. "That's probably something that it wouldn't be in the best interests for a small-business owner to know how to do inside out," says Brogan. Just do the few things that matter the most for search engines. A biggie is prominently using phrases that will cater to the potential customers searching for you. "I guarantee that people in town are going online first to find products and services," Jantsch says. So if you're blogging about plumbing and you are based in Buffalo, don't just blog about "drain clogs": Write about "drain clogs" and "Buffalo." Another easy thing to do is to insert links to other pages in your posts, which also makes Google searches more likely to find you.
WOMMA Blogging Ethical Guidelines
Source: http://womma.org/blogger/
10 Principles for Ethical Contact by Marketers
Introduction
The WOMMA Ethical Blogger Contact Guidelines gives marketers a 10-item checklist with which to make sure that they are always appropriate and ethical when communicating with bloggers.
This document is a public draft of guidelines for marketers to follow when doing outreach within the blogosphere. It is neither a "how to blog" nor a "what to blog" document. Rather, its intent is to give clarity and guidance to marketers who are working and corresponding with bloggers, and to ensure that their efforts adhere to the standards set by the WOMMA Ethics Code.
These guidelines are designed to help marketers embrace specific practices that are deemed ethical within the blogosphere. Adopting them will empower marketers to quickly identify issues within existing communications and will help ensure that future efforts at communicating with bloggers are ethically sound.
The tool is simple to use:
1. Provide a copy of the Ethical Blogger Contact Guidelines, along with a copy of the WOMMA Ethics Code, to all personnel reading, writing, and commenting on blogs.
2. Prior to corresponding with a blogger, review each of the 10 ethics principles.
3. Create a monitoring program to ensure that your staff is complying.
This is one of several tools in WOMMA's new "Practical Ethics" program, which will help marketers turn ethics from a concept into a series of action steps. It provides simple, specific guidance to prevent problems before they happen, and to help marketers train their staff on ethics.
Objectives
• Help marketers work honestly and ethically within the blogosphere.
• Promote disclosure by marketers within blogs.
• Protect consumers by establishing ethical standards for marketing to and within blogs.
• Protect marketers' reputations from the damage that unethical behavior will cause.
• Review these guidelines before initiating any contact with bloggers.
• Share these guidelines with vendors, agencies, and staff.
• Keep disclosure and transparency top of mind.
Remember: Consumers come first, honesty isn't optional, and deception is always exposed.
For more information, visit www.womma.org/ethics.
________________________________________
1. I will always be truthful and will never knowingly relay false information. I will never ask someone else to deceive bloggers for me.
2. I will fully disclose who I am and who I work for (my identity and affiliations) from the very first encounter when communicating with bloggers or commenting on blogs.
3. I will never take action contrary to the boundaries set by bloggers. I will respect all community guidelines regarding posting messages and comments.
4. I will never ask bloggers to lie for me.
5. I will use extreme care when communicating with minors or blogs intended to be read by minors.
6. I will not manipulate advertising or affiliate programs to impact blogger income.
7. I will not use automated systems for posting comments or distributing information.
8. I understand that compensating bloggers may give the appearance of a conflict of interest, and I will therefore fully disclose any and all compensation or incentives.
9. I understand that if I send bloggers products for review, they are not obligated to comment on them. Bloggers can return products at their own discretion.
10. If bloggers write about products I send them, I will proactively ask them to disclose the products’ source.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. What is the purpose of this document?
This is a tool that helps marketers learn appropriate behavior when communicating with bloggers. It helps companies train their staff on blog ethics. It provide clear, simple guidance on a complicated topic.
2. Is WOMMA regulating blogs?
Absolutely not. WOMMA is in no way making a statement on blogger behavior or attempting to assert authority over the blogosphere. Our job is to educate marketers.
3. Will this code help me maintain my own blog?
No. This document is intended to set standards for marketing to others' blogs, not within one's own blog. It is not a "how to blog" document.
4. Are these absolute rules?
No, they are guidelines. This code helps marketers establish standards of conduct before communicating with bloggers, helping them avoid costly mistakes after.
5. How should this document be used?
• Provide a copy of the Ethical Blogger Contact Guidelines, along with a copy of the WOMMA Ethics Code, to all personnel reading, writing, and commenting on blogs. Anyone on your team who communicates with bloggers needs to read this code.
• Prior to corresponding with a blogger -- online or offline -- review the code's 10 principles.
• Create a monitoring program to ensure that your staff is complying.
6. Who within my company should use this code?
Anyone who may reach out to blogs. Share it with your vendors and agencies, too, as well as with their subcontractors.
7. How does this code help consumers?
This code protects consumers by promoting a standard of disclosure and transparency within the blogosphere. It makes honesty the norm and is intended to reveal, not hide, marketers' involvement and influence in blogs.
8. How will this code help me build better relationships with bloggers?
By asking -- and answering -- ethical questions before contacting bloggers, you protect your company's reputation and bloggers' integrity, building trust and loyalty alike.
