Great post by Hubspot on a few dozen SEO blogs everyone should read or minimally
have in your arsenal. 

In lieu of lifting the entire post, you can get the entire listing here.

Read more about HubSpot.

Best,

Denice MacDonald

Corporate blogs have become the hub for many social media intiatives. And, anyone who has a vested interest in a corporate blog knows it takes time and effort to produce a great blog - especially if it is the cornerstone for most of your corporation's social media content.

Here are my 'must-haves' for a successful corporate blog:

Blogger shows enthusiasm for his/her blog. If it's written to fill space, I can tell. I’m only interested in blogs that surprise, delight, amuse and inform offering a unique view into your organization.

The blog is well written. I read certain blogs because I not only enjoy reading them, but I’m truly getting information that is important to me – in a style of writing that is more conversational and with the bloggers point of view (good or bad) in mind.

The blog has links to other blogs, newsfeeds or other relevant information. I want to know that this blog is going to get me the next relevant click of information. I love resources, links back to other blogs and creditable information so that I can understand the bloggers opinion or slant.

The blog is updated regularly. There’s nothing worse than finding a great blog only to find out that the blogger blogs on a sporadic basis. I want a blog to be committed to me, the reader, by providing ongoing, updated content – especially if I have subscribed to their feeds.

The blog embraces comments and feedback. I welcome an opportunity to comment on content and provide my opinion on topics. More sophisticated blogs allows sign in and the ability to post comments making the blog very interactive and viral in nature. Corporations can reply (in kind) - especially to diffuse any negative connotation about the organization or its products and services.

The blog is properly tagged and categorized. Make it easy for me to move around your blog, clicking on other categories or relevant tags.

Great Blogging Resource at Amazon:

The Corporate Blogging Book by Debbie Weil

More Great Bloggers:

The Rules Behind Creating a Great Blog by Tom Hung, ProBlogger

27 Tips for Building a Kick-ass Blog by Ahmed Bilal

What Makes a Great Company Blog by Mack Collier

Best

Denice MacDonald

I’ve just begun following Chris (thanks to ace social guru Augie Ray). Chris has posted an exceptional blog on 50 Power Twitter Tips.   

Chris breaks down the tips into five categories: intent, technical, business, integrated usage, and off-twitter.  

Lastly, check out the great comments from others on the blog post web page. Amazing responses. 

Feel free to repost all or any of this, but if you do, please give credit to this link. 

About Chris

Chris Brogan is President of New Marketing Labs, a new media marketing agency. He works with large and mid-sized companies to improve online business communications like marketing and PR through the use of social software, community platforms, and other emerging web and mobile technologies.  

Chris is author of the recently released Social Media 101 (Amazon affiliate link). 

For more information on this, please contact Chris directly. 

Likewise, follow Chris on Twitter.

Best

Denice MacDonald

We’re all busy professionals trying to stay ahead of the curve – really not having all the time possible to keep up with all the knowledge related to Search Engine Optimization, Web Analytics and even Social Media.

Omniture has a timely blog covering all the bases – including input by numerous thought leaders within the organization.

And…if you’re specifically interested in social media – Omniture provides interesting and timely topics to help you chose the right social media platform.

Omniture makes it easy to stay connected – simply sign up via their RSS feed.

About Omniture - an Adobe Company

Omniture has over 120 consultants worldwide with teams dedicated to most major industries, including Retail, Media, Financial Services, High-Technology, Travel, and Automotive.

The organization has top cross-industry teams focused on Search Engine Marketing, and Test and Behavioral Targeting and their Omniture Digital team are the foremost experts in data-driven Creative Optimization.

To learn more, Contact Omniture.

Best  

Denice MacDonald

Merging Twitter and blogging can simply be done by using these simple tools:

Add to Any: Get your posts shared on Twitter by using Add to Any on your WordPress blog.  

TwitThis: Make use of this plugin to send Twitter messages about your blog post.

