Today I brought a book You are what you eat and I have just ordered You are what you eat - Cookbook from Amazon. So ever so often I am going to publish a ‘Gillian Tip of the Day’ Something I read in the book that rings true.

Tip: Eat fruit on its own, around and hour before or after a meal but not straight after! Apparently it sits on the top of your dinner and does crazy digestive things.

So readers, be fruit wise!

I love how too’s on the web and this is my favourite so far ‘DIY eBay Photo Studio - £0‘ This post tells you how to ‘Blue Peter’ a light box for your ebay photos, all you need is:

• Empty Corona 24-pack box (or any cardboard box)
• Paper towels (Bounty quilted)
• Printer paper (8.5″ x 11″)
• Duct tape
• Scissors and/or razor blade
• Reading lamp (Mine has a 60W bulb)
• Camera

OK, the camera is not free, but hopefully you already have a digi cam if you are an ebay, everything else can be found floating round in the garage! Everyone has one freind who drinks their way through a 24 pack of beer of a weekend. Steal their box, they don’t need it!

I have been doing alot of research on business blogging of late and I recently read this interview with Anil Dash by e-consultancy and it lead me to this great summary article by inconcerta ‘Corporate Blogging on the Rise‘ As I suspected Anil Dash indicated that a blog was the most cost effective method for SME’s to maintain a relationship with their existing customers, potential customers ad employees. Quoting inconcerta…

1. Metrics: As the audiences for each blog are different it is difficult to apply a standard metric to measure success. You can’t compare number of hits if you only allow the 10 people in your team to read the internal blog.
2. SEO: To be found by search engines, the content must be compelling, well-presented, intelligently-linked and used by its audience. Avoid splogging by hosting with a good neighbourhood in the blogosphere.
3. Contribution Policy: Provide a communications policy for contributor employees to become the company’s public spokespeople so that they reflect the company positively and take responsibility for what is said.
4. Regularity of Contributions: Technorati defines a blog as “active” if it’s been updated in the last three months. Dash says the standards for activity range from 30 to 90 days but even this isn’t applied across the board. Some blogs have a finite life span; e.g. for the lifetime of an event and are not updated. Avoid having a policy about how often to update a blog as this ‘doesn’t take into account the nuances of human conversation’. Blogs need to be updated as appropriate for conversation. Set appropriate expectations and be guided by your audience.

In the interveiw Anil also talked about monitoring the content of such blogs as this medium is still part of the corporate image and also and ‘Exit Stratedgy’. When a blog’s usefulness has passed and it does happen as blogging might be a fad or here to stay, who knows! A final post explaining the end of the blog and why provides closure for your readers. A blog should never contain dead links. These need to be kept updated as your blog may still have effective information for customers.

In my view a news blog needs to be updated 2 to 3 times a day but a business blog 3-4 times a week. Don’t let just one person write to this blog as it will become very stayed. A blog should be everything. A great source of information, a marketing tool and even a direct sales too. Make sure it is easy to contact you via this blog, and that your blog is linked to your main site domain, and not a freebie hosted on a random server. Unless you are a very small business like an independent shop, then you might not have the tools to host a large website etc.

Bah! Enough business blogging talk. I shall post about my hobbies next!
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