In an earlier post, I bemoaned the lack of a good Canadian driven blog that would be useful to entrepreneurs. Well, not only did I find one but it’s subject matter is very topical - word-of-mouth advertising, social media and how to achieve buzz, traffic and create community. I met Buzz Canuck blogger Sean Moffitt at a cool event yesterday put on by the International Internet Marketing Association - a shout out to President Steve Deller - a great event (and the Guinness after!)

Anyhow, Sean took time out from the Big Smoke in T.O. to visit Vancouver and present on: Let’s get Wiki - Building Your Brand in a Customer Controlled Marketplace. Sean is a self-proclaimed promiscuous Facebooker, President and Chief Evangelist of Agent Wildfire and he has something to offer our readers. Sean is also a fellow Procter & Gamble alumnus (or as I generally put it “I did 3 years time in Toronto”) and fellow lover of Guinness and powder (not that you see any in Ontario…)

The subject matter is a crucial one for entrepreneurs whether Internet focused, retail or otherwise. In today’s viral landscape the ability to build brands is more important and more complex then ever before so add Buzz Canuck to your blog aggregator (see link in our Blogroll) and get schooled on creating the buzz.

While we are giving props, also in fine form were fellow powder hounds Steve Dietrich, publisher of another recommended read, Backbone magazine, Ean Jackson, Marketing and Sales Guru and proprietor of the up and coming active lifestyle event social network www.clubfatass.com, James Carter of Marqui and John Cousineau of Innovative Information.

Know another great Canadian, US or global blog of value to our readers - leave a comment and we’ll check it out.

While we are still in early days here at fundfindr, we appreciate the value of connecting our audience with the latest and greatest from the blogosphere. Here are some of our favorites for your consideration. Our criterion for blogs is they should be informative, timely, entertaining, thought-provoking and, most of all, useful.

Don’t worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you’ll have to ram them down people’s throats.
- Howard Aiken , computing pioneer and innovator

Our Current Top 10:

1. www.workhappy.net - Great quotes like the one above, useful links and great tools and applications for small businesses.

2. www.tjacobi.com - View from the VC’s chair from TJ. Never hurts to have a window into the funder’s mind.

3. sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog - Seth Godin is a web and marketing guru with lot’s to share. Catch his vibe on his blog – he is a maverick and publishing machine.

4. www.robinsharma.com/scripts/ic_blog.php - Not for everyone’s taste as this is a bit preachy but we loved his “Greatness Guide” and focus on personal development and leadership. Lots of nuggets.

5. blog.guykawasaki.com - What start-up blogroll is complete without Guy? Consistent, insightful posts from the author or “The Art of the Start”.

6. www.johnchow.com - John Chow blogs on monetizing blogs. Find out how to make money off your customer dialogue. mashable.com - Great social networking blog, amazing the ventures launching almost daily.

7. www.ducttapemarketing.com/blog - Great resource for small business marketing.

8. www.fundfindr.com/index.php/Blog - Ok, not entirely unbiased but we are driven to provide more and better interviews, features and value for start-ups than anywhere on the web.

9. Insert a good Canadian entrepreneurship blog here - we are still looking. Canadian Entrepreneur is ok. canentrepreneur.blogspot.com/2005/11/peter-drucker.html.

Agree? Disagree? Help us add to this list! Contact us with your must-have blogs for entrepreneurship, funding or venture success.info@fundfindr.com

As you set out to grow your venture or start-up in 2008, make sure to take advantage of these 5 ways blogs can support your venture. Look for much more advice on blogging and examples of the features discussed on the fundfindr blog in coming weeks.

5 Ways to Blog to Success!

1. Create a conversation with your customers. Direct dialogue with your customers is essential and much literature recently has backed up this fact. Blogs let you publish content on your website, on a stand-alone site or via a feed that your customers can subscribe to. Rather than seeing sales drop off and then investigating, use a blog to have a conversation on news, ideas and issues related to your business. The very nature of blogs will provide feedback while programs like Google Analytics will help you understand who your subscribers are, where they are coming from, and what they like best on your blog. Want to get started? Check out Wordpress or TypePad. Or start using a content management system such as Drupal or our personal favourite, Joomla.

2. Build Brand Equity. Most businesspeople know that your brand is far more than your logo. Your brand is the combination of everyone’s mental imprint (brand image) and the summation of their contact with you (brand experience). The dynamic nature of blogs allows you to easily provide positive imagery and tap into the power of emotion through media such as podcasts and video. You can showcase positive customer experiences - whether they started that way or you managed their experience from bad to good - while still providing more transparency than websites allow. Blogs allow you to give customers a feeling of being insiders when you preview upcoming products or services or that their opinions matter when you conduct surveys or research. Strive to present your content in a compelling fashion and provide value even when you are not selling and you will further benefit from the viral pass-along that blogs enable.

3. Enhance Search Engine Rankings. The dynamic nature of regularly updated content on a specific item, brand or issue means that search engines love blogs. Take advantage of this for your business by posting at least a few times weekly, adding metadata which most blogs make easy to do and by using keywords in your headlines and introductory paragraphs so they get picked up in RSS readers.

4. Create Alliances to grow traffic. The collaborative culture of blogs is one of you scratch my back, I will scratch yours. Everyone wants the same things - traffic, positive associations, publicity and customer dialogue. So you can take advantage of this culture especially as your content and blog following grows. Here’s how: Find some relevant blogs and link to them via a blogroll (index of other blogs adjacent to your blog) or feature them in a post. Then contact them and let them know. Many blog posts are trackbacks (mentions that someone else talked about them) or items of interest picked up from other blogs. So, done well you can often get a link or mention in return which provides valuable exposure and traffic. Some sites like www.johnchow.com, which blogs on how to make money from blogging, will even review your blog for a small fee. Of course, these alliances build further brand equity!

5. Use a blog aggregator to manage time and stay current. Our fundfindr favourite aggregator is Netvibes, others include FeedBurner, Bloglines, and Google Reader. An aggregator works by bringing all your feeds - business, sports, news, whatever - together in a single place in a priority and fashion that you can customize. This allows you to quickly scan the latest posts for relevant info without having to visit the websites. A great way to start your day is 20 minutes on the aggregator and you are current and can get back to building your business.

Of course, the fundfindr blog is your go-to source for news, interviews and stories designed for entreprenuers wishing to grow their business, attract expertise, collaboration and funding.