Debbie Weil is a corporate blogging and social media expert, online marketing consultant, speaker and author of The Corporate Blogging Book (Portfolio). She consults with large companies, CEOs and senior executives on how to create blogs that connect with customers and attract media attention.

I’ve been touting the advantages of adding audio clips to your site or emails to humanize them. But how do you know where to draw the line between effective and over the top?

Judy Gombita sent me the following link: CLICK HERE to hear a holiday audio message from the CEO of a technology company. Waddya think? Weird or wonderful?!

Coincidentally, I created a bizarre voice animation today, courtesy of Hanes’ ComfortSoft Underwear site. I don’t sound like this, really! And I have absolutely no relationship with Hanes. (My free holiday gift in the WordBiz Store is not wrapped in pantyhose… ) I just wanted to test how this worked. Clever idea for a viral campaign, isn’t it?

Add your 2 cents by using the comments link below.

P.S. I think the CEO’s greeting (link above) is weird…

The CAN SPAM Act of 2003 was passed by Congress yesterday. It awaits a signature from President Bush.

Is it strong enough? Probably not. Good overview in today’s CNET story about the new anti-spam bill.

Yeah, you guessed it. It’s spam. I know I shouldn’t be putting my head in the sand, but I find myself unwilling or unable to follow every twist and turn of the anti-spam bill which has (finally) been passed by Congress.

Will it be the antidote to your flood of unwanted messages? Perhaps a partial panacea. Although some are saying it will be an invitation to spammers to work even harder.

I may not be the only one who feels this way. A recent survey of email marketers by Jupiter Media and EmailLabs revealed that 31% regard blacklists and potential filtering as their greatest concern when it comes to email delivery. Only 8% cite potential legislation as their biggest worry.

Thanks to Janet Roberts of Ezine-Tips for a pointer to a detailed article in CNET News about the Senate version of the anti-spam bill.

Finally, here’s an up-to-date article by Ralph F. Wilson on how to comply with the “CAN SPAM Act of 2003.”

Publishing an e-newsletter on a regular schedule is a heck of a lot of work. Every now and then a subscriber writes in with a comment that makes my day. Here’s one from Steve Quartermaine: “Debbie, you are one of the few ‘real’ people on the net… ”

I believe he’s referring to authentic voice, the single most important ingredient of an effective e-newsletter (or blog). Everyone who publishes on the Web is “real,” of course. They just don’t all sound that way. Here’s an example - verbatim except I dropped out the names - from an email “sales letter” I received recently. Is this voice credible?

“Dear Debbie,

This is unreal. When Internet marketing guru told me about this, I was dumbfounded.

First, when he told me about the fact that he’s a long-time admirer and follower of guru, I wasn’t surprised.

Considering that guru has a track record of success worth (listen to this) $13,000,000.00 to his credit - yes, that’s 13 billion dollars, with a “B!” - it’s NO wonder.

(Plus, when you think about it, thirteen billion dollars is more than the GROSS NATIONAL PRODUCT of some countries!) But here’s what really shook me (and how YOU benefit).”

Doesn’t work for me… what about you?

I talk a lot about voice in Insider Secrets of Profitable E-Newsletters: Get Opened. Get Read. Get Results. Sign up to get 8 free mini-chapters in a PDF.

That’s how someone described a teleseminar to me recently. Talk radio… as in NPR (National Public Radio) or Rush Limbaugh. Whatever; I guess I’m more the NPR type. Anyway, today’s inaugural WordBiz Blogging for Business teleseminar went off very well!

Thanks to guest experts Rick Bruner, Dave Taylor and Greg Reinacker (of NewsGator.com) for their pithy responses to my questions. One of the attendees blogged it with a nice write up. Here’s how Lee LeFever described the one-hour event.

You can order the audio CD of this teleseminar

Have you ever found yourself in another city with a few hours to kill and no deadlines to meet? What better place to steal time than San Francisco. After meeting with WordBiz subscribers for coffee, I wandered up Grant Street into Chinatown. Beautiful sunny day; no agenda; no rush to get back anywhere.

