November 26th, 2007
Dear Shama,
We are an IT company that works primarily with small and medium sized businesses in our local region. However, we would like to spread our wings now and reach more people. Our experts are fantastic. I mean-we know our stuff! However, marketing isn’t our thing. Imagine an office full of geeks (good looking ones), but geeks nonetheless. We are familiar with blogging-we reads lots of tech blogs. Now, we are considering if a business blog may be the way for us to go in order to expand our reach. And if so, how do we start? What do you think?
-IT Studs in Toronto
Dear IT Studs in Toronto,
The simple answer to your question is yes. Yes, you should start a business blog if you are trying to expand your reach. A business blog is a great way to 1) showcase your skills, and 2) to reach a broader audience.
For a beginner’s lesson in business blogging check out How to Create and Manage a Business Blog. As a technical person, you may have the inclination to "optimize" your blog with widgets galore. Resist this urge at first, and focus on writing truly solid content. How-to posts do well in the business blog world. You will need to reach out to fellow bloggers, and friends and family to get initial traffic on the website. Also, put your blog address on your business cards and in your email signatures. You will need all the traction you can get when starting out.
I also recommend getting a subscription to Word Tracker and optimizing your posts with keyword rich content. This will help drive organic search engine traffic to your blog, and it will will help Google index your pages faster. Last but not least, have patience. A business blog takes time to build and sustain, but the efforts are well worth it in the long run.
Best of Luck!
-Shama
Posted in Business Blogging, Dear Shama Letters, Marketing Tools for Your Service Business, Marketing Your Business | No Comments »
November 14th, 2007
- SPIN Selling- An ethical way to sell by catering to the client’s problem. Adam Salamon explains how it works.
Posted in Business Blogging, The Best Video Blogs, Business Blogs, Info Blogs, Web Entrepreneur Community | No Comments »
November 11th, 2007
The final day was filled with more great sessions and…lots of free t-shirts.
Here are the major takeaways!
The Cult of Blogging by Leo Laporte-
- It is important to create a community that follows you before you ever think of monetizing your blog.
- Monetization (making money from blogs) doesn’t work for everyone-and it not recommended for business bloggers.
- Important to create a persona and then build your platform around that persona. For example, if you are a teen and parents relation coach-a myspace page would work for you. Linked in maybe more your style if you are a business consultant.
- Not everyone will like what you do, and that’s okay-
- Kill them with kindness
- If that doesn’t work-ignore them
- Watch what you post! What you post stays out there…for a long time. Be sure you don’t disclose any personal details that you don’t want everyone seeing.
Creating a Coherent Social Media Strategy by Jeremiah Owyang and Chris Brogan-
- Set up google alerts around your brand, around your name, around your site…
- Jeremiah uses the Dove campaign as an example of a company that has integrated their campaign across many mediums and embraced social media.
- Being helpful is an excellent marketing strategy.
- When thinking in terms of social media, ask-where are my clients and what do they want? Where do they hang out?
What Web 10.0 Might Look Like by Tom Frey-
- WiMax-Wifi on Steroids.
- The future is HYPERLOCAL-you never lose touch with anyone and you are never out of options. You are always "linked in."
- Keyboards will be replaced by more display oriented technology
- Your computer will have a personality-not just an interface. It will interact with you.
- The biggest change will be in education
- Free courses to all those who want to learn.
- Teaching requires experts, and as it gets harder to train experts, we will see more computer leveraged teaching.
- One Person Empires
- Outsource everything within the company.
- Very appealing to people leaving the corporate world.
- 45 million people around the world currently work part-time or full-time at home.
Posted in Business Blogging, The Best Video Blogs, Business Blogs, Info Blogs, Web Entrepreneur Community | No Comments »
