Compendium Blogware makes the most of the opportunity and helps companies increase their marketing efforts through blogging.
Posted Friday, November 21, 2008 by
Jason Gergely
If you don't know what an "Organic Search" is, listen up. An organic search is the section on a search engine that is not highlighted out, nor is it the column on the side of the page (those are pay per click advertising). Organic search is the middle section that most people click on when they are doing a Google Search. This is were the majority of the clicks actually happen. Now imagine being able to put your company website at the top of that search, whenever someone types in a problem they have that your company can solve? Well that is what an Organic Search Blog basically does. It is business blog that helps your company increase its search engine optimization when potential customers are using search. Your employees are blogging about their jobs, your company, and your product. These all help humanize your marketing and help people searching to solve a problem better relate to your website. Compendium Blogware makes the most of the opportunity and helps companies increase their marketing efforts through blogging.
Compendium Blogware makes the most of the opportunity and helps companies increase their marketing efforts through blogging.
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Posted Thursday, November 20, 2008 by
Chris Baggott
I saw this quote today that's totally appropriate for our thinking around Corporate Blogging and Search.....
I want to turn this great quote around just a little bit and say that the tick is to have those buyers identify you.
In tough economic times (or anytime frankly) businesses have to compete hard for every opportunity. If you are selling hardware or cars or even a lawyer selling legal services… your prospects are starting with a search. They are out there telling you they’re interested in your product or service.
What the marketer has to do is listening…..and I mean listening EVERYWHERE. Old SEO was all about your top 10 keywords. PPC was all about hundreds to thousands of identified keywords. If 75% or more of the clicks on a search engine results page happens in the organic side, doesn't it make sense to target all those PPC terms organically?
Widespread blogs for business are the only way to accomplish this.
"There will still be people out there buying
cars, and the trick will be to identify them
and what triggers them to purchase."
-Ian Beavis, executive client services director, Carat, a part
of Aegis Group, as quoted in AdWeek, October 13, 2008
I want to turn this great quote around just a little bit and say that the tick is to have those buyers identify you.
In tough economic times (or anytime frankly) businesses have to compete hard for every opportunity. If you are selling hardware or cars or even a lawyer selling legal services… your prospects are starting with a search. They are out there telling you they’re interested in your product or service.
What the marketer has to do is listening…..and I mean listening EVERYWHERE. Old SEO was all about your top 10 keywords. PPC was all about hundreds to thousands of identified keywords. If 75% or more of the clicks on a search engine results page happens in the organic side, doesn't it make sense to target all those PPC terms organically?
Widespread blogs for business are the only way to accomplish this.
Posted Thursday, November 20, 2008 by
Eric Romer
Traditional marketers tend to shy away from new communication or marketing channels, and may not care to understand why blogs and business are mentioned in the same sentence.
Don't let this happen to your business or marketing department.
As much as I am an advocate of business blogging, I also understand the difficulties that Marketing Directors face when internally selling a new concept, or misunderstood technology. I think the answer may be to focus on the term "content marketing" instead of "business blogging" or "corporate blogging." Our marketing department (which is a talented bunch) would probably fight me on this, but I think the word blog can push people further away from the results that a blog actually drives.
I read a press release today from the Blog Squad today, and co-founder Patsi Krakoff said it perfect.
Don't put something flashy in front of my face. Chances are you'll annoy me more than you'll get my attention. Instead, provide me with interesting, compelling content that builds my trust and interests me enough to explore your organization's products or services.
Don't let this happen to your business or marketing department.
As much as I am an advocate of business blogging, I also understand the difficulties that Marketing Directors face when internally selling a new concept, or misunderstood technology. I think the answer may be to focus on the term "content marketing" instead of "business blogging" or "corporate blogging." Our marketing department (which is a talented bunch) would probably fight me on this, but I think the word blog can push people further away from the results that a blog actually drives.
I read a press release today from the Blog Squad today, and co-founder Patsi Krakoff said it perfect.
