Business Blogging Articles

Blogs can be an immensely powerful marketing tool in the right hands, establishing the blogger as a widely-read, oft-quoted, trusted authority in their field of interest. Blogs can also wreck havoc on reputations (just ask Kryptonite) and careers (remember Dan Rather and “Rathergate”?). Welcome to the new, conversational Internet. It’s time to join the “blogosphere” - hopefully before your competitors do!”

• Successful applications of blog and webfeed (RSS) technology
• How blogs and RSS can and should fit into your marketing plan
• Best practices to emulate, pitfalls to avoid
• Case Studies and Examples: Lessons Learned

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I was recently interviewed by a journalist on business blogging and its benefits. He wanted to know specifically what it’s done for me to have a blog. Here’s what I told him:

• I’ve gotten inquiries from prospects who found Netconcepts through my blog.
• My blog helps me get speaking gigs and PR. In fact, I recently got one of my blog entries taken verbatim by a well-respected US magazine — DM News — and published as an article.
• It builds credibility and establishes me as a thought leader in the eyes of prospects and clients. For example, one of our recent clients choose us over a competitor for online marketing services partly because of my blog.
• It’s helped upsell existing clients on additional services, as many of them are regularly reading my blog. For example, some of our clients are going to start a blog and use us for blog design, blog consulting, etc.
• I’ve gotten links from popular bloggers, like Robert Scoble of Microsoft. It’s much more difficult to get a mention from Scoble (or other prominent bloggers) if you’re not a blogger. Scoble’s blog, called Scobleizer, is one of the most well-linked blogs on the Internet. Some bloggers have even included me on their blogroll, like Toby Bloomberg of Diva Marketing Blog (Thanks, Toby!)
• It’s helped me with recruiting panelists for Thoughts Leaders Summits that I organized and moderated for MarketingProfs. For example, the lineup of panelists for one of the recent summits included Internet marketing gurus: Seth Godin, Doc Searls, Robert Scoble, Steve Rubel, and Debbie Weil. My blog played a role in establishing my credibility with them and getting them to respond to my “cold call” email message.
• Blogs are also great for SEO (search engine optimization). Links are important to the search engines, and the blogosphere is richly interlinked with bloggers linking so much to each other. Blogs are also rich in content, which search engines also like. If I blog about RSS and SEO (which I have), for example, next thing I know I’m #1 in Google for [rss and seo].
• I’ve also built some great business relationships with other respected bloggers. They have referred business to me, shared speaking opportunities with me, etc.

I had yet another experience with that last item, just today in fact. I’m speaking at the Frost & Sullivan Sales and Marketing East conference in Boston, and a fellow blogger from a competing SEO firm who was sitting at the table I was facilitating earlier today on blogging very kindly publicly commended my blog to the rest of the group for its content and thought leadership. (Thanks Stephen!) There’s a guy who understands the benefits of coopetition (rather than competition)!

The journalist also wanted to know how my blog’s traffic had grown over time. Here are the charts I shared with him showing the growth trends in pageviews and visitors:

Pageviews:

Visitors:

A pretty respectable trend, I’d say. If you’re curious what the actual numbers are, I will give you a hint and say that the both charts measure into the tens of thousands of visitors per month. Hopefully the trend will continue.

One thing I really need to do to keep the numbers heading northward is to blog more frequently. I’m sure traffic growth will accelerate once I do. I just need to buckle down! I guess I’ll just sleep less… (sigh). You other bloggers out there know what I’m saying here, don’t you! More often than we’d like, it’s the wee hours when we’re blogging.

How might a blog pay off for you? For some general ideas, read this article of mine, on blogging, published in last month’s issue of Multichannel Merchant magazine.

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In real estate, it’s “location, location, location”. In web marketing, it’s “content, content, content”. Your web content is the single most important factor for your website’s success

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Technology continues to revolutionize the sales and marketing efforts of firms worldwide. Businesses must either adapt or put themselves at risk. Companies and customers communicate and interact with each other in substantially different ways than 10 or even 5 years ago. Direct and interactive marketing are converging, financial metrics are increasingly mainstream, and customers expect channel “silos” to be broken down. Learn how to benefit from the new tools and thinking in managing customer relations to increase sales, improve strategies, and reach online and offline markets.

Search engine marketing

• Make your site “search engine friendly”
• Explore “Pay-per-click” search advertising
• Analyze benchmarking, competitive intelligence and ROI
• Identify trends in contextual, behavioral and local advertising

Create a buzz - viral marketing

• Explore blogs, RSS feeds, forums, wikis and more
• Harness “word of mouse” to enhance your brand
• Discover the “sneezers” who will spread your viral message

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Google’s new Google Sitemaps service, a free inclusion service, is a step in the right direction, but there are two quite major problems with Google’s approach.

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Blogging is one of the hottest trends on the web. A new blog is created every 5.8 seconds but, curiously, catalogers and retailers are notably absent from the “blogosphere” — the online blogging world. By lagging behind on this new trend, they’re missing a key opportunity to actively participate in the global online conversation that’s now happening without them.

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As corporates catch on to blogging as a marketing tool, Netconcepts’ President Stephan Spencer has helped many companies set up a business blog. He says the best blogs are those that develop a loyal following, which is all about being real.

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Experts reveal their top most effective blogging tactics and talk about what business bloggers must do to be an accepted member of the blogosphere.

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How do you make a solid business case for blogging for marketing? What about managing upper management’s expectations on the outcome? Should you hire a professional blogger to write your company blog?

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It’s critical that you as a legitimate marketer dissociate yourself from the rising tide of spam - not just in the inbox but in the search engines as well.

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