Jenn Mears Web Design

North Shore Web Design & Development

You are currently browsing the social media category.

Blogging for your business

jennsweb.blogspot.com

jennsweb.blogspot.com

Recently I looked at my client list and realized that I now have quite a few whose sites include a blog.  Some of them update the blog on a regular basis and send out an email to all their subscribers to let them know there’s something new to read.  Others put a new post up once in a while and then there’s the ones who wrote 2 or 3 posts in a rush when their site was first launched and haven’t updated since then.

Not that there’s anything wrong with being taciturn.  Hey, in New England it’s practically a virtue, but with so much online customer/company interaction these days, having a blog and never doing anything with it is like hiding in the stockroom when a customer walks in the door.

I think a lot of it has to do with the sheer vastness of the blog-0-sphere.  There’s a dizzying array of blogging platforms, services, widgets, feeds and gadgets out there that can make any busy business owner throw up their hands and retreat back into their snail-mail newsletter shell.  So, hopefully, I can help by breaking this complex idea down into its basic components.

Why would I want to have a blog in the first place?

Because it’s fun!  It really is.  Whether it’s finding a great site that would help your customers find useful information, great photos from your company cook-out, or even the news that someone at your firm had a baby, it’s a good feeling to put it out there for everyone to see.  It’s also a way to turn a problem into a positive thing.  When I’ve had to spend an entire afternoon searching for a solution to an issue on a client’s site, putting a post up that shows how I solved the problem not only helps me to have it “on-file” for the next time the issue comes up, it’s good karma to provide an answer where none existed before!

Some other great reasons to have a blog for your business are:

1: It’s good for the environment.  Remember the mailed-out newsletter?  I still get one from AAA every quarter and I’m usually so busy, it goes right into the recycling bin.  Instead of all that formatting and list merging, envelope-licking and stamp buying, a blog post, set to be emailed via RSS to a client who has opted for email updates, has a much better chance of actually being read and doesn’t use any paper!

2. It’s free advertising.  Sure, you could spend hundreds of dollars on print ads, even more on an Adwords campaign, but perhaps the most effective way to gain new business is to provide an online resource for customers to find out more about your business.  People are always happy (and grateful!) to receive free information.  Informed and happy is how you want people to feel when they come to you for business.

How do I get a blog?

There are many blogging “platforms” out there, but the 2 I am most familiar with are Wordpress (which runs this site) and Blogger.  Wordpress offers 2 options.  If you don’t want to deal with signing up for your own self-hosted (published under your own site name on a hosting company’s server) blog, then you can go to Wordpress.com and get a blog going there.

Your Wordpress Blog "dashboard"

Your Wordpress Blog "dashboard"

If you have your own site already and you just want to add the blog to it, you can either install Wordpress in a subfolder of your site (and call the folder “blog”) and then just add a link to it in your navigation (example: jennmearswebdesign.com/blog), or you can set up your entire site in Wordpress and assign a page to contain the blog portion of the site.

(Editor’s note: Blogger now has a Pages gadget to add static pages to your blog.)

Blogger is now a service offered by Google.  A blogger.com blog’s URL looks like this:

http://salemliving.blogspot.com

If you have a Google account, just sign in and go to Settings, then Google Account Settings.  Blogger is listed there along with other great (free!) tools to enhance your blog.

Your Blogger Dashboard

Your Blogger Dashboard

By the way, getting a Google account is a very useful overall step to take a business owner.  It allows you to create a Google Maps listing for your business and get easy-to-access online email as well as being a foundation for many cool blogging tools such as Feedburner.

Feedburner lets you provide a way for readers to follow your blog.

Feedburner lets you provide a way for readers to follow your blog.

What do I write about and how often?

For a straight-up business blog, it’s best to focus your writing on information related to your business.  For example, I have a client that’s a lawyer and their blog consists of posts about various court case rulings that affect their area of practice.  If you are in the medical field, it may be a good idea to write about medical studies and other news related to your particular area of medicine.  A blog is your opportunity to give your clients useful information that is tailored just to them.  You know your clients and you know when things need to be put into layman’s terms and phrased in ways that they will understand.

Of course not every entry needs to be cut and dry information about your field.  Posts can be about things that are happening in your life like how much fun you are having coaching your daughter’s softball team, or a great new restaurant you ate at the other night.  Having a month-long special in your store?  Put up a post on your blog and then publish updates throughout the month about how sales are going.  I publish a new post when I launch a new website and it lets people know what kinds of clients I have and how I approach different web design situations.

How often should you write on your blog?  This is a pretty open-ended question.  The best answer is to sit down, think about your schedule throughout the week, and try to find 15-30 minutes somewhere that you can use for updating your blog.  Blogs that are updated on a steady basis are the ones that quickly develop loyal followers.  It’s not quantity, it’s quality.  A single well-written post with cool pictures and links once a week is 10 times better than a gaggle of half-baked, info-light random blurbs.

Good tip: If you are worried that you will end up staring at a blank editing window, come “blog-time”, take some time to write down at 10 different ideas for posts and save them for a rainy day.  I keep a notebook throughout the day when I’m working and it really helps when I have writer’s block to flip through and find the different ideas scattered throughout the pages.

How can I get people to read my blog?

Tell people that it’s there! If you already have a client email list, then send out an email with the link to the blog in it. Just be sure you are comfortable with how your blog looks first and you’ve got at least 2 or 3 (proofread!) posts on the home page already.

