Whatever terms you use, “Web 2.0” “social networking” “new media” etc., the fact is a blog is part of the new approach to marketing. It gives you a new and powerful way to engage with your prospects and customers. An opportunity to build a personal—albeit virtual—relationship with them at a low cost. Even if you hire a professional blog writer—which you should definitely do if you can’t find time yourself and/or don’t have a staff member who has the skill and can devote the time—the cost, compared to advertising and other methods of reaching prospects is breathtakingly minimal.

Some statistics from a survey of over 2500 Internet users (in Germany, where the corporate blogging phenomenon is only just beginning):

1 out of every 10 Internet users reads blogs
91% of blog readers expect fast responses to questions and comments in enterprise blogs
90% feel blogs should clearly differentiate commercial from non-commercial content.
54% of blog readers form their opinions about products/companies on the basis of blogs.
51% of blog readers visit product and/or corporate sites as a result of reading blogs.
58% of blog readers read them to find news and information they can't find otherwise.
57% of them are interested in the personal opinions of the authors.

Keep in mind that one thing people are endlessly fascinated by is other people. That’s why it’s so important to have a personal voice in the blog. And even if you’re reporting on something they could find elsewhere on the Internet—there is theoretically “nothing new under the sun”—your post becomes unique when you express your personal feeling about an event, a trend, a circumstance, or a story.

Don’t worry about how many numbers of readers you have.
Don’t worry if you don’t get comments.
Don’t ask for a financial ROI on your blog—it’s not a sales tool.
It’s credibility. It’s a credential for your knowledge and your expertise.
It’s the True Voice® of your company.

And it's going to pull new eyes to your business, through search!


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Social media is an umbrella term that defines the various activities that integrate technology, social interaction, and the construction of words, pictures, videos and audio. This interaction, and the manner in which information is presented, depends on the varied perspectives and "building" of shared meaning, as people share their stories, and understandings.

Social media can take many different forms, including Internet forums, message boards, weblogs, wikis, podcasts, pictures and video. Technologies include: blogs, picture-sharing, vlogs, wall-postings, email, instant messaging, music-sharing, and crowdsourcing, to name a few. Examples of social media applications are Google Groups (reference, social networking), Wikipedia (reference), MySpace (social networking), Facebook (social networking), Last.fm (personal music), YouTube (social networking and video sharing), Second Life (virtual reality), Flickr (photo sharing), Twitter (social networking and microblogging) and other microblogs are Jaiku and Pownce. Many of these social media services can be integrated via social network aggregation platforms like Mybloglog and Plaxo.

DOSH DOSH said it best- "Social media marketing is the process of promoting your site or business through social media channels and it is a powerful strategy that will get you links, attention and massive amounts of traffic.

There is no other low-cost promotional method out there that will easily give you large numbers of visitors, some of whom may come back to your website again and again."

Social media marketing is a way of promoting your site or business through social media channels and it is a powerful strategy that can bring new eyes to you, your business, and your product or services.  There is no other low-cost promotional method out there that will easily attract you new  visitors, some of whom may come back to your website again and again.

With Social Media, you can spread your word and gain supporters. - "The more supporters you have, the faster word spreads about your site. Social media marketing is an excellent way to get people to come into your site to take a look at at what you have to offer. You will grow when there are a group of loyal visitors ready to always act upon what you have to offer."



Social Media is  a way to interact others,  a way to help promote your site, product, or services and drive new traffic to your offerings! Find the groups that make the most sense for you, your product or your services, start planting seeds and Participate!



Derrick Sorles and Michael Snell - We Help "Pull"  New Business To You!
            Your Business MD's- Business Blog Consultants -Web 2.0  Consultants and Strategists 

 

We get clients all the time, who already produce a successful newsletter and send it out to hundreds of exisiting customers.  The problem is, it is off the radar screeen of the search engines. You have got to take all the content you already are using and allow the search engines to find it! Thus attracting new customers. Let the whole world in on what you are talking about!

