Recent data released by research firm Nielsen showed a staggering 300% increase in time spent on social network and blogging sites in just twelve months.  "This growth suggests a definite change in the way the Internet is used," said Jon Gibs, vice-president of media and agency insights for Nielsen's online division. "While video and text content remain central to the Web experience, the desire of online consumers to connect, communicate, and share is increasingly driving the medium's growth."

This trend shows no sign of abating.  At the end of September Google released their new web application, Google Wave, to 100,000 testers in the USA.  This application combines elements of email, chat, Wiki documents, blogs and photo-sharing sites to create a form of internet communication called a “hosted conversation” or “wave”.  This product is expected to be publicly available by 2010.

Where to start as a business – before you get left behind!  Blogging is one of the first ways to build an engaged community. People talk about building community on Twitter and other social sites, but few things can compare to the engagement that can surround healthy debates, reader generated content and suggestions in blog comments.

After hearing all the buzz about blogs and how popular they are becoming, your company decided to dive into the blogging waters late last year.  Even though you've posted a few times, your blog has gotten little or no comments, and only a handful of visitors a day!  Before you give up and decide it is all too hard, look at some ideas for revitalizing you blog so that both you and your customers can benefit from it.

It's Not About You

If your company blog isn't getting the results you were expecting, start by examining your blog's content. Consider how your blog is positioned:  Are you using it as a selling tool, or as a tool to communicate with your customers and provide them with engaging information?

Many companies make the mistake of focusing almost exclusively on the products and services that they provide, thus replicating information that can be found on the company's main website.

Blogs are powerful communication tools and the content on your company's blog should be engaging and encourage feedback from visitors.  Instead of endlessly blogging about your products and services, give readers information that helps them with satisfy their wants and needs.

You Can Talk to Me

Engaging content will lead to comments. How your company handles these comments will keep your blog healthy and vibrant.

First, is your company moderating comments? Many companies choose to moderate comments to ensure that spam, as well as comments containing profanity or abusive remarks, isn't posted on the blog. If your company does choose to moderate comments, you must make sure that you approve these comments as quickly as possible. If users notice that it takes a few days for their comments to be posted, they may stop commenting altogether. Also, visitors tend to read those posts that have more comments—so the quicker you can approve and post comments, the more likely that post will receive even more comments.

Make an effort to not only reply to those readers who leave comments but also go to each “commenter's” blog and leave a comment there in turn. This is a great way of both saying "thank you"to visitors who leave comments and encouraging a first-time “commenter” to become a regular reader of your blog.

An additional benefit of reading the blogs of the people who comment on your blog is that you will gain better insight into your customer's interests—not only about the types of products and services they look for but also on how to tailor your blog's content to appeal to your readers.

Do consider responding to comments left both on your company's blog and on the visitor's blog as your way of being a good community member and a good neighbor. Interacting with your readers in this manner is a wonderful way to ensure that they will spend more time on your blog reading and commenting.

You're Never Here When I Am

Possibly the best way to develop readership to your blog is to post regularly. Blogs are different from other Web sites in that the content on blogs is constantly changing. Readers expect to see new content almost every time they visit a blog. If they do not, they will either scale back the number of visits or stop visiting altogether.

A good idea is to set up a posting schedule for your company blog. If the blog has one writer, then you might want to shoot for 2-3 posts a week, or more if time permits.  If your blog has 2-3 writers, then each might write 1-2 posts a week. The idea is to do your best to make sure that your readers are rewarded with new content every time they visit your blog.

Also, consider your reader's habits. Blog readership typically falls on the weekend and is normally higher during the week, with traffic beginning to tail off on Friday. Ideally, the majority of your blog's posts will fall on Monday through Thursday. Again, the idea is to get your posting habits in line with when your visitors want to read your blog.

Make It Pretty

Try your best to add a relevant picture to every post. Visuals immediately capture the reader's attention and give your post a fighting chance of being read. It's OK to add pictures of your products, as long as you are careful not to go overboard. If possible, use pictures that you and other writers have taken.

Don't be afraid to add pictures of yourself and other writers, and do so often. People are more comfortable around people they know and are familiar with, and adding pictures is a great way to help readers remember that a "real person" is writing your blog.

If you have a shutterbug or two at your company, consider setting up a Flickr account and adding a Flickr stream of these photos to your blog. Don't worry if the pictures are related to something totally different from your company. If your company sells soap, and your blog's Flickr stream has a series of photos from your CEO's trek last month, your readers will love it.  They will respond because it shows them that your company is made up of real people with real interests and real hobbies, just like them.

Share the (Blogging) Love

Now your readers are spending more time on your blog, aim to send them away. Yes, that’s right. When you add links in your posts to additional information on other sites and blogs, you are encouraging your readers to leave your blog. But from the reader's point of view (remember the focus is on the reader), they see your linking to another site as a way of helping them find helpful and relevant information.

In other words, you are making an effort to provide them with a better experience and are willing to risk having them leave your site. Readers see this as your putting their wants and needs above your own.

Don't hesitate to link to your competitors, either. Yes, from your company's point of view, this might seem like "helping the enemy," but to your blog reader your doing so makes your company seem confident in its products and services. Perhaps more importantly, it helps establish your company as a leader in its field.

Why Are You Blogging?

If you have started blogging and you're not satisfied with the results you are achieving, it might be time to take a step back and reconsider your motivations. When visitors arrive at your blog, they are looking for something. It could be entertainment; it could be information or simply the opportunity to leave you feedback.

Your job is to tailor your content so that it satisfies the wants and needs of your visitors and readers. It is not to push your products and services post after post.  Your job isn't to ignore the comments from your visitors and readers.

A blog is an incredibly powerful communication tool, but very few companies use it properly.

Your primary motivation for blogging should be to better understand your customers.  When you engage your customers in conversation, you understand them better and you can more efficiently market your products and services to them. That's where a blog comes in.

If you are viewing your blog as a tool to sell more products to your customers... stop. Your blog's readers want to talk to you and learn more about your company.  So open up the communication possibilities of your blog. View it as a learning tool that will allow you to talk to your customers and better understand them. You simply cannot place a dollar figure on the value of having a better understanding of your customers.

The Power of Understanding

The biggest improvement you can make to your company's blog is to shift your mindset—from viewing it as a promotional device to seeing it as a powerful communication tool.

Consider your blog as a conversational starting point between your and your customers.

But will you increase sales?  When customers see that a company is making an effort to talk to them and learn from them, that makes a serious impression on them. The customers begin to trust the company, which not only leads them to give more feedback but also drives them to tell others about how well you company listens. That, in turn, leads to more customers, and more devoted customers, and helps encourage customer evangelism.

So What Does It All Mean?

If your company blog isn't taking off like you had hoped it would, you can improve its performance.

Make sure that you are tailoring its contents so that the visitor benefits. Don't turn your blog into an online brochure for your products; that's what your Web site is for.

The job of your blog is to give your readers other information they want, and can use.  By giving readers information they can use, even if it isn't about your products and services, you ensure that they will continue to read your blog, and tell others about it as well.

Position your company blog not from your point of view but from your customers', and you'll be amazed at the results.