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I’m teaching a class on Social Networking next week, and decided to surf online to see what people are saying about how to connect your blog up with Facebook, and how to make the two work together to bring you online success. Take a look at some of these great resources.

Ways to Make Your Blog Viral On Facebook by Glen Stansberry

5 Minutes with Gary Vaynerchuk by Shawn Collins

Using Outposts in Your Media Strategy by Chris Brogan

10 Reasons To Use Facebook For Business by Mari Smith

Is your target audience active in blogging?

I’m willing to bet the answer is yes. Or if not yet, very soon.

I’m continuing to follow the State of the Blogoshpere 2008 by Technorati, and found a few more interesting facts.

Over 51% of all respondents to their survey admitted they have more than one blog. Once you start, its easy to become a huge fan of the results! I fall into this category. I blogged for a number of months through my personal, free blog on Blogger. Once I began seeing results, I quickly moved it to my own blogging account, and opened up several niched blogs. (And I guarantee you I’m not finished starting niched blogs.)

I also found some interesting facts on women bloggers.

Female bloggers really take the time to learn how to maximize their profitability when it comes to blogging. They may be slower at creating a blog, and blog on more personal issues, but they know how to use it to its maximum potential once they start.

• Female bloggers are twice as likely to sell through an ad network as men.
• They are more likely than male bloggers to participate in a blogroll
• They are more likely than male bloggers to produce content for other blogs.
• 36% have converted business leads from their blogs - vs 27% of men.

If women are this sophisticated in using a blog, imagine how well they utilize blogs to learn more about products and services, and how willing they are to do business with companies that have blog presences.

So if you are selling to women, are you blogging? This trend will only continue, so get blogging today.

Technorati will be releasing their annual State of the Blogosphere 2008 report today and over the next few days. I read through Part 1 today.

Some of the statistics were expected:

• 133 million blog records have been indexed by Technorati since 2002
• 7.4 million blogs posted in last 120 days
• 900,000 blog posts in 24 hours
• 57% of US bloggers, 73% of European bloggers, 73% of Asian bloggers are male
• Almost 3/4 of bloggers are college graduates

The one thing I did take note of:

Globally,

• 83% of female bloggers and 76% of male bloggers blog about personal issues
• 38% of female bloggers and 50% of male bloggers blog about professional issues

This means a world of opportunity is open for us as business owners!

People read blogs, probably more than they even realize. And in the very near future, blogs and websites will completely merge, with most people never knowing the difference. It all comes down to content, and how you manage the content. If you’re good at it, you’ll succeed. (I loved this quote from the report and thought I’d share)

“The word blog is irrelevant, what’s important is that it is now common, and will soon be expected, that every intelligent person (and quite a few unintelligent ones) will have a media platform where they share what they care about with the world.”

Seth Godin, Author, Tribes
sethgodin.typepad.com

Bottom line - it’s time to step up and build the foundation for your business online. By learning the basic tools now, and using them to their full capacity now, you’ll be setting the stage for growing your business in the future.

Start with a basic blog design. Start blogging. Merge it into your marketing plan. And see your business grow.

Back from Blogworld 2008 in Las Vegas this past weekend. I’ve heard some industries are declining and trade shows are going with it. Well not in the land of blogs - this conference was huge and thriving.

I’m excited to start sharing all I learned this past weekend with my clients. So I thought the best way to get the word out is to create a post on the 7 things I learned while attending Blogworld.

1. The most important thing about blogging is content. You have to write. And write some more. And when you think you’ve said it all, write some more. The only way to reach out to your audience is to write content.

2. Write what your audience wants to hear. Sure, you can write all you want. But if no one has interest, there’s no reason to blog in the first place. Find out what your audience is reading, and write for them.

3. Who are the power players in your industry? Follow their blogs. They became the power players for a reason. Use them as your mentor, and follow in their footsteps.

4. RSS is important. Connect yourself everywhere.

5. Monetize your site after you have content. Too many people want to start the money flowing before they have the content to back it up. Create the system of blogging regularly, then monetize.

6. It’s important to build your subscriber list, both for sending information to, and to help you monetize your site. Never forget your first goal is to build your subscribers by giving them what they want.

