Here are some basic first steps you can take in establishing your Facebook presence is to select a unique username unused by anyone else that is all one word and has no spaces or punctuation.  Ideally, your personal or organizational or campaign brand should be reflected in your username to make it easy for searches within Facebook to find your presence. 

Example:  If your brand is Blue Wolf Den Mothers, your username should be bluewolfdenmothers.

The URL that Facebook will create for you will be based on your username, but your URL will also contain various codes and numbers that you cannot control.  So, you will likely end up with a long URL that will not be able to be promoted in print or by word of mouth.

Use a Shortened URL

Each time that you promote your Facebook presence online (such as using Twitter) you should always rely upon a shortened URL so that you never have to use a long string of characters.  Shortened URLs can be created easily and at no charge using http://bit.ly/ or http://tinyurl.com/ or in several other ways online.

Essential Ingredients for a Facebook Presence

Image: After you create your Facebook presence, you should next use or create an image that visually represents your personal or organizational or campaign brand.  A picture of a person may not necessarily be the best visual representation.  A simple, yet effective, visual representation of your brand would be to use what is known as a text treatment—letters and/or other text characters that are presented visually in an interesting manner.  Bold or Italics are effective text treatments even if you are producing your visual representation without using any colors. 

However, if you do use colors in your visual representation, you should take care that the colors go together well and look appealing together.  For example, using a green background with red letters would not be a sensible choice since these colors clash when used together.

When producing your visual representation, you will want to end up with a square image in which all four sides are of equal dimensions.  This is necessary because Facebook crops and shrinks images so that they appear as a square.  You will want to avoid producing a visual representation that is rectangular in shape in which the width is greater than the height.  After Facebook crops and shrinks the image, rectangular images will display only what is in the very center and the remainder of the image will not be visible when displayed.

The file size of your image must not exceed 4 MB or Facebook will not upload it.  Facebook controls how your image is displayed, so it is best if you use a square image that is under 4 MB in size.  Facebook crops and shrinks images, so you are not able to control how your image appears throughout Facebook other than to make it square.

Text Descriptions: Throughout Facebook, there are various places where you can enter text to describe why you have set up a presence there. 

The “Wall” on Facebook is like a home page where there are opportunities for you to place text descriptions.  Using your wall on Facebook to communicate is very easy.  You type in characters in a text box to answer the question “What’s on your mind?” What you type appears on your wall on Facebook.  You or someone will need to type in text in your wall or Facebook or it will remain blank, which is undesirable. 

You can also insert text into “Boxes” on Facebook that you can positions in various places through the pages on Facebook that you control You will need to use text characters as economically as possible since Facebook sets limits on how many total characters can be used.  You can easily modify any text that you place on Facebook, so getting the most effective use of our your text descriptions is just a matter of practice.

Photos: Beyond your square visual representation image, Facebook also allows for posting of additional images, which are called photos.  Even though the name photos suggest that you need to post only photographs, on Facebook you can post any of the common digital image formats.  The images that you post within the photos section on your Facebook presence should be related to the reasons why you established a presence there.  Posting unrelated imagery will dilute the effectiveness of your Facebook presence.

Links: Of course, your Facebook presence should feature a link to your website.  It is common practice to use Facebook as a way to generate traffic to websites.  But, you should also link from your website to your Facebook presence because doing so suggests that you are savvy in the use of social media.  Your Facebook presence also can present links to other websites than your own, but posting links that are unrelated to your reasons for having a Facebook presence will add unwanted clutter and also dilute your effectiveness on Facebook.

Applications: There are an ever increasing number of applications that can be used on your Facebook presence.  You will need to weigh the benefits to you or your organization or campaign when choosing which applications you want to use on your Facebook presence.  For instance, just because you can set up a message board on your Facebook presence does not mean that you should do so.  You will need to evaluate whether you want to add applications that enable access by other Facebook users to post content on your Facebook presence.

One of the most desirable applications you can use on Facebook is RSS (Real Simple Syndication) because this enables you to pull in content from elsewhere online.  One particularly effective use of RSS would be to pull in your Twitter feed so that it displays on your Facebook presence.  Doing so would provide your Facebook presence with fresh content automatically and unattended.