We live in the age of search. Everyone is online searching for something. Products, information, answers to questions...your content needs to found by the search engines and put into the hands of potential customers. It's a simple as that! It becomes search engine optimization for your keywords and search engine marketing to attract new customers.

Content is an attraction stragey. You "push" your newsletter out to people asking them to read it. You "push" your website address in front of people, in the hopes they will read it. What you want to do is strategically place your content online, on blogs, in social media, to "pull" new eyes to your business.

Attraction marketing is the new phrase for an old idea that has re-emerged as a hot new strategy for online selling. Attraction marketing is the ability to literally have people pursuing you rather then you pursuing them.

Attraction Marketing is a new marketing category, a hybrid cross between public relations and journalism.
You can provide valuable information to your customers. The more helpful and valuable your information is the greater the chance those customers will purchase from you. This is the finest form of advertising yourself and PR for your business . 

Good content will  attract prospects to you by positioning yourself as an expert!


Derrick Sorles and Michael Snell - We Help "Pull"  New Business To You!
            Your Business MD's- Business Blog Consultants -Web 2.0  Consultants and Strategists

Katie Paine is an expert on blog ROI. And she was quoted in Paul Gillins The New Influencers.  She is a vetran public relations executive and has spent the last fifteen years researching, writing and speaking on the topic of measuring the value of public relations and social media investments. She believes nearly everything online is measurable; it’s just a matter of choosing what to measure.

Paine has said for her own business, she likes to monitor click-throughs from her blog, to her website.  We also monitor very closely performance on Google key search terms and the traffic those bring in. Good search performance is money in the bank. If you can “own” your keywords, that’s  a huge ROI, that isn’t quickly translated to dollars, but will, eventually.

It’s all about search. We say it time and time again. Can you be “found”  easily online. Are you coming up in keyword searches. Search is the best thing that ever happened for small business. Many companies can not afford costly pay-per-click campaigns around certain keywords. However,  through blogging and Web 2.0 strategies you can come up in the same searches and reach an international audience for much less.

We had a client recently spend $5000 with us. Within 90 days he had traffic, owned 4 of 6 keywords on Page One Google, AND he got a new client for $4000! THAT'S HUGE ROI! That DOES NOT usually happen. We usually caution clients to view their investment and ROI over a one year period. It takes time to plant all the seeds and watch them grow. But the return is that people have so many new channels to find you and your services -  besides just 1 static website. 

Remember, it's all about SEARCH! Can you be found?


Derrick Sorles and Michael Snell - We Help "Pull"  New Business To You!
            Your Business MD's- Business Blog Consultants -Web 2.0  Consultants and Strategists 



 

AA asked the bloggers on the Power 150 blog-ranking index to tell  what technology marketers should be paying most attention to in 2008.

Here's  some of what they said and things that we have been preaching! 

Local search. Consumers are learning they can find resources not just across the globe, but down the street. "Findability" is crucial, whether you are a global organization or local mom-and-pop.

Mobile apps. But not in a whiz-bang, over-the-top manner; the sort of incremental mobile apps that make ordinary things even easier, like let you pay back friends on the fly, split the check at restaurants, pre-order your coffee so you can bypass the line at a local café, pay your belated phone bill, donate to your political candidate ... It's the little things that take us by storm.

The technique/technology most worthy of any marketer's attention is SEO. It's the cheapest and best way of getting quality traffic to your domains. Especially due to the emergence of so-called universal search, ie. the integration of the results from vertical search engines like images, books and local into the "main" search results, more chances of driving cheap, high-quality traffic have come up. 


                                         

The single biggest issue/technology that deserves the most attention is not a site or an application, but more an organizational philosophy. It's the content marketing movement -- which is the philosophy of marketing services not by traditional methods, but by delivering valuable, relevant and compelling content to customers and prospects on a consistent basis. This is being done through all media platforms, and we are seeing companies like P&G and Nike put a large amount of money and resources into these efforts.

Search marketing. This includes search engine optimization, search engine marketing (also called pay-per-click), and dealing with universal search. When Jeremiah and others say that your corporate website is less relevant than ever, they're right. But if you ignore the basics in favor of the hot new technologies, you will fall behind those who made sure they built a strong foundation. Are you highly ranked for your most important keywords and phrases? Have you done the research to know what those phrases really are? Are you paying attention to how you are spending money on search engine marketing?

