A business blog today is much more than an online journal for companies to share news and views. Yes, it’s true that blogs can transform your business but more than that, an effective blog can change the way your customers, employees and associates perceive your business. As thought leadership becomes the leading objective of your blog, a growing audience starts to recognize the distinctive value your company brings to the table.

Your business blog can truly transform the way the world sees you—and the best part is, you are in control to shape and nurture this image for greater profitability, steady growth and dominant leadership in the competitive landscape.             

What a Blog Can Do For Your Business

Business blogs are an excellent corporate tool to share a company's expertise, offer a perspective on the industry, i.e. trends and developments, build additional web traffic, and connect with potential customers. Blogs are popular with online audiences because they offer fresh new voices and opinions. Business blogs can increase SEO ranking by on-page optimization, off-page optimization or link building, content creation and internal linking.

• A blog lets you reach a bigger audience
• With a blog, you can establish yourself as an expert in your industry 
• Gives you free publicity through search engine results pages
• Can bring more traffic to your website
• It’s another way to interact with your customers
• Makes your website look more active and content rich (great for SEO)
• A blog shows the human side of your business, and that you aren’t just an anonymous Internet entity.

Do’s and Don’ts for business blogging

Ultimately, even though to build organic traffic is important, for a blog to succeed and last long, it is more important to write clear, compelling content for human readers.

Here are some do’s and don’ts for effective business blogging:

Do’s

• Add links within your blog posts pointing back to other important pages that will help your rankings.

• Make sure the information you provide on your business blog is meaningful to customers and updated frequently, so they have a reason to return.

• Engage visitors in a dialogue. Filter out spam and profanity, but encourage comments, views and opinions without moderating them too much.

• Every blog article and post is an SEO opportunity. You can’t realistically optimize your site for every long tail search term, but you can certainly target niche keyword phrases. Each keyword or phrase should be within the first sentence or two of your blog.

Don’ts

• Blog posts ought to be useful to your site visitors. Don’t just talk about your products; instead offer useful, free information that people can use. Blog articles garner links because they are interesting, informative, and not overly corporate or sales-focused.

• Don’t keep using corporate rhetoric, acronyms and jargon that only a few will comprehend. Use common terms, keep the sentences grammatically simple, short and concise.

• Don’t put off regular posts and updates. Search engines will periodically crawl websites looking for new and updated content, so blogging consistently ensures fresh content on your site.

• Don’t try to micro-manage your brand image or keep consumers in the dark. Be confident that transparency is the best policy, and customers will reward your candor.

Online and offline businesses alike can benefit from starting a blog to offer their products and services to a wider audience, increase their traffic, and generate more leads and sales. Contact WSI South East to leverage the opportunity and start your business blog today.

If you have your own website or online business, an efficient social profile Page using  Google+ will let you explore a whole new world of social media marketing, that is not only fun, but easy and profitable.

• Google+ posts sent to “public” rank fairly well in Google search results. Merging Google properties into Google+ and integrating it with the search engines has a tremendous impact on where your company appears in search engine results pages (SERPs).
• You can manage circles—distribute clients into specific categories and share different posts, news or deals with different circles accordingly. This is a great way to connect with fans and share information with clients.
• “Hangouts” is another great way to engage your customers and colleagues. It’s a high quality video chat that allows you to interact with your fans face to face. This interaction will allow you to get to know them, answer questions as well as get live product/service feedback. Businesses can also use “Hangouts” for video conferencing, to push live events and seminars to customers.
• Use the Google+ badge to promote your site and your Google+ page. Google+ badge links your website with your Google+ page and lets others know you’re here. When a visitor likes your site and clicks the icon they will be taken directly to your Google+ page and will be able to share and follow your posts.
• Google+ Direct allows people to simply enter a ‘+’ before your company name when searching on Google and get directly to your Google+ page.
• The +1 button on Google+ is an ideal way to have customers spread the word about your business and its presence on Google+.  You can also connect your +1’s from your website to your +1’s on your Google+ page. People tend to trust recommendations from people they already know.
• “Ripples” is a Google+ tool that allows you to watch your posts and information as they travel across social networks.  You can easily determine who is sharing your content and who is paying attention to it.
• With “analytics”, you can get information about your page’s followers, visitors, and the general traffic and social activity around your business.