7. Traditional ways of looking at things are over. The traditional media may be using phones for opinion polls, but what about other methods? Jones  Soda Co. ran their own opinion poll for this years’ Presidential race. A table was filled with bottles with 4 photos on the front: McCain, Obama, Clinton and Paul. At the time of this photo, only 3 bottles left of Obama. hmmmm….

I got into an interesting discussion with a friend of mine on the way up to a meeting. He’s having a similar discussion with his clients as I am with mine.

After a few weeks of blogging, our clients call us up with one question:

Nobody is reading my blog so why should I keep writing?

The idea of writing a blog is to share information with prospects and clients. People that find you in some manner, like and appreciate what you do, and choose to follow you.

When you begin, you may be writing for one or two people (usually yourself and your mom).

But after awhile you begin to attract attention. Someone comes in and finds an article of value, and decides to link to you so they can come back and read more from you. They refer you to others, and soon you have a small following.

But if you quit writing after a few weeks because "no one is reading", this can never happen. If that same person makes it in on a post they enjoy, they will soon leave if they find out you haven’t written in months. People like action. They like consistency.

When you build your business, you don’t quit marketing because you haven’t seen results in a week or two. You keep it up knowing it will benefit you in the long run. Same with blogging.

You keep writing knowing it will benefit you in the long run.

So get writing!

What a weekend!

I spent the last few days attending a blogging and social networking convention - the IZEAFest - in Orlando, and brought home a strategy of where I’ll be taking my blogs in the future. It was eye opening to me to discover I’m doing so much right [or at least doing what some of the most successful bloggers in the industry are doing] and also to pick up a few refining details that are going to make the next four months of 2008 even more successful.

So, if you have a blog, what are the basic strategies you should have in place to make it all a success?

1. Never settle for what you currently have. There are always ways to make what you have even better, work to achieve greater success, and find different more efficient ways of doing what you are doing.

2. Don’t be afraid. Unfortunately, much of what is out there today can seem a bit overwhelming. It’s easier to not do anything, and take no action than to try something new and risk failing. Failing is what brought many of today’s most successful bloggers their greatest successes.

3. Focus on your readers, not on Google. If you’ve ever worried about what makes Google happy, quit worrying. Instead find what makes your readers happy. Give them the content they want, and the information they are searching for. If you can get readers to follow you regularly, Google will follow.

4. Create a strategy. Why are you starting this blog? What is its ultimate purpose? What is your exit strategy? The more you have in place up front, the easier it will be to create over time.

5. Become hyperconnected. Be everywhere. Instead of having one or two sites, and maybe one or two social sites you’re active on, be everywhere. Your clients have different likes, different interests, and different searching patters. If you have a presence where they are looking, you’ll gain clients. Its as simple as that. 

Above all, be true to your readers. Your readers don’t care if you make money, don’t care about your business, or care about off-topic issues. They look to you for one reason - what you started your blog on in the first place. Give them what they want, and you’ll find success.

What do you do when you spend your time writing a dynamic post [at least you think it is] and all of the sudden you start getting negative feedback?

The first one is always the hardest. How can someone not agree with you? How can they state their beliefs, and counter what you had to say - it is your blog under your control. Maybe you should delete the comment.

Think again.

Conflict isn’t always a bad thing. In fact, it can be good for business. If someone cares enough to counter what you have to say, at least they are reading. And it gives you a new way to think and respond.

First decide the true impact of the comment. Is it something that hurts you or your company, and reduces your credibility? Some hateful comments can do more damage than good. If you’re just not comfortable with it, by all means delete it.

If the negative comment opens up the opportunity for you to come back with your own comment, post the comment and put in your own two cents. Tell people why you differ from the person commenting. What is your belief, and how can you turn their negative into a positive for you?

Also understand that your true prospects and clients can read above the negativity to make up their own minds. In some cases a negative comment can reinforce someone’s decision to use you - they like your ethics because of the way you handled the situation.

Now that we’re well into September, let me ask you a question.

How are your yearly sales figures? Are they higher, the same, or lower than last year? Is your business doing everything you expected it to?

Everywhere you turn there is talk of recession, and how people simply aren’t buying what they used to. But that doesn’t mean you can’t keep your business sales growing. You have a choice.

