BlogSwap Posting up at Gautam's site

I have a BlogSwap posting up at Gautam's site. It's on the atypical uses of blogs in the corporate world. If you want three solid ways to use blogging software for your company, shoot on over there.

One of the concerns Franki and I have with blogging is how narrow blog launches are. Far too many corporations have drunk the blog kool-aid. Yes, enabling conversations with your customers is a good thing, but until business blogging matures, simply having a blog to say you have one is a poor use of your time.

Blogs should have purposes, and there are ways to use the software and the medium to sell, to improve internal communication, to improve SEO, and even to improve your public relations. That can't be done with a blog written by an intern or a marketing person that talks about the office birthday party. There are solid ways to use blogs and track their value, but most of those stories get glossed over because they are not as exciting as 100 million (non-paying) MySpace users or how a blogger got fired for criticizing the company health plan.

We've actually got something in the works to help with this, an idea for Blog Case Studies where the best blog marketers get a chance to promote their successes. It's our belief that solid proof of how blogs improve business practices will launch a new wave of blogging stories vastly superior to pie-in-the-sky promises of a brave new Web 2.0 world.

Check out that link to Gautam (a fellow blog marketing consultant), and we'll get the Case Studies blog active.