If you are confused about blogging's value to your company, I urge you to check out our ROI Toolkit. It is one of the many resources that Compendium Blogware provides for its clients and for people who are curious about corporate blogging. This toolkit can help your company create the social media strategy that will drive lead generation and increase online visibility.
Since return on investment is one of the key deciding factors of whether a marketing plan gets implemented, Compendium has created this toolkit to show how blogging is one of the most cost effective ways to market your company.
The toolkit includes:
- 2 Case Studies - 1 White paper - 1 article about the 10 Ways to Boost the Value of Your Corporate Blog - A Checklist to Get your Blog Started
It's just a start, but the ROI Toolkit can really help your business blog. Check out a demonstration today if you want more information.
Congratulations to Dun & Bradstreet! Today they launched their new Corporate Blog complete with clear calls to action (A great way to capitalize on using blogging as part of a search marketing strategy).
I read a great article in the Wall Street Journal this morning entitled Entrepreneurs Question Value of Social Media that disccussed the frustration small companies have in measuring the ROI of social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. There is no arguement that in the past few years these social media sites have become powerful marketing tools for small firms due to their low cost and ease-of-use, but the disconnect comes when the number of followers doesn't correlate to the number of sales at the end of the day.
The article quotes Chris Lindland, owner of Cordarounds.com, an online clothing retailer in San Francisco, who says that "he spends up to 90 minutes a day managing Cordaround's accounts on Twitter and Facebook, but his million visits hasn't led to millions in sales." This 1.5 hours/day equals 7.5 hours/week which equals 30 hours/month and 360 hours/year. WOW! All of this time spent for a return that is difficult to measure.
This is why utilizing an enterprise corporate blogging platform is so important for any size business. Compendium's platform not only improves a company's organic search result, but can easily measure ROI which is important to any company's bottom line.
I received a project today to update records in our database of people who attended a webcast that our CEO and Co-Founder, Chris Baggott, spoke at recently. He covered many things about the importance of business blogging and strategies to help your business, like which platforms to use and how to optimize your companies performance in search.
One of things I had to update was what questions people asked and there was a common trend. People realized that blogging was the solution, but they did not know what type of software to use. The answer is easy, Compendium Blogware! Our affordable corporate blogging software can help businesses large and small. It also only takes roughly 10 business days to complete the Getting Started process so you can begin to maximize your web presence. If you would like to get some questions answered, view a demo today!
Thanks a lot to Interactive Agency Fat Atom for sharing this great video. We talk often here about your Corporate Blogs being the hub of your social media strategy. There are lots of reasons for this, but one of the most compelling is control. With Blog software like Compendium, you own your blogging strategy and nobody can take it away from you. Who can say what happens with Facebook or Twitter in the future...but as a business you need to control your own social presence. This is not to say that you don't feed relevant blog content out to these social spokes, but you need to control the hub. Enjoy this great video :-)
Exciting news at Compendium today. The results of our first Corporate Blogging and Social Media Trends survey are in.
With the help from our marketing advisory council, Debbie Weil,Jay Baer and Jason Falls - we set out to find answers to the question: What percentage of your blog traffic is brand new?
Why tackle this question? Well, up to this point, marketers have struggled to find a concrete way to measure business blogging. Repeat visitors, RSS subscriptions and "community" have all been words used synonymously with blogging success, but what's reality?
The reality is, when blogging for business - 80% or more of your traffic is going to come from brand new visitors. And, this is a great thing! By altering the way in which we've previously measured blogging success, we can take this new found knowledge and turn new visitors into potential clients. Thus, business blogging becomes another marketing tool in your suite of demand generation tactics.
Other great pieces of info are included in the study but it's really great to have data that helps marketers build the case for business blogging in a way that breeds tangible ROI.
As Google continues to roll out new search enhancements (personalization, real time search etc.) it is truly interesting to see how much value is created for the end user. For instance, Salesforce was creeping along this morning so I decided to search "is Salesforce down?". Naturally, salesforcewatch.com and downornot.com won the top two organic search results (Salesforce.com had the only PPC ad) but I found it very valuable to see that right below the main organic results, Google was pulling Twitter results directly applicable to the search.