“This new style of marketing is becoming extremely popular on the Web because it focuses on the reader, either by informing them, entertaining them, or by creating community relationships,” states Dr. Krakoff.Content marketing allows you to relate with customers in a more meaningful way. People have grown more and more cynical to mass advertising messages, or clear PR spin. In a Web 2.0 world, it's never been more important to listen to customers, and join the conversation. What makes them tick? What are the problems they are facing, and how can you help them? Whether it's a small business blog, or a Fortune 500 blog like Southwest Airlines, content marketing digs deeper than a display ad.
“The key is authenticity. Readers aren’t interested in the hype you see in TV commercials. When a business or professional publishes on the web, they must connect with customers in a way best done through writing valuable content that rings true,” she adds.
Don't put something flashy in front of my face. Chances are you'll annoy me more than you'll get my attention. Instead, provide me with interesting, compelling content that builds my trust and interests me enough to explore your organization's products or services.
Posted Thursday, November 20, 2008 by
Megan Glover
Just a friendly reminder there's 2 hours left to sign up for the free webinar: Make Blog Content Work for you with CoFounder/CEO of Compendum, Chris Baggott and VP of Blogging Evangelism, Doug Karr.
Get the Details and sign up here.
Hope to see you there!
Get the Details and sign up here.
Hope to see you there!
Posted Thursday, November 20, 2008 by
Compendium Client Marketing
You should be attending today's Webinar Simple Tips to Make Blog Content Work for You.
Content is key to a successful blog. As a business blogger I also understand the pain points of consistently creating relevant content!
Here at Compendium we understand and we want to help.
That's why today our educational webinar hosted by Compendium CoFounder/CEO Chris Baggott and Compendium Blogging Evangelist Doug Karr will focus on content.
Sign up to join the webinar today!
Content is key to a successful blog. As a business blogger I also understand the pain points of consistently creating relevant content!
Here at Compendium we understand and we want to help.
That's why today our educational webinar hosted by Compendium CoFounder/CEO Chris Baggott and Compendium Blogging Evangelist Doug Karr will focus on content.
Sign up to join the webinar today!
Posted Thursday, November 20, 2008 by
PJ Hinton
Writer's block is the bane of bloggers, that stuck feeling that you don't have the inspiration needed to write a good post. It's something that our team has been aware of, and we've worked hard to come up with ways to deal with the problem.
In the release of Compendium Blogware that went live on Tuesday morning of this week, we introduced some new features to the User Dashboard page where bloggers create and edit posts.
For some time, the dashboard page has provided a keyword blog title tag cloud. where the titles were sized based on the number of posts in each keyword blog. At a glance, bloggers could get an idea of what has been written about most within their organization's blogs
We decided to make the folowing improvements and additions:
In the release of Compendium Blogware that went live on Tuesday morning of this week, we introduced some new features to the User Dashboard page where bloggers create and edit posts.
For some time, the dashboard page has provided a keyword blog title tag cloud. where the titles were sized based on the number of posts in each keyword blog. At a glance, bloggers could get an idea of what has been written about most within their organization's blogs
We decided to make the folowing improvements and additions:
- Each customer gets the ability to choose up to five keyword blogs, which serve as primary focus concepts for their blogging employees.
- The old tag cloud was replaced with a smaller panel that shows the chosen focus keywords. The user can still see the larger cloud by clicking on a link.
- Blogging users are presented with a list of links to recent articles that were found by queries against against search services that index timely content. The queries are based on the list of focus keywords.
Posted Wednesday, November 19, 2008 by
Chris Baggott
We are growing quickly and need some more business development people to help us handle all of our inbound leads. Corporate Blogging is hot because in it marketers have a tool that not only has high ROI, but equally high engagement. If you know anyone who is looking to start a great career with a software as a service company serving business large and small...please have them contact us.
Business Development Manager
A Business Development Manager identifies, manages, and closes new business opportunities for Compendium Software.
A Business Development Manager must be articulate, persuasive, and able to develop and close a large pipeline of business within a short period of time. In addition, the Business Development Manager must be a self-starter who can roll up his or her sleeves and implement key selling initiatives.
