Business and Blogging

Blogging Platforms - Part 4 - Expanding the Mindmap

by Des Walsh on March 11th, 2007

For the purposes of this series on Business Blogging Platforms, and to keep it manageable and as practical as possible, I am not going to attempt a critique of all the platforms I’ve been able to think of or come across so far. Instead, I want to concentrate on some platforms which I feel I know about in a practical way and are likely to be recommended to and suitable for businesses wanting to get started now with blogging, from small and medium sized businesses to larger enterprises.

In this fourth third post of the Business Blogging Platforms, I want to mention first that I’ve updated the original mindmap of the series to now include:

• Traction TeamPage as an example of “complex social software - hosted”;
• an additional category, which I have termed “social networks with free blogs”

The updated mindmap image below is linked to a larger version.

The examples I’ve included in the additional category are: MySpace, bebo, Xanga, Huminity, Vox and LiveJournal.  Again, there is no attempt at ranking:  MySpace is probably more than the flavour of the month or year in this category. This sort of network, with free blogs as part of the offering, is clearly of great importance in the overall business and marketing scene.

And someone could well decide to use a MySpace, or bebo or other social networking site blog as their main business blog, especially for marketing to specific demographics. But using those blogs in that way, for business purposes, needs a distinctive analysis, in my view, about social networks, how to play a part in them, how to contribute as well as gain from them. Issues which are not so acute or immediate in relation to getting started with blogging, using more standalone platforms in the other categories.

There are some other challenges with using a free blog on that sort of network as a primary business blog site, not least the lack of portability. It may be possible to take the content to another platform, but it is not possible to take a domain name which includes the name of that network to another platform. It would be unfortunate to have built up great traffic and an extensive readership and then to be no longer findable at that address. Or to feel you had to keep your blog there simply to retain existing connections, when there was an otherwise compelling argument to move.

Whereas, with one of the blogging platforms more usually recommended to business owners, such as WordPress or Typepad, it is possible to have your own domain name which you can move to another platform. That is not usually a seamless process as there can be problems with the findability of specific posts, but the main address, so to speak, can be moved without detriment.

If there is a marketing imperative to have a blog on, say, MySpace or bebo, an obvious solution is to use one of the more “blog-centric” options for the main blog of the business and cross-link that with the blog on the social network service.

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POSTED IN: Blogging Platforms, General, Resources