Blogging For Business Gets You Eyeballs

"The difference between the impossible and the possible lies in a man's determination." ~ Tommy Lasorda

Blogging has become a commonplace web activity. Whether you write them or read them, everybody knows what a blog is about. What many people don't realize is that a business blog can gain you eyeballs -- i.e. customers.-- in more ways than one. When I first mention writing a blog many business owners groan and immediately protest the amount of time required. But the investment of time in a blog can pay of more than you know.

How can a blog help my business?

• Gains you SEO (search engine optimization) links to your website
• Share your expertise so customers get to know you
• Establishes your expertise so the search engines find you
  
• Helps your customers which creates a "feel good" connection
• Offers an opportunity to bring in guest posts and strengthen offline connections
• Creates an opportunity to exchange a dialogue with your customers
• Provides a vehicle for consistency in your business message
• Can be a time-saving way of sharing information with a lot of customers
  

Learn from the Experts

There are many six-figure bloggers out there who have implemented simple steps to achieve their success. Creating success from a blog is not rocket science, it just requires persistence and follow through. The recently launched e-book Beyond-Blogging interviews 15 six-figure bloggers, revealing the steps they took to reach their blogging success. Several of them don't make any money from their blogs, but instead use their blog as a vehicle for bringing in new clients and building a 7-figure business.

How do I start a blog?

1. Choose a subject for your blog. It's important find a niche and focus on that niche in order to establish your expertise.
2. Determine who will write your blog. You must look within your organize and create a team of individuals who will contribute to your blog content. Give everybody who desires the opportunity to contribute, and you will create a robust resource for content.
3. Come up with your blogging schedule. How often you blog should be consistent. Users should know when to expect new posts. Create a calendar that is realistic for your schedule. You should blog a minimum of 1 time per week, but 5 times per week is optimum.
4. Choose a blogging tool. There are many tools out there. The articleHow Do I Set Up a Blog? might help you determine which tool is right for you.
5. Implement your plan, and be consistent. It is very important to follow through on your blogging plan. If you announce your blog, do a few posts, then give up, that will make an impression on your customers. You can write your posts ahead of time in order to stay on schedule, but be certain to block out a portion of your calendar to blog implementation.
6. Utilize social media to publicize your blog. Social media is the optimum outlet to gain readers for your blog. Along with your blog, you should create a social media plan to help promote your blog posts.
   

Interested in creating a blog? Bonnie Landau offers a coaching for creating, developing and marketing a successful blog. Contact Possibilities Unlimited to find out how you can use a blog to build your business.

Are you ready to win?

Get on the Social Media Diet!

"The most important key to achieving great success is to decide upon your goal and launch, get started, take action, move." ~ John Wooden

I'm sure you've heard about social media. It seems to be the general buzz of life these days. But when you think about jumping on this band wagon, you hear yourself saying, "It's too hard" or "It's going to suck me into a time vacuum". If these are the messages rumbling around in your mind, the Social Media Diet is for you! This is the perfect solution to gaining the benefits of extending your networking without draining the precious time that we all need more of.

This diet consists of ample portions of social media engagement, while making certain you do not overextend your commitment. You get to choose your menu plan, and you get to decide where to allocate your minutes. And the best news of all, you GAIN a social media network! Here’s how it works:

1) Time allocation (it’s okay if it’s 5 days a week, but 7 will bring greater results):

• Choose 3 times a day that you will set aside for social media.
• There should be one 20-minute interval, and two 5-minute intervals.
• Put these times into your calendar so you do not schedule over them.

2) Choose your main course
Choose 1 means of social media you wish to engage in the most. This is where the bulk of your 20-minute time span will be spent. Some ideas for your main course might be:

• Perhaps you are already reading blogs, so choose commenting on blogs.
• Maybe you’re a wannabe Twitter fan, so make a decision to grow your following and promote your brand.
  
• Perhaps you want a Facebook company page, plan to get it going.
• Perhaps you write a blog and want to get the word out, focus on blog distribution.
• Maybe you want to connect with other business owners, so answer questions on LinkedIn forums
• Perhaps you have a special interest you would like to exchange ideas about, start putting posts into online message boards.
• Maybe you have a lot of original content so you pursue the creation of a Hubpage or Squidoo lense.
  