You may want to establish a Twitter account that you can use as a source of your RSS feed into your Facebook presence.  But, you can also use RSS to pull in content if you have a message board and blog.  You should not pull in RSS feeds to your Facebook presence that are unrelated to you reasons for using Facebook because these will add unwanted clutter and also dilute your effectiveness on Facebook.

Fans and Friends

Social media tools commonly use software that automate interactions between people.  This is often generically known as “friending” online.  Facebook allows for one to become a friend of an individual and a fan of a celebrity, business, campaign, or organization.  By whatever name, this is friending.

Your use of Facebook should be to bring together likeminded people or campaigns or organizations so that you can spread awareness about you and your campaign or organization.  This automated friending using Facebook software is the number one reason for anyone to use Facebook.  When you friend someone, you become connected through Facebook to them.  This, in turn, connects you to all those who are connected to that someone.  This connecting or networking of people via Facebook can quickly expand your connections to ever increasingly large numbers of other people.  What you type on your wall on Facebook also appears on the Facebook presence of everyone to whom you are connected as a friend or fan.  This is the second most important reason for one to use Facebook.  Depending on the total size of your friend or fan base, what you type into your wall can get very widely distributed to many readers via Facebook.  This use of your wall should become an ongoing responsibility for you or someone who represents you.

Note that any images that you post on your Facebook presence will also get distributed out to all who are your friends or fans.  You can easily distribute images in this manner to promote yourself, your campaign, or your organization.  Posting of images can be an ongoing maintenance responsibility should you choose to post images on a consistent basis.

The ongoing maintenance of a Facebook presence also will involve managing the friending function.  Specifically, you or someone will need to log on to Facebook on a regular basis to friend others so that your network of connections will grow.  One can unfriend someone as well.  This simply involves disconnecting from someone by making a choice to disconnect using the Facebook software.  The person who gets disconnected or unfriended is not notified by Facebook automatically, so you need not worry about seeming rude or ruthless if ever you choose to unfriend on Facebook.

Advertising

In the right sidebar on Facebook is advertising that is solely controlled by Facebook.  In effect, your use of Facebook gives Facebook permission to place advertising on the right side of each page that you use on Facebook.  You cannot control the content of this advertising.  Note that Facebook will use text parsing to select what particular advertising will appear on the right side of your Facebook pages.  For example, if you happen to use the word wolf anywhere in the text or tags on your Facebook presence, you can expect advertising may appear on the right side that contains that word such as from Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts.  You should expect that there may be untended consequences of text parsing and an advertisement may appear on the right side of your Facebook page that you will not want associated with you or your reasons for using Facebook.

You can also pay to advertise your Facebook presence or your external website throughout Facebook.  This use of paid advertising throughout Facebook is entirely optional.  You can control how much money you spend on such Facebook advertising by limiting the exact dollar amount per day based on the number of clicks or impressions.  If you choose the Facebook Pay for Clicks model, you will need to bid on how much you are willing to pay for each click on your ad.  The amount you are charged will never exceed your daily budget.  If you choose the Facebook Pay for Views model, you will need to bid on how much you are willing to pay for every thousand impressions of your ad.  The amount you are charged will never exceed your daily budget.  Note that paying for such advertising is an effective way to increase the number of Facebook friends or fans that you have.  A higher number of Facebook friends or fans increases your reach for your messages and imagery.

Taken in April 2009 in Tysons Corner, VA.

If you plan to start gardening of a site for your organization, here are five basic best practices that you will want to keep in mind:

(1) Perhaps most important of all:  Preserve your ideas in text form somewhere (not necessarily on the site itself) so that what you know and believe about the processes of gardening does not reside only inside your head.  Even though turning the inside-your-head stuff into text that will reside in a Word document or even in html may seem threatening, you need to do this step.  If you choose to rely on keeping your ideas for process inside your head--which some people will just love to do--it is far better to take the time to transfer ideas into text.  The now-standard answer to justify why you should do transfer to text from stuff inside your head is kind of brutal and violent, but here goes:  What if you were to get hit by a bus tomorrow?  So, the first step is to write down your ideas and processes for gardening.  And, remember to look both ways before crossing streets where a bus may be heading in your direction!

(2) You should strive to balance your organization’s process requirements with an open and collaborative spirit.  That open and collaborative spirit should be genuine rather than someone’s idea of what should be happening at your organization.  Try not to lock down the processes so rigidly that you end up killing the spirit of gardening.  It is natural that people will be turned off by too many restrictions, rules and regs.