Responsibilities include:
• Manage sales planning, forecasting, and analysis activities within our internal CRM system
• Manage sales opportunities throughout the sales cycle, with online demos, phone calls, email communications, and more.
• Maintain high activity level with prospects.
• Generate additional business opportunities through dedicated prospecting and cold-calling.
• Meet and exceed all quarterly and annual sales goals.
Qualifications:
• Excellent oral and written communication skills.
• Thorough understanding of MS Office applications and Internet.
• Ability to work independently in a fast pace, rapid change environment.
• Receptiveness to local and national travel.
• Ability to negotiate skillfully in tough situations.
• High energy level, enthusiasm, and passion for the business.
Send resumes to Ali Sales, ali@compendiumblogware.com.
Business Development Manager
A Business Development Manager identifies, manages, and closes new business opportunities for Compendium Software.
A Business Development Manager must be articulate, persuasive, and able to develop and close a large pipeline of business within a short period of time. In addition, the Business Development Manager must be a self-starter who can roll up his or her sleeves and implement key selling initiatives.
Responsibilities include:
• Manage sales planning, forecasting, and analysis activities within our internal CRM system
• Manage sales opportunities throughout the sales cycle, with online demos, phone calls, email communications, and more.
• Maintain high activity level with prospects.
• Generate additional business opportunities through dedicated prospecting and cold-calling.
• Meet and exceed all quarterly and annual sales goals.
Qualifications:
• Excellent oral and written communication skills.
• Thorough understanding of MS Office applications and Internet.
• Ability to work independently in a fast pace, rapid change environment.
• Receptiveness to local and national travel.
• Ability to negotiate skillfully in tough situations.
• High energy level, enthusiasm, and passion for the business.
Send resumes to Ali Sales, ali@compendiumblogware.com.
Posted Wednesday, November 19, 2008 by
Jason Gergely
Ok, we have talked all about what a blog is and what it can do for your company. I have even given you some specific examples of some of our clients that use blogging and how they utilize it. However, I haven't really talked about the Purpose of Blogging.
Basically, like I have said before I like to think of a blog as an online diary that is visible by anyone searching. But when talking about Business Blogging, we are talking about a different type of blogging. I mean employees write blogs (a certain number per week), about their job. The purpose of this is to help increase your
marketing efforts. Basically speaking, people want to buy from people and when they read a blog about one of your employees' job and your company, they will feel more connected with your company. You are Humanizing your Marketing, reaching out your consumer better and more effectively. Also, blogging helps increase your Search Engine Optimization when people do a search online. By blogging, your company website will rank higher in Organic Google Searches, which is where most of the clicks happen. If you would like more information about Blogs for Business or Blogs in general, check out Compendium Blogware and our blogs!
Basically, like I have said before I like to think of a blog as an online diary that is visible by anyone searching. But when talking about Business Blogging, we are talking about a different type of blogging. I mean employees write blogs (a certain number per week), about their job. The purpose of this is to help increase your
marketing efforts. Basically speaking, people want to buy from people and when they read a blog about one of your employees' job and your company, they will feel more connected with your company. You are Humanizing your Marketing, reaching out your consumer better and more effectively. Also, blogging helps increase your Search Engine Optimization when people do a search online. By blogging, your company website will rank higher in Organic Google Searches, which is where most of the clicks happen. If you would like more information about Blogs for Business or Blogs in general, check out Compendium Blogware and our blogs!
Posted Wednesday, November 19, 2008 by
Compendium Client Marketing
We would like to invite you to be apart of our Holiday $1k Blogging Spree. Create content over the next four weeks for your chance to win $1,000 raffle.
How the Holiday $1k Blogging Spree Work?
- All Compendium Clients are eligible to participate in the program
- 1 blog post = 1 entry into the drawing
- Blog posts created between 11/19 – 12/17 will count towards the promotion
- Drawing will be held live on 12/18
What are the Incentives for participating in the program?
$1,000 worth of gift cards of course.
