All Entries Tagged With: "networking"
Business Blogging: Product, Service, Or Consulting?
Business blogging is a marketing technique whose time has come. Whether your sell a product, provide a service, or perform consulting services, you can maintain a blog as a form of marketing. Keep in mind that there is more to blogging than mere marketing. You are also branding yourself.
The branding comes in three different formats:
- Search Engine Marketing – Your blog should be optimized for the most important keywords that you want to capture. By sticking to a niche within your business specialty you ensure that your blogging is narrow enough in scope to achieve an effective targeted effort through the search engines.
- Image Projection – With every word you utter and element of design you promote an image of yourself. This image is what others will think about when they think of you.
- Dialogue With Readers – A blog is a dialogue. You want your customers to visit your blog and provide feedback. You may also call it networking. By distributing your blog posts through RSS and various social media outlets you encourage more participation. There is more to business blogging than mere writing. You must also connect.
When you approach business blogging with these three goals in mind you ensure that you enter the marketplace of ideas within your niche with respect and authority. It works whether you have a product for sale, provide a service, or act as consultant.
Run A Business? Why Not Start A Local News Blog?
Seth Godin is a genius. He thinks like I do.
A couple of weeks ago he wrote a blog post encouraging real estate agents to start a local newspaper online. Then he went on to say that anyone in any kind of business could do it. Of course, I’ve been saying the same thing for over a year now.
Seth’s idea is a good one. It’s really a community blog. We’ve got clients that run something similar in their communities. You can too. In fact, there are several ways that you can tap into your local market to gain more influence and to attract more customers. Here are a few ideas for you to ponder:
- Live in a tourist town? Start a blog telling tourists about places they can visit in your local area. Don’t just stick to the well known places. Also share ideas about out of the way places that most people don’t know about. A good example of this is the Gettysburg Pennsylvania Blog. Make sure that your readers know that you sponsor the blog and that you provide a link back to your business site.
- Sponsor a local charity blog. Approach a charity that you support and and ask them if they have a blog. If not, offer to sponsor the blog. Dedicate someone to write the blog daily or ask if the charity has someone who can do it. Either way, you can place your business logo on the blog as the sponsor. If neither your business nor the charity have someone who can write the blog, hire a ghostwriter to write it for you. Just make sure everyone in the community knows that your business sponsors the blog.
- Support a local little league or children’s organization. This is great if you have a child that plays baseball, soccer, or is in Cub Scouts. Check to see if the team has a blog. If not, start one and blog about the games during the season. Link back to your business website as the sponsor of the blog.
- Partner with a professional association in your area. If there are several other businesses in your area that target the same, or complimentary, market, start a joint blog and make sure a link back to your website is included in the sidebar or on the About page. Of course, the other partners will get a link too, but this type of blog shows that there is good will among your peers and you could see additional traffic from it (not to mention an inbound link or two)
- Write an activity blog. Join a local social club that is centered around a certain activity (ie racquetball, chess, Friday night card games, movie watching) and write about the group’s activities. Link back to your site as the sponsor
That’s only 5 ideas. I’m sure I could think of more (and so can you). These types of blog are called indirect marketing blogs. They appeal to a certain audience that might be segmented into your overall market. You build good will with your community by sponsoring these types of blogs and that’s great for PR, plus you never know what kind of business might come your way. On some of these blogs you could even sell advertising that pays for the expense and maintenance of the blog or the ghostwriting fees.
The Power Of Viral Marketing Through StumbleUpon
One of my customers recently received a comment on her blog that I was responsible for putting there. But I didn’t write it.
The comment came from a woman who discovered my client’s blog on StumbleUpon when she came across my profile. You see, I had stumbled my client’s blog and the woman had discovered my client through that stumble. She clicked through from my StumbleUpon profile to my client’s blog, left a comment, then stumbled the blog post herself. And she added me as a friend. That’s one powerful tool!
The sweet thing is, my client has another reader, one which she would not have had if I hadn’t bookmarked her blog post. StumbleUpon is just one of the many social communities online that allow bloggers and other online marketers the opportunity to make such connections and attract loyal readers. If you have an interest in expanding your network of blog readers, let us know. You have have your blog bookmarked every day at one of several bookmarking and social communities online (a different one every day) for as low as $100, even if you are not a customer of our blog ghostwriting service. Take advantage of this powerful viral marketing tool today. You never know when the price may go up!
