In this week’s Ask Myles Monday’s video, Myles talks about how to get more customers using a company blog. A blog is an important part to any company’s online presence because it helps attract more leads, converts prospects, and builds relationships with your readers.

In this video, you’ll learn:

1. Why your business needs a blog?
2. How to quickly create a blog
3. The Do’s and Don’ts of Blogging
4. How to easily think of topics to blog about
5. How to create a blogging calendar

For a transcript of the video, click here.

 

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The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) has recently attempted and continues to attempt to persuade the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to cancel their plans to add up to 1,000 new generic top-level domains or TLDs.  A TLD is the address to the right of the dot toward the end of your URL, such as .gov, .com, or .net. ICANN’s new proposal would allow for the introduction of any kind of TLD, including brand names or different business sectors like .coke or .soda.

IAB argues that the addition of new TLDs will be a major change and not something to be rushed into. Randall Rothenberg, CEO and president of the IAB, stated that, “ICANN’s potentially momentous change seems to have been made in a top-down star chamber. There appears to have been no economic impact research, no full and open stakeholder discussions, and little concern for the delicate balance of the Internet ecosystem.” But, if one did want to register their brand name as a TLD, it would cost approximately $184,000. Large brand name TLDs such as .coke, .cnn, or .facebook will be costly for advertisers and publishers, while “cyber squatters” might also see this as an opportunity to profiting from someone else’s domain registration.

Each generic top-level TLD is predicted to see problems with other trademark-infringing domain names, so the effort to protect a second-level domain name could prove costly. Currently ICANN is still following through with their original plans despite backlash from IAB. Although ICANN opposition is stating new TLDs will cause problems for reputable brand names, on the positive-side ICANN has released that current and future registrars will benefit from this plan by having a larger inventory of names to sell.

Vid.ly, a video uploading service, has the ability to provide for all your video needs. The site has recently been revamped and is ready for the general public. Any video can be uploaded with your free account and Vid.ly makes that video available on any browser, application, or device. This means your video can be seen by anyone whether they’re on an iPad, Google Chrome, or a Blackberry.

Vid.ly has recently become more popular with browsers and devices, as seen on Vid.ly’s website:

According to data collected by Vid.ly, the iPhone uses Vid.ly for about 62% of its video use while Blackberry and Android also use Vid.ly at a significant percentage.  Though the iPad does not use Vid.ly as much, there’s a strong chance that as Vid.ly’s popularity grows, more Mac products will adopt this method of video use.

According to Christophor Rick’s blog, Vid.ly has also reported various browsers’ usage of their service. Firefox uses it 50% of the time while Chrome and Internet Explorer use it 20% of the time. This is good news for Vid.ly and as their service becomes more popular, chances are these numbers will increase as well.

Google is under attack, but stays calm in the midst of multiple allegations against their Web search services and influence over Android. The Federal Trade Commission along with several state attorneys general have been pushing forward with an investigation of Google’s control over Android’s operating system. Canalys, a company that provides research data, has stated that Android currently leads close to half of new smartphones shipped worldwide in the second quarter of this year.

After serving Google with several extensive subpoenas, the FTC continues to investigate whether the report that Google is preventing Android manufacturers from using other competitor services, is true. Google denies all allegations against them, assuring that none of their practices are unfair or illegal. Google believes that the recent increase in antitrust investigations has been a result of rival competitors who have been affected by Google’s aggressive push toward new business sectors.

In a private lawsuit against Google, the Boston-based company Skyhook Wireless Inc. has tried to prove Google otherwise. Skyhook claimed that Google was using its large market share to pressure smartphone manufacturers to drop Skyhook’s location-sensing technology in exchange for Google’s own competing service. Google replied stating that Skyhook’s allegations were unsupported.

Yelp is among other business-review sites that also agree to disagree with Google’s impartial statement, accusing Google of stealing content from their sites and posting it in the Google’s “Places” service. But so far the FTC has not proven Google guilty, and will not for a while since they are just starting an extensive investigation process that can last up to a year or longer. With several civil subpoenas being readied to send out to other parties in request of evidence against Google, the FTC is one step closer to solving the Google problem.

1.  Establish yourself as an authority in your field of business: Having a blog that you contribute valuable information to on a regular basis (recommend daily or at least a few times a week) can be your primary tool for establishing credibility and trust amongst your customer base. Your blog should contain well-written, engaging, and informative articles that pertain to your industry. Topics can include ideas about current events, thought provoking themes, and news about your company. Make sure the messaging is not self serving and that every post provides some kind of FREE value.

