Business Blogging Books - Which one is Best?

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My cousin is a real estate agent in Vancouver and he asked me to help him get more traffic to his real estate website.

“Start blogging!” was my immediate reply.

Then my little internal business systems conscience said, “who’s going to teach him to blog?”

Yikes, good question; I’d better send him a book or I’ll be spending hours writing e-mails getting him up to speed.

That’s how the battle of the business blogging books was born. The book needs to do two things:

1. Convince a person in a traditional off line business of the benefits of blogging.
2. Give them enough information to actually be able build a successful online presence using a blog.

The Business Blogging Book Candidates

I’m sure there are more books about business blogging, but due to time limitations I decided to go with these 2 for my short list. The primary reason I chose these ones was that I am familiar with both of the authors.

I chose Andy Wibbels’ book because he is the guy behind Easy Blake Weblogs and is a partner with Darren Rowse on the Six Figure Blogging Course.

I am familiar with Jeremy Wright from a couple years ago when he had a blog called Wealthy Blogger, which he sold, and more recently from his personal site Ensight.org; and of course he’s the CEO of b5media.

In the Orange Corner

Blogwild!:
A Guide for Small Business Blogging by Andy Wibbels

with a tag line of:

1. Get Online
2. Create Your Blog
3. Grow Your Business

ISBN: 1-59184-117-8

List Price: U.S. $ 19.95

Quantity: 174 [small] pages

Published: 2006

Table of Contents

Part One: A Who-Log? A Web-What?
What Is a Blog?	3
Where Do I Find Blogs to Read?	5
Anatomy of a Blog	8
What Is a TrackBack?	15
How a Blog Works	17
A Brief History of Blogging	19
Who Reads Blogs?	23
Part Two: Blogs and Business
Blogs and Business	27
Fire Your Web Designer	32
Become the Filter, Be the Lens	34
Web Site or Blog?	36
The Legend of Microsoft	39
E-mail Newsletter or Blog?	42
Blogs vs. Discussion Forums	44
How to Make Money Blogging	46
Why Google Loves Blogs	49
You Don’t Need to Blog Every Day to Be Successful	52
Hot Topics, Hot Traffic	54
After the Storm	57
Are You Ready to Start Blogging?	60
Part Three: Creating and Publishing Your First Blog
Choosing a Blog Platform	63
Why TypePad?	67
Grafting Your Blog’s Persona	71
Blogging and Ethics	76
Creating Your First Blog	81
Getting to Know TypePad	84
Publishing Your First Post	85
Adding Images to Your Posts	91
Uploading, Linking, and Sharing Files	93
Schedule a Post for Future Publishing	95
Advanced Techniques
Editing, Revising, Approving, and Removing Comments	99
Adding or Removing Categories	102
Change Your Blog’s Design	104
Using Custom Themes	113
Tweaking Your Profile and About Page	115
Advanced Posting Options	118
Posting by E-mail, Cell Phone, or Camera Phone	122
Managing Your Files	125
Part Five: Promoting Your Blog
Creating and Adding TypeLists	129
Monitoring Your Blog’s Traffic	132
Password Protecting Your Blog	135
Turning on Third-Party Notification	138
What Is a Feed and How Does It Work?	140
What Is Podcasting?	149
Promoting Your Blog	151
What’s Next?	154
Instant, Global Self-Expression	156
Share Your Success	159
The Goody Bag	161
Glossary	163
Index	167

What I liked about Blog Wild!

The style is fantastic. It is a small book, everything is clear, well laid out and easy on the eyes; which I really appreciate.

The author is obviously knowledgeable yet he presents the information so that a total novice will get it. No detailed in depth discussions, just quick to digest tidbits of practical and philosophical information related to business blogging.

Here’s an example on the topic of finding topics:

Where is the twenty-four-hour news cycle in your industry or profession? How can you take current events and developments in your industry and put your own personal stamp on them?

How can you take events from other industries or fields and apply them to your business? What are the dirty little secrets of your industry—those “elephants in the room”— nobody likes to talk about?

By focusing on these key areas, a blog can really shine. Be controversial. Be passionate. I often tell clients, “If nobody is commenting on your blog, you’re not being honest enough.”

What I didn’t like about Blog Wild!

The first thing that I didn’t like about Blog Wild! was…err, it was written like a blog. Sounds strange, but when I’m reading a book I expect more flow from section to section.

On a blog we don’t expect the previous story to lead into the current one and there to be a continuing thread of thought, but in a book, since the pages are all bound together in a linear fashion, I do expect that format for presentation of information. I suspect this book was culled from the archives of Andy’s blog and it needed one more re-write with an eye to creating more narrative.

The Big Mistake

Unfortunately the lack of flow in the book was only a very minor flaw compared to the next one.

[disclaimer: I'm a die-hard WordPress lover. I think WordPress has pretty much won the battle of the blogging platforms and that TypePad has been forever relegated to niche status.]

