Wibbels, Andy

PERSONAL:

Male.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Chicago, IL.

CAREER:

Writer, blogger, speaker, business trainer. Creator of the seminar series "Easy Bake Weblogs," "RSS Essentials," and "Podcasting Bootcamp." Has appeared on the radio stations WXCT, KBLL, WGUN, KBS, B100, and on the radio shows Recognized Expert and Think Big Revolution.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Best Marketing Blog of 2005 and Best Marketing Blog of 2006, both from MarketingSherpa.com.

WRITINGS:

Blogwild! A Guide for Small Business Blogging, Portfolio (New York, NY), 2006.

Contributor to books, including Success Secrets of the Online Marketing Superstars and Business: The Ultimate Resource.

SIDELIGHTS:

Andy Wibbels is a writer, blogger, speaker, and business trainer. He is the creator of the seminar series Easy Bake Weblogs, RSS Essentials, and Podcasting Bootcamp, and he has appeared on the radio stations WXCT, KBLL, WGUN, KBS, B100. Wibbels has additionally been featured on the radio shows Recognized Expert and Think Big Revolution. An award-winning blogger, Wibbels received the "Best Marketing Blog of 2005" and "Best Marketing Blog of 2006" citations from MarketingSherpa.com. Not only has Wibbels traveled the country speaking about business and blogging, but he has also written about the topic. He has contributed to such books as Success Secrets of the Online Marketing Superstars and Business: The Ultimate Resource.

In 2006, Wibbels published his first solely authored work, titled Blogwild! A Guide for Small Business Blogging. The book, like much of Wibbels's other work, focuses on how businesses can use blogging to gain market share, raise their profiles, and generally become more successful companies. Wibbels shows how blogs can also be built to foster discourse, and he gives step-by-step instructions on how to build a blog from scratch. Wibbels further shows how to direct Web traffic to new blogs. Discussing several different blog-hosting sites, Wibbels compares and contrasts their services and fees. He also notes that customers are far more receptive to marketing via blogs than marketing via spam. Reviewers applauded the book and found much of value in it. For instance, a California Bookwatch critic commented on the book's "wonderfully simple directions to blogging for newcomers." Reviewing Blogwild! in Booklist, David Siegfried observed that "Wibbels shows businesses and entrepreneurs how to use the photosphere to effectively market and promote their enterprises."

Wibbels takes his own advice to heart; he maintains his own home page, has a Web site devoted to his book, and has built the Web site Easy Bake Weblogs. The latter site promotes Wibbels's business blogging seminars. On that site, Wibbels stated: "We'd all love it if people came to our websites and immediately dropped a couple grand on our Big Ticket Product. But customers like to get to know you first. With a blog, you cultivate a relationship with your customers. You connect directly to their most urgent needs. They get to know you—and your business—inside and out, over time—turning curious prospects into paying customers and then raving fans!"