Although the Compendium blog software is very easy to use, many of our clients appreciate some sort of training just to learn all the in's and out's of the system. This is where I come in! I have been working to develop a training webinar for both users and administrators. So far I've compiled a PowerPoint, developed wording and even presented the webinar to our Client Success team and my parents. Everyone gave me a thumbs up!
However, the trust test came today. Early this afternoon I presented both the user and admin training webinars to a few clients who have just begun using our power blogging software.
I began with the user training session. I kicked off the webinar with an introduction and showed users how to complete the four-step set-up process. I then demonstrated how to create a sticky post and how to add pictures, hyperlinks and video. I also pointed out a few other little-known features of the Compendium software.
During the administrator session, I demonstrated how to add users and select target keywords. I then took the clients through the process of reviewing and approving/declining posts from their users as well as comments from readers. At the end of the webinar, I went over a few blogging best practices that admins should ensure their users follow.
Overall the trainings received awesome reviews! I am now working to develop a way to share these trainings with all of our clients. Watch for a link soon!
You can go ahead and mark your calendars now. The user trainings will take place Tuesdays at 2:00pm and Thursdays at 10:00am. Admin trainings will take place at 2:30pm on Tuesdays and at 10:30am on Thursdays. More details to come!
I know I've written about them before but I thought I would throw out a compliment for the Redbox customer service department. I believe my previous post revolved around their corporate blog for movie reviews and customer feedback and although their business blog has value, their service department is also doing well in my book.
The other night I wanted to reserve a movie online and while checking out, I encountered an error three times in a row with their booking system. It said that the movie had only been reserved once but upon my arrival at the actual Redbox (and getting the delayed confirmation emails), I was granted three copies of the same movie. Naturally I did not want to pay for the same movie three times so I sent over a quick email that night and to my surprise, the charges were reversed the next morning and I was given a free movie coupon.
Nice to see that automated systems are being backed by real service!
I admit it. I am a super geek when it comes to data. I like the idea of taking complicated themes and boiling it down to tiny bits of information. In a way it's comforting to know what makes up the bigger picture. You can imagine how much data there is to review when you are talking about blogs. It's also very important to
capture and analyze this data to understand how your search marketing efforts are improving over time.
Knowing my love for data, you can imagine how excited I was when I first heard the Google Analytics API was recently released. Even better news came when i read about some easy to install Excel plug ins that connected directly to the Google Analytics API. Check out this
link from SEOmoz. It's a cool post about some of the newly developed tools that connect to the API.
(Side note: Go ahead...you can now mock me. I am a bit dorkish, and I'm OK with that. I even thing about blogging when I run - check out this
link)
Earlier this week I was testing the
Excellent Analytics tool and using it to query many of our client blogs. Way cool and very meaningful. It makes it much easier to consolidate data through set queries. I can then utilize that data to evaluate how specific blog sites are doing. This tool allows me to focus on the core components that I am using to define the success of the
Compendium blogging solution. It's a simple solution and a great addition to your list of SEO tools.
Got an email from a client wanting to optimize their blog marketing efforts today. They
asked if we have any recommended strategies for ensuring content is efficiently and effectively created. Of course, having done this for over a year, I had lots to say!
Effective Content Creation: Every organization is different, and I’ve found the same strategy does not work across the board. Here are some various methods our clients have used: - Incentives/contests (this seems to work the best, but requires the admin to be creative and put the effort in): bloggers do not just blog on their own, they usually need an incentive (i.e. food, gift cards, vacation days, etc.) . We do tons of contests here – so if you ever want help brainstorming, let me know. You can also check out my other post on motivating your bloggers.
- Scheduling: Set a goal for how many posts you want up per week (more is always better) and then divide and conquer. For example, if you want 5 posts up a week, and have 5 bloggers, schedule one to write Monday, one to write Tuesday, etc.
- Send reminder/motivational emails: remember, while the blog may be on your mind all the time, it is not on your bloggers, send them an email every Monday with a reminder to blog, and what to blog about. It’s ok if every single person in your company wrote about the same thing because they are all giving their unique perspective, so share ideas.
