Archive for the ‘Business Blogging’ Category
19 New Featured Sources on the B2B Marketing Zone
Monday, July 26th, 2010The B2B Marketing Zone has really taken off over the past few months with the recent addition of numerous great bloggers. For those not familiar with it, the B2B Marketing Zone (a.k.a. the BMZ) was officially launched a year ago as the first content aggregation hub for leading business-to-business bloggers. It provides b2b marketers, trade industry journalists, analysts and other subscribers with a single subscription point for all of the best thought leadership content in b2b marketing and PR. I thought I would take advantage of the power of the system to let you know about these new sources, what topics they tend to write about and some of their recent top posts.
SazBean (Social Network Analytics Measurement Social Media)
Sarah Worsham (@sazbean)
- Add WordStream’s Advanced Keyword Tools to Your Website for free, June 8, 2010
- Pricing Based on Customer Expectations, May 26, 2010
- Should You Use Foursquare for Your Business?, June 7, 2010
CK’s B2B Blog (SMS Mobile Marketing Mix Audience)
Christina “CK” Kerley (@CKsays)
- Great B2B Marketing Stats (in a GREAT format!), June 13, 2010
- B2Bs, The Purchasing Patterns of Your Buyers Are Dramatically Changing. Unless You No Longer Want Their Money, This Means That YOU Must Change, Too., March 18, 2010
- B2B, Buzz & Brand ROI: Creating Customers That Create (MORE!) Customers., June 8, 2010
- B2B Social Media: Why Do Business Professionals Use Social Media? (Slideshow), February 19, 2010
Writing on the Web (Ning Advertorial Business Blogging Online Marketing Linkedin Landing Page)
Patsi Krakoff (@Patsiblogsquad)
- Content Marketing Results: Landing Pages Rule, July 12, 2010
- 9 Ways to Use LinkedIn for Smart Professionals, June 10, 2010
- How to Convert Readers into Clients on Your Blog, May 26, 2010
- Why Use Twitter, Facebook & LinkedIn for Content Marketing?, June 8, 2010
B2B Voices (Trade Youtube Twitter Leads Sales)
Aaron Pearson (@apearson) + others
- What B2B communicators can learn from the 2010 World Cup, June 14, 2010
- Looking for the Method Behind Your Competitors’ Madness, April 5, 2010
- Why Digital Media Outreach Shouldn’t Be Ignored, April 28, 2010
- Measuring Outcomes in B2B Social Media – It’s Time to Start, May 9, 2010
Follow the Lead (Gatekeeper Cold Calling Sales Social)
Matthew Schwartz (@mpsjourno)
- The Sweet Spot: We’re all ‘smarketers’ now, July 8, 2010
- When social media ‘will be like air’, May 25, 2010
Marketing Finger (Resources Studies Social Media Consulting)
Andrew Spoeth (@andrewspoeth)
- Social Media Statistics for B2B Marketers, June 21, 2010
- Seth Godin Talks of the Lizard Brain, March 3, 2010
Dianna Huff – B2B Marcom (Small Business Newsletter Email Campaign Facebook SEO Budget Writing)
Dianna Huff (@diannahuff)
- 7 Tips for Getting People to Your B2B Blog, June 4, 2010
- Your Website is Worth More than a Cup of Coffee, May 5, 2010
- 7 Old Fashioned Marketing Tips that Set You Apart, June 14, 2010
Biznology (Search Engine Public Relations Social Media Mobile Marketing Promotion Transparency)
Mike Moran (@MikeMoran) + others
- What’s a Facebook fan worth?, June 30, 2010
- T-Mobile Curates Web Content, June 29, 2010
- Self-promotion, Internet style, June 10, 2010
What Works (Vendor Government PR Trends Spending Release)
Bob Scheier (@BobScheier)
- What B2B Readers Want, Circa 2010, February 2, 2010
- Time to Kill the Press Release?, July 8, 2010
- Skill Set For Content Marketing: Number Crunching and A Gut Feel, March 4, 2010
CeeKue (Promotion Word of Mouth B2C CRM Google Content Tips)
Hans de Groot (@Ceekue)
- Facebook For CRM, Monday, July 19, 2010
- The End Of Google Search Is Near, Wednesday, July 7, 2010
B2B Internet Marketing Strategies (Amazon Viral Marketing Plan Aggregator Pricing Examples Strategy Personalization Measure Ads)
Chas Cooper (@Chas_Cooper)
- Google’s Next Big Thing, April 24, 2010
