Read Start Your Own Business Online
Authors: Inc The Staff of Entrepreneur Media
Start Your Own Business (97 page)
AHA!Google Alerts are a great way to keep track of buzz and conversations happening about you and your company. Go to
google.com/alerts
and enter your company name and any keywords that might come up in a conversation about your brand. Whenever something is posted on the internet with those keywords, Google will send you an e-mail with the link. You can set this up to keep an eye on your competitors, too.
There are hundreds of engagement tools on the internet that can help you not only start and conduct conversations with your brand’s audience but also monitor and deepen them. One of the most powerful is blogging. Blogging is derived from the word “web log,” and it’s a type of website that’s usually maintained by an individual who regularly enters commentary, descriptions of events, or other material, such as graphics or video.
Websites can become static and dated, in addition to not being interactive, which means you’re not engaging or talking with your customers or clients. Putting a blog on your website allows you to engage in a two-way conversation with your market. To start the conversation, you can post valuable tips, content, discussions, resources, thoughts and reviews on your blog.
Blogging, which dates to the early ’90s, gained popularity in the beginning of 2000 and today is one of the most powerful interactive tools on the net. Whether you already have a blog or you need to set one up, there’s one thing you need to do ... become active on it. The key to building readers and followers for your blog is to be active and post valuable and compelling information on a regular basis. Serious bloggers post and market their blogs on social sites daily. Although this is a powerful and effective way to build readers and followers, daily posting isn’t necessary to grow your blog. All you need to do is allocate posting time that fits within your marketing schedule—and stick to it. Consistency is key when you launch and operate a blog. Your readers will begin to expect and look forward to your posts.
The first thing you need to do is find a blog platform. A blog platform is a site that allows you to set up, design and even host your blog. Most are free, although some offer upgrade capabilities and options.
A few top blog platforms include:
Video Marketing•
WordPress:
wordpress.com
•
Tumblr:
tumblr.com/
•
Blogger:
blogger.com/start
•
TypePad:
typepad.com
Just as marketing has evolved, so has the internet. What started as static text-heavy sites are now evolving into interactive and informative video pages. “Videos are by far the best lead-generation tool on the net,” according to founder and CEO Mike Koenigs of
TrafficGeyser.com
, a website traffic generator. “Videos are often misunderstood: Most people think that they need to invest in a big production of storyboards and high-end video equipment to make quality viral videos; however, the opposite is true. The more fun, humorous and engaging they are, the more likely they will become viral.”
TrafficGeyser.com
, a website traffic generator. “Videos are often misunderstood: Most people think that they need to invest in a big production of storyboards and high-end video equipment to make quality viral videos; however, the opposite is true. The more fun, humorous and engaging they are, the more likely they will become viral.”
TIPMost blog platforms, such as
wordpress.com
,
tumblr.com
or
typepad.com
, are free. Each of these blog sites has video tutorials to help you get set up and design your blog. Once your blog is ready to go, you can get better results in regard to traffic and conversation if you put it on your own website instead of hosting it on the actual blog platform.
Sixty percent of all web traffic is video, and according to YouTube, the average video viewed on the site is 27 minutes, which is surprising when the general marketing rule has been no more than two-minute clips, or you’ll lose them. Furthermore, YouTube reports that over 30 billion videos are watched in the United States every month. Another reason why videos are so powerful in marketing is the fact that they connect with the consumer’s three vital learning gateways—the audi tory, visual and kinesthetic.
e-FYICheck out
TubeMogul.com
. This site uploads and posts videos to the top 30 to 40 video sites, depending on what the content of your video is. Best part—it’s absolutely free!
One of the quickest, most affordable ways to create a video is to use a Flipcam and record short videos for your target market. They don’t have to be fancy; they just have to be fun and informative. A quick and easy way to launch a video campaign and make it viral is to do short video clips two to three minutes in length that are frequently asked and answered questions from your customers. The complete video marketing formula can be found on TrafficGeyser’s blog at trafficgeyser.com/blog. It’s called “The 10x10x4 Market Domination Formula.”
