Business Logs

Helping companies communicate better

Use Your Name in Your Social Media Interactions

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Andy has a simple but effective tip for business bloggers. He writes:

Sign your blog posts with your name, not your credit union’s name.

He’s writing for credit unions since that’s the industry he covers, but any online business would do well to follow his tip.

Basically, he’s reiterating one of the fundamentals to blogging and social media: be a real person not an impersonal, faceless company. It only makes sense to use your name if you’re going to use a personal channel like blogging.

Also, use your name in your other social media interactions like forums and social voting sites. You gain a little bit of friendship by sharing your name. And anyone that feels like they know you will be more likely to visit your blog.

For more social media tips, check out his whole blog post: Joining the Conversation, Being the Conversation.

Understanding the Blog Life Cycle Helps You Blog More Effectively

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After spending the last couple years watching blogs and blogging myself, I’ve seen several trends in blog life cycles.

First, blogs usually start off strong. They’ll have a consistent posting frequency for weeks and maybe even months. The bloggers are motivated to create a great blog, so the first couple of posts are high quality. This phenomenon is similar to new year’s resolutions. When the new year comes around, many people will start new workout programs or diet plans. They’ll go to the gym on a regular basis or avoid certain foods for the first couple of days of the new year.

However, just like most people that make new year’s resolutions, most new bloggers stop meeting their goals. They’ll skip a post here and there. They’ll write shorter articles. They won’t do as much research or spend as much time writing like they used to. Basically, they won’t put as much effort as they used to. Usually, the lack of effort can be tied to a lack of traffic.

New bloggers often get discouraged because of low traffic. They check their stats and they see that no one is reading their blog. They have no comments to reply to. As you can imagine, if no one is reading your blog, it’s easy to quit or blog halfheartedly. And even if a new blogger does manage to get some traffic, he could still be discouraged if the traffic plateaus for an extended time period.

Marketing is the Key

In my experience, the bloggers that get a lot of traffic on a consistent basis have been blogging for a while (usually over 2 years). So, it’s good to be patient. But what if you don’t have time to be patient especially if you’re counting on your blog to drum up more sales for your business in the next couple of months. Fortunately, there are some bloggers that have reached success quickly. Here’s what we can learn from them.

Marketing is absolutely crucial in the early days of a blog. The bloggers I have seen do well in a short time have spent a lot of time marketing their blog in the early days. Here are a couple things they have done to promote their blog:

  • Leaving comments on other blogs
  • Writing guest posts for other blogs
  • Emailing other bloggers asking them to link to your posts
  • Promoting your posts on social media sites

However you choose to promote your blog, the important thing is actually doing it. In your early days, you should spend at least 30% of your blogging time on marketing. My recommendation is to try different methods and then see which ones work the best. Then, focus on those methods and scrap the rest.

You still want to produce good content, but don’t fall into the trap of just writing good content. If you don’t promote your content, how will internet users know it’s out there? There are too many websites on the internet vying for same audience as your blog. Fortunately, most webmasters either don’t do much marketing or they do it poorly. Therefore, you can gain a big advantage by marketing your blog in a consistent manner.

After six months of solid marketing and content production, you should have a solid reader base. And since the internet is more social and interactive, some of your readers will also be content producers. They’ll have blogs, Twitter accounts, Facebook accounts, or accounts on other social media sites like forums.

As you continue to produce great content, those readers will help you promote your site by spreading the posts they like on the social media sites they participate in. The bloggers will blog about your posts. Those with Twitter accounts will tweet about your posts. Your reputation will build as a result and you’ll be considered as an upcoming blogger in your industry. If your industry’s blogging community, or “blogosphere”, has a small amount of bloggers, you could even be considered a top blogger instead of just an upcoming one.

Your main goal as a new blogger is to reach that critical mass of readers who will regularly promote your content. If you look at any popular blog, you’ll see they get a lot of links without doing much promotion because of their reader base. Once you reach this point, your traffic should grow much more quickly. And then, you can probably lessen your marketing efforts and focus more on producing content that has a good chance of spreading since you have a reader base that wants to spread your ideas.

7 Types of Posts That Attract Links

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In my experience with business blogging, certain types of posts seem to attract links more than others. If you want to get more links, it makes sense to publish these types of posts. Here are 7 of them.

1. Lists

If you look at any popular social voting site (like Digg, BallHype, Mixx, or kirtsy), there’s a good chance you’ll find one or more list posts on the front page.

We humans just seem to have an affinity for lists. Maybe it’s because we’re social creatures. Lists are a great conversation piece. We all have our opinions so it’s fun to debate the top 10 movies, albums, sports players, etc. I bet even our ancient ancestors talked about lists. Maybe the top 10 cave paintings or 12 interesting ways to start a fire.

Also, lists have the ability to attract our attention quickly. Glance at the covers of a magazine rack and you’ll see article titles like these:

  • Many Happy Returns: 14 Tax Preparation Packages to Guide You Through Taxing Times (PC Magazine)
  • 100 Most Beatiful People in 2008 (People)
  • How to Build Big Arms in 5 Easy Moves (Men’s Fitness)
  • 16 New and Sexy Hairstyles (Cosmopolitan)

2. Glossaries

A glossary is list of definitions for the jargon in your niche. Glossaries attract links because they are a necessary resource in every industry. Every industry has newcomers that want to learn more about the industry. However, these newcomers often get stuck in the learning process because they don’t understand the common terminology.

