Are there any good business blogs out there?

RainToday.com recently ran a webinar, delivered by Chris Garrett, on blogging for business. A question came in during the Q&A that I’ve been asked before: “What are some examples of good B2B professional services firm blogs?”

I’ve written previously about the business benefits of blogging, but which blogs might serve to inspire other providers as they consider starting a blog?

So I checked out the professional services firm blogging scene.

Frankly, I was surprised by the number of blogs that had been abandoned. (I considered a blog abandoned if its most recent post was more than 3 months old, although it was not uncommon to find blogs where the most recent post was 6 or 12 months old, or older!)

Before I share some examples of professional services firm blogs, I do so with the following caveat:

Yes, blogs are a solid vehicle for firms to extend their network, publish and distribute thought leadership, engage with clients and prospects, expand reach, strengthen brand, and build website traffic.

But you should think long and hard before starting  a business blog. It requires an ongoing commitment of time and energy to sustain.

So, with that out of the way…

What Are the Elements to Look for in a Strong Professional Services Firm Blog?

Here’s my short list:

Consistency: Posts are published on a regular schedule. Very few firms will be able to maintain a daily publishing schedule. That’s fine. I’ve seen successful blogs that post once or twice a week. I’ve also seen blogs that post only once a month, and that can work, too, especially if that monthly post delivers exceptionally high quality.

Tip: If you’re in a firm with several partners/associates, consider a team blog with multiple authors. It’s easier to sustain your publication schedule when each blogger is responsible for one post per week or per month. If you’re solo, consider publishing posts from guest bloggers. This can help if you have a seasonal busy period (e.g., a tax accountant during tax season) or when you’re on vacation.

Relevancy: Content resonates with the audience—issues, problems, topics that matter to the target audience are covered. Stay away from publishing only press releases or product information on your business blog. You can absolutely mention how you or your firm can help, but make your posts more about your reader and less about you.

Tip: In addition to demonstrating your expertise and sharing value, use relevant keywords in your posts—words your clients and prospects are searching for in search engines—to attract traffic to your site.

Design: Looks matter. Even if you publish top-notch content, your blog’s appearance can diminish that quality content. A cluttered, garish, difficult-to-read blog can brand your firm as unprofessional. A well-designed blog can position you as trustworthy and knowledgeable.

Tip: Don’t plaster your professional blog with ads, leave those for your hobby site. But do consider using your blog real estate to promote a free download of a white paper, research report, or case study in a sidebar banner.

Note: I didn’t add interactivity to my short list, although it certainly warrants mention. One of the valuable benefits of a blog is indeed the ability for your readers to interact with you, such as by leaving comments, sharing links to your content on social media, and downloading your content. But I think many people get hung up on the number of comments their blog posts do or don’t receive, and I have to wonder whether many of those orphaned blogs out there were abandoned because their authors weren’t getting comments. It’s likely that only a small percentage of your readers will comment. That’s OK. A blog can be worthwhile without having hundreds of comments per post.

What about Those Examples to Inspire Your Business Blog?

I share the blogs below as examples of what a business blog can be. This isn’t a “top blog” list, but it is a showcase of blogs representing a few industries (accounting, architecture, consulting, law, IT services, and marketing) that demonstrates the elements of consistency, relevancy, and design.

Industry: Architecture
Firm: FXFOWLE Architects
Blog: FXFOWLE Blog
URL: http://blog.fxfowle.com/

FXFowle Blog

What I like:

• It has an open, clean, and easy-to-read design.
• Multiple authors post regularly.
• It employs a great use of images.

(Thanks to tweeps Marjanne Pearson, @NextMoon, and Anne Scarlett, @AnneScarlett, for pointing me to FXFowle!)

Accenture Blog on Insurance

What I like:

• A team of two authors posts consistently.
• They use a blog series to publish valuable content. This helps with (1) consistency—delivers information in easily digested posts—and (2) relevancy—builds content around strong keywords.

Note: Accenture publishes a series of blogs targeting different customer segments.

What I like:

• This is a single-author blog (written by PwC partner David Philips); it works because Philips’ voice and personality come through in his consistent (bi-monthly) and relevant posts.
• Philips’ writing style works well to build and enhance trust.
• He is very clear about setting expectations for the blog’s content and frequency of posting.

