Thinking of business blogging?

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Don't just use the Net to talk business

At times you would be forgiven for thinking that the Net is the only communication channel worth bothering about. If you’re a business and venture out with money to spend then there are plenty of PR and Marketing agencies out there that will tell you to jump onboard the digital platform: “Tweet, blog, vlog, Facebook this that and everything else you’ve got,” digital agencies will tell you, “to build followers, fans, hits, your brand and traffic.”

Don’t forget, however, that there are many different ways of talking to your audience. One of the strongest ways of building contacts (and business) is talking to people face-to-face.

It’s Good to Talk

When was the last time you booked a meeting to talk about your latest gizmo, the services your offer, the skills you can bring to a customer?

Have you tried inviting potential customers to a free seminar on that thing you do?

Or to put it another way: what communication strategies have you got in place to reach people that don’t involve the Net?

You Are Your Business

Whilst your website will tell customers something about who you are and what you do, don’t lose sight of the fact that you and every employee in your company is a vital part of your integrated marketing strategy. As people you engage with other people on a daily basis and this interaction is a key part of growing your business. Don’t ignore it or the value it can bring to your marketing.

Think of ways in which you can improve face-to-face interaction with customers and potential customers.

• Where do you meet?
• How do you talk to each other?
• What could you do better to communicate your story to your audience in a way that would get them listen?
• Could you listen better to what they’re saying?

Takeaways

• Every business needs an integrated communications and marketing strategy – encompassing both off- and online communication channels.
• Don’t believe all the hype. The Net is here to stay but it’s not the only place to market your business or services.

Image: FlickrCC

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1. 5 Ways to Communicate Better at Work
2. Corporate Blogs – Failing with the copy
3. How to Find New Customers

Thanks to Kirsten Wright for handing me the Honest Scrap Award. As I’m on summer semi-vacation I thought it would be fun to play.

The Rules

1. Thank the person who “nominated” you and link back.
2. “Nominate” seven more bloggers to spread the happiness.
3. Tell ten honest – non business – things about yourself.

So having thanked Kirsten (make sure you follow her on twitter), I’m going to pass the baton on to a hotchpotch of seven bloggers who I enjoy keeping up with via my news aggregator:

1. Kathy Hansen (Storytelling)
2. Stephanie Hendrick (Blogging and more)
3. Annette Schwindt (Social Media & Communications)
4. Paul Carr (Just a qwerky world view)
5. Jason Preston (Thoughts on journalism)
6. Anders Sporring (Social Media, Stockholm)
7. Cathy L. Rudert (Basset Hound blogger supreme)

Ten Things About Jon Buscall

(in no particular order)

1. The first record I ever bought was Japan’s Tin Drum when I was 13.
2. Liverpool FC have made me cry, despair but also jump for joy for over thirty years.
3. My poem “Black Crow” is about depression.
4. Andie in my novel College.com shares a lot of similarities with me.
5. I saw Level 42 in concert three times in a week in the mid-eighties and still do a pretty mean slap bass myself.
6. I once went to school in Sogndal. Scary.
7. The best summer of my life (so far!) was in 1996 when I lived in Østerbro, Copenhagen. Katerine’s Mes Mauvaises Fréquentations reminds me of that time.
8. I am at my most dangerous on a badminton court.
9. I once swore at a woman on a bike for blocking my car’s exit from a petrol station
10. I was once told off for politely asking for a piece of paper during a dictation at school by a teacher – Mr Highcock.

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1. Summer Reading

What are you reading this summer?

If you run a small business and are interested in communication, social media or new business strategies here are my recommendations. The links are to Amazon.com but they’re not affiliate links. I’m just passing on recommendations because I enjoyed these books and wanted to share them with you.

• Flip – How to Turn Everything You Know on Its Head – and Succeed Beyond Your Wildest Imaginings by Peter Sheahan
• The 80 Minute MBA: Everything You’ll Never Learn at Business School by Richard Reeves and John Knell
• Social Media Marketing: An Hour a Day by Dave Evans

If you have a book recommendation for the summer, please leave it in the comments section. I don’t have time to browse all the books in the store so recommendations are important to me!

