English for FRIENDS _ Friends 'club

Should Your Company Blog?
For the past few years, you''ve heard so much about blogging that you''re reluctantly concluding that now might be the time to join the parade. Yes, blogs do have a place in the IT marketers'' arsenal, but only under the right circumstances.
Blog Basics
A blog is a personal diary. A daily pulpit. A collaborative space. A political soapbox. A breaking-news outlet. A collection of links. Your own private thoughts. Memos to the world. Your blog is whatever you want it to be. There are millions of them, in all shapes and sizes, and there are no real rules.
In simple terms, a blog is a Web page made up of short, frequently updated articles, or "posts," arranged chronologically like a journal. New stuff shows up at the top, so your visitors can read what''s new. Then they comment on it or link to it or e-mail you. Or not.
Since blogs were launched, almost five years ago, they reshaped the Web, impacted politics, shook up journalism, and enabled millions of people to connect with others and have a voice on the Web.
Should You Blog or Shouldn''t You?
The reason you probably know the definition of "blog" is that blog readership is high among IT professionals like you. In August 2006, IT information-search company KnowledgeStorm surveyed 4,500 of its registered users, who are typically IT professionals. Of those surveyed, 80 percent said they read blogs, including 18 percent who read them daily and 33 percent who read them weekly. Keep in mind the percent of IT professionals that read blogs is dramatically higher the overall percentage.
While there are millions of blogs online, including my own business-to-business Marketing Blog, consider that Pew Internet & American Life Project reports that only 39 percent of Internet users read them. Before you decide to enhance your brand image and awareness with a blog, make sure your target audience is among the 39 percent of Internet users who read them.
I recommend considering blogging if and only if your audience is reading them and if you need a venue to demonstrate your expertise or are looking for ad***ional ways to move up in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs).
If you''re more concerned with driving leads and sales, pass on blogging for now. There are plenty of marketing tactics that will have a more direct impact on your bottom line.
If you decide you need to establish your expertise by blogging and sharing what you know about subjects related to your products and services, then keep these six blogging tips in mind:
Often, techies write blogs for technical decision makers. However, some of the most effective business blogs are written by management personnel for business decision makers.
Regardless of your e***orial focus, the best-read blogs avoid hype and self-congratulatory content. Instead, they focus on content useful to their intended readers.
To create awareness about your company, products and services, keep in mind that blogs tend to be favored in the Web''s SERPs, especially if it''s optimized to your industry''s keywords. Optimizing your blog can go a long way toward helping your company be found by prospects actively searching for what you sell.
To gain and maintain readers, you need to keep your blog fresh. You''ll need someone who has the expertise, writing skills and time to frequently post new blog content. How frequently? According to a research study by public relations firm Porter Novelli and market analytics company Cymfony Inc., only 24 percent of bloggers post once a week or less (I belong to this camp). Some 39 percent of bloggers post several times a week and 37 percent post daily or multiple times a day. I recommend that you plan to post new content to your blog weekly to start. You can always turn up the frequency later, once you''re sure you have the ability to keep up the pace.
If you''re looking for links from the blog to your Web site to boost your Web site''s search engine results, host it on a different server than where your Web site is hosted. Search using a phrase like "blog hosting" on Google or your favorite search engine to find a number of inexpensive blog hosting options.
To move potential customers through the awareness, inquiry, consideration, and purchasing cycle using your blog you must relate all of your blog topics back to your services or products, to articles within your site, and other sales lead generation tools.
Is there a "blog culture" ?
A discussion has started on my french blog and I was curious to get your ideas about a question a Le Monde journalist asked me two days ago: "is there a blog culture" ?
Here is a summary of what I answered as well as my french blog readers in comments:
Yes, there is a blog culture defined by:
-the willingness and pleasure to share his thoughts and experiences with others
-the growing importance of getting what others think about an idea or on opinion. As soon as a community exists around a blog, the author tends to ask more and more questions to them.
-bloggers help each other a lot, they are also capable of launching collaborative projects that would be very difficult or impossible to launch alone.
-getting information from a high number of sources every day becomes very important to most bloggers who end up reading tens of blog feeds (if not hundreds in some cases) every day.
-bloggers want to be in control on how they read the news, they don''t want it served like a gospel, as most newspapers do
-bloggers tend to be global, read international sources and want to meet other people (one of my french blog reader quotes the "les blogs" event as a proof of that, so many people who travelled so far just to meet the bloggers they have been reading for so long)
-bloggers want to meet in real life, once they formed a community online, they organize dinners, parties, conferences, to meet
-there is a "common code": a vocabulary, a way to write posts, and behavior codes (quoting other sources when you use them, linking into them, etc)
-bloggers get so much used to providing feedback themselves that they are very frustrated when they read, listen or view MSM as they are not able to comment them
-the fact that bloggers invest so much time in their blogs, usually taken away from MSM, leisure time and sleep time, this irresistible will to share with others is a strong common point
-the culture of speed: the need to post or react instantaneously
-a need for recognition, bloggers want express themselves and get cre*** for it, resulting in many outside observers talking about bloggers as "huge ego-centrists with too much time in their hands"
Do you think the above describe a blog culture or is it just fake ? Do you see any other characteristics of a "blog culture" ?

it is a long time I don''t appeare on the forum due to small problem, my computer keyboard has been out of order for sometimes. watching your guy chatting and spaming make me very saaaddd. should you know I am jealous with you however I will try to catch up with all of you.
@ cher: I think

Continued: you shoud reserve a regular seat in the Cyp''s committee, As the girl that you are looking for isn''t exist any more .
@ Cyp: Such a long story about Blog but I wonder What it is used for????
Such a boring Sunday seating alone at internet cafe (home computer broke out) no where to go. It is better to go to work than waste of time like this.

What a surprise!
You got up early and went to public internet at 6am?

It''''s nothing but sources........
Y''''all got that?
Được cyp sửa chữa / chuyển vào 10:54 ngày 18/03/2007

Like Mr Play Dan, for a long long time i have been unable to post any article because of some faults in my computer. I could not determine why it was broken. I found and repaired. But poor me, because when i tried to repaire, it was broken more and more that mean (chữa lợn lành thành lợn què!). Till a day, i could not surf web, not chat, not write any email, in short, i could not connect internet . I wondered what had happened? and then, luckily, the other software did not use because missing some files, haha, i understood why! the reason was viruts.
Immediately, i reinstalled Windows. Therefore, i can write to u from home now...haha.....i miss all of u! And i want to spam to build our house. Nice to meet u again and see u next post.
Được lovemit sửa chữa / chuyển vào 12:31 ngày 18/03/2007

And now, spam start....
Được lovemit sửa chữa / chuyển vào 12:33 ngày 18/03/2007

Please develope your ideal! I have already supported one article. Thanks for ur idea!
Ur mistakes was shown by other friends. thus, i only say that i completely agree with u.

I do not understand your idea. I hope u will say more fair. Thanks!