BusinessBlogAngel

Say What? - Audio Comments on Your Blog

There's lots of talk in the blogosphere at the moment about 'bling for your blog'. Added to your blog, these little 'widgets' enhance it in some way.  It might be about building a network or community, or encouraging conversation or it could be about engaging people. In a minute, I'm going to tell you about one that does all three, but first let me tell you why you need to know about this.

As you may know, my background is in corporate marketing - specifically 'experiential' marketing and 'brand experience'.  Now, I don't know the stats off the top of my head, but when selling a product or service - particularly a new one, the clincher is to get that product into consumers' hands, homes and/or lifestyles. That's why brands are so keen to 'engage' their potential customers. If I get your attention but don't engage with you - I'm just making you aware that I exist. If I get your attention and we engage - then we are building a relationship with each other and there is more chance that a sale will follow. That's also why I had food company clients spending between 350k and 3.5m UKP per annum on cooking and tasting demos and free samples outside supermarkets!

So how does this relate to business blogging?

Well, this is a major part of the 'blog marketing' story. It's not all about traffic and Google results, you know. As I said, it's about brand experience, engagement, trust and rapport.

Blog + Shopping Cart/Autoresponder = Open For Business

To get the most from your business blog, add a few bells and whistles which'll instantly turn it into an eCommerce platform.  For example, you see that 'sign up box' for my Blog Digest mailing list there on the right?  Well, that's generated by an 'autoresponder' which also delivers it (when I actually get round to writing it). The 'autoresponder' functionality is just one element of a 'shopping cart' system I use called TotalBusinessCart, a UK version of 1ShoppingCart.

If you are starting a new venture and recognise that using the Internet as your main marketing vehicle is the smart way to go, then you want a shopping cart system.  I've seen a few similar products over the years, but this is by far and away the most comprehensive - along with the only other eCommerce solution I can recommend - ValuedClientSystem. And guess what? They are essentially the very same product rebadged!

Practical Tip for Business Bloggers

My bed is calling, but I want to share this practical blogging tip with you while I think of it...

Have you ever experienced that thing where you put your post together, carefully formatting to get the paragraph spacing right, and then once you publish it, the paragraph space seems to have vanished? And no matter how many times you hit the enter key to create new paragraph spacing, the space always gets swallowed up?

Or you find that something which looks fine in the 'Compose Post' box before you publish, somehow changes to giant or teeny size letters as soon as you publish it?

Well, chances are that when that last happened to you, it was because you were using text copied and pasted from another source,

How to build your own business blog - new telecourse dates

Now I'm settled in Cardiff, I've finally put some dates in the diary for the first DIY Blogsite Telecourse of 2007.  This blogging course is for you if you want to learn how to configure your own business blog. (Syllabus details here.)  There are only 5 places to guarantee a good 'student:tutor ratio' and although I haven't announced it to the wider world yet, I already have 2 bookings - so don't hang around if you want to reserve your place.

The course will run on 5 consecutive Thursdays at 7.30pm GMT.  That's 2.30pm in New York and 11.30am in California.  (Get the equivalent time where you are here.)

The dates are: 15th February, 22 February, 1 March, 8 March and 15 March.

The entire course of 5 lessons costs just $357/£187.  We'll be using Typepad, so you will be required to start an account with them for $8.95 a month - that's less than a fiver in UK pounds. You will be calling a US bridge line, so if you don't already have a cheap international call rate provider, you might want to get an account with www.1899.com which will mean calls cost just 1p per minute when you dial 1899 before the number.

To book your place and pay using a credit card or PayPal account, just click on the following button:

The Top 10 Things You Should Know Before You [Business] Blog

Was following a blog trail earlier and came across a post written back in July 2005 on www.Inc.com - absolutely aeons ago in the blogging world - or is it? Have things really changed that much?

Having established that "Weblogs are a viable way to build brand awareness and establish an individual's expertise in a particular area." [Yep, still completely relevant] Carole Matthews continues, "To help lessen the anxiety you might feel about blogging, [no change there then] we... uncover the top 10 things you should know before you blog. These tips should help better prepare you for writing and maintaining a weblog for your business."  Read the rest of the article here.

Now I don't know about you, but I reckon that every one of those 10 points is as true today as it was then. The key differences between now and then are that a) more people know about the value of business blogging now - and b) as far as I can see, small business has perhaps overtaken corporate business as far as business blogging 'take up' goes.  What do you think?  Click on the Comments link below to share your thoughts. (Email address optional.)