Exuberant Accountant Blog

What I like:

• Here’s another example of a single-author blog (written by McKonly & Asbury partner Scott Heintzelman), which also works because the author’s personality combines with consistency and relevancy.

(Thanks to tweep Michelle Golden, @MichelleGolden for pointing me to The Exuberant Accountant!)

Law & The Environment Blog

What I like:

• An upfront purpose/ mission statement is stated (”to inform, update, comment and discuss legal issues regarding environmental law”).
• They made a strategic decision to create an independent site “published by Foley Hoag LLP”.
• It’s a team blog with multiple authors.
• It has a regular publishing schedule.

Government Contracts Legal Forum

What I like:

• More than a dozen partners and associates regularly post.
• It is positioned as a topical (government contracts) news and commentary resource “published by Crowell & Moring”.
• It’s another example of making a strategic decision to create the blog on a domain independent from the firm’s website.

(Blog found via Robert J. Ambrogi. Thanks!)

Blue Sky Blog

What I like:

• It is updated regularly.
• It has multiple authors who have different voices and areas of expertise.
• A variety of posts is published—issue-oriented, tips, lists, etc.
• They make good use of images and videos.
• It’s strongly integrated with other social media (Facebook, Twitter).
• They do a good job promoting their services without being obnoxious about it.

The Search Agents

What I like:

• This blog demonstrates all the elements of a strong B2B blog—consistency, relevancy, and design.
• The firm created a multi-author blog as a platform to establish their thought leadership. In addition to becoming a successful platform, the blog also helped grow the firm’s revenue. RainToday.com published a case study where you can learn how they created their successful B2B blog. (It’s available free to members; non-members can get access by signing up for a free trial.)

I also recommend you check out the blogs of four of my favorite consultants, who are also contributing editors at RainToday.com: Trust Matters Blog by Charles H. Green, Selling to Big Companies Blog by Jill Konrath, Beating Feast or Famine by Michael W. McLaughlin, and Color Commentary for High-Fee Experts by Vickie K. Sullivan.

Finally, I asked Chris which blogs he’d share as strong examples. His list included:  chrisbrogan.com, ducttapemarketing.com, copyblogger.com, and ittybiz.com. (As Chris says, these are great because they offer advice but with personality and interaction.)

So, what do you think? What elements do you consider important in a business blog? What are the professional services firm blogs you admire? Please share in the comment section below.

(Photo by Taro Yamamoto)

We’ve all seen blogs that have made us shake our heads. The design is outrageous, you can’t find contact information to save your life, there are broken links, pages don’t render, or (here’s a comical one) they have keywords listed over and over again in attempt to fool the search engines.

As bad as those are, they aren’t the worst things you can do. The worst thing you can do with your blog is pretend to be something (or someone) you aren’t. This is especially critical for services professionals, as you are essentially selling yourselves. You are providing the services your prospects seek. They need to trust you and believe in you. And that can’t happen if you are a phony.

Unfortunately this misrepresentation happens all too often, professional blogger Chris Garrett told me in a recent interview. In his preview to his upcoming webinar, Attract Clients and Grow Your Business Using Blogs, Garrett said he sees people taking other people’s blog posts, changing the name and posting them as their own. Sometimes they don’t even change the name and republish the work in its entirety without permission. He also sees people making outrageous claims about what they can do.

People—your prospects—want to connect with real human beings, Garrett said.

Chris Garrett presents "Attract Clients and Build Your Business Using Blogs" on Aug. 26

“The power of being yourself means you do create a bond with your prospects. People do feel like they have a connection with you. And they feel like they’d rather work with you than somebody else,” he said. “Whenever I write about a mistake I’ve made so people don’t make the same mistake, I get more inquiries because people see me as someone not trying to be this perfect robot. I’m a real human being.”

Blogs, when done correctly, allow you to establish trust and build relationships. Both of those are critical when selling professional services.

“Given the choice, we’d rather work with people we know, like and trust. And blogs help you do that because you’re communicating over a period of time. You’re not trying to get the sale in 10 minutes on the first visit. You’re actually building up a relationship, and that is really powerful stuff providing you’re open and authentic rather than trying to be a fake,” Garrett said.

Want to Hear More?

Listen to the full interview with Garrett to learn more about mistakes people make when blogging, features that work well on blogs, and techniques to get people to notice and comment on your blog:

And for even more information about the business benefits of blogging, watch Garrett’s webinar (available on-demand), Attract Clients and Grow Your Business Using Blogs.