- Debunking the Viral Coefficient, May 15, 2010
B2B Memes (Advertorial Ethics Publisher Magazine Intent Advertising Media Article)
John Bethune (@johnbethune)
- We’ve Got Algorithms. Who Needs Editors?, Thursday, July 1, 2010
- Content’s Evil Twin: Advertorial, Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Mi6Agency Marketing (Emarketing CMO Demographics Case Study Audience Twitter Aging)
Chris Herbert (@B2Bspecialist)
- The Mi6 Chart Toppers, May 2010, Friday, June 18, 2010
- Are You and Your Customers Hungry for Social Media?, Wednesday, June 9, 2010
- What was Linkedin Thinking?, Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Paul Gillin (Event Marketing Communities Forecast Loyalty Custom Publishing Direct Marketing Event)
Paul Gillen (@pgillin)
- How to Calculate Social Marketing ROI, June 24, 2010
- B2B Blogging Excellence, May 25, 2010
- The Power of B2B Communities, May 27, 2010
Earnest on B2B (Cross-Sell Acquisition Target Campaign Differentiation Statistics Experience)
James Wood (@earnestagency) + others
- Vital statistics for every B2B marketer, March 16, 2010
- Vital Statistics for B2B Marketers – the video, June 10, 2010
Reputation to Revenue (Youtube Broadcast Course Organic Differentiation Media Promotion White Paper Trust)
Rob Leavitt (@robleavitt)
- The lure of cheap content in B2B marketing, April 26, 2010
- Social media and thought leadership: The virtuous circle for B2B marketing, March 11, 2010
- The hard questions about social media for B2B solutions providers, June 11, 2009
- Blog as hub, site as spoke, June 23, 2009
Inbound Marketing Automation Blog (Inbound Marketing Marketing Automation Efficiency Measurement Sales Process)
Axel Kuhn and Eric Goldman (@gossamar)
- The Process of Inbound Marketing Automation, Wednesday, July 14, 2010
- B2B Sales Lead Generation using SMM, Monday, July 19, 2010
Selling to Big Companies (Sales Amazon Books Leads B2B Training Prospect)
Jill Konrath (@jillkonrath)
- Are You Thinking About Being More Helpful to Your Frazzled Prospects?, June 24, 2010
- Why Asking About Your Prospect’s Budget Can be Bad for Business, April 9, 2010
- Hey Small Biz Readers: This One’s For You!, April 30, 2010
Sales Leads Dynamics (Cold Calling Consulting Network Effectiveness Contact Lead)
Peter Helmer
- To get a referral from you do I have to paint a picture? Yup., Thursday, April 29, 2010
- Hate Cold Calling? You May Not Have a Choice., Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Ad Your Comment Here (Barriers User-Generated Ads Article Outreach Product Channel Relationship)
Kate Brodock and Anya Woods (@Othersidegroup)
- How Much do you have to use Facebook and Twitter to Really be Effective?, May 26, 2010
- 5 Ways to Attract People to Your Content Before They Even Click, Thursday, April 15, 2010
Of course, this got me to wondering what the system thought were my top posts and top topics. Here are my top 10 posts and topics:
- Best Social Media Stats and Market Research of 2009, March 31, 2010
- (Almost) 100 (of the) Best Social Media Marketing Blog Posts and Articles of 2009, February 1, 2010
- 11 Myths of Social Media Marketing, May 24, 2010
- How to Launch a Successful Blog in 12 Weeks: Lessons from Webbiquity, May 4, 2010
- Five Big Shifts in Social Media Marketing, April 19, 2010
- 6 Ways To Spread Thought Leadership Content (Without Blogging), February 3, 2010
- How to Find Killer Topics for Blog Posts, April 12, 2010
- How to Get Coverage in Blogs – Really, March 22, 2010
- Social Media is Simpler Than You Think, March 29, 2010
- 7 Reasons Every Business Needs to be on Twitter, February 10, 2010
Topics
- SEM & SEO & PPC & CTR
- SWOT
- Business Blogging
- Buzz
- Adwords
- Optimization
- Statistics
- Microsite
- ROI
As always, I would highly recommend subscribing to the B2B Marketing Zone to keep a steady flow of information from the more than 60 top sources we have participating in the site, and would love your feedback!
