Silence covered the room as the question was asked, but slowly one man at the back raised his hand to answer. "Ah good," I said, "someone here has been blogging in their business. Tell us your story please." The middle-aged, balding chap rose to his feet and stumbled out just one sentence: "I tried it once but it didn't work."

There I was, speaking at a business event on the power of blogging and the way that it can help companies attract online attention, even money. Only one person in this 50 strong audience had even attempted blogging and from his answer he was expecting it to have an overnight success. Oh dear.

Business Week magazine has proclaimed that "blogging is not a business elective, but a prerequisite". In other words, if you want to be in business much longer you need to have a blog. Many companies still think of a blog as some kind of diary, where you post company events like product launches and new services, as they happen, once in a while. But people who "get" blogging realise that it can fundamentally shift a business once a blog becomes central to that firm.

Here's what you can do with one blog post. You can bring attention to that post, automatically, on:

• Facebook
• Twitter
• MySpace
• Yahoo!
• Plurk
• Plaxo
• LinkedIn

You can re-blog it, automatically on things like:

• Blogger
• Vox
• WordPress
• Tumblr

You can automatically bookmark it on:

• Delicious
• Digg
• Posterous
• ...and more...

In other words, with just one blog article you can get massive coverage for your business throughout the web. Without blogging, you have to get all this coverage manually. So, if a blog is central to your business, you increase your visibility significantly - and gain more website traffic as a result.

However, all this is old news. This is the kind of thing that the hapless businessman should have been doing when I asked that question about who was blogging; I asked that question two years ago. Clearly, much of business is so far behind what is happening online, they are getting left behind. A blog, as Business Week magazine said, should be central to your business. But they said that almost five years ago, in May 2005.

Now, blogging is not enough. You need to do all the things with a blog listed above - you can do it easily with Ping - but you need to do more. You need to think about blogs from a localisation perspective. With geotagging and mobile use now becoming increasingly popular, your blog needs to be locally relevant. It needs to be dynamically changed according to the location of the reader. And even if you are not doing that yet - I admit I'm not - we all need to plan how we are going to do that, because come this time next year it will be the norm.

Video consumption online has hit record viewing figures, contributing to the billions of hours of video now being watched online. How much of your blog is video based? And that's to say nothing of the exponential rise in podcast downloads via iTunes and other audio providers.

Some businesses are still in the "thinking about" stage of adding a blog. They need to get real. Not only has blogging moved on, companies who made it central to their business have also changed the rules. Bblogging is central to many successful online businesses, it's now also the focus for them of a multimedia content production system. Blogging without localisation, video, audio and a host of other enhancements is so "old hat"; yet, sadly, most businesses are still in the pre-blogging phase (i.e. still stuck in the last 1990s).

If you are still thinking about a blog, it's time to wake up and realise that the train left the station several hours ago.

Women have a problem; there I've said it, I've got it out in the open at last - a bit risky for me on International Women's Day, but it's done. Their problem, of course, is men. Men have dominated society for thousands of years, resulting in a bias in thinking. For instance, it is popularly thought that men can navigate and that women can't read maps. The problem, actually, is that society has preferred activities for males which lead to better spatial awareness. Until relatively recently, for instance, women were discouraged from football, a game that requires considerable spatial awareness skills. It's not that women can't read maps, it's just that men have prevented them from gaining the psychological ability to do it

So, what has all this to do with making money on the internet, I hear you ask. Well, it's about your brain. New research from the University of California shows that the production of brain waves known as a "theta rhythm" are fundamental to things like memory and the overall health of our brains. And guess what produces lots of theta rhythms? That's right, activities that involve spatial awareness. In other words, it seems that the bias of society has not been helping women make the best of their brain power.

And that's bad. It's bad because a study on the amount of money we earn shows it is linked to our brain power. Women continue to earn less than men, on average, often for equivalent jobs. These studies suggest that there may be a reason; the male dominated society we live in has been restricting the brains of women. But fear not, women know more than we think they do.

They do things which help keep their theta waves active and thereby boost their brains. It's not just spatial awareness that keeps your brain healthy. Relaxation, meditation and learning are all activities which have been shown to boost theta wave production. Go along to any relaxation classes, or meditation rooms and you'll find them full of women. Try looking in at your local adult education centre and the same is true, a preponderance of women. They are busy producing more and more theta waves, boosting their brains, while men carry on working, with little impact on their brain power.

We are now witnessing the impact of all this online. Women dominate the social web; only one social site, Digg, has more men than women using it. The others are either split 50-50, or have more women users than men. And where is real money being made online these days? You guessed it, via the social web. Perhaps the theta-induced female brain is more at home online than the male brain? Who knows?

What is clear is that there is a potential relationship between generating more theta waves and earning more money, particularly online. So, how can you make more money with your internet presence - especially if you are not female? Well, the first thing is learn to relax more. You can take up meditation as well. And, importantly, learn something. Go to evening classes and take up whatever takes your fancy - pottery, local history, or crochet - it doesn't matter. What is important is that you activate your brain into learning mode.

