December 3rd, 2008 — Buildify, audience, customer feedback, engaging ideas, guest bloggers, news, planning, product awareness, promotion, publicity
As corporate blogging maintains a stronger foothold on in many industries, companies are seeking ways to take their efforts to the next level. If you’re interested in growing your blog’s audience and you want to engage your readers, you may want to consider trying a technique known as live blogging.
This is best illustrated by the activity that surrounds an upcoming launch and the subsequent blitz of a new Apple product. Weeks, if not months, before Apple releases something new, bloggers go to work talking about it, building up buzz and creating a frenzy. Then, as the day of the release gets closer, they kick it up a notch and get prepared. On launch day, many bloggers will be present in the audience and they will be blogging live about what is happening, in real time.
These blogs are always interesting to read, because they have that real time element and the excitement is palpable. You may not be Apple, but there are ways that you can use live corporate blogging to enhance your company, engage your readers and build up momentum to promote your new products.
The first step is to plan out an actual campaign for your live blogging efforts. Take the time to read through other live blogging events and their aftermath. You can learn a lot by taking the time to learn about any mistakes that were made, and how you can utilize the same exact tips in your business. You’ll also need to plan a big event, one that will interest your visitors and is large enough to generate buzz.
For example, a launch that covers a new type of dental floss may not be very exciting. However, a launch about a new type of dental floss that can dramatically reduce tooth decay without brushing would be. You’ve got to find that interesting angle, and then work to figure out how you’re going to push it.
A live blogging event will require some extra equipment. At the very least, you’ll need a laptop or a Blackberry. You’ll have to be connected to the internet and be able to post to your blog from your location. Once you have this in place, you can set up either a regular schedule to keep your readers updated, or you can do it as it happens.
Live blogging is exciting and these techniques can be used for virtually any corporate blog. The key is finding that angle, building up that buzz and following through. If you can do that, you’ll be able to hold a successful live blogging event. It’s a good idea to chronicle your efforts as you go through this process. This will help you plan out future launches and live corporate blogging events that will build on the success of your first one.
Try implementing these techniques the next time you have a new product or service coming out. Chances are, your readers will get swept away and you’ll notice a dramatic increase in site visitors and buyers.
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October 3rd, 2008 — book review
As corporate blogging gets a bigger foothold in the business world, more niche instructional books are starting to pop up. One of these that is actually well worth the read no matter what niche you are in is Realty Blogging. Designed to assist realtors in taking advantage of the benefits of corporate blogging, it goes in depth into many topics that all corporate bloggers can appreciate.
The main focus of the book is how to use your blog to build your brand, increase consumer awareness and sales, and all three of these points are crucial for any blog. The first chapter covers how a blog can be used as a strategic tool for realtors, and offers many reasons why this medium can be incredibly powerful, if it is harnessed correctly. It also goes over the changes in how technology is affecting the realty world and how realtors can take advantage of this before everyone else does.
The next few chapters discuss search engine marketing and direct communication. The first goes into how to target keywords for your blog, researching techniques that can increase your effectiveness at reaching your target audience and how to build up your niche. Again, powerful advice for any blogger. We appreciated the chapter on communication since this is another area where many bloggers fall down. It’s one thing to write a blog, it’s another to use it to develop relationships. Many bloggers fall into the trap of not keeping up on their reader correspondence and this can be a death sentence for many blogs.
Chapter four should be read several times and covers how to use your blog to build your brand. Specific tips are given, such as how to handle word of mouth marketing via your blog, as well as how a corporate blog can also be used for recruiting – another rare topic that is covered only sparsely in other books.
Chapters six and seven discuss how to become a trusted expert and then how to parlay that into relationship marketing. This is absolutely an exhaustive resource on both topics and goes much further than average books on this subject do. Chapter ten was another highlight and offers some great tips on blogging for lead generation. Yet again, another topic that is woefully ignored by many authors. This chapter should be read by any blogger, or manager that is looking for new ways to acquire leads.
We recommend this book to anyone interested in corporate blogging, particularly if you are doing so to make money, generate leads and further increase your sales. Although the book is of course geared towards realtors, there are many tips on lead generation that will apply to any industry and can be put to good use by any blogger. By far the best book we’ve read in the realty niche, and incredibly useful for just about anyone. We have high praise for this book and look forward to reviewing other niche corporate blogging books.
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