Business Blogging – Do You Have What It Takes?
Wednesday, June 30th, 2010Though blogging provides significant business benefits (e.g. increasing a firm’s credibility and visibility in search), developing a blog isn’t the right move for every organization. The web is littered with abandoned blogs; according to Technorati, only 7.4 million out of the 133 million blogs it tracks have been updated in the past four months, and just 50,000 to 100,000 blogs generate most of the page views. To illustrate these figures visually:
That’s a lot of writers trying to join a very small club. How do you get there? To make a blog really worthwhile—to join that elite 0.08% of successful blogs—requires (at least) the following six characteristics.
Curiosity. Successful business bloggers are interested in and knowledgeable about much more than just their own products and/or services. They study the bigger picture, keep up on trends, understand their customers’ issues and enjoy learning and sharing industry knowledge.
Passion. This is what makes a blog not just informative, but interesting. It brings life to the writing. It’s also a prerequisite for the persistence needed to keep writing, and making it interesting, long enough for the blog to really start getting traction and succeeding.
Organized thought. Whether you are sharing information primarily through writing, audio (podcasting) or video blogging, it all starts with the ability to tell a story, weave a narrative, or present an idea in an organized and coherent fashion.
Social skills. What separates blogs from other forms of writing (white papers, articles, e-books, etc.) is the interactivity–blogs are meant to be conversations, not monologues. Good bloggers are social creatures; they link to other bloggers, write copy that attracts links, leave relevant comments on other blogs, respond to comments on their own blogs, and interact with other bloggers through other social media such as LinkedIn and Twitter. The result is that other blogs and social networking sites become productive sources of blog traffic, as well as being helpful for search.
Patience. Even if you use best practices for a successful blog launch, building traffic still takes time. Why? The three primary sources of traffic to any website are direct visits, referrals (links) from other websites, and search. When a blog is new to the world, it doesn’t have high awareness to draw a lot of direct traffic, high credibility to attract links, or loads of content for search engines to index. It takes time to build that. Many bloggers fail at this point because they get discouraged and abandon their blogs. Many others succeed simply by being too stubborn to quit.
Commitment. To be successful, a blog must be continually updated and constantly promoted. This isn’t a “toe in the water” exercise (unless your plan is to join the 94.4% of abandoned blogs that unattractively litter the online landscape). Blogging is wasted effort unless you are willing to put in the time, even (especially) in the early ramp-up days when traffic seems disappointingly low, even when a post falls flat with readers, even when you expect tons of comments and get only a few (or none).
Blogging isn’t for everyone. But for those with passion, curiosity and determination, they can pay off by showcasing your company’s expertise, building its brand image and enhancing its search visibility in ways no ordinary corporate website can.
Corporate Websites vs. Blogs – Similar Goals, but Very Different Tools
Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010While most businesses today have websites, the majority still don’t have blogs. While blogging isn’t right for every business, it does offer compelling benefits. Though the ultimate objective of either a website or blog is ultimately to drive increased sales, the two platforms have fundamentally distinct characteristics. Here are six key differences between business blogs and websites.