Learn more in Scott Ginsberg's on-demand webinar "How to Build a Thought Leadership Platform So Clients Come to You with Money"

You finally did it. You created a blog. You’ve taking one of the first steps to establish yourself as a thought leader to attract new clients. And you’re psyched about it, posting three to four posts a week. But you enter the third month, and your energy is waning. No one has commented on your posts let alone inquired about your services. What’s wrong?

Scott Ginsberg, aka “The Nametag Guy,” who presented a webinar on the topic July 27, says a few things could be at play. Ginsberg talked with me recently about mistakes people make with blogs and other thought leadership tactics. You can listen to that interview here:

Essentially there are five things that can prevent people from reading your content or from engaging with you if they do get to it:

1. Are you writing posts that are original and move people? Effective content should follow Ginsberg’s philosophy of MCI – meaningful, concrete, immediacy. “Whatever you write or market has to have meaning and speak to the people you serve. It has to be quick and concise. It has to be stuff that’s actionable,” Ginsberg says.

2. Do you have a platform that allows you to be visible? It isn’t enough to just be on Twitter and tweet your blogs posts here and there. You can’t just go on LinkedIn or Facebook and participate sporadically. Determine who you want to reach, how to find those people, and the method of communication that works best for them. “Without visibility you lose because the biggest barrier to business success is not stupidity; it’s anonymity,” Ginsberg says.

3. Does your marketing sound like marketing? If so, then no one is going to respond and interact with you. “To prevent it from tasting like marketing, you have to provide a continuous stream of education. You want to do it in a way that’s simple, easy, and concrete,” Ginsberg says.

4. Do you have a call to action? With any piece of content you create you need to figure out how to elicit a response from people. You want to do something or offer something that makes them want to contact you for more information. Don’t sell; enable people to buy from you.

5. Have you given your blog enough time? Three months is not long enough. When Ginsberg started his blog, it took a year to get comments. You must press on. You don’t have to write three, four, or five times a week, but you must keep writing.

“The challenge is carving out some time to make sure you are clarifying and organizing and deploying your expertise through the written word,” Ginsberg says. “You don’t have to be an amazing writer. What matters is that your philosophy is there and you’re sharing it with people.”

So many people give up because they get discouraged. Don’t let that happen to you.

“If you can do it consistently and deal with not getting a lot of comments for six months, it’s good because you can fail quietly,” Ginsberg says. “But more importantly, the rest of the people will fade away and you will start to stand out.”

Learn More:

Watch Scott Ginsberg’s on-demand webinar How to Build a Thought Leadership Platform So Clients Come to You with Money.

(Photo by Abhi Ryan)

You might have noticed that marketing and sales tactics that worked successfully in the past, no longer return great results. That’s not surprising. The economic stress everyone has been under has forced businesses and people to scrutinize all purchases, cut back expenses, and do more with fewer resources. At the same time, they’re bombarded with offers by what seems to be an ever-increasing pool of providers. They’re tired, stressed, and short on time.

So, if you’re fortunate to get a meeting with a prospect to discuss your services, you can’t blow it. You will not get a second chance. One sure way to ruin a meeting is by overwhelming the prospect with too much information, writes Jill Konrath in her article, Whatever You Do, Don’t Do This during a Sales Meeting. But no matter how strong the urge to tell them everything about your business and your services, suppress it.

“Prospects who receive massive information dumps unconsciously erect barriers to slow or even derail your sales efforts,” Konrath says. “Top sellers understand it takes time to demonstrate value and develop strong relationships. Knowing this, they put together a one-step-at-a-time account-entry strategy that advances the sales process much faster than if they tried to do everything in a single call.”

Know what else will cause sales to fail? Your mindset, says Nancy Fox in her article, How You’re Sabotaging Your Sales Effort. If you find yourself thinking negatively about money and your ability to sell, chances are those thoughts are affecting your client and prospect relationships. If you are shy and uncertain, prospects will think you lack the confidence and enthusiasm to help them. If you are uncomfortable talking about money, you won’t stand up for yourself when a prospect pressures you on price.

Fortunately there are several ways to help you change your mindset and truly boost your business, such as positive visioning, avoiding using words that don’t express confidence such as “I’ll try” or “hopefully,” and committing to what you really want.

