How Much Bang for Your Blog Bucks?

Here’s the real reason I love blogs; but first, some neat stuff on ROI of business blogs and how to measure it.

Debbie Weil of WordBiz and CEOblog has a new book out, The ROI of Business Blogging. If you want to read more, go to Rok Hrastnik’s MarketingStudies.net blog and to Debbie’s site.

In a nutshell, you can tell your blog is working by traffic to your web site pages, increased search engine rankings, and amount of reader interaction, trackbacks and comments.

But here’s the clincher for me:

"And finally I propose to you: does your blog make your online marketing and communications easier? I know that many of you say one of the reasons you’re not publishing an e-newsletter regularly is that it really does take a lot of time to write and format properly in HTML. But it takes two minutes to publish a blog post. And so instead of sending one long e-newsletter once a month, imagine twice a week publishing a short paragraph – which is delivered to your subscribers via an RSS feed. It’s much easier and quicker to write. It’s easier for people to read. Because a blog is both an instant publishing tool and also a content management tool."

And this is the REAL reason I think blogs are cool! They are easier to do than ezines and newsletters, and can be an opportunity to express with real authenticity the voice behind the typewritten words…

That said, don’t take my word, or Debbie’s, or Rok’s. Come join Denise Wakeman and I Wednesday night for a Conversation with Expert Paul Chaney of Radiant Marketing. Paul is going to talk about the evolution of blogs for business, you won’t want to miss it. We are giving away ebooks and all sorts of bonus gifts. (No, Andy, there is no pony being given away.)

Here’s the link to the PR release on Conversations with Expert Series on Wednesdays: http://www.prweb.com/releases/2005/4/prweb227087.htm

These calls are free, but you do need to sign up to get the phone number to call in at 8:30 p.m. ET: Go here to sign up.

Here’s a hint about the line-up of experts coming up:

4/20/2005 Thomas Pierce
4/27/2005 Wayne Hurlbert
5/4/2005 Priya Shah
5/11/2005 Michael Pollock
5/18/2005 Anita Campbell
5/24/2005 (TUESDAY!) BL Ochman
6/1/2005 Yvonne DiVita

Now, if that’s not a bunch of experts, I’m a monkey’s uncle. Of course, you could read what our experts have to say about blogs in our book The Build a Better Blog System, but I think it would be great if you could join us to hear each one speak in person.

Hope to "see" ya on Wednesday!

Patsi