- $500 visa card for the blogger who wins the drawing
- $500 visa card for the blogger’s blogging program
Disclaimer: Compendium Employees, Agency Clients, and Clients with outstanding receivables will not qualify for this promotion
Posted Wednesday, November 19, 2008 by
Doug Karr
Since arriving at Compendium about a month ago, have absolutely marveled at the application and its architecture. Each week I meet with our development team to discuss bugs and with Ali, co-founder and president of Compendium, to discuss backlog items. The bug list is always tiny and the backlog is being plowed through. They are an incredibly talented group of developers!
This is how Software as a Service is supposed to work! SaaS should be all about enabling your clients' success by continuous improvement of the product that meets or exceeds their business needs.
One request we hear often from our clients is where to get content. In a couple days, Chris Baggott and I will be doing a free webinar on making content work for you - but I'd be remiss to talk about our latest feature we've rolled out in application! This week our development team released a content suggestion tool.
When I logged in today, I was met with some keyword suggestions for my post as well as some content ideas. Utilizing the combination of the keyword suggestion and content ideas made it a breeze and inspired me to come up with some great content for our readers, how to publish your Compendium Blog in Facebook.
Compendium is dedicated to making blogging simple for businesses and helping those businesses execute a blogging strategy that will drive business results. Coming up with content ideas is important, and this feature is great one!
This is how Software as a Service is supposed to work! SaaS should be all about enabling your clients' success by continuous improvement of the product that meets or exceeds their business needs.
One request we hear often from our clients is where to get content. In a couple days, Chris Baggott and I will be doing a free webinar on making content work for you - but I'd be remiss to talk about our latest feature we've rolled out in application! This week our development team released a content suggestion tool.
When I logged in today, I was met with some keyword suggestions for my post as well as some content ideas. Utilizing the combination of the keyword suggestion and content ideas made it a breeze and inspired me to come up with some great content for our readers, how to publish your Compendium Blog in Facebook.
Compendium is dedicated to making blogging simple for businesses and helping those businesses execute a blogging strategy that will drive business results. Coming up with content ideas is important, and this feature is great one!
Posted Wednesday, November 19, 2008 by
Doug Karr
Truth be told, I'm not a huge fan of Facebook. I have a large network of friends and colleagues so I could spend all day in the application and never get a single piece of work done. I can never navigate to what I want to and all the noise is more of a distraction to me than anything else... but...
I realize that many of my friends and colleagues on Facebook utilize it effectively to network and communicate with one another. Part of executing a great social media strategy is to speak to people where they are rather than waiting for them to come to you. That's why Compendium puts a large emphasis on blogging for SEO. Prospective clients are on search engines... so that's where you need to meet them.
So, the single most important application in Facebook, in my humble opinion, is the Blog Network application. It allows you to publish your blog and favorite other blogs within Facebook utilizing RSS.
Be sure to add your business blog to Facebook today to share it with your network of friends and colleagues. It's all about social media domination and leveraging your blog's content is key!
I realize that many of my friends and colleagues on Facebook utilize it effectively to network and communicate with one another. Part of executing a great social media strategy is to speak to people where they are rather than waiting for them to come to you. That's why Compendium puts a large emphasis on blogging for SEO. Prospective clients are on search engines... so that's where you need to meet them.
So, the single most important application in Facebook, in my humble opinion, is the Blog Network application. It allows you to publish your blog and favorite other blogs within Facebook utilizing RSS.
Be sure to add your business blog to Facebook today to share it with your network of friends and colleagues. It's all about social media domination and leveraging your blog's content is key!
Posted Wednesday, November 19, 2008 by
PJ Hinton
InfoWorld has an interesting article that takes the pulse of developers who choose Apple Macs as their development machine. I think the article is correct in noting two key factors -- virtualization and MacOS X's BSD underpinnings -- as encouraging adoption.
How would I answer the question of whether I prefer to work with a Mac?
