Using an Internal Blog to Promote Your Business Website

In the second installment of our Business Blogging for Success series we are looking at best practices for using an internal blog to promote your business and bring more traffic to your website.   Because an internal blog is tied in with your website, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know the source of the information.  Therefore, the mechanics of your blogging are more important than creating an identity, which is an essential element of running an external blog.

As identified in Business Blogging for Success – Part 1, the benefits of running a business blog can be immense, and over time you can use your blog to dominate your industry online.  As with any online marketing, there are rights and wrongs,and it pays to know the difference before you get started blogging.

Here are 6 tips for using your Internal blog effectively.

1. Make sure your information is accurate – Always remember that the information you publish online will stay with you forever.   If you are going to write blog articles about your business, emerging trends in your industry, or your competition, you better make sure that the information is accurate.   Not only can misleading information (whether intentional or not) damage your reputation online and erode your credibility within your industry, it can ultimately result in a libel lawsuit.  Because of this it is recommended that all blog content is approved by someone in your PR department, an executive, or the owner of the business.  At the end of the day your company reputation is on the line, so as a business owner, I would make sure that anything being published about my company is accurate.
2. Write to your audience – This tip goes back to your high school English classes (Yes Mrs. Henry, I was listening).  It’s very simple but very often overlooked.   You need to write your content with your end reader in mind, and write to the level of their understanding.  If you are writing a blog about cooking techniques, your audience most likely cannot cook as well as you.  You need to write at a level that explains even the mundane details so that your audience can understand what you are telling them to do.   If you are writing technical articles about chemical engineering, you can safely assume that your readers have a very advanced knowledge of the topic, and therefore will already understand the fundamental elements of the topic.   There is no hard and fast rule to writing, just remember to think like your readers and understand their questions before you write.
3. Write consistently – Want to know the biggest problem with a blog?  It’s owner gives up before having any success.  All blogs start out with good intent, and have regularly written content initially, then the writer finds that they are not getting regular readers or comments, and then loses his / her motivation, and the blog dies a sad, lonely death.  The key to having an effective blog is persistence, and consistency.   You don’t have to write every day, and you can really write at your own pace, but you need to consistently write articles to keep your readers engaged and keep them coming back for more.   Writing a series of articles and scheduling them for releases on a timed interval will help you to keep the content flowing regularly, and make it much easier to keep your blog active when you are busy with other projects.   I recommend that you write 20 articles before you launch your blog, and schedule them for publication twice a week.    That gives you 10 weeks of regularly scheduled posts that will go live with or without your active attention.
4. Promote and track your news with syndicated RSS feeds - RSS feeds are great for sending your information out to your regular site visitors, and it allows them to stay informed without having to return to your site for the latest news.   When they receive an update on your blog content, and find the article interesting, chances are they will come to the site to read more, and see what you have been up to.   The second part of this step is tracking your readers.   Using a syndicated RSS feed such as Feedburner will allow you to track your subscribers, and monitor whether or not your blog is gaining traction.   One of our better performing posts was Twitter Black Hat, and based on that success, I know that Twitter posts will do well in my niche if I choose to write more on that topic.  In any marketing format, the things that get measured are the things that get done, so make sure you know what your blog is doing, and quantify your success so you can build on it.
5. Make it easy for your readers to spread the news – There are tons of plugins for almost all blog platforms that allow your readers to share the news with the blogosphere – Use them!   If you can give your readers a one-click option for posting your content to Twitter, Facebook, Digg or any of the other social sites, you will get more readers, spread your message to their sphere of influence, and find that your link count is growing at the same time.   Internet marketing success is based on a culmination of efforts, and any help you can get will go a long way.  Let others help you by removing the bottlenecks and you will grow your reader base much more quickly.
6. Address news head on, and in a timely fashion - Because you are competing online, sooner or later someone will call you out, and you will need to defend yourself.   It’s important not to shy away from negative publicity, or it becomes true, period.  If you are monitoring your name online with Google alerts, you can see what is being said about your company, and address it head on, in a timely fashion.   News spreads fast on the web, so you need to be even faster when addressing any publicity that comes your way.   This is true for positive comments, which you should be quick to thank the contributor for giving you kudos, and also for negative comments, which you should address and quickly rectify if they are true.   Bad publicity can turn into a positive if you are willing to address the person, and make an effort to rectify the situation.  You may not be able to make them happy 100% of the time, nor should you, but your efforts to address the situation will not go unnoticed.

There’s a lot more to getting your blog off the ground and running, and building it into a true powerhouse, but hopefully these tips will help the average business owner to harness the power of a blog and begin using it to build a larger internet presence.   For more tips on improving your blog, I recommend reading ProBloggers series 31 Days to Build a Better Blog.

Our final installment of Business Blogging for Success will discuss best practices for using an external blog to promote your business, and move your site to the front page of Google in 30 days or less.  We are always open to suggestions for new articles, so please feel free to contact us with your ideas.

Cheers to your future blogging success!

-Chris

Social Media Marketing for Business

Social media marketing is no longer just a successful novelty, but a powerful medium that is changing the way the world communicates. Its power stems from crowd-sourced communities like wikis, blogs, online bookmarking and social voting sites, all of which allow the instant sharing of information between people with related interests.