For leaders of firms, it’s time to make a similar type of mindset change. It’s time to stop thinking about leading in a down economy and instead think about how to lead in an upturn, writes Mike Schultz in his article, Economic Storm Clearing: Time to Change Your Leadership Strategy. Push aside thoughts of merely surviving and return to thinking innovatively and competitively.

“Now that the end of the Great Recession is here, services firms must renew hustle, passion, intensity, and competitiveness. It’s time to roll out words we haven’t used for a while: innovation, opportunity, and progress,” Schultz says.

Are you afraid to poke your head out from behind the bunker where you’ve been waiting out the storm? Not sure how to get back into competitive mode? Schultz has a four-step process to get you going.

Your mindset also plays a critical role in blogging to generate business. That’s because it takes time to attract prospects, and you can get discouraged and give up waiting for that to happen. But don’t, stresses Scott Ginsberg in his podcast interview, The Secret to Turning Browsers into Buyers. Continue to write meaningful content, get it in front of your target audience, and provide ways to interact with you, and you will eventually start getting people interested in buying your services.

“Don’t get discouraged if you don’t get comments right away. You have to keep doing it because you have to build up that mass of information that establishes you as a trusted authority,” Ginsberg says. “There’s a way to convert eyeballs into dollar signs if you do it in a respectful way that gets people’s permission and does it through a continuous stream of education.”

Are you tracking down the right leads for your firm? (Photo by Borghetti)

Leads—they’re always important and good ones are often elusive. Professional services firms have a variety of strategies in their arsenal for generating them, but according to research from The Shattuck Group five are most preferred. In the podcast, Preferred Lead Generation Tactics for Professional Services, Randy Shattuck says email marketing rises to the top as the most preferred tactic, followed closely by thought leadership.

All of the techniques focus on pulling prospects and leads to you, Shattuck says. And to ensure you’re pulling the right people, you have to first identify them and target your efforts toward them. A general blanket email blast will not give you the results or the clients you want, stresses C.J. Hayden. “The universe is simply too big to market effectively to everyone in it,” she says in her article, Do You Know Who Your Clients Are?

When you choose a target market, you can get to know that market better, position yourself in the marketplace as a specialist, save money and time, and attract clients to you. When your client definition is too general, your client universe remains overly large and your efforts and message will be diffused.

Lack of focus is just one reason why salespeople fail, says Colleen Stanley in her article, Top 9 Reasons Why Salespeople Fail.

“A poor producer can work very hard. Lack of sales isn’t from lack of effort; it’s that the effort is focused on the wrong prospect, activity, and partnerships,” she says. “Top producers have clearly identified their ideal client and have built a strategy around meeting, influencing, and creating value for that specific client. They are very clear on to whom they will sell and what they will sell.”

Sales tools and client relationship management (CRM) go a long way toward helping salespeople focus their strategies. In fact, recent data from Aberdeen Group shows that firms that employ such sales tools sell significantly more. That’s because such technologies allows representatives to gather more information about their prospects and clients and gives them more ammunition to get the job done, according to Aberdeen’s report Sales Intelligence: Preparing for Smarter Selling.

Social Media Strategies

The Shattuck Group’s surveys did not name social media as one of the top five lead generation tactics, but several professional services firms are having success using it, including Shaev & Fleischman LLP. In Law Firm’s Blog Leads to More Clients and Coaching Opportunities, Gwen Moran writes about how Shaev & Fleischman gave up traditional high-priced marketing techniques and started writing a blog. That blog has evolved into a hub for bankruptcy advice and information that accounts for 70% of the firm’s business.

In addition, the social media success of the firm’s partner, Jay Fleischman, led to a new consulting practice. The great results the firm saw as the result of using social media tactics caused many other firms to ask how they, too, can succeed with it.

If Twitter is your social media channel of choice for marketing your firm or your expertise, there are a few rules you should follow, says Eric Rudolf in his article, Dos and Don’ts for Using Twitter to Grow Business. In this follow-up to his 5 Twitter Rules Firms Should Never Break, Eric Rudolf offer five more rules businesses should follow, including being cautious of what you tweet. Competitors are always watching, he warns.

Sometimes small dogs can take on and beat big dogs (free myspace layouts)

You might think large professional services firms always do things better than independent providers, but that isn’t true, says Andrew Sobel. In fact, large firms can learn a thing or two from successful small practitioners.