The big mistake in this book is large sections of it are presenting detailed instructions about how to blog in TypePad. In software development we call this tightly-coupled and it is a huge no-no. It is written the software bible something like “thou shalt not permanently bind too objects that do not need to be bound.” This creates massive problems down the road.

Andy has bound the idea of business blogging with the blogging platform of TypePad, which only a small percentage of potential business bloggers will use.

This is a big waste, the clear and simple presentation of information would have been perfect for my cousin, but since about a third of book covers details in TypePad, I’d never recommend it.

If Andy had presented platform-agnostic guide to all the blogging details then the book would have been a winner as a basic business blogging guide.

In it’s current form, Andy has mixed his roll as evangelist for TypePad and business blogging expert and the only real use I can see for this book is as a promotional tool to be distributed to current or potential TypePad clients.

In the Slightly Weird Green with a bit of Black Corner

Blog
Marketing by Jeremy Wright

With a tag line of:

The Revolutionary New Way to Increase Sales, Build Your Brand, and Get Exceptional Results

ISBN: 0-07-226251-6

List Price: U.S. $ 24.95

Quantity: 322 pages

Published: 2006

Table of Contents

Foreword………………………………………………….v
Acknowledgments……………………………………..ix
Introduction …………………………………………….xi
1 BLOGGING BASICS……………………………….. 1
2 GETTING INTO THE BLOGGING MINDSET…………………………. 15
3 THE POWER OF BLOGS FOR BUSINESS ……………………………………..45
4 HOW YOUR COMPANY CAN USE BLOGS…………………………………..69
5 WHAT TYPE OF BLOGS ARE BEST FOR YOUR COMPANY…………………93
6 USING BLOGS TO INCREASE INTERNAL COMMUNICATION …………123
7 LEARN WHAT’S BEING SAID ABOUT YOUR COMPANY AND PRODUCTS….. 147
8 PARTICIPATING IN YOUR BLOG………..179
9 DEALING WITH NEGATIVITY……………211
10 HOWTO SUCCEED IN BLOGGING……237
11 THEFUTURE OF BUSINESS BLOGGING…………269

APPENDIX SAMPLE BLOGGING POLICY………………….295
GLOSSARY…………………………………………..301
Endnotes………………….307
Index………………….309

What I liked about Blog Marketing

Quantity and quality of the information. Blog Marketing is a comprehensive book about blogging as a marketing tool for your business.

Like Andy, Jeremy is obviously very experienced in building a business using a blog and one of the real standouts of this book are the detailed examples and case studies that are used to back up the points made.

I found it fascinating reading and it really went far beyond being about blogging and covered many basic business principles that are at the roots of why a company would be blogging or participating in any other form of marketing.

Blog Marketing really becomes a reference book for a small business in the online world. Need to know how to: monitor conversations about your company or business area online, deal with negative comments, how to deal with bad press or if you screw up in public, how to participate in other people’s blogs, and much more [check out the TOC above]; well just open your textbook and let Jeremy walk you through it, with enough detail so you really get the why of it, not just the how to.

What I didn’t like about Blog Marketing

If I was Jeremy’s editor I would have taken his manuscript, stuck it in a soup pot and put it on simmer for a day or two. Not that there is extraneous or unnecessary information in the book, it really is all good stuff, but I just don’t think that his target audience - who if I understand correctly would be all overworked, stressed and likely already overwhelmed by the idea of starting a blog, will have the time to wade into the topic in such detail.

When I think of sending this book to my cousin, I have a hard time actually imagining him getting the most out of it, for the reason that it is too detailed for a novice. It’s a good read if you’re interested in blogging for business, but I kinda wish it was broken into two parts or even two books.

One would be an essentials of blog marketing and the other would be the details and background knowledge. My cousin would devour the essentials because he only really cares about getting a site up and getting more clients as easily and quickly as possible.

If or when he’s ready to get the theory of what’s going on then he could grab the blog marketing deep dive edition and go from there. As it stands, I think the current version makes it a bit tough for a complete rookie, to extract the “just the facts please, mam” version out of this book.

Summary

There’s no clear winner in the choice for which book to send to my cousin. Blogwild! would have been perfect if the detailed instructions had been about WordPress or I was recommending he use TypePad for
his blog [I ain't].

If you’re wanting to get the basics of blogging for business in an easy to digest manner and you either don’t care about the how-to instructions or wanting to use TypePad, then

Blog Marketing would have been perfect if it had an executive summary version. As it stands I’ll send my cousin Blog Marketing since it does have a lot of great information and it will be easier for him to get the basics by skimming. Who knows he may even dive and read the whole thing.

Unfortunately he’ll still need a guide to blogging on WordPress…I guess I’ll need to include something like the WordPress 2 (Visual QuickStart Guide) with the parcel.

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