In this instance, several results were also being pulled back from recent blog posts and this was quite valuable. If your company is using your blog as the hub of your social media strategy, you can truly begin to dominate a space simply because you're present in so many arenas. For instance, if someone searches "affordable blogging software", our corporate blog wins that search and in some cases, real time Twitter results have shown up related to the topic. Naturally then, it is important to first, win the organic results and give searchers what they want, but also to utilize other strategies capable of making the searcher happy through other social mediums.
One of the greatest days of the college basketball season is Selection Sunday which is when the NCAA picks 65 teams to play in the big tournament. This tournament is what we all fondly call March Madness or the Road to the Final Four. However, this tournament also creates inspiration for your company's blog! You can create your own blogging tournament like we have done at Compendium Blogware.
Heather, our blogging coordinator, has made a tournament with every department competing against each other. Then at the end of each week, a department is eliminated for their lack of blogging. Luckily, the Marketing department is leading in the 2nd week of the tournament but we still have to survive the last two weeks of the tournament. We, as the marketing department, pride ourselves on our blogging frequency and expertise so all the rest of the departments are trying to beat us.
I do not have any worry though that we will be victorious of our little tournament. Either way, blogging tournaments and incentives can really help your company's blog and add some fun to your corporate blogging strategy.
One of things I did today was upload old Compendium webinars to a site called slideshare.net. Compendium uses the website as a place for people to review some of the webinars Compendium offers. I uploaded around five to seven of our webinars that can provide insight into your corporate blogging strategy.
The old webinars cover topics such as:
"5 Compelling Reasons for Small Business to Blog" "2009 Top Corporate Blogging Trends" "Why Blogs are Affordable, Dynamic, and Efficient Marketing Tools"
Those are just a few of the webinars that are uploaded. Most of these webinars are not offered directly off of Compendium's website so I would suggest checking out slideshare.net to view them! I am sure one of the webinars on the website can be useful for your business!
One of the greatest resources Compendium offers is the Whitepaper "What Third Generation Blogging Means to You". It is also one of the most frequently downloaded Whitepapers off of our website. The reason why it is such a popular Whitepaper is because it shares what is the true value of a corporate blogging strategy.
The only problem is that many business people are unaware of the positive influence blogs can have for a company. Businesses are losing credibility since many of their marketing campaigns do not seem personalized. Blogging can help change that. Businesses are not being found online because they have not created content that is compelling. Blogging can change that.
Social Media is here to stay! It represents a paradigm shift in the way we communicate. While it can be overwhelming to process all of the information presented in the following video remember this: Social Media is the future of business.
My good friend, Marty Bennett, introduced me to this concept and has a very progressive perspective on how important Social Media is to students making college decisions. With all of these media available it's important to have a hub. Last week we had a great webinar with Jay Baer, he went into detail explaining why a blog makes the most sense to be this hub. My biggest take-away from his presentation was how important it is to use a blog within the context of your business. So being sure to have effective Calls to Action so that decisions are made.
When it comes to corporate blogging, it's important to have content that is ready to be re-purposed and shared.
With the current state of our media driven world we have more and more "connectors". The most effective social media marketing strategies are those that empower this army of connectors with targeted, meaningful information that spreads across their network with authority.
As it sinks in, I begin to feel overwhelmed by it's implications and excited by what the future holds.
The Compendium Blogware team had a brain storming event last evening and the collaboration was fantastic. We bounced ideas off of one another, and built the camaraderie needed to become a world class sales team. When selecting the appropriate venue to host our event, we wanted something close to our office (which is located in downtown Indianapolis). We needed an area to meet/mingle; an area to eat our meal; and hopefully the facility would have something fun for us to do afterwards.
Jillian's was our selection. We decided that some competitive bowling would bring out the competitive juices, and show some of our true colors. While the service and food were good, the bowling alley was far from decent. Pins wouldn't re-rack appropriately and this happened to each of our four lanes about every three frames. The pricing was too high for the value, but the space is superb for company functions. So, if you choose Jillian's then stick w/ the food and drink...no bowling.
Corporate blogging software companies are good dinner guests, but our platform for criticism too powerful.
The other day I had the opportunity to sit and listen to our co-founder Chris Baggott speak about his views on social media marketing and how blogging fit into the picture. After listening to him, there was a light bulb that went off in my head that clarified the power of what blogging can do for a company.
