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How to use a Blog to Market your Business
This document provides a comprehensive guide on using blogs as a marketing tool for businesses, covering topics such as the definition of blogs, their evolution alongside web technologies, and strategic considerations before starting a blog. It includes insights on blog content creation, promotion techniques, measuring success, and monetization opportunities. The presentation emphasizes the importance of targeting the right audience and delivering valuable content consistently to build reputation and engagement.
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How to use a Blog to Market your Business
- 1. How to usea Blog to market your business Clayton Wehner This presentation can be found at: http://www.bluetrainenterprises.com.au/blogworkshop
- 2. What we’re gunnacover today…the scope The Who, What, Where, When, Why of Blogs Blog Business Case Blogging Software Create a Blog ‘ Pimping’ your Blog How and What to Write Promoting your Blog Measuring Success Making Money
- 3. Recommended Reading Thesebooks have been used in the production of this workshop:
- 4. The Who, What,Where, When, Why of Blogs
- 5. Blogs in plainEnglish… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NN2I1pWXjXI
- 6. What is ablog? Blog is a portmanteau of ‘web log’ A fast and simple way to publish content to the web Displays ‘posts’ chronologically like a diary or journal Administered via a web-based WYSIWYG interface Interface enables widespread dissemination of content via RSS and other ‘push’ techniques (eg email, social networking) Interface enables two-way interaction between the writer and audience Originally conceived as an informal means of content publishing for individuals, but increasingly used by organisations to publish content for internal and external stakeholders – eg. CEOs
- 7. Some facts aboutblogs The term "weblog" was coined by Jorn Barger on 17 December 1997 The short form, "blog," was coined by Peter Merholz, who jokingly broke the word weblog into the phrase we blog in the sidebar of his blog Peterme.com in April or May 1999. Shortly thereafter, Evan Williams at Pyra Labs used "blog" as both a noun and verb ("to blog," meaning "to edit one's weblog or to post to one's weblog") and devised the term "blogger" in connection with Pyra Labs' Blogger product, leading to the popularization of the terms.
- 8. Evolution of theweb Web 1.0 = ‘one way web’; reading static web pages Web 2.0 = ‘two way web’; interaction, community, collaboration Web 3.0 = Personalisation, individually-tailored web experience
- 9. Social Media andBlogging Blogging is a form of ‘social media’ and belongs to the Web 2.0 movement – the interactive web Social media is ‘media designed to be disseminated through social interaction, created using highly accessible and scalable publishing techniques’ Blogs, micro-blogging, social networking, video/file sharing, wikis, social bookmarking, community sites and more
- 10. Are you awake– pop quiz, hot shot… What are the top three search engines in Australia? How many characters can a tweet contain? What does RSS stand for? Facebook emanated from which US university? Who owns MySpace?
- 11. Why blog? Toinform people and communicate with them To build reputation and credibility To build a network and a community
- 12. But effective bloggingis not easy… Need discipline to keep on writing (the web is littered with abandoned blogs) Need to be creative Need to contribute regularly Perhaps most importantly - need to write stuff that people want to read! If you can’t do this, then don’t bother blogging
- 13. If you can’tblog yourself… You can still contribute to social media by following other blogs and interacting with industry bloggers Commenting on existing blog posts or guest blogging can also inform people, build reputation and grow networks
- 14. Who blogs? 72%are hobbyists 15% are part-timers and derive some income from their blog 9% are full-time self-employed 4% are professional bloggers who work for companies Two-thirds are male 60% are 18-44 years old 40% have graduate degrees One in three has an annual household income of $75K+ One in four has an annual household income of $100K+ More than half are married More than half are parents Source: Technorati’s State of the Blogosphere 2009, October 2009
- 15. The world’s mostpopular blogs… http://technorati.com/blogs/top100
- 16. The Huffington Post– 22 million unique visitors each month
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- 20. Others that youmight have heard of… Boing Boing ReadWriteWeb The Onion TMZ.com Lifehacker Problogger
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- 22. Before you start…When considering the use of new technologies like blogs, most organisations skip the ‘business case’ step ‘ I need to get a blog and start blogging’ – WRONG! Need to focus on the target audience, objectives and strategies, before considering the technologies… Why? Because blogging might not be appropriate for your business
- 23. POST Strategy Pis for PEOPLE Who are you targeting? O is for OBJECTIVES What do you want to achieve? S is for STRATEGIES How do your propose to achieve your objectives? T is for TECHNOLOGIES Which technologies will you use to implement the strategies? This strategy framework was developed by Forrester Research – see http://forrester.typepad.com/groundswell/2007/12/the-post-method.html
- 24. For aspiring, self-employedbloggers… It’s still necessary to do a ‘business case’ of sorts… Are you interested in the topic? Do you have expertise in the topic? Is the topic popular? Is the niche growing? What’s the competition? Can you produce enough content on the topic? Can you make money? A bit like writing a business plan
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- 26. Blogging Software Earlytools: Open Diary – 1998 LiveJournal – 1999 Blogger – 1999 (purchased by Google in 2003) Most popular tools today: Blogger TypePad Wordpress.com (hosted) / Wordpress.org (self-hosted)
