Best of the Blogs

Looking for a site to model your own after, or to recommend to your clients? The frugal-living site WiseBread has declared The Consumerist to be the best personal finance blog out there. As the title indicates, it's mostly about consumer items - a current topic is "What's the Worst Infomercial Product Ever?"

But there's nothing wrong with that. As long as you maintain your authority, you should feel free to roam far in the area of financial planning on your own blog. it's those far afield items that often end up sticking in people's minds the most.

As You Probably Know...

One tricky thing about blogging for your clients is that each one brings a different set of knowledge. Someone might want to know how the S&P 500's current P/E ratio compares to historical norms at this stage of an economic recovery; others will want to know what "P/E" stands for.

How do you provide basic information for the latter group, without turning off the former group? Whenever you present something simple, it helps to acknowledge that a lot of people will already know it. "As you probably know, bond yields and prices move in opposite directions." Or, "Remember, the key thing to watch is not the earnings themselves but whether they beat expectations." And so forth.

The Importance of Cross-Branding

I hope no one interpreted that last post to mean that I was down on using Twitter as a way to reach your clients. Twitter is fantastic! My general feeling is that all of these media allow you to reach out to your clients at the exact moment that they are looking for more information. It’s better to put all this stuff on the Internet and have it lying there when the clients are ready, as opposed to a cold call or a mailer.

The key is: Use them all, then cross-brand everything. When you post something on your blog, tweet that you have a new article for everyone to read, and put the link on Facebook and LinkedIn too. On your blog’s home page, there should be a clear notice that you’re on Twitter too, and you might even want to explain to people how they can follow you there. And so forth.

Remember, not everyone is on every social medium. In fact, most people are only checking one or two of them regularly. Make sure you don’t miss out on notifying anyone of all the great material you’re providing.

Blogging vs. Twitter

Most advisors who’ve begun to make use of social media find it easier and more immediate to use Facebook or Twitter to reach out to their clients, as opposed to putting items on their own site, such as in a blog. And make no mistake: Facebook and Twitter and LinkedIn and all the rest are excellent ways to get your name and expertise in front of people.

But it’s important to realize the limitations of these media. It’s not just that there’s a practical limit to how much you can communicate in a status update or a tweet. Let’s take a look at my own personal Twitter feed: I’m following 48 people, which I don’t think is outlandishly high. If I click on the MORE button at the bottom of the page, I get taken back to tweets from four hours ago.

Now, imagine someone had tweeted something yesterday, a link to an article that might really help me clarify my thinking on an estate planning issue. Maybe I thought, well, I don’t have time to read that now, but I sure should check that out. This morning, how easy is it going to be for me to find that? I can keep clicking MORE till I’m blue in the face, or I can search for the hashtag #estate, but either way there’s no guarantee I’ll find it. Maybe the readers are savvy enough to find their way to their advisor's Twitter home page, but maybe they’re not.

If I can go to that advisor’s blog, though, it’s liable to still be right on the front page. Or there’ll be a search box at the top, and I can type in “estate” and find the post immediately. And even if you run into the dreaded link rot – where the links you’ve posted are no longer operable, because the story or site you linked to no longer exists in cyberspace – your explanation of the issue will still exist. In short, what you can get from blogging that is hard to come by on Twitter is permanence.

The Never-Ending Search for Blog-Post Ideas

The biggest concern I hear from financial advisors about blogging is that they don’t think they can keep up with a daily or even weekly pace, and basically want to shoehorn a new post in once a month or so. My blogging clients receive new material on their sites every weekday, so obviously, that’s what I think the best pace is. At the same time, I understand that it’s not easy for a nonprofessional writer to come up with fresh ideas all the time.

But I think it’s mostly a case of not recognizing a good idea for a blog post. We all read the Wall Street Journal every day, or check out Bloomberg News online, or otherwise come across new material that our clients might want to know. Right now on Bloomberg News, there’s a story about how McDonald’s sales are up 3.9 percent in Asia, which is a faster pace than the 2.7 percent growth in the U.S.

That’s interesting! Everybody can identify with McDonald’s, everyone is interested in Asia’s economic growth…. This is what is sometimes called a “teachable moment,” an instance where we can use a readily understandable example to illustrate why economic growth overseas can be a great thing for an All-American company like McDonald’s. It's not a big deal, but it's easy for people to understand, and your clients will appreciate that you're staying on top of the news.

The key is to get into the habit of reading the news with an eye toward turning stories into blog posts. It would take about ten minutes to read that story, write up something on what McDonald’s success in Asia means, throw in a link to Bloomberg, and put the whole thing up on your Website – as long as you’re in the proper mind-set to do so.

Am I Blogging Often Enough?

