The really great thing is that Douglas and Chantelle (co-author) have set up a microsite to accompany the book. One of the most useful things on the microsite is the list of good corporate blogs, which is a great place to start reading if you are thinking of blogging for business. I always recommend that people start by reading blogs relevant to their industry BEFORE they ever even consider starting a blog, so this list is sure to have something relevant to you, as it’s quite a comprehensive list (I’ve bookmarked it already myself).

There’s also a wealth of good info on the Marketing Tech blog, so have a looksie at their b2b blogging posts… and here’s a couple of my own posts from the archive which might be of interest, too:

• How to start blogging at work – part 1
• How to start blogging at work – part 2
• How to start blogging at work – part 3

Happy blogging!

As for me, I stuck to what I know best, which is giving advice and coaching people on getting started in blogging, particularly from a business perspective. I thought it might be useful to point people at my series of How to start blogging posts, so here goes:

How to start blogging at work – Part 1
This covers what to think about and do before you even set up a blogging account/tool

How to start blogging at work – Part 2
This post includes getting internal approval/buy-in and creating your first posts

How to start blogging at work – Part 3
This post gives some tips and advice on how to keep the momentum going, writing tips, and tools to make the whole process easier

Enjoy!

I think both the client and Katrina were pleased with the results, and I can already see that they are using the blog on their site well, filling it with really useful news articles relevant to their clients. So I can finally stop bugfixing and working around crazy IE6 hacks just in time for Christmas. Hooray!

It sure is nice to be recognised out of the millions of bloggers/designer-developers out there. And speaking of Squarespace, I have set up a showcase of my Squarespace projects, so hop on over to UsingMyHead on Squarespace if you fancy learning a bit more.

NOTE: All comparisons and info below relate to Wordpress.org, which is the installed version that you download and install on your own hosting. I am not including Wordpress.com in this comparison, which is the hosted version of WordPress that you sign up / subscribe to. This comparison is for professionals and small businesses, and I don’t feel that WordPress.com is the right choice for this purpose.

Similarities between WordPress & Squarespace

There are a number of similar characteristics and functions of the two products; here’s a few of the most relevant ones. Both:

• Can be used for creating and managing blogs or a variety of different types of website
• Are cost-effective, starting at a few pounds per month for hosting/subscription
• Allow you to use your own domain name (instead of something like http://yourdomain.wordpress.com )
• Allow non-technical people to update the website text/content without much training
• Offer a lot of visual design flexibility, in which an experienced designer/developer (like me) can create polished, professional websites quickly ; however, there are some design limitations with both systems
• Use template-based designs that can be easily changed, customised or tweaked in future without affecting the content
• Have a number of search-engine-friendly elements built into the way the pages/sites are structured
• Offer the ability to have multiple authors/editors with different levels of editing permission
• Have the capability to use/embed Flash, video or other media within the site
• Have their own quirks – things that don’t quite make sense – but are easily worked around once you figure it out

So what are the main differences?

About Squarespace

Squarespace is a full-featured hosted content management system (CMS) designed for websites and blogs.  Users pay a monthly subscription fee to Squarespace in return for hosting the site and access to the content management system. You don’t download anything and you don’t need to find hosting: as soon as you sign up online, you can get started working on your site.

Squarespace Pros:

• The subscription fee includes full technical support from Squarespace. Response times have been quick in the past: anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours.
• Cost effective: the lower level subscription rates are comparable to the cost of standard web hosting, with a lot more included.
• Very intuitive content management system: incredibly user-friendly (the best I have seen at this price point). It is clear that Squarespace developers focus a lot on usability.
• Offers scope for additional functionality (eg custom forms, private client pages) through built-in features & modules that are easy to set up, usually even by non-technical people. These modules are supported by Squarespace’s tech support in case of any problems.
• Basic website statistics are built-in, and conveniently accessed through the same login used for editing the site.
• All the infrastructure is managed by Squarespace. This means future product upgrades are applied automatically by Squarespace, so you don’t need to install anything or worry about whether you are using the latest version (you always are).
• Everything’s in one place: if something goes wrong, you know it’s Squarespace. With WordPress, you sometimes can’t easily tell whether it’s a WordPress problem or a problem with your hosting provider, making troubleshooting take longer.

