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Latest Posts

* Blog Inspiration:10 Content Ideas for your Blog
* Choosing the Right Blogging Platform For Your Business
* Do You Have A Strategy To Use Your Blog As A Marketing Tool
* How To Do Social Media The Right Way: Best Social Media Practices
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Blog Inspiration:10 Content Ideas for your Blog

Posted by Linky on 23 March 2011 filed in Blogging

I firmly believe that your blog should be the hub of all your
communication activities online. A frequently updated blog will also
drive traffic to your blog. For business owners blogging has become an
essential part of your online marketing mix.

When you are still new at blogging, there are some major challenges.
Apart from finding the time to blog often, there is also the matter of
finding content ideas for your blog. The purpose of this post, is to
give you enough content ideas that you would never have an excuse for
not blogging frequently, because you don't know what to write about.

When contemplating your content, ask yourself these points so that you
can address your readers' potential questions right up front:
1. Why is this post important? If readers ask "what's in it for me?"
will they know right away?
2. Does this content appeal to their pain, needs, wants, desires?
3. Does this post describe a problem?
4. What is the problem? Is it clearly articulated?
5. Do readers understand the consequences of having this problem?
6. What's your solution? What are you educating readers about that
they might not know? What's your unique perspective? How is your
solution different from widely accepted knowledge?
7. How would readers apply this information to their lives and to
their work? Explain to them how to do it. Get them to do it for
themselves.
8. Why should anyone believe you?

(source: Denise Wakeman from the Blogsquad)

Once you are clear about your readers potential questions, here are 10
blog post ideas:
1. Top tips: top tips always do well in the search engines; they are
easy to read and fairly easy to write and people love them.
2. Elaborate on your list: Once you have posted a good top ten or top
five list; you have given yourself the perfect opportunity to write
more detail about your list points. You can link to your fuller
explanation from your original post as you write them. This could
keep you going for a while.
3. Announce a new product or service: Does what you are offering solve
a particular problem? Add your link to the product or service that
you are recommending.
4. Answer a question: If you are asking a question, then write a blog
post about it when you find the answer. Think about the keywords
you used to find the information and make sure they are prominent
in your post.
5. Write a review: When someone is considering buying a product often
the first thing they do, is type in the name of the product and the
word review into Google. Think about what's hot at the moment and
write that review.
6. Ask an expert: Do you know someone who is an expert in something
you could write about. Ask them a set of questions, you could do
this by email or phone.
7. Link Posts: Find a list of good resources and write a little review
of each one: Make sure they are really useful and if you can, make
the links open up in a new window to keep your visitors on your
site.
8. Start a debate: Post two sides of an argument and then ask for
opinions. Another great way to let your visitors write your
content. Try to choose something that people can feel passionate
about. Maybe choose something topical in the news.
9. Inspire others: Tell a success story, everyone enjoys these. It can
be one of your own successes. Did you write a post that went
international overnight? Did you win an award? If you can't think
of anything you have done recently, write about someone else's
success story, maybe a local business.
10. How to educational: Why not share your own experience and expertise
within your own industry. This has huge educational value for your
readers and will make them know, like and trust you more.

I trust that you find these blog content ideas inspirational and that
it will help you to blog often!

Please subscribe to my RSS feed for future posts!
Read More- Read Comments-

Choosing the Right Blogging Platform For Your Business

Posted by Linky on 21 March 2011 filed in Blogging

When are starting with a blog for your business, there are some
important considerations for the beginning. Choosing which blogging
platform to use is one of the most important decisions that you can
make as a blogger. The right platform can make blogging a breeze, and
the wrong platform can make blogging a chore. Because the program that
you use to blog with is such a powerful part of your blogging
experience, it is well worth putting in the time to find a platform
that provides the ideal balance between a user-friendly interface and a
flexible framework to make your blog look and feel unique.

