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.

Cool news. I’ve been asked to moderate a panel on corporate blogging for IABC’s annual conference in Washington D.C. on June 27, 2005. I’ve invited Paul Rosenfeld, GM of Intuit’s QuickBooks Online Edition and the force behind QuickBooks Online blog, along with Kevin Holland, VP Communications of Air Conditioning Contractors of America and creator of the ACCABuzz blog to join me. To round out the panel I’ve invited one of the top-dog bloggers for GM’s Fastlane blog (not Bob Lutz but someone who should be even better because of his inside perspective). Waiting to hear back.

Here’s what IABC chairman Warren Bickford says  about our event in his new blog. He mentions it in the same breath as the announcement that Mark Hurd,  HP’s new CEO, will be the plenary speaker. Hey, business blogging is going big time! More TK…

Great article by MarketingSherpa’s Anne Holland on why “exact verbiage” is so important online. I.e. the specific words you use on landing pages, in text ads, on your site, on (yes) your blog…

You need to be aware of what keyword phrases your customers search on. That translates into how you’ll be found in the search engines. And you need to be absolutely consistent in your use of words and phrases in order to get higher response rates (more click-throughs) from online readers.

People like consistency. Sounds boring. But it’s not. When the title of your sponsor text ad matches the headline on your landing page, visitors know they’re in the right place… and what to do next. Click & buy.

Dave Taylor, one of my favorite online thinkers, is running Blog Smart, a workshop on blogs in Boulder, CO on May 5, 2005. Wish I could attend. If you’re in the area, this one sounds like a no-brainer. Covers all the basics: how blogs are different from HTML Web sites; how blogs create loyalty; case studies including Microsoft’s Robert Scoble, Tom Peters, and big wig bloggers at GM, Boeing and Sun Microsystems. Check out the course outline online and note particularly one of the last topics: “The future of findability.” What gets you found?? Your content, of course. Ultimately, that’s what blogs are all about. Thanks to Amy Gahran of Contentious for the link.

Paul Chaney has rounded up “the usual suspects” (that’s from Casablanca) and suggested a slate of elected officials for the blogosphere. Microsoft’s most high profile blogger, Robert Scoble, as President; law prof Glenn Reynolds as Attorney General, etc. Much as Paul’s idea has some charm, I completely disagree with this approach to describing the blogosphere. It misses the point. The point (to my mind) is that blogging is way more than a couple hundred folks who’ve heard of each other’s blogs and link back and forth to each other. It’s a new way of spreading ideas, starting conversations, informing and persuading that threatens both the established MSM (mainstream media) as well as the way corporate America has been communicating to and marketing to customers (through PR and Madison Avenue ad agencies). Sorry, Paul’s slate gets no votes from me. Now click that Comments link below. What do YOU think?

Hurry on over to DoubleClick’s (free) knowledge center. If you haven’t already seen it, you can download the Q4 2004 Email Trend Report released in March 2005. Highlight: the average open rate for HTML emails continues to decline. It’s now 32.6%.

In addition, DoubleClick’s director of research Rick Bruner (he also runs BusinessBlogConsulting.com) has just published a new 22-page report: The Decade in Online Advertising: 1994 - 2004. Rick has posted his favorite chart from the report here. It’s a trip through history, starting with Mosaic in 1993 and a flatline for number of Internet users and dollars of Internet ad revenue. By the end of 2004, Internet ad revenues were $9.6 billion and number of U.S. Internet users was about 170 million. Most notable stat: no medium since B&W television has penetrated U.S. households as fast as the Internet. It took only 8 years. Compared with 9 years for radio, 10 for the VCR, 17 for personal computers, 39 for cable TV and 70 for the telephone. I.e. the Internet was virtally unheard of just over a decade ago. (There’s also a good section with blog stats.) Hey Rick, a great report! Looks like your day job suits you.

Awesome… only word that describes my 22-year-old daughter Amanda who ran the 109th Boston Marathon today! Here she is at the 40K mark with just over a mile to go. Can’t believe I got her in this photo! (Yes, that’s “Amanda” written down her left arm.) She was 30 minutes faster than we expected so we almost missed her when she ran by. 26 miles and 20,000 runners. It was a blast to watch. Congrats, Amanda!!!