(3) Select only those individuals who will lead your organization’s gardening efforts who have proven people skills.  So much of your organization’s day-to-day gardening work may end up relying more upon interpersonal communication skills than on Web 2.0 theories and principles.  Here’s a horrible secret:  Sometimes, people who work with today’s technology are not so good at interpersonal communication.  So, go the extra distance to select individuals who will lead your organization’s gardening efforts who have a track record of being able to interact smoothly with people.  Let me be even more controversial:  Don’t put anyone who is hot-headed or frustrated or impatient into a lead role in your organization’s gardening efforts. 

(4) Just because someone went to a major university doesn’t make them an expert in gardening.  This means that in addition to looking for individuals to lead your organization’s gardening efforts who have proven people skills, you should be very careful if you hire people to get involved in gardening at your organization who are fresh out of their undergraduate degree program.  It is always preferable to hire a person who has some full-time experience working on websites and editing of online content after their undergraduate degree program than it is to hire someone immediately after their graduation.  Let other organizations have the honor of being that essential first job after graduation.

(5) You can always train someone with little or no Web 2.0 experience to be conversant in your organization’s culture and online communication (whether that be with public-facing sites or with sites that are for internal communication only).  This means that you need not seek only people who have Web 2.0 experience when you are trying to hire the best possible candidates for your organization’s gardening efforts.  The bottom line is that when you select those who will work in your organization’s gardening efforts, you really should look for individuals with demonstrate strongly effective interpersonal skills, above-average intelligence, proven adaptability and flexibility amid rapidly-changing work environments, and, an enthusiasm for doing gardening.

I’ve been told that I have “a green thumb”.  What that meant when I was a kid:  The person knows how to care for and nurture living plants so that they remain living plants.  I maintain one house plant today and I treat it (him? her?) well and this living wonder has been kept alive for ten or more years now.

I got involved in gardening when I moved here to the Washington, DC market in 1995.  And I’m not referring to caring for living plants and using soil and fertilizer and all that.  The gardening that I’m referring to here is the kind that happens online and is really all about keeping a website fresh and friendly for the visitors.

If you Google the word gardening, you mostly get the kind that refers to living plants.  Even if you use the keywords online gardening, you still mainly end up with sites that present gardening (of living plants) online.  Calling those online gardening is kind of false advertising I think.

What I got into in the 1990s was never called gardening.  It was then called editorial management, which sounds an awful lot more important than gardening, doesn’t it?  And, I’ve never had to explain to anyone that editorial management has nothing to do with caring for living plants!  Although, I think it would be honest to admit that sometimes editorial management does have some connection to fertilizer.

So, as the years went on and old words got new definitions—suddenly bomb was a good thing and bad was not bad anymore—this thing I do with websites became known as gardening.  I’ve seen the founder of Wikipedia credited with coming up with the use of gardener to describe the job function of keeping a site (usually a wiki) all nice and neat.  I wish he had come up with something else instead.  I can only imagine how many times the was asked about what has this got to do with plants.

I guess you could say that I’m qualified--both as someone who actually cares for nurtures living plants, and, as someone who has done gardening online for websites for many years now--to post some commentary about gardening of websites.  Okay, here we go.

Gardening of websites is important to do.  If you know how to exercise moderation.  Just as one can give too much water to a living plant and end up killing it, one can overgarden a website.  Did I just coin a new Web 2.0 term here?  Well, then, let’s add undergarden just so overgarden has a friend and won’t be lonely.

The point is:  Gardening of website should be a loving thing and not something that causes one heartburn or rash.  Gardening of websites should result in things getting better on the website in question.  Gardening of websites should help the website grow.

Boy, as much as I try to get away from the allusions to plants here in this commentary, the more I keep getting pulled back in.  I think Al Pacino said that originally.

Take a look at five best practices for gardening that I have prepared for your consideration based on my professional experience.  If you want to learn more about gardening, feel free to email me and ask me questions.  I will actually reply to your email and won’t try to sell you anything.

2008 to present ->

Washington, DC market Web 2.0 strategist and social media guru...

2006 - 2008 ->

upgraded U.S. Army website from static pages to approach Web 2.0 interactivity...

2005 ->

created and wrote first public blog bringing Web 2.0 to largest US membership organization...

