Whether you are just getting started in corporate blogging, or you haven’t been paying much attention to other bloggers, the so-called “blogosphere” can be a little confusing. There are literally thousands, if not millions of blogs out there, and if you’re trying to network through them, the task can be a bit overwhelming. There are a few tips however that can help you learn to navigate successfully through the blogosphere.

What is the blogosphere?

It is a term that was coined to describe the intertwining of blog sites, the general atmosphere of the community and the fact that bloggers are really in their own little world. You can become a member of the blogosphere just by becoming a coporate blogger, but you’ll need to know a few things before you get started. Otherwise, your best efforts may just be shooting yourself in the foot.

The first place to start is understanding RSS feeds, and social networking sites. If you don’t have the basics down for these two very important items, everything else may be more complicated than necessary. Take some time to go through places like Digg.com, Technorati, and Twitter to see what is going on. Chances are, you’ll be able to come up with some great ideas for your own blog during this process.

Next, you’ll want to start thinking about setting up some great relationships with other bloggers. This has many added benefits, such as being able to write a guest post for another blog (or having someone do the same for you) and you’ll be building up some strong contacts that will help you increase your traffic and your exposure. Take the time to hunt down other blogs in your niche and start by leaving thoughtful comments in their blog section, making sure to leave your URL.

This is quiet marketing, but it can be very successful. Once you have your own little network built up through your contacts, you should find that your traffic increases as a natural result. This is particularly true if you are utilizing social networking sites to promote your blog.

Remember, you don’t necessarily have to promote just your blog. You can develop a reputation as a valued contributor by sharing good links with your network and involving them in your blog. Try to keep your promotion efforts as quiet as possible, to avoid being labeled as a spammer. People in the blogosphere have a very low tolerance for behavior like this and you can quickly develop a reputation that is very hard to shake.

Taking the time to become a valued member of the blogosphere is time well spent. This is your opportunity to develop yourself as an authority on your subject of choice, and to build up real relationships with your readers and with other bloggers. By reaching out to them and becoming an active participant in social networks, comment sections and forums, you can start to grow your corporate blog very quickly and with little extra effort.

Photo Credits: 1

• Absolutely Everything Corporate Blogging By Debbie Weil This book claims to be the definitive guide to corporate blogging, so we were pretty interested to see what it had to offer. Right off the bat, the forward, which was written by Bob Lutz of GM (a corporate blogger) got our attention. It’s always nice to see books written......
• Interactive Blogging For Corporate Bloggers As readers become more involved with the blogs they frequent, a new form of communication is becoming prevalent – interactive blogging. There are a few ways to look at this and determine whether or not this form of interaction is right for your corporate blog and your readers. When used......
• Blog Shmog By Robert W. Bly If you are on the fence about starting your own corporate blog, this is a great book to read to help you make your decision. The subtitle is “The Truth About Business Blogs” and that pretty much says it all. For those that don’t have time to go through stories......
• Blogging Heroes - Interviews with 30 of the World's Top Bloggers by Michael A. Banks Among more than 102,000,000 blogs that are currently on the internet, there are only a small, select few that manage to stand out as ground breaking, successful or influential against the backdrop of so many others. This book focuses on thirty blogging heroes, touching on everything from parenting to the......
• 3 Tips on Avoiding Failure with Your Corporate Blog One of the main problems facing corporate blogs is that they have a high rate of failure. This can be due to many factors, but it doesn't mean that your blog is doomed to fail. With the right techniques and management, your blog can be incredibly successful and can serve......

• 10 Steps to Start a Blog Is this your first time starting a blog? Here is a ten step checklist for starting your own blog. 1 - Choose a subject - Determine what it is that you want to blog about. You need to have a concept before you can start writing about, so that you......
• Why Did You Choose Self-Hosted Wordpress? In my "12 Essential Companion Accounts for a Successful Blog" article, Lisa from Greener Pastures asked: "I am on the free Blogspot Software, but I notice everyone keeps mentioning Wordpress. Could you talk more about this? I'm thinking I should convert, but wanted to keep my budget on this project......
• ExpressionEngine One Of The Best CMS Systems Finally I achieved to move my whole blog to expressionengine.com technology. I bought the full license already a couple of years ago, tried in a sandbox and have to say that I always gave up after a couple of hours as you do need some leisure time to understand the......
• Getting a degree isn't BAD, is it? Of course not! Fellow Money Blog Network member Flexo makes some excellent points regarding my suggestion not to get over-educated, so I'm responding to them in hopes of opening some more discussion. The post might lead people to believe that I'm anti-education. That's not true. Constant learning is absolutely, positively......
• War On Poverty (Blog Action Day) Today is Blog Action Day and participating bloggers unite to discuss poverty. The goal is to raise awareness and initiate action Poverty is not something that I think about everyday, and I am sure many of you don't either.  I am not saying that it is good or bad --......

RSS Feed, bloggers, blogosphere, comments, social bookmarking sites, web traffic

atmosphere, best efforts, blog, blogger, bloggers, blogging, blogosphere, marketing, natural result, niche, relationships, social networking sites, technorati, thoughtful comments, traffic increases, twitter