Mark Schaefer on Blogging. Company blogs suck.  But they don’t have to and I’m on a mission to bring the world my message of blog anti-suckology.  Highlights include: A few stats on blogs. Ten reasons to blog, even if nobody reads it. New directions in corporate blogging. Ten super huge ideas to make your blog less sucky. In addition to blogging, some of my favorite speaking topics include: Social media strategy executive overviews. The Tao of Twitter. Business blogging. Let’s face it.  MORE >>

A recent research study by IBM indicates that micro-blogging sites like Twitter can be a powerful internal workplace communications tool. The study analyzed more than 5,000 microblog posts from a group of IBM employees who used both a proprietary internal tool to post and Twitter to post externally. The internal IBM micro-blog, called BlueTwit, has many of the same features as Twitter except it had a limit of 250 characters instead of 140 and could only be used internally. IBM found opportunity in using micro-blogging with employees.   Why or why not? MORE >>

There are lots of success stories and case studies documenting business success through Twitter. 1) Using Twitter search and other simple listening tools, monitor real time conversations about your brand that can assist your marketing and management teams in seeing what is really being about your company today. There One heating and air conditioning company had their best year ever simply by monitoring tweets about broken home systems and offering their prompt help. 2) Customer service is a popular use of Twitter by many companies and other organizations. MORE >>

Here are the most common questions I am asked about blogging and some answers! How do I get started with blogging? Write out the first 25 blog posts headlines you think you would like to compose. Last month, I had the same number of page views as my first 18 months of blogging all put together. How often should I blog? But here’s an easy regimen to follow if you want to shoot for one great blog post per week: Can you write a 500-word essay on a topic that interests you? That’s blog post number four. Great blog post! Money? MORE >>

Does it pay to be honest on Twitter? ” In the past, I’ve written a blog post about my life in social media each time I hit a milestone on Twitter. So, to the best of my knowledge, all 50,000 of those folks in my Twitter audience are real people. I’ve gone back and forth about whether it is worth the effort to evaluate every Twitter follower. So far, I have taken some pride and comfort in knowing that there is nothing fake about my Twitter audience. But they may look at 100,000 Twitter followers and decide that I am an authority. MORE >>