Working at Wolfram Research in the late 90s/early 2000s meant that I had to develop for a wide range of platforms, including Windows, Linux on four architectures, five commercial variants of UNIX, and MacOS. Prior to the release of MacOS X, I loathed having to port things to the platform. I didn't have a Mac to work on at the time, so I had to go bother our system administration group to get a loaner.
The lack of protected memory meant that applications ran in their own fixed size memory partitions, and if you ran out of memory, you had to quit the app and then modify the partition size. The lack of a command line, aside from MPW, was another annoyance.
I looked forward to the day when we got a MacOS X development machine because then I could do my library porting from the a shell, logged in remotely via SSH. It seemed so weird at the time, yet pleasing.
Here at Compendium, all developers are issued MacBook Pros, which was just one of many points that sold me on wanting to work here. Since we develop on the LAMP (Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP) stack, our development is done with customized CentOS Linux installs running on VMWare Fusion. We can test internet Explorer with VMWare Images of Windows, or we can log into a terminal server. It's nice to be able to suspend the state of my virtual machine so that I can pick up where I left off after shutting down my work laptop.
Like the developers in the InfoWorld story, the experience has not been without annoyances. During the first couple months of development, we ran into issues with Fusion wherein the virtual machines would crash under heavy disk activity, which meant that operations like checking out large amounts of sources from our revision control server would cause a system collapse. The bad part was that the crashes caused virtual disk corrpution, so there was the potential for lost work. We were able to get around the problem by rebuilding the virtual machines using the original virtual disks and upgrading Fusion itself.
Another smaller annoyance is that I have to make sure that I remove the USB key for my wireless mouse prior to putting the laptop in sleep mode. This is because if the computer is reawakened without the key in the port, the display will not power on, so the computer is left in this limbo state where everything is still running, but you can't see anything. The only way to recover is to power down the laptop.
Finally, the button for the track pad doesn't seem very durable. After about seven months of use, I noticed a click that happens as I press on the button. It's as if the button has become slightly dislodged from the spring support. So as you press, you feel it come back into contact before actually making the mouse click happen. I can get a brief respite by following the "paper wiping" instructions that have been recommended here and there on the net. I suspect that before year's end, I will have to take the computer in to have the button repaired.
Still, I wouldn't trade this machine for anything right now.
How would I answer the question of whether I prefer to work with a Mac?
You can pry my MacBook from my cold dead hands!But it wasn't always that way...
Working at Wolfram Research in the late 90s/early 2000s meant that I had to develop for a wide range of platforms, including Windows, Linux on four architectures, five commercial variants of UNIX, and MacOS. Prior to the release of MacOS X, I loathed having to port things to the platform. I didn't have a Mac to work on at the time, so I had to go bother our system administration group to get a loaner.
The lack of protected memory meant that applications ran in their own fixed size memory partitions, and if you ran out of memory, you had to quit the app and then modify the partition size. The lack of a command line, aside from MPW, was another annoyance.
I looked forward to the day when we got a MacOS X development machine because then I could do my library porting from the a shell, logged in remotely via SSH. It seemed so weird at the time, yet pleasing.
Here at Compendium, all developers are issued MacBook Pros, which was just one of many points that sold me on wanting to work here. Since we develop on the LAMP (Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP) stack, our development is done with customized CentOS Linux installs running on VMWare Fusion. We can test internet Explorer with VMWare Images of Windows, or we can log into a terminal server. It's nice to be able to suspend the state of my virtual machine so that I can pick up where I left off after shutting down my work laptop.
Like the developers in the InfoWorld story, the experience has not been without annoyances. During the first couple months of development, we ran into issues with Fusion wherein the virtual machines would crash under heavy disk activity, which meant that operations like checking out large amounts of sources from our revision control server would cause a system collapse. The bad part was that the crashes caused virtual disk corrpution, so there was the potential for lost work. We were able to get around the problem by rebuilding the virtual machines using the original virtual disks and upgrading Fusion itself.
Another smaller annoyance is that I have to make sure that I remove the USB key for my wireless mouse prior to putting the laptop in sleep mode. This is because if the computer is reawakened without the key in the port, the display will not power on, so the computer is left in this limbo state where everything is still running, but you can't see anything. The only way to recover is to power down the laptop.