2001 ->

developed interactive national collaboration site for largest US membership organization...

since 1996 ->

expert in designing, creating and writing, and creating engaging websites that invite interactivity.

So, what in the wide world is this thing everybody calls Web 2.0??? First of all, it is not software that you download or purchase in a box. Second, it can be pronounced correctly either as WEB TWO POINT OH and WEB TWO OH if you prefer.

This particular way of referring by this odd name, Web 2.0, to certain things online is a relatively recent happening. Back in the 1990s when we all first got hooked on using the Internet, nobody referred to the World Wide Web or Internet using any version numbers.

But, that’s the point. What’s now called Web 2.0 was named as such only recently during the first decade of the 21st century. More importantly, Web 2.0 as a name presumes that what came before online during the end of the 20th century should be thought of as Web 1.0 in stark contrast to how the Web works and feels now that we are in the 21st century.

As annoying as some might find this name, Web 2.0, it is here to stay.

If nothing else is true, Web 2.0 is all about interactivity and actively engaging in Internet communication in the 21st century. All this is very much unlike what the 1990s had with those lovable, but very old-fashioned pages on a website that just sat there and did nothing to invite participation or interaction.

Web 2.0 includes many exciting communication opportunities including blogging, podcasting and social networking online (like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube). Here at WebGuruWoody you will find explorations in Web 2.0 to help you better understand what the Web can do for you as we move forward in the 21st century. 

After you take care of the human dimension and the technical online factors, you need to adapt your messages to your target audience. Unless you want to have a blog that is all about you and your own ideas regardless of whether anyone out there should care, you need to work to make people care. In short, you need to adapt your messages to your intended audience.

If you are trying to persuade Hispanic people with your blog, you better write your blog for them. You could write in Spanish, but writing in English about Hispanic people and Hispanic issues is perfectly acceptable, too. (I started off with a simple, obvious thing and will work up to the more nuanced matters.)

If you are trying to persuade medical professionals with your blog, you better have someone who can write and adapt the blog posts for medical professionals. Merely naming your blog “Medical Professionals Blog” won’t cut it. Everything posted on that blog must specifically be adapted to the specific audience of medical professionals.

There are but two examples–an easy, obvious example, and one with more nuances. The bottom line is this: Persuasion only works when you know who your target audience is and you can adapt what you convey to them in a blog accordingly. This is a crucial fact of life that many people never, ever get. Those who don’t “get it” are those who fail to be persuasive.

If you don’t care about ever persuading your audience–in other words you are writing online just to see your stuff on the Internet–then you don’t need to adapt all. Just do whatever you want, and write whatever you want.

You can get away with writing long blog posts that span 45 paragraphs about the cute things your dog did after his bath yesterday, and the world will go on nicely as if you never mattered at all. The same holds true in business. You may think what your organization does and believes in are crucial to the whole planet. Fine. But, if you don’t adapt your messages specifically to your target audience, you may as well blog about your dog.

Blogging on Target

Absolutely the most important starting point in blog targeting is to know your audience. There are many ways to accomplish this.

Nobody can tell you the best way to learn about your particular audience. Sometimes you can only gain this knowledge by going there and being physically with your audience in person.

This is why politicians go out in public to meet and greet, shake hands, and kiss babies.

It is possible to learn about your audience from afar. You can research their demographic characteristics even though you are not there among them, for instance. However, no matter what else is true, you must discover how your audience feels about the subjects that you intend to cover.

Only when you reach the point that you truly understand confidently how your target audience feels in their hearts about the subjects that you intend to cover will you be able to target them successfully. Your goal should be to reach as close as you can to a strongly confident understanding about how your audience feels when it comes to the subjects you intend to cover in your blog.

How to Adapt to Your Target Audience

This is fundamental knowledge that you need to succeed in business. It is a skill set that dates back to ancient Greece and Rome. Yet, it is highly relevant in the 21st century.

The most successful politicians, preachers and performers are those who have attained the professional skill of adapting to their target audience. It is a skill that has intrigued humanity over the centuries.

Simply put, this skill involves knowing what to say (or in this case, what to write) and knowing how to get it across in the most likely ways to win over a specific target audience.

Missing the Target

Even after you know your audience, you need to be careful to aim for persuading that specific audience. If you miss your target, you are wasting your time and theirs.