- Enforce it: Make it a part of someone’s job, i.e. they will be reviewed based on how many posts they are able to get up (this usually works if someone is in a communications/marketing dept and it fits with their job function)
In terms of making sure the content is efficient, here are some things you should try to do in your blog posts to make sure they are doing the most for your search traffic: - Use your exact keywords phrases as much as possible
- Use keywords in your post titles
- Use videos/pictures to engage visitors
- If you copy and paste from another location, put it in Notepad first – this will strip the text of any outside formatting and make sure everything looks consistent
- Use bolding and lists to organize your content in a way that is engaging to readers
Hope this helps! If you'd like more information, contact a client success manager to learn how to optimize your blog marketing efforts, or if you're new to Compendium contact our sales team by clicking on the view demo link in teh sidebar.
Did you know that along with working at
Compendium in the marketing department I'm also a part time food critic? Well not really, but close! In the marketing department we also manage a blog called
Indianapolis Restaurant Reviews.
As a department we go out every Friday to a new location somewhere in downtown Indianapolis. Then we come back to the office and critique the restaurant and the lunch we had on our restaurant blog.
This might sound like a lot of work, but actually it's quite fun and we understand the benefit of blogging with Compendium (we drink the Kool-Aid) so naturally we want to use our software to promote our thoughts on area restaurants so we can insure that we're getting the most out of our blogging efforts.
Check out our blog
here and tell us where we should go to lunch next!
And for more information on how Compendium can help you make the most of your blogging efforts - click
here to schedule a demo today!
Most people don't realize that search engines prefer
fresh quality content over old content. Writing content every day will position your company to be found every day! We've helped you to build a targeted strategy that will attract search traffic, but you must provide the content that will engage readers.
How often should I write on my blog? Writing to your blog on a daily basis will also help you become a better blogger! Sooner, rather than later, you'll be thinking about topics or customer experiences and planning your next blog post as part of your daily routine!
Recency is also important because it will re-engage the search engines with your blog. It's key to your blogging strategy that new content brings back the search engines every day - building up your reputation as a great source of information.
Post Idea: What's the last conversation you had with a customer or prospect that can be shared for other searchers who are looking for the same answer? Write a blog post about it! Each day, review the interactions you've had with customers and prospects and begin writing!
Related Posts:
I figure a few months has passed since Bing's well hyped launched and it might be a good time to review some things we (search marketing folks) can learn from Bing so far...
- Content is king. Bing has an increased emphasis on content versus Google's emphasis on backlinks which has come to be one of the easier scammed areas of search. And as Doug Karr says "distorting relevance".
- Usability still matters. Bing has done some great things in regards to viewing pictures, videos, etc. Ryan Fitzgibbon has a great post outlining this.
- Offline marketing can compliment online marketing - especially for the masses. As hardened internet marketers, this can be hard to admit and I feel somewhat immune to Yahoo!, Bing, Apple and Microsoft commercials - but let's give some credit to a good hype campaign both on and offline.
- Default integration helps...I always use my mom as the example here; she's not a super user --- but she uses Bing because she has a PC and that's the default. We've also noticed bigger gains from Bing traffic in our B2B markets - one could draw the conclusion that this is from similar reasons (PC's are the way of Corporate America and Bing is likely the default here).
One convenient site is
Google vs. Bing if you are interested in looking at some of your own searches for your company and how the results differ in the two engines.
Side note: I actually originally forgot this post by my friend, Doug Karr, referenced above; but when doing some searches around "what has bing taught us?" I came across the post. Just another point to prove how important search traffic is for blogs and that a majority of blog visitors are first timers out there searching.
It's official, blogs are everywhere.
And no, I'm not just saying that because it's my job to say that. I was reading up on some
NFL news and before I knew it... I end up on a blog. I decided later to rent a movie and while sifting through reviews... I'm on another blog. And finally, I was reading the online news about my "happenings in my community" and wouldn't you know... Hello "community blog."
The thing that strikes me as interesting is the fact that I never went looking for blogs, but they always directed me to where I needed to go. If they didn't directly have the information I was looking for, they linked to a main page that did.
