Blogs Will Be BIG in 08!

Ok that's old news - did you know that blogging has been around for 10 years now? Check out Wired's article here on the original blogger, Jorn Barger. So what have we learned in the past few years that we can carry forward into 2008. Check out the five tips below from the Daily Dog:

1. Do your homework. Identify the top bloggers who are visible in your space. Read their blogs. Make intelligent and useful comments that add value to the conversation. Subscribe to their RSS feed.
2. Do research before you blog. Read the feeds of the bloggers you subscribe to. Set up searches in Yahoo News for key phrases you blog about. Read these feeds every day.
3. Have a point of view. The number one reason people read blogs is to get an opinion. Blog about something you know well and feel passionate about.
4. Write well. While blogs are seen as personal journals your content is out there for all to see. Be interesting. Be controversial. But above all, be readable.
5. Write often. Blogging’s biggest challenge is the time it takes. Anyone can set up a blog in less than five minutes. It takes skill and perserverance to have a blog that becomes influential. Write content that will keep them coming back for more.

Ok beyond blogs what else should we be paying attention to in 2008?

Online Videos and Search Engines.

High-quality video will push Internet TV closer to traditional broadcast TV, and create new opportunities for brand marketers. “It’s no longer a given that the Today Show is the ultimate media prize. One blogger with a niche audience could bring you better results,” writes Godin in his new book Meatball Sundae.

Here are some recent stats from HitWise that show us that search engines are responsible for more News and Media category website traffic than ever before.

- Print News websites received 29.7 percent more traffic from Google in March 2007 than in March 2006
- Broadcast Media sites received 35.9 percent more traffic from Google in the same time period
- News Aggregators and portals were also significant sources of traffic for News and Media websites.

If the new trend in PR is to go straight to the customer then we need to make sure our news is showing up in the top search results for Search Engines like Google. We do this by making sure our news content is using the same keywords that our customers are using and searching for. One site that I really like to use to make sure I've got the right keywords is Wordtracker.

Questions to ask in 2008:
- Do we understand how search affects our news content?
- Why is new Universal or Blended Search results page layout so important?
- How can we improve the search visibility of our news content?
- Are we monitoring what is being said about us online?
- Have we identified the influencers in our space?
- Do we have a blogger relations program in place to reach these influencers?
- Do we understand the dynamics of social news sites?
- Which social news sites would be best for our content?
- Are we planning to use video – and how will we do it?