Category

Communications

Jan 03
Love0

16 Reasons to Blog for your Business

By Communications
  1. Blogging makes you a better writer (thinker, speaker) by forcing you to put your thoughts about your business into shared, understandable forms.
  2. A website with a blog gets 55% more traffic than a website without a blog.
  3. You are proud of what your business does and want people to know about it. 75% of Web users read blog content.
  4. Blogging makes it easy for your customers to get to know you.
  5. Having a blog gives customers a place to give you feedback, where feedback is invited.
  6. Blogging helps create discipline; a blogging schedule or editorial calendar can help you maintain your focus.
  7. Being a blogger automatically puts you in a community of people who blog — you will be welcome at conferences, meetups and other gatherings where like-minded people congregate.
  8. By writing about your business often, you have the opportunity to refine your message to your audience, improving along the way.
  9. If you communicate using your blog often, then when there’s something urgent to communicate, your audience will know where to find the information, and in most cases, will already be paying attention.
  10. A blog can provide a look into the inner workings of the business, a chance to get to know the people behind it and what the business means to them. Blogging makes business personal.
  11. A blog is an opportunity to share what you know, to demonstrate thought leadership in your industry or about your product. Go ahead; show off.
  12. Search engines need a blog to find you. OK, that’s not strictly true but a frequently updated blog with well-written headlines, focused content and tagged entries is like crack for search engines. Go get some Google juice.
  13. Blogging is only a commitment in time; it is the most affordable way to market your services.
  14. It’s much easier than you think; and chances are, you’re already developing the blog content in e-mails, newsletters, marketing materials, etc. Get that content out on the searchable Web.
  15. It doesn’t have to be written to be a blog. For those of you intimidated by the writing, buy a webcam and just talk. Video is an excellent way to tell your story.
  16. People value information; sometimes blogs begin as a way for a business to keep the company’s team members informed. Twitter started that way — as an internal communications vehicle. Keep your team in the loop with regular blog posts.

In short, there’s no reason NOT to blog for your business. Get busy blogging.

Dec 21
Love0

Businesses: Why I Won’t Be Your Friend on Facebook

By Communications

It happened again just a moment ago. A local restaurant sent me a friend request on Facebook. This, one of dozens I’ve ignored, put me right over the edge.

Friends celebrate your birthday. Friends check up on you when you’re sick. Friends call you and invite you to go out.

It’s one of my pet peeves, I guess, people deciding their business needs to be on Facebook but, because they haven’t taken the time to learn how to do it right, they’re setting up profiles and sending friend requests to everyone in the community.

I will “like” your Facebook page but I WILL NOT BE YOUR FRIEND (and let’s face it, you’re not going to be mine, either.)

You’re Doing it Wrong!

In case you’re one of these offenders, realize this: if you are using Facebook as the representative of a business (I mostly see restaurants doing this) then what you want to do is set up an official business page. You will do this from YOUR profile — the one you set up with your name as a human being.

Profiles are for humans.

Pages are for businesses.

If you’re accepting friend requests from businesses you’re not doing them any favors – they will be limited by having a Facebook profile instead of a page. So turn them down, and if you have an extra second or two, let them know that what they want is a PAGE, not a profile.

Dec 09
Love0

All the News that’s Fit to Tweet

By Communications

A friend in the broadcast news business asked me what I thought about a news organization tweeting what comes over on the police scanner. It’s common practice for newspapers, radio stations and television stations to keep an ear cocked toward the police scanner, a fixture in any newsroom. It can be the first source for a story that is unfolding and may help a news crew get to the scene before the competition.

Often, though, a lot of nonevents and false alarms are reported – it takes a practiced ear to separate the news from the mundane and even then, false reports sometimes leak through.

So the question is, should news organizations be tweeting those first, early reports — the unsubstantiated buzz — heard on the scanner?

My position on this is that we look to the news organizations for fact — we trust them to be verifying the news they’re reporting and if there’s a change or an update, to report that as well. I want to trust that a news Twitter feed is actually NEWS; there are plenty of other Twitter accounts to tweet the rumors.

I applaud news organizations for recognizing that Twitter is a place they need to be, to share information and respond to the community, but I strongly caution management and news directors of these organizations to have the discussion internally about how Twitter should be used, and to be aware that anything the organization publishes or broadcasts on any platform can impact the integrity of the organization.

What do you think?

Nov 10
Love0

Bloggers: Thought leaders, narcissists or survivors?

By Communications

Lately it seems like just about everyone I know blogs.  Of course that’s not the case since I also know quite a few people who have never blogged in their lives (Hi Mom!).

I don’t think the high number of bloggers in my social circle is a result of working in social media or communications — I think that it is the result of many more kinds of people blogging.

When I started blogging, it was still considered kind of a weird thing to do. I hesitated to tell people about my blog and remember clearly going to my first blogger gathering and thinking, “these are my people; this is where I belong.”

While many have tried their hand at blogging, there are a few who have kept at it — who have gone the distance. Last year, the New York Times estimated that 95 percent of all blogs are abandoned. Many of the bloggers I’ve been reading for years are survivors in my book.

I believe it — blogging is hard work and some people have it in them to keep at it, and some people don’t. After all these years I still find that I have plenty to say (a symptom, I think, of being a voracious consumer of information). Blogging has served me well, contributing to a career that continues to grow and supporting an upward trajectory of confidence in my writing, teaching and speaking abilities.

Someone I consider a mentor once said she thought of blogging as narcissistic and therefore couldn’t really bring herself to do it. “Am I a narcissist?” I thought . . .  maybe a little, but what writer isn’t, a little (in the, “well why wouldn’t people want to read my words?” way.)

Klout, the self-described “standard for online and internet influence” says I’m a “thought leader.” This is good because this is what I’ve set out to become.

Are you a blogger? If so, how do you define yourself as a blogger?

If you’re not a blogger, what do you think when someone shares that they blog?