HubSpot's Inbound Internet Marketing Blog

Stop Obsessing over Number of Blog Comments

Magdalena Georgieva — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 17:23:00 GMT

I am obsessed with blog comments. I count them and recount them. I see their number as a sign that people are genuinely interested in my content.

Comments, however, are not necessarily an objective indicator of engagement. Their number, big or small, can be misleading. But is shutting down comments a way to avoid getting misled?

Internet marketer Dan Ronken recently started an InboundMarketing.com forum discussion about whether "closing off comments until a decent amount of readership is built" is a good approach. An extensive blog without comments, he suggested, "feels less engaging."

"Leave them open," advised him forum participant Brian Rogers. "I wouldn't shut off comments as that would delay when people start commenting!" Brian wrote. Here are five other tips that emerged from the forum.

Give Readers Rights

Give your readers the rights they deserve. Readers want to know that they have certain rights even though they might not actually use them. Blogging is about expressing opinions and enabling free speech. This can be achieved only if you leave the communication channels open. As Rick Burnes wrote, "For users, the ability to comment is far more apparent than the ratio comments/posts."

Engage Known People First

Get your friends and personal connections involved in your blog. This will create the foundations of your reading and commenting culture. In addition, it will give you valuable feedback for improvement. "If you're worried about no comments," Brian noted, "once you get the blog going, email some of your good friends to go in there and leave some comments to spur the conversation."

Reward Loyal Readers

Reward your loyal readers by allowing them to comment on your posts and participate in your conversations. They might be a small crowd but they are on your blog and are there to learn and interact. By not nurturing your existing relationships, you might lose your most loyal readership.

Pursue What's Authentic

Comments are important as long as they are authentic. Often times, no comments can be more authentic than lots of comments. Anne-Marie McReynolds suggested that we should be aware of the different motives behind commenting. "Is commenting really about building authentic relationships or about SEO (i.e. backlinks)?" she asked.

Stop Anticipating Comments

Don't blog in anticipation of the commenters' feedback. Keep your focus on what got you started on the blog post. Seth Godin explains that expectations for responses permanently change the writing style. "Instead of writing for everyone, I find myself writing in anticipation of the commenters," he noticed.

In other words, obsessing over the number of your blog comments is like every other obsession--it leads to unproductivity.

Photo Credit: earnest70six

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5 Marketing Lessons from the Godfather

Prashant Kaw — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 08:15:00 GMT

The Godfather is an iconic film and novel that everyone remembers and quotes. There are so many remarkable lessons -- from Michael Corleone's hero's journey to his succession of leadership from his ailing father during a tumultuous gang war. Here are 5 valuable marketing lessons from the Corleone family that will help you take on the Tattaglias, Barzinis and Sollozzos that you face!

1. Keep Your Friends Close, Your Influencers Closer

In our social media life it is important to keep in touch with your friends, but make sure you are engaging your influencers. Identify experts and analysts in your industry and build relationships with them. However, as Don Corleone justly scoffs Amerigo Bonasera on the day of his daughter's wedding to "Ask with Respect" and "Come to me with friendship," your motive for engaging the experts should be to build a lifelong friendship!

2. Give Your Audience Offers They Can't Refuse

I couldn't say it any better. Great offers reduce barriers to generating leads. How could anyone refuse to read an eBook that has valuable content or attend a thought leadership webinar that keeps them on top of their game? Especially, if it's free! When it comes to social media and lead generation, great content makes the best offer. Share it so your audience will spread it!

3. Don't Hesitate to Go to the Mattresses

If you don't stand for something, you will fall for anything. Thought leadership is the key to influencing your audience. It will help you to reason with them. Take your strong convictions to the mattresses and build up expertise in your industry. A good example at HubSpot is how we have taken on traditional marketing with our stance on inbound marketing.

4. It's All Personal, Every Bit of Business

Throughout most of the book (and movie), you are led to believe that every action, every move, is all business. However at the very end, Michael Corleone reveals with this outburst that he alone understood his father the best:

"Tom, don't let anyone kid you. It's all personal, every bit of business. Every piece of sh*t every man has to eat every day of his life is personal. They call it business. OK. But it's personal as hell."

Businesses are comprised of people, and using social media is a great way to bring that personal touch to your business and marketing. It also gives your brand personality!