Image:FlickrCC

Related posts:

1. The 80 Minute MBA on Conversations
2. The Honest Scrap Award

How do you find more customers?

You know you need to concentrate on keeping existing customers. After all, the rule of thumb is that 20 percent of customers account for 80 percent of total revenues. What’s more, there’s evidence to suggest that repeat customers spend on average 67 percent more.

But even though acquiring a new customer costs 5 – 10 times more than keeping one you already have, if you’re going to grow your business you need to reach new people. Trouble is, that’s not always easy.

So how do you find new customers?

1. Study Your Competitors

Look at where they are active. How do they communicate with their customers? Through the Net? Direct mail? Tele-marketing?

Check out how Google views your competitors. Can you do something to perform better? Are you working at your SEO?

Do your competitors participate on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter? And if so, how?

Perhaps you can find new customers simply by engaging with the community, addressing their needs in a more human way rather than, say, pushing offers and services at people all the time.

Remember that data is knowledge. It will give you leverage to improve the way you work. By collecting data on how your competitors attract customers, you may spot areas where you yourself can improve. Make researching your competitors a regular part of your work.

2. Study Your Customers

Learn as much about your existing customers as possible. Even if your goal is new customers. The path your existing customers took to finding you is valuable terrain. Understand it!

Look them up on Facebook, Twitter, Linked-in. Where do they hang out? What do they talk about? What interests them? Which bloggers, for example, write about the branch of business you’re in? Find ways to talk to them that will build relationships. Be like the old corner store who knew everyone and was willing to provide great service. Don’t be a faceless corporation just looking to sell.

By studying your customers you’ll find they’re connected to similar people. This, in turn, gives you the opportunity to establish new and valuable contacts.

3. Communicate Effectively

Once you know who your competitors are and how they work, and have an understanding of your own customers and the networks they participate in, it’s time to tweak (or develop!) and implement your business communication strategy.

Find ways to get your message out there; but remember this is a lot more complex than it used to be.

1. Blog – to build your online presence, show your skills and invite customers and potential customers to talk to you.
2. Be active on Facebook, Twitter, etc, – be helpful, fun, unique and service-minded.
3. Help people understand what you can do for them. Learn from Apple’s wonderful iPod campaing “1000 songs in your pocket”
4. Be everywhere.

Image:FlickrCC

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1. Eggs, Baskets and the Google Wave
2. Twitter’s Hot – But Nurture Your Website
3. Do You Have an Integrated Communications Strategy?

Thinking of business blogging?

1: The Right Domain Name

Before you do anything, purchase a domain name that will suit your purposes. If your company already has a website consider not just setting your blog up in a subdirectory: e.g. www.yourdomain.com/blog/

Purchase a domain name that reflects what your business does. For example, if you’re a canine behaviourist you could select something along the lines of www.dog-training-tips-com to complement your established website at www.yourdomain.com. Or if you’re an psychoeducational assessor who helps kids go with something like www.help4students.org.

It’s much better to run a blog on your own server than using a free service (such as Blogger.com) as you retain control of it and build the value of the domain, rather than helping someone else build theirs.

2: The Right Blog Software

Choose WordPress. It’s free and very easy to use. More significantly, there is a wealth of plugins and information to help your site perform well in Google’s search results.

3. The Right Theme Framework

Even if you can afford the skills of a designer, I would personally recommend you use Chris Person’s Thesis Theme as a framework (no affiliate link, just a recommendation!). It’s easy to tweak for Search Engine Optimisation and there’s excellent support and resources available from the Thesis community. It’s not free but the minimal cost will benefit your business blog no end.

Tip: Bookmark Matt Files 100 Resources for Thesis. You’ll find a lot of these links useful.