Is it really necessary to blog every day? Well, think about how you cycle through your Internet bookmarks when you sit down to the computer each day. You’ll click on your favorite news site, Facebook, your Twitter feed, maybe ESPN for sports, a humor or political blog, and see what’s fresh on each site.

If there’s nothing new to read on one of the sites, that’s no big deal. If tomorrow, there’s still nothing fresh, you might feel a little disappointed. If there’s nothing by Friday, you might decide – even subconsciously – to stop dropping by there every day.

At the same time, even one little item – maybe a link to an interesting story that person found elsewhere on the Net – is likely to keep you coming back for more. At least you know that person’s site is still alive, and still being updated; you don’t have to worry about whether it’s been abandoned.

Ask yourself: How long will I keep clicking on a non-updated site before I stop visiting there altogether? However long that is, you want to make sure your own blog gets refreshed more often that that.

New in the Journal of Financial Planning

In case you haven't seen it, I invite you to take a look at my interview with Strategic Coach founder Dan Sullivan, in the new March issue of the Journal of Financial Planning. Dan has some really provocative ideas about how financial advisors can run their businesses in ways that improve client service while also enhancing the quality of life for the advisor.

A big part of Dan's program is encouraging advisors to outsource tasks, allowing them to take more time out of the office. It's a little scary, but ultimately worth the effort. I really think you'll enjoy the entire interview.

Thou Shalt Blog

The author of the book The Social Media Bible has put up his Ten Commandments of Social Media over at the Fast Company Web site. Here's the very first one:

Commandments 1. Thou Shalt Blog (like crazy)
Blog. Please. That's the first priority. Set up a blog, a personal blog, a business blog. It's easier than you think. Use an existing blogging site such as Blogger.com or GOingOn.com or install your own branded blogging site right on your own server by using WordPress. And, WordPress is free.

It's interactive, it's more or less permanent, and it represents exactly what you want to say. The hardest part is doing it on a regular basis, so people keep coming back. Any business that wants to maintain a continuous relationship with its customers should really look into keeping a blog.

A Thought for Memorial Day

I have never been able to think of the day as one of mourning; I have never quite been able to feel that half-masted flags were appropriate on Decoration Day. I have rather felt that the flag should be at the peak, because those whose dying we commemorate rejoiced in seeing it where their valor placed it. We honor them in a joyous, thankful, triumphant commemoration of what they did. ~Benjamin Harrison, our 23rd President. Memorial Day was known as Decoration Day until after World War II.

Watch What You Say

One of the great things about blogging is that it can be instantaneous, off the cuff, a response to what's happening in the real world in real time. But that spontaneity also has a downside, if you're not careful.

According to the Wall Street Journal, in 2007, there were 106 civil lawsuits against bloggers and others in social networks and online forums, up from just 12 in 2003. The Media Law Resource Center in New York, a nonprofit clearinghouse that tracks free-speech cases, says that there have been about $17.4 million in trial awards against bloggers.

Remember, blogging is publishing. The same rules of libel and defamation apply in the blogosphere that would apply to any newspaper. So be spontaneous, but don't be reckless.

Blogroll

A blogger over at Seeking Alpha, a top-notch investment site, has put together a list of his favorite financial blogs. I would list them here, but there are several dozen of them, on topics ranging from European economics to Cacluated Risk, the blog that has done the best job of covering the housing and subprime stories here in the U.S.

Seeking Alpha itself is a very worthwhile site as well. If you're not already clicking over there regularly, I highly recommend it.

The Kindle News

The next major platform for blog readers appears to be Amazon's Kindle, which has announced a new program for uploading and publishing blog posts. There's no charge to bloggers for having their material distributed, but Amazon plans to charge readers - prices haven't been announced, but speculation is that it will be something like $1.99 a month per blog.

I generally trust that Amazon knows what it's doing, which is why this comes as a significant step for the world of blogging. If Amazon thinks people will be willing to pay to read a blog, they must have evidence that they're considered pretty popular and valuable.

Now that doesn't mean people will be willing to pay to read the kinds of marketing blogs we handle here at Triton. But it does mean that blogs have become a regular, accepted and even necessary part of people's online reading habits.

If people are willing to pay to read a blog, don't you think they might be likely to stop by and catch up on your blog - for free?

Don't Start a Blog?

I thought this was an interesting piece of advice from a Web site that handles PR for Managed Service Providers:

Over and over again, I warn MSPs not to launch corporate blogs. The reason: Most of the blogs turn into content graveyards because MSPs don’t have time to update the sites.

That gets at one of the issues we strive to avoid here at Triton. It's hard to update a blog every day. It's hard to know what to write about, and it's hard to find the time to write up your thoughts coherently and concisely.