Bloggers often get asked these type of questions, “What does [industry term] mean?” If you create a glossary, they can link to you and help their readers understand the jargon.

3. Images and Videos

Posts with images and video get a lot of links because they stand out from the crowd. Most bloggers only use text. This leaves a lot of traffic on the table because most people on the internet are visually oriented. Surveys show that most people don’t like to read. Instead, they would rather watch TV or a movie.

I wrote about images and video in the following posts, so check them out for more information.

4. Tutorials

One SEO expert stated that her favorite method for getting traffic and links was to create an in-depth tutorial and then promote it in social media.

Relevant tutorials get lots of links because many internet users are looking for content that shows them how to do a certain task. They want the content to show them step by step how to accomplish their task.

5. Metaphors

When I say “metaphor”, I’m talking about posts that connect two seemingly unrelated topics. Here are a couple examples:

Metaphor posts are attractive because they jar our mind into making unique connections. We get curious and check out the post to find out how the blogger combined two seemingly unrelated things.

6. Humor

If you’ve got a great sense of humor, try showing it in your blog posts. Historically, humorous content has done a good job of attracting traffic and links. Glance at any social media site and you’re likely to find a lot of humorous pieces.

Also, humorous content often spreads virally because people like pass it around through IM, links, and email. For example, think about all those funny email messages that get forwarded multiple times.

7. Stories

The best-selling book Made to Stick gives six ways to communicate your ideas so that they will survive and spread. One of those ways is to use stories.

Everyone loves a good story. Since the beginning of time, we’ve told each other stories. Stories entertain, touch our emotions, help us understand and remember ideas and concepts, and connect us with each other.

Observe any group of people hanging out and you’ll find them telling stories. With the internet becoming more social, it’s a good idea to find out the compelling stories in your industry and then communicate them on your blog.

Over to You

Have you written any of these types of posts? If you have, feel free to leave a link of the post in the comment section.

How to Leverage Your Press Coverage

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In a previous post, I wrote that one of the sites in which I have some ownership, MidoriLei.com, would be getting good press coverage. I finally got notification of the article about us. We were part of a giveaway yesterday where we gave away one of our dresses.

I was definitely pleased by the result. As of right now, the giveaway post has almost 600 comments so I’m sure many people learned about our site. Yes, we did have to give away a dress valued at $200 but I think it will be worth it. Also, giving away your product to get traffic and links is usually more effective than traditional online advertising methods.

Practical Ways to Leverage Your Press Coverage

Now that we’ve been covered by a reputable high-traffic site, we can use that coverage to add perceived value to our business and attract other website owners to talk about us. Here are two practical ways to do that.

Make sure people know about your media mentions. Whenever you talk about your business to other people, don’t forget to tell them about your press coverage. This will improve the credibility of your business. Also, apply this principle when interacting with other website owners. For example, whenever you email a blogger with a link request, point them to other sites that have linked to you already.

Create a prominent section on your site about your press mentions. This could mean starting an “In the Media” page and giving it a prominent link on your home page. Or you could do what SEO Book does. On the sidebar of their home page, they have logos of the media outlets that have covered them. I wrote about our press coverage on our home page.

12 Essential Services for Running Any Virtual Business

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The Internet is quite an appetizing prospect for entrepreneurs. No matter where you work from, there are a few services that can make your business run more smoothly, and afford you more to time expand, rather than deal with mindless administration or problems when half-baked software breaks down.

1. Engage with new software

To change your business’ fortunes, new software is crucial. Everything from enterprise financial management systems to the latest web design software can make all the difference in your company’s bottom line.

HTTP is what the web has been built with, but by upgrading to a brand new system, to Web 2.0 tools, user interfaces can look smarter, work faster, and catch the eye of the consumer who wants a more engaging shopping or consumer experience than just clicking through static pages, refreshing pages and having to navigate through tables of links to find what they are looking for. Software like Adobe’s Flex is an example of software that can make purchasing much more intuitive, consumer friendly, and better for business. The newer the software, the faster it works, and often, the cheaper it is to develop brand new applications – as you’ll see in the applications below.

2. Prosper

Kiva is a pioneering small charitable loans company that provides loans to third-world producers, which are subsequently paid back to the donors, and then can be paid out elsewhere. Prosper takes this micro-credit system and turns it: offering micro-credit loans for your business. If you’ve already got a successful business and want to manage loans from friends and family, or ask people to ‘bid’ to give you a loan, all with interest of course, then Prosper may be the place to find the cash injection. Peer lending has been hugely successful in the charity sector, and with a business incentive, and visible profiles of the businesses looking for loans, you can either use this as a way to use capital and exchange ideas with brand new businesses, or find your own money, without having to deal with any bank managers.