Website: static content
Blog: frequently updated content
Other than a few select areas (e.g., company news, upcoming events, prices), depending on the type of business, most of the content on your website stays pretty much the same for a long time. You don’t update your product features every day, the descriptions of your services stay pretty much the same, your hours of operation don’t change, your address doesn’t change unless you move the business (an infrequent event for most enterprises), and your “about the company” is only revised when major developments occur. Blogs, on the other hand, are updated frequently – generally one or more times weekly – with fresh content. The search engines have always favored fresh content, particularly Google with its latest Caffeine release. Certainly standard websites can rank well in search, but a blog provides an extra SEO kick and is more powerful at driving repeat visits.
Website: formal / professional tone
Blog: informal / conversational tone
For a variety of reasons, web copy generally reads more like official corporate communications, while blog copy seems more like someone just telling what he or she really thinks. One reason is the editing and review process; web copy often gets written, then reviewed by subject matter experts, then reviewed by management, then reviewed by upper management, then reviewed by legal, then proofread, then glanced over and fine-tuned once more before publishing. Each blog post, on the other hand, is usually written by one person on a tight deadline.
Website: broadcast
Blog: dialog
Website content is one-way, one-to-many communication. It’s like speaking with a microphone. Thanks to commenting, a blog is (at least potentially) more of a two-way conversation, like using a telephone. On your website, visitors are information consumers. On a blog, they can also be contributors.
Website: transactional
Blog: educational
Company websites are generally designed to get visitors to take some specific type of action: buy a product, download a white paper, call or email for more information, sign up for a newsletter, visit an establishment, do something usually designed to lead either directly or indirectly to a sale. Though blogs may also have calls to action, these tend to be more subtle. From a business standpoint, a blog is more like PR than marketing or sales; it’s purpose is generally to build credibility, enhance a firm’s brand and image, and establish a position of thought leadership and expertise.
Website: products and services
Blog: industry and customer issues
In terms of topics, a website is usually inward-looking; it provides information about a company, it’s products, services, unique value proposition, pricing, hours of operation, location, sales channel, partnerships and other information. A blog is more outward-facing. Posts deal with industry trends, observations, insights, and with issues important to customers. Such issues normally have some relationship to the company’s products and services of course, but the purpose isn’t specifically to market those offerings as much as to demonstrate knowledge of the industry and how to resolve dilemmas that clients and prospects may be facing.
Website: (almost) mandatory
Blog: not for everyone
Finally, websites have become essential for most businesses. Whether the question is about where to order pizza for dinner tonight or which enterprise software system to install – or almost anything in between – most people start by searching online. Few businesses can thrive without at least a basic website, and web-generated sales or leads are critical for many firms. Blogs on the other hand aren’t right, or necessary, for every business. But where they do fit, they provide opportunities for search, communications and brand-building that go well beyond standard company websites.
Five Benefits of Blogging for Business
Monday, June 21st, 2010Blogging provides business executives and marketers with opportunities beyond and distinct from a typical company website. Because they are less formal, more interactive, and focused on industry issues—as opposed to just the company’s offerings—they provide a forum that is viewed much differently by readers than a vendor website. Blogs are seen as key sources of information rather than just promotion. Blogs are also core to a successful social media marketing strategy.
Here are five key benefits of blogging for businesses.
Establish expertise and credibility. Winning the business, particularly in the b2b world, is usually about doing the best job of solving the customer’s problem. Your website is about your product or service, and the benefits it provides to buyers. Your blog is about something related but much larger: your expertise. If your offering is unique, your blog provides a platform for demonstrating your industry understanding and insights that led to your approach. Even more importantly, if your product or service is difficult to differentiate, a blog gives you a way to create differentiation via your knowledge. Expertise is a powerful differentiator; in commoditized markets, it may even be your only effective one.
