Posted by Biz Central USA Marketing Team on May 12, 2009 under Small Biz Marketing | Be the First to Comment

Most startup blogs are small, but with time and regular updates your audience can grow. As a small business it is important to start your blog early because this can be one of the most cost effective ways to start marketing your business. As your business grows so will your number of followers and those who become faithful, will appreciate your information and possibly become future consumers.  Not sure how to get started, below are a few tips to get you on your way. 

1. Use other people′s blogs to establish yourself as an expert: Reading and commenting on blogs within your industry niche or close to your niche can help you to establish yourself as an expert. You can offer your own opinions or angles to the entries being posted. When appropriate, you can even offer links to your own blog entries or articles to offer as additional information to the readers. This step is very important because as a new blogger you will learn from others more experienced.
2. Use your blog as a form of communication: Use your company blog as a way for your potential customers to know you. A blog is a great way to express yourself and show off your quality. You want your readers to feel like you are talking to them as a friend, without being too personal.  You can also use the blog to ask questions to your readers in hopes of a reply or comment on your blog. All of this will help to establish an environment where people know they can receive answers to their problems, as well as read fresh, interesting content.
3. Define you topic and stick to it: Now that you have decided to add a company blog to your website decide what your main focus will be a stick to it. For example, if you are in the organic gardening industry stick to topics like; organic gardening 101, dangers of pesticides, USDA regulations etc. Sticking with a niche topic will target the potential consumers that you want. An individual who swears by genetically modified food will be much less likely to become a consumer in the future.
4. Stay current and up to date: Old news is bad news for blogs. This is not to say that you cannot post comments or complete a write-up on something that happened a few days ago, but you can′t post something that happened four months ago and expect people to value it. It is important to stay current with issues and news happening in your industry if you want to build a steady following.
5. Don′t forget about spelling and grammar:  Two benefits of blogging are that they are less formal and you do not need to be a professional writer to have and maintain a blog.  Still, spelling and grammar should be a priority.  Neglecting to spell check and use proper grammar can affect your credibility no matter what your writing experience is or the industry your blog focuses on. 

 It′s not necessary to be a professional author or multi-million dollar company to have a blog.  All you need is opinions, information and insight in your area of expertise.  If you prove to be genuine and knowledgeable your readers will notice and your blog will become one of the most cost effective marketing tools your small business could invest in.

Posted by Biz Central USA Marketing Team on April 16, 2009 under Small Biz and Entrepreneurship,Small Biz Marketing | Be the First to Comment

On Tuesday, I had the pleasure of attending the Hubspot “How to Use Social Media to Attract More Customers″ webinar.  Thousands of social media gurus and newbies flocked together (maybe you were even one of them) to find out new tips and tricks on implementing social media into their company′s Client Relationship Management (CRM).  What was most interesting to me, other than the webinar itself, was the outstanding viral effect of this webinar.  From the planning stage through follow up, Hubspot set the groundwork for continuous promotion of their webinar through the use of Twitter.

From the second you hit the webinar′s landing page you were hit with an opportunity to “Tweet this webinar”, “Share on Facebook”, “Follow us on Twitter”, “Become a Fan” and “Subscribe to our Blog”. Once registered for the webinar, you were again hit with a larger “tweet it!” button, which when you clicked, it automatically opened up your Twitter home page and created a tweet for you!

The day of the webinar, as normal you were invited to listen in and follow the live webinar online, but you were also urged to communicate and ask questions on Twitter during the webinar.  Well, that is exactly what thousands of people did!  In fact, so many people participated in live discussions on Twitter that this webinar just about brought down the Twittersphere.  Comments were 19 minutes behind due to high volume and “#hubspot” became the #1 trending topic on Twitter.  Today when reviewing all of the comments made by Tweeps (the inclusive Twitter term for Peeps using Twitter) I became mentally exhausted after going through over 50 pages of tweets, and still counting. In addition to their massive exposure, Hubspot also engaged in the conversation on Twitter by fielding questions, posting updates on the Twitter status and tweeting a few “tid bits” along the way.

Was their webinar successful? I would say yes, definitely.  Not only did they accomplish the task of finding people to attend their webinar, but they participated in proactive CRM and also got loads and loads of free marketing and PR for their company and the conversations are still going.  If you were on Twitter that day, I think it may have been inevitable to not hear something about Hubspot, they just about brought down Twitter. 

The moral of my story for small businesses is this: It is almost certain, that as a small or startup business you have a very minute amount of funds to work with for marketing and PR purposes, but using outlets like Twitter and Facebook are completely free!  Take advantage of these social mediums to push your message out to the public.  Embed your brand into the minds of the millions of Tweeps, Facebook groups and other social media stalkers-In this case a penny saved could turn into a penny earned!