5. If You Can't Change, You'll be Sleeping With the Fishes

There is a huge shift in how marketing is working and being done on the web. Just as Michael Corleone realized he needed to move from New York to Las Vegas to protect his business interests, you need to adjust with the times or find yourself obsolete. If not, your business could end up like Luca Brassi -- sleeping with the fishes!

So in summary: Learn about inbound marketing and use social media to build up thought leadership. Share remarkable content and engage your influencers. Go to the mattresses with your thoughts, ideas and convictions. But when its over, drop your guns and take the canolis. In then end, it's always personal!

Are there any other lessons you took away from the Corleone family? As always I look forward to your thoughts in the comments!

Photo Credit: Amazon.com

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The 5 B's of Bad Link Building: Borrowing, Begging, Bartering, Bribing and Buying

Pete Caputa — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 11:11:00 GMT

A while ago, I wrote an article about link building. It is one of the most read articles on our blog.

It explains how to do link building the right way and provides a path for newbies to get started and progress to master link builders, the right way. The way that Google wants you to build links--by attracting and earning them.

Even though this article has been read by thousands of people, attracted 50+ links and garnered almost 200 comments, it still hasn't been read [or understood] by enough people.

How do I know? A week doesn't go by without someone asking me whether they should pay a company to build links the wrong way.

So, what's the wrong way?

Borrowing

I guarantee that someone will leave a comment on this post with a link to their website in the body of their comment. Here's an example.

This is borrowing links.

Many blogs allow commenters to insert links into the body of their comments. Many don't.

So, these link borrowers also resort to inserting their keywords where their name is supposed to go. I wrote a controversial post about this bad practice previously, "Why Leaving Comments is Not a Link Building Strategy."

Our blog software's spam filter catches many of these comments. Yet not every site has spam filters in place, and many people automate or just cut and paste such comments all over the web. This is borrowing and it is wrong. Doing it might get you a short-term, unsustainable burst in rankings. But these are not high quality links. And won't provide long term advantage.

Begging

Then, there's the beggars. They send emails to people they don't know asking for links.

I recently received a really creative e-mail. The person inroduced himself as a big fan of my writing and suggested that "based on reading what I write" I should check out this new social networking site. He wrote about how awesome the site was (without any explanation why). He suggested that I should write about it because everyone else who did it received floods of traffic. He got very offended when I responded that I wasn't interested and that he should be more upfront about his link begging intentions.

Of course, begging comes in many forms. Not all are as creative as this guy. Most people just send emails to webmasters asking them to link to them. While begging is one way to build links, it is ineffective and the fastest way to annoy a webmaster.

Bartering.

I'll link to you, if you link to me. I'll buy your services, if you buy mine. I'll show you mine, if you show me yours.

Aah. How adolescent does that sound? And how much easier do you think you can make it for Google to detect that you didn't earn that link? Google's power is that it detects patterns. This is a pretty easy pattern to detect: "Site B links to Site A. Site A links to Site B."

Of course, bartering or trading links gets more creative by saying, "I'll link to you, if you link to him and I'll link to this other guy if he links to you, etc." There are even networks you can join to facilitate this process.

Participating in these "link building rings" is even riskier than regular bartering. It's believed that Google labels websites into "neighborhoods." There are "bad neighborhoods" that you don't want to live in. By interlinking with websites in a bad neighborhood, Google will think you too are bad.

Bribing

Many companies try to bribe webmasters and bloggers for links. We'll send you stuff if you link to us. Although harder for Google to detect, this isn't a great practice. In fact, the FTC frowns upon this. I'm not sure whose wrath I'd fear more--the FTC's or Google's. Either way, it is best to not disobey the government.

Buying

Several sites and services help you buy text links on other sites that pass SEO credit. There is also a black market in link buying that is much less formal, more secretive and not necessarily that organized. I wouldn't recommend either one.

If you're not too averse to risk taking, this is probably the most effective link building strategy of the Bad B's, because you can control what sites you are getting links from, and analyze these sites to ensure that you are not placing links in bad neighborhoods. You can also place links within relevant content and use anchor text for the keywords you are trying to rank for. But, and it's a big but, it's still risky. Google explicitly states:

However, some SEOs and webmasters engage in the practice of buying and selling links that pass PageRank, disregarding the quality of the links, the sources, and the long-term impact it will have on their sites. Buying or selling links that pass PageRank is in violation of Google's webmaster guidelines and can negatively impact a site's ranking in search results.