But when you let Triton handle your blog, you get fresh, informative items posted every single weekday. Clients will never find your information stale and out of date. Each time they click on your site, they will find something new to read.

That's how you keep people coming back. Let us show you what we can do for you.

Tell It to the King

The latest person to get into trouble over his blogging is none other than CNN talk show host Larry King. King keeps a blog on the CNN Web site, even though a couple of years ago he said that he never goes on the Internet at all.

Now, blogs borrow material from other sites all the time, but it is considered kosher to always provide an attribution. Larry (or someone calling himself Larry) apparently has been putting up posts from other sites without any indication that it came from anywhere else. That's a no-no.

Everyone realizes that everything on the Internet is linked to everything else. There's no problem with that. But if you do, give credit where credit is due.

Beware the Blog

The Wall Street Journal recently had an article about the pitfalls that bloggers and Twitterers can fall into if they're not careful. Cisco actually got sued for defamation when an item in its blog accused a couple of lawyers - who were in the process of suing Cisco - of engaging in criminal activity.

Twitter, which is more fleeting and hit-and-run than a blog, seems to be getting people in even more trouble. EBay recently went after a Twitterer who had been following the company's earning reports, conferences, and things like that. EBay forced him to put a disclaimer on his Tweets - and given that they're only 140 characters long, that must have put a damper on his Twittering.

Blog posts move too quickly to get a full compliance review on every item, so bloggers are advised to be careful. Here at Triton, we've been working with advisors long enough to know how to put up meaningful posts that won't run afoul with the authorities.

And the Winner Is...

The Software and Information Industry Association recently handed out a bunch of awards (the Codies) to member firms, and one of them was for the Corporate Blog of the Year. That went to Mark Logic CEO Dave Kellogg's blog, titled simply Mark Logic CEO Blog.

It's instructive to read Dave's blog and see what people regard as exemplary in this field. Dave touches on a lot of complex, technical software issues, but he also deals with whatever topic strikes his fancy. There's a funny post up there about an interview with the guys who founded Twitter, for example.

Structurally, it's updated at least once a day, so people would never get out of the habit of clicking on it. It uses Blogger, the same flexible (and free!) blog-hosting service that we use. And most importantly, it gets people talking about Mark Logic, even people like me who ordinarily have little contact with the software industry. What more could you want?

The Source

Anyone who is interested in creating a blog should really take the time to familiarize him- or herself with Technorati, which is sort of the Google of blogs. It's not just a search engine for blogs but a way to track them: how your blog ranks among the most popular blogs in your category, who's been linking to your blog, all kinds of cool stuff like that.

It's also a way to keep up on what's percolating in the blogosphere. Technorati tracks the stories that have been appearing on every type of blog - corporate, personal, professional - so you can keep apprised on what's happening. You can also set up an account for yourself there to follow the blogs you're interested in. It's definitely a source worth checking out.

Quote for the Day

"Eventually, most businesses will use blogs to communicate with customers, suppliers and employees, because it's two-way and more satisfying." - Bill Gates, founder and chairman of Microsoft

The Graveyard

Many people start up blogs with the best of intentions and lots of enthusiasm: They think they'll have plenty to say for years on end and loyal readers will bookmark them and check back three or four times a week till the end of time. This leads to the conundrum of dead blogs. A dead blog is defined as one that hasn't had a new post for three months.

For instance Bad Medicine, a blog on medical politics, hasn't been updated since July 26, 2008. Ramblings of a Madman hasn't had any new ramblings since May 15, 2008. Something called Corporate Bloggers Revolution hasn't had a new post since October 29, 2006; apparently the revolution never came.

That's kind of sad, isn't it? These blogs sometimes stay forever out there in cyberspace, left in limbo, never to be updated or even read. There should be a blog morgue that people can call up to get their dead blogs removed.

The Best Blog?

The blog frequently cited as the best corporate blog out there is the one run by Google. The blog search engine Technorati, for example, ranks the Google blog as the number one most popular corporate site. Since Google searches for and categorizes everything in the known Internet world, the blog is at liberty to discuss most anything connected with the Web. They'll talk about anything from cloud computing to tracking the swine flu.

One interesting thing about the blog is that it's not easily detectable from Google's home page. You sort of have to go looking for it. Another interesting aspect is that it uses Blogger, the same free blog-hosting service we use here at Triton News. But that's not so surprising, since Blogger is an arm of Google.

Of course, Google has a whole army of employees ready and willing to write blog posts for it, and the entire Internet at its fingertips. And everyone and their uncle goes to Google to look up stuff every single day. So no one should feel too bad if their own blog doesn't measure up to Google's. There's plenty of room for the little guy, too.