Business Blogging - How to Build A Better Blog

Visiblity is the First Step to Getting Clients, Customers, and an Audience

My friend and colleague Dave Lakhani says, "You've got to be seen to sell." And if you read this blog or Biz Tips Blog, you know I write a lot about creating online visibility. If people don't know about you, how can you expect to get new clients, fill your coaching or mentoring groups, sell your products or have an audience for your radio show?

Recently I was having an email conversation via LinkedIn with Bonnie, who participated in the Social Media Success Summit. She said:

My biggest challenge with social media this moment is to drive traffic to my BlogTalkRadio show...Even though I ask guests to Tweet the show and my show is auto-Tweeted via BTR, listenership remains low. Any ideas on key word strategies or other social networking tips to bring the show onto more folks' radar screens?

You can substitute "group coaching program" or "online TV show" or "info product" for "radio show."

Are You a Fan of The Blog Squad?

As you know from my last post about blogs vs. Facebook, my strong belief and advice to anyone in business is to use your blog as your hub site, your home base. However, that does not mean I advocate ignoring social networking sites and if you've followed me for more than a day, you know I'm quite active on Facebook and twitter and LinkedIn (a little bit less).

In my view you need to be where your audience is and then drive them back home (blog).

In case you don't know, I do have a fan page set up on Facebook. If you prefer to hang out on Facebook, then I want to be there with blogging info for you.

The Blog Squad on Facebook

One of the things I'm doing for people who join The Blog Squad Fan Club is make special fan-ONLY offers once in awhile and on the last day of the month will offer a substantial discount to a product or service. You've got to be a fan to find out and get notifications of special deals. 

There is also a discussion forum and I'll answer your questions about business blogging and social marketing. I hope you'll join me on Facebook!

By the way, if you have a Fan page on Facebook, post the link in the comments so I, and other readers, can check it out and join your community too!

Why Blog When You've Got Facebook?

I got a really good question last week via twitter/email and after yesterday's twitter problems, it's appropriate to address this now. Here's what I was asked:

From your perspective on blogging, what's the advantage of actually doing a blog, over having a well-developed page on Facebook--where you not only share regularly updated status reports, but can also post Notes (where I imagine what would have been posted to a blog would be posted on Facebook), can easily share media, engage people in conversation and relationships, and organically have your updates propagated to other friends' pages, etc.?

It's an excellent question and one that does come up in some form when I speak and teach.

First, let's look at what happened on Twitter. Yesterday, with no explanation for nearly 4 hours, hundreds of thousands of legitimate twitter accounts were suspended citing "suspicious activity." People on Facebook, FriendFeed and blogs went nuts.

OMG! We can't communicate with our followers!

Social Media Success Summit Launches on Tuesday

Social Media Success Summit begins on Tuesday at 5:00 pm PT with a keynote by Gary Vaynerchuk (he just got a 10 book, $1 million deal due to the way he uses social media!).

If you've already registered, congratulations and I look forward to connecting with you in the private forum (you wouldn't believe how active it is already!).

I want to remind you that Monday is the *last day* to save $100 (20%) on your seat at Social Media Success Summit 2009--the online summit for mastering Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and blogging for businesses.

Details here.

New Trends: Twitter + Blogging = Happy Traffic

David Tokheim, general manager of Six Apart Media, aka Typepad blog services, discusses new blog trends in an interview with eMarketer.

Key take-away:

"Twitter is bridging that gap between blogs and social nets and allowing bloggers to be able to have a good distribution vehicle to publish and instantly connect with an audience."

It seems that Twitter and business blogs are a marriage made in heaven. Live well, blog well, and Tweet often.

Win FREE Tickets to Social Media Success Summit 2009

I just wanted to share a great opportunity with you to win FREE tickets to Social Media Success Summit 2009 -the premier online event dedicated to helping businesses succeed with social media marketing.

Just go here to enter to win your free tickets to this awesome event.

Check this out: The grand prize is worth more than $1690 and includes two tickets to the summit (one for you and one for a friend), a social media consultation, a blog review and two best selling books!

The presenters at this online event are literally the biggest names in the industry.  They include bestselling authors and social media marketing experts such as Gary Vaynerchuk (Wine Library TV), Darren Rowse (Problogger), Mari Smith (Facebook guru), Jason Alba (wrote the book on LinkedIn), Ann Handley (MarketingProfs), Brian Clark (Copyblogger), Chris Garrett (Authority Blogger) and me (The Blog Squad).

Remember: The contest ends next week, so check it out soon. Go here to win your tickets.

 

Posterous - A Blog Alternative?

At last year's BlogWorld Expo, I sat in on a keynote with Guy Kawasaki. During the talk he mentioned a new (at the time) site called Posterous which he felt is another alternative, or complement, to a blog. Me, being the active experimenter that I am, immediately set up an account.

