AgWired

It’s the end of the day, the last session. The main thing I got out of the “metrics” session had to do with registering you blog on search engines, using “keywords” in posts and keeping an eye on how you’re doing. One place to look at how your website (or blog) is doing is Marketleap. It has some neat online tools for seeing how your site is doing, especially in comparison to other sites and for keywords!

This last session on strategy and policy for corporate blogging is certainly relevant for companies that are considering creating a blog or blogs. I’m going to point you to the Blog Business Summit website for more information.

This has definitely been a great opportunity to learn more about the blogosphere and most importantly talk with others who are using blogs as a business tool. Glad I came and will be doing the long travel home thing tomorrow.

I didn’t realize that we weren’t really supposed to take pictures of the presenters and post them without asking permission (whoops). I only know this because they have a big screen slide that was up with this instruction between sessions. So I gave myself permission to post my own picture.

I’m in one of the last sessions of the day that I hope to get some concrete information on. It’s “Measuring Success: Setting Goals and Establishing Metrics.” There’s that word “metrics” again. Gotta have metrics. We’ll see what Sally Falkow has to say. I ate lunch at her topic table on RSS. One of the key things I had wondered about RSS was “Can I measure how many subscribers I have to my site feed (RSS)?” Basically, the answer is no but there are some ways to get an idea of what level of subscribership you have to an RSS feed. I can tell you that we do have subscribers to AgWired both because of the feedback I get from them and because I can see the activity on the website. However, without going into a long explanation, I really can’t tell you how many actual subscribers AgWired has. I’m going to continue to research this.

Back to the BBS. Right now we’re on “Blog Writing Style” with Molly Holzschlag and Darren Barefoot. Prior to this today we heard about different types of blogging software with explanations of how each might best fit a particular application and level of experience for someone who wants to start blogging.

Now we’re getting specific about writing! For example, the idea of editing what you’ve written before you publish it and it’s on the web. Good idea. Although I can attest that as you get proficient you’ll find that you get more and more comfortable hitting the publish button when you’ve got it all entered.

Darren’s telling us to find our “voice” and as long time broadcaster that used to mean how your voice sounded. In the blogging world it refers to the “personality” that comes through in your writing. Of course, if you podcast, you can kind of do both.

I like the point that Darren just made regarding corporate blogging, that the company doesn’t blog, an individual at the company blogs. That reinforces what I try to tell people about using a blog as a way to personally connect with an audience.