Sobel, a consultant who has experience with both large global firms and small practitioners, describes in his article, Where Independent Professionals Succeed and Large Firms Fail, eight practices that large firms can “learn—or relearn—from the most successful professionals who have small or solo practices.” One practice that stands out is that of building a sustainable practice by building your personal brand.

With a large firm, “the firm brand gets you in the door and into the competitive bids, but the personal brand gets you sole-sourced business,” Sobel says.

Practitioners can build their brand by sharing their expertise via articles, presentations, and blogs. Use those mediums to build relationships with prospects and clients. Step back from simply describing your services and instead give prospects information that will help them.

Ian Brodie has taken that approach to heart and has ditched his traditional website for a blog site. In his podcast interview with RainToday publisher Mike Schultz—Is the Traditional Website Dead?—Brodie explains how he uses the blog site to share his expertise and show people what it’s like to work with him. By developing relationships with prospects before they’re ready to buy, chances are they’ll turn to you when they are ready to make a purchase.

Another way to build a sustainable practice is to get referrals from clients. Referrals are more accessible, and there’s less competition to close the deal. But you don’t want just any referral; you want quality referrals. As Kendra Lee points out in her article, How to Fill Your Sales Pipeline with High-Quality Referrals, to get quality referrals that lead to new business you must guide your clients and help them understand who your ideal client is.

Firms can also increase their revenue by taking advantage of less-than-obvious marketing opportunities. Have you ever thought about what prospects and clients hear when they’re on hold waiting for you or someone else in your firm? Rather than listening to music or dead air, Michael Weiner suggests filling the space with information about your firm and services. In Increase Revenue with ‘On-Hold’ Marketing Messages, Weiner says “on-hold” marketing messages add value, inform callers, and could lead to more sales.

Another marketing avenue that many firms are still evaluating is Twitter. Is it really worth your effort, you might ask? For many B2B marketers, the answer is a resounding yes. This week’s chart, How Twitter Tactics Work for B2B Marketers, shows B2B markets are finding success using Twitter to monitor their brand, invite prospects to in-person events, and drive traffic to websites and blogs. If you’ve been holding back on using this tool, you might want to reconsider.

Blogging is no longer optional

There was a time not very long ago when a business blog was optional.

My, how times have changed.

I’d argue a blog is no longer optional for any B2B professional services firm; it’s a must-have. Buyers are increasingly relying on Internet search to identify and learn more about firms with which they wish to do business. And a blog plays a substantial role in firms being found online by these buyers.

If you stick with it, a business blog can deliver big results. In Technorati’s 2009 State of the Blogosphere Report, 71% of respondents who blog for business reported they increased their visibility within their industries through their blogs, and 56% indicated their blog helped their company establish a positioning as a thought leader within their industry.

There are many success stories of professional services firms that have successfully leveraged their blogs for media coverage, business development, and client relations. For two examples, check out these case studies published on RainToday.com (if you’re not a member, the free trial gives you access to download): FirstRain’s Market Mine blog case study and Harris & Moure’s ChinaLawBlog’s case study.

Still wondering what a blog can do for your services firm?

Here are 5 benefits your firm can realize from blogging:

1. Extend your network. A blog is great way to develop relationships—it allows you to share your persona  (firm leaders, associates) with an audience of clients and prospects and helps to build trust.
2. Establish two-way communication with prospects and influencers. With commenting enabled, you leave a door open for prospects, colleagues, reporters, analysts, and others to engage with you in a “safe” environment (i.e., on their terms).
3. Expand your firm’s reach and strengthen your brand.
4. Gain a vehicle to publish and distribute thought leadership.
5. Increase website traffic. Blog content (when optimized for search engines) can drive traffic to your firm’s website and increase its search engine ranking.

Make Blogs Part of Your Internet Marketing Strategy Firms must pull prospects toward them with inbound marketing tactics, says Brian Halligan, co-author of Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media, and Blogs. > Listen to “Internet Marketing Strategies Professional Services Must Adopt”

And, if those benefits aren’t enough to persuade you, Google’s recent move (12/7/09) incorporating real-time updates into search results adds another compelling reason to push your blogging initiative forward. As Shel Holtz explains on his blog:

As of Monday, Google began incorporating real-time updates into its search engine results pages (SERPs). Within seconds of posting, tweets, Facebook status updates, blog posts, and updates from news sources will be indexed by Google and made available for searches. This change has been anticipated ever since Google and Twitter announced the relationship, but it’s unlikely that most organizations have considered the implications or made adjustments to their SEO efforts.