Therefore, although it might work, I do not advocate buying links.

In fact, as you might have guessed, we do not advocate borrowing, begging, bartering, bribing or buying links.

If I had to pick a winner in the fight between a surreptitious link builder or Google's algorithms, I'd pick the algorithms. In other words, Google will eventually perfect their detection of who is B'ing links and who is earning them.

I personally know entrepreneurs with websites that were generating tens of thousands of dollars one month and zero the next because of practicing the Bad B's of link building.

Don't do it. The risk isn't worth it. Learn to build links the right way.

Photo Credit: Max Klingensmith

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Eight Social Media Tips from Artist Natasha Wescoat

Magdalena Georgieva — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 08:20:00 GMT

Making a living as an artist is hard. Somewhere between establishing a market and promoting your art, you have to stay inspired.

Artist Natasha Wescoat has done just fine online with all three. She uses blogging and social media to promote and sell her creative work online. "If I can do it, anyone can," she said in a telephone interview yesterday about her social media usage. Here are eight tips that emerged from our conversation:

1) Experiment, experiment, experiment Natasha got started with experimentation. In 2005, she began video blogging and saw that people responded to her content. Afterward, she got interested in MySpace and Facebook. With almost 5,000 followers, she has now become an avid Twitter user.

Experimentation helps you keep up with changing industry landscapes. As Ben Rowe commented on Natasha's Mashable post, "Twitter mightn't be the silver bullet for all artists. A blog, Flickr or Etsy page might not be either. But the artists who are out there trying these new tools are already miles ahead of the artists who aren't."

2) Set time for social media Make sure you are not overusing the social networking sites. "I try to set a time everyday to check all my different networks," said Natasha. Twice a day, after waking up and before going to bed, she checks her Twitter replies. That helps her avoid habitually overusing the tool.

3) Patience is a virtue If you are just getting started with social media, be patient. "It takes a lot of patience and research," Natasha said. You won't see instant results because developing relationships takes time. Natasha suggested that social media rookies focus on "building their networks and relationships because that will be their most powerful tool."

4) Train Your Brain Train your brain to regularly read other people's blogs and tweets. They provide good examples of the interaction that you are looking for. When she first started using Twitter, Natasha found herself at a loss. "I didn't have any idea what to say. But I read other people's discussions, trained my mind and got started on new ideas," she said.

5) Build friendships The importance of real interaction and conversation versus scalejacking can't be emphasized enough. "Work on the friendships, most of all," said Natasha. "Don't think about numbers." If you are not working on the conversations, you will eventually lose your existing connections. Social media requires not only networking across different channels, but also engaging in those networks.

6) Add personality If you feel comfortable revealing details about your personal life on Twitter, do it! The nature of social media is to express your personality. Many companies encourage employees to represent their brand on Twitter without fear of getting sabotaged. As a successful example of this practice Natasha mentioned Scott Monty, the head of social media at Ford Motor Company.

7) Bring target audiences in Bringing your target audience to Twitter is an enormous step toward achieving your goal as a marketer. For instance, Natasha uses her blog and newsletters to attract her readership to Twitter. You too should use widely known tools to draw connections to your Twitter page.

8) Consistency + Conversation = Success Although there is no fixed success formula for social media interactions, a certain pattern repeats for the successful Twitter users. "Even though social media is intuitive and fluid, there is a main theme--consistency and delving into the conversation," said Natasha. By adopting these two features, you can network more effectively.

Photo Credit: Natasha Wescoat

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10 Qualities That Can Make Your Video Go Viral

Rebecca Corliss — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 06:51:00 GMT

One of my favorite types of content to create here at HubSpot is video.

Inspired by a new "viral video" that I have been working on (to be launched next week!), here is a list of 10 video qualities that encourage others to share video content throughout blogs and social media sites.

It's not a specific equation to creating viral content; it's more like a game of bingo. The more of the below qualities you have, the higher the chances that your video will win ... and "go viral."

1) Do a parody/spoof of something familiar. By playing off of something that everyone already knows--for example, a popular song, movie or a TV show--people will have a reference point to relate to your content. This made Al Yankovic famous. It's the humor of seeing something familiar in a new way.

2) Incorporate music. Elements that stimulate other senses (short of smell or taste) make your video much more engaging and entertaining. Hint: Create your own music or use music under a Creative Commons license. It would be a bummer if YouTube removed sound due to a record company's copyright.