10 Principles for Ethical Contact by Marketers
Introduction
The WOMMA Ethical Blogger Contact Guidelines gives marketers a 10-item checklist with which to make sure that they are always appropriate and ethical when communicating with bloggers.
This document is a public draft of guidelines for marketers to follow when doing outreach within the blogosphere. It is neither a "how to blog" nor a "what to blog" document. Rather, its intent is to give clarity and guidance to marketers who are working and corresponding with bloggers, and to ensure that their efforts adhere to the standards set by the WOMMA Ethics Code.
These guidelines are designed to help marketers embrace specific practices that are deemed ethical within the blogosphere. Adopting them will empower marketers to quickly identify issues within existing communications and will help ensure that future efforts at communicating with bloggers are ethically sound.
The tool is simple to use:
1. Provide a copy of the Ethical Blogger Contact Guidelines, along with a copy of the WOMMA Ethics Code, to all personnel reading, writing, and commenting on blogs.
2. Prior to corresponding with a blogger, review each of the 10 ethics principles.
3. Create a monitoring program to ensure that your staff is complying.
This is one of several tools in WOMMA's new "Practical Ethics" program, which will help marketers turn ethics from a concept into a series of action steps. It provides simple, specific guidance to prevent problems before they happen, and to help marketers train their staff on ethics.
Objectives
• Help marketers work honestly and ethically within the blogosphere.
• Promote disclosure by marketers within blogs.
• Protect consumers by establishing ethical standards for marketing to and within blogs.
• Protect marketers' reputations from the damage that unethical behavior will cause.
• Review these guidelines before initiating any contact with bloggers.
• Share these guidelines with vendors, agencies, and staff.
• Keep disclosure and transparency top of mind.
Remember: Consumers come first, honesty isn't optional, and deception is always exposed.
For more information, visit www.womma.org/ethics.
________________________________________
1. I will always be truthful and will never knowingly relay false information. I will never ask someone else to deceive bloggers for me.
2. I will fully disclose who I am and who I work for (my identity and affiliations) from the very first encounter when communicating with bloggers or commenting on blogs.
3. I will never take action contrary to the boundaries set by bloggers. I will respect all community guidelines regarding posting messages and comments.
4. I will never ask bloggers to lie for me.
5. I will use extreme care when communicating with minors or blogs intended to be read by minors.
6. I will not manipulate advertising or affiliate programs to impact blogger income.
7. I will not use automated systems for posting comments or distributing information.
8. I understand that compensating bloggers may give the appearance of a conflict of interest, and I will therefore fully disclose any and all compensation or incentives.
9. I understand that if I send bloggers products for review, they are not obligated to comment on them. Bloggers can return products at their own discretion.
10. If bloggers write about products I send them, I will proactively ask them to disclose the products’ source.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. What is the purpose of this document?
This is a tool that helps marketers learn appropriate behavior when communicating with bloggers. It helps companies train their staff on blog ethics. It provide clear, simple guidance on a complicated topic.
2. Is WOMMA regulating blogs?
Absolutely not. WOMMA is in no way making a statement on blogger behavior or attempting to assert authority over the blogosphere. Our job is to educate marketers.
3. Will this code help me maintain my own blog?
No. This document is intended to set standards for marketing to others' blogs, not within one's own blog. It is not a "how to blog" document.
4. Are these absolute rules?
No, they are guidelines. This code helps marketers establish standards of conduct before communicating with bloggers, helping them avoid costly mistakes after.
5. How should this document be used?
• Provide a copy of the Ethical Blogger Contact Guidelines, along with a copy of the WOMMA Ethics Code, to all personnel reading, writing, and commenting on blogs. Anyone on your team who communicates with bloggers needs to read this code.
• Prior to corresponding with a blogger -- online or offline -- review the code's 10 principles.
• Create a monitoring program to ensure that your staff is complying.
6. Who within my company should use this code?
Anyone who may reach out to blogs. Share it with your vendors and agencies, too, as well as with their subcontractors.
7. How does this code help consumers?
This code protects consumers by promoting a standard of disclosure and transparency within the blogosphere. It makes honesty the norm and is intended to reveal, not hide, marketers' involvement and influence in blogs.
8. How will this code help me build better relationships with bloggers?
By asking -- and answering -- ethical questions before contacting bloggers, you protect your company's reputation and bloggers' integrity, building trust and loyalty alike.
What's a Blog
Source: blogger.com
A blog gives you your own voice on the web. It's a place to collect and share things that you find interesting— whether it's your political commentary, a personal diary, or links to web sites you want to remember.
Many people use a blog just to organize their own thoughts, while others command influential, worldwide audiences of thousands. Professional and amateur journalists use blogs to publish breaking news, while personal journalers reveal inner thoughts.
Whatever you have to say, Blogger can help you say it.