Finally, the button for the track pad doesn't seem very durable. After about seven months of use, I noticed a click that happens as I press on the button. It's as if the button has become slightly dislodged from the spring support. So as you press, you feel it come back into contact before actually making the mouse click happen. I can get a brief respite by following the "paper wiping" instructions that have been recommended here and there on the net. I suspect that before year's end, I will have to take the computer in to have the button repaired.
Still, I wouldn't trade this machine for anything right now.
Posted Tuesday, November 18, 2008 by
PJ Hinton
Both ReadWriteWeb and CNet's Technically Incorrect were in a tizzy yesterday over an analyst's forecast that the ad revenue for big media backed Hulu will surpass that of YouTube in 2009. You can read the posts here:
Hulu does have a following within the Engineering Group at Compendium, primarily for some of the TV series that are available on there. Those who use it have high regard for its user interface, which is both sleek and functional. Still to be seen is whether Hulu can break past the early adopter crowd and into more mainstream audiences.
Aside from offering streaming video and earning ad revenue, I've never really looked upon YouTube and Hulu as being direct competitors. Hulu is a channel for big media content, backed by big media (Fox and NBC behind it). It's becoming the official online presence for TV and some movies.
Although the MGM deal portends YouTube crossing over into Hulu's turf, the real draw of YouTube has always been the "you" part. Yes, there may be scads of videos of questionable legaility, and there may well be some really inane videos of the "Leave Britney Alone" variety, but there are some videos of merit. Unlike Hulu, provides a channel for people to share home movies. Others publish educational screencasts on YouTube.
In short Hulu is a walled garden, and YouTube is wide open territory, with plenty of space for eveyone to stake a claim. If you believe that the future of the web is to become a one-way channel of information, like TV, then Hulu is where things will be headed.
For some reason, this grates on my views of what the net should be. I consume a lot more information from the net than I do TV, mainly because I have a strong say-so on what appears before me when I surf the net. The sheer variety of the things out there on the net is something I find to be way more engaging than most of what's on the TV schedule.
The utlimate question is whether YouTube has a viable business model. Is there some combination of advertising or fees that can help YouTube earn its keep? The advertisers seem to think their dollars are better spent on Hulu, according to the analysts
If the advertising pie is a zero sum game, then YouTube probably has to turn to some sort of fee structure, most likely to those who upload content. But given the sheer volume of existing clips on that site, it will be a tough sell.
YouTube has some challenging times ahead, but Google is packed with a lot of smart people. I wouldn't rule out the possibility that they help YouTube find its place. Betting against Google is wager with very long odds.
- Online Advertising: Hulu Catching Up With YouTube? (ReadWriteWeb)
- Hulu's ad revenues to catch up to YouTube's? (CNet Techincally Incorrect)
Hulu does have a following within the Engineering Group at Compendium, primarily for some of the TV series that are available on there. Those who use it have high regard for its user interface, which is both sleek and functional. Still to be seen is whether Hulu can break past the early adopter crowd and into more mainstream audiences.
Aside from offering streaming video and earning ad revenue, I've never really looked upon YouTube and Hulu as being direct competitors. Hulu is a channel for big media content, backed by big media (Fox and NBC behind it). It's becoming the official online presence for TV and some movies.
Although the MGM deal portends YouTube crossing over into Hulu's turf, the real draw of YouTube has always been the "you" part. Yes, there may be scads of videos of questionable legaility, and there may well be some really inane videos of the "Leave Britney Alone" variety, but there are some videos of merit. Unlike Hulu, provides a channel for people to share home movies. Others publish educational screencasts on YouTube.
In short Hulu is a walled garden, and YouTube is wide open territory, with plenty of space for eveyone to stake a claim. If you believe that the future of the web is to become a one-way channel of information, like TV, then Hulu is where things will be headed.
For some reason, this grates on my views of what the net should be. I consume a lot more information from the net than I do TV, mainly because I have a strong say-so on what appears before me when I surf the net. The sheer variety of the things out there on the net is something I find to be way more engaging than most of what's on the TV schedule.