3) Make your video very short. My favorite piece of advice regarding content creation is "murder your darlings." You actually add more value if you make your content easy to consume! No matter how much awesome footage you may have, cut it down to the absolute minimum. Most people only have a few minutes or LESS to watch a video.

4) If you use music, keep it uptempo. Though deviations to this tip exist, using upbeat music as a background or focus tends to grab the viewer's attention and raise the excitement. In my experience, faster music has performed much better than slow.

5) Edit your video into sharp, quick scenes. Every second of your video is a game to keep the viewer's attention. If you spend 15 or more seconds on one scene, your audience may get bored and close out. Having quick scenes (perhaps 3-10 seconds each) stirs curiosity and increases the likelihood that the video will be watched all the way through.

6) Be funny to people other than you. Avoid "inside baseball" when trying to be funny in your videos. You may think you are creating humorous content, but would outsiders appreciate it? Is it an inside company joke that others might not understand? Test your video on a few people outside your company before publishing!

7) Don't get stuck on quality. Awesome video doesn't need to be recorded on an expensive camera, in HD, or edited by a film editing pro. The value comes in the creativity of your ideas, not in the gloss.

8) Be bigger than life. People love watching crazy things that they would never see in everyday life. Take risks and capture something remarkable on camera. Act silly, create ridiculous office scenes, or do amazing (but safe!) stunts. This is the same type of creativity that brought SNL to the top!

9) Shock your viewer in first 5 seconds. The first 5 seconds of your video determine whether the person will keep watching or not. Don't make the mistake of having a long intro in order to "set the stage." Jump right in and grab their attention before the viewers move on to something else.

10) Remove as much "corporate friction" as possible. This is a tough one for companies that create content as part of a marketing program. (Like us!) If you throw your logo everywhere and have a sales-related call-to-action, people will consider it a commercial and won't want to pass it along. Our best advice is to find a balance that is subtle and creative. Can you ask your audience to do something that indirectly relates to your company?

What other qualities make a video viral? What are some of your favorite viral videos?

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Seth Godin: What Does Your Company Want For Its Birthday?

Dharmesh Shah — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 10:51:00 GMT

I just got back from a long drive, after a long weekend with my parents (who are visiting from India). Geek that I am, as soon as I got home, I started checking email and getting caught up on my reading. That’s when I came across a thought-provoking recent article from Seth Godin: What Should I Do On Your Birthday? (Yes, I’m a big Seth Godin fan. His stuff makes me think).

This article had a particular resonance for me because my startup, HubSpot (the company behind this blog) celebrated its third birthday recently. Hard to believe it’s already been three years — they grow up so quickly!

In any case, in Seth’s article, he writes: “With all due respect to Hallmark, the idea of sending people cards and presents on their birthday seems both selfish and small-minded. It seems to me that we could think bigger. On the birthday of your company or brand, what would you like your customers to do?”

Here’s my request: For HubSpot’s birthday, what we’d love from you, more than anything else, is the following:

HubSpot Birthday Wish

Spend a day without pushing your product or service. Instead, spend that time saying something useful and interesting. Write a blog article. Tweet an insight. Produce a video. Anything. Just make your market smarter.

That’s all we at HubSpot wish for our birthday. Really it is. Wish granted? Thanks!

If you do end up granting the HubSpot birthday wish, tweet it with #hubspotwish (or link to this article) and I’ll come check it out.

What’s your wish for your company or brand?

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How to Make Sure Ex-Customers Don't Destroy Your Marketing

Dan Zarrella — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 06:30:00 GMT

One of the most important aspects of marketing is turning your customers into advocates for your brand and product.

Unfortunately, the reality of business is that every company has customers that leave its service. These customers can turn into thorns in your company's side if they're not treated right, so it's important to ensure that even your ex-customers are happy with their experience.

Here at HubSpot we don't have a ton of ex-customers, but those customers that do chose to cancel their HubSpot subscription typically don't turn into angry excustomers.

To find out how we achieve this, I interviewed Ben Smith (@TheRealBenSmith) from the HubSpot customer support team. Ben explained how marketers and support people everywhere can learn from our off-boarding process.

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HubSpot TV - Star Spangled Banner Ads and Blogging

Rebecca Corliss — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 13:39:00 GMT

Episode #47 - July 2nd, 2009
(Episode Length: 20 minutes, 36 seconds)

Special Thursday episode!

