Using Blogs For Social Media Marketing In Business

Blogs are another social media service that posts information out to the public in short story or news article type format.  Blogs can be a part of a website, or be their own entirely.  You can allow visitors to post their thoughts and comments - so it comes with an interactive element as well.

Blogs make sense for business and their website marketing efforts. Here's why. First off, you can set up blogs in multiple places for free and direct links back to your website. So instead of having one website trying to get your message out - you have several which can be listed in search engine results. These back links from your blogs also help with your main web site rankings because other websites think yours is important.

The down side is their value can become stale quickly. You must commit to updating and posting content on a regular basis or don't bother even starting one.

A blog's informal approach makes them more inviting to visit than a corporate website at times. Blogs like other social properties should constantly refer (think link to) the business's website. Taking a product or service you showcase on your website, write an informative article about how it has enhanced other customer's lives with example. This is yet another way to soft sell or educate your customer base without being in their face trying to sell them something.

If savvy business owners would spend a small portion of time they spend on Facebook and create one web page or even a blog entry, it would greatly enhance their search engine rankings and the number of website visitors they get.

In the end - everything you do helps - just some efforts pay off better than others.  At TNT Production Group we can help outline a sucessful approach to your Internet marketing and make it happen.

Should Business Facebook or Not?

Social networking now accounts for 22% of all time spent online in the US. 

As of June 2011 Facebook had 750 Million users and counting.  The main increase in social media has been Facebook. It currently is ranked as the number one social networking site.

Approximately 100 million users access this site through their mobile phone alone.  I have heard numbers that stated if Facebook was a country it would be the third largest in the world.  Wow...

In an effort to upset Facebook's dominance, Google launched Google+ in the summer of 2011.  It remains to be seen where this will end up, but I suspect we will see Facebook go the way of MySpace.  It may be there - but it won't be as important  in a couple of years.

The other consideration is that a company can't expect people to be receptive to a marketing message in and of itself.  There has to be a reason for them to want to engage your company.  Think about how you felt when you were hit up by a family member or friend with the latest multi-level marketing program by some nutrition company?  Try posting your products on your Facebook page and listen for the clicks as people un-friend you.

Now there are cases when services like Facebook absolutely make sense for business.  Some actual businesses I have seen this actually work are:

• Radio Stations - latest contests, breaking news
• Churches - prayer requests, weekly schedules
• Restaurants - daily specials
• Clubs & Organizations - events
• Business To Business Vendors - latest tools and trends

I have yet to see a local service or product based business really work Facebook successfully however.  Think about the local plumber with a Facebook page.  Does anyone really want to subscribe to the latest breaking plumbing news?  It just doesn't make a lot of sense.

Facebook and other social properties are not a substitute for a good website design where you can present more information and convert visitors into customers.

The biggest concern I have seen recently is business websites pushing people from their website to their Facebook page.  The whole idea for a business website should be obtaining new customers.  Get your web visitor to email or contact form you, or find your phone number to call.  If you send them away from your main website to your Facebook page, what does that say about your business? 

Ask yourself the following questions.  How many Facebook pages have you seen appear on Google when you have searched for a service or product?  How often have you used Facebook to search for a product or service?  How serious do you take anything you find on Facebook?

See what I mean.... most of the world will still revert back to Google to find a product or service.  So unless you are entertainment star or a business that Facebook fits, it's ok to have a page, I just wouldn't spend a lot of time on it.

Social Media - Is It For My Business?

So just what is social media?  It's basically online services like Facebook, Twitter, Blogger, Youtube, Google+ and others.  Each of these services offer interactive ways to communicate with friends, customers, and people you don't even know from around the world.  Should it be part of your web design for your business?

A process called  "building social authority" is where social media becomes effective for business. But this can be a rough one.  One of the main concepts in social media is that you cannot completely control your message but you can participate in the "conversation" expecting that you can somehow influence the conversation.  This can be good or bad for a business.

Many companies use social media to create a buzz.  This buzz can sometimes help normal business websites get noticed by search engines.  I envision Google and others thinking "this must be important because everyone is talking about it.".  So it may increase how important the search engines think your website is.

At TNT Production Group we do search engine optimization (making websites show up on search engines),  anything we can legally do to boost our client's websites is on our mind.  But we have found through much testing, you can waste a lot of time and get nothing for your efforts if you aren't careful.

In the online world, someone doing marketing in a company must honestly convince people of their genuine intentions, knowledge, and expertise in a specific area or industry by providing valuable and accurate information on an ongoing basis without an obvious marketing slant.   If this can be done relationships – begin to develop naturally. This person or organization becomes a thought leader and value provider - setting themselves up as a trusted "advisor" instead of marketer.  This is easier said than done.

While I will leave my concern for our society and how it uses social media for another article, social media is a force to engage in when it makes sense.  But does it make sense for every business?  We will be looking at various social media properties in future articles.