Marketing Mars

Blogging is not just for the tech savvy person, or who is more technical. Today the world of blog has expanded, and even the non-technical person can use it with ease. There are a lots of tools also available to do the job, to an extent that it looks almost like a professional blogger to a non-technical blogger. Blogging is not just about writing, but reading too. Using the power of RSS feeds (RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication) and feed readers, company can search once and subscribe to feeds delivering real-time news and information on your industry and your competition.
If you are already having a website of yours, or are finding any info on a company what do you do? The most expected answer is search through the GOOGLE. On the other hand do we really do the SELF-TEST, of keying words into the google and finding if our company features into all those key words? Many wont be doing this. We can see that our company featuring in the latter half of the page or beyond the 1st page, then you have just made the page, not putting the required effort into it. All those people whose websites are featured in the top slot doesn’t remain in the same slot if a regular updation isn’t done on it. what we can say is, a web page transforming into a cob-web.
At this stage of fading over the internet, the business owners catch hold of webmaster or design company that created the site. Many a times its not the fault of these people. If regular posts dont go into the web page, what can a designer do?

There are many techniques to raise the ranking of the blog. A simple thing called SEO or the Search Engine Optimization. Along with this, regular posting of Quality contents rises the ranks. Generally 3 to 5 postings makes a good rise in the ranks. As more people find and link to your quality posts, they become more “relevant” to the search engines and the site rises in the rankings. By linking your blog site to your corporate website, you can complete the circle and drive more people through the front door. Of course, simply posting random thoughts about the weather will not attract the masses.
Business blogging is really two-way communication between a business and its clients or potential clients. Blogs provide the platform for your company to become more findable and for the public at large to comment and link to what they’re reading. The most common blogging platforms today are: - Blogger(www.blogger.com), WordPress ( www.wordpress.com), and Typepad (www.typepad.com). Although each one have their own strengths and weaknesses, they allow to create and upload at zero or no upfront costs. It might be that we might transform all of our company’s (or corporate site) to blog, its the findability or searchability the main concern for which we blog.

Try being different/unique in your approach. like, Share stories that highlight interesting customer service experiences. Share your unique ability to resolve problems and satisfy customer demands. Share what went wrong at what place and how it was fixed by you and what you learnt out of it. Discuss the specialty in the solutions that you provide, or solutions that were special to you/ your company. highlight the special offer that your company is floating. A blog need not be a blog. Some of the photographs that show that not only you care for the customer and provide all the solutions that they need, but also like a cool dude the next door, who can be approached for any help. If your blog is more friendly and sharing informative information, you can be on top. You can also feature all those special thanks that the client gave you, or the talents that your company people have other than expertise in giving the right kind of solutions to the problems at the right time. All these features might really boost the relation of the outsider with the company.

Business blogging is undoubted as a tremendous way to build your corporate brand, personal brand, increase traffic on your website and get found in the search engines when people are searching for the products and services that you offer.

However there are some key mistakes you need to avoid if you want to build a credible business blog… By mistakes I am not referring to not posting regularly to your business blog or not engaging in the blogsphere by commenting and linking to other peoples business blog.

Here are three mistakes that business bloggers should avoid:

1. Not branding your business blog

· Ensuring that the name of your business blog connects with your business and the services you offer.

· Making sure that the design of your business blog follows through from your corporate identity. There are many low cost and no cost blogging tools available which one of the reasons why business blogging has become so popular.

· Creating content that meets the needs of your target market and niche – consider your blog as a way to represent your unique expertise in your field.

2. Not connecting your business blog to your corporate website:

· If you have a corporate website make sure that you have a link from your website to your business blog.

· To ensure that you benefit from traffic to your business blog, you can use a blogging platform such as Wordpress.org where you can host your business blog alongside your website.

3. Not adding an about page:

· You might not realise it but your about page on your business blog or website is the second most likely page that people will click through to.

· It is important to have details about you and the teams authoring your business blog as people want to check out who you are – they are genuinely interested in the authors of your business blog and they are also interested in assessing your professional credibility in the areas you are writing about.

A corporate web log is published and used by an organization to reach its organizational goals. The posts are easy to reach and follow due to centralized hosting. As most of the current browsers support RSS, it’s easy to read thro the blog without actually going thro the blog.
Thought there are many different types of corporate blog, they can be mainly categorized as either external or internal.
Internal blogs: An internal blog, generally accessed through the corporation’s Intranet, is a weblog that any employee can view. Many blogs are also communal, allowing anyone to post to them. This encourages
? Employee participation
? Free discussion issues
? Acts as a common platform between various levels within the organization
? A sense of communication
The internal blog is very useful, in cases where the participants are indifferent locations across various regions, or having different schedules.
External blogs: An external blog is a publicly available weblog where company employees, teams, or spokespersons share their views. Generally this is used to launch a new product and services, to clarify certain public grievances, etc. A very important thing that happens in this that, not all are allowed to post and also that a good and thorough review happens. They can also offer a more honest and direct view than traditional communication channels. Nevertheless, they remain public relations tools.
Marketers might expect to have product evangelists or influencers among the audience of an external blog. Once they find them, they may treat them like VIPs, asking them for feedback on exclusive previews, product testing, marketing plans, customer services audits, etc. The informality and increased timeliness of information posted to blogs assists with increasing transparency and accessibility in the corporate image.
Off late, blogging by the company CEO is on the rise and becoming more popular.
Till date, there is no such strict rules and regulation as to what should go into and what not into a corporate blog, as its company dependant and product dependant.
Some of the general rules that are to be followed are:-
? Be authentic: - Brands are about trust, and authenticity is the foundation of trust. The observations must be original, real, and actual.
? Be an unmatched resource: - We must post such items in the blog that’s unavailable elsewhere, and also the bloggers must maintain secrecy till the item is released in the market.
? No stopping in between: - What it means is that, once a blog is started, there should be a flow of posts continuously to keep it alive. Else it looses its very existence.
? Relevant information: - We must keep in mind that what ever we post is relevant to the topic we post. Also should have a little connection to the name of the blog.
? Google ranking: - Your Google rank also matters a lot, as the higher rank is valued more than a lower rank website or another blog.
? Keep in touch with other similar blogs: - This is more important to keep in touch with the other blogs or sites that post similar issues, as there can be some posts that might not have been posted by us, or a latest issue on some matters.
? Trust: - Employees must maintain the trust their employer has entrusted on them, cos, when posting there could be a leak of some corporate secrets, that could be published by ignorance or negligence, which can make a credible amount of damage to the product or the company itself. So it would be better to consult others involved in and around the topic if the postings don’t harm or is there any legalities involved.
? Knowledge management: - The Company must keep in mind that although it’s not possible to over deliver the vendors in getting them to know things, their blogs should always keep people knowledgeable about some or the other topics. Over expecting from the other side is also wrong.
There are some of the corporate blogs that have better response than their official sites do. The main point to focus is that, we must be more knowledgeable today than the past. A blog is one that can give a wider perspective on a topic, as there will be postings plus comments on the topics.