When you learn more, relax more and meditate you will produce more of those theta waves that boost your brain power. In turn, you develop greater clarity of thought, which inevitably means you will be able to solve all those online glitches and difficulties more easily. And that should translate into more money.

Often, too many people focus on their website and then can't really identify the issues causing things like poor conversion rates, or lack of traffic. Taking time away from your website, doing things which create all those extra theta waves in your brain could well be the solution. Spatial awareness activities like football, orienteering, or navigating in a car rally will help, but perhaps today of all days men should take a few tips from women by taking up relaxation, meditation and continuous learning. After all, women are increasingly in charge online. If you're a man and you want to catch up. do what women do to their brains. And don't worry you'll lose your map reading skills - there's SatNav these days...!

Phew...last week went quickly....! Same for you? Sometimes, though, the week goes so quickly it seems hard to remember what we did in those 168 hours. Perhaps the reason is we are not taking a break mid-afternoon and going to sleep. Yes, new research from neuroscientists at the University of California at Berkeley shows that by taking a break from your work in the afternoon and getting some sleep you improve your ability to remember things. It appears that sleep plays a role in memory and the researchers found that you need about an hour and a half's proper sleep in the middle of the day, in order for the effect to really kick in. So, if you are finding it difficult to remember what you have done in the past seven days, the chances are you are not getting enough sleep. The problem is, if you want to be able to remember more you need to get that sleep just after lunch. It shows that those Mediterranean siestas are a fantastic idea after all.

Perhaps, this week, then it will be worth "giving it a go" and seeing if you can plan in a few mid-day sleeps. You've nothing to lose, other than spending more time Tweeting or Emailing, and you might have a lot to gain in terms of brain power. But what else should your business be doing this week?

• Planning: The election is a couple of months away, providing a little more certainty for the financial sector, and now we know that growth next year will be around 2%. What that means, with inflation at just over 4%, is that you will probably have less money for marketing in the next 12 months than you had in the last year. This suggests it is time to think hard and plan now for using cheap - even free - methods of marketing that will be cost-effective and valuable to you. For a start, read marketing expert Nigel Temple's article on marketing on a limited budget. Also, consider ways in which you can gain free publicity for your business using the media through a public relations strategy. Whatever you do, it is time now to plan for a year or two of limited marketing money - even though marketing should be your number one priority in the months ahead. We all need to plan now to get more out of each marketing pound we spend.
• Content: Website content is, of course, an excellent marketing tool; and other than your time, it is often a free activity. So what extra content can you add in the coming week? Well, looking ahead to next weekend it is Mother's Day next Sunday; perhaps the value of mothers, what you learnt from your mum, or being a mum could inspire you to write something topical next weekend. Before we get there, though, this week sees the 40th Anniversary of the voting age being reduced in the UK from 21 to 18. With discussions currently taking place to lower it still further to 16, it might be a good week to write something about generations and the value of youth to your business sector. It's not that many years either since women were allowed to vote and tomorrow is International Women's Day; that is bound to gain a lot of media coverage and there must be something you could write on women in your business sector. You could even celebrate the women in your own company who have helped you achieve your own success. On Wednesday it will be 10 years since the NASDAQ financial index reached its peak at the height of the Dot Com Boom and signalling the major crash that was to follow; how the race for money online has affected your industry might also be something to reflect on this week. If you are in the mood for dancing, you might want to link something you write about to the 45th Birthday of singer Coleen Nolan, this Friday. And if you want to add a bit of poetry to your website this week, why not link it to the 63rd birthday of Pam Ayres?
• Tidying up: How up-to-date is your contacts list? Are you sure that all the numbers are correct and that the email addresses still work? There are several tools online that help you keep your contacts database current. But there is nothing to beat a manual check. You will find duplicates, out-of-date telephone numbers, incorrect email addresses and companies you no longer have any connection with. Time to spend a couple of hours keeping your contacts list organised...!
• New features: Often you need a quick way of sorting particular data, or entering some information so that it can be sorted and analysed. You could do that with a spreadsheet, but to make it look nice takes a lot of work. You could set up a database application, but you probably need a degree in computer engineering to understand the insides of something like Microsoft Access. So, the easy way to enter, organise and analyse data is to go to Zoho Creator and set up a database. It takes a couple of minutes to design the entry form you need and then you can add the information and then view it, sort it, change it - in fact any data operation. If you only need to access the data yourself and you only have up to three databases, it is free of charge.
• Reading: You are an expert; whatever business you are in, you have expertise. That is probably what you sell to others anyway, in one form or another. That means people would pay to read your expertise in the form of a book. It is said that we all have a book "inside us" but the problem for most people is getting that book "outside us"...! Luckily, Joe Gregory and Debbie Jenkins have produced a book that will show you exactly how to go about producing non-fiction books. Called "The Wealthy Author" this book is the best guide to writing and publishing I have read in many years. It is sub-titled "The Fast Profit Method for Writing, Publishing & Selling Your Non-Fiction Book" - and the book does exactly what it says. It is full of practical advice, there are various checklists and it is frank, open and honest about the world of writing and publishing. If you want to get that book inside you outside of you and making money, make no mistake, buy this book...!