Businesses are beginning to see the value of Google+ with the new Pages feature. The new Google+ brand Pages look similar to Google+ Profiles, except for the little square icon that indicates that it’s a Page rather than a Profile. Users can add brands to their circles, check out their information, and browse their photos. When users add a brand to their circles, it helps increase that brand’s follower count. 

So what are you waiting for? Create a Page for your business and take advantage of Google +:

• Before you can create a Google+ Page for your business, you need a Google+ Profile. The ‘You+’ link on your Gmail dashboard will direct you to the Profile creation page.

• Choose a category to begin. Local businesses is good for smaller, less well-known businesses. Product or brand would work for companies and larger known businesses. Company, institution, or organization is mainly for businesses that don’t directly sell something, mostly not-for-profits.

• Personalize your page with a photo/logo and tagline. You can continue with an introduction, information, and contact information, and finish with a photo strip of five different photos.

• It’s time to start engaging with the Google+ community. For your business Page, you can create circles (networks), start posting information and news through your feed. You can also add your Google+ Page details to your existing website and share it via other networks.

The official slogan for Google+ is “real-life sharing—rethought for the web”. Google+, is a social network operated by Google Inc, with integration across a number of Google products, including Google Buzz and Google Profiles. Started in June 2011 as a test version, its popularity has grown by leaps and bounds. Google+ notices are posted inside users’ Gmail inbox, so it’s 100% real-time Gmail deliverability. When you write about a subject on Google+ and your circle friends Google that subject, your comments and links are displayed automatically on page one of Google. No back-linking, no on-site optimization, just free traffic. All these factors make it a social media platform that is likely to stay on the scene and gain increased favour.

 What’s So Special About Google Plus?

• One key element of Google+ is a focus on targeted sharing within subsets of a social group (or what Google calls ‘Circles’).

• Also within Google+ is a section specifically for viewing, managing and editing multimedia. Google+ includes an image editor, privacy options and sharing features.

• ‘Hangouts’ is Google’s new group chat feature. Instead of directly asking a friend to join a group chat, users instead click ‘start a hangout’ and they’re instantly in a video chat-room alone. At the same time, a message goes out to their social circles, letting them know that their friend is ‘hanging out’ and that they are invited to join.

Get ready to integrate Google+ into your Internet marketing strategy.

Here are some more tips for monetizing Facebook:

• Facebook’s core value proposition is connecting and communicating with friends. While word-of-mouth, or “earned” media, helps brands gain Facebook fans, it can only go so far. Companies also need to contemplate using paid advertising to develop their Facebook fan-base.
• Create engaging content. The simplicity of the “like” button means that there may be no actual engagement beyond the fleeting moment of the click. To be successful in this post-“like” phase of Facebook marketing, businesses need to excite their fan-base with compelling posts, interactions that spur a sense of community, and rewards for their ongoing support.
• Give people a reason to become fans. Apps are a good way for any business to have engaging interactions with fans. Everyone wants the latest app, and you can place it for download on your page. The process of sharing will increase your business awareness and deliver good returns on your investment.
• Use innovative apps to help monetize Facebook fan pages. For example, create apps that enable your business to post coupons for promotional discounts on your Facebook page. After clicking on the promotion, fans are prompted to provide their email addresses before receiving the coupon. Thus, you have not only increased the likelihood of a fan becoming a paying customer, but also gained a potential customer’s email address, which you can use for future marketing endeavours.
• Incorporate e-commerce directly into your Facebook page. A Facebook storefront application will enable users to make purchases directly. You can also offer promotional deals to fans, but the storefront app offers the additional advantage of publishing a fan’s purchase on the Facebook news feed. This further promotes the item to your fan’s friends who can then make comments about the item.