Participants in these effervescent communities can expand their networks, advertise their company and/or skills, as well as receive recommendations and referrals from current and former clients. This is true because social networking sites aggregate web surfers who share common passions and views, resulting in a tight, reliable group of friends or colleagues who are connected by virtual means. Consequently, when a blogger or member from such groups makes positive comments on your company or endorses your statements, this generates “word of mouse” promotion for your business.

If so inclined, social media marketers can build their own fan base on social media sites. This can be accomplished by becoming an authority, opinion-leader, niche researcher, mentor or clever commenter. By building relationships in relevant, appropriate communities, marketers can attract more prospective customers, which will ultimately lead to more profits.

Note: Although social media marketing appears to be an easy solution, companies should stay away from building fake profiles to praise their firm (unless you’re doing this for clear humorous purposes), as this would likely to hurt the business’ reputation.

Online social networks are no longer a kids game

Social media sites are booming all around the Internet and do not apply solely to specific industries.

The current most active communities are those that allow shared content and information, e. g., Facebook, Twitter, Bebo, MySpace, Squidoo, Tagged and Friendster. Sites that let users bookmark links and/or vote for them, like Delicious, StumbleUpon and Digg are also popular.

Traffic to social media sites increased by an astounding 774% between 2006 and 2007, as reported by a comScore study. According to the Pew Internet Study, around 50 million U.S. residents read blogs and an huge number of adults are becoming more and more active in the social media universe.

See this Wikipedia entry for a comprehensive compilation of social media and networking communities.

Selecting your social billboards

The social media arena offers a number of opportunities to small business owners. Similar to several search engine marketing practices, social media marketing isn’t too expensive, but it does demand time and willingness to:

a) find sites

b) produce and track content

c) monitor hits and leads

d) improve tactics to achieve better results

e) rinse and repeat until you get where you want

The following is a list of effective actions to get you started. As you familiarize yourself with the social media world, you’ll find more ways to reach your desired audience. Make sure to offer valuable contributions instead of focusing purely at self-promotion, as social media marketing is most effective when the focus is on helping your group.

1. Join a group formed by people who are similar to your typical customers.

When studying the profiles, forums and posts of an online group, it is easy to learn what the members are interested in, where they live and other basic demographics. After spotting a group that represents your business’ desired clientele, you’ll be able to catch the members’ attention in various ways.

For example, Rob Spees runs an LED Sign business from his office in Denver, CO.  His company has a network of dealers located in 100 or more cities throughout the United States.  When the distributors have featured inventory on hand they post ads to the local Craigslist highlighting the featured items.  At any given time the distributors may be selling signs through Craigslist in approximately 100 cities throughout the country, making sure that his posts reference the company website.  This approach gets great results.  In an average month, Factory Direct LED will receive about 30,000 visitors to his website, primarily driven by Craigslist.  This is his main form of Internet advertising, followed by GoogleBase, OutdoorBillboard.com, OTX and a few others..

“It is a great advertising medium that allows us to reach customers across the country for free.  The only investment in our Craigslist advertising campaign is the time it takes to manage the listings.  When you consider that we get about 1,000 visitors a day for about one hour of work, the ROI is phenomenal,” said Spees.

2. Leave comments on popular blogs in your niche.

Never underestimate the power of the blogosphere. By mid-2007 almost 100 million blogs were being written, according to the popular blog search engine Technorati. Start reading and commenting on a few blogs that relate to your industry. You can find such blogs via Technorati or by visiting professional association and/or trade publication sites that will provide links, as well as site recommendations.

Remember to only leave comments that match the blog’s topic, style, audience and policies and be careful not to offend anyone or generate a negative reaction.

3. Invest in viral video creation.

Nowadays, web videos are an inexpensive, accessible and easy to distribute media. Create a short (2-3 minutes) video presenting or explaining your site, business, services or industry. When complete, upload your video to YouTube, MySpace or other video sharing sites and direct visitors to your homepage. When you link your videos to your profile pages on social bookmarking sites, you will build a small group of connections that search engines will be able detect. Increased site traffic is crucial to generating more business.

4. Sign up with one or more business-oriented networking sites.

This may or may not work for you and it will depend on the products/services you promote and how you develop relationships inside these communities. If you are a PR professional or consultant, professional networking sites can help you find clients. LinkedIn, Facebook, ZoomInfo and Xing are great places to start.

5. Start a blog.

The hardest thing about blogging is building an audience and finding the motivation to produce strong content on a regular basis (always linking to your firm’s site, naturally). Read this guide on how to launch a blog.

It may be best to try some of the above listed tactics before launching a blog unless you are already driving significant traffic to your site. Be sure to first familiarize yourself with the social media environment and then you will be more prepared to make the most out of your blog.

The last tip, and probably the most important one for getting started with social media marketing is to ADD VALUE to your community, rather than trying to shove it down someone’s throat.  You will find that if you give first, you will make friends, grow your network and build your brand.  It takes time but the investment is well worth the effort.

In social media communities, if you give you will receive.

-Chris