2.  Add Valuable Content to Your Website: I always recommend that business owners incorporate their blog into their website as opposed to having a separate platform. There are plenty of open source blog platforms that can be integrated into as website such as http://wordpress.com. Therefore your blog becomes part of your site and adds new pages every time you post. For example, your URL would be www.MyCompanyName.com/blog.

3.  Provide Great SEO Value for Your Website: As mentioned above, each time you post a blog article you are essentially creating a new page for your website. New pages mean a constantly growing website that has content pertaining to your business. These pages can be easily indexed by the search engines and be ranked in the search engine results. If you write with your keyword strategy in mind and hyperlink specific keywords to relevant pages within your website, you will also create a good internal linking strategy.

4.  Support Your Internet Marketing Strategy: The best way to add value to your Internet marketing efforts is to produce engaging content that people will share and link to. This established authority in the search engines and gives people a reason to stay on your website longer. You are also giving them a reason to come back. Set up a simple RSS feed so people can be notified when new articles are posted. This brings them back to the site. The more they come back and the longer they stay on it, the more likely they are to convert into some kind of business.

5.  Support Your Social Media Marketing Strategies: The best way to establish brand loyalty and trust is to continually provide free value to your customers. Some of the best content on the web (in my opinion) comes in the form of blogs and videos. The more great content you provide, the greater marketing value it will eventually create. Social media is not about self promotion, it’s about customer communication. A great way to establish regular “communication” with your customer base is to give them consistent value. One way to do this is by blogging.

6.  Personal Development: There can be a productive and “selfish” reason for blogging to. The best blogs are not written completely off the cuff with no real educational content. The best blogs provide tips, how to guides, thought provoking questions, and well planned topics with supporting details. This is usually done by the writer researching a topic prior to writing or using his or her own experiences and sharing them so that others may learn. The process over even preparing to write a blog can be personally rewarding and provide learning opportunities for the writer. I always encourage the business owners and top level executives to be key blog contributors for their companies.

7.  Platform for Events and Promotions: Although your blog should be primarily used for communicating valuable information about your business and industry, you can also use it as a simple tool to announce special events like trade shows, promotions, upcoming charity events, etc. For example, if your company is going to attend a trade show, you might write an article about the show and your purpose for attending. After the show you could post an article about your experience and even include a video. Or maybe your company is involved in supporting a charitable cause. A blog is a perfect forum for telling your readers about it!

Last week, the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) announced a new set of rules to govern bloggers with a connection to any company selling a product they are writing about. So, how far will the government go?  Right now, it’s unclear, but the guidelines could extend to regulate posts people make on Facebook and other social networking sites.

So what does this mean for our 1st amendment rights?
•    The government will have the ability to further dictate the parameters of individual communication via the Internet.
•    Several new questions arise about what exactly constitutes blogola and disclosure. (For those unblog-savvy types, “blogola” refers to posts made by bloggers who have been given some sort of incentive to post about a product.)  Should the disclosure be written in the post or can it be in the bloggers “about me” page? Is blogola really that different than traditional forms of advertisement and promotion?

However, here at IMI, we do believe that there are two sides to every story:

•    Libel is illegal. Defamation is illegal. Do they still happen frequently?  Yes.  Do they happen on the Web?  Way too often, but it’s not rigorously regulated online at the moment.  These new regulations will hold people responsible for their blog posts, which is a logical extension of current laws surrounding these concepts.
•    Has anyone ever posted anything nasty about you or someone you know on ripoffreport.com, juicycampus.com, etc.?  These sites continue to pop up every day, constantly grow in usage and exposure, and have significantly injured the reputations and careers of many.

So, what’s fair?  What do YOU think?  We’re interested, let us know…

Blogging is not social media in itself, but it is a perfect avenue for providing great value to your audience and social media strategy. When I speak about Internet marketing and social media to CEO’s and business owners, one of the biggest hurdles is blogging. Why? Because it takes time, understanding, and a general committment to provide a consistent knowledge transfer to for your readers.

Business owners simply need to embrace the importance of blogging as a tool for communicating your knowledge and experiences in your particular field. To do so, they must understand what its all about, why it is indeed important, and in what capacity. Once they have a clear vision, it is easier to make the committment.

HERE ARE SOME TIPS FOR GETTING STARTED:

Be An Expert in Your Field >>We can use the term “expert” losely but it does help if you know what you are talking about.  If you are a business owner, chances are you have a lot of knowledge and experience you can share with your readers. 

Start Be Reading Other Blogs >> Blogging is different than traditional writing and usually takes on a more casual tone.  The best way to gain a clear understanding of how bloggers in your industry do it is of course to read their blogs.  Simply run some Google searches or use Technorati (great tool for searching the blogoshpere) to find top blogs related to your business industry.