You competitors may be making drastic cuts, offering tremendous sales, and doing whatever they can to weather the recession. They typically sacrifice quality customer service in order to maintain a small profit.

But is that the right choice? In the short run, that may seem to be the answer. But in the long run, it may cost you your customer base. Why should they continue doing business with you when there is no quality to your customer service tactics?

Instead, focus on changing your marketing.

How are you marketing now? What are you doing to attract customers? Is it working?

Many small business owners continue to market in the same way year after year because that’s what they do. Maybe they have a relationship with the place they are advertising, and feel guilty about canceling.  Or maybe they simply can’t think of any other way to advertise for their business.

Whether you are bringing in thousands of dollars per year or millions, your first step is to keep the marketing that’s working, dump what’s not, and add new techniques that will help you grow.

Start by analyzing what you’re currently doing to attract customers. How much do you spend on it, and how many sales does it bring in?

If you’re not at least breaking even, dump that way of marketing. There are many forms of marketing that exist today that probably won’t be around in the very near future. The quicker you abandon those techniques, and adapt new ones, the quicker you’ll see your business get back on track.

So, instead of costly methods such as Yellow pages advertising, why not set up a blog? If your goal is to reach out to the search engines, I guarantee there are many, very cost effective ways of reaching them - and Yellow pages isn’t one of them.

Or instead of spending thousands on a print magazine ad, why not advertise on a dozen or so complementary websites? [Websites that reach out to the same target market as you, yet sell different products and services.]

Imagine what you could do with thousands of dollars in the online world, and the target audience you could reach out to.

Bottom line is if its working, leave it alone. And if its not, make a change. With hundreds of choices for your marketing strategies, why not use some that help grow your business?

I’ve been on Twitter for several months now. And I must admit, Twitter is kind of an addition. I use Twhirl, a desktop application that allows me to see all the posts to my Twitter account as they happen.

But the question always remains, "Is this a useful tool, or a waste of my time?"

I’m also part of a beta social group Triiibes put out by Seth Godin. Inside the site you can create Triiibes of people, and one of the Triiibes I belong to is the Twitter group.

About a week ago we decided to run an experiment. If a group of people come together and use Twitter to try and increase traffic, what will happen? So everyone submitted their best blog post, one was chosen, and the experiment began.

The blog post was on net neutrality [which is worth reading/watching in itself if you have the time]. It was a new post, and had no traffic before the experiment. In the first day of the experiment, 50 tweets went out, causing 196 unique page views, with the average time spent on the page 3 minutes 20 seconds. Wow - very cool.

Traffic did drop off after that initial day’s spike, but it still isn’t back to zero.

There are a lot of different statistics/ideas related to this experiment that I won’t get into completely here. But the point I want to make is how the new social media sites can and do make a difference in your overall  marketing campaign. 

Imagine if you could write a blog post, send it through your various social channels, and have almost 200 people read your information - the first day you had it out online. What could that mean to your business?

Now imagine you have the ability to do this several times per week. Would you spend a couple of hours a week creating fresh content, and releasing it to your network - to have up to 1000 people read it and be exposed to your business ideas?

I know I would - and I do it regularly.

It’s time to get busy creating content for my blog!

Do your visitors and customers know what to do?

You’ve put up your blog. You post regularly. But do your readers truly understand your purpose?

Sometimes its easy to get caught up in writing and connecting. You see your traffic rise and you start making connections. But the larger you become, its sometimes easy to lose sight of what your purpose truly is.

A few months ago I was talking with a customer I’ve worked with in the past. I’ve helped her with her online marketing, helped her build up her social networks, and even coached her on building up the business side of her photography studio. Then came a question that startled me:

Do you know anyone that could help me design a blog?

What? Didn’t she know we do that?

She didn’t because we didn’t do a good enough job letting her know our complete services. We constantly worked from an online marketing perspective - and she didn’t realize we could help her with the basic stuff, such as designing a website or blog.

Don’t assume your clients know what you do. Tell them. Drop hints and suggestions constantly to let them know how you can better serve their businesses.

You may be surprised where your next client comes from. 

image source svilen001

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