Whether you recognize it or not, there's no denying that blog marketing is everywhere and you cannot hide from it. So what is the strongest alternative? Join it!
Blogs are the strongest way to get information and news about your products and services out to your customers, while at the same time building a strong search marketing campaign.
If you are interested in learning more about how you can start building your business through blogs,
contact Compendium today or check out one of our
upcoming webinars!
In honor of Labor Day weekend and all of the "White" parties happening in the next few days, it only seems appropriate to reiterate the appropriate use and utilization of white space in a blog post. I know that
I've talked about this topic before but I think it is an important enough practice to reiterate the finer points below.
Pictures: Use of pictures will grab a readers attention, and give them an idea of what your blog post is going to be about. This will also help give a visual to your point and make your post more aesthetically pleasing.
Lists: Providing lists (either numbered or bulleted) allows a reader to glean information quickly. They can scan your post, get the information they want, and make that decision whether to take the next step with you. Make it easy for them by pulling out the important information, versus leaving it buried in the text.
Font Formatting: Similar to the effects a list has - it brings attention and focus to the important message of your post. Allowing someone the ability to scan for information quickly.
Paragraphs: Let's all be honest, nobody likes to read a computer screen full of text. So break up your text with paragraph breaks, or one of the above mentioned ways!
Its important to note that most visitors to a blog are new visitors, that you've never been introduced to before. They are going to evaluate your ability to solve their problem in less than 15 seconds - make sure you do everything you can to capture that potential customer quickly before they move on to the next guy!
For more blog best practices, contact the
Client Success Team and we'd be happy to set up a time to review your current content.
Having recently moved our blog hosting infrastructure onto Amazon's EC2 cloud system, I have been debating reviewing our monitoring solution. We have been using Zenoss for about a year to serve both as a graphical system that is used for identifying potential problems as well as an alerting mechanism.
When I last looked into potential solutions I was most familiar with nagios having set it up a couple of times in the past, but I was lured into Zenoss due to the built-in graphical interface and the promise of a web API that I could use to automate addition and removal of nodes. As it turns out the API is not particularly easy to use and Zenoss has had several bugs over the past year some of which have cost me a significant amount of time.
Now that I've moved from a traditional co-lo to EC2 I am intrigued by CloudWatch, but not enough to switch. The reasons for this are primarily cost and flexibility. Running CloudWatch at ~$10/server/month quickly becomes a large expense when compared to $74/month for a single m1.small instance that can be used to monitor many servers at a fixed cost. Further, with that small instance running Zenoss, I can trigger alerts on anything thing that I like. I am not limited to the datapoints that CloudWatch monitors.
In conclusion, if I were to be running only a couple of instances or I felt access to EC2 auto-scaling was a requirement, it might be worth the cost to run CloudWatch, but if you're running a large number of servers and are willing to give up auto-scaling(or build out a solution yourself or a 3rd party tool like rightscale), then CloudWatch just doesn't make sense right now.
In a recent survey put out by Forrester Research, it was found that 4 out of 5 Americans are using social media, while half report participating in social networking sites. Now that more online users are taking part in activities like posting reviews and commenting on blogs, fewer now contribute to online forums.
Why?
Because consumers and your potential customers are taking their discussions to more interactive platforms - social media. Sites like Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, etc are all tools that individuals are using to get answers to their problems, or using them as ways to voice their opinions.
As the Y Generation (those born between the late 70's and mid 90's) are entering and moving up in the work force it is important to know their habits and to make sure your company is marketing the correct avenues to keep up with the times, while capturing their attention as well.
Consider this quote from the same report:
"Adults of all ages increased their use of social tools in the last year. Adults younger than 35 approached universal social participation, while adults ages 18 to 24 and those ages 25 to 34 adopt social media similarly. Only 3% of 18- to-24-year-olds and 10% of 25- to-34-year-olds are socially inactive."
Let me repeat:
"Only 3% of 18- to-24-year-olds and 10% of 25- to-34-year-olds are socially inactive."