Squarespace Cons:

• As a fully-hosted solution, you cannot shop around for better hosting deals: you are tied in to Squarespace’s hosting and prices.
• Some added features are only available through higher monthly fee subscription packages.
• Some features cannot be easily customised without a designer/developer’s help (custom coding).
• The statistics that come built into Squarespace are not as detailed as those from Google Analytics or other web analytics tools (note: you can install Google Analytics or other on Squarespace).
• Squarespace is not a huge company with thousands of developers, so product improvements and enhancements are not released as often as with bigger CMS products, nor as often as new plugins for WordPress become available.

About WordPress

WordPress is an open source blogging platform that can be adapted for use as both a standard website CMS and/or blog.  You need a suitable hosting provider and a downloaded version of WordPress to get started. Once this is installed, you login to your WordPress admin panel to work on the site.

WordPress Pros:

• WordPress is available free of charge, without having to pay a license fee or subscription, so the only cost related to purchase is the cost of web hosting. This means you can shop around for the best hosting deal, or move hosts in future should you choose to.
• WordPress is one of the world’s most-used and well-supported blog CMS platforms; it has an active support community and a development roadmap, with frequent upgrades that constantly improve functionality and security. Out of all the open source blog CMS platforms, it’s the one I recommend most.
• A huge range of 3rd party plugins is available to expand the functionality of WordPress. The variety of plugins available is far greater than the variety of modules available for expanding Squarespace. Plugins include website analytics/ statistics through Google Analytics (just one example).
• The fact that it is open source (rather than commercial) appeals to some clients from an ethical perspective. This means that you are free to use the product without many restrictions of commercial software, and are supporting the open source ideology.

WordPress Cons:

• The fact that it is open source (rather than commercial) is a barrier/turn-off to some clients. They want the assurances that come with a commercial organisation developing and taking responsibility for the product. They want to be able to hold someone accountable, and be able to contact someone whose job it is to respond, in case of any problem.
• Although WordPress is a popular platform, it is reliant on the pool of open-source developers for all product improvements and bug-fixes, who do this free of charge, primarily in their free time. Therefore, it can sometimes take a while for bugs to be fixed.
• The user interface for administering and editing is a bit less intuitive than Squarespace, and not as user-friendly.
• Most added features are only available as 3rd-party plugins or widgets: this means they are not supported by WordPress, and can sometimes cause compatibility issues when the WordPress platform is upgraded. And sometimes they are just plain rubbish, as there is no quality-control process. Anyone can develop and release a plugin/widget, so there’s a high chaff-to-wheat ratio.
• Because WordPress is an installed application, someone must manually upgrade the product whenever a new version is released. Failure to upgrade can cause security risks, but upgrading can create compatibility issues (see above).

So which is better?

There is no right or wrong answer: the best tool will depend on your own preference, and whether you have someone you can trust to help design/develop/administer/train on that particular platform. Because as easy as they both are to use, it can really help to have someone who knows what they are doing to work with you, at least in the beginning.

You see, Ada Lovelace was an extraordinary woman who wrote the world’s first computer programme way back in the 1830s, and she also predicted uses for computers thateven Charles Babbage himself couldn’t foresee. Sadly, she died at age 36 and never had the chance to fully explore the possibilities of these new machines. Ada Lovelace Day is our chance to celebrate the legacy she left for all of us.

I already know who I want to blog about, and she is a woman who changed my life, despite my never having met her. I won’t spoil the surprise by telling you who she is just yet… you’ll have to wait til 24 March to find out who my ultimate inspiration and mentor is! In the meantime, think about the female sysadmin, programmer, developer, engineer, help desk assistant or any other women you know who work in technology, and I hope you will join the pledge, too. You can also chip in with other stuff, or just follow findingada on Twitter to stay abreast of what’s happening.

Mobile marketer Helen Keegan aka Technokitten has been blogging since the days of yore, and has been working in marketing and retail for even longer. It seems a natural fit that she’s now combining her passion for social media with her passion for fashion by doing some rather interesting online projects with Bicester Village, a chic outlet shopping village near Oxford.