Note: Karen says June, but we swear it's July! The "bet" was that a HubSpotter could trick her into saying the wrong month. Tricky, tricky!

Intro

How to interact on Twitter - @mvolpe, @karenrubinwith www.HubSpot.tv in your tweet!
Subscribe in iTunes - http://itunes.hubspot.tv
www.InboundMarketing.com - community where you can post questions, learn about inbound marketing, meet others, find and post jobs

Doing It Right

Murphy Goode Vineyard
http://www.areallygoodejob.com

Headlines

Facebook Becomes Twitterific?

Facebook Taking Status Updates Public (A La Twitter)
Facebook statuses are headed public...like Twitter
Marketing Takeaway: Think about using Facebook for business and not just as a personal social network.

Military Marketing

Launching ideas at the U.S. Air Force
"We are not launching missiles, we are launching ideas."
"The key for communicators is that you need to open the door and pull the curtain back."
Everyone in the air force is a diplomat and a communicator. Even in the corporate world, you really can't have just a marketing department or just a PR department, you need to understand that everyone should be involved in spreading your message.
The US Air Force: Armed with social media
"Capt. Faggard says. "I am concerned with how insurgents or potential enemies can use Social Media to their advantage. It's our role to provide a clear and accurate, completely truthful and transparent picture for any audience."
24 Hours at Sea on the USS Nimitz
Marketing Takeaway: If the US Military can open themselves up to social media, your company can too!

Blog Branding Bonanza

7 Ways To Develop A Unique Brand For Your Blog
"The blogosphere churns out nearly 1 million posts every 24 hours"
Karen - 6. Create a better signal to noise ratio &7. Focus on achieving consistency
Mike - Consistency and Unique Topic
Marketing Takeaway: Start blogging now before your competition does to get a head start in the marketing race.

Banner Ads Go Big Time

Big Websites Start Running Bigger Display Ads. Big Mistake.
"The Online Publishers Association yesterday announced that 37 of its members, including juggernauts like The New York Times, Forbes, ESPN, CNN and MSNBC.com are (or are soon going to start) running the new, larger ad units..."
"The real motivation was to provide marketers and agencies with the opportunity to deliver a branded experience directly on the pages of these very rich content sites."
Marketing Takeaway: One more reason to think about monitizing content through your product and not through ads.

Forum Fodder:

Where do I start? from Laura Neufelder at Digital Knowledge
Reasonable path: Create a Target Persona, Publish Content, Optimize Content, Promote Content (build network) then think about conversion (offers, calls to action, landing pages)

Marketing Tip of the Week

Enlist one new person in your company to be a communicator to spread your message.

Closing: Happy Fourth of July!!!

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Marketing Headlines of the Week: Know Yourself, Know Your Customer

Lauren Brown — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 10:30:00 GMT

My mom used to leave me notes and lists of chores right in my spot at the kitchen table, an easy drop for her on her way out in the morning. I couldn't eat breakfast without moving it out of the way, making the lists hard to ignore.

This should be the case with your company's online presence -- you need to be found in places where your target audience will naturally look for information.

One of the keys to getting found online is to have a broad online presence, but targeted in the places that make sense for you and for your potential clients, which is a recurring lesson among this week's top five news stories from InboundMarketing.com:

1. How Broad is Your Footprint on the Web?
Author: Bernie Borges

Lesson: Spread and Diversify Your Content
With millions of pages and more being created every day, it may seem impossible for your company to get found online. But according to Borges, broadening your online footprint is best accomplished by spreading and diversifying fresh content. As he says, "most marketers still think being found on the web means being found in a search engine either in an organic listing, or in a paid listing (PPC). This is a limited view of effective inbound marketing on the web."

Borges recently spoke to a prospective buyer who could not pinpoint where he had come across Borges, yet in the past week he had found his company's website, blog and a podcast. Borges emphasizes that sellers who want to succeed in the coming decades need to have strong content across a variety of web platforms and engage with relevant communities.

2. YouTube CTA Overlay Lets You Drive Users Elsewhere
Author: Marketing Vox

Lesson: Use Multimedia Channels to Drive Traffic
This new feature on YouTube adds a call-to-action overlay to videos; advertisers can now redirect viewers to their site or product through links in this overlay. (Here's an article that explains how to add the overlays.) Before, a viewer might have watched a video or commercial and then moved on to another clip, promptly forgetting any marketing messages. Now, an organization can bring the viewer to their site instantly.