Finding the best blogging platform isn't always easy, but with a little
bit of contemplation and research, you will be on your way to finding
the best blogging platform.

Deciding what your priorities are in terms of ease of use versus
customization. Most highly customizable blogging platforms, like
moveable type, are a bit more difficult to use than very automated
platforms like WordPress. If you are new to blogs and to internet
technology, you might want to sacrifice the ability to create a custom
background design or to integrate a unique font into your template in
order to find a program that will be easy for you to use. On the other
hand, if you are a veteran web designer with knowledge of HTML or
javascript, you will probably find the limitations of a user-friendly
platform to be frustrating.

Blogging is very much about individuality, so it makes plenty of sense
that there would be many different platforms available that are
designed to meet the needs of different kinds of individuals
undertaking different kinds of projects.

Some of the most popular blog platforms that are all freely
distributed, that are easy to download, to install and use are:
* WordPress - great looking and well structured, with many free
themes available
* TypePad - back-end technical issues are taken care of, easy to
learn and support
* TextPattern - free, elegant, easy to use
* Nucleus - web-based blog developed with PHP and using MySQL
database

For my business blog, I prefer to use WordPress. The reason for that
is: WordPress for blogging-
* it offers the richest set of features
* many free plug-ins that enhances the functionality like image
galleries, statistics, anti-spam, search, archiving and tools for
comments
* a large supporting community
* it is easy to integrate with other social media tools.

Please share in the comments what your favourite blogging platform is
and why?

Don't forget to subscribe to the RSS feed for future articles!
Read More- Read Comments-

Do You Have A Strategy To Use Your Blog As A Marketing Tool

Posted by Linky on 15 March 2011 filed in Blogging

As a business owner you probably have a business blog. My question to
you is if you have a strategy to use your blog as a marketing tool?
With blogging being an integral part of online marketing, you should
have a strategy in order for your blog to become an effective tool for
marketing, selling and generating revenue.

Blog Strategy- There are dozens of strategies you can use to
gain visibility for your blog that won't cost you or, if they do, the
price is minimal. You need to decide which strategies will work for you
and implement them consistently over time.

Some of your marketing can be outsourced. For example, I do all of my
own writing, but I utilise the services of a Virtual Assistant (VA) to
do part of the marketing of my posts. She would apply the strategies I
have decided to use to gain targeted traffic to my blog. How much you
do and how much you outsource is based on budget.

BLOG PURPOSE

The idea with a blog is to attract a steady stream of visitors who
either return to your blog or they read your posts via feeds. However,
before this can happen you need to get viewers to your blog.

To get the most out of your marketing efforts it's essential to know
the purpose of your blog. As with defining your market, the clearer you
are the better. Remember that blogs generate revenue (directly and
indirectly), position your expertise, give you massive visibility and
create ongoing opportunities.

GOAL AND TACTICS

Once you are clear on the purpose or goal for your blog, for example:
* To establish myself as the expert in my xxxx industry
* To grow a list of subscribers to my company newsletter

You may want to select a few tactics to drive targeted traffic to your
blog. Here are a few ideas:

1. Submit your blog to various blog directories

2. Use your keywords frequently in the titles of your posts. The
more your keywords are used in all your posts, the more likely your
information is to show up in a Google search when someone is searching
on your keywords.

3. Use article marketing. Take a blog posting, expand it into an
article and have a link back to your blog in the resource box.

4. Use media release to promote your blog like when when your blog
first comes to market; when you are announcing a special event in a
blog post or when you interview someone famous and post the interview
on your blog.

5. Gain visibility and expert status by leaving informative comments
on other people's blogs. You are often allowed to leave a web address
or a blog address and when readers like your comment, they will click
through to your blog.

6. Invite experts to post on your blog. When approaching someone
about doing a guest post, be sure to convey benefit to the expert in
order to have a more positive response to your request. Then leverage
from this by getting the word out - tweet the post, mention it on
Facebook, distribute a media release etc.