The most overlooked piece of digital technology today is the simplest and most overlooked: the keyword. With 81 billion blogs and websites, business owners depend upon keywords to drive site visits. But we all use the same keywords, so it becomes impossible for Google's AdSense for Search and Content Optimization Teams to help you build truly effective campaigns, regardless of the business you are in. If you are an ad agency, "ad agency" would be a keyword, so would "branding," "strategy," "product positioning," "differentiation," "marketing" and a plethora of other terms we all use. So using keywords, differentiation becomes impossible unless you find a way to identify keywords that only your site can offer.

Blogging continues to be one of the most influential communications channels for B2B marketers in 2008. This channel is a precursor to a true social network, and allows companies to continue the conversation beyond our traditional touch points. Yesterday's mass marketing strategies don't work -- we're on the customer's time, and by keeping conversations going through blogging, we're increasing the chance that we'll be present when the customer needs our product or service.

We've also just begun to scratch the surface of the SEO benefits of blogging. In the US, roughly 80% of internet use (excluding e-mail) begins with a search. And a majority of business purchasers use the internet for research before a purchase is made. Blogging gives a company a lot of content containing a lot of keywords, and, with a lot of incoming and outbound links, that's SEO gold.


These were our top 7! What's funny is that we have been preaching these for 2 years now! I think businesses are finally starting to get it!  Read the full article at Advertising Age!


Derrick Sorles and Michael Snell - We Help "Pull"  New Business To You!
    Your Business MD's- Business Blog Consultants -Web 2.0  Consultants and Strategists 

"The second problem is that newspapers make their money from classified ads. Now those ads work better and cost less online so I think there’s no question that there will be organizations like newspapers, but they’re not going to be in paper form. The sooner that people who make newspapers realize that and get into a different business the happier they’re going to be. They need to concentrate all their efforts online." 

    We tell clients this all the time. MOST print advertising, including the YELLOW PAGES, is a waste of money these days. Would you rather spend $1000 on ad that is gone in  month? Or spend $1000 online, where that ad can live on indefinitely?

Seth also comments on the speed of SEO - "

"My position is that the clients are the problem, not the consultants. That's because they want shortcuts, not hard work. The best SEO is great content. Don't do that and you don't get much."

The Web 2.0 has powerful tools to help someone be found online. But it takes time. It does not happen overnight, usually. You have to build the temple....and then  they will come! It's like planting seeds in the garden. It takes time for the seeds to fully grow and develop.



Meatball Sundae is the definitive guide to the fourteen trends no marketer can afford to ignore. It explains what to do about the increasing power of stories, not facts; about shorter and shorter attention spans; and about the new math that says five thousand people who want to hear your message are more valuable than five million who don’t.


Derrick Sorles and Michael Snell - We Help "Pull"  New Business To You!
    Your Business MD's- Business Blog Consultants -Web 2.0  Consultants and Strategists 

We have said before, having a website is like putting up a billboard in a cornfield off a dirt road.
Having a blog is like putting up your billboard on a busy freeway, viewable to hundreds of people in a day!

WHY?

2 reasons. Blogs are written in a simple HTML code. The search engines can easily scan and index your words from the blog. Websites are written in more complicated  java codes, they usually use lots graphics, and sometimes flash - all of which IS NOT search engine friendly - but it looks real nice! Search engines get to website and usually get confused, hit road blocks and will shut down, before reading all of your information. Therefore the blog is much, much more search engine friendly.

Blogs are dynamic - blogs are usually updated all the time. Search engines LOVE fresh content. Plus, they can be interactive. A Website is static and not updated very often. The website is where you actually describe your products and/or services. You can update a website as often as you like, but this is usually only done if your products change, you have a Sale, or something of that nature.

