On some of our sites we've started hosting "Social Blogs" for companies. What we're doing is supporting companies relevant to our websites by creating a special blog on our sites devoted to the company. The blogs are highly interactive -- I call what they're about a form of "conversational marketing."

An example is Maverick Bikes, which just launched its Social Blog on YourMTB.com:
www.yourmtb.com/maverick
(There's not much there yet, as that one is just getting started.)

A small company that's been doing a Social Blog for a while is Evomo, which makes mountain biking apparel. (Evomo designed our YourMTB and YourClimbing.com t-shirts.)

Here's Evomo's Social Blog.

Check this out, because Evomo is being smart about how they use this.

Evomo has its own blog on its own website, but it uses our "Share Your Blog" feature to also publish blog items on YourMTB.com and in the Evomo Social Blog on YourMTB.com. The blog is not a blatant attempt to sell shirts, but rather it talks about the mountain biking lifestyle and follows the activities of Evomo's managers and its sponsored team of MTB racers.

Evomo's Bryan Thombs also regularly contributes to YourMTB.com, periodically posting pictures to the site's photo galleries.

Bryan posted 3 photos to the site today. The one above, of a Team Evomo racer competing last weekend, was a great shot, so we "promoted" it to the homepage of YourMTB.com in our featured photos spot.

We didn't feature the photo out of an allegiance to Evomo; we promoted it because it's a great photo. But the rider is wearing an Evomo jersey, and the company gets some free advertising.

Keep an eye on Evomo on YourMTB.com for examples of doing Social Blogging right. You'll spot the small company interacting with YourMTB.com users often. They're being active members of the community, conversing with users, and not trying to be blatant salesmen. Very smart.