3) Choose your side dishes
Choose 3 other media outlets which you will utilize and tie into your main course. These should not be time-intensive endeavors. They may be:

• Use Twitter to post at least 5 tweets - re-tweet other tweets and promote blogs you read
• Add daily LinkedIn updates and send 1 link invite per day.
• Add a Facebook comments or write a personal message to a Facebook friend
  
• Add Digg or Stumbleupon plugs and comment on the articles you plug.
• Add at least 1 comment to 2 different blogs you like.
  
• Putting at least 1 post onto an online message board
• Connect with more people on any of the above

4) Get your dessert
Go get some cookies or fruit to munch on while you implement step 5.

5) Move into action
Spend 15 of your 20-minute session engaged in your main course. Spend the other 5 minutes implementing one of your main dishes. Spend each of the other 5 minutes per day implementing your other 2 main dishes. When you get comfortable implementing your main dishes quickly, then spend a couple minutes doing each one during the 5-minute sessions. You connect with more people if you distribute your efforts throughout the day, especially with Twitter.

6) Switch it up each month
Nobody likes to do the same thing for too long, and social media is about making a far-reaching impact. For month two, rearrange your diet. Choose a different main course so you can focus on growing in a different area. Turn your month-one main course into a side dish (since you’re so good at it you can do it quickly by now) and choose two other main courses to focus on. Repeat with each subsequent month.

7) Tips for guaranteed success
Always keep in mind that with social media it’s about quality, not quantity. Be purposeful and honest in your program, and you will see the results your desire. Don’t rush through and contribute in a panicked fashion, this will show and people will stop reading. It’s better to have 1 great tweet that gets re-tweeted than 10 nobody reads. Social media is about building a relationships, and this takes time and sincerity. Be patient, and your efforts will pay off!

Are you ready to win?

Building Your Online Business Network

"One man can be a crucial ingredient on a team, but one man cannot make a team."
- Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, NBA Center

It seems with all the hype around social media, once you hop on the bandwagon your online network will just build itself. Unfortunately it's not that simple. Unless you're the one who posted the latest video of Susan Boyle, or you have the only key to some long-needed remedy, it's unlikely you'll have content that will spread virally (on its own).

What does this mean? To build a solid online network, you need to put in the time in effort just like you would offline. The main difference is that online you can use your content as a means of getting the word out, and hopefully it will do some of the work for you.

How to Spread the Word
Anybody would get overwhelmed reading the incredible variety of ways you can share your information online. Here is a simple program, if followed consistently, that will see a natural growth in your online attention:

1) Write a blog or online articles. Generating content gives you some fuel to spread the word. If you have a site that has been the same forever, time to start adding fresh information. This content will be a tool for getting notices.

2) Sign up for Twitter. It's not hard, and at first just watch. Use searches to find people of interest in your domain, and begin to interact with them. Thank them for their tweets, answer their questions, offer information to them. In the beginning, self promote only once in a while. As you become established, you can self-promote more. Every time you do a blog post, share it here. If you launch a product, have a great sales day, or anything that promotes your company, share it here. If you read another blog of interest to your customers, share it here. Let it be casual and fun, but mostly have it be a give and take exchange.

3) Sign up for Digg.com and StumbleUpon. Add your blog or articles and comment on other blog and articles.

4) Share your content with people you know. It's simple to send out an email when you have a new blog post. Tell people about it when you talk. You must promote your content.

5) Comment on other blogs. Use a reader to track these blogs and comment on them regularly so you become known by them. Choose 3-5 that you will read daily. Choose ones that are of interest to you, and you want to be noticed by the owner or other comment authors. Better yet, write a blog post that refers back to a blog you like, and let the author know you have linked back to him/her.

6) Join one online community. Choose one that is of genuine interest to you. Make sure to post at least once daily. Set up your signature so it always links back to your site and blog.

7) Choose 1-2 successful social networkers, follow them and learn from what they do.

Creating a network online is just like in person. You need to give in order to receive. Let people get to know you. Don't just sell, sell, sell. Give away tidbits for free, help people out when they ask for it. By creating online relationships, those people will then promote you.

How much time does this take?
Social media could be the black hole of time consumption. It's best to set aside a specific amount of time each day to do social media. An effective schedule that should allow you to get all of the above done might be:

• 20 minutes in the morning to read blogs, write blog, post on Twitter, make comments on sites
  
• 5 minutes mid-afternoon to post on Twitter and make comments on sites
• 5 minutes end of day to post on Twitter and make comments on sites

That's a half an hour a day of time invested. And if you use a mobile device, that time doesn't even have to be at your desk. It's worth the effort because when you finally have that big idea and want to launch it, you will have an established network that will spread the word for you.

Are you ready to win?