Thanks to the always clever Seth Godin for suggesting that I brand myself the MonaLisaOfBlogging.com. That struck a chord somehow. Maybe because I never know what I’m really thinking til I force myself to write it down. Aussi, parce que je parle assez bien le francais. Blogging has its rewards, you know. One is that the more you write, the better you write. Anyway, I was lucky enough to spend five days in Paris recently. Here I am at the Louvre with the Mona Lisa herself. This is a poster in case you’re wondering. It points the way to the huge new exhibition hall created especially for La Joconde, as the French call her. The real painting is a disappointingly small affair behind glass. Difficult to view because of the reflection and even more difficult to photograph.

Had the pleasure of meeting branding guru William Arruda in Paris. (Here we are about an hour after I stepped off the plane.) Arruda is American but runs his consulting and speaking business from le Paris (the lucky dog). He’s a former top marketing exec for Lotus. We’re doing a teleseminar together Thursday April 21st on 7 Ways to Blog Your Brand. We’ll cover:

• Do you have something to say?
• Good blogging is good writing
• How & why to combine a blog with your Web site
• How a blog can complement or replace an e-newsletter
• Basics of choosing blogging software & RSS

Register free for the teleseminar here. (Thursday April 21, 2005 - 12 noon Eastern)

Paul Rosenfeld, General Manager of Intuit’s QuickBooks Online, and his team had a great idea: why not start a blog to communicate with - and learn from - their 35,000 customers?

Paul is an informal kind of guy. A staff member suggested the blog one sunny Friday in Mountain View, CA. Paul said, "Why not." When he came in on Monday, lo and behold, the staffer had created a QuickBooks Online blog using TypePad. It was customized with the green header of the QuickBooks Online product page but wasn’t an exact replica.

“Hey,” Paul said. “This is great. Let’s go with it!”  Or something to that effect. The point, as he puts it, was to just start. (And by hosting the blog externally, he didn’t have to get on corporate IT’s lengthy action list.)

More Action / Less Talk
“Everyone (in big companies) thinks in terms of PowerPoint and big projects and lots of money. Our blog is an example of a lot of action and very little talking,” he said in an interview. “We’re very proud of it. It’s the first blog at Intuit.” (One other exists, for TurboTax, but it’s only open to registered users.)

Here’s a look at how Rosenfeld has developed the QuickBooks Online blog with the help of a handful of staffers, what they write about and lessons learned for other corporate managers harboring secret thoughts of blogging…

Continue reading Case Study of QuickBooks Online Blog

I had the pleasure of interviewing - and being interviewed by - Mr. RSS himself recently… Rok Hrastnik. Rok is based in Slovenia but you’ll find him everywhere these days. Just type “RSS marketing” into Google and his MarketingStudies.net site should come up first or near the top.

He’s the author of Unleash the Marketing and Publishing Potential of RSS. More about this comprehensive (550 pages!) but highly readable PDF e-book later (I highly recommend it)… First, you’ll want to click here (MP3, 11 MB, 48 minutes) to download or listen to our podcast.

In Part I, I ask Rok some basic questions about RSS and how to explain this new communications channel to those not yet familiar with it. He’s got some great answers to help folks get over the hurdle of downloading or signing up for an RSS newsreader. We both agreed that when you click on an orange RSS button it’s essential to have an “interim” page pop up explaining RSS and newsreaders. Click the RSS button at the top of this blog and you’ll see what I mean.

Then in Part II, Rok interviews me on how a company can profit from a corporate blog, how blogs relate to branding, blogs and direct marketing, what companies should blog about… and more.

Oh, and if you’re wondering how we interviewed each other and recorded the podcast… Rok used a nifty online conference room called iVocalize.com. Now, come clean… do you REALLY know where Slovenia is? (Hint: near Italy)

Recommended sites to learn more about RSS:

Rok’s Unleash the Marketing and Publishing Power of RSS
Rok’s RSS Diary
CNet’s tutorial on RSS
Lockergnome
Robin Good’s MasterNewMedia
Duct Tape Marketing’s Marketing With RSS