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Business Blogging Fundamentals – Part 2 – Key Considerations for a Successful Blog

July 14, 2010 By Roohi Moolla 3 Comments
bloggingIn Part 1 of this series, we looked at some of the reasons you should be blogging – and why a blog is an essential component of a website.

Here in Part 2, we look at some of the tools you need to implement in your blog to attract, retain and keep an audience returning to your blog.
There are a lot of issues to consider for your blog, starting with some of the most fundamental questions about your blog’s ranking, posts and readability to more complex questions about metrics, strategy and technical tools to enhance your blog for maximum effectiveness.
Here are the top 6 considerations for a business blog:
  1. Your Blog – Do you have a blog? How does it ranks on Technorati? Do you post regularly? Do you have a blogging strategy? Do you read/comment on other blogs?
  2. On-page SEO – Check metadata, keywords, images, readability
  3. Off-page SEO – Look at domain info, page rank, indexed pages, traffic rank, inbound links, directory listings
  4. Social Mediasphere – Connect with social networking sites including Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook, del.icio.us bookmarks and Digg submissions
  5. Converting Qualified Visitors – Do you have an RSS feed, email signup and conversion forms on your Blog/Website?
  6. Competitive Intelligence – How do you track your rank and compare your score over time and against your competitors?

And here’s a summary of the top 3 Keys to a successful Blog:

  1. Reading – make sure you stay up-to-date with other blogs and information in your industry
    1. Use RSS Reader (www.google.com/reader)
    2. Research blogs
    3. Subscribe to other blogs
    4. Read, read, read…
  2. Writing
    1. Use your own URL (e.g. www.yourblog.com, NOT http://yourblog.wordpress.com )
    2. Allow RSS subscriptions
    3. Allow RSS emails
    4. Integrate automatically with Social Media tools
    5. Allow email subscribers to your blog
    6. Create an editorial calendar – pick a schedule that works for you – daily, weekly, monthly
    7. Consider your content and your target audience and make sure that each fits the other
  3. Commenting
    1. Increase the value of the conversation
    2. Share examples
    3. Add a point
    4. Disagree
    5. Add a resource or useful link
    6. Ask a question
    7. Use your real name

Remember, blogging is about your expertise, your knowledge, your industry, your side of the conversation – and what you bring to the table that’s interesting and of value to your audience.

Filed Under: Blogging, Business, Marketing, Social Media Tagged With: , , ,

Education and Social Media – A lesson from Domino’s Pizza

July 8, 2010 By Roohi Moolla Leave a Comment

There’s a lesson to be learned by Education from the story about Domino’s Pizza and YouTube – employees of Domino’s Pizza made a video of themselves doing pretty disgusting things and then posted the video to YouTube…a company’s worst nightmare? Absolutely.

Check out the full article on Neighborhoodnow…

Filed Under: Business, Social Media, Technology Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Business Blogging Fundamentals – a 4-part Series

July 8, 2010 By Roohi Moolla 4 Comments

Business Blogging Fundamentals – Part 1

This is the first in a 4-part series on Business Blogging. If you haven’t heard yet, blogging is absolutely fundamental to creating a strong online presence, and a key component of your website and social media strategy. This series will explain the essentials of blogging, how to get started and what you should do to have an effective blogging strategy.

Why Blog?

Can you hear me?Social Media is simply a conversation – a way to create a communication between the content provider and the end reader to create a mutually benefit relationship through the exchange of information. Blogging is a tool that provides you with the opportunity to start that conversation with those who are interested in what you have to say. By providing consistent value through high-quality content over time through your blog, you can build an audience and a community around your blog.

Your business blog should reflect your mission, your values, your business personality, your information and your message.

Yellow Flower HoneyBeeBlogging is an important component of your website for a number of reasons:

  1. Blogging is Inbound Marketing – it attracts an audience by being a flower (think of the bees you want to attract with honey) rather than a hammer (think of the nail…)
  2. Blogging is extremely Search Engine-friendly (SEO) – search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo love blogs because they’re dynamic, keyword-rich, content-rich and link-rich
  3. Blogging helps with social networks – blogs can be connected to multiple other social media tools, applications, networks and websites
  4. Blogging helps with social news sites – blogs can be connected, distributed and read through RSS feeders and readers
  5. Blogging is permission-centric – based on the concept that only those who are interested in the content will read your blog, giving you ‘permission’ to have your voice heard

In Part 2 of this series, we’ll take a look at some of the specific blogging tools and features you need to consider that will make your site effective in conveying your message to your audience.

Filed Under: Blogging, Business, Social Media, Technology Tagged With: , , , , ,

The SEC loves Social Media…

May 28, 2010 By Roohi Moolla 1 Comment

SEC LogoIf you still think that Social Media is hype, a fad, on the fringe and has little value, take a look at the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) and what they’re doing in Social Media.  Emily Molitor interviewed Mark Story, the Director of New Media at the SEC and wrote a great piece on how the SEC made the decision to embrace Twitter and Blogs in a major effort to reach investors, the media and job-seekers.

Since President Obama issued the Open Government Initiative as part of an effort to “… harness new technologies to put information about their operations and decisions online and readily available to the public.”, it’s become much easier for federal agencies to be engaged in social media.

And with a following on Twitter of over 46,000, the SEC is doing an incredible job of reaching people where they already are – the socialsphere. Read the full article here on SmartBrief…

Filed Under: Blogging, Social Media, Technology, Twitter Tagged With: , , , ,

Connections…

May 25, 2010 By Roohi Moolla Leave a Comment

SocialBizFor those of you who attended the SocialBiz 2010 conference in April, a huge thank-you for making the event such a success. What some of you may not know is that from start to finish, we produced the entire conference in a space of 63 days – from the moment the idea came to mind in late February to the day of the event.

This would have been unheard of in the past. To put on a conference of this magnitude, with speakers and presenters from all over the country, and to bring in close to 200 attendees from all the entire San Francisco Bay area was somewhat ambitious, apparently. As a first-time conference producer, little did I know that this was not the norm. But we had an advantage – with technology. The idea for the conference came to me on a Thursday, and by utilizing WordPress (and some sweat), the majority of the website was up by the end of the weekend. Within days, we were heavily using Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to publicize the event and reach out for speakers and presenters. Within a few days, we had a tremendous response and were selling tickets using an online ticketing system, Eventbrite.

In the following weeks, we continued to heavily use Social Media to promote and market the conference, as did our speakers, presenters,  and many of our potential attendees. It was amazing to see the word spread across the blogsphere and socialsphere.

This conference would never have been possible in such a remarkably short space of time  without the people involved and their use of social media.

So in the end,  it was ultimately the people who were willing to reach out and make a connection, through the use of technology, that made this event such a success. And that’s what it was really all about – bringing people together, to exchange information and knowledge, share ideas, have conversations and make connections.

To all of you who took a leap of faith to participate, share and learn – we thank you.

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,