3. Campfire

Keeping in constant contact with your employees when running a virtual business, which is typically outsourced and fragmented across the globes, is crucial. With so many chat applications in use, Campfire offers one place to gather around. One of the key features is the ability to create password protected chats with clients, sharing media in real time. The application integrates well with 37signal’s other elegant software, like Basecamp. Campfire is described as “a godsend for groups”, which summarizes it nicely.

4. NetworthIQ

For the Web 2.0 businessman, award winning web application Networth IQ both keeps tracks of your finances, as well as your net worth. And for the competitive businesses owner, there’s even an option to compare your successes with people your age, or in the same industry sector.

5. Wesabe

As with many financial applications, Wesabe can integrate with your bank account, and create a report for you and your business which allows you to take better control of your business. Perfect for small start-ups, Wesabe also offers the ability to seek financial advice from fellow business owners, and talk money with people who understand the problems and risks involved in running a small business – perhaps worth signing up if only for the community involved.

6. Google Calendar

With so many people using Google for everything from email to blogging and photo sharing to document writing, it’s often easiest to use what people are already familiar with and stick to the free applications that integrate well with similar other free services. Google Calendar enables different calendars for different people, or even different clients, so that all of your employees, wherever they are, know who is meant to be doing what and when. This app makes it easy to keep on top of it all, assigning them task and changing the schedule, virtually.

7. Remember the Milk

A virtual office deserves virtual to do lists, or at least it makes sense to do use them. Rather than writing reams of to do lists for all of your projects, clients and workers, use Remember the Milk to do everything. The most integrated of all to do list clients, Remember the Milk can be shared with your contacts, placed onto a map, organized in every way you need, whilst maintaining the simplicity to get your work done, and your to do list clear.

8. LinkedIn

Virtual businesses need virtual business cards. LinkedIn is the place where you can advertise yourself, and you business, to people all around the world. Set up a profile and reaquaint yourself with old colleges, get recommendations from current workers and get introduced to a network of contacts in your field, all of whom you can allow to see your background, your expertise, and your company. Who needs a business card when you be linked to all these people digitally, automatically?

9. EyeOS

Eye OS, Eye Operating System, is a web-based operating system that allows you to create a virtual desktop that can be used wherever you are working. Like your Windows or Mac desktop, you can ensure that you always have your applications and your files with you wherever you are. Virtual business needs virtual space: EyeOS may provide just what you’re looking for.

10. Kayak

Even virtual businessmen need to travel, and since you probably aren’t spending someone else’s money, when you need to connect in the real world you’ll want to find the cheapest, fastest and most efficient way of getting there. Kayak does a lot of the hard work for you, finding cheap flights from over 140+ sites at once. With a clean interface and all the extras you need including hotels and car rentals. Kayak is the way to get where you need to go.

11. Sales Force

For Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solutions, Sales Force is the market leader in providing marketing, sales and service, professionally running your business operations and ensuring business growth. Everything your business needs can be managed and outsourced to Sales Force.

12. Harvest

When working for clients, you want them to recognize how swiftly, or how comprehensively you’ve undertaken the work they’ve asked you to do, and how much you deserve a continued relationship. Harvest allows businesses to track time, log any expenses that you and your business incurs, and then allows you to invoice clients with a breakdown of exactly how the workflow proceeded. With nothing to install, all of your colleagues, virtual or sat next to you can use the interface. With smart desktop widgets and a strong emphasis on customer service, Harvest is a robust and simple way to conduct and manage business relationships.

My Favorite Blogging Productivity Tip

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One thing many business bloggers don’t realize at first is the amount of time blogging can take. While blogging has many great benefits for businesses, it still takes time and hard work to get a blog of the ground. Fortunately, there are some tricks you can do to be more productive with your blogging. The most effective tip I’ve found is writing multiple posts in one sitting. I got this from Ahmed Bilal, who’s had success blogging in the soccer industry.

My last three posts were published on January 11, 13, and 15. I actually wrote those posts on January 10. I would’ve written one or two more posts that day but I had a couple NFL football games to watch. It took me four hours to write all three posts. This saved me two hours because it usually takes me about two hours to write a post if I write them one at a time on different days.

Why was I able to be more productive?

Answer: the momentum factor.

Ahmed writes:

…once your writing juices get flowing, it’s easier for you to write that second and third article…

Let’s face it. It can take some time to get into the writing mood. Or to put in another way, it takes time to break through writer’s block and “get into the flow”. But once you’ve reached that point, the words flow more easily and you write more efficiently.

The trick is leveraging this flow of inspiration by continuing to write that second, third, or even fourth post.

I like what John C. Maxwell says:

The whole idea of motivation is a trap. Forget motivation. Just do it. Exercise, lose weight, test your blood sugar, or whatever. Do it without motivation. And then, guess what? After you start doing the thing, that’s when the motivation comes and makes it easy for you to keep on doing it.

We often don’t have the motivation to write blog posts. However, motivation seems to build as we gain momentum in the writing process. Why not leverage that motivation and write as many blog posts as you can while you’re motivated?

Don’t quit too early. Don’t quit while you’re in the flow. Keep writing.