Business Blogging!
What is business blogging?
When the world of blogging got buzzing with activity, the interest it generated
did not go unnoticed by profiteers.
Business Blogging, sometimes called B-Blogging, is a recent development, but
it’s growing fast and you’ll see why.
Today blogging emphasizes being informational rather than promotional. Unlike
mass marketing, blogging gives the organization a human face. In other words,
marketing your business with blogs is as close as it gets to face-to-face
marketing. And this is something that is seen as the biggest advantage of
blogging…it’s a personal thing. Not some scary company talking, but a real guy
or gal.
Hence, blogging for business is a strategic activity designed to promote the
organization’s vision, provide an online brand, secure untouched markets, and
establish the company as the leading voice in the industry…all by making the
company seem more human, low-key, and accessible.
Small Businesses and B-Blogging
Small businesses have the opposite problem – they often want to seem bigger
and less personal.
You will find that a large number of small business owners are partnering with
business bloggers and search optimization firms, because of the potential
rewards it holds for them.
It’s increasingly obvious that large numbers of eyeballs don’t matter to most
online businesses – it’s the right eyeballs. The key is to get visitors who are
actually interested in your products and services. Blogs do just this.
According to recent studies, around 10 % of small businesses have already
incorporated blogging as part of their marketing approach. Further, another 16%
plan to include blogging in their plans in the next two years! These are big
numbers, and growing.
What’s the appeal?
You will find many instances where blogging can be useful for the small
business community. A few segments, where blogging can be especially useful,
are as follows:
1. Business Consultants: As a business consultant, you almost certainly
need to maintain closely-knit contacts with the business and industry.
You also need to nurture these links with a lot of hard work and skill over
long periods of time. Blogging can help business consultants keep in
touch with wide spectrum of the business community, nurture further
contacts and keep networked with other business consultants.
2. ‘Bread and Breakfast’ Businesses. Bread and Breakfast business
depend to a great extent on seasonal traffic; hence keeping in touch with
old clients is important to get repeat business from them. You can use
blogging to stay in touch with these individuals through the year.
3. Specialist Retail Agencies: As a specialist retailer, you may have an
edge over other retailers if into selling specialist products, say,
mountaineering equipment or exclusive skiing equipment. Blogging can
help you to interact with a niche clientele, by including news and posts
about such specialist equipment and exclusive product updates.
4. Non Commercial and Not for Profit Agencies: If you are a non
commercial agency spread over a large geographical area, you can
include blogs to keep members informed about meetings, activities, and
further developments.
5. Crisis situations: Blogs maintained in crisis situations help people keep
in touch with the latest developments, rescue operations and can even
provide information about missing or injured loved ones.
You will also find that encouraging customers to provide feedback is an
excellent way of utilizing blogs. They help generating new ideas as well, as
they are an excellent way of getting a customer’s message across to the
company.
Advantages of Business Blogging
Simply put, blogging is another way of getting the message across to an
intended target audience. It is all about optimizing sales by maximizing
relationships with your target audience. Blogging is cheap compared to almost
any other marketing method.
Boosts Online Branding
As the owner of a small business, you can effectively boost your online
presence by blogging about the products and services offered, the industry and
related interests, which can help generate interest and can enhance sales too.
Just like nobody knows how tall you are on the radio, nobody knows the size of
your business on the Web. Talk like you own the market and before long you
probably will.
Enhancing customer relationship programs
Business Blogging is a sure way to get in touch with a large customer base
without using email and other potentially annoying and ineffective techniques.
You can make this happen by keeping updated blogs about customer interests,
new products and services, current and industry related news and such.
The benefits you can obtain here at low to no cost can be equivalent to an email
marketing campaign at a fraction of the costs and without potentially annoying
your client base.
Enhances Search Engine Optimization
As blogging does not require any fancy graphics, or complex HTML code, it is
virtually the darling of search engines. Many search engines frown upon heavy
and unnecessary graphics, but tend to index text.
Many search engines like Google rank a site based upon the number of links
that point to it. If you provide useful and interesting content increases interest
among readers, it makes the blog site even more popular. Linking to other
interesting sites and including important keywords while writing the blog can
increase viewers. Blogging can promote a website by virtue of the number of
links you as a blogger could put in your website.
These links can cause a domino effect because they will refer to another
website, which in turn will refer to another, and so on and so forth. If a myriad of
links start pointing to the website, this can do wonders for website search
engine rankings. This is also sometimes known as a ‘viral’ effect, referring to the
way a virus multiplies in a host organism. When a blog links to websites similar in theme or idea, webmasters may reciprocate by linking back. This increases
the affinity of search engine robots which may give a higher ranking to the
website.
Better Tool for Media and PR
Blogs are an excellent PR and media relation tool too, as every marketing
manager might have found. If you place advertisements in traditional media like
newspapers and television, they can be extremely expensive. Whereas, the
cost benefits offered by blogging could be peanuts compared to a television or a
newspaper campaign and your material will generally have much longer life – in
theory, forever.
Enhances Niche markets
If you sell something online that other websites also cater to, as an online
retailer it could be extremely difficult to obtain and edge over others. Selling to a
niche market can be an advantage because there is something unique to talk
about in detail, which others lack. You might regularly blogging new
developments, also specialist talk. This can attract niche customers to the site
and can significantly increase customer attention and consequently your sales.
