Blogs on the Inside

Blogs can be every bit as powerful inside the organization as they can outside, and in many instances even more so. Mounted on an intranet and made available to employees, blogs can serve as one of the most effective knowledge-sharing tools a company can implement.

• - Intranet is similar to the Internet captured within an organization

• - Intranets can be comprised of e-mail and transfer

The One Requirement: Employees as Publishers

• Biggest obstacle faced by organizations when tapping into blogs is the resistance to the idea that any employee can publish their ideas and thoughts
• Presents a new avenue for knowledge transfer
• Distinct from message boards in that they are built for conversation and not soley free-wheeling discussions. There is an element of control with blogs.
• Categories of blogs:
• Project Blogs - project journals and project tem blogs
• News Blogs - social networking, more informal
• Customer and Competitor Blogs - knowing the customer and competitors
• Cross-Functional Team Blogs - Web Developers, Subject matter experts, Ad hoc teams and Standing teams.
• Individual Employee Blogs - unstructured and informal
• Department Blogs - community generated and/or authored by department manager
• CEO Blogs - can replace company magazines or newsletters as quick thoughts
  
• Business Unit Leader Blogs - from business leaders to workers within their departments.

How to Make Money with Blog

Most business blogs have a role in supporting a pre-existing venture. It is important to remember the prime role of a blog in an organization. Blogs can be used to eandorse and earn money from sales of complementary products.

Two methods can be used to make money from blogs: Explicit and Implicit.

• Explicit - obvious and something done specifically for remuneration. Not subtle, but expressly asks for donations and/or runs advertisements.
• Implicit - subtle and only may highlight products or services. May subtlety endorse a link to a complimentary blog or website.

Advertisements

• All about promotion of ideas and products. Be careful about your market and what you choose to advertise. Some ads may cause people to steer away from your blog while some may attract readers

• Advertiser Payment Plans
• Pay per Impression
• Pay per Click
• Pay per Sale
• Pay per Placement

• Why Not Advertise on Your Blog?
• May cheapen your blog
• May make it seem more trusted (if the right adds appear and add class or trust to your blog) - in other words - not out of place adds on your blog.

• Google AdSense
• Can place context-sensitive advertisements on any blog or Web page. Very little control as to the adds displayed

Affiliate Programs

• Defined as a practice of paying a finder's fee for introducing new business.
  

Donations

• Blogs can ask for donations (may utilize PayPal)
  
• Two Reasons:
• the reader likes the blog and wants to support it (many can be charitable organizations or other non-profits)
  
• the blog is a noncommercial or very small business blog that provides useful information or entertainment

How to Make Money with Blog
Many promotion techniques can be used. Three main categories of promotion: Self-promotion, Listings and Social Networking.

Self-Promotion

• Tell Everyone - put the word out on your blog and make it easy to navigate
  
• Write Great Content - make your point clear. What is the mission of your blog? Who is your target audience? Done "get off" topic or your market will be compromised.
  
• Enhance Subscription Possibilities - take advantage of webhost services by tapping into feeds
• Talk Up the Blog - this goes along with the "Tell Everyone" heading - utilize business cards, e-mail signatures, presentations, advertising, press releases and trades how materials.
• Enhance Your Blog's Searchability - make sure your blog is found. Give it a name that references its theme, tag posts and assign each post to a category
• Include a Blogroll - links to other relevant blogs to drive traffic to your own blog
• Encourage Return Traffic to Your Blog - get visitors to return, make sure your blog is easy to read and says on point as far as relevancy to meet your target audiences' needs, however, you can give your readers options.
  
• Give your blog and easy to remember name
• Implement an e-mail interface
• Make it easy to subscribe using popular feedreaders

• Give Away Research and Reports

Listings

• Syndication
• Manual Listings

Social Networking

• Participate in Blogging Communities - build your presence on the web and relationships with other bloggers, this helps you stay up-to-date with the blogosphere and your audience
• Comment on Other Blogs - this is integral to blogging and offer helpful and constructive insights to other blogs
• Link to Other Blog Posts - use references to other bloggers and your own material previously posted

Other Promotional Techniques

• Blog Traffic Exchanges - send visitors to your blog in exchange for you visiting other blogs
• Ping-o-Matic - www.pingomatic.com is a free service that automatically lets many services know when you've updated your blog.
  
• Too-Good-to-Be-True Traffic Building Techniques - some offers to build traffic are simply too good to be true. These use short term tricks to fool search engines and my eventually ban your result in a search engine.
  

Promoting An Intranet Blog

• Target audience is employees and is for internal use only
• Use on relevant internal pages and promote for use in projects
• Create and email list (web feed) for blog updates
• Create a blog message board, issues/questions page. This adds to community