Blogging For Business

My name Jenni Edwards and am a Business Development Manager at Compendium Blogware. I began dabbling in blogging and social media  with the advent of the personal, web-based blogging tools that launched around 2001 and also have become a bit of a social networking 'junkie'; but what I am really energized about is what blogging can do for businesses. Blogging allows businesses to communicate, grow and build relationships more effectively and on a larger scale than ever has been possible with traditional marketing and public relations tools of yesteryear.

This blog will focus on the many benefits of blogging for business and will discuss some of the latest findings and research related to organizational blogging. I will also provide some updates about the growth of Compendium Blogware:  a provider of easy to use corporate blogging software.

"Relevancy starts on-page and is confirmed off-page." 

What am I talking about?  SEO of course!  This actually comes from a comment on one of Chris Brogan's recent posts "The Vital Importance of Links". (note my well thought out anchor text to help Chris out here).  This comment from Jacob Morgan really answers the big question as to the importance of linking for SEO and for a business blogging strategy.  At Compendium we are constantly being confronted by questions about link-building...and while no, this is not our business --- we do work with our mature clients on doing this and how they can best do their own blog seeding, however, as Jacob points out Step One of a successful page is related to on-page factors, or in other words --- CONTENT!  Once this is under control...content is recently and frequently updated; organized around keywords into narrowly focused, highly relevant pages then it is time to seriously consider a do-it-yourself or hired non-spammy link building strategy.  Even with that --- no one will ever link to you naturally without some great content.  So before sidetracking your business blogs with a link building strategy, get the on page factors solved with an easy to use blogging platform.

Sarah graduated from Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida in 2004 where she played collegiate softball and was a member of the Greek community. As a Client Success Manager at Compendium, Sarah works with clients to help them understand the value of blogging and the application of Compendium's platform, while keeping track and analyzing their blog in order to ensure they are seeing the ROI results they desire.

The most enjoyable moments of Sarah's work include creating and designing a client's blog network and the "eureka"  moments with clients when they see how successful blogging can be for their marketing efforts. In addition to being a day to day resource for clients, Sarah blogs about the Compendium platform, tips and tricks to writing blogs and blogging best practices.  

Read Sarah's blog here.

And --- I quickly can turn this into my own blog post!

Title:  Getting To Know My Company

Content:  Wow!  Our company newsletter just came out and while there was a lot of information about business blogging and our upcoming events at Compendium Blogware, however,  one of the articles that really caught my eye was that of our "Employee Spotlight".  We have grown really quickly the last few months so it's hard to really get to know everyone!  Sarah Sedberry was featured this week and while we interact quite a bit in the office as she is our Agency Specialist, I learned a lot about her in a brief article within our newsletter.  First, I had no idea she went to Rollins College, a beautiful school in Florida.  Also, I knew she was athletic, but collegiate softball?  Impressive!

It's always fun to learn tidbits about our team at Compendium which is quite the interesting bunch of business blogging experts!  I know we continue to grow so keep an eye out as we post all of our jobs on LinkedIn and it really is a great place to work!

In under 5 minutes I was able to create this above post --- completely inspired by the newsletter!

Old emails make great blog content - we say this often, but how have we proven it?  I was going to turn one newsletter into one blog post, but after looking at it, it looks like there is room to turn a lot of these articles into quick blog posts for your business blog

Here is a link to the original newsletter for your reference.  Let's start with one of the small blurbs here (note that this blurb actually comes and links to Chris's blog, talk about a program that feeds itself!).


















Now let's make a quick blog post off of this.

Title: "Harsh Reality Of Building A Community"

Post:  Recently Chris was talking about the misconception in the marketing world that an organization or business being able to truly create a community with their corporate blog and with some support from eMarketer, he makes a great case that the bottom line is that even with the most 'interactive' and 'community based' blogs --- most traffic comes from search, not repeat visitors. 

