Here’s why your business should have a blog. And what to do with it, once launched.
Blogging in essence is a way to build an online audience.
1. You (or someone you work with who likes to write) starts blogging
on a very niche topic you know a lot about. Mustang cars, if you’re an auto dealer that sells parts for them, for example.
2. What you’d talk about, is the sort of stuff you’d talk about with other Mustang lovers.
What you love about them, what you don’t, what you’d like to see changed about the
products, who they’re sold, etc. Lots of shop talk, industry talk, etc.
The goal would not be to gain thousands of followers
necessarily, although that could happen with the Mustang group, or a blog
for Ford enthusiasts. The goal would be to get a few dozen, and then a few
hundred people to get your blog posts e-mailed, or subscribed to in an RSS
feed (real simple syndication).Regardless of how dull the outside world might consider the issue, the more
specialized the field, the more likely it is that people within that very
defined niche will be interested in your content (primarily because no one
else is writing about it, and with such expertise) You’re uniquely qualified
to share your expertise and insights, because you work with the materials
every day. The more niche the topic, typically the smaller, but more loyal,
the following. And loyalty, not numbers, is what really matters.Blogging over months and sometimes years (preferably two or three times a
week), will build you a dedicated following, which:
. Means more people within your industry or circle of Mustang lovers will get
to know you, and contact you for wisdom and advice. (And then buy your
products if you’re selling anything.)
. Means that you’ll increasingly be asked by traditional media
sources to guest write for their magazines, be interviewed on TV and radio,
etc., boosting your credibility and profile as an expert, in turn helping
boost sales by itself. Even popular blogs regularly feature guest bloggers,
which is another avenue to get your message and company in front of your
best potential customers.
. Means you can then create products with a ready-made clientele
more than happy to buy from you, because they’ve gotten to know and trust
you.
. Gives you instant credibility with would-be customers who are
checking you out online before coming in your store. If it looks like you
know a lot about your topic, you’re going to look like someone they’re
willing to pay.The more popular your blog becomes, the more likely it is for your readers
to write back, and offer suggestions on your products and methods. Not only
will you learn a lot from writing, but a blog serves as a free, large focus
group for new or existing products. Some blogs I read receive 20 or more
comments per post.When you blog regularly it elevates you in Google search rankings. This over
time helps you sell more of whatever you were selling online to begin with.
Thanks to the blog, you come up when people search for Mustang cars, not
just the name of your business.Many bloggers spend time commenting on blogs of similar topics. This gets
your name and products in front of all those readers, and connects you with
others who enjoy the same passion for Mustangs for example. Had it not been
for the blog, you would have never met these people.Many people have also built consulting businesses in their fields, thanks to
a blog giving them the exposure they needed to become a recognized expert.As you can tell, a blog can open up new opportunities, but it can initially
mean months and months of hard work, with few or seemingly no readers at
all. So if you or your staff don’t like to write, it’s not a good fit. Of
course, increasingly people are creating video blogs, instead of just blogs
filled with text and pictures.In your case, physically showing on videos insider tricks of how you repair
difficult issues on Fords for example, could be a focus.Because your articles live on the Internet forever, many bloggers find that
their old posts will be discovered and passed around through social media
channels for months and years to come.For more information:
If you’re interested in learning more about making money with a blog,
obviously feel free to contact me directly, or a good online community where
we talk about these sorts of issues in great depth regularly, is in the paid
community of http://www.thirdtribe.com. Note: there is a monthly fee to be a
part of it.Here’s a good post on what it takes to be a successful blogger.
http://www.convinceandconvert.com/social-media-marketing/11-must-dos-for-the
-serious-blogger/Or if you want to pick up a book to understand the basics of making money
through blogging (and social media in general, which is integral to a
successful blog) read “The New Community Rules: Marketing On The Social Web”
by Tamar Weinberg.Photo Credit: Foxtongue
Posts Tagged ‘computing’
Online branding in three simple steps
Monday, June 28th, 2010
Many businesses are hopping on the Facebook bandwagon. There’s a lot of merit to that. But there are three easy steps every business should take first to help their online brands, prior to worrying about Facebook. This is especially true if the business works directly with the end user, like a hotel, restaurant or retail store. Search for your business online, and respond to what’s already posted.
Often Google Local search will come up.
1. Check and make sure that all the information about your business is accurate. If not, fix it. Do this for Bing and Yahoo as well. Then search using your company’s name on these different sites, to pull up any mentions you may not already know about, which could impact your online branding.
2. Read every comment you see on the first couple pages of Google, related to your business. Publicly thank those who said nice things about your business. That builds your brand with that loyal customer and other readers. Everyone feels good when they are acknowledged. This is a powerful mechanism for building brand awareness. So few businesses actually take the time to go online and respond back to those who post nice things about them. If you overheard someone saying something nice about you at a conference, you’d probably thank them. The same goes for online comments.