Companies that have delayed or rejected social media nevertheless invest resources in search engine optimization (SEO). After all, we function in an era of what one writer called “survival of the optimized.” With luck, nobody reading this blog needs to be convinced of the importance of search.

Now, with real-time updates mingling with search results from static pages, if your organization doesn’t have a presence, you’ll be crowded out of the first page of results by those who do.

If your professional services firm isn’t blogging yet, take a look at what other service firms are doing. These can give you some ideas on how you can approach implementing a blog for your firm.

Some professional services blogs worth checking out:

• Accenture (consulting)
• Edelman’s Authenticities (PR)
• Foley Hoag (law): http://www.lawandenvironment.com, http://www.emergingenterprisecenterblog.com, http://www.massachusettsnoncompetelaw.com
• Forrester Research (market research)
• LexBlog (law)
• PriceWaterhouseCoopers (accounting)

Maintaining a blog remains a major time commitment; it certainly is not a silver bullet. When you launch a blog—beyond writing—you should also commit to participate in the blogosphere by reading and commenting on other blogs in your niche and provide marketing support (through linking, keyword optimization, and so forth) for your blog.

But, it’s a commitment you need to make, if you want your B2B services firm to thrive. If you’re not publishing a blog yet—what’s holding you back?

Master the art of conversation and you'll develop better client relationships (Photo by Ian Britton)

Conversations with prospects and clients can be challenging. You want to understand their needs and concerns while at the same time explain how you can help them and persuade them to buy your services. It can be a difficult road to walk and sometimes you stumble, but nothing trips you up more than when the client says your price is too high. How do you respond to that? Charles H. Green says it comes down to understanding why the client believes that. Follow what he says to do in his article, What to Say When a Client Claims Your Price is Too High, and you can develop a deeper relationship with the client and possibly save the sale.

Another stumbling block during conversations is failure to base your statements on facts. You cannot make claims and recommendations without having facts to back them up, Michael W. McLaughlin says in his article, Give Clients the Facts, and You’ll Get Them to Act. If the discussion bogs down over the validity of your facts, you’ve pretty much lost them. On the other hand, “having the right facts, at the right time, helps you build trust and credibility with clients,” he says.

Important conversations are also taking place in the online world, as more buyers turn to online communities and social networking sites to learn about services. Ardath Albee, author of the new book eMarketing Strategies for the Complex Sale, says in her recent interview with RainToday that services firms must provide marketing content that educates, engages, and encourages interaction with prospects. Those interactions can also help you develop relationships with prospects and clients.

Two platforms perfect for engaging prospects and clients are Twitter and blogs. In the past few years international law firm Harris and Moure experienced just how helpful a blog can be to attract new clients. It set up its China Law Blog as a way to get in front of companies that do business in China. By writing about things a business would want to know regarding the legal issues surrounding operating in China, as well as general Chinese business culture, the firm attracted new clients and generated seven figures worth of work.

Twitter can play a big role in spreading the word about your blog and in getting prospects to notice you and talk with you, but Eric Rudolf warns against misusing the social network. If you use it improperly, you risk alienating people. But if you use it well, you can enhance your thought leadership, create relationships, and give your firm a market advantage. Take a look at Rudolf’s five Twitter rules for businesses to make sure you aren’t making mistakes that can negatively impact your firm.

Blogging resources at your fingertips (Photo by William Hook)

If you’re looking to launch a blog (or, perhaps, re-launch a dormant blog) for your firm, here are six terrific, must-read resources:

1. Blogging for Business free webinar by HubSpot
2. Dealing with Blogging Evolution: Foundational Necessities for Bloggers, blog post on Problogger by Hendry Lee
3. 40 Ways to Deliver Killer Blog Content, blog post by Chris Brogan
4. Blogging Basics, Technorati
5. Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies, by Charlene Li, Josh Bernoff, Harvard Business Press, 2008
6. The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use News Releases, Blogs, Podcasting, Viral Marketing and Online Media to Reach Buyers Directly, by David Meerman Scott, Wiley, 2008.

Do you recommend any others?