Overview of Social Bookmarking SitesTraffic from social bookmarking sites can give your site a huge boost in traffic, delivering thousands of visitors in just a few hours. While the initial effects can be temporary, if you give people a reason to come back to your website, you’ll certainly notice a positive cumulative effect. We’ll cover how to do this in the “Content Marketing Online” starting on page 624.
What is social bookmarking, how does it work, how can you get people to bookmark you and what can you expect? A social bookmarking service is a website that allows members to add page links as bookmarks, categorize those links, and provide added commentary. These bookmarks are then made available to the other community members, who are also generally allowed to make their own comments on the bookmarked page.
The service that kicked off the social bookmarking craze in 2003 was
Del.icio.us
. Since that time, hundreds of other social bookmarking services have been launched, with the most popular being Google Bookmarks, Digg, Reddit and StumbleUpon. All these services have the ability to deliver hundreds or thousands of targeted visitors to your site within a very short time; sometimes within hours of your page having been bookmarked if the wider community finds the entry of interest.
Del.icio.us
. Since that time, hundreds of other social bookmarking services have been launched, with the most popular being Google Bookmarks, Digg, Reddit and StumbleUpon. All these services have the ability to deliver hundreds or thousands of targeted visitors to your site within a very short time; sometimes within hours of your page having been bookmarked if the wider community finds the entry of interest.
Make it easy for site visitors to bookmark you by using a service called AddThis, which offers a free one-step click-and-add button for bookmarking sites. Site visitors simply click on the “Bookmark” icon on your site, and choose which of their social networks to post your content to, from Twitter and Facebook to LinkedIn and StumbleUpon.
AddThis keeps the list of bookmarking options current; plus, the service provides you with stats, such as tracking how your users are sharing your content. When you install AddThis, you’ll begin to receive analytics once your visitors start sharing your content. After you begin to receive analytics information, you can use filters to refine your data by domain, time period and other options. AddThis offers several different analytics reports to help you understand how visitors are sharing your content. These reports include information about popular content, services usage (such as Facebook, Twitter, etc.), and geographic summaries. Your analytics data can even be integrated into your Google Analytics reports.
Another must-have on your site is ShareThis, a little, green button found at
ShareThis.com
. This is another icon that makes it easy to share ideas, articles and content online. It’s a great tool to increase traffic and engagement, and with one click of this green button visitors can share your content with all their online networks.
ShareThis.com
. This is another icon that makes it easy to share ideas, articles and content online. It’s a great tool to increase traffic and engagement, and with one click of this green button visitors can share your content with all their online networks.
e-FYIYou can search current Ning site topics in their directory at
jensocial.com
. A great example of a Ning site specific to social media is
InSocialMedia.com
.
Ning, which means peace in Chinese, is an online platform for people to create their own social networks. Ning allows for deep social experiences around brands and topics. According to Tech Crunch, a weblog dedicated to obsessively profiling and reviewing new internet products and companies, there are 41 million registered users on Ning, and 92 million people a month worldwide visit Ning sites. Anyone can easily create a Ning social network, and most Ning platforms are free; however, upgrade options are available.
Content Marketing OnlineArticle marketing is a type of content marketing in which businesses write short articles related to their respective industries. These articles are made available for distribution and publication in the marketplace. Each article contains a bio box and byline that includes references and contact information for the author’s business. Well-written content articles released for free distribution have the potential of increasing the business’s credibility within its market as well as attracting new clients.
If writing is not your forte and you’re worried about creating powerful articles or content, there are hundreds of sites that offer writing services, such as
WritersForHire.com
, where you can set a budget for a project and post the job for hire. Another great resource for writers is right in your hometown at the local university or college. Interns are starving for more experience and would jump at the opportunity to write articles for credit. You can post writing jobs in the college career center, or call on the intern division in the marketing department.
WritersForHire.com
, where you can set a budget for a project and post the job for hire. Another great resource for writers is right in your hometown at the local university or college. Interns are starving for more experience and would jump at the opportunity to write articles for credit. You can post writing jobs in the college career center, or call on the intern division in the marketing department.
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