Attracting new customers to your brand is a great benefit of Facebook fan pages; but if you have not monetised your Facebook page, then you are missing out on an easy way to generate revenue!

WSI can help create an effective online sales process to convert fans into buyers, get better conversions and increase sales.

Facebook is currently THE most popular social media network online. Market-savvy brands are tapping into their Facebook audience to get instant feedback, find ideas on new product design and seek insights on how to market better. It is a great tool to build brand awareness within your target market. No matter what type of business you are in, you can use Facebook marketing to tap into your social network enhancing positive relationships for your business.

Building your Facebook presence

 Remember, building and nurturing your network comes before monetization. So here’s how to get started:

• After you’ve made your Facebook fan page, take advantage of the various tools Facebook offers businesses to promote their pages.
• You can add your brand logo, any company photos, and as much information and content as you possibly can to build credibility.
• Facebook allows you to connect your Twitter profile, your blog, and your website so they are all linked. The activities and interactions you undertake on one network will automatically be posted on all of your other networks.
• Facebook also allows you to embed widgets on your website pages so that visitors to your site have the option of connecting to your Facebook page.
• To jump start your business page, begin by determining which users and other Facebook groups are the most influential and which ones you should begin interacting with.

In 2010 Gartner listed video as one of the top ten strategic online technology trends for 2011. With the year nearly three quarters over, their forecast seems justified. Consumers' appetite for streaming videos over their desktop, tablet and mobile devices is not abating. Seeing its potential, marketers in general are increasingly joining the online video trend as a way to get their message across more effectively – and to greater numbers.

Subsequently, more than two thirds of UK marketers are expected to have increased their online video ad spend in 2011 (IAB figures). With easier ways to consume video content and faster download speeds the trend shows no sign of slowing. So how can you get video marketing working for your business?

1. Think Personalisation Not Perfection
The stumbling block for most small businesses when considering video marketing is the unaffordable production costs. Ironically, the fact is that some of the most successful online video marketing campaigns have been done on a shoe string budget.

Today's video consumers are more concerned about watching entertaining; customer focussed content rather than expecting the highest of production values. That said, the production costs in most instances are in easy reach of a small business' marketing budget.

2. Make it Easy to View and Share
Once you have your video ready to go, your next step is to make it available for viewing using a dedicated video player. YouTube provides this service at no cost – but what you may save on the video hosting, you may lose on not having total control of how your video is viewed.

A dedicated video hosting and streaming service can provide you with your own branded video player which plays just as well across a number of desktop and mobile devices. A key component of your video player is giving viewers the ability to share the content with ease via the social networks or by email. Another nice feature is for the player to include a call to action button once your video concludes.

3. Optimise it For YouTube
While you may not want to use YouTube as your main online video player, you also don't want to ignore the marketing opportunity it offers. Owned by Google, YouTube is the world's second largest search engine, and regularly features within the first page of search results.

Optimising your video for YouTube can have a significant effect in securing your fair share of the huge number of viewers using YouTube to consume content on a daily basis.

4. Spread the Word
Use all your marketing collateral to help get the word out regarding your new video. While you may not be able to embed the video into an email (as email clients will simply strip the code), you can include an image of your video which when clicked, takes your subscriber directly to view your auto play video.

Your social media channels are a great place to promote your videos – and unlike email, will enable you to embed the video right into their platform. Making it easy to view and share.

5. Monitor What Works Best
Video is a very measurable medium, not only giving figures for the number of viewers, but also providing data for aborted views. Enabling you to identify unpopular content or if your videos are simply too long for example.

Tumblr.com is a new method of blogging similar to the likes of Twitter and WordPress. In fact, you could say it takes the best features from each and combines them by providing an attractive display, simply organised content and user friendly publishing tools.

While Tumblr does share similarities with other blogging platforms, it has many differences that set it apart from the “social media crowd”. A tumblr blog, or “tumblelog” uses short and minimalistic posts such as images or links to convey messages and thoughts in favour of the more conventional long winded editorial posts on other sites. Due to this approach, tumblr is widely known as a microblogger.