It is becoming more and more clear that social media is not just some habit that those young whipper snappers are using to talk about their Friday night activities. Nearly all adults online are participating socially, including those 40 and older. For example, my grandfather who is in his 80's has a Facebook account - and might I add that it was on his own volition.
So where are you spending your marketing budget? If your business doesn't already have a business blog solution, Facebook page or Twitter account, you are setting yourself up to be chasing your competitors who've already launched their social media strategy. Don't get left behind!
Sometimes it is hard to come up with content when you are close to the subject matter that you should be writing about. I often find myself talking to clients about everyday activities that they are engaged in and I point out how easily they can become blog posts.
It takes a little bit of time to start identifying what would make for an interesting blog post but once you get a hang of identifying content it becomes part of your everyday routine.
Here is a list of blog post ideas that I recently put together for a musician. I removed his name but will perhaps add it back in or at the very least do a follow up post when he starts to use these content ideas. (
See right there while doing my job I uncovered something else I could be blogging about - it's that easy!)
Blog Post Ideas for a Musician: CD Releases - You have 3 CDs so you have a ton of content that can easily be written. Even if it’s an older album you still want to sell it right? LINK TO YOUR PRODUCT IN YOUR POSTS
- Talk about the cover art
- Talk about the other artists that are a part of the project – write a post for each
- Every song should have a post with a buy now linking to the CD
- Release parties: where when who should come
- Post release party: get a flip and record a short review from an audience member makes for an easy video post
- Reviews – every time a review is published a follow up blog post should be published too with a buy now link to your CD
Shows - You have a regular gig right? Every week…. That’s at least one new post a week
- Pre show info
- Playlists from the show
- Ask fans if there is something that they want you to play during a show - have them comment back to you about it
- Post show
Media Coverage - Every time there is a newspaper or magazine article about you blog about it and link out to the full article. Heck even ask them to link to your blog when they are writing the piece about you!
I put together this list in about 5 minutes just from looking at the artists website, MySpace page, and Googling their name. Now think about how many more things the artist could come up with if they spent 5 more minutes on it.
Content is limitless but it really comes down to the amount of effort the blogger is willing and wanting to put into it.
Search Is Vital
I came accross a post by Chris Brogan that is about a year old. Still relevant LOL. He's reviewing a book called: Branding only works on Cattle and makes this point:
“Search is a larger, behavioral reality that impacts corporate strategy.”
Baskin rightly points out that marketing strategies that don’t include a heavy element of search won’t work well for us. One of the reasons that I advocate content marketing, such as writing a compelling group blog, is that it’s an opportunity to build search equity. 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.
Exactly. Although the world has evolved beyond the Group Blog to more widespread employee blogging, Blog Marketing is moving mainstream as a corporate marketing strategy for the simple reason that you can drive very high ROI by winning search and solving problems for your customers.
Social media and blogging are popping up everywhere in today's business world, as more and more companies start Facebook pages and Twitter accounts. The market is going online, and so are your potential customers. So what is your company doing to stay with the times and up to date with marketing?
This is where having a corporate blog allows your company to stay current, but also allow you to provide a human voice to your organization, that isn't just a sales pitch being thrown at customers. Individuals are going online, to search engines, to find the "answer" to their "problem", so make sure your company has a presence online in order to be found by those potential customers.
We here at Compendium obviously believe in the power of blogs, and the most important aspect to figure out when deciding on a blogging program for your company is the goal that you are trying to achieve. In a recent article on CNN, the author states:
"A blog can be useful for countless reasons, so it's best to decide for yourself what your purpose in starting it is," .......... "It's certainly fantastic for both visibility and staying current in today's market, but how you position it is ultimately going to determine how it works for you."
We couldn't agree more. The goal that you set for your corporate blog is ultimately what is going to drive results. If the goal is to simply have a place to write and win thought leadership, then the content requirement is going to be much less, than if the goal is to rank in the top 10 of the search results - which would require a much higher content creation level. The staff of Compendium is invested in our clients programs, and will help provide them the information and tools needed in order to accomplish their individual blog goals.
For more information on how to make your blog program successful, please contact our
Client Success Team and we'd be happy to set up a blog review.