3. Respond to negative comments by publicly or privately apologizing to the person who had the bad experience, and offer in some way to remedy the situation, through perhaps a free item. If you think it might take a deeper conversation to unravel the situation, be sure to give the individual your e-mail, or direct the person to your website, so the discussion doesn’t take place online. This shows others you care about the complaint, and want to deal with it in a professional manner. This naturally helps your online branding.
If possible, try to make the initial apology public, because that builds your company’s credibility. Everyone knows companies make mistakes. What really impresses people are those companies that acknowledge making a mistake, and work to fix it. Making an apology public in most cases only helps your online reputation, so long as you’re not constantly having to apologize online. This all helps your online branding. Once you’ve done all this, set up alerts, so in the future you’ll be able to quickly respond to comments posted about your business.Photo Credit: Gregoconnell
Google called, so we vaulted our client to Page 1 of the New York Times.
Monday, April 26th, 2010
On Feb. 10, 2010 Google announced a nationwide contest to build one or more test locations for ultra-high speed Internet, which would run between 100 and 1,000 times faster than what it currently available. By several measurements, the Google Twin Ports initiative was the most successful at getting grassroots support and national attention based on this share of voice report. This is a series of posts on how we did it.
Google wanted communities to show them two things. 1. The engineering of the city, and logical pros and cons of Google trying to build this test bed in their community. 2. Whether the community as a whole liked the idea, by voicing grassroots support. This is the story of how PureDriven and a cadre of dedicated volunteers together vaulted our effort spanning the Duluth, Minnesota and Superior Wisconsin communities – an area commonly called the TwinPorts – to national prominence (Step 2). Traditional stories about our effort ran nationwide; our mayor was interviewed on CNN; and video and photographs of him leaping into Lake Superior for Google showed up on the front page of the New York Times, CBS and CNBC, and hundreds of other traditional and online news outlets. Overall, the Google Twin Ports effort ultimately was discussed or mentioned more than 1,500 times online according to data collected by PureDriven.
We tell this story to explain what worked for us, so businesses and grassroots organizations can build similar successful efforts, and avoid our missteps. What is written here is also only the opinion of me, Patrick Garmoe (although it was reached after talking with other volunteers informally). As a full-time staff member of PureDriven, and a 10-year veteran of print journalism, I led the public relations effort, and therefore had first-hand knowledge of the tactics used here. Each of the blogs posts in this series will begin with a short story, followed by tips you can apply to your efforts to gain both traditional and online exposure for your company, cause or initiative.
We will be posting the full collection prominently on the blog indefinitely.
Lesson 1: To really get on the national radar, you need both real news, and an image that encapsulates what you’re selling. Ours was cheap camera footage of our mayor, Duluth Mayor Don Ness, leaping out of the freezing waters of Lake Superior. (By the way, the mayor was going to leap into Lake Superior as part of fundraiser for Special Olympics anyhow, so it wasn’t any more work to do it in the name of the Google project as well.
I knew early on we needed something that without words, would really show how much we wanted Google to come, something the public and media would respond to, and catch fire online and on the web, because it was so funny, or interesting, or crazy.
The day before the Polar Plunge, I heard about the leap. I called around that Saturday morning to videographers I knew. No one was available. So I grabbed my $100 Flip video camera that I use for video blogging purposes, and shot this video.
I took a couple hours to edit it that weekend with iMovie on my iMac, (it was the first time I used that particular software by the way) and slapped it online our PureDriven’s YouTube account. The image didn’t pick up steam immediately, nor did I expect it to. I knew that if this effort became a national story, traditional media organizations would need visuals. Ultimately that’s exactly what happened. CBS news ran a story, along with CNBC, and likely dozens of other news networks across the region, and even internationally. That’s why I assume the New York Times eventually asked for a picture, which we were happy to provide (the one that ultimately ran in paper was from our local newspaper, the Duluth News Tribune. I’ve included a link to the picture below.
Duluth Mayor Don Ness Leaps into Lake Superior
I believe CNN saw the New York Times story, and therefore opted to call our mayor to be on its morning show the next day. Whether it’s local or national media, television takes its story list from newspapers and websites. During the same segment, CNN also interviewed the mayor of Sarasota, Fla., who also happened to have pulled a public relations stunt that got them coverage in the same New York Times story. There are thousands of cities competing for Google. Why did Duluth get so much attention? Because we did the best job coming up with a visual for news organizations to show.
As of this writing, we’ve had nearly 40,000 views of the video on YouTube. That isn’t bad for an unrehearsed piece of footage that took only five minutes to shoot. Not even the part on the end where our mayor challenges other mayors to jump in Lake Superior was rehearsed.
So Remember: As long as the picture isn’t fuzzy and the audio is decent, quality often doesn’t matter. The video looks jumpy, because I was racing around without my tripod. Don’t over think video. Just start filming. And it’s best to get a newspaper or website to tell your story. Because often the television stations look at what the newspapers do, and copy it, especially if there’s footage they can show.
