Business and Blogging

Coffee Break

by Liz Fuller on January 13th, 2008

Laura and I thought Sundays would be a nice time to take a break, sip a cup of coffee and explore what’s happening around the rest of the web.

So, sit back, pour yourself a cuppa and enjoy exploring some new sites and visiting with some new friends.

First up are three carnivals, filled with interesting articles. The first two I’d like to highlight contain articles on the value of listening - to experts in our field and to our own customers. And the third has an article on listening to the economic and political trends and predicting what they mean to marketing strategies.

32nd Issue of Carnival of Small Business Issues hosted this week at Thrivreal. Jason, the host, has done a fantastic job of annotating the list of links, highlighting why you should be interested in reading the full articles and teasing you into wanting more.

One of the don’t miss articles is Are You Copying Genius? Or Creating Mediocrity? by Debra Moorhead . Debra reminds us to be selective about whose advice we take. We should be listening to the best in our business, not well-meaning but inexperienced people who may not know us or have our best interests at heart.

Very interesting points as we explore the fact that less than 10% of all businesses blog - should we be listening to the majority or the leading edge???

The second carnival for the week is the E3 Carnival of Success Principles

One highlight is Michelle Cramer’s article Good Listening Skills Mean Success posted at GreatFX Business Cards. In a very engaging way, Michelle shares the secrets of listening to and learning from the customer in order to better meet their needs and of course, increase sales.

Michelle’s points are all relevant to the business blogger who often thinks that blogging is about talking to your customer. Blogging is about conversation - two way communication. Michelle’s listening tips help remind businesses about the incredible value of humbling yourself enough to really listen, accept criticism and put yourself in your customer’s shoes.

And the third carnival is the esteemed Carnival of the Capitalists hosted this week at Small Business Essentials.

Among many interesting articles is Jon Greer’s article 2008 PR and Marketing Trends to Watch, posted at Catching Flak. Jon lists some interesting trends and his predictions about the responses that PR and Marketing teams will be taking this year. While I agree with the trends he has identified, I hope he’s mistaken in his prediction that PR and Marketers will still cling to traditional media and bypass the opportunities in online social media….such as blogs!

A few other interesting items:

Ted Demopolous at Blogging for Business is giving away an ebook called Effective Internet Presence Now Required for Success in Business and Life. In it he asks the timeless existential question - If you don’t exist online, do you really exist?

Richard Becker at CopyWrite, Ink has written an article called Checking Reality: Business Blog Validity Rich has done a great job of furthering the conversation begun here on whether or not businesses are blogging or should be blogging.

and last but not least,

Tan Kian Ann, author of Blogopreneur, wrote an article titled, Tips for Outsourcing Article Writing, to help you produce blog content when you don’t have the time to do it yourself.

Tan has some great tips, but I can tell you I’m sure glad I wrote this article myself - otherwise I would have missed reading all of these great posts.

Hope you enjoyed this coffee break and found lots of interest, as well.

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