4. The Right Permalink Structure

Google likes friendly urls (web addresses). Out of the box, WordPress creates rather strange looking urls.
To overcome this you should change your permalink settings in WordPress so each post you write creates its own friendly url:

www.yourdomain.com/postname/

To do this simply go to:

Select Settings > Permalinks (once you’ve logged into WordPress).
Paste the following into the Custom Structure field: /%postname%/ and hit save.

5: The Right WordPress Plugins

Although WordPress is geared for excellent Search Engine Optimisation out of the box and easy to use, I have found that the following Plug-ins are indispensable in improving SEO and building a successful weblog:

Comment Redirect
This redirects commenters who just made their first comment to a page of your choice. On Jon Buscall.com it directs first time commenters to Dagon Design Sitemap Generator
This generates a fully customizable sitemap. Google likes this – a lot.

Google XML Sitemaps
Excellent – because it generates a sitemaps.org compatible sitemap of your WordPress blog which is supported by Ask.com, Google, MSN Search and YAHOO. All you need to know is that this will benefit your SEO.

PrintFriendly
This plug-in creates a PrintFriendly.com button which will help people easily print your site. Don’t forget, people still like to print out material to read on the train home or sharae with colleagues.

Robots Meta
This plugin allows you to add all the appropriate robots meta tags to your pages and feeds, disable unused archives and nofollow unnecessary links. Important for SEO; in other words how Google ranks you!

ShareThis
Let your visitors share a post/page with others. Supports e-mail and posting to social bookmarking sites. You want people to be able to easily share your content with others.

Subscribe To Comments
Allows readers to receive notifications of new comments that are posted to an entry. A conversation shouldn’t just end with one comment. Readers like to know what other people are saying.

WP Greet Box
Show a different message to your visitor depending on which site they are coming from. It’s a great way of encouraging people to subscribe to your RSS feed.

Yet Another Related Posts Plugin
This plugin returns a list of related entries that can tempt your reader to browse through more of your site. It’s a great way of encouraging visitors to your site to explore more of your work.

There are plenty of other plugins available, but these are the ones I personally recommend.

6. The Right Blog Content

Having sorted the technical stuff, it’s time to set down and do some serious writing as you generate your site’s content. This requires planning, time and commitment.

Fill your blog with meaningful content about your subject. A good rule of thumb is to try to think of what people might look for in Google within your field. E.g. How to stop my dog barking (if you’re a canine behaviourist), How to write formal emails (if you’re a communications strategist), Tree Pruning Tips (if you’re a gardener), Getting AD/HD Diagnosed (if you work with psychoeducational assessment), etc.

You might also include product information, tips, guides, special offers and basically anything that you might think could be of interest to potential customers.

You don’t have to update your blog everyday but you should do so fairly regularly. Three times a week is a good amount to start off with as you build content and hopefully a regular group of followers.

Where Next?

There is, of course, much more to blogging but if you follow the advice here you should at least have a solid foundation for growing your business blog.

You can download this post as a PDF from Slideshare.

Image: FlickrCC

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2. The Brangelina Sexy Kitten SEO iPhone Blog Post
3. Swedish Business Blogging

Is blogging on its last legs?

Whilst I’ve noticed some of my favourite bloggers aren’t posting as frequently as usual, my own take on this is simple: don’t abandon your blog – just yet.

Why Keep on Blogging?

Scenario #1: The Personal Blogger.
Let’s imagine you write a few posts a week on a personal blog at YourName.com that ties in with your interest in, say, technology. Yes, you’re a bit of a geek but not hardcore. You use your WordPress blog to record thoughts about the latest products by Apple, plugin tips for WordPress and share tips such as how changes to your htaccess file will improve the way Google ranks your blog.

Even if you’re in a job, chances are when you come to apply for another one the recruitment team will Google you. It’s standard practice after all. Even if you’re on Facebook or MySpace, like a lot of people in your demographic, it is very likely that “Your Name” will turn up an eclectic but thoughtful bunch of posts at your blog in Google rather than a stream of snarky, meaningless noise in your Twitter stream. Google likes blogs, after all.

In other words, writing a blog (relatively) frequently will give you some control of how others view you online. That’s not to say they won’t find your Twