Do You Need a Blogging Schedule?
August 21, 2008
The fact is that because of lack of time, commitment, or a good strategy, the majority of blogs fail. Maybe FAIL is too strong a word because most blogs don’t have a real goal in the first place. However, as a business strategy, blogs do have a purpose… to generate leads that turn into quality customers. If a prospect finds an abandoned blog, (either through a forgotten link on the company’s web site or a search engine result) they’re left with a negative impression of the company.
Don’t let this happen. A blog is a terrible thing to waste. It does take time and commitment, but with a plan in place, your blog will increase your search engine visibility, establish your credibility, and provide more online leads than you can handle.
Here’s a regimented workout that will help jumpstart a new or stalled business blog and prevent your company from being just another amateur in the blogosphere. (Please consult your physician before beginning any new activity regimen, and always remember to stretch prior to the exercise and breathe throughout.)
Write 3 Posts a Week: Once your blog has an established readership you may be able to cut back your frequency, but to begin you should plan on writing three times a week. Schedule recurring blocks of time in your calendar with no distractions. While I have worked up to writing Monday through Friday each week, the most important aspect of writing is consistency… quality of production over a quick blast of effort and then a dead blog.
Posts can be of varying lengths and styles, but I respectfully suggest that brevity is a virtue for a reason. Numbered lists, how-tos, and commentary on your customers’ industries are proven topic winners.
Blog Popular Search Terms: Blog search engines like Icerocket and Technorati often display the most popular current search terms. If you can work a popular topic into a new post you place your blog in front of thousands of potential new readers. Just make sure the topic is relevant to your business. While more visitors are nice, the goal here is to get “viable” prospects reading your blog.
Make it Easy for People to Subscribe and Share: Blogs that don’t offer an RSS feed, or those who relegate it to some little dusty corner of the bottom of the web page, are pointless. One of a blog’s biggest strengths is its ability to syndicate content. People can subscribe and receive new posts to their email whether or not they’re on your blog or not. Feedburner and Feedblitz are two services you can integrate into your blog that allows visitors to subscribe via RSS feed or email.
In a nutshell, an abandoned blog is a black eye for any business. A regularly updated, narrowly focused blog is a powerful magnet for search engines, new business leads, and journalists looking to speak with an industry expert. By dedicating the time necessary to building a strong blog, you’ll have your investment returned to you a hundred times over in search engine visibility, new prospects and lower customer acquisition costs.
Blogs are a Marketers Dream, Part 3
June 10, 2008
The last part of this series on blogging for business success…
A Genuine Conversation: Blogs are also engaging for readers because they provide a convenient forum for genuine dialogue. Successful blogs build on direct communication. Once your fresh content has attracted readers, you want to keep them engaged in the conversation you’ve started. Blogs provide a number of ways to encourage that connection.
1. Reader comments– Most non-blog web sites don’t offer a way for people to comment on specific new content added to the site. Tenacious readers may hunt down your email address and send you their thoughts, but that kind of conversation takes place in private, adding nothing to the vitality of your site. Blog comments add the voices of your readers to your posts and give you an opportunity to gain priceless insight about your market and its view of your products/services and your company.
2. Interaction with other bloggers– Blogging culture encourages conversations that start on one blog and spill over into others. Blog A discusses (and links to) a post on Blog B, and the readers of both blogs leave comments that link to other sites, spreading the conversation to even more readers and creating the “buzz” that blogging is famous for.
3. Sponsor or host blogs– A low-risk strategy is to sponsor a blog that contains editorial content that appeals to your potential and existing customers. This is what Boeing has done with their “inFlightHQ” blog. inFlightHQ is not a blog specifically about Boeing or its products, but it does contain posts that business flyers find interesting with its “tools, tips, and techniques for being productive at 30,000 feet.” This approach doesn’t require the company to blog, and presents little risk.
In conclusion, one of the most beautiful things about blogs is that they don’t require a massive Web design project. They’re small, nimble, and simply structured, so your company can launch its blog in a matter of hours and immediately begin playing with the medium.
Blogs are a Marketers Dream, Part 2
June 6, 2008
Part 2 of the blog series… Today, unobtrusive repetition of the marketer’s messaging.
Broadcast your content automatically: Blogs can broadcast their content via “RSS feeds.” RSS stands for Real Simple Syndication, and simple is the key word. This technology, which is built into most blogging systems and applications, allows people to subscribe to your blog they way they’d subscribe to an email newsletter… without you doing any extra work or managing a list of subscribers.
Again, let’s look at the paragraph above: Prospects and customers are opting-in and want to receive ongoing contact and communications with your company! The importance of the “stickiness” marketers can now create between prospects and customers to their brands through RSS feeds cannot be overemphasized. One of the most interesting things people discover when they start a company blog with syndication is how soon they get visitors and subscribers. These same potential customers receive notification via their Web browser, email system, or special news-reading software when your blog is updated. Your messages don’t get lost in email or mistaken for spam, your clients can read it when they want to, and it all drives traffic back to your site.
Blogs are a Marketer’s Dream, Part 1
June 5, 2008
By analyzing public reaction to a blog, reading comments, and directly engaging in the world of bloggers (informally known as the “blogosphere”), companies can gain access to a wealth of information about their market’s opinion of them. By responding to comments, sponsoring or hosting blogs on other sites, and running your own company’s blog, businesses can build, revive, and extend their brands for several reasons that I’ll explore over the next several days.
Readers LIKE Blogs: In the age of information overload, headlines and new blurbs that are short, focused, and written in conversational English are much appreciated by online readers (am I feeling your appreciation right now? just kidding!). Additionally, it’s now common for people to find answers to questions via search engines. Due to simple structure, strong link networks, and fresh content, blogs have enormous appeal to search engines, and it’s often easier to find relevant blogged content than to find the same information on traditional Web pages. Many bloggers have found that their posts often rank higher in Google than the pages and sites they are writing about!
Blog on a Schedule
May 26, 2008
Once you’ve made the wise decision to have a company blog and decided who on your executive team will write and be the “voice” of the business, blog on schedule. Blogging is about consistency and frequency. Since you are using your blog to build your company’s reputation, publishing content on a reasonable schedule is key.
At minimum, one to two posts a week is acceptable. Three or more posts a day is considered overkill and often leads to negative responses from readers.
Search engine page ranking evaluates a blog’s publishing schedule on many factors including season influences ( ex: blog about skiing more in the winter than in summer) and the time lapse between posts. Consistency will score higher than frequency.
When your business blogs on a schedule, it gives your readers a reason to want to come back. Make it easy for them to subscribe to your blog’s feed, but most of all, make them want to come back.
Like serial stories, make your readers think about what you’ve written long after they’ve left your blog. Leave them wanting more… and put them on the edge of their seats to see what’s coming next.
Education from the Blogosphere
May 9, 2008
Some words found in the social media space lately… time to re-educate your-CEO-self!
Socialprise: social tools + enterprise; one of the biggest shifts in business today.
TLO (Twitter Liberation Organization): concept proposed by Techcrunch and others suggesting that Twitter is “too important” and must be open-sourced so that the platform won’t crash when usage spikes.
Distributed Polling: we are better at solving problems collectively. Fred Wilson posted a poll on YHOO stock price which was picked up and published on a number of leading blogs.
ReadBurner: the socializing of Google Reader so that friends can see what you’ve saved.
TwitPitch: Stowe Boyd, suggests a new way of “pitching”… limited to 140 characters. Now THAT’S the future with no time wasted.
This last word, TwitPitch, is my favorite! 140 characters forces you to distill your business concept down to image words/ phrases that nail exactly what you’re doing and where you’re heading… Fantastic!!
BREAKING NEWS!!!
April 28, 2008
Reference back to my post last Thursday!
Twittering and Tweeting… What’s all the noise?
April 24, 2008
Is Twitter actually useful for business owners? Can it be a successful platform for branding and marketing strategies? Do you even know what Twitter is? Some initial reactions on my part…
1. Twitter may be useful in understanding your clients or competitors. You could “follow” your customers’ thoughts and actions. This benefit may be incredibly useful for the Technical Support, R&D, and Marketing departments.
2. Twitter may be a useful way to track the people who set trends that you may decide to follow in the future. These can be experts in their field, imaginative thinkers etc. People like Seth Godin, Jim Collins, or Tim Ferriss.
3. Twitter may generate more heat than light. Does receiving a thousand Twitter updates to your mobile device every hour constitute real “work” on your company or business development strategies?!? That’s not effective OR cost-effective to grow an enterprise– it’s a time-waster and information overload.
So, in reality, I’m not completely convinced. Twitter could be useful in a business context as a way of understanding users. It is certainly something to investigate and watch.
P. S. I do have a Twitter account… just in case I finally figure out how to monetize the situation! 
Wendi
7 Keys to an Authentic Blog/ Web Site Relationship
April 7, 2008
Courtesy of Liz Strauss:
1. Show up whole and human
2. Talk in your authentic voice
3. Tell your own truth
4. Have room for folks to tell theirs too
5. Don’t tryto tie ideas up in a bow
6. Half the show is in the comments
7. Be helpful, not hypeful…
Let the conversations begin!
The Business of Blogging
February 18, 2008
Blogging offers some compelling advantages for business. Every day more and more companies have blogs and here are some of the benefits:
1. Attracts new customers from new demographics. People who read blogs generally spend more money online than people who don’t. Helps you answer the question: “Where are my next generation of customer coming from?”
2. Provides your existing customers with a new window through which to see you… and through which you can see them, via visitor statistics and/or comments.
3. Lets you bypass traditional news media. Alongside more traditional marketing methods, like press releases, you can speak in your own voice directly to your audience.
4. Increases your company’s presence and placement in search results. Blogs constantly churn out new content full of keywords your potential customers will use to search online for products and services related to your company.
5. Puts a human face on an abstract entity such as your company.
6. Your blog is your company’s best crisis communication channel available.
7. It’s less expensive. And it’s more effective than traditional methods of marketing and public relations.
By this time, the benefits of having a website are undeniable. As a supplement to websites, blogs magnify those benefits tremendously and deliver on them better than a non-blog website can.
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