7. Create a Ping.fm account and you can ping your post title and
permalink to be fed to several locations including LinkedIn, Facebook,
Twitter, etc. It is a great tool for your social media marketing
efforts.

Select a few (or all) of these tactics to be included in your blog
marketing strategy and implement them consistently over time to see
great results from your blog.

Please subscribe to my RSS feed for future articles.
Read More- Read Comments-

How To Do Social Media The Right Way: Best Social Media Practices To Follow

Posted by Linky on 2 March 2011 filed in Social Media

Recently I attended a webinar that was presented by Mari Smith and
Michael Stelzner about companies using social media the right way. This
article will share some of the lessons that can be learnt from
companies that are having success with social media marketing.

Here are some stats to give you the context of why social media has
become such an important marketing tool for businesses of any size.

According to the 2011 Social Media Marketing Industry Report, 73% of
businesses plan to increase their use of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and
blogging in 2011.

There are currently more than 500 million active Facebook users. Nearly
25% of all online time is spent on social media. Even small businesses
are investing heavily in social media.

When looking at companies that have successfully implemented social
media marketing for their business, there are some recommended
practices:

1. Develop useful content. If content that is shared on your
selected social media platforms is timely, relevant, educational,
entertaining or engaging, it will draw in the customers that you serve.

2. Profile your raving fans and let your fans tell the world about
you.

3. Make it easy for people to share your products.

4. Create and build a social community. Don't be afraid to let your
customers be your sales force.

5. Encourage customers to share their stories and make it easy for
people to participate.

6. Make involvement fun and exciting.

7. Create special offers for fans or let your fans try your products
for free, they might get hooked.

8. Try Facebook ecommerce. Allow your fans to share your products
with their Facebook friends.

These are examples of social media practices that are used by companies
who are deriving benefits from using social media as part of their
marketing mix. If you have started with social media, decide which of
these practices are applicable to your business and go and implement
them.

Please subscribe to the RSS for future articles on social media tools
to use for your business.
Read More- Read Comments-

5 Ways To Produce Quality Content For Your Blog

Posted by Linky on 23 February 2011 filed in Blogging

Blogging has become such an essential ingredient to your marketing mix
that you really want to leverage from your business blog by producing
quality content.

Plan for quality content on your blog- Whether you are a blogger
for a few years, a few months or even only a few weeks, you need a
strategic plan for your blog. The purpose of this article is to give
you a plan based on what experts recommend, for producing quality
content for your business blog.

5 ways to produce quality content

1. Plan your posts by taking the list of categories that you have on
your blog and make 5 sub-topics for each category. Add these topic
ideas to your Editorial Calendar and time yourself while you're
writing the posts.
2. Keep a running list of ideas to write about. You will receive ideas
from conversations, books, other blog posts, photos etc. I use
Excel and a notebook to record my ideas but there are other tools
available like Evernote
3. Schedule time for blogging, remember this is an important marketing
activity. It is recommended that you post 2-3 times per week and
comment on other blogs twice a week.
4. If you are really short on time, write a series of posts and queue
them up for future dates.
5. Invite guest bloggers. These could be people in your community like
your team, vendors, colleagues, customers and thought leaders in
your industry. Consider posting requests on Blogger Linkup -
bloggerlinkup

These are a few good ideas, but obviously there are many more. Please
comment and share what is working for your blog.

If you use these ideas as part of your content marketing tactics, it
will soon become part of your working routine every week. And remember
that blogging is a marketing activity and marketing is part of
investing in the future of your business.
Read More- Read Comments-

5 Reasons to Have a Business Blog According to Popular Research

Posted by Linky on 14 February 2011 filed in Blogging

5 Reasons to blog for business- Today we will focus on 5 reasons
why your company needs a business blog in today's Web 2.0 world. The
facts and figures come from research done by Hubspot in 2010 and
published in an Inbound Marketing Report.