Become a resource. Following from the first benefit, establishing a position of expertise makes you a resource for industry influencers such as the media and other bloggers. You’re no longer just a source of information about your specific product / service / company, but also about bigger industry issues, trends and developments. This leads to coverage and quotes in a broader array of media, further enhancing the reputation of your blog and the image of your company as an industry leader.
Create a dialogue. Websites are one-way communication, a broadcast medium. I write about my stuff, you read it. Blogs in contrast are interactive: I take a position on an industry issue, you leave a comment, I respond, another reader chimes in with a follow-on comment, etc. Each post can potentially become a conversation, not just a monologue. That creates reader engagement, a deeper level of relationship than just passive information consumption.
Develop new relationships. Becoming an industry expert and resource, and creating dialogs, enables you to establish relationships with prospective customers, potential partners and other industry influencers that likely wouldn’t have happened otherwise. A blog lets you attract readers with your knowledge, interests, opinions and observations in a way your website can’t, expanding your circle of influence and business relationships.
Search engine visibility. Blogs are very powerful in terms of SEO for four reasons:
- • Thought leadership: due to the difference in the nature of blog content versus vendor websites (thought leadership vs. promotional), search engines often give more authority to blogs.
- • Blog-specific directories: while blogs are eligible for most of the same types of links as standard websites (e.g. directories, social bookmarketing sites, news sites, articles), blogs also have their own unique link opportunities through blog-specific directories and RSS feed syndication sites.
- • Recency: blog content is typically updated much more frequently than commercial website content, providing an advantage in increasingly real-time search results.
- • Link bait: again due to the informational rather than promotion nature of the content, blog posts are more likely to draw natural links (e.g. from news stories, articles and other blogs) than website content.
A blog isn’t right for every company (more about that idea in an upcoming post), but where feasible, they provide a powerful complement to standard websites with unique strengths for building a brand’s online presence and impact.
In Minnesota? Don’t miss the SCORE Social Media and Internet Marketing Boot Camp, Thursday, June 24 in Bloomington.
How to Launch a Successful Blog in 12 Weeks: Lessons from Webbiquity
Tuesday, May 4th, 2010One of the primary reasons most blogs are abandoned is that it takes time to build an audience. It’s demotivating to spend hour upon hour crafting sparkling prose that reveals your most profound industry insights and most valuable guidance, only to see that after weeks of effort, your blog is attracting only a handful of readers per day. How can you avoid that fate and build an audience more quickly?
It can be done. the graph below compares the last three months of traffic on the WebMarketCentral blog, which after four and a half years had built up a sizable and consistent following, to the first three months after launch of the Webbiquity blog. As the graph shows, it took just 12 weeks for traffic to Webbiquity to surpass the traffic level of a far more established blog.
Blog Traffic After Launch - Webbiquity vs. WMC
Granted, in the case of Webbiquity, it helped to have an established blog to link from. But even absent that advantage, traffic to a new blog can be ramped up quickly using the following 12 techniques.
1. Build links to your blog from every possible source. Link to the new blog from your website, Facebook page, LinkedIn and Twitter profiles, other social networking and social bookmarking profiles, comments you leave on other blogs—anywhere you can create a link. Add your blog name and link to company email signatures and include it in your corporate newsletter or marketing emails as well.
2. Publicize the blog through offline channels. Include the URL on business cards, brochures, your corporate PowerPoint template, trade show booth signage, etc.
3. Use Twitter. Twitter is the fourth-highest source of traffic to Webbiquity, just behind Google. Of course it helps to have a sizable Twitter following, but the quality of your followers is much more important than the quantity. A few influential followers (with significant followings of their own) who will retweet your blog post links are far more valuable than a boatload of spammy followers who probably never visit your blog in the first place. Blogging and Twittering work together synergystically; writing quality blog content, then tweeting about it, can help increase both your relevant Twitter following and blog readership.