With its ease of use and extensive customisation options, many businesses have turned their sights to Tumblr as a way to promote their products and services. Tumblr provides businesses, large and small, a way to publish to and engage with their current audience.

Your Content, Your Way
Tumblr blogging grants users multiple features to set their content apart from other blogs across the web, making it more personalised in the process. Several types of posts are supported by tumblr, including:

• the typical text format
• photos are also supported and extremely popular
• quotes from different sources online, including other tumblelogs may be used
• links and Chat logs while similar to the text format are supported and presented in a more authentic manner
• other popular blog post formats are audio and video

 Ease Of Use
Tumblr handles each supported format in a very efficient and simple manner. A tumble log owner has the option of texting blog updates from any mobile phone as well as through email.

Anything on the internet is up for grabs to post through the tumblrbookmarlet which allows the log owner to post anything they come across on the web. Instant messaging is another method to update a log by messaging Tumblrbot.

Impressively, one may even phone in to their Tumblr log and leave voice posts. In addition to these methods tumblr is connected through different social pathways and may be updated through things such as Facebook, Youtube, Digg, Twitter and other apps.

Right For You?
Tumblr allows for the tumblelog to become an extension of the owners brand through its extensive customisation processes. Its ease of use and plethora of supported formats ensures this – but is it the right social media platform for your business?

There is no doubt Tumblr provides another viable option for increasing your business reach and the sharing of content – but may not be for everyone.

While Tumblr’s simplicity and ease of use is one of its selling points, it could also be considered a disadvantage if your content requires more sophisticated publishing tools.

Before taking the plunge, it’s important to identify your objectives, the demographic of your intended audience and how publishing content to Tumblr fits into your existing social media activities.

In conclusion, Tumblr is clearly a social networking platform that is to be taken seriously – but may not be for everyone. If you would like to review the effectiveness of your social media plans, please call 0845 345 2592.

While many people still may not value Twitter, its adoption by some mainstream media (TV shows giving out their Twitter address during their programming for example) is helping to fuel its impressive growth.

The Twitter micro blogging platform enables real-time sharing of information, the gathering of market intelligence and an opportunity for building stronger customer relationships; all in 140 characters or less.

Like Facebook and YouTube, there is no cost associated with using Twitter for business, which makes it an attractive proposition for marketers wishing to engage their audience in new and innovative ways. It comes with a warning though, joining the conversation without adhering to some online social etiquette can do more harm than good.

How Not To Use Twitter
Twitter is essentially a social networking website – enabling people to connect and interact with other people who share similar interests. As such, some simple advice for participating successfully applies.

1. Tell People a Little About Yourself
Don’t leave you profile information blank. Your profile information is a great way to introduce yourself, your business and your key interests. Leaving it blank can appear as if you are not prepared to engage.

2. Let People Get to Know You
Don’t just quote other people all the time. Imagine a person in a social setting who does nothing more than quote sound-bites from famous scholars, inspiring leaders or even celebrities. It may be interesting for a while, but not worth an investment of your time to build any meaningful relationship.

3. Be Original, Be Yourself
On a similar note, don’t just continually retweet other users. Retweeting can be a great way to engage your audience – but doing little else implies you have nothing better to say. Preparing a content strategy will enable you to be original and share some personality as well as your expertise.

4. People Do business With People
Don’t be a faceless business entity. While your objectives may clearly be to grow your network and improve your bottom line, this shouldn’t mean you only talk about your company. Sharing some personality will increase your appeal and make you more approachable.

5. Think Engagement Before Sales
Don’t spam other users. Think again of a social setting, how would you react to someone introducing themselves with “visit my website for some great deals”. Your intention to engage with them will understandably vanish very quickly. Twitter is no exception, using mentions for ‘click here’ messages without any other correspondence is a clear no no.

In closing, keep in mind that similar principles apply as with any customer engagement initiative, be prepared to commit some time and resources to genuinely participate as part of the Twitter community.

If you would like help planning and implementing a social media marketing strategy for your business please call 0845 345 2592