MyTwitter: Use the MyTwitter plugin to display your Twitter status on WordPress.  

Twitpress: Twitpress will send out a Tweet every time you post a new blog entry. 

TwitterCounter: With this plugin, you can display the number of followers you have on Twitter.

TwitterFeed: Announce your blog post on Twitter with a customized message using TwitterFeed. 

TwitterButtons: Just as you want Twitter to send visitors to your blog, you’ll want your blog to send visitors to your tweets. 

More Resources: 

10 Ways Twitter Will Change Blog Design 

Twitter Versus Blogging

Twitter and Blogging: Tips and Tools

Best

Denice MacDonald

As Twitter continues to dominate the Internet, we can naturally conclude that users are adding more and more followers each day. How will you stand out as a differentiated brand amidst all the noise and thousands of other tweets?

1. Elevate Your Brand Name

Smart brands use Twitter in meaningful ways, and most of them use their brand name as a way to make sure customers can find and recognize them. See how these top brands are elevating their presence through creative use of their unique 'twitter' value proposition.

Resource: 40 of the Best Twitter Brands and the People Behind Them 

2. Custom Twitter Backgrounds

Most Twitter follows scan their tweets quickly to find what is of interest to them. In order to standout, you can begin to use images or custom backgrounds to get noticed.

Customer Backgrounds: TwitterImage 

3. Build Your Twitter Brand with Memes

Hash tags are ways to denote an important tag word used in a Twitter update. The purpose in doing so is to build a community around a given tag word, which encourages more activity around a topic of interest. Search engines and dedicated Twitter memes can pick up on these hash-tagged keywords and provide a streamlined, niche set of Twitter updates relevant to that topic of interest. It can also help you build your brand.

Global Tags for Twitter (Updated Daily): Twemes 

Great Resource:

50 Useful Twitter Tools for Writers and Researchers 

Related Posts:

Twitter Can Be a Real Tweet

Can't Get Enough of Twitter: It's Become Universal!

Best

Denice MacDonald

Social Media has revolutionized the way we communicate and do business. Nothing could be more evident when Twitter is thrown in the mix. 

Twitter Revolution 

Earlier this year, Hitwise reported that the market share of visits to Twitter surpassed Digg for the first time since launch and was ranked #84 (one above Digg at #85) in the Computers and Internet category. Also interesting is Twitter’s clickstream, where Digg relies heavily on traffic from Google (38.8%) while Twitter receives a higher share of traffic from social networks, which is mostly due to the applications which integrate the services. 

Twitterverse 

That's great learning but what does that mean to you? Simply that the groundswell of accpetance will help catapult the application - based on user needs and preferences. WE now become the driver of the success of an application - or in the this case - an amazing communication channel.  

Will You Be a Part of the Next Revolution in Social Marketing?

Whether you are a first time user, have an interest for business networking or simply have curiousity, learn more about Twitter with these great resources below: 

Twitter Handbook by Warren Whitlock and Debra Micek (Highly recommended and free)

Twitter Revolution by Debra Micek (Paperback available at Amazon)  

Make Money Using Twitter -- Learn how to find customers. Easy Online Class.  

Twitterprise -- Twitter for the Enterprise with Free Webinar series.

Twittering from BusinessWeek -- Read About Twitter's Impact on the World, One Tweet at a Time.

Best

Denice MacDonald

I received a timely e-mail from founder Todd Hogan from Surchur regarding a recent press release announcing a major update to their web site.

Surchur.com gives you a dashboard to the latest social media, blogs, pictures, and videos for a given topic. The new surchur.com adds several additional features:

1 -- The Surchmeter - see just how popular your keyword is on Surchur, in the blogosphere and on twitter - more sources coming soon!

2 -- A more intuitive cleaner design - we think you'll really like it.

3 -- Significantly faster load speed.

4 -- The front page and "catching fire" feature track the hottest topics on the internet via Yahoo Buzz, Google Trends, Twitter Search and more.

