You would think that one of the first things you figure out before starting a corporate blog would be what some level of expectation of what you will get out of it. However many times an organization will start a blog just because they hear so much about it, or feel that they should because person/org. X Y and Z have one.

Setting goals is a critical part of progressing in life, both in terms of an organization or company but also personally. Blogs are no different. The vast possibilities of a blog make it even more important to be tied closely to a goal. Failure to set a goal is like staring at a blank canvas and simply smearing paint around randomly rather than thinking about what you actually want to create.

By setting a goal (or even goals) it gives you direction in the content, publishing schedule, and methods to develop metrics to measure the success of the blog against that goal. For example an typical goal may be to get feedback from your brand advocates on any new product prototypes, or service offerings. A company could start a blog that just randomly posted what was new, and maybe that would get some readers… but you wouldn’t know if it was being effective or not.

By defining the goal of getting market research and feedback you can see how much valuable information is obtained from the blog, how much word of mouth is generated by those brand advocates who have now become a part of the product development process, and how sales were effected because of it. It also would let you focus on keeping the blog posts focused around product development cycles and releasing valuable information as necessary.

Those subscribed to the blog would be those who were deeply vested and interested in learning more about the product development cycle, and would be ten times more likely to read a post, share it with a friend, respond and offer feedback, or bookmark it for later reference.

Blogs can have several goals, but make sure you define at least one.

There has been much debate over the value of twitter as a viable marketing tool. While no doubt the early adopters tend to be younger and tech focused, their is a real possibility that twitter could become popular enough where it could be a real way to reach consumers. The real time multi-channel nature of the platform provides real potential. If not twitter, then the service/app that takes it’s place.

The key to all of this speculation is the adoption, and by who. So when someone posts some research and information about the twitter usage numbers it raises a few eyebrows.

The important numbers? 1 million users, and 200,000 active users per week (posting an average of 15 tweets a day).

While it certainly hasn’t hit the participation level of blogging, facebook, or linkedin it shows very real potential. When services such as twitter start to reach a critical mass they gain steam at a very rapid pace. Is twitter a service that anyone with a cell phone would use? It is a possibility, as twitter allows a very real and easy way to stay connected with people you care about regardless of time.

Remember there was a time when the only people who used e-mail were the techie early adapters.

If you haven’t seen it already take a look at Piwik, an open source analytics package that is designed to compete with the ever popular Google Analytics. Open source has always had a strong blogger following, and Piwik has seen a huge increase of traffic due to bloggers posting on the release of their software.

While it is too soon to say that Piwik will replace Google Analytics (the current top free tool available), it does boast a lot of impressive features. Some of the more interesting are:

• Ability to build your own plugins (think of the possibilities!)
• Fully customizable interface
• Data is fully stored on your own server

Keep your eyes posted for more information. The ability to develop plugins, integration, and other API’s will allow some strong possibilities for monitoring and drawing conclusions from data that has been aggregated.