Advertising Secret Weapon: If your company isn't blogging you do not exist

Sunday, August 2, 2009

If your company isn't blogging you do not exist

Get your company a blog or 2 NOW

Advertisings effctiveness is being called into question these days, the recession is forcing businesses of all types reevaluate the return on investment or ROI for each dollar they spend.

Is this gonna do me any good?

That question is in the back of the mind of virtually every small business owner when it comes time to renew their expensive Yellowpages ad or the bill is due again for the newspaper advertising that isn't doing them any good.

Real Time Tracking

Most advertisiers just "stick it out there" without any method of tracking which ad garnered this response and which ad garnered that response.

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If you think your industry got hit hard... consider the plight of the real estate industry.

Maryland real estate agents typically spend thousands of dollars per month in conventional advertising

Consider this your wake up call!

Last Sept I went to a Internet conference in LA and listened to a great Internet coach, Tracy Repchuck. I heard loud and clear what she was saying - if you're not blogging you may as well hang up your shingle. From the pit in my stomach I knew she was right. I just got stuck in excuses since 2006 (no time, what's the big fuss, it's a fad, blah blah blah). I'm sure you've got them down pat like I did, right?

Now is the time for you to stop this ridiculousness. Like, right now!

I got serious about figuring out what Active Rain was all about in January of 2009 (and it makes me queasy thinking about all the time I wasted on excuses for 2 years) and all the missed opportunities)

I didn't have a clue as to what I was doing. Seriously Clueless. So I made 'the' call to Brad Andersohn and he talked to me for a very long time. (Hint -make 'your' call today) I understood the concepts of what he was saying - I just didn't know how to make it happen, smoothly. He gave me excellent advice - just get started, jump in and make mistakes.

Who cares if you suck at first? (he didn't tell me that - that came from me) And trust me, I sucked for sure. When I look back at my first 30 or 40+ posts I have to chuckle cause they're so lame! The good news - I can go back and clean them up when I've got time (see there's that time excuse again!) Am I the queen of the time excuse or what? (note to self - stop allowing time to control you).

"Social networking is empowering the consumer, but the majority of agencies aren't getting it," said the report, which acknowledged that the advertising industry continued to be sceptical about using social networks to advertise. from the UK Telegraph

Maryland Search Engine Expert David Bruce

Local Google Advertising-
Google that phrase, then Call 301 363-8206 If you want YOUR company website to perform that well in Google.

2 comments:

Judy Belt said...: So what if our company doesn't know how to blog or if the staff doesn't know how.

Perhaps a better question is what makes a blog a "company blog"??

I see some pretty arcane blogs out there, some are for hobbies, others are for teenage angst, still others are for political commentary touting both left and right mindsets.

So... you're telling us a company website also needs a company blog?

to "support it"?

please elaborate.; October 3, 2009 at 11:41 PM
David Bruce Jr said...: Thanks for the comment Judith, you asked some pretty good questions I'll do my best to answer them:

If your company staff doesn't know how to blog, outsource it to someone or a company that does. At least until your staff learns the ropes. It is my professional opinion that being a "professional blogger" or being a "seo copywriter" is a new job description in it's infancy.

Much like a stenographer or a secretary or a mail clerk was a hundred years ago.

What makes a blog a "company blog"?

A blog is simply an alternative form of website, it can be "interactive" in that readers can leave comments just like you did.

That means... a company needs to have someone monitor the comments much the same way they hire someone to answer the phones.
Companies and corporations aren't likely to like this as they now have to hire someone to fulfill a task, fulfill a need, that wasn't there before. I can say to them is "get over it"

It's my professional opinion, borne out by "battle testing" that every company website needs a couple company blogs to support it.

By "support it" I mean link to the main website. If you sell 3 different things, your company needs 3 different blogs. If you sell in more than one county, you need a blog for each geographic area you're competing in.

Hope that answers your questions.; December 12, 2009 at 5:38 PM