There is another great source of knowledge that is freely available in the blogging world, and that is Podcast!

What is a podcast?   It is the audio form of a blog posting.  Instead of reading someone’s blog post you listen to it.  It’s awesome!

How do you find these podcast?  The majority of podcast available in the blogosphere can be found through itunes.  (You must install itunes on your computer before you can subscribe to the podcast. LINK) For the bloggers that don’t link to itunes, their podcast will be available at their blog. 

How much do they cost?  90% of all the podcast that I listen to from itunes are FREE! 

How to sign up?  The first step is to make sure that you have the latest itunes application installed on your computer.  Then go into itunes store (from your itunes application) click on podcast in the left sidebar. Then you can search by topic, or keywords to find the podcast you want to subscribe too.  After you found what you want click the button that says subscribe. Done!
If you are trying to subscribe to a podcast from a specific blog, you will need to locate the subscription options on the blogsite (if the bloggers podcast is listed in itunes he will have an itunes subscription button-recommended) and click whichever one best fits your audio preferences.

How often will I have to sign up?  Only once!  Once you are subscribed to the podcast, every time you launch the itunes application on you computer it will automatically update your podcast with the most recent entries.

You can listen while in the car at the gym or even at the office.  Podcasting is a great way to get the information you want even when you are busy.

BlogSimple, BlogSmart, BlogProfit

Christopher Eggleston

Now that I have told you the best ways to learn about launching your business blog are to learn from all the pro bloggers, I figured I should let you in on who I consider some of the best pros in the industry.

I subscribe to all of their blogs, read their entries daily and some times try to apply what they are teaching (if I haven’t all ready) to make sure it works before I suggest it to my clients, or readers.

With there being so many “business blogging pros” out there how will you know which one to chose?  Great question and I have asked myself that one a time or two trying to decide whom I should listen too.  The thing that makes it really hard is when they all say the same things, which is 90 percent of the time if they are truly a “pro”.

Now as a business owner trying to build your brand you don’t have time and some often the recourses to try every idea or suggestion that all the different pro bloggers have to decide who is going to provide the best solution.  That’s where Blogging For Business 101 consultants come in. 

First off, we are only going to link to the real pros.  Secondly, we are going to put the ideas and suggestion to the test so that we know whether or not it will be a best practice for your business. 

Blogging should be seamless for your business.  And by that I mean, when you begin the process of launching your blog it should be simple.  You want to be able to just plug and play.

Not only can you as a business owner, learn from the pros, but you can also learn from the other businesses in your industry that are making noise with their blog.  I recommend going to Google typing in some keywords that relate to the type of products or services you offer and try to find a competitor with a blog.  Once you have found a couple then subscribe to their post and keep an on them for a day or two. 

NOTE: If you don’t find a competitor with a blog, this is an opportunity for you to advantage of this marketing approach and become the expert in that field.  So when people search google for your products or services they will find you first and be able to get to know you and your business through your blog.

Learning from the mistakes your competitors made while blogging is one of the most effective ways to learn what to do and what not to do when launching your blog.  Some of them might already have established some best practices for your industry.  And like I have said before, there is no sense in recreating the wheel when someone has already paved the road to success.

BlogSimple, BlogSmart, BlogProfit

Christopher Eggleston
www.bloggingforbusiness101.com

…not about pitching your products/services.

Blogging is a way to humanize your efforts.  It is so easy to get caught up in being busy with all the work that’s on your plate that you don’t have time to get to know your customers and they don’t have time to get to know you.  When your business launches a blog, it is an open invitation to anyone that is interested in your products or services to learn about the company from the people in the company.  It will also provide a different prospective

from the customers and critics point of view that is not bias.  It’s that human touch that we tell ourselves we are too busy to express. 

Are you still going to talk about your products and services on your blog?  Sure you are, because your products and services are the things that make your company different from the other guy.  But more importantly your business blogging efforts will be to create relationships with current customers and provide a welcoming hand to potentially new customers.

I figured that I should do a little introduction to Blogging For Business 101 and maybe try and tell you a little bit about why we are better then the other guy.

I can’t say that when I started blogging I knew all the ins and outs that would provide the best results or attract the most traffic.  Heck I can’t say that I know all the ins and outs now!  And I realize that as a professional blogging consultant I take some risk at making such a statement, but it’s true.  I won’t pretend to know everything; this has been a learning experience for me as I have headed out to start this business.  I have however, in my experience learned a few simple tricks to making blogging a little more seamless.  Everyone in the industries says that as a blogging consultant I have to make myself look like the industry expert.  My philosophy is a little different, and it might be because I have always been taught to work smarter and not harder.  So my philosophy is this, in order for me to be successful as a business blogging consultant I only need to know more, then my clients know about blogging. 

If you search Google for “Business Blogging”, “Blogging for Business” or any other keyword phrases of this sort, you are going to find hundreds of pages of information from all kinds of people saying that they are experts.  And you know most of them are very successful bloggers and very knowledgeable in there filed.  And many of them have been influential in my efforts to start Blogging For Business 101.  And they are all more successful then I which is why I have decided to work with them and not against them.

Now, I have been involved in many business start ups, some of which have failed and others that have flourished.  From all the lessons that I have learned form these different business ventures one of the most valuable lessons taught to me came from a great friend who said, “Chris, stop trying to recreate the wheel.  You have several people who have gone before you and have paved the path to success.  Why do you insist on creating your own path when there is a perfectly good one right in front of you?”  So when I decided to start this business, I predetermined that I would stay on the paved path and build off of those who have found success in business blogging already.

Best practices probably wouldn’t suggest for me to try and act like the big guy on campus and waste my client’s time and money pretending to be an expert when we can use the expertise of many pro bloggers. 

I have read a lot of books, blogs, and talked to several other blogging consultants who have all told me the same thing.  If you want to be the best you’ve got to find the new strategy or hot topic before anyone else and get it out into the blogosphere.  There is a lot of competition out there, and I am not interested in being the most knowledgeable or having the most wisdom, I am more interested in providing the best services I can to my clients.  Now don’t get me wrong I am very much vested in improving my knowledge and understanding of blogging, but I am not waiting until I, “know everything” to jump in and start consulting businesses in their blogging venture.

I am sure that by now many have started asking themselves why would I hire Chris and Blogging For Business 101 to provide a consulting service that he himself has just said he doesn’t know much about?  Hey, that’s a fair question, and you know my company might not be the best fit for your business, however there is one thing that you are going to get from Blogging For Business 101, the truth!  Am I going to give my services away just to beat out my older more experienced competitors? No.  That’s not far to them or my clients.  There is an old saying, you get what you pay for, and I don’t want be that guy.  I won’t sacrifice quality and I won’t allow my clients to sacrifice quality by being so cheep that they just can’t refuse to hire me.

Back to the statement I made at the beginning of this post, …why we are better then the other guy. I honestly don’t know that we are.  I know that we have had some great launches with our current clients and we are expecting more great launches, but over all it’s probably our ability to provide the one on one services that a small or new business needs. 

There are amazing strategies and ideas that I have learned in my ventures in business and in blogging that I will use to assure that your company is getting the best results they need. 

BlogSimple
Christopher Jon Eggleston