Blogging

To drive traffic to you blog think primary and selective demand search

12/31/08 06:40 AM

Build it and they will come ! Way too many people believe that and companies spend millions of dollars to build Websites and launch blogs only to have a brand new mansion with no driveway. While I believe that too many marketing dollars are spend on the purchase of keywords there are some things you can do to ensure that your search engine strategy dollars are maximized. Read More...

Tags: Blogging

Giving up control is the best way to keep the upper hand in coversations

12/30/08 06:46 AM

Companies are using BLOGS far more than other social media platforms but unless they follow some basic guidelines on blogging their efforts will be fruitless. The first thing that companies have to do is teach the person writing the blog to write like they speak and for God's sake don't use a PR person to edit or write your blog entries. Now if you're a CEO and speak in Wall Street analyst gibberish it's probably a good idea not to blog, but if you can speak to people the way you would if you were talking to them one on one than you have a great blogging attitude.

The second thing about blogging is to find topics that inspire passion and debate. Your goal is to get people talking among themselves with your blog acting as an aggregator around the brand. You might hear things you don't want to hear but in reality people are laughing at you and your brand already. You have to think of blogging as a conversation even though you are writing the blog entries. Here are secrets of conversation:

-Give credit where credit is due and stroke the egos of Influencers
-Admit your mistakes and ask people what they would have done
-Be honest and be transparent
-Lead the discussion, ask questions and probe
-Recognize other peoples authority and experience
-Never argue and identify troublemakers who are always going to say something negative no matter what you do or say
-Be willing to learn and listen and adjust the tone of the conversation to suite the audience
-Encourage discussion via passionate subjects and listen what the group is saying
-Transparency at every level is essential

Also don't expect people to flock to your blog right away and give people time to trust you and to develop a relationship with you. The Chief Marketing Officer at Best Buy uses Twitter to get feedback on how Best Buy is doing and you get the impression that he is really listening to tweets.

The best advice is be ready to fail at social media but learn every time you climb the social media ladder.

Tags: Blogging