I had the opportunity to visit Bicester Village a while ago as part of a bloggers’ day, in which Helen used word of mouth and tools like Twitter to invite a wide range of bloggers to come along and check out the place, with the hopes of getting a bit of blog coverage. While there, I thought I’d ask Helen about this and her other work with Bicester Village.

So tell me a little about today (bloggers’ day)…

This is the first one, an experiment, to see what bloggers think of Bicester Village and to see what kind of coverage might come out. We’ve invited some people because they have fashion & lifestyle blogs, but we also wanted to reach out to bloggers whose audience was ‘normal people’, because ‘normal people’ go shopping, and we wanted to reach people that other blogs or media might not reach. This is a small experiment; if it works we want to do larger events next year.

Were you inspired by the Stormhoek campaign or other similar ideas?

I took part in the Stormhoek campaign as a blogger, I got my bottle of wine and everything… it’s certainly been interesting to follow the results, but ultimately we want to reach beyond the blogosphere, beyond the influencers, to reach real people. I don’t know how far the Stormhoek campaign reached Joe Bloggs as opposed to Joe Blogger.

Have you been involved in other projects similar to this blogger’s day, aside from Bicester Village?

When working on a mobile launch last year, we persuaded the client to steer away from the traditional press launch and more into a blogger’s outreach event. Instead of a fancy press junket, we hired a room in a central London hotel for the day, and bloggers could drop in for tea & cakes and a chat. It was that relaxed, there were no 1-1 interviews, you could just come and have a chat with the CEO or the tech team. That worked brilliantly well for them, as the people who came were actually enthusiasts, rather than journalists who just turn up because they have to, because it’s their job and they have to tick the box saying they went. Sometimes for these journos to write something meaningful about it, it’s a step to far, but if you’ve got a blogger who’s enthusiastic about that particular interest, and who’s flattered and excited to have been invited at all, to have been recognised for their enthusiasm, I think you get much more careful copy out of it. The result was that the coverage was very different from the usual regurgitated press release, you had people analysing it and covering it in different ways. With apologies to the really good journalists out there, and there are some really good ones, there are also a lot of people who just rewrite the press release, and there’s not a lot of value-add there. I think where bloggers are more interesting, is that they want to add some value, they want to do something a bit different and have their personal take on it.

Can you talk a little bit about the handbag project, which is another strand of what you’re doing with Bicester Village?

Yes, we’re really excited about this one, it’s thrilling. Basically, we wanted to promote the 30 new stores that have just been built here at Bicester Village, and to get pre-December traffic. We wanted to offer people a 10% discount for registering their interest on a website. We started thinking about what we wanted the website to be, and eventually came up with the idea of ‘what’s in my bag’ or what’s in my handbag. It turns out one of the management team does handbag therapy, where she analyses people’s handbags, so there’s a real element of psychoanalysis going on.

We have been working with people at Tuttle Club in London to seed the campaign, and got people to empty out their bags and take pictures of them, and get them onto the website, to help people understand what was expected. And last week Debbie Percy who analyses the handbags, did some live video analysis of handbags at Tuttle and on the street. The reason for the video is so people understand what the handbag analysis involves, so they wouldn’t feel too scared or shy to have it done. Now every week, Debbie chooses a few of the photos that have been uploaded to the website to analyse. Everyone who registers on the site to either upload photos or vote on handbag photos gets a 10% discount, and we’ve already had fantastic success with it. The results so far are already way above any promotion I’ve ever done before, in terms of actual redemptions of the vouchers. Not just people registering and downloading them, but actually turning up and using them.

How have you gone about setting targets and success measures for the campaigns?

For the handbags, it’s about number of registrations, numbers of photos, and ultimately, about numbers of vouchers redeemed – and we’re definitely on target there. For the blogger’s day, “I don’t know” is the honest answer, because I don’t know what kinds of content or coverage we may get out of it. It’s only after we know what kinds of coverage we might get, through Facebook, blogs or other, that I can start to think about how we might gauge that in terms of success criteria.

How has your client felt about going into this kind of uncharted territory without having ideas of measures in advance?

