Naked Conversations by Robert Scoble and Shel Israel turns out to be an excellent book on both blogging and business communications. I've been blogging for over two years and reading Scoble's for six months or so. I figured that the book would just be hype and evangelism for the media form. And, in fact, the first couple of chapters that are jammed with examples of good uses and results of business blogging sound almost too good to be true. The rest of the book offers an adequate balance and cautions.
My salary is paid by magazine advertising, so I have to make a disclosure, but I also have some marketing experience both with companies that could afford to advertise and that couldn't. If you stop reading after the first couple of chapters, you'd think that riches and success will be yours just for writing a blog. Wrong. It helps to have a good product or service, too. As an editor, I see a steady stream of presidents of small companies with no capital who think that one mention in a magazine will send thousands of customers their way even though they have no supporting marketing or sales support. I worked for a president like that once. He couldn't understand why we weren't millionaires overnight. But that's a little like hitting the lottery. There's a lot more to business success than a bright idea and a blog. Better use all the tools.
Take the advice from Scoble and Israel, but most of all try to capture their energy and enthusiasm. Blogging will not necessarily solve all your marketing problems, but properly used as they suggest, blogs can have a positive impact on your company. It can be fun, too.
8:19:59 PM 
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