Your blog is... yours.
Let me repeat myself: YOUR blog is YOURS.
When writing about your product or service, remember... YOU are the expert. YOU are the most qualified person to discuss it. People looking for information about a product or service don't want a review from a third party writer... They want the expert!
When looking on a way to make your online marketing effective, remember to motivate your employees to write... They are going to be the ones who people want to learn from, and they know the most up-to-date news about the company.
If you're looking on information on how to start a business blog and claim a piece of the online marketing world as your own, contact
Compendium today and we'll show you where to start!
For those of you golf fanatics out there I am sure you're aware that this weekend (starting today) is the 2009 Open Championship. This tournament is being held at the famed Ailsa Course at Turnberry, Scotland.
Naturally I always tune in to the big championships and when Tiger is playing, it seems that everyone else does as well. In any case, how does this relate to search marketing you ask? Well, given the role of product placements and sponsorships, I always like to find out how the major golf companies are pushing their products online post-tournament.
Usually when I am interested in a new product or see that Phil Mickelson has changed drivers, I like to check out the new products and read reviews. Having a
product development blog that is easily found gives me, the consumer, the opportunity to get the information I want. Many of these companies already have blogs, Twitter accounts and Facebook pages so hopefully more and more will continue to take advantage of
these online marketing tools and really open up their product promotions.
Recently an article was released on iMedia Connection authored by
Compendium's CEO/CoFounder
Chris Baggott.
The article outlines 5 outstanding business blogging programs, check out the complete article
here.
So you might be asking yourself - what constitutes as an outstanding blogging program? Well, the answer is simple - Chris addresses this question by stating the following:
"When contemplating this article, the first question I had to address was what exactly qualifies a corporate blog as being "outstanding." To me, an outstanding corporate blogging program is one that accomplishes the clearly articulated goals of the organization."
If you're thinking of starting a business blogging program of your own, review this article and see how easy it can be to fit blogging into your hectic schedule, and you never know, you might be able to run an outstanding blogging program and be featured in the next issue!
Trusted Content Developer: Element Three Website: www.DiscoverElementThree.comBlog: blog.discoverelementthree.comWho is Element Three in their own words: Element Three is about business. Specifically, your business and how to grow it. We are a brand development, marketing strategy and creative execution firm focused on integrating business insights to measurably advance our clients' business objectives. If you're a business leader with growth objectives you just might be interested in what we say. Or, more importantly, what we will do to help your business achieve more. Our clients' needs vary; from re-establishing lost market share to creating a new brand identity to packaging design to market analysis. All come to us with the singular goal of helping their businesses grow. Element Three. Business first.
Who is Element Three currently working with on Compendium’s platform?Element Three and Compendium have had a relationship for a little over a year. Element Three blogs on Compendium’s platform and is the agency of record for That’s Good HR that also uses Compendium.
While Element Three does not write the blog posts for That’s Good HR. They do provide monthly content strategies session with That’s Good HR bloggers in order to encourage quality content creation.
When Element Three brings a new client on what process do you use/work though to get to know and create content for the client?When working with a new client, we have a questionnaire that they would need to complete, we would review and then have face-to-face meeting with them to outline the content strategy for the upcoming month. We would not engage with a client for less than 6 months. It would be a set amount to help write the content strategy and to write a pre-determined number of posts.
Content creation as a part of June's Blogging Vacation has been picking up this week with prizes that go out to:
Congratulations prize winners! Haven't earned a prize yet this week?
You still have
two chances to earn prizes this week.
All you have to do is blog! We are here to help you earn prizes. Attend one of our
mini-webinars and Chantelle will provide you with a custom review of your content and blog post ideas!
Remember content is the driving force behind your blog's success. To learn how more quality content can positively impact your blogging ROI. Attend next week's webinar when we will discuss outsourcing content creation. Register to attend and you will qualify for additional prizes!
Understanding Content
Creation Outsourcing Date: Thursday 25th of June
Time: 2:00 PM - 3:00 PM EST
Remember there are still two prizes up for grabs this week.
Write content now!
