Chris Baggott's Guide to Blogging

I had a person I respect asked me a question yesterday and thought I would share my thoughts here:

We attended a webinar yesterday on Social Media Releases for PR and the growth and power of SMRs .

...the presenter spoke about the need to be on Technorati and Google Blog Search. How does your approach and blog software integrate with these? What is your take on SMR for PR as tools to win search and influence / create a dialogue with potential consumers?

internet marketing internet marketing blog software business

I'm including this graph to try and keep you focused on what's important.   It show what people are doing online.   From a relationship introduction standpoint, focus on search! and business blogs are one of the strongest tactics you can embrace.

Both Technorati and Google Blog search are going to happen, but the reality is that they are less necessary now that Google has introduced ‘blended’ or ‘universal’ search. Basically what this means is that what used to be separate: Google for traditional sites, blog search for blogs, video search for video...is now blended, meaning that everything is going to show up on the main search page...if it deserves to. This makes a good enterprise blog marketing strategy is critical to any organic search efforts.   It used to be that you competed with ten sites on that serp, now there may only be a couple of actual traditional websites show up and if you want to really compete you need a comprehensive blog strategy.

The SMR thing is valuable tool...heck it’s all worthwhile...but it’s a fringe strategy.   Take a look at the attached chart...what people do online.   There is a lot of noise about the fringes when most of us are not yet even doing a good job on the things that drive 80-90% of what internet users want.   Making any sense? :-) I would put it in the category of “it can’t hurt” and closely measure the results vs. the effort. It’s an incremental strategy at best.

Comments for SMR and a Better Marketing Strategy...

Thursday, October 2, 2008 by Lorraine Ball:: My guess is the spread is even more skewed if you break the audience by age groups. If your target audience is under 30, the social media is probably ranked higher, but in consumers over 30, my guess it is even lower. So just as you would with any other element of your marketing, consider the demographic of your target as you evaluate your data.
Thursday, October 2, 2008 by Chris Baggott:: Right Lorraine! Businesses first and foremost need to know their constituents and study their analytics...there should be no analytics. What's terrific about search is it's still the one universal web activity. We all do it regardless of demographic. Seth made a great point the other day in a HubSpot conf up in Boston that marketers are all worried about Twitter and most still haven't figured out how to use email & search appropriately....and that still represents a far bigger opportunity for marketers.