Feeling a bit decadent, I stopped for lunch at 3:30 PM at a little place called Cafe de la Presse (on Grant St. - anyone know it?). Had home-made crab ravioli, a glass of wine, cappucino and creme brulee for dessert - and of course, read the paper. Sigh… it was wonderful.

I had the pleasure of meeting today for a leisurely coffee in downtown San Francisco with five WordBiz subscribers. Here’s who showed up to chat knowledgeably about blogs, e-newsletters, online advertising and the challenges we all face right now in our businesses. Front row (from left): David Riker of Speedwayprinting, Maria Lopez-Knowles and Steve Knowles of MarketingAcumen; back row (from left): Mike O’Sullivan (WordBiz guest editor), Debbie, Cathie Sturdevant of FlikPix.

I forgot to mention… Don’t miss the WordBiz Blogging for Business teleseminar on Thursday, Nov. 20th. Get all your blogging for profit questions answered. I’ll be grilling a techie guy (Dave Taylor) and a business guy (NewsGator’s Greg Weinacker) with questions such as:

- why would my company want a blog?
- can you make money with a blog?
- how open and honest should a blog be about what’s going on at my company?
- what’s an RSS feed and why is it important?
- can I use an RSS feed for something other than a blog?
- how much time should it take to maintain a blog?
- what are the legal limitations of blogging for business?

Learn more and register here. Oh, and teleseminar means you just need a phone to dial in. No Internet access required.

Thursday, Nov. 20: 10 AM Pacific; 1 PM Eastern; 6 PM London; 5 AM (next day) Sydney

I just published this week’s issue of WordBiz Report featuring a lead article on long vs. short sales copy by contributing writer Michel Fortin. As an example of “long copy,” I included a pointer to the sales page for my new handbook: Insider Secrets of Profitable E-Newsletters.

I promptly received this feedback from Peter Stone, a WordBiz subscriber who happens to be a copywriter…

“Long sales copy doesn’t just work. It… works to the tune of better than $1.5 trillion dollars a year according to the Direct Marketing Association. I would hope that you would quit apologizing for selling and for having anything to do with selling and just get on with it or get out. You are an internet marketer…

Some of your readers will bristle and leave no matter how you sell. They aren’t buyers. In my opinion, they aren’t nice people either. Otherwise, they would stand by your decision to make some dough off all your hard work.

Lots and lots of people claim far too much offense at having to read long sales copy. If people weren’t buying from it, it would simply go away.

Realize that the most popular publications in the US are the “National Enquirer” and “Reader’s Digest” - and not the “Utne Reader.”

I’ll close here with a wish that you do well this coming year and in the knowledge that God forgives you for selling stuff. :)”

Hallelulah and thank you, Peter!

Blogger-reporter B.L. Ochman writes this about an Ad-Tech session on blogging for business:

“Among the business blogs discussed during the session were blogs for tattoo parlors, construction companies, pubs, a German fashion label, Jones Soda, BizNet Tavel.com, Sega and Home Depot’s game blogs, Barbie’s blog and Dr. Pepper’s much derided Ragin’ Cow blog.”

It would be nice if she’d included links to these blogs so we could check them out. In fact, blog etiquette demands that you do exactly that when you’re posting. Whatever you refer to, you should link to.

I tried to look up Mattel’s Barbie’s Blog but gave up after a few minutes of getting lost on their site. (I’m not a Barbie fan; never was.) Note that most of the blogs referred to above are B2C (business to consumer) which, IMHO, have mostly a branding purpose and are not all that interesting.

Here’s BizNet Travel’s blog. It’s written by none other than Rick Bruner, MarketingWonk’s chief researcher. That’s pretty interesting. Rick, who is eccentric and smart as heck, has got a gig authoring a blog for BizNet Travel.

Something to think about if you’re considering a blog for your company’s site but not sure who would write it. Outsource it!