The utlimate question is whether YouTube has a viable business model. Is there some combination of advertising or fees that can help YouTube earn its keep? The advertisers seem to think their dollars are better spent on Hulu, according to the analysts
If the advertising pie is a zero sum game, then YouTube probably has to turn to some sort of fee structure, most likely to those who upload content. But given the sheer volume of existing clips on that site, it will be a tough sell.
YouTube has some challenging times ahead, but Google is packed with a lot of smart people. I wouldn't rule out the possibility that they help YouTube find its place. Betting against Google is wager with very long odds.
Posted Tuesday, November 18, 2008 by
Chris Baggott
I had a fun lunch today with a Real Estate office that has become a client of Compendium Blogware. This company has about 15 bloggers and are populating about 50 topical blogs.
The problem has been in content creation. We see this a lot and Doug Karr and I will talk at length about this during our webinar on November 20th. Generally, when people contemplate a Small Business Blog or any tactic involving Blogs and Business, it always comes down to what to write about.
My core blogging advice is; always talk about the customer. What does the customer want to read about? These folks at the Real Estate office were talking about highbrow stuff like the Economic conditions or financial real estate outlooks and not talking about the houses.
My message to business bloggers was this: Look at your search terms. This is telling you exactly what your prospects want you to talk about. "homes near butler schools" pretty clear right? Searchers are telling you clearly what your small business blog should be about. Just talk about what you do, make your stories short and pointed. If I had a listing for a house in this environment, I would blog about that house a couple times a day. Blog about the bathrooms, blog about the master bedroom, blog about the view and the construction. Blog about the Schools. All of these are seperate opportunities for you to leverage your blogging platform to move your business forward.
I'm sure I've got my friends turned around. Just don't overthink it. I'll turn to CNN if I want news about home foreclosure rates, I'm coming to you for real estate blogs.
The problem has been in content creation. We see this a lot and Doug Karr and I will talk at length about this during our webinar on November 20th. Generally, when people contemplate a Small Business Blog or any tactic involving Blogs and Business, it always comes down to what to write about.
My core blogging advice is; always talk about the customer. What does the customer want to read about? These folks at the Real Estate office were talking about highbrow stuff like the Economic conditions or financial real estate outlooks and not talking about the houses.
My message to business bloggers was this: Look at your search terms. This is telling you exactly what your prospects want you to talk about. "homes near butler schools" pretty clear right? Searchers are telling you clearly what your small business blog should be about. Just talk about what you do, make your stories short and pointed. If I had a listing for a house in this environment, I would blog about that house a couple times a day. Blog about the bathrooms, blog about the master bedroom, blog about the view and the construction. Blog about the Schools. All of these are seperate opportunities for you to leverage your blogging platform to move your business forward.
I'm sure I've got my friends turned around. Just don't overthink it. I'll turn to CNN if I want news about home foreclosure rates, I'm coming to you for real estate blogs.
Posted Tuesday, November 18, 2008 by
Megan Glover
I ran across this article today about Compendium Client, Estridge Homes.
Estridge is a home builder based in Indianapolis, IN Read the article: Social Networking, The Boat Hasn't Left Yet
Blogging with Compendium since April 2008, Estridge's blog strategy includes 25 blogs and two content contributors. Currently 60% of all blog traffic comes through organic search on such terms as Estridge Homes and Indiana Home Builders.
Kudos to Estridge for being a marketing leader within their real estate industry.
Estridge is a home builder based in Indianapolis, IN Read the article: Social Networking, The Boat Hasn't Left Yet
Blogging with Compendium since April 2008, Estridge's blog strategy includes 25 blogs and two content contributors. Currently 60% of all blog traffic comes through organic search on such terms as Estridge Homes and Indiana Home Builders.
Kudos to Estridge for being a marketing leader within their real estate industry.
