What No One Ever Tells You About Blogging and Podcasting

by David Geer

February 27, 2007 —

David Geer recently spoke with Ted Demopoulos, author of What No One Ever Tells You About Blogging and Podcasting and Blogging for Business. Following is an edited transcript of that conversation.

Listen to the original interview here, or visit our Podcast Center for more audio interviews.

David Geer: I understand that blogging got your website to number one on all the major search engines in 24 hours?

Ted Demopoulos: It did. I was very surprised. My website barely showed up in the search engines, even on searches for my own name, and within 24 hours on the major search engines, if anyone googled me or Demopoulos Associates I showed up number one.

Geer: That's pretty amazing. Can you give me an example of some of the keywords or the keyword phrase that your site comes up number one for?

Demopoulos: Any variant of my name or company name will be number one. I do not come up number one for some of the very competitive terms I'd like to, for example, security. There's a lot of competition for terms like that. But there are specialized terms that are direct hits. For example, if somebody is looking for information on the difference between the SANS/GIAC and the CIFSP certification, and a lot of my clients do, I'm the number one hit for that.

Geer: What are some things that no one ever tells you about blogging?

Demopoulos: First, blog writing is nothing like business writing. It's informal, it's conversational. Second, there are just so many innovative ways people can use blogs and podcasts for business, ways that I never would have thought of before I started interviewing people for my book. For example, one salesperson I talked to, before he goes on a sales call always does some research on who he's visiting. Most sales people do this. He's added blogs to the mix. He considers blog research to be absolutely essential. Are any of the people he's going to visit have blogs? Does the company have a blog? Are there any industry blogs that might have some unfiltered information he wouldn't get anywhere else? Another example might be Right Look Radio. Right Look Automotive sells automotive reconditioning equipment, basically car detailing stuff. Now, I'd never guess a company like that would blog or podcast. But it turns out that the average new customer is dropping about $25,000 or $35,000 for an initial investment to start an auto detailing business. They have started podcasting, which is just an audio blog, and their response has been phenomenal. They very often will get a call first thing in the morning, a new order from someone that's been listening half the night to their podcasts, getting as much information as possible.

Geer: What are your top tips for the enterprise for how they can improve their blogs?

Demopoulos: First, blogs need to be made personal. Having a picture and a short "about me" page or some "about me" information makes a big difference, because when people read a blog, they want to know a little bit about the person doing the writing, particularly since they're reading fact and opinion. Second, I see some big company blogs that are not reaching out to other blogs. Linking to other blogs helps for a number of reasons. First, it adds value to the reader. Second, when you link to someone else, they are going to notice. They are going to come and visit. And they, in turn, may link, which will help boost the rankings in the search engines as well. So personalization and reaching out to others are the two things I would say for enterprises that want to improve their blogs.

Geer: What are some tips for the enterprising individual who wants to start a blog?

Demopoulos: I strongly recommend no one jump in without reading blogs for at least a couple of weeks, maybe longer. You learn an awful lot just by spending a few minutes a day just looking at blogs that you're interested in, that in some sense have information you find valuable, just to figure out how the whole thing works, how blogs interact with each other, the style of writing, and so forth. In fact, I suggest to many people that want to start a business blog, they don't start their business blog first. They start what I call a throw-away blog. This might be a blog on a hobby or leading up to a one-time event.

Geer: What do you wish that I had asked on the subject of blogging that you'd really like to respond to?

Demopoulos: What about people who don't blog? What kind of value will they find in blogs and blogging since obviously not every one is going to blog. And the answer to that is just like most people who read books don't write them, and most people that watch movies don't make them, there's a lot of great information available in blogs, regardless of someone's professional or personal interests. They're a great information resource regardless of what people are interested in. And I think we're going to find more and more people into blogs and blogging who are never planning on writing a blog themselves, but are simply benefiting from all that information that is being put out there.

Geer: What are some of the blogs and podcasts you're currently working on?

Demopoulos: The main blog that I'm writing now is BloggingforBusinessBook.com, where I write specifically about how to blog for business, how to have a good professional blog and various things along those lines. I also blog at TheTedWrap.com, where I write about the intersection of business and technology, although I'm not as active there as I was previously. And I was, until recently, podcasting an audio blog at The Great Big Small Business Show. And I'm looking at starting a new podcast hopefully within the next two or three weeks, name to be determined.

Geer: What are you hearing as far as new and innovative ways that blogs or podcasts are going to be leveraged?

Demopoulos: I see the effect being that your standard corporate website is either adding a blog or perhaps a podcast, or more generically, they are adding some less formal communication mechanisms. Your standard website is somewhat boring, somewhat formal. It's business speak, it's market ease, and there's nothing wrong with that. But people don't go to a website over and over typically. Of course there are some exceptions. But I'm finding a more personal and conversational component being added to company websites, whether that's a blog, a podcast, or something else.

Geer: Is there anything else that you'd like to top off the conversation with?

Demopoulos: I would like to suggest that everyone take a look at some blogs and see what's there and see if it's something that might be able to help them professionally, or perhaps help their business.

Geer: Thank you, Ted. For more information about Ted Demopoulos and his blogging expertise and experiences, visit BloggingforBusinessBook.com.

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