Tag

blogging for business

Jul 14
Love0

7 Reasons Business Blogs Fail

By Social Media

Everyone has stumbled upon the business blog that seems to have died on the vine. 

There’s this one, last updated in September, 2010.

Or this one, with a couple of posts in May, 2011, in March before that . . .

Blogs are tough to keep up, and we know that 95 percent of them are abandoned (that includes all blogs, not just the business category). But the reasons for blogging are still pretty compelling; there’s evidence that a business that blogs gets 55 percent more traffic to its website than a business that doesn’t blog.

Here are seven reasons I think business blogs fizzle and fade:

  1. There’s no real accountability for the people in charge of producing the content. It may be “part of one’s job” but it’s not formally in a job description, is not rewarded for success with compensation or other meaningful recognition, and/or isn’t part of that person’s evaluation.
  2. The responsibility for blogging or engaging in social media on behalf of the company is added on to someone’s already full plate, with no guidance as to how to fit the new activities into existing hours.
  3. The wrong person is in the driver’s seat: for instance, it doesn’t need to be the company president or marketing director doing all the blogging. In fact, it only needs to be the person who is most passionate about consistently contributing quality content.
  4. One person tries to do too much themselves and gets burned out.
  5. The effort is wholly focused on text-heavy posts; essays are hard to churn out a few times a week, minimum. (Mixing up content with photos, video, audio, etc. can help keep a blog alive and lively.)
  6. The blog does not exist to help create a community — it is publishing into the ether, rather than inviting people in to join the conversation.
  7. The person who is most passionate about the blog leaves the company.

If your business is blogging, what are you proactively doing to keep the blog alive and thriving?

 

Jun 13
Love0

Businesses: Backing into Blogging

By Communications

It’s funny how businesses have thrown themselves into Twitter and Facebook interaction without backing up and considering blogging. Many of them have blogs that were once established but now, sadly neglected. To what do they link on these other platforms, if not ever their own valuable content? While I endorse the use of social networks to engage with and build a community, doing so without a blog is very odd.

Businesses need blogs for several reasons.

  1. A blog will create organic search engine optimization. Nothing is more valuable to a business than a website with frequently updated content as a method of activating the search engines and attracting customers to your business’ content.
  2. Blog content demonstrates thought leadership — if you can say all you have to say 140 characters at a time, be my guest, but most of us need a bit more room to demonstrate our wealth of knowledge on a particular topic.
  3. A blog creates an archive of information that represents your business. It’s common for a visitor to your website to spend time on several pages of content — give them a reason to stick around.
  4. Blogging helps create relationships between the business and its customers. When visitors read content by individuals in the business, they come to know those people and relationships form over time. Allow this to happen; it’s powerful stuff.
  5. Blogging helps businesses figure out who they are. Due to two-way conversation, invited feedback and discussion and often the process of writing and working things out with words, sometimes businesses have watershed moments and redefine their mission. It’s very cool to watch.

If your business has jumped into Twitter and Facebook based on peer pressure, but has skipped blogging entirely let me know. Why? And do you agree that it’s time to start blogging?

Mar 21
Love0

Do You Read? What to Look for in a Social Media Manager

By Social Media

I have been postulating a theory. Stick with me while I draw you through the rivulet of thought; the theory is that readers are more  easily inclined to engage in social media. That, leading to the hypothesis that social media managers for businesses will be more successful if they are readers. I’ll come back to that in a second.

I posed the question on Facebook and in results unsurprising to me, found that a majority of my friends identify themselves as readers. Truth be told: I might be a bit of a snob in this area – I tend to have more in common with readers, being a voracious one myself.

It has been downright shocking, then, the number of people I’ve known in business relationships who say “I’m not a reader,” or “I don’t read,” especially when those people have been in marketing or communications roles.

Who are all these readers, then, who are the millions of Kindle users, who are buying up Nooks?