These new eMarketer studies make it cleared than ever that the real opportunity for business blogging is to use it as a great SEO tool that is more engaging than a typical landing page or website because of the real, human content within.  So stop measuring your blogging success on comments and RSS subscriptions and start measuring traffic and conversions!

Wow!  That was easy, quick and I didn't spend more than 5 minutes writing it!  I bet everyone within a company could have a different take on the same topic --- so it's not limited to just one person posting up the newsletter, it's taking a snippet and putting your own view and spin on it!  Let's see how many posts I can get out of this newsletter (without being too annoying!).

The economy is bad, we are ALL aware of this; but this article just had me almost laughing today from CNN.com; my favorite quote is "It's scary how many Americans admit they are scared..."

Some guy is scared because Americans are scared?  Hmm...nothing like perpetuating the fear factor.

So recently --- it seems as if we have had more prospects saying that they are going to wait and see what happens with the economy before moving forward with a blogging solution.  It is definitely a legitimate concern, we all wish we had a little more liquidity and more savings at this time in the economy. 

However, one of the best thoughts around this came out in a meeting that Chris and I were in late last week --- you can't grow a business by cutting costs (or something along those lines..).  So while we are always about using your budgets as effectively as possible -- it's time to market smarter, not time to stop marketing and stop growing.  Someone always gets rich on the downturns; why not let it be you?  Now is the time to gain market sure, increase customer bases and grow your business!  A corporate blogging strategy focused on winning organic search is one cost effective way for you to do just that.

• Search Is Vital:  Chris's take on this is a little bit lighter than ours at Compendium, but his simple point of "Writing about things that people might search for is a great way to find some new people at your door who might want a look at your product." really makes the idea of search seem simple and understandable, which it is.  However, I would have to argue that we know what people are searching on; so the idea of this ambiguity between what people "might search for" is somewhat mistaken.  The data is out there.

• Behavior Over Branding:  I also love this point made by both the book and Chris.  A great Super Bowl Ad or a catchy "mascot" is just that --- a great ad or good character.  What does this do for your business?  How do you take a memorable moment or interaction and turn this into a compelling event for the prospect to become a customer?  The great thing about blogging and search as there really is not the challenge of "gimmicks" --- it's so straightforward:  someone is searching on their problem, you have the solution, you explain your solution in a real, human way and have your content organized in the best way for it to be found and have 1-2 next steps that the prospect can take that are clear steps in the direction of a purchase or becoming a client.  (Check out what one of our clients is doing in regards to these next steps or calls to action.)

• There is always something new to see, whether someone has added new pictures or updated their relationship status.  I believe there is some certain interest in anything new --- most of these 'new things' I couldn't care less about in real life and would never seek out the information -- but its there right in front of my face and NEW so I look at it.
• It's real --- real people, that are also at their computers updating their status, adding pictures and adding friends.  These people are LIKE ME.
• Pictures and videos -- I read all day...emails, the paper, notes...how nice is it to see engaging PICTURES and VIDEOS.  The cheesy line of "a picture says a thousand words" isn't too far off when it comes to looking through someone's Facebook photos.

• Writing down blog ideas in the same place (whiteboard, notebook) rather than a million different places.
• Not writing for perfection the first go around...rather go back and editing the post 30 minutes later with a clear view.
• Sticking to my set aside 1/2 hour to blog on Tuesdays and Thursdays (and hopefully being inspired enough to get an additional  post in over the weekend).
• Looking at my blog and other Compendium employee blogs before blogging --- What are some good ideas?  Did I just talk about this?  Is this relevant to the reader?

• Acquisition of DoubleClick
• Increased costs associated with hedging foreign currencies (one of the most interesting things about corporate finance in a multinational company --- how much a currency fluctuation can change the bottom line)

• Don't over think it.  (It's a blog not a dissertation.)
• Comment on other great blogs.
• Mix it up.
• Above all else, be human.