- 27. Blogger – www.blogger.com
- 28. TypePad – www.typepad.com
- 29. Wordpress.com – www.wordpress.com
- 30. Wordpress.org – www.wordpress.org
- 31. Hosted versus self-hostedHosted (eg. Blogger, Typepad, Wordpress.com) Free! Set up in minutes Located on a sub-domain – yourblog.typepad.com Self-hosted (eg. Wordpress.org) Located on your domain – www.yoursite.com/blog More professional Better for search engine optimisation Better control, more customisable Must have your own hosting account Must have expertise to set it up, configure and maintain
- 32. Recommendation Start witha hosted blog (preferably Wordpress.com) See if you have what it takes Transition to a self-hosted blog down the track
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- 34. Let’s start ablog now… Go to www.wordpress.com Hit Sign Up Now…
- 35. ‘ Pimping’ yourblog - Wordpress
- 36. Widgets These arethe ‘sidebar’ components We use: Recent posts Recent comments Categories Search Links / Blogroll Tag clouds Archive Twitter widget Feedburner RSS subscription form Feedburner email subscription form (more on these later)
- 37. Plugins We use:Contact Form 7 – contact form Akismet – spam filtering Twitter Tools – tweet new posts when published Tweetmeme – allows visitors to retweet posts Facebook ‘Like’ button – allows visitors to add to Facebook AddThis – allows visitors to add to bookmarking sites – Digg, Technorati, Delicious, etc
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- 39. Design ‘ Skin’your blog with an existing theme http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/ Get a theme custom made Edit HTML and CSS of page templates
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- 41. How and whatto write
- 42. Guiding principles Be useful Be unique See Seth Godin’s ‘Purple Cow’ book about being ‘remarkable’ See Chris Anderson’s ‘The Long Tail’ book about unlimited choice and demand
- 43. Post guidelines FrequencyNo one-size-fits-all ‘ Rhythm’ is more important NB. Most top blogs publish short posts every day Tone Blogs are typically informal Couched in conversational tone Infused with the writer’s views Engagement Invite comments Ask questions Interact with audience and other bloggers through comments
- 44. Title guidelines Titlesare important for both human visitors and search engine indexation This is the ‘teaser’ line that will prompt a visitor to read your post This is the hyperlinked title that will appear in Google and other search engines Write titles that are: Simple, but clear and unambiguous Grab attention Meet a need Compelling to click Contain keywords
- 45. Body text guidelines250-1000 words in total Granular – one post, one topic First few lines really matter Use lists Use formatting Use headings Use pictures (because they tell a thousand words) Use block quotes Use white space Use short sentences and paragraphs so that text is scannable
- 46. 20 types ofblog post Instructional Informational Reviews Lists Interviews Case studies Profiles Link posts ‘ Problem’ posts Comparison posts Rants Inspirational Research Collation posts Prediction and review posts Critiques Debate Hypotheticals Satirical Meme / idea virus
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- 48. Fundamental stuff Contentis king Word of mouth Network, communicate, interact, comment Social media – Twitter, Facebook, etc Link bait…
- 49. ‘ Link Bait’Content with a ‘hook’ Ideas: Controversial or polarising topics Tools Quizzes Competitions Scoops Awards Lists – ‘top tens’ Statistics Freebies Interviews Resources – free white papers
- 50. Search engine optimisationTITLE tags – very important BODY text rich with keywords Cross-linking between posts / related posts Compilation pages Permalink URLs Links Blogroll / link reciprocation Comments on like-blogs Directory submission Yahoo, DMOZ, TrueLocal, etc, etc.
- 51. Technorati – ‘claim’your blog
- 52. Feedburner Feedburner offersa suite of tools that help you to promote your blog RSS subscription ‘chicklets’ Email subscription forms Rotating headlines tool Republish as HTML Ping tools
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- 54. Key Performance IndicatorsUnique visitors and page views – not ‘hits’ Number of subscribers – email, RSS Number of comments, feedback messages Number of inbound links – ‘trackbacks’ Search engine positioning
- 55. Ways to measuresuccess Google Analytics www.google.com/analytics Google Webmaster Tools www.google.com/webmasters Google Alerts www.google.com/alerts Alexa ranking www.alexa.com Feedburner statistics www.feedburner.com
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- 57. Are blogs agood bet for business? Blogs are not suitable for all businesses! Good for businesses with specific expertise or content that can be disseminated online Blogs are great for… Building credibility and establishing the author as an ‘expert’ Creating a larger ‘signature’ for the business on the web and increasing discoverability by prospects Maintaining engagement with existing stakeholders Creating a perception of openness and accessibility
- 58. Will I makemoney? The content has to be good to attract qualified traffic to your blog Like most things, the content and the traffic won’t happen overnight Many, many months of time, effort and persistence Meet people, build relationships, listen, share knowledge, ask/answer questions, build trust, build reputation It’s not unlike ‘real’ networking! There’s no sustainable ‘get rich quick’ option
- 59. Ways you canmake money Direct Contextual and banner advertising Google AdSense PPC advertising Sponsorships Paid reviews Affiliate commissions Donations Classifieds – eg. Job board Subscription fees Indirect Speaking engagements Contracts as a result of your blogging work
- 60. Success factors Beremarkable – useful and unique Write from the heart Create community Discipline and focus Write little and write often
- 61. The End Thispresentation available at: www.bluetrainenterprises.com.au/blogworkshop