We know we want to have measurements, and this is an experiment to see what kinds of things we should measure in this area for the future. It’s quite easy to measure something like the handbag promotion, because there are hard figures. But with blogging, it’s more esoteric. It’s more about media coverage, but what we haven’t yet worked out is how to weight those different types of coverage and different audiences. I don’t think anybody’s really cracked it. If someone says ‘I went to Bicester Village’ and it’s seen by 1000 people, it’s worth more than if someone writes a really in-depth article that’s only seen by 10. So it’s quite difficult to do that weighting. And moving forward, I’m hoping to work on some blogs for all the different villages, so that will be part & parcel of working out what the actual community criteria are. But the client has been really brilliant about wanting to experiment, and they are committed to getting some learning out of it.

How does this kind of marketing compare with Bicester Village’s other more traditional marketing?

We’ll be comparing registrations from the handbag site to registrations from their email marketing, but we’re using email to promote the handbag site as well, because not all of their audience are Web 2.0 clued up. Email marketing may seem a little old fashioned, but to people who aren’t accustomed to getting 150 emails in their inbox every day, it’s really nice to get an email newsletter, so we have to be careful not to alienate people by using different media for different audiences.

Which leads to my next question: do you think the people who are using the handbag site really represent the average Bicester Village customer, or do you think they are more the usual (Web 2.0) suspects?

Well, at first I thought they might have been ‘the usual suspects’ but so many of them have come to redeem their voucher. At Bicester Village, there are more than 120 shops, ranging from high end designers to high street, so it’s very difficult to say who the core customer is. Also there’s this myth that people who are interested in designer fashion and luxury items don’t do digital. Well, that’s just not true. But there is that myth in the luxury goods world that digital isn’t for them, so we’re trying to dispell those myths and challenge some of those perceptions.

I look forward to hearing more about the results of these social experiments, and will be following the developments so I can keep you posted. At the end of the interview, Helen & I had a nice chat about the current state of mobile marketing, web marketing and social media, so I’m thinking I might edit that down into a nice lil audio file for your aural pleasure

This is the final installment of the ‘How to start blogging’ series, based on the advice, ideas and tips from the London NetSquared Meetup group – a rather nice bunch of bloggers, tech peeps, blog-hopefuls and others who are interested in harnessing the social web for good causes. I’ve also thrown in a couple of my own tips based on my experience getting the folks at NESTA blogging.

Writing tips

If you don’t feel the love, don’t write

The world is not going to fall apart if you don’t post in a few days. And if you force yourself to write, you may end up feeling it’s more a chore than a pleasure. Instead, you might consider one of these ideas for keeping your blog busy, without having to write yourself:

Invite guest authors & experts to post on your blog

If one of your colleagues or peers has a great way with words, perhaps they could pen a post or two. Make sure their topic is relevant to your blog, and be sure to give credits and link-love.

Use your del.icio.us bookmarks as blog posts

This can be a quick & easy way to ensure there are no tumbleweeds on your blog. Here’s instructions: for WordPress, for TypePad, for Movable Type and for Blogger.

UPDATE: If you use WordPress, you can use Postalicious to post your bookmarks from mag.nolia, Google Reader, Reddit or del.icio.us to your blog. You can also customise how the post will appear, the tags, and more.

Publish your Twitter tweets as blog posts

If you use Twitter and WordPress, you can integrate the two services, so your tweets appear as blog postings, and your blog postings get automatically posted to Twitter. You can do it all using Twitter Tools.

Tools to make your blogging life easier

Use Netvibes as a blogging ‘dashboard’

I am a huge Netvibes fan. I use it for everything from planning trips to viewing my website analytics charts. I also find Netvibes to be a great way of keeping track of blogs and ideas for blog posts. I have several Netvibes tabs set up with RSS feeds from my favourite blogs, one tab for each of my areas of interest. I also add Netvibes webnotes to each of these tabs, so I can quickly jot down any ideas and paste links to posts that I want to write about.

Use a shortcut blogging tool instead of logging into your blog admin panel

If you can’t be bothered logging in to your blog admin panel, maybe placing your blogging interface closer to your ‘usual hangout’ will encourage you to blog more. If you spend all your time in Facebook, you can install a blogging app so you can post directly from Facebook. There are loads of apps for all the major blog platforms. Another cool tool is ScribeFire, a Firefox plugin that allows you to post from wherever you are on the web in seconds. (Hat tip to Farhan for pointing me to ScribeFire.)