Well, that's it for another week...I'm off to write my next book...!

John Witherow is hard at work today, but luckily most of his work will be done by other people - his team. For John is the long-standing Editor of The Sunday Times and will be beavering away today so that we can get the paper in the morning. Luckily, he doesn't have to write it all himself; we could be waiting several weeks otherwise for him to get it all done. The way The Sunday Times works - even if you don't like its politics or doubt its accuracy - is an important lesson for website owners. Indeed, new research on Wikipedia shows that the collaborative way in which content is produced is, in fact, the best way to go about it.

This research, from the University of Arizona, found that the highest quality entries on Wikipedia were those with most collaboration and in which the teams putting together the article had specific roles. Some people merely added content, others added content and justified it, and others re-wrote and edited material. The researchers found that when teams were working together, with individuals taking up specific kinds of writing and editing tasks, the quality of the resulting article was highest.

Strangely, this is the way newspapers work. Different people in the production process have specific writing and editing roles. Reporters merely write the articles. Sub-editors then seek to justify that what has been written is correct and that it fits the space. "Back Bench" editors, as they are called, then re-write and hone the article so that it fits the political viewpoint of the publication. The result is invariably a much better article than even the best reporters can produce. It is a system that goes back centuries and endures today, simply because it works.

With Wikipedia it appears that those articles which have been assembled rather on the newspaper production model are those which are the best ones. In other words, quality content comes from teamwork - but, importantly this research tells us - only when team members are assigned specific roles.

This is an important consideration for many website owners. Much website content is "home produced", especially in the small business sector. Even if you have a ghost writer, website content rarely goes through much of a review process. Usually what happens is somebody writes it and then someone else approves it. Often that's the same person - even in big business. The consequent quality of what appears online is therefore not as good as it might be.

So, assembling a website team - with specifically assigned roles - could well help boost engagement as a result of increased quality. Here's what you could do:

• Appoint a website writer (that might be you, of course)
• Get someome to be the "sub-editor" who checks the text only for accuracy and adds relevant links, pictures, charts and so on
• Ask another person to review the article and re-write it if necessary for grammar, spelling, clarity and house style

Giving people these specific roles will, according to the University of Arizona research, boost your quality. At the moment you might have a couple of people writing and "approving", but it seems such roles are too generalised. Providing your staff with much more specific roles - just like a newspaper - means your quality will rise.

And what do you do if you are on your own? Easy. Use a three-step process:

1. Write the article or blog post, but don't worry about links and graphics
2. Check the article for accuracy and then add relevant links, images and so on
3. Come back to the article after a break and then re-read it, concentrating this time on grammar and spelling

Even the worst online writers can improve the quality of their work in this way. And just think, you only have to do it for a few hundred words each day - not the 250,000 words (five novels worth) that will appear in tomorrow's Sunday Times..!

Decision makers in small businesses are much more likely to look for information about your company in social networking sites, than on your own website or blog. That's the significant conclusion you can draw from the Business.com study of how you can engage small business decision makers through social media. This is a significant piece of research of almost 3,000 companies employing from 1 to 99 people, in a broad range of industry sectors. The findings should not be ignored.

 

What the study found was that across all industries, engagement using social media was very high. In fact, in all industries decision makers in small business look to social networking sites for information on suppliers, rather than look on the company's own blog. Around two-thirds of business people who use social media will look at your company's profile on a social networking site, such as LinkedIn or Facebook as their primary means of finding out about you. This implies that only one in three of your potential target customers are actually bothering to go to your website in the first instance.

That's important and should not be passed by lightly. So let's repeat what the study finds. More social media users will go to a social networking site to find out about your business than will look at your own blog. So, perhaps it is time to ask ourselves a question. How much time do we invest in our own websites, compared with our presence on social media? If your website gets most of your attention, it could be time to switch.

The Business.com study also found some interesting changes in the way people prefer their information. Although there are differences between sectors, on average the preferred method of gaining information online using social media is...wait for it....webinars and podcasts. That's right; people now prefer to watch presentations online, or to listen to audio recordings than anything else. In spite of all the hype, Twitter was the least preferred method of finding information on a company.

So, what areas should you be concentrating on, in order to get your company noticed using social media? Here is the list of methods you should adopt (according to the results of the study) in descending order:

1. Webinars
2. Podcasts
3. User reviews and ratings
4. Profiles on social networking sites
5. Company blog
6. Forums
7. Q&A sites, such as Yahoo! Answers and Business.com Answers
8. Content sharing sites, such as Scribd and Issuu
9. RSS Feeds
10. Discussions on social networking sites
11. Social bookmarking, such as Digg
12. Twitter

The list varies somewhat from sector to sector - for example, in the Advertising and Marketing industry Twitter moves up the list several places, whilst in the legal sector, taking part in forums becomes second on the list. However, broadly what this study shows is the significance of social media to every business.

Having a website is, of course, essential. It gets you people who don't use social media - around 40% of people on average. But the rest of the world is now so focused on the social aspect of the internet, you can no longer afford to ignore it. In fact, this study shows it should be your number one priority.