No matter how well-written or clever or witty something may be, if it is mistargeted, it is essentially useless. If you fail to persuade your audience, you have missed your target.

The single most important factor in determining whether you will have a successful blogging experience is this: Know what the intended personality of your blog is.

Blogging requires skill and talent in the human dimension. What kind of tone or voice do you want your blog to have? Determine whether your blog supposed to be funny or sad or serious or angry or inspirational.

You were thinking that the first thing you needed to think about was software or hardware, right? Wrong! First, you need to think about the human dimension of blogging. Anybody can pick up blogging software for free online. If you are considering blogging and you spend time thinking first about software, you are making a terrible mistake.

A blog must convey clearly a specific and definable sense of the person or persons writing the blog. Blogging must first and foremost be about flesh and blood, heart and soul people like you and me. If you fail that, your blog will be a complete and utter waste of time for you and your audience.

Who’s going to write your blog? You can write it yourself. You can have another person write your blog. Or, you can have several different people writing a blog individually or by committee. All that matters is that you end up with a distinctive and human sense or essence that comes across obviously and clearly in the blog no matter whether it’s written by one or one hundred.

Not all people can write for publication. That needs to be said. Even though you are someone who knows a lot about your particular subject area, this does not automatically bestow upon you the necessary skills or talents to write about what you know. Sometimes, the smartest people who know the most about a particular subject area are the worst writers. That needs to be said, too.

It therefore follows that not all people can write a blog. If you have a lousy writer, you will end up with a lousy blog. It’s really that simple.

Get someone who can write well and you will end up with a worthwhile blog. No matter how intelligent or how passionate you might be, if you cannot write well for a blog, all that intelligence and passion will go nowhere fast.

(Web Guru Woody Goulart wrote this advice & help and originally posted it on AmericanBlogging.com not long ago.)

One of the most fascinating elements of today’s digital media online is the people who blog. Washington, DC is a city of secrets. You know that. So, it should not surprise you to know that within the world of secrecy that is Washington, DC, there are people who blog in secret.

I am someone who can now admit to being a professional ghost blogger. It’s true. In February 2006, Lawrence Ragan Communications of Chicago published an online profile of me because of my ghost blogging work in Washington, DC. Since the need for secrecy no longer exists, I am happy to share with you the fact that I was a ghost blogger in Washington, DC for AARP, the well-known nonprofit organization for older Americans.

Being a ghost blogger is very similar to being a speechwriter who functions as a ghost writer for someone else. Since I started as a Washington, DC ghostwriter of executive speeches at AARP in 1995, I am someone with significant experience in writing for someone else while concealing my own identity. I can tell you from experience that in Washington, DC, concealing your own identity while writing blog entries on behalf of someone else is an extension of concealing your own identity while writing speeches on behalf of executives.

But, let me warn you from my own experience: Only if you can set aside your own ego and submerge your natural need for recognition from others will you be successful at the craft of ghostblogging.

Is ghost blogging better or worse than bylined blogging? I don’t think one form of blogging is better or worse than the other. Writing for a blog is what it is–writing for a blog. Whether you conceal your true identity or you put your real name right there online for the world to see, you need to know how to write for a blog and how to adapt what you write to your blog’s intended audience. While there may be business reasons or even political reasons for concealing your true identity when you write for a blog, knowing how to write and knowing how to adapt what you write will always remain more important to your blog’s success or failure. When I worked as AARP’s unnamed blogger, I understood the reality that what was important was the messages conveyed in AARP’s blog. My identity as the blogger was completely irrelevant and secondary to the primary importance of the messages that AARP wanted to transmit in its blog.

If you write for a blog, you must know how others are writing for blogs. You must read other people’s blogs so that you can learn what works and what doesn’t work.

Let’s look at the most engaging, unique and fascinating blogging that happens when the blogger writes his or her own posts and is not afraid to post a real name. A shining example is the Huffington Post blog in which people whose names you know post their opinions in one blog.

In truth, it turns out that you don’t actually need to be famous to write your own posts and post your real name in a blog. Sometimes, the infamous can be compelling bloggers, even when everyone knows you’re real name but you insist on using a fake one. See JeffGannon.com, for example.

Some people from the mainstream media have blogs and they write their own posts under their own names. Excellent examples are the MSNBC.com blogs.

