From newspaper editors to some of the greatest minds in the North West, blogging has taken off as a means to share views and news. Even some businesses are adopting the technology
It's taken a while, but the media phenomena of blogging -effectively an online diary -has slowly begun to seep into the lexicon of businesses. The internet has long been seen as the land of opportunity, but has equally been marked by a number of false dawns. The initial wave of enthusiasm for ecommerce has only really taken hold five years after the most bullish forecasts first appeared.A number of bloggers in the North West have emerged, but few have what you would term a strong business drive for doing it. And you can't imagine John Whittaker or Trevor Hemmings penning a blog about life as a billionaire.
So far, it's fair to say the early pioneers have been quirky hobbyists. The winner of the best blog at the recent Manchester blog awards was someone who writes a diary about his life commuting from Didsbury to Manchester city centre on the number 43 bus.
Dougal Paver, managing director of Paver Smith, a leading Liverpool PR agency, started blogging to get his strongly held opinions on page. His self named blog -www.dougal.org.uk -is readable and passionate and incredibly prolific with updates arriving sometimes daily. But without an editor breathing down the writer's neck, control over Paver's content is entirely a product of his judgement.
"I'm an opinionated sod, but business relationships don't always leave you room to debate issues of the day as frankly as you might want,"he says. "Having a blog gives me a voice -it's a sort of catharsis. At first I thought I was shouting into the darkness, but what I've found is that people hear me. A community of interest that shares something with me -blood line, business, politics or an interest in one or other of the topics I write about -has gathered around the blog. I get a dozen emails a day from people arguing with me or agreeing heartily with sentiments they themselves might want to express but don't, for whatever reason.
"I sometimes worry that I should temper my opinions for fear that it might harm my business, but I haven't got any evidence that it has -quite the opposite, in fact. I keep bumping in to people that start a conversation with me about a subject on my blog as though they're replying to something I just said then, that moment. Proof, if you like, that a blog is one part of a conversation with people you can't see yet who'll make themselves know to you when it suits them. Fascinating -a real social phenomenon.
"Now I know that people enjoy the fact that I'm frank and opinionated I've come to the conclusion that I should just be me. People say they hear my voice in what I write so why be something I'm not? I think business people are bright enough to divorce my personal opinion on tree huggers or Gordon Brown, say, with my business skills and those of my team. I even had someone e-mail me asking for a duck from my shoot last week!"
Another well-connected Liverpool media type with his own space is Matt Johnson, founder of the Mando Group. Although his blog is updated less regularly than Paver's he says he likes the discipline of reflecting, sharing thoughts and connecting people.
He says: "The blog is the ideal way of doing that and besides I run a web development business and work with customers to get them talking to their audiences in different ways. A great example is: www.mmu.ac.uk/international/ where Manchester University has given overseas students blogs to allow them the ability to sell the university indirectly to other overseas students.
He says the response to it has surprised him, but he is under no pressure to add to it and update content more regularly.
"I get at least one email a week commenting, asking more questions and so on,"he says. "Now my approach has not changed. I just do it when I can and have something to say, so don't really see it like work."
Daniel Twigg, managing director of Chamelon PR in Manchester, says the whole blogging phenomena is attractive to business but is not yet compelling enough to be a essential to a marketing armoury.
"Social media is a current and increasing threat to traditional media and its advertising revenue as it will continue to take market share in the short term,"he says. "It takes away the control of production, programming and distribution of content from traditional media outlets. This reversal of the traditional media model is what established organisations are grappling with now.
"However, social media poses no long-term threat to established outlets. Organisations such as News International have the resources to buy themselves a substantial stake in social media. Rupert Murdoch bought MySpace, enabling his company to quickly buy market share and become a dominant player in social media. The problem for traditional media adopting this approach is then how social media is integrated with existing operations. If social media is seen as a subset of traditional media then integration will not succeed.
"In our experience, clients are dipping their toes into social media, but not giving it substantial support or time to reap the benefits."
He says one client that has embraced social media is Knutsford-based ALG Software, a global budgeting and forecasting software provider, that has launched Theabcblog (www.theabcblog.com). Theabcblog is a blog to provide an open and personal discussion forum for issues surrounding Activity Based Costing, budgeting and forecasting.
ALG Software has taken the bold step to set up the blog but there is plenty more that company can do to benefit from global word-of-mouth marketing and social media.
Manchester is also fortunate in having one of the leading bloggers in the world. Norman Geras, emeritus professor, the government department at the University of Manchester has his Norm blog updated daily.
He initially started it to voice support for the war in Iraq, but today the content is actually much more expansive, covering cricket, film, local interest and national politics.
"I started in the summer of 2003 when the Iraq war had started and my point of view didn't seem to have any air time,"he says. "I'm an addict now, if I'm honest. My time is my own as I'm retired; it has taken time from other things, but then that's my choice."
But for businesses wishing to engage in a dialogue with customers there is a cautionary note from Geras. "I feel that the blogosphere is a very democratic facility,"he says.
"It gives a voice to more people and newspapers have realised they have to open up and can't stay closed forever. There are pieces I read on blogs every day that are every bit as good as comment pieces in newspapers.
"The trouble is when you open up a debate on the internet people feel freer to be insulting in ways they never would in a public space, at a meeting or a social gathering. I don't see why that should be the case. You generally get a much lower level of civility. You can exercise control, but it's hard work."
Understanding the technology also helps, argues Geras.
"Chris', one of the leading Manchester bloggers says he uses a tool called RSS to manage his feeds from other blogs.
"I've got 24 people reading my content regularly through RSS, with Bloglines.com being the most popular reader,"he says.
"Personally, I use Google Reader with several accounts -one for blogs, one for technology, for example -and also Google Desktop for more general news. In fact I probably keep track of over 100 blogs."