Be sure to include a way for people to subscribe to your blog via email. (By default, all blogs offer a way to “check in” for updates via an RSS feed but unless your audience is particularly tech-savvy, they won’t likely choose to do so. Also, most people check their email at least once a day. Your blog’s feed service will check your blog periodically and send out an email to a subscriber if you have posted new stuff.

Also, if you are on any social network that lets you post a profile, add your blog’s URL to your profile. Provide a “feed” of your blog on your Facebook profile or page and people can visit your profile and get updated on your blog in one visit.

Basically, the easier you make it for people to read and follow your blog, the more your blog will be read.

Best Blogging Practices

Be succinct

Title your posts wisely.  Web crawlers look for keywords primarily in page titles which, for a blog post is the title of the post.

Pictures keep people reading.  Just make sure you are using them legally.

Keep your content organized and easy to search through.  Using tags and categories (basically assigning relevant keywords to a post) will make it easier for readers to browse your blog (and keep browsing!)

Open a dialogue with your readers.  Was this post helpful for you?  Not anything you didn’t know already?  Do you have more questions?  Send me some feedback below!

Posted 4 months, 1 week ago at 5:39 pm.

1 comment

Connections: Facebook, Flickr and your camera phone

Although there’s an iPhone app for everything short of walking your dog, sometimes there’s an easier way to something that’s a little off the beaten path. I was taking photos of some artwork that a friend of mine did with our daughter on New Year’s Eve and in the midst of sending it to my twitpic account, I changed my mind and came up with a way to post a photo to a Flickr photo stream and Facebook simultaneously. Continue Reading…

Posted 8 months ago at 6:19 pm.

Add a comment

A Rough Guide to Business Blogging

Author’s note: This is not the stuff that I do, but it’s what I should do.

5 Reasons to have a blog for your business

1. It’s environmentally friendly. Unless you are running a blog about your helicopter hunting/timber logging business venture. But not only is it green for the environment, it’s green for you. It takes up much less of your company’s business day since you no longer need to drive to cold calls, print out newsletters and manage mail merges.

2. It’s extremely cost-effective. Even if you feel the need to (ahem) hire a professional designer to “tweak your template” (more on that later), you should still save a ton of dough by not needing to do as much print advertising.

3. You will have an “auxiliary engine” to drive traffic to your company’s site. Put a link back to your company’s site. Use your blog profile tool to find local sites and bloggers and ask them if they are willing to trade links.

4. It can generate customer feedback and communication. Run a contest for your readers. Ask people for their opinion on your review of a local restaurant. Let people know you welcome comments by making that link more visible.

5. It’s fun! It’s a low stress way to promote your business without feeling like you are out there on a soapbox. Write what you enjoy writing about and they will come.

4 Do’s and Don’ts

Don’t be too negative too much. If you had a tough time with a client, or your favorite team/american idol contestant/politician lost, write about what you learned from it and respect others’ privacy and/or opinions.

Try to find a rhythm and stay with it. One interesting post a week is better than 7 entries that vary on “My Starbucks-Fueled Mini-Rant”, but keep your content as fresh as possible without sacrificing quality for quantity.

Be useful, or funny, or ahead of the crowd or any combination. Being creative doesn’t hurt either. Think about what kinds of questions your clients have had lately and how you can answer them.

Don’t blitz your readers with “bells and whistles”. We’ve all been to that site where so many “awesome”(bandwidth-hogging) features needed to load that we didn’t go past the home page.

3 Blogging Terms to Know

RSS: Almost synonymous with the term “Feed”, RSS stands for (in my opinion) Really Simple Syndication. It’s an easy way for your readers to keep up with your blog and make sure that they know when you have something new on the site. Of course, it’s up to your readers to decide to follow your blog, but putting a widget in your template (see below) suggesting that your readers to subscribe really helps things along.

Template: This is the term blogging services use for your blog’s layout and overall design. If you really want a distinctive look for your blog, such as colors based on your logo and custom backgrounds, etc, you should the editing options for your template before you go with it.

Widgets/Badges: Basically, those “bells and whistles” I was warning you about earlier. Like a good spice, use them only if necessary and they will work for you, not against you. Some examples of widgets are “Archives” that list your posts in chronological order, and Google’s Adsense which will place text ads on your blog by “sensing” the site’s content. (Which still doesn’t explain the Maalox ad that kept appearing on Jennsweb a few years ago.) Badges are items such as Flickr, which can display your Flickr images in a little window, and Twitter, which can display your most recent updates on your Twitter account.

2 FAQ’s

What should I blog about?
Almost anything. A post can be a photo, a story, an interesting link or all three combined. Don’t cast your net too wide. Think about the blog’s description (that little phrase underneath a blog’s title) and see if your entry would be something that someone finding your blog would find interesting as well.

How much time should I devote to this?
If you run a business, then you know how the word “busy” got in there. The best approach is the one that fits around your schedule. Blog on your coffee break if you want. As long as you get in the habit, don’t obsess over how much time you spend on it because…

#1 Rule: Have fun with it!

Remember, it’s not the annual report to the stockholders. Because who gets excited about reading those?

Posted 10 months, 3 weeks ago at 8:49 pm.

Add a comment

Getting Fans on Facebook

I went to a seminar this week at Salem State’s Enterprise Center about managing social networking for small businesses. Neal Advertising’s Neal Bocian, Chad Foster and Jesse Friedman were great at not only explaining why social networking matters for business, but also incorporating the wide range of questions into their presentation. One business owner asked the question that I am sure most people do after they’ve brought their company’s Facebook page into being: “How do I get Fans for my business?”. Continue Reading…

Posted 1 year, 5 months ago at 7:33 pm.

1 comment