Excerpt from:  Marketing. Communication. Results.
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January 05, 2008

Business Blogging Requirements

We continually reflect on the requirements for business blogging - here's an inside look at some observations that Teresa Boardman makes about her professional blogging activities.
My content gets stolen, and I now spend an average of two hours a week fighting plagiarism.

Teresa is a professional blogger but she's also a business person that blogs; I won't derail this post by describing the differences, but there are many. Regardless, she reflects on many of the issues encountered in a world that requires participation in the blogosphere. Her list is long and very insightful, but there are a few highlights that are worthy of greater discussion.

"My blog is my number one and most valuable business asset, and prospecting tool."

For many businesses this will eventually be true; it's just a matter of time before your most threatening competitors are blogging; don't hesitate - get started.

"My marketing costs have gone way down, but I have less free time."

While it's true personal blog solutions are typically free or very low cost, they also don't provide comprehensive features that businesses require. MyST Blogsite provides extensive security and spam protection as well as automated quality assurance reports, intelligence-gathering for new post receommendations, and automated content for daily freshness. Tersa probably has less free time because blogging with tools designed for individuals is time consuming - you have to think about alot and do alot.

"The amount of time I spend on the keyboard has gone up, and my neck hurts."

MyST Blogsite is designed to get you away from the keyboard while achieving business blogging success. Download our free eBook on this subject - 7 Simple Steps to More Effective Business Blogging.

"My research skills have improved."

MyST Blogsite's automated intelligence tools can shave a little time off the research effort by finding new and relevant subjects to post about.

"My blog is my brand."

Businesses require complete and comprehensive branding for their online media. Everything from the blog content, to syndicated feeds, and landing pages must be branded in a consistent fashion and all URL's must embrace the corporate domain. MyST Blogsite provides a solution that makes it 100% seamless to your existing ecommerce, marketing, and online strategies.

"There are links to my blog from more than 4000 web sites and blogs."

And therein lies a requirement for quality assurance. Once you have thousands of links depending on your content, you want the user experience to be solid. MyST Blogsite tests all of your posts every week looking for defects and reports them to you so they can be repaired. Broken links, missing images, and keywords, etc. all reflect poorly on visitors and search engines.

"My content gets stolen, and I now spend an average of two hours a week fighting plagiarism."

This is a common problem especially for content that is high quality and optimized for findability. MyST Blogsite's automated intelligence-gathering system can help you find and stop companies that are using your content in unauthorized ways.

Setting aside the significant benefit of increased findability for your business products and services, business blogs are emerging as an extremely important requirement for organizations of every type. While BusinessWeek and many other mainstream business publications delve into the marketing and public relations significance for businesses to engage in the conversational web, comprehensive implementation requirements and details are often set aside or glossed over in favor of a quick solution. Plan a little, ponder the true requirements, don't rush - and by all means, contact us if you need guidance.

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