Definition of Inbound marketing:

Inbound marketing includes marketing like:
* Social media marketing
* Search engine marketing
* Content marketing
* Conversion marketing
* Lead nurturing
* Sales support

1. Inbound Marketing

Research has shown that inbound marketing is more effective than
outbound marketing (TV, radio, news paper) because the average cost per
lead is 60% lower. In 2010 more than 60% of companies have indicated
that their company blog is important to critical to their businesses.
Not surprisingly small companies do more inbound marketing than bigger
companies.

2. Customer Acquisition

46% of companies have indicated that they have acquired a customer from
the company blog. Most businesses post to their blogs weekly, with 30%
posting 2-3 times per week. The more frequently you blog, the higher
the percentage of customer acquisition.

3. Inbound Links

Business blogging attracts more inbound links, up to 97% more links
than companies without a blog. In addition to this companies with blog
receive 55% more website visitors.

4. Lead Generation

For both B2C and B2B companies, blogging has increased leads between
67% (B2B) to 88% (B2C). The more blog articles a company produces, the
more their monthly leads increase.

5. Blog Consumption

The Science of Blogging Report from Hubspot has indicated that 50% of
people read blogs more than once a day and 30% one a day. Almost 40% of
people read 5-10 blogs. That is a lot of blog reading that is taking
place online today.

The reasons why most companies have a business blog is:
* Though leadership
* Traffic generation
* Sales and leads attraction

Specific tips to generate more leads from blogging are:
* To include call to action
* To create great offers
* To optimize landing pages.

These facts and figures should give you sufficient evidence as to why
you should be blogging and transforming your small business blog into a
lead generation machine.

For related blog articles, also read 10 Benefits of business blogging,
How your blog will drive potential clients to your business. Please
comment on how your blog is helping your business.

Please subscribe to the RSS feed or email for future blogging articles.
Read More- Read Comments-

10 Useful Tips to Create a Content Marketing Strategy for your Blog

Posted by Linky on 8 February 2011 filed in Blogging

Content marketing can be described as the creation of compelling
content that people actually want to consume. Content marketing is a
marketing technique that will turn prospects into customers and
customers into repeat buyers.

One of the best tools to use for content marketing is blogging. Most
businesses who publish information on the internet are using content
marketing whether they know it or not.

Joe Pulizzi, a content marketing evangelist and co-author of the book:
"Get Content Get Customers" defines content marketing as:

"the art of understanding exactly what your customers need to know and
delivering it to them in a relevant and compelling way."

Joe believes the percentage of marketing budget that is allocated to
content marketing, on average 26% will increase to 51% over the next 12
months.

With content marketing becoming so important, it's of utmost importance
to have a content marketing strategy for your business blog.

The following tips from Joe will help you create a content marketing
strategy for your blog:

1. Identify your goal of blogging. Brainstorm a few options, then
prioritize and choose the most important goal(s) for your business.
Your goals could be: content marketing strategy for your blog-

a. Customer retention

b. Lead generation

c. Brand awareness

d. Sales

e. Thought leadership

f. Lower customer service costs

g. Increase traffic to your website

2. Your blog should be niche focussed. If it is about pets for
instance, rather focus on issues pertaining to pet owners who like to
travel with their dogs.

3. Don't make the blog about you, you and you. Rather give your
customers relevant, compelling information and be the trusted expert.
Find your customers pain points or needs and provide solutions to their
problems.

4. Know your competition and the quality of their content. Ensure
that you provide unique and useful information that is better than that
of your competition. This is easier if you stand for something
specific. For example Joe Pulizzi who is passionate about educating
companies about content marketing and its benefits if done correctly.

5. Have a blogging calendar. Here are two links to useful
Editorial Calendar templates:

a.
stylesamplemag/s010/01/blog-editorial-calendar-template
(Google spreadsheet)

b.
savvyb2bmarketing/blog/entry/572231/save-time-stress-blog-edito
rial-calendar-template (Excel spreadsheet)

6. Use your employees to create blog posts for you about their
specialist areas. This will not only empower them, but will also
provide you with additional relevant content and more traffic to your
blog.

