I recently had the pleasure of meeting Steve Broback, co-author of “Blogging for your Business“.  We had a very interesting conversation inside the thinkspace office.  He addressed me initially as the “the blogger”.  I was humored by that comment.  I was glad that he knew that thinkspace had a blog before he had even toured our space.  During our conversation I asked him what kind of work does his business do and he stated that he was an author and handed me his book.
I’m a bit of an information freak and quickly read the entire book.  In the past, I’ve googled the topic of business blogging a lot and read a lot of different blog posts.  I’ve always been a bit skeptical about what I was reading because I always felt like some SEO company is trying to sell me something.  I enjoyed reading this book because it didn’t feel like I had to buy something at the end.   Rather there were a lot of different practical ideas being introduced and discussed.  Chapter 7 “Launching Your Blog and Getting Noticed” was my favorite chapter in the book. I’ve tried a few techniques that were in “How to engage the Blogosphere” and got immediate results.  Understanding the rules of engagement is critical.  Getting other bloggers attention requires a bit more savvy than having a press release blasted out through the newswire.
I believe that blogging for your business is critical if you want to engage your customers in what you’re doing.  Your customers become much more educated in what you are doing, it can show them what makes your product or services unique, and allows you to stands out from the crowd.  One of the keys to being successful at business blogging is bringing something new to the table.  Don’t be a part of the “echo chamber”.  “Use your unique personal experience and knowledge to create original content that others can regurgitate.”  I strongly recommend this book to anyone looking to start a blog for their business.