Monitor, Measure, Rinse & Repeat

Monitor the volume & value of authors on multi-user blogs

If you are looking after blogs at your organisation, it’s a good idea to keep an eye on how the different authors are doing. If things are looking stale, boring or empty, you may want to step in with some advice, or run a blog authoring workshop to help your authors get back on track. If someone has posted once & that’s it, you may want to remove them from the author list to make room for more dedicated bloggers.

Measure the impact of your blog

It goes without saying that it’s a good idea to set up a monthly report on your blog activity (number of visitors, page views, posts, comments & pingbacks), but there are also other areas that can be watched. If you link to your organisation’s website from your blog, make sure you check your website analytics referrals section for visitors who clicked through from the blog to the website. Also look for ’softer’ measures, such as people mentioning your blog in person, or spikes in traffic to your blog after mentioning it at a conference or event.

If you have set goals for your blog, or if your blog is part of a larger communication strategy, make sure you are evaluating your success against those goals.

Celebrate milestones

Have you just had your 100th post? Your 20th comment? Your 50th pingback? Why not take a moment to pat yourself on the back, and invite others to celebrate with you. Any excuse for cake, really.

That’s it as far as tips from the NetSquared group, but I’d love to hear others if you have your own tips.

Many of the folks who came up with these tips have been blogging a lot longer and more frequently than me, so take their word for it… I will certainly be incorporating some of these ideas myself, as I could do with a bit of help keeping my own blog fresh & up-to-date. Life’s so busy sometimes!

Preparing to blog

Get your manager’s approval

Make sure your manager is OK with what you are going to do… and make sure any other potential bloggers in your organisation do the same. Seems pretty obvious, but some people seem to forget this part! Managers need to be prepared and accept that you will be spending time blogging as part of your job. If you have a set of personal goals at work, the ideal scenario is to factor blogging into them. At the bare minimum, you need to feel empowered to blog, and not feel guilty about spending time on blogging. It’s important for managers to understand that blogging can become a valuable part of your work, not something you do outside or on top of your ‘real work’. One way to get managers on board is to…

Present/tell people about blogging

Just like anything else you do in business, you’ve gotta have a business case for blogging. Put together a presentation or report for management to consider. It should include:

• why you will be blogging, what your goals are, what the desired outcomes will be, and how you’ll measure success
• benefits of blogging in general, and the potential benefits for your organisation
• relevant case studies, specific to your market/industry/area
• links/snippets of other blogs in your niche, to show the kind of thing they can expect

If you’re presenting to senior people such as the CEO, it never hurts to provide examples and statistics for CEO blogs. There are hundreds of CEOs and senior execs who blog. Here’s a handy wiki page of Fortune 500 blogs, and here’s a growing list of charity blogs in the UK.

(If you feel you need help with this bit, get in touch. I love this kind of thing, and if I’m not the right person to help, I can probably put you in touch with someone who can.)

Find a high-level champion

It always helps to have someone higher up the food chain who supports what you are doing, and blogging is no exception. One way of getting someone senior on board is to consider having him or her blog, even if it’s internally. Done well, internal exec blogs can be a win-win situation, especially in large organisations: it gives the exec a more informal way to converse with his/her staff and share thoughts, and it can also ‘humanise’ someone who may seem distant and disconnected from people on the ground.

Draw up a blogging policy

It’s important to create a blogging policy, not just for legal pitfalls, but equally to make people feel safe & comfortable blogging. The policy should be clear, concise and in Plain English, and should include guidelines for tone and what to do, rather than being a big long mega scary list of don’ts written in legal-ese. Tie your blogging policy to any existing policies about communication and representation of the organisation through email, phone and other means.

Be prepared for the worst… but hope for the best

It’s always a good idea to think about what might go wrong, and make sure you have plans in place for how you would deal with it. This is especially true of organisations that deal with tricky areas. If you already have to handle lots of disgruntled customers or negative press, expect to get this when you open up a blog, too.  Better to be prepared for something that might not happen than to be taken off guard.