John Aravosis and friends on AmericaBlog.org are worth reading for their clean, clear, direct bylined blog posts.

What’s Important: By reading bylined blog posts, you can quickly get a real-world sense of how bloggers write successfully. Don’t copy how they write, though. Develop your own voice and your own style by absorbing what bloggers are doing. But, you want to be as original and distinctive as you can. You want to be you, not somebody else.

(Web Guru Woody Goulart wrote this commentary & analysis and originally posted it on AmericanBlogging.com not long ago.)

After you have developed the human dimension of your blog, you can begin to think about what blogging technology you will use. But, be very wary of spending a lot of money on the technology aspects.

Be careful. There are some consultants or experts out there who will ask you to pay hundreds or even thousands of dollars for them to show you how to do your blog. That is not the way to go. Spending money for that kind of advice about blogging can do more for the revenue-generating power of the seller than it can to help you. However, it’s perfectly fine to spend money on someone who can bring particular skills and expertise to produce and/or write and/or maintain your blog on your behalf.

There is no reason to complicate things. Remember K-I-S-S. Keep technology simple when you choose to get into blogging and you will increase your chances of success. To do otherwise is just stupid.

One of the best things you could do if you’re just starting out with blogging is to use free software that is downloadable on the Internet. I will tell you for free what I have learned: My own experience with blogging software has taught me that just because something is free does not mean it has no value. Sometimes, if you know where to look, the exact opposite is also true: You already know that just because something is very expensive does not necessarily make it very valuable to you.

I believe that most people who want a Web 2.0 site will be very, very pleased with the free downloadable blogging software known as WordPress. That particular blogging software is user-friendly and has many excellent features. Did I mention that it is free?

This free software deserves to be the standard for all blogging. This free software is that good! I have paid for and used many types of blogging software. I wholeheartedly endorse the WordPress approach to blogging because it is simple and yet has many features that you need.

The website you are now visiting is powered by ExpressionEngine, which I really respect and admire.  I have been using ExpressionEngine since the days when it was known as PMachine, so I have by now attained a high degree of awareness of the many features of this excellent content management system.  If you intend to use ExpressionEngine, you need to have a high level of technical skill regarding the use of website code.  ExpressionEngine is not for beginners.  However, ExpressionEngine is a sophisticated and powerful system for running complex blog sites, bulletin board forums, galleries, wikis, and other Web 2.0 capabilities.

Your Blog’s Home

In order to use WordPress or any blogging software that you download from the Internet, you need to have a place where you run the software so that it will show up online. This is known as Web hosting. You need a Web host. It’s very much like renting a place for a residence or business. You pay someone “rent” for space on their Web server and the blogging software runs on the server so that people all over the world can experience your blog. That becomes your blog’s “home” online.

If your organization has its own Web servers, your organization can choose to host its own blog. This is not rocket science and it does provide the control over the blog that you and your organization may want to have.

Note that if your organization chooses to host WordPress, there are some simple technical requirements that must be met. The Web server must be able to run two free software packages–PHP and MySQL. These two free software packages are used in so many places online today that it would be difficult to tell you the exact number.

You may encounter IT people (in your own organization or at external Web hosting companies) who tell you that they can’t or won’t run PHP and MySQL. If you encounter such IT people, run for the exit as quickly as you can. I’m exaggerating, of course. The point is: The willingness to run the free PHP and MySQL software is an essential part of using WordPress for your blogging. However, there are other software platforms (that you pay for) which will also provide you will excellent ways to start blogging.

There is nothing wrong with outsourcing Web hosting externally. Just be sure that you pick a Web host that has been recommended specifically by someone else who had a successful experience with that exact Web host. Don’t ever just pick a Web host based on what their site looks like! It’s easy to hire designers to make a site look great, but the technical know-how of the Web host can have zero relationship to their site design! Always rely upon the specific recommendation of someone you trust when picking a Web host.

Let Someone Manage For You

If you have no technical person or persons to provide you with the support that you need, you may want to consider having someone else manage your Web hosting. Fortunately, there are companies who will handled this for you. One such company that I have used and would recommend is Blog Harbor.