The gist of it is that you can simply send an email to post on your site. No logging in; no formating. Simply send an email with your content, including any attachments like photos, video or documents and it's automatically posted. Pretty easy.

I thought I had written about it here, but cannot find any reference when I do a keyword search of my blog posts. Here's a link to my first post.

Why would you do this? As Guy Kawasaki says on his Posterous site: it's "For everything that's slightly less than a blog post but slightly more than a tweet" And that's a perfect way to sum it up.

I confess, I don't post much because I forget that it's there. But when I'm on the road or running, it's a great way to share photos or quick thoughts from my phone - no computer required.

Posterous also gives you another point of visibility. Naturally, you get to set up another profile with your name, links and a bio. And, you can set up your account so your posts are automatically sent to your twitter feed and your Facebook profile. Love that automation!

Another idea...use Posterous for a personal blog or repository of ideas or photos or document a project or vacation or...you name it. How do you use Posterous?

Related Posts:
What's Your Biggest Challenge Around Creating an Online Presence?
Is your Google Profile Up to Date?

Bloggers - Are You Using Video Yet?

I'm coming back to the video blogging theme because the trend continues to grow with no end in site.

In a report out this month from Nielsen, they report that since November 2007, video audiences have OUTNUMBERED email audiences. I was shocked to read that.  I mean, EVERYONE reads email so to think that more people are viewing online video than reading email is amazing. Contemplate that for a minute.

And video isn't difficult to create and distribute widely on the 'net. Did you see the video I created using animoto? I simply uploaded pictures, picked a music track from a list they provide and pushed a button. You don't even need to be in the video if you're camera-shy.

In the home study course Lou Bortone and I created called Online Video Made Easy, we go into detail about equipment, software and distribution sites. All available for little or no money. But here's the "readers digest" version:

Equipment - Camera
Flip Digital Video Camera
Web Cam

Video Creation Software
Animoto (web based, free 30 second videos)
Camtasia (for screenshot videos - top of the line)
Jing Project (free)

Video Distribution
Tubemogul (free - upload to more than a dozen video sites)

Did you know that YouTube is the second largest search engine? That means well-optimized videos come up high in search engine results pages. After all, Google owns YouTube so it stands to reason that videos on their site would do well. Yet another good reason to create your own channel with videos on YouTube as well as the other big video site players. Here's one of my YouTube Channels.

One of my mentors has advised me to step up the video production. Nothing elaborate or long; short, content rich videos that can help position me as a leader in the blogging world.

Are you using video in your online marketing mix? If not, what's stopping you?

Related Post
Engage Your Readers in Multiple Way

Learn what smart marketers are doing...

If you're not reading Biz Tips Blog, I want to make sure you don't miss this big announcement...

Social media tools like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn are transforming businesses by providing amazing exposure, tons of traffic, partnership opportunities and quality leads. Do you know how to market your business with social media? 

The great news is you don't need to be a techno-geek or twenty-something to use and benefit from social media.  Discover precisely how to use social media to grow your business during this economic slump at Social Media Success Summit 2009 -a professional development conference for marketers and business owners. 

Leading experts Gary Vaynerchuk (Wine Library TV), Darren Rowse (Problogger), Mari Smith (Facebook guru), Jason Alba (wrote the book on LinkedIn), Ann Handley (MarketingProfs), Brian Clark (Copyblogger), Chris Garrett (Authority Blogger) and me have joined forces to share our closely guarded secrets to social media success at this LIVE online summit.

No travel required.  This online summit allows you to attend sessions, meet the experts and network with peers, all from the comfort of your home or office. This event is sure to sell out quickly. 

Learn how to qualify for a $200 savings (expires May 14th) and lock in your key to success.  Visit and get an immediate gift valued at $39 entitled "Achieving Social Media Marketing Success (Secrets From Three Successful Marketers)."

P.S. In the first few hours that registration was open, over 80 seats were sold. That's pretty darn good for an event that doesn't start for over a month! So you know this is a hot ticket.

Is Your Blog Mobile Friendly? Poll

I recently ran a poll asking if readers subscribed to blogs by getting text alerts, implying that they would be reading blogs on their phone. I didn't phrase the question well.  The question should have been "do you read blogs on your phone (mobile device)."

Overwhelmingly, respondents do NOT subscribe to text alerts for blog updates, but they do read them from time to time by following links in email or on other sites.

That leads to my next question:

On Thursday, April 9, I'm interviewing mobile marketing expert, Kim Dushinksi, about why you need to pay attention to the mobile marketing trend. She's going to focus specifically on why you need to care if your blog is mobile-friendly and how you can easily adapt your blog to be mobile ready.

If you have comments or questions about blogging and mobile marketing, submit them in the comments section below and register for the free program with Kim Dushinski on April 9.