5 -- A history for surched topics, so for popular keywords you can see what was being posted on something yesterday, last week or, as our history builds, further into the past.

If you want to learn more about Surchur, visit the homepage, the social media section or their blog.

Best of luck Todd, we love your web site!

Best,

Denice MacDonald  

Those of us who have recently started blogging had to take a cue from someone - fortunately there are great bloggers out there to emulate. 

In a recent LinkedIn question set, a subscriber asked if any of us knew of great bloggers - that is, what makes certain bloggers so great, and what business people can learn from them. In my industry, I've come to learn that there are many bloggers out there who can slam out a well written techy-blog. BUT, there are few out there who can really capture the essence of a topic - giving it life and relevance to us 'day-to-day' business types. 

So to honor those great bloggers in my network - I've assembled a few of my favorites so that you can benefit from their wit, intelligence and content to make your business successful.

Jeremiah Owyang - describes himself as a Web Strategist who strives to define and deliver user and community needs, business goals, and web technology to craft and deliver long term successful web programs for companies. Jerimiah provides current insight into technology, technology use and delivery.  Take a look at his blog and decide for yourself.

August ("Augie") Ray - provides articles and insights about the way marketers craft experiences, both online and in the real world, and how these experiences shape consumers' relationships to brands. Augie provides colorful dialogue about business experiences in a way that helps guide us through our own brand issues.  His blog is a delight to read.

Social Media Today - has several established authors and is a moderated online business community for social media, bloggers, marketers, PR and media professionals. It provides the greatest depth in social media today - suffice the name. BTW - Augie blogs on this one too along with Charlene Li who co-authored "Groundswell" - winning in a world transformed by social technologies.

To find blogs in your industry to emulate - check out these award sites:

The Best of Blogs

Bloggers Choice Awards

The Weblog Awards

Best

Denice MacDonald

Podcasting complements blogging:

Podcasting is not only user generated content, but user generated content in its most intimate and persuasive forms, it is the sound of your voice, the sound of your music or your captured video. In most cases, podcasting is affordable/free and podcasts are always portable.  Moreover, podcasting is a 'literal voice that complements the virtual voice of blogging" according to Steve Dembo, Teach42: "Why Podcast While You Already Have a Blog?"

If you have something to share – a message, information, or commentary, start with a good podcasting program that can help you create the podcasts you envision. Podcasting software can help you create professional sounding podcasts and facilitates publication to your blog, your web site or a podcast directory. This is more than what audio editing software alone can do; audio editing programs generally do not support tag and feed creation.

Where to start:

I recently completed a podcast software review for a client and found that Podcast Station was the best solution for voicecasting AND professional sounding interviews.  Since the Podcasts are meant to be shared, the publishing wizards help with tag and RSS feed creation. BUT, if you're looking for 'free' open source software supported by Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, and GNU/Linux, consider Audacity - recently named in PCWorld's 'The 100 Best Products of 2008'.

Ahhh...try it out here:

Lastly, Podcast Alley is the podcast lovers portal. Featuring the best Podcast Directory and the Top 10 podcasts, as voted on by the listeners.

By 2012, more than 145 million people—67% of the US Internet population—will be reading blogs at least once a month.

That is up from a readership of 94 million in 2007, or 50% of Internet users. Click graphic for full article.

Caveat > The Ethics of Blogging: 

As we know, blogs are great for search engine optimization - but that should not be the only reason for creating a blog.  A blog is a reflection of your brand and your contribution to customers and other stakeholders.  A 'blog plan' should be formulated to insure that the content that is conveyed is relevant and proper for the end user. 

A plan would include educating management and training employees on creating and posting blogs so that emphase is placed on the organizations' attributes in product, marketing, PR, customer service, research, legal or HR. Likewise, blogs are a great recruiting tool as potential hires have an opportunity to look inside your organization and see the culture first hand.

Bottomline, your go-to-market strategy for blogging should be as well thought out as any significant communication initiative you may have for your organization - or it will diminish your brand and send customers packing.