Posted Tuesday, November 18, 2008 by
Blake Matheny
As I wrote in a previous post, Amazon is entering the CDN (Content Delivery Network) market. Today in a series of posts, Jeff Barr and Werner Vogels announced CloudFront, a Beta CDN service available now from Amazon and built on top of AWS (Amazon Web Services).
This is significant for startups, such as Compendium Blogware, for a few reasons. Gaining access to a CDN has in the past been a potentially costly, if not time consuming proposal. However, with so many startups building on top of the infrastructure available through AWS, the cost to leverage this new CDN for those startups will be very low.
Amazon has done something very smart here. They decided to provide a service that most of their S3 customers would probably leverage but that many people probably would not move to AWS for. That is, the primary users of this service initially will most likely be existing AWS fanboys (like me). The benefit of this approach is that the beta users are customers who are already familiar with your service and who are going to be able to provide reasonable feedback.
It will be interesting to see what large companies decide to bail on CDN services from companies like Akamai and Limelight in favor for an integrated solution from Amazon. It probably won't happen today but I can see that switch starting as soon as AWS moves CloudFront out of beta.
Posted Monday, November 17, 2008 by
Chris Baggott
I was happy to see some great press today from my friend Dustin Sapp, managing partner for data-driven voice messaging software company Vontoo. Dustin&Vontoo have a soft spot in my heart, because the were the first customer ever for Compendium Blogware.More importantly, my respect for Dustin comes from his vision and courage in starting Vontoo in the first place. A lot of times we talk about Entrepenurship in terms of creating a new market. Perhaps the hardest thing to do is add reall innovation to something that everyone else thinks is old and tired.
Vontoo is the worlds only data-driven voice messaging company. The idea is to first get permission (never unsolicited calls) and then set messages up using real human voices. The key is to trigger those messages at the right time to the right people.
For example, we use Vontoo to remind people of our Corporate Blogging Webinars. Typically we get 500-700 registrants for our webinars (like this Thursday with Doug Karr and I reviewing 200 blog content ideas) Usually we wind up with about 20% of those registering actually attending the webinars. Several months we tested a pre-webinar voice message from Vontoo. Our attendence grew by 50% vs. and email reminder. Now we use Vontoo for all of our Webinars and are looking for other areas. Compendium will be testing a follow up voice message from a whitepaper download and we are considering Vontoo for our collections dept.
Anyway, great press Dustin...well deserved.
Posted Monday, November 17, 2008 by
PJ Hinton
Blogging at CNet's Webware, Rafe Needleman writes about how he's now tracking web companies that are hiring, in addition to those companies that are firing. It's a sign of these shaky economic times.
While we may not be located out in the technical paradise that is the Silicon Valley, we are hiring nonetheless. If you're interested, you can check out our career opportunities page. Right now we're looking for a Business Development Manager. If you decide to apply, be sure to let 'em know you saw my blog post. ;-)
While we may not be located out in the technical paradise that is the Silicon Valley, we are hiring nonetheless. If you're interested, you can check out our career opportunities page. Right now we're looking for a Business Development Manager. If you decide to apply, be sure to let 'em know you saw my blog post. ;-)
Posted Monday, November 17, 2008 by
Sarah Sedberry
Compendium Blogware now has a new help and support line in place for our customers, who are looking to update or add to their template. This new function will allow the Client Success Team to focus more on strategic planning with our customers in order to drive success and ROI. Plus, now that we have a dedicated team to this function, it allows for a much faster turn around time on requests!We encourage our clients to reach out the the Help/Support line when they are experiencing problems or want to make a change to their template, such as adding a new CTA or adding a new header image.
The Client Success Manager's will still serve as a resource to our clients as it relates to their blogging program. Such as "How do I motivate my bloggers?", "How can I increase my Keyword rankings?", "What is the best keyword to target for this industry?", etc.
As always, your Client Success Manager is always willing to help out with any questions you may have.
To access Help/Support:
Web: Http://www.compendiumblogware.com/help.html
Phone: 317-777-6255
Email: help@compendiumblogware.com
Help is generally available between 8:00 am and 5:00 pm (EST).
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