Prior to the days of million dollar Superbowl commercials and radio advertisements, companies relied on their value being spread by word-of-mouth from one customer to another. This form of advertising had the most value to a company, but as the target audience grew so did the methods used in order to reach them.
Think about how you look to experience something new today. What would you do in order to find a new restaurant to eat at? TV to buy? Or place to vacation? Research shows that 82% of people are using search engines like Google in order to look for answers to these questions. How does social marketing fit into this picture? It brings customers together from all over the world in order to share experiences through word-of-mouth advertising.
Blogging is the vehicle that gives your customers the best avenue to share their stories through words and pictures. Compendium's corporate blogging software allows customers to share their stories through web-to-post. This positive review of your company's service or product creates more value to an on-line searcher than any print ad ever would.
Blogging now empowers customers to re-initiate the value of word-of-mouth advertising on a global scale.
At Compendium we drink the Kool-Aid. We're all busy but we all are tasked to blog. I am in sales and blogging is a lead gen tool for us. That is a great motivator for me and that is why I appreciate the best blogging software, the only corporate blogging software on the planet. The user interface is so simple, so fast and the compending feature is priceless --- to coin an overused campaign sound bite.
If you can't take my word for it, and why should you, check out this internal email sent last week from Heather in the Compendium Marketing Dept. to see what I mean... "Just wanted to share some inspiring information about our internal blogging program:
Since the start of our blogging efforts (November 2007) to today, Compendium employees have created 3,226 blog posts.
With the compending process, those 3,226 posts were multiplied a little over 117 times generating 377,683 total posts in our keyword blogs.
So, the 2 years and 3 months time to generate 377,683 combined keyword blog posts would have taken 263 years to create without the compending process!!
Have a great weekend!"
WOW! I can't tell you how many leads we generated from those posts but let's just say we're all EXTREMELY busy and leave it at that.
Should your organization be blogging? If you don't think you have the time to make an impact on your SEO, customer acquistion and lead gen goals, check out the Compendium blogging solution and let it do all the heavy lifting for you. Trust me on this one... it works!
Compendium Blogware, the leader in corporate blogging software and search marketing solutions, experienced a pretty serious "we're not a startup anymore" moment today. We got our very first company coffee machine (see figure A).
Outsiders might see our new coffee machine as an insignificant purchase. They might say, "big deal. We have a coffee machine at our company, and it's not that cool." But for Compendium employees, it is that cool.
Having our own company coffee machine means not having to risk a ride down a sketchy elevator just for a fix. It means not having to wait in long lines, or deal with hyperactive baristas at 8:30 am. It means hundreds of dollars a month in our pockets (sorry I'm not sorry Howard Schultz). To me, this isn't just a coffee machine. This is just one of the many signs that our company is on a path for huge success.
Congratulations Compendium Blogware on your new purchase.
Figure A.Our new coffee machine has 2 separate pots, which means we have the ability to brew lots of coffee. Also, we can make two different kinds of coffee to accomodate different palettes. Also, it looks like we could actually rep a third pot in the future, as there are 2 pot warmers on top of the machine. In a business blogging environment, scalability is always top of mind. This is obviously a sign that we plan to keep growing into 2010. If you want to see how you can get in on this free company coffee, check out our job listings, and if you have access to any good black market coffee be sure to note in your cover letter.
A month ago I had the pleasure of having coffee with social media goddess and Compendium friend, Debbie Weil. Debbie's the author of, The Corporate Blogging Book, which is undoubtedly the first book to tackle blogging for business.
This week Debbie just launched an updated Kindle version of the book.
Stay tuned for more Compendium events with Debbie. We have a Webinar in the works for May 6 and an eBook of sorts is in the making!
A fun fact for everybody: according to Marketing Sherpa, 80-90% of all Clicks happen in the organic section of a search engine page.
Wow! The problem is many companies are not competing for that portion of the search page. They are using sometimes overly priced ad words and at times are relying on usually unreliable SEO firms. Many companies are just unaware that starting a business blog could be your #1 Search Marketing tool.