Non-profits such as charity:water have already benefited from this new feature. YouTube recently put a video supporting charity:water on its homepage, which resulted in $10,000 in donations for the organization in a single day.

3. A Checklist to Choose Which Internet Marketing Channel is Right for Your Business
Author: Rand Fishkin

Lesson: Know Your Company & Your Resources
In his post, Fishkin addresses the following question: "If a client came to you with $1 million to invest in a single Internet marketing channel, which one would you choose?" Fishkin has put together a series of graphs and charts that show how a company could measure its budget, goals and available talent to determine which channel would have the highest ROI.

So, before you can attempt to bring in more visitors to your site and convert more of these visitors to leads, it's important to know your own capabilities, strengths and weaknesses. After taking these into account, you will have more insight to choose the internet marketing channel that will be the most effective for you.

4. Strategic Blogging and Some Tactics to Nail It
Author: Chris Brogan

Lesson: Go With What Works for You
This post by Brogan discusses various strategies to take with blogging for business to get back that ROI. Brogan emphasizes that a strategy does not have to be set in stone, it should be malleable, aligning with your company's current needs and goals.

There are many different ways to use a blog to accomplish a goal -- from how-to posts to posts that spotlight a customer or a case study. Figure out your goals first, and then choose the best strategy for you.

5. 7 Tips on how B2B marketers can leverage social media
Author: Brian Carroll

Lesson: You Have to Give to Get
The lesson here reflects a basic principle of good inbound marketing. Carroll's tips reiterate the teaching that you cannot expect to get visitors, leads, comments, customers, retweets, or whatever it may be, unless you give valuable content by sharing blog posts, e-books, whitepapers, presentations, webinars with people who are interested in that information.

Using social media is an easy way to share content, absorb others' content, to be helpful and to receive help from others. Establishing yourself as a trusted source in your industry can be accomplished through the continued use of social networks, but only if you are willing to listen and share.

Photo: SewPixie .: actually sewing :.

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The Inbound Marketing Race: Where Do I Start?

Magdalena Georgieva — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 07:24:00 GMT

Where do I start? Many marketers standing at the starting line of inbound marketing ask themselves this question. So did Laura Neufelder in a forum thread on InboundMarketing.com.

One of the best pieces of advice Laura received came from Alyce Lindquist, another inbound marketing rookie. "I recommend learning by immersion! Start small, but just start," wrote Alyce.

Here are some of the other insights I found in the forum:

Focus on Buyer Personas

Create a mental picture of your target audience and its interests, hobbies and activities. Where does this persona live? What does she or he like to read? Such questions will guide you in creating the right content for your readership. As David Meerman Scott wrote, targeting the right buyer persona is a determining factor in your online marketing initiatives.

"Developing a good understanding of the customer will do a lot to help you refine and focus your re-design to appeal to things they might like or would be looking for," commented on the forum thread Steve Early. In the end, identifying buyer personas will define not only your website redesign and content creation, but also your product promotion strategy.

Analyze Existing Pages

Website analytics is one of the first factors marketers should consider when starting their online marketing campaigns. Before you change anything, Simon Mason wrote, check the inbound links on your existing pages. "Otherwise you could lose all the linkjuice you are already getting," he noted.

By monitoring the analytics for your existing pages you will know what has worked for you in the past and how to expand it. This is especially helpful in determining a successful keyword strategy. Thus, you can optimize your site for the low-hanging fruit and produce great ROI.

Blog Consistently

Get your employees passionate about blogging and have them start writing remarkable and regular content. In order to engage with potential leads, industry leaders and other bloggers you need have a blog that encourages conversations. "Without interesting content to link to, you'll just be sharing other people's content on your network which is important for growing it, but it won't get you traffic," wrote Brian Rogers.

What will get you traffic, however, is the quality and consistency of your blog posts. Create a regular blogging schedule and make sure authors are following it. This will create a sense of anticipation in your readers and encourage other thought leaders to interact with you.

Follow Best Practices

In order to become a good leader, you have to first be a good follower. There are different industry-specific successes that you can learn from. Adapt best practices to your marketing initiatives but make sure you keep your own voice.

Companies such as the Roger Smith Hotel and Whole Foods are great examples, and demonstrate different approach to successful inbound marketing. Observe their strategies and decide if they can work for you, too.

Photo Credit: Jon_Marshall

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