Find the right blogging tool

There are loads of options, from things that are run entirely on external websites (called ‘hosted’ versions), to software that you install on your own servers (‘installed’). Here’s a previous post outlining how to choose the best tool for your needs.

Practice before you start

Practice makes perfect! Some folks suggest writing things without publishing anything for a month, just to get the feel for it first. Others suggest trying micro-blogging through tools like Twitter or Facebook status updates as a way of getting your feet wet. Another way to get comfortable is to start blogging internally, privately, first. Whatever works for you is fine, but hopefully a little practice will help you discover your voice, and the style, content and tone that works best for you.

Let the business know what to expect and when

When you are nearly there, after you’ve gotten internal buy-in, chosen a tool and tested it, and had a bit of blogging practice, it’s time to set a date for launching your blog. The most important thing is to be sure everyone knows what’s happening, and when. Post it on your intranet, send an email, or just go talk to people – whatever. Just be sure your marketing and PR teams aren’t in for any surprises!

Getting your blog started

Set up your blog

Make sure you fill your blogroll (aka links list) with relevant links to other blogs that are in your niche area. Set up Feedburner to create nice RSS feeds that people can subscribe to. Set up any spam filters (such as Akismet) to keep your comments free of junk. Set up your comments to be moderated before going live, and ensure the email address associated with comment alerts is working and receiving alerts fine.

Write your first post(s)

Write what you know about and/or are passionate about, and write in a tone that is conversational. Be sure to tag your post with keywords, categorise it, and link out to relevant sources.

Invite comments from your friends, family & colleagues

It’s a great idea to let your contacts know about your blog, and ask them to comment. Not only will this help boost your morale, it will also get the comments flowing so you don’t feel you are talking to yourself with no one listening.

Read other author posts & comment

If you have other fellow bloggers in your organisation, make sure you read their posts and comment on each other’s posts if the fancy takes you. It may seem like all you are doing is talking to each other, but soon enough, someone from outside will join in.

Celebrate your launch internally

Book out the conference room and have a bottle of bubbly and a nice bit of cake. If you make positive associations with your blog for your colleagues, they are more likely to have a read, and maybe even think of contributing. If nothing else, people get to associate you & the blog with cake!

Set aside time to blog

Earmark time each week – and block out the time in your calendar. If you don’t, you will always find your time filling up and soon blogging will slip off your radar. Even if you don’t write, make sure you use the time for doing things such as reading or commenting on other blogs.

Monitor your blog

Make sure your spam-catcher is working, and make sure that any valid comments are approved in a timely manner. You should also start keeping an eye on your blog stats, and think about setting up a review schedule.

Start promoting your blog

Once you have a few posts under your belt and are feeling confident that the blog is off to a good start (and that it will continue), start promoting your blog. Link to it from your website. Add a link in your email signature – and get your colleagues to do the same. Promote it in your e-newsletter. If you have an event, make sure the final slide or handout includes a link to the blog, and create a post on your blog where the conversation can continue. Promote the RSS feed – think of ways of getting people to sign up for the feed as an alternative to your e-newsletter.

Set up Google Alerts

You can set up Google Alerts to notify you of topics that are of interest to you appearing on other blogs. Not only does this help you identify your peers, and give you a great starting point for reading and commenting on blogs, but it can also help give you ideas for topics to write about. And if you have already written a great article or opinion piece on your blog about whatever it is that someone else is writing about, you might want to let them know about your post.

Help colleagues subscribe to your feed

If you use Feedburner, people can subscribe by email, so they don’t even have to know what RSS is. Why not help your colleagues subscribe to your feed, or set it up for them? Not only will it increase your readership and the blog’s visibility internally, but after time you may find that some of these internal readers want to become authors, too.

Establish/reinforce your presence in the community

Go to events, lectures and networking evenings with other bloggers or members of your community of interest. You might just meet someone who’s read your blog, and these kinds of events can also provide good blog subject matter. This post itself was spawned from the conversations and ideas that emerged from this week’s NetSquared Meetup, an open event where bloggers, soon-to-be bloggers and non-profit peeps interested in the whole social web thing met up to talk about blogging.

That’s it for today! Part 3 comes next: how to keep the momentum going.