Compendium Blogware has a webinar to show you how our corporate blogging software could be your solution! Marketing departments need to discover that they do not need to spend thousands of dollars on advertisements that they won't be able to measure their ROI. With the help of Compendium, creating and leveraging a blog can save your company lots of grief and money. Check out the webinar on how a blog can be your #1 search marketing tool.
I hope everybody has heard of our client referral program called "Spread the Word" which is one of the most successful ways that our company gets to meet new potential clients. The reason why is because of you! People are beginning to hear about Compendium Blogware's corporate blogging software and there are some incentives in it for you if you help them take the initiative to get in touch with us.
The program is pretty simple. You give us a referral, you get a $25 gift certificate to Amazon.com with up to ten referrals! That means you can potentially get $250 bucks for just being one cool customer. Then to make the program even a bit better than what it already is, if any of your referrals close within 30 days after the referral...you get a Kindle!
So join the "Spread the Word" campaign by Compendium and refer somebody to the most powerful business blogging software anywhere. You're friends will thank you for it.
In your search for your morning cup of coffee, I pose you with a choice: purchase an inexpensive cup of coffee vs. a pricier cup of coffee. Which did I choose?
The pricier cup of coffee.
I'd like to explain how I arrived at my decision - and my choice of coffee this morning is the same choice you should make about your corporate blogging software.
My first option for coffee was to stop at McDonald's and get a large coffee for only $1.00. Sounds like a great deal, right? The problem is that the $1.00 cup of coffee comes with a lot of "baggage." It involves waiting in line (either in the store or the drive-through) for an extended period of time. Certainly not a desirable situation. In addition, the coffee is not the highest quality.
The second option is a pricier, more powerful cup of coffee from Starbucks. This cup of coffee is generally three, maybe four, times as much money as the McDonald's coffee. The major advantage is that convenience factor. Starbucks in conveniently located on the first floor of our building.
The major difference between these two options is the powerfulness of Starbucks' coffee vs. McDonald's. The second difference between these two options is convenience.
These two factors, powerfulness and convenience, are some of the major benefits of using Compendium Blogware. Not only will Compendium's blog platform leverage your search engine optimization results, but it is also a convenient way to optimize your search engine optimization results.
For more information on this powerful blog software and how it is the best option for your business, click here to schedule a demo with a blogging expert.
What would you say if the president of your company asked you to produce results from your social marketing efforts?
What would you say if you were asked to monetize your Twitter feed?
What would you say if your pay per click (PPC) spend was killing your bottom line?
What would you say if Compendium's corporate blogging software is poised to help you answer the previous questions with confidence and actual data? Yes a return on investment (ROI). An actual living, breathing return on the time, effort and resources used to generate a customer acquisition strategy. Too good to be true? Nope. Take a look at our resources or call us directly 317.777.6268 to find out more.
If you are confused about blogging's value to your company, I urge you to check out our ROI Toolkit. It is one of the many resources that Compendium Blogware provides for its clients and for people who are curious about corporate blogging. This toolkit can help your company create the social media strategy that will drive lead generation and increase online visibility. 
webcast that our CEO and Co-Founder, Chris Baggott, spoke at recently. He covered many things about the importance of business blogging and strategies to help your business, like which platforms to use and how to optimize your companies performance in search.
One of the greatest days of the college basketball season is Selection Sunday which is when the NCAA picks 65 teams to play in the big tournament. This tournament is what we all fondly call March Madness or the Road to the Final Four. However, this tournament also creates inspiration for your company's blog! You can create your own blogging tournament like we have done at 
One of things I did today was upload old 
Blogging Means to You". It is also one of the most frequently downloaded Whitepapers off of our website. The reason why it is such a popular Whitepaper is because it shares what is the true value of a corporate blogging strategy.
A month ago I had the pleasure of having coffee with social media goddess and Compendium friend, Debbie Weil. Debbie's the author of, The Corporate Blogging Book, which is undoubtedly the first book to tackle blogging for business. 
organic section of a search engine page. 
one of the most successful ways that our company gets to meet new potential clients. The reason why is because of you! People are beginning to hear about 
The second option is a pricier, more powerful cup of coffee from Starbucks. This cup of coffee is generally three, maybe four, times as much money as the McDonald's coffee. The major advantage is that convenience factor. Starbucks in conveniently located on the first floor of our building.