I suspect that they have much in common with the 500 million active Facebook users, than half of them login to Facebook daily. I suspect these same readers make up the 78% of internet users to read blogs, who participate in Amazon by not just buying, but ranking and leaving comments, and allowing others’ thoughts to guide their buying decisions.

Of those readers, those who are writers are doubly blessed; they read, listen, watch, engage, and (be still my heart) PUBLISH.

If you’re looking for social media managers, ask them if they read.

Go ahead — let me have it if you are a non-reader — I want to hear from you, too.

Feb 23
Love0

How to Seduce Others into Social Media

By Social Media

I’ve been thinking a lot about how we’ve been successful at moving the social media needle in business.

It’s what Jay Baer and Amber Naslund call The Now Revolution, that tipping point at which business realized that this social phenomenon that has over taken the Internet is not going away; that it affects business, for good or for bad and ignoring it is a not only a bad business practice, but can cause your business to fail.

While I’m trying to figure out how to afford to buy a copy of Jay and Amber’s brilliant book for all my clients, I asked my readers to share some of the ways they’ve been able to create excitement around social strategy. Some of the best answers are here:

20% of New Patient Base Comes from Social Media

I’ve shared with my colleagues that as a working mom with a little one, launching a biz in a down economy in a new location…all I could manage WAS growing my biz through social media and connecting online.

I’ve had at least 20% of my new patient base come in as referrals from social media, not to mention thousands of dollars of free media exposure on the news, magazines (including a national publication), newspapers, and numerous websites….all from consistently and sincerely getting engaged in social media.

It’s cost me time and sweat equity, but the pay-off has been tremendous. Seriously…who can’t afford to get involved today? — Dr. Dolly Garnecki, Spinal Health and Wellness, http://www.scoliosisdoc.com/

Show, Don’t Tell

When we had our first meeting to discuss the fact that we really needed to be engaging with our customers via social media I really didn’t need to actually SAY much at all. I just pulled up the very active Facebook pages of our top competitors in each of our geographic areas… they were there, they were active, and it was CLEAR they were talking to OUR customers! Point made!  – Andrea Heapes, High Peak Sportswear, http://www.hipeak.com/

Networking on Steriods

In 18 months on Twitter and Facebook I’ve met, connected with, and become friends with far more people here, than I had in the previous 10 years living here without it. Social media is networking on steroids. Trying to go without it is like leading a sedentary life and expecting to remain fit. — Steve Gaines, Monticello Media http://twitter.com/SteveGaines62

These are great stories to share with clients, businesses and organizations still dragging their feet into “now.”

If your business is already engaged in social media, what was the tipping point that made you begin?

Feb 21
Love0

The 4 Must-Do Items for Social Media Startup

By Social Media

A friend of mine (and former colleague) is a public relations consultant in another market. She, like many of us in PR, is being asked for good counsel in social media for her PR client. She sent a note, asking me for quick basics to share with the client, and to give her a framework for what the client should be doing with social media.

Here are the four absolute musts for her client to be doing with social media, and the structure with which she should be building a plan to address her client’s needs:

  1. Listening — they should be reading local bloggers and have RSS feeds set up/alerts to tell them when people are posting online, looking for key words and phrases that indicate people searching for their services — you can use Ice Rocket, Social Mention and Google Alerts to create feeds for good monitoring of the social web.
  2. Connecting — whomever represents the company online needs to expand their social network as wide and deep as possible. That means ALL contacts uploaded to LinkedIn, a new list on Facebook for business connections, with all contacts uploaded there, a Facebook page for the business and exploring Tweepz to figure out who to follow in the community.
  3. Engaging — this is what takes a lot of effort; replying to others, responding to those you’re following, in short, interaction!
  4. Publishing — sharing the stories of the customers, the company, the vendors, etc. and news releases as well (and republishing content published by others, e.g., sharing links to news clips about the business.)

This is probably the quickest, simplest answer I can give for getting started with social media.