A corporate blog can be an incredibly powerful sales tool and many people begin this practice simply to sell more products. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that, but before you start, it is vital to learn the art of product placement. Blogging is similar in many ways to television and other media, but when it comes to product placement, there a few very big differences.

Have you ever stayed up late and watched an annoying infomercial? Most have, and even if you are vaguely interested in the product, it’s still pretty tough to get past the hype. Now, let’s put this in terms of a blog. If your blog is one long infomercial with no actual content of any value, chances are your efforts will be in vain. No one likes to read an infomercial – especially one that stretches on ad infinitum.

So, how do you still sell products on your blog, but avoid this trap? The answer is actually pretty simple. You need to develop a ratio of informative posts versus posts that contain product placement. You also need to work on inventive ways to integrate product placement into informative posts. Let’s cover the first one and then move to the second.

A good ratio to have to avoid sounding like the world’s longest infomercial is three informative posts for every post that contains a product placement. Yes, this only gives you about one chance a week to sell a specific product if you only blog once a day. However, the chances of that one post being effective are much higher than if you post nothing but product spam all week.

The key is to give your readers what they want. That would be informative content that they can use, enjoy, or relate to. No one can really relate to a commercial. Most blog readers are savvy enough to know that companies need to promote their products, and they are okay with the fact that occasionally there may be a post about a specific product. They are not okay with endless promotional posts that offer no value to them as a reader.

Now, let’s cover inventive ways to handle product placement. These are not overt sales pitches, but they can be even more powerful than a direct product placement post. The key here is to find a way to incorporate your product into your informative post that:

1. The flow of the post is not disturbed.
2. The product provides an answer to a problem.
3. The reader is interested in learning more about the product.

This is not as hard as it sounds. A simple well placed link to one of your products and a brief sentence about how the reader will benefit from it can be incredibly powerful. Test out a few techniques to see how well your audience responds to different variants of this technique until you find the one that is right for your blog.

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Originally posted 2008-10-31 05:45:47. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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There are three basic ingredients that are necessarily in building a successful and professional blog, which are the ability to provide high quality content, the need to develop a loyal readership, and the offering of quality products or services based on the niche or industry the blog is based in. When these three components work together, they can allow you to create a significant and steady income online through your business, by turning your corporate blog into an effective marketing campaign. So what does it take for these three keys to corporate blogging success to come together?

- Quality Content Production –

The origin of any extremely popular online blog is the quality of the content that is written for it. Whether your posts are interesting, informative or surprising, you need to find a way not only to gain attention but also the approval that comes from new visitors who find content appealing to them. Another important aspect when it comes to creating appealing content is the ability to motivate your readers to recommend your website to other potential readers, creating a viral effect that will boost traffic for your corporate blog, increasing loyalty for your company.

- Maintaining Loyal Readership –

First and foremost, the content that you post in your corporate blog should be consistent with whatever theme you have created for it. If you deviate from the initial purpose of the blog, you may end up creating confusion among your readers, which may lead to a significant decrease in your readership, which is the exact opposite of what you should be hoping to attain. The content that you create needs to consistently provide value to your readers. The heart and soul of your blog will be your ability to provide useful, entertaining, insightful, thought provoking or informative content to those who are reading. If you fail to provide this to your readers, it will reduce their loyalty, discouraging them from recommending your blog to their friends and family.

- Quality Products and Services –

Now that you are maintaining reader loyalty as well as attracting a consistently growing subscriber base, a couple of basic assumptions can be made. First, your readers have an obvious interest in the theme that your blog is based around. Second, it can be assumed that you command respect from your readers as an authority figure on the subject of your blog. This means that at this point, there is nothing wrong with making passive recommendations about the products that your company offers, showing them how these products or services will meet their needs.

Do not crowd your blog with advertisements or sales pitches, but continue to give them informative information with a few advertisements mixed in. This is the best way to maintain your readership loyalty while getting your sales pitches out in a passive way.

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Originally posted 2009-01-29 05:54:29. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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Business blogs are quickly becoming the “in” thing, at least as far as corporate communication is concerned. “Blog” is short hand for weblog or web log, which is an online public diary that is updated on a regular basis. Some web logs are updated daily, while others see updates every few hours depending on the industry and who is running the blog. The web log is usually updated with comments, announcements, recommended links and other informative content from the owner of the blog.

Blogging has been a popular method of communication among teenagers, geeks and other extroverts for many years. The typical blog style involves unedited, informal, first person entries that are posted in reverse chronological order. Many bloggers do not consider any detail to be too insignificant to chronicle to a virtually worldwide audience. Many personal blogs are not afraid to get really personal for their readers, talking about what they ate, where they went, who they talked to, and other seemingly mundane tidbits of information that readers are more than willing to learn about.

The blogosphere, or the world of blogging has been expanding at a rapid pace however, and is now including professional journals that are web based and designed to allow companies to reach out to target audiences in a completely new way. Now that entrepreneurs are developing a variety of creative new uses for business blogs and corporate blogs, the technology surrounding the blog concept seems poised to become the next big thing when it comes to communicating on a corporate level, not only with employees within the company, but also customers and competitors as well.

If you are doubting the move that blogging is making from an underground phenomenon into a true, bona fide trend, then consider the evolution of blogging and how personal blogs have already become truly powerful voices and methods of communication in media and politics. Last year, for example, a couple of high profile bloggers blasted Senator Trent Lott for giving a speech that appeared to sanction the act of racial segregation, and the fallout and publicity were so powerful, they ultimately prompted Lott to resign from his position as the Senate majority leader. Meanwhile, high traffic blogs are maintained by comedians like Dave Barry and journalists like Jim Romenesko from the Poynter Institute.

Evangelists believe that business blogs, also sometimes known as bblogs, offer similar potential to any other industry. In a few years, it is believed that we will wonder how we ever lived without business blogs and corporate blogs, according to Jim Carroll, who is a successful author and consultant. At a recent conference focusing on business blogs, Michael Gartenberg with the Jupiter Research company said that the single word of advice for Dustin Hoffman’s character in “The Graduate” would not be “plastics”, but rather would be “weblogs” in this day and age. Blogging is opportunity, according to John Lawlor, a B-blog consultant.

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Originally posted 2009-01-13 05:52:37. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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