Here’s a compelling example: In Washington, DC, the center of the speechwriting universe, I helped the Washington Speechwriters Roundable get started during their initial attempt with blogging using the Blog Harbor service. This group wanted a way to reach out to and network with professional speechwriters who work in the Washington, DC metro area. I recommended blogging because of the suitability of blogging for the outreach goals of Washington Speechwriters Roundtable. Blogging isn’t always about sharing opinions online. If your organization needs to do outreach to a target audience or membership group, blogging is a fantastic way to accomplishing your goals.

The way this particular managed blog hosting works with Blog Harbor is that you pay a monthly fee for the use of their blog software and you are also “renting” space on their Web server. Going this route means you or your organization do not have any of the technical hassles of handling blogging software or Web servers.

Just remember, however, that you give up certain control and functionality when you pay someone else to manage your blog on their Web server. The highest level of control (if that’s what you want) is to download blogging software like WordPress and run it on a Web host that you trust and who provides you all the support that you need and want.

(Web Guru Woody Goulart wrote this commentary & analysis and originally posted it on AmericanBlogging.com not long ago.)

Because of the heat that is generated over partisan political blogs, it’s real easy to mistake all blogging as serving primarily the function of stirring up emotions and initiatiating public action on issues. However, I can tell you about the real-world of blogging for business–minus any and all partisan political controversy.

In 2001, I created one of the first blogs coming out of Washington, DC. My work was one of the earliest examples of what today is called Web 2.0, but it was not even called a blog at all because that term was not widely used in those days. Back in 2001, I wanted and needed the benefits of what we now know as blogging software when I created a website called “Message Center” for the well-known Washington, DC nonprofit association for older Americans, AARP. See how it looked here:

The AARP Message Center website was a business site that blogged in continuous operation from December 2001 through February 2006 when management changes at the organization established other priorities and this Web 2.0 effort was not considered important to the organization’s employees. My blogging efforts were pioneering in the sense that few organizations in the early 2000s had yet discovered how to use the Internet for their own, internal business reasons.

I persuaded AARP management to recognize the need to inform AARP employees about what AARP was saying in its public communications. Employees across all 50 states and in the six different U.S. time zones needed to be “on the same page,” so to speak, when it came to how AARP communicated its opinions on important public policy issues such as Social Security, Medicare prescription drugs, older drivers, grief and loss, grandparenting, and so forth. The management at that time followed my guidance to use the Internet and blogging software to help AARP employees stay “on message” no matter what time zone they happened to work in.

I chose to use blogging software for the AARP Message Center website because that particular software–which was “new” in the early 2000s–enabled AARP to make frequent (sometimes daily!) postings on Web pages in reverse chronological order with links to summaries, digests and full text. This use of technology was essential since AARP is large and decentralized, with staffed offices located in over 60 locations in all five of the U.S. time zones, including Alaska and Hawaii. I decided in the early 2000s that using blogging software online was the most practical way to share up-to-the-minute documents and details will all employees from coast to coast.

Initially, I conceived of computer code to do what today’s blogging software does and I worked with a technical advisor at a Web host to develop customized software for the AARP Message Center site. Eventually, the availability of off-the-shelf blogging software increased in the 2000s, and I chose wisely not to reinvent the wheel and made the switch to PMachine, which is now known as ExpressionEngine.  The website that you are now visiting is powered by ExpressionEngine.  Another product I used to power the AARP Message Center at one point was WordPress, which is free of charge.

The AARP Message Center blog (regardless of the software that powered the site) provided extreme flexibility in the continuous sharing of knowledge, approved language and documents with thousands of employees over the Internet at a cost savings and time savings compared to using traditional, low-tech alternatives such as mailing hard copies through the U.S. Postal Service. This practical, everyday business use of blogging certainly is not ”sexy” like today’s sizzling commentaries in partisan political blogs.

And that’s my point. Blogging need not be perceived as “sexy” or “hot” when it comes to your everyday business needs. In fact, I demonstrated vividly with this blogging effort in the early 2000s a very important fact: Strip away the fanfare and splash and your organization can nonetheless derive many tangible cost-saving and time-saving benefits by choosing to use blogging software to interact with a decentralized target audience such as employees, business partners, stakeholders, existing customers, and potential customers. My Web 2.0 work at AARP won me three consecutive years recognition in the Washington, DC market for the 2003, 2004, and 2005 APEX Awards.

(Web Guru Woody Goulart wrote this commentary & analysis and originally posted it on AmericanBlogging.com not long ago.)