7. Don't expect that visitors/readers will automatically engage
with you on your blog. You need to reach out by targeting the top 10 or
more blogs or websites in your niche, read them and leave comments.

8. If your company has multiple employees, ensure that the blog
has an owner who will be responsible for the blog and the content being
published. This person can be called the "Chief Content Officer" or
"Communications Manager".

9. If you have no experience with producing content for your
blog, hire a freelance journalist or a content agency. This means you
outsource your content to experts.

10. Ensure that you have executive level support for content
marketing on your business blog.

Blogging equals content marketing. Use these tips to implement a proper
content marketing strategy for your blog and see your business take off
on the internet.

Remember to subscribe to my RSS for similar posts in future!
Read More- Read Comments-

Social Media Trends to Watch in 2011

Posted by Linky on 2 February 2011 filed in Social Media

As you know, Social Media has become mainstream and an essential
marketing tool for businesses who want to be found online today. I
want to share with you an article that was written by Tara Turkington
for Bizcommunity which has a South African flavour, but makes for
good reading. When using social media to market your business, it is
important to be aware of the trends for 2011. Educate yourself about
the social networking and media trends to watch this year by reading
this article:

A-to-Z of Social Media Trends

Please leave a comment to let me know what you think of the list....
Read More- Read Comments-

Getting your company ready by using Social Strategy

Posted by Linky on 24 January 2011 filed in Social Media
To have a social strategy is important to make your social media
marketing efforts more beneficial. This is probably aimed at bigger
size businesses, but there are many insightful points that are
applicable to any size business.
This presentation is shared by Jeremiah Owyang, a Web Strategist.
Social Strategy: Getting Your Company Ready
View more presentations from Jeremiah Owyang.
Read More- Read Comments-

10 Social Media Tips to keep you motivated for Social Media Marketing

Posted by Linky on 20 January 2011 filed in Social Media

social media tips- Those of you who have been doing social media
marketing for a while, will know by now that social networking requires
some time, effort and resources. This post will give you 10 useful tips
to keep you motivated and to get your social media marketing in top
form.

1. Social media has become main-stream and it should be part of your
online marketing mix. Maybe it is time to revisit that social media
strategy and based on your results in the past 6 months, to evaluate
what has worked for you and to continue to do more of that.

2. Stick to your plan. To realize the benefits from your social media
marketing, you should know exactly what you are trying to accomplish
before you spend all the efforts.

3. Although there are hundreds of social media platforms, try to limit
your involvement to the main channels that give you the best results,
for example to use Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter with Blogging. Maybe
it is a good idea to add a niche or industry specific social media
platform to network with like minded people.

4. Be realistic with the time-commitment. To fully succeed through
social media marketing, you're going to have to commit some time and
energy to making it work.

5. Use automation. There are dozens of automation tools to help you
manage your time on social media. Use them wisely and in moderation. I
like to use Hootsuite and Ping.fm.

6. Get personal. Don't rely entirely on automated tools. You need to
interact with your friends, followers and connections. Social media
doesn't work if you aren't interested in forming real relationships.

7. If you have been personally involved in all your social media
marketing efforts so far, you would understand enough of how it works.
Why not consider outsourcing some of your social media marketing? You
can outsource some of the tedious social media tasks, like scheduling
your tweets, adding content to your Facebook Wall, arranging events
etc.

8. Don't be afraid to make mistakes. There's not a "rule book" for
social media success. Once you have started, keep going.

10. Don't over-complicate. Social media is mostly a mixture of common
sense, interaction and dedication. Don't make it more complicated than
it is and remember to have fun!

What keeps you motivated for social media? Please share in the comments
section.
Read More- Read Comments-
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