Ideas for Business

I recently completed developing and recording 2 modules for a business blogging program with the DMA.  One of the most interesting portions (in my opinion) of the material addressed measuring blog success. There’s no one right answer because the purpose for business blogs can vary from branding to sales.

Since bloggers often read other blogs, I’m counting on Online Marketing Blog readers to take this quick poll to identify what the most common goals for business blogging are. There should be enough options to address whatever purpose you have for your blog. You can pick up to 3 choices. 

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post’s poll.

A bit of Online Marketing Blog trivia: This is our 51st poll!

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2009. | How do you measure business blogging success? | No comment | http://www.toprankblog.com

Sitemaps have only been in common use for a couple of years now, but there is still confusion around some aspect of them. Your site is not guaranteed a listing in any search engine just because you have a sitemap. In fact, none of the search engines guarantee that your site will be crawled or indexed just because you have a sitemap. However, a sitemap will make your website more crawlable and easier to crawl.

Because the search engine spiderbots crawl the web through links, you want to make sure that each of the pages on your website has a crawlable inbound link to it so that it can be crawled, indexed, and ranked. That’s what a sitemap does for you.

You should have a sitemap if you have a new site and you don’t have that many links pointing to it yet. You should also have a sitemap if your site is older with a lot of pages archived that have no linking structure, or that have a bad linking structure. Other times you might include a sitemap on your website are:

• When you have dynamic content
• You use AJAX or Flash
• You have a lot of videos
• Your website isn’t getting indexed

In essence, if you want to ensure that your site is crawled an indexed then a sitemap will go a long way to help you. But having one doesn’t guarantee anything.

Part 2:  Why is Social Media Marketing critical to business success?
All the buzz about social media would be a “so what” if it weren’t for the incredible reach of social media. According to WebProNews March 18, 2008, social media has a mass communication reach similar to television. 

Let’s look at the statistics:

• The top 25 social media networks delivered over 155 million unique visitors in Feb. 2008 (70% came from MySpace, Facebook, and Classmates.com).  If add YouTube and Flckr you get another 60 million.  This leads to a grand total 215 unique viewers
• Monthly unique TV viewers in Feb. 2008 was approximately 200 million

In addition, depending on the social network, each unique visitor is looking at 1000’s of pages per month.  The analogy to TV is a relatively good one.  The social media audience is loyal, large and habit-oriented just like TV.  In fact, according to Media Post, November 25, 2008: 

• Demography of users closely mirrors the U.S. population, with over half the Internet users visiting social media sites
• Although 15-34-year-olds account for a significant portion of the visitors, social networking sites are now reaching more than half of 35- to-44-year-olds and more than a third of those ages 45-54

What does Social Media Marketing have to do with business success?

This is best answered by looking at looking at the research Cone/Opinion Research Corporation published in September 2008.  Their findings are delineated below:

• 93 percent of social media users believe a company should have a presence in social media
• 85 percent believe a company should not only be present but also interact with its consumers via social media
• 56 percent of users feel both a stronger connection with and better served by companies when they can interact with them in a social media environment

Couple the above findings with the power of “word of mouse” and you have the perfect storm, namely the convergence of marketing, advertising, and public relations.

This, of course, begs another question:  How can I harness the power of Social Media Marketing?  Stay tuned for Part 3 on May 5th, which addresses this question.

Part 2:  Why is Social Media Marketing critical to business success?
All the buzz about social media would be a “so what” if it weren’t for the incredible reach of social media. According to WebProNews March 18, 2008, social media has a mass communication reach similar to television. 

Let’s look at the statistics:

• The top 25 social media networks delivered over 155 million unique visitors in Feb. 2008 (70% came from MySpace, Facebook, and Classmates.com).  If add YouTube and Flckr you get another 60 million.  This leads to a grand total 215 unique viewers
• Monthly unique TV viewers in Feb. 2008 was approximately 200 million

In addition, depending on the social network, each unique visitor is looking at 1000’s of pages per month.  The analogy to TV is a relatively good one.  The social media audience is loyal, large and habit-oriented just like TV.  In fact, according to Media Post, November 25, 2008: 

• Demography of users closely mirrors the U.S. population, with over half the Internet users visiting social media sites
• Although 15-34-year-olds account for a significant portion of the visitors, social networking sites are now reaching more than half of 35- to-44-year-olds and more than a third of those ages 45-54

What does Social Media Marketing have to do with business success?

This is best answered by looking at looking at the research Cone/Opinion Research Corporation published in September 2008.  Their findings are delineated below:

• 93 percent of social media users believe a company should have a presence in social media
• 85 percent believe a company should not only be present but also interact with its consumers via social media
• 56 percent of users feel both a stronger connection with and better served by companies when they can interact with them in a social media environment

Couple the above findings with the power of “word of mouse” and you have the perfect storm, namely the convergence of marketing, advertising, and public relations.

This, of course, begs another question:  How can I harness the power of Social Media Marketing?  Stay tuned for Part 3 on May 5th, which addresses this question.

Is there a difference between marketing to businesses online and marketing directly to consumers? Truthfully, there is a bit of a difference though it might not be in the ways that you might think. Conversational marketing is still a necessarily element of B2B marketing, though you can (and should) maintain a more professional communication demeanor with businesses than with consumers.

Consumers are generally online to browse and socialize. They don’t want to be marketed to. Businesses, however, expect some marketing to happen. That’s why they’re online in the first place - to market and be marketed to. But that doesn’t mean that broadcast marketing of the mass communication variety is the way to succeed. Even representatives of businesses want a bit more personal touch online, just not too personal.

For instance, social networking through sites like LinkedIn and Facebook is done every day by businesses. Breaking through the natural barrier of stand-offishness is easier for B2B marketing than B2C. Since you are communicating with other businesses who are there for networking it is expected that you will be selling something, but that is not the place for hard selling. You should still put the networking first. That’s what they (and you) are there for.