We had a great seminar Thursday February 4th with Rob Campbell of Smojoe. There was a lot of information to take in, which may have made it a little overwhelming for some.

Here’s a handy recap:

• Blogs are a great tool to humanize your brand, share your brilliance with the world and capture key words that drive people to your website and therefore product or service.
• B2B companies don’t really have a lot of competition out there for blogs, so it’s a great time to take advantage.
• Rob prefers WordPress.org blog technology over any others because you can install it on your own site and it’s open source code, which means there are more 3rd party widgets etc more sidebar toys and options – and its always getting better

• There are five places in a WordPress blog to plant key words.
• Use Flickr or other photo sites to add photos to your blog so you can create links back as well as have an opportunity to add tags. It also helps people find you through image search.
• Think of it like creating a tasty sandwich for Google, layering on the ingredients starting with Flickr as the first piece of bread, the blog post as the meat and then bookmarking the top piece of bread.
• Create a group to Digg each others blog posts, upping the relevancy.
• The best items to have on the right side of a blog are an RSS feed, twitter widget, the Roy Tanck Flickr widget, MyBlogLog’s recent readers and What’s New With Me?
• A great way to build social capital (see past Rapport blog post with video from Scott Stratten) and also create links to your blog or website is to participate in forums, or comment on other blogs.

Tips from Rob and Faith:

• One good blog post a week is a great goal.
• Blog posts are usually personal, a point of view on something. When you’re inspired by something write it down so you don’t forget.
• Remember to not delete negative comments, but reply to them.
• A blog is for generating conversations, not just straight self-promotion.
• Carry a camera or use your phone to add photos to Flickr and your blog.
• Remember that your blog is not a stand alone piece but part of an all-inclusive marketing approach – make sure it fits your brand guidelines and marketing strategy.

Sounds complicated, but you’ll develop a ritual. Please contact Faith if you have any questions at all.