How Do You Establish Metrics for a Blogging Initiative? Take a page from the campaign for Jerry White's book

BusinessWeek's recent cover story, "Beyond Blogs: Three years ago our cover story showcased the phenomenon. A lot has changed since then,"raised -- or raised again -- the question about business and blogs.

But there's one thing that I don't think the article didn't adequately cover: establishing metrics for determining a successful blogging initiative.

As with other Web 2.0 initiatives, it seems that metrics will have to be determined on a case-by-base basis.

So let me give you an example of a good blogging initiative.

Guy Kawasaki recently posted an interview on his blog, "How to Change the World: A Practical Blog for Impractical People" entitled, "The Art of Survival: An Interview with Jerry White."

Around the same time, I got an email from Jerry White's organization, the nonprofit Survivor Corps., asking whether I would review his book, "I Will Not Be Broken: Five Steps to Overcoming a Life Crisis." It provides a terrific perspective that has a number of different elements to it -- and that's one of the first lessons I took away, after talking with Chris Abraham, who is handling the outreach to bloggers.

According to Chris, the book appeals to many segments, including cancer survivors, veterans and their families, Christians and leadership. They've developed outreach for each segment. While that makes sense, too often organizations do a one-size fits all approach, and miss out working with individual segments.

What they've also done is make it really easy for bloggers to write and post about the book with a download page that provides:

• Facts about the books' publication schedule (including availability as an audiobook).
• A synopsis of the book.
• Sample chapter downloads.
• Reviews and testimonials.
• About Jerry White.
• An overview of The Five Steps.
• Various Excerpts.
• About Survivor Corps.
• Contacts.
• Multimedia Elements.
• Additional Resources.
  
• Social Media and Tags.

They even made it easy for people to join Survivor Corps' mailing list.

I will continue to explore other elements about blogging relations, based on an interview with Chris Abraham over the next week.

Aside from the well-executed blogging campaign for the book, I do think the book itself, "I Will Not Be Broken: Five Steps to Overcoming a Life Crisis," is helpful. As Daniel Goleman, author of Social Intelligence, wrote (in the Reviews and Testimonials section), The book "offers wise, practical, and inspiring steps to come back from life's worst setbacks. Jerry White speaks with compassion and authority—and an abundance of emotional intelligence.”