It’s easy to start a blog. But it is also important to know how to optimize it. Great content needs to be seen – not just published. Anyone can publish content on a blog – we work with clients on not only getting started on the right foot, but helping to optimize their search results on Google, Yahoo, MSN and other searches. We will help you avoid all the common mistakes everyone makes. We’ve already been there and done that! We know what works and what doesn’t. Let us put our Internet experience to work for you!

For more video fun check out these jewels they produced:

RSS in Plain English
Social Bookmarking in Plain English
Wikis in Plain English

We needed a new mattress. Since I live online and shop online whenever I can, I started searching. But it was maddening! Mattress companies assign a dozen different names to the SAME MATTRESS, making it nearly impossible to comparison shop.

I remembered a post Andy Wibbels did about his Mattress experience here in Chicago at Sleep City. So, that's where I went. The service was great. The prices were affordable. I told him our budget range and he showed me a mattress in the range, it was perfect  and I took it! He didn't try to upsell me anything, in fact, he through in my choice of a free bed frame or deluxe mattress cover! And he waived the $85 sales tax and is delivering it, today, for free! How can you beat that?! That's good customer service. (Take note BEST BUY...)

 And when you Google CHICAGO MATTRESS STORE that post still comes up on page one, over a  year after it ran originally.  When that post ran originally and even to this day, the owner of the store admits "You wouldn’t believe how many people have come in because of that review on Andy's blog!"

I think finally, more and more businesses, even local businesses, are understanding the power of blogs. People are starting to GET IT! Andy says, "This is why local businesses should blog. Or give discounts to bloggers in exchange for reviews and posting. You don’t have to be in a ‘techie’ business. If you aren’t findable online you’re dead. Blogs are word-of-mouth made trackable, searchable and archived.

This is why you should be blogging. To forge meaningful relationships globally and locally. Bloggers can help new customers find you, a blog can help you find new customers."

EVERY BUSINESS CAN BENEFIT FROM A BLOG IN SOME WAY. A website is not enough, you need to be taking full advantage of the opportunities that exist online today!

Everyone and their brother  have started up a blog these days, but many people just aren’t taking the steps needed to optimize their blogs for both readers and search engines. There are a lot of bad blogs out thgere! While it's true, anyone can start a blog. But is anybody reading it? Is there any traffic? Is it being indexed by the search engines?

That's why people come to us. We have a 2 hour strategy session just determining the blogs focus, layout and name! The name can be crucial! And you want the template set up correctly. You want the posts laid out correctly and keywords optimized.

There was a great article a while back at Search Engine Land. Jennifer Slegg gave 25 tips to help optimize a blog. Whether your blog is business or personal, you should ensure that you are optimizing your blog for both your readers (after all, you want to keep those readers coming back) and the search engines. Unfortunately, optimization is an important step that far too many blogs seem to be skipping over, even those that have a broad appeal to surfers and have the potential to be monetizable.

However, optimizing a blog is a bit different than your standard website search engine optimization (SEO), particularly because most blogs run off standard blog platforms, or worse, run as a hosted blog on someone else’s domain name. And there are design issues that can be unique to blogs which can impact your rankings.

Here  is a sampling of  the advice she gave and some I  think are important;

Offer RSS & Feed Subscription Buttons -  make it easy for readers to subscribe.

Make sure you have  descriptive posts titles utilizing keywords

Post often - don't let your blog become stagnant

Use tags and ping Technorati

Name  your images with keywords!  Not  36580477 jpg.

Create  a signature line to end every post with! Fill it with keywords and a link somehwere!

Make sure your permalinks are structured well.
      Bad  =  www.yourblogsite.com/?p=123
      Good = www.yourblogsite.com/2007/01/01/blog_entry_title_
  Most blogging platforms allow you to change from the standard numbered permalinks to this style of search engine friendly ones. And just in case the blog platform you use has funky dynamic URLs for each entry, you will want to ensure that the bots can crawl them easily or use a mod rewrite to create a good structure such as in the example.

Make sure people have a way to contact you! There is nothing more irratating then not being able to contact the publisher of the blog!


    Derrick Sorles and Michael Snell
    Your Business MD's- Business Blog Consultants - We Help Bring New Business To You!