Overcoming Technology and Blogging Fears

Ha! I am so proud of myself... Today I have faced my own technology fear and triumphed...
Regular visitors will know that I recently relocated from London to Cardiff.  The removal company I used are 100% trustworthy.  Nevertheless, I took my PC in the car with me - nestled in a carefully fashioned den of duvets and pillows.  If anyone was going to damage my 'life support' machine - it would be me.

When I put it all together again at this end, it worked perfectly. Then the day I got back online, it coolly announced it couldn't find the sound card... thus no skyping, no podcasting, no music etc. Historically, I would have called a techy friend to come to my rescue, but this time I decided to tackle it myself.

Subscribing to a blog - web feeds and readers

One of the beauties of a business blog (or any website with a 'feed') is that each time fresh content is published, subscribers to the 'feed' get that content delivered straight to their desktop via a 'feed reader'.  In these days of full-to-bursting Inboxes and mad sp'am, the benefits of subscribing to a blog are clear:

• no need to keep checking a site for updates, or bookmark
• no need to divulge your email address and encourage even more email, and
• for publishers - no need to worry whether emails are getting through, or opened
  

Feeds come in 2 flavours - Atom and RSS but actually, unless you want to become a 'feed expert' that is fairly irrelevant, as is understanding what .rdf, .xml, .rss and .atom mean - they are simply feed 'file extensions'.  You see, just as you can turn on a light without needing to understand how electricity works, you can subscribe to and/or set up a feed without needing to know any of the technical stuff...

Keywords and Business Blogging - Is there such a thing as 'wrong' keywords?

I belong to a very active 'we'alth creation' Google group where people share learnings and knowledge on everything from investing to Internet marketing.  Business blogging and blog marketing is a common topic and I like to offer my two penneth where I can.  Today, someone was asking about blogging and keywords - how much research should she do and are 'wrong' ones a bad thing, as well as general advice on how to structure her blog or blogs in relation to her website.  I ended up writing a far longer response than I intended, but I figured that it was worth sharing with you as it raises a few important points on the subject of keywords - particularly if you are blogging for business, so here's the section of my answer on that topic:

"As for keywords - of course they are very, very important and in the main, I agree with everything Jason is saying, but (and this may cause a few ripples) you can get really (and unnecessarily IMHO) hung up on them and they can, do and will change!  The thing about blogging is that you can assign new keywords each time you post

Business Blog Marketing Booster Part 2 - Comments and Trackbacks

This is the second 'plain-English' article of a series of 5, which share powerful tools and techniques to really boost your business blogging strategy.  You can discover more blogging tips like these on my upcoming Advanced Blogging Teleclass training series. UPDATE: Or grab the entire series in my special report 5 Power Tools To Boost Your Blog Traffic by filling out the form to the top right of the page.

Part 2 - Comments and Trackbacks

At the end of most blog posts you will see a link saying 'Comments'. Click on it and you're taken to a list of comments and/or a comment form for you to leave your own. (Further reading on exactly how to do it right here: http://claireraikes.blogs.com/bizblogangel/2007/03/commenting_on_b.html.)

When I first started blogging I was often moved to comment on other people's blogs but then suddenly overcome with shyness, feeling that my opinion was in some way 'not worthy'!  These days, I love browsing through my favourite blogs and discovering new ones and contributing by leaving helpful comments as I go. My challenge is creating the time to do so!

I have set myself the goal of commenting on at least one blog a day. Why? Because if done right, it's great for building traffic to your own blog and here's why:

What's your business blog saying?

I came across a great post today on a blog called ConverStations.  It tracks a conversation between a blog and it's owner.  The blogger in question is Mike Sansone, an independent business consultant specializing in business blogs and conversational copywriting, and I just love what he has to say.  From his 'About' page...

• I believe that at the core of ourselves, we are each still very much like the 5-year olds we once were, just wanting to be liked, have fun, and be curious.
  
  
• I believe that I've used the word "that" too much in this biography. I believe I can see you smiling as you read that. I believe if you're not smiling right now, you will be after you say this out loud: supercalifragilisticexpealidocius (good thing that's not a website).

I'm always banging on about how business blogging allows you to build relationships with your target audience, by 'giving a little bit of yourself', in a way that a formal company website just doesn't. In those 2 bullet points, and the silly (that's good silly) and oh-too-familiar Conversation (Argument) with My Blog post, I have completely warmed to this man. 

I feel empathy towards him, trust his opinion and I'm ready to listen to what he has to say.

Now wouldn't you like some of that for your business or brand? Get business blogging!