Blogs
Technically, a blog is a website (short for web log) with the intent of publishing personal content or views to be made public. Like a regular website, a blog can contain video, audio, images and content and made searchable for search engines. However, unlike traditional websites, a blog platform consists of one main page and designed for continuous updating by one or more authors. Blogs assign the newest entries on top of the older ones. A blog is designed for ease of use, easy content creation, content archiving, and content syndication. Blogs are almost as simple to use as a word processor. In fact, just about anyone can author and publish a blog without any prior experience creating web pages. Blogging platforms handle all the code and details for you behind the scenes allowing you to focus on creating content instead. Perhaps the best feature about blogging is the ability to syndicate, or stream, your content to anyone who subscribes to it immediately. More about this below.
A blog is used much like a journal or diary for many publishers, a way to socially interact for other bloggers, and a smart business marketing tool for large and small businesses. No matter what the blog is used for, when participating properly, it is a sure fire way to steer attention toward your business. With a blog, a business has the opportunity to be personal, or share news or updates about its products or services. Their clients have the opportunity to comment and share opinions. Many large corporations use inter-company blogs for employee interaction and communication.
Blogs and RSS
Most blogs have Web 2.0 technology built right in by automatically generating RSS links for every post created (short for Really Simple Syndication). RSS is also defined in a much lighter, delightful way as "Ready for Some Stories" in a great article by Stephanie Quilao "How to explain RSS the Oprah way." A blogging platform can syndicate (known as pinging) new posts to blog directories and to those who subscribe to your blog's feed. Your posts are then publicly available instantly on the web.
Okay, What is a Feed?
You have probably visited a web page or blog and noticed images such as 
or 
or other similar images. This is the subscriber link. In order for you so subscribe to the link and get updates sent to you directly, you need a feed reader. Popular web browsers like Internet Explorer 7, FireFox and Safari have a feature called "live feeds". These browsers will alert you when a web page has a feed by displaying the feed icon next to the web address box. If you click this icon, the browser will "book mark" the feed for you. When you go back later and check on this book-marked live feed, it will show you any and all updates in a list format. This way, you can quickly scan the list and see what's new without actually going back to the blog.
Another way to manage feeds is using a feed reader. If you would like your RSS list to be accessible from any computer or mobile device like a cell phone, PDA, or laptop, use a RSS reader. Below is a short list of popular ones. Some are free, other are not:
- MyGoogle
- MyYahoo
- MyMSN
- MyAOL
- FeedDemon
- Bloglines
- NewsGator
Forums
Forums are similar to blogs, however forums are meant for multiple user discussion. They are also known as discussion boards and quite common before blogs became popular. Blogs are generally authored by one person and comment are directed to the author only. Forums, however, encourage many authors to create several topics, each receiving several replies from other different readers. A good forum platform is designed to manage all of this content easily though. A forum does require an administrator to monitor everything to be sure what is being published is relevant or decent; so unless you have allot of time or someone to act as an administer and moderator, a forum may not be a good choice.
Search Engine Friendly
Blogs and forums, unlike email, are searchable by search engines. The content stored within blogs and forums is normally searchable too, both good and bad content. More importantly, people are able to actively interact with this content by means of posting a reply to an article. When you post content, you become a publisher as well so post your comments wisely. The content you add becomes searchable on the Internet in most cases. Never use a blog or forum to blast someone or be negative. This can come up in search results later and haunt you. Learn more about social media advantages on our Web 2.0 and social media page.
Blog or Forum?
Before deciding which to use, think about who will participate in discussions. Do you want to be the only author and receive feedback? Do you want others to contribute, starting multiple topics and each getting its own feedback? How much time do you have to invest in being an administrator? 6x6 Design can help you determine which is best for your application and offer small business marketing solutions to meet your demands. Contact us today for a free consultation and estimate.