Engage your friends
Blogging is about more than just putting your thoughts on the web. It's about connecting with and hearing from anyone who reads your work and cares to respond. With Blogger, you control who can read and write to your blog — let just a few friends or the entire world see what you have to say!
Blogger Comments let anyone, anywhere, offer feedback on your posts. You can choose whether you want to allow comments on a post-by-post basis, and you can delete any comments you don't like.
Access Controls let you decide who can read and who can write to your blog. You can use a group blog with multiple authors as an excellent communication tool for small teams, families and other groups. Or as a single author, you can create a private online space for collecting news, links, and ideas, to keep to yourself or share with as many readers as you want.
Blogger Profiles let you find people and blogs that share your interests. Your Blogger Profile, where you can list your blogs, your interests, and more, lets people find you (but only if you want to be found).
Design your blog
Whether you're starting your blog or just think it's time to give your existing blog a facelift, Blogger's user-friendly editing tools help you easily design a great-looking page.
Templates — Our collection of templates will get you started with an attractive site right away without you having to learn any HTML, though Blogger also allows you to edit your blog's HTML code whenever you want.
Custom colors and fonts — When you're ready to take the next step, you can further customize our templates to create a design that perfectly reflects you and your blog.
Drag-and-drop page elements — Blogger's simple drag-and-drop system lets you easily decide exactly where your posts, profiles, archives and other parts of your blog should live on the page.
Post photos
Sometimes you just want to share a photo. There's a button for uploading photos in the Blogger interface. Just click the photo button to upload a photo from your computer. If the photo you'd like to put on your blog is already on the web that's fine too. Just tell us where it is.
You can also send camera phone photos straight to your blog while you're on-the-go with Blogger Mobile.
Go Mobile
Blogger Mobile lets you send photos and text straight to your blog while you're on-the-go. All you need to do is send a message to go@blogger.com from your phone. You don't even need a Blogger account. The message itself is enough to create a brand new blog and post whatever photo and text you've sent.
Later, if your want to claim your mobile blog or switch your posts to another blog, just sign in to go.blogger.com and use the claim code Blogger sent to your phone. We support most popular mobile carriers in the US and worldwide. If Blogger Mobile is unavailable from your provider, you can still send posts to your blog using Mail-to-Blogger.
A blog gives you your own voice on the web. It's a place to collect and share things that you find interesting— whether it's your political commentary, a personal diary, or links to web sites you want to remember.
Many people use a blog just to organize their own thoughts, while others command influential, worldwide audiences of thousands. Professional and amateur journalists use blogs to publish breaking news, while personal journalers reveal inner thoughts.
Whatever you have to say, Blogger can help you say it.
Engage your friends
Blogging is about more than just putting your thoughts on the web. It's about connecting with and hearing from anyone who reads your work and cares to respond. With Blogger, you control who can read and write to your blog — let just a few friends or the entire world see what you have to say!
Blogger Comments let anyone, anywhere, offer feedback on your posts. You can choose whether you want to allow comments on a post-by-post basis, and you can delete any comments you don't like.
Access Controls let you decide who can read and who can write to your blog. You can use a group blog with multiple authors as an excellent communication tool for small teams, families and other groups. Or as a single author, you can create a private online space for collecting news, links, and ideas, to keep to yourself or share with as many readers as you want.
Blogger Profiles let you find people and blogs that share your interests. Your Blogger Profile, where you can list your blogs, your interests, and more, lets people find you (but only if you want to be found).
Design your blog
Whether you're starting your blog or just think it's time to give your existing blog a facelift, Blogger's user-friendly editing tools help you easily design a great-looking page.
Templates — Our collection of templates will get you started with an attractive site right away without you having to learn any HTML, though Blogger also allows you to edit your blog's HTML code whenever you want.
Custom colors and fonts — When you're ready to take the next step, you can further customize our templates to create a design that perfectly reflects you and your blog.
Drag-and-drop page elements — Blogger's simple drag-and-drop system lets you easily decide exactly where your posts, profiles, archives and other parts of your blog should live on the page.
Post photos
Sometimes you just want to share a photo. There's a button for uploading photos in the Blogger interface. Just click the photo button to upload a photo from your computer. If the photo you'd like to put on your blog is already on the web that's fine too. Just tell us where it is.
You can also send camera phone photos straight to your blog while you're on-the-go with Blogger Mobile.
Go Mobile
Blogger Mobile lets you send photos and text straight to your blog while you're on-the-go. All you need to do is send a message to go@blogger.com from your phone. You don't even need a Blogger account. The message itself is enough to create a brand new blog and post whatever photo and text you've sent.
Later, if your want to claim your mobile blog or switch your posts to another blog, just sign in to go.blogger.com and use the claim code Blogger sent to your phone. We support most popular mobile carriers in the US and worldwide. If Blogger Mobile is unavailable from your provider, you can still send posts to your blog using Mail-to-Blogger.
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