Messaging >>  After reading other top blogs you should have a good understanding of how people write.  You may also notice that good blogs are vary rarely self serving.  As a businss owner, the most value you will bring to the table (and therefore gain positive feedback) is through thoughtful educational topics such “How to..” guides or “10 Great Ways to…”.  Blog readers want it simple, well written, casual, and valuable.  They want to be able to lear something quickly and easily.

Be Consistent >>  The worst thing we can do as business owners is to start something and then not follow through.  That is why you must make the time committment.  Will you always be able to stick to your “blogging schedule”?  Of course not.  But that is why you have to make other sacrifices.  Why do you think I am multitasking on a Sunday (watching football while blogging)??  Contributing to your blog three to five times each week is good enough.  Don’t stress out about it.  Once you get into the groove it can be an enjoyable activity.

UNDERSTANDING THE MARKETING VALUE:

We already touched on the fact that good blogging allows you to show what you know.  The more free knowledge you provide your audience, the greater value it will bring your business.  Blogging also brings a certain amount of trust to a company.  That is why I always recommend that companies (large and small) have a corporate blog.  It is also great if the owners and/or top executives are the key contributors.  This goes back to the “transparency” part of social media.  Consumers want to see the CEO’s and owners out in front leading by example and taking responsibility for their brand.  But there is a more technical marketing value behind blogging and that is search engine optimization. 

Blogging is one of the best ways to add great content to your site as often as you like.  Great content of course leads to more pages for your website that can potentially get indexed and ranked by the search engines. 

Here are some tips:

1. The best way to accomplish this is to use a SEO friendly blog platform such as WordPress (this blog is a WordPress platform) and integrate it with your website (i.e. www.yourdomainname.com/blog). 
2. Have your keyword strategy in mind when writing.  Use blog titles and phrases relevant to your topic and industry.  For example, if you run a financial consulting firm you might write a blog about “How to Maintain Financial Liquidity”.  In that blog you would want to include keywords related to your topic as it relates to your keyword strategy.  I don’t want to get too far into SEO because that is a whole other topic.  As long as you write well and at least keep these tips in mind, it will add value to your website.
3. Promote your blog on your website in the header or footer so people know you have one.  I also recommend having a link to your blog in your email signature.  If you are engaged in social media, provide links to your blog through Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.  After each blog you write, post it on Facebook with a note about the topic.  The more you write and promote the blog, the more successful you will be in increasing links and website traffic.

When we first launched our blog a few weeks ago I was excited for the opportunity to contribute. We have freedom to choose our own topics, blog on our own time and use our own writing styles. We’re still experimenting with the best ways to engage people, categorize blogs and structure our blog but this will inevitably be fine-tuned as we receive feedback.

I’m incredibly impressed by the contribution effort. We have everyone on our team blogging from our Executives, Technology guys, Project Managers to our interns! We’ve got an amazing pool of talent and each individual has added something unique but really it’s the collaborative effort that’s unifying our voice. I encourage every company to start blogging.

Here’s why:

1. Compelling Content: Blogs provide your website with fresh, unique and engaging content. It’s important that your website has the corporate content: company description, team bios, case studies, etc. but face it: while we all love to think our website is amazing the corporate stuff gets boring! People aren’t going to revisit your site to read your content, but they will come back if you’re constantly engaging conversation through the blog.

2. Authenticity: Blogs add a human voice to your company. We think executives are untouchable. We’ve all gotten excited over meeting someone in a high power position because we think it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity. But really, executives are human just like everyone else. They should be making just as much effort to reach out and relate to their customer. Many people base their buying decisions of off emotions and personal connections. It’s a lot easier to evoke emotions through real human voices. If your customers see that your CEO cares enough to engage in conversation through blogging it will bridge the disconnect between the high power executive and everyday consumer.

3. SEO: This is the most important but given the least amount of attention for the simple fact that most don’t understand how to create a blog that helps with SEO. Blogs are a great way to optimize for your top keywords and improve internal linking if done strategically. It must be done in a way that doesn’t take away from the true intention of providing unique content nor turn your blog into an advertisement. Just adding keywords and linking arbitrarily doesn’t work. Companies who really understand how to blog for SEO now have another powerful tool that puts them ahead of their competition.

If your company has a blog please leave us the URL in the comments and I’ll be happy to see what you’ve got to say and even provide you insight through a Social Media Optimization and Search Engine Optimization viewpoint. If your company doesn’t have a blog but needs some inspiration to start one please shoot me a comment and I’m happy to get back to you with some insight.

-Melodie Tao