--->
What is business blogging?
When the world of blogging got buzzing with activity, the interest it generated
did not go unnoticed by profiteers.
Business Blogging, sometimes called B-Blogging, is a recent development, but
it’s growing fast and you’ll see why.
Today blogging emphasizes being informational rather than promotional. Unlike
mass marketing, blogging gives the organization a human face. In other words,
marketing your business with blogs is as close as it gets to face-to-face
marketing. And this is something that is seen as the biggest advantage of
blogging…it’s a personal thing. Not some scary company talking, but a real guy
or gal.
Hence, blogging for business is a strategic activity designed to promote the
organization’s vision, provide an online brand, secure untouched markets, and
establish the company as the leading voice in the industry…all by making the
company seem more human, low-key, and accessible.
Small Businesses and B-Blogging
Small businesses have the opposite problem – they often want to seem bigger
and less personal.
You will find that a large number of small business owners are partnering with
business bloggers and search optimization firms, because of the potential
rewards it holds for them.
It’s increasingly obvious that large numbers of eyeballs don’t matter to most
online businesses – it’s the right eyeballs. The key is to get visitors who are
actually interested in your products and services. Blogs do just this.
According to recent studies, around 10 % of small businesses have already
incorporated blogging as part of their marketing approach. Further, another 16%
plan to include blogging in their plans in the next two years! These are big
numbers, and growing.
What’s the appeal?
You will find many instances where blogging can be useful for the small
business community. A few segments, where blogging can be especially useful,
are as follows:
1. Business Consultants: As a business consultant, you almost certainly
need to maintain closely-knit contacts with the business and industry.
You also need to nurture these links with a lot of hard work and skill over
long periods of time. Blogging can help business consultants keep in
touch with wide spectrum of the business community, nurture further
contacts and keep networked with other business consultants.
2. ‘Bread and Breakfast’ Businesses. Bread and Breakfast business
depend to a great extent on seasonal traffic; hence keeping in touch with
old clients is important to get repeat business from them. You can use
blogging to stay in touch with these individuals through the year.
3. Specialist Retail Agencies: As a specialist retailer, you may have an
edge over other retailers if into selling specialist products, say,
mountaineering equipment or exclusive skiing equipment. Blogging can
help you to interact with a niche clientele, by including news and posts
about such specialist equipment and exclusive product updates.
4. Non Commercial and Not for Profit Agencies: If you are a non
commercial agency spread over a large geographical area, you can
include blogs to keep members informed about meetings, activities, and
further developments.
5. Crisis situations: Blogs maintained in crisis situations help people keep
in touch with the latest developments, rescue operations and can even
provide information about missing or injured loved ones.
You will also find that encouraging customers to provide feedback is an
excellent way of utilizing blogs. They help generating new ideas as well, as
they are an excellent way of getting a customer’s message across to the
company.
Advantages of Business Blogging
Simply put, blogging is another way of getting the message across to an
intended target audience. It is all about optimizing sales by maximizing
relationships with your target audience. Blogging is cheap compared to almost
any other marketing method.
Boosts Online Branding
As the owner of a small business, you can effectively boost your online
presence by blogging about the products and services offered, the industry and
related interests, which can help generate interest and can enhance sales too.
Just like nobody knows how tall you are on the radio, nobody knows the size of
your business on the Web. Talk like you own the market and before long you
probably will.
Enhancing customer relationship programs
Business Blogging is a sure way to get in touch with a large customer base
without using email and other potentially annoying and ineffective techniques.
You can make this happen by keeping updated blogs about customer interests,
new products and services, current and industry related news and such.
The benefits you can obtain here at low to no cost can be equivalent to an email
marketing campaign at a fraction of the costs and without potentially annoying
your client base.
Enhances Search Engine Optimization
As blogging does not require any fancy graphics, or complex HTML code, it is
virtually the darling of search engines. Many search engines frown upon heavy
and unnecessary graphics, but tend to index text.
Many search engines like Google rank a site based upon the number of links
that point to it. If you provide useful and interesting content increases interest
among readers, it makes the blog site even more popular. Linking to other
interesting sites and including important keywords while writing the blog can
increase viewers. Blogging can promote a website by virtue of the number of
links you as a blogger could put in your website.
These links can cause a domino effect because they will refer to another
website, which in turn will refer to another, and so on and so forth. If a myriad of
links start pointing to the website, this can do wonders for website search
engine rankings. This is also sometimes known as a ‘viral’ effect, referring to the
way a virus multiplies in a host organism. When a blog links to websites similar in theme or idea, webmasters may reciprocate by linking back. This increases
the affinity of search engine robots which may give a higher ranking to the
website.
Better Tool for Media and PR
Blogs are an excellent PR and media relation tool too, as every marketing
manager might have found. If you place advertisements in traditional media like
newspapers and television, they can be extremely expensive. Whereas, the
cost benefits offered by blogging could be peanuts compared to a television or a
newspaper campaign and your material will generally have much longer life – in
theory, forever.
Enhances Niche markets
If you sell something online that other websites also cater to, as an online
retailer it could be extremely difficult to obtain and edge over others. Selling to a
niche market can be an advantage because there is something unique to talk
about in detail, which others lack. You might regularly blogging new
developments, also specialist talk. This can attract niche customers to the site
and can significantly increase customer attention and consequently your sales.
--->
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