4. SEO the blog. Write compelling, relevant (i.e., don’t try to be too clever) headlines. Include post tags and properly categorize each post. Use keyword-rich post URLS, not meaningless page names like “id=98″. In WordPress, you can set this in Settings…Permalinks. Finally, include relevant page titles, a compelling description, and keywords with each post. For WordPress blogs, two of the best SEO plugins are All In One SEO Pack and Platinum SEO.
5. Promote your blog posts to your relevant LinkedIn groups. If you haven’t already done so, find and join LinkedIn groups relevant to your industry, groups that key influencers, potential business partners, and most importantly your sales prospects are likely to be members of. Link to your posts as either discussion items (for posts that ask questions, solicit reader feedback, or address controversial industry issues) or news items (for posts that are more straight reporting of research or how-to type content.)
6. Create “linkable” content. Links can generate direct visits and they are critical for SEO. The best way to obtain links is to attract them naturally, by writing link-worthy content. A variety of content can qualify, including posts that report new information, explain how to solve a problem, take a controversial stand, or make people laugh. A SWOT analysis is one helpful tool to develop killer topics for blog posts.
7. Write guest posts for popular blogs. A great way to reach a new audience, spread your company’s fame and promote your own blog is to write an attention-getting piece for an established industry blog. It helps (greatly) if you already have a relationship with the blogger, but even if you don’t, most bloggers are far more open to offers of a guest post than they are to PR pitches. Politely contact the blog owner, offer to write a guest post on a pertinent topic for the blog, and ask what the requirements are. When using guest-posting as a strategy, it’s best to start with relatively small blogs and work your way up the food chain. An offer to guest post will have far more credibility if you can point to other posts you’ve already written. If you’ve never had a guest post published, it’s extremely unlikely you’ll get your writing to appear on an A-list blog like TechCrunch or Mashable, but—as evidenced by the fact that both do publish guest posts—it is possible to work one’s way up to that level.
8. Use social bookmarking. Social bookmarking sites like Digg, StumbleUpon, Mixx and Propeller can help drive traffic and provide links, though some sites including the first three in this list use the insidious nofollow tag, which means the links won’t help with SEO. It’s perfectly acceptable to link to your own content, as long as you don’t promote your own stuff exclusively. And if someone else bookmarks your content—vote it up!
9. Add your blog and feed links to blog directories and RSS syndication sites. These links can help drive direct traffic, increase your blog’s subscribers, and improve the position of your blog in search. Helpful, though slightly out-of-date lists of blog directories and RSS sites can be found on the TopRank blog and Robin Good’s site.
10. Link to other bloggers. The golden rule as applied to blogging would be: link unto others as you would have them link unto you. Almost every blogger appreciates links (it’s high praise that you find their content worth linking to) and many will return the favor in some way; by linking back to you, Tweeting up your blog post, social bookmarking it, etc. Linking to other blogs accomplishes at least three things: it’s social (and therefore may lead to a link back), it’s helpful to your readers (by pointing them to more information on a specific topic), and it demonstrates confidence.
11. Submit your blog to AllTop. This is very popular blog directory. It won’t necessarily drive a lot of direct traffic, but it helps, and you never know—Guy Kawasaki may end up retweeting one of your posts and giving you a huge spike in visits.
12. Add alt tags to images and use SEO-friendly file names. Google’s image search can drive a surprising amount of traffic. To optimize the images in your posts, use appropriate alt tags and descriptive file names (e.g., a photo of a polar bear should be named something like polar-bear.jpg, not image01243.jpg). Proper alt image tags also help with SEO of the post itself.
The first requirement of a successful blog launch is to create quality content and publish on a regular basis; weekly at a minimum, more frequently if possible. The second requirement is patience—being willing to stick with it even if your traffic doesn’t skyrocket immediately. There’s no way around that first requirement, but you’ll need less of the second if you utilize all of the avenues above to help your blog quickly build a respectable following.
