BBS Seattle: Blogging Pitfalls

Since I’m not doing enough stuff at the BBS today (including some live blogging on the BBS blog), I figured I’d jot down some very quick notes about Dave Taylor’s latest session, titled “Working your blog: posting and beyond.”

Day one of the conference is filled with a fair amount of beginner material - stuff that you’ll need to know before you dive into the blogosphere, but that tends to scratch the surface more than dig in deep.

With that in mind…

Anyone, including competitors, can wander around to your blog and leave negative comments or try to stir up a problem. Sometimes it happens without people intending it too.
There is a danger in the blogosphere of getting bad press - there are bloggers out there who take particular pleasure in gutting companies or stirring the pot.
Dave has a rule in his blogs about not insulting anyone, including himself. So he deletes comments that are insulting.
When you date your entries - when you put a huge timestamp on your content - it makes it go obsolete faster. If you don’t plan on posting a lot, take the date off the post.
Another challenge is “saying too much.” You need to have a blogging policy, so that you can set down guidelines for what people are and are not supposed to be blogging. It’s really easy for blogs to reveal too much.
Spam can be a real nightmare for blogging - if you want to stay on top of things make sure you use good blogging software with spam protection, and you keep an eye on the comments you’re getting.
In other words, says Dave, if you want to go ahead and blog, you have to go ahead and do the work. That means spam protection, that means keep the posting up, and then three or four months later, you figure out you’re getting some result.
Another pitfall: the validity of comments and comment names - how do you know that the blogger isn’t making up their own comments or manipulating the words of visitors.
Example: the Donald Trump blog that only accepted positive comments. That little “secret” got uncovered and the blog only lasted a week or two. It’s important to disclose decisions like that.
When you’re blogging, your question is not “what do I want to say?”, it is: “what do my customers want to read?” This is a really critical difference, and there are tons of business bloggers who just don’t get it.
The big number one criteria is to become the expert in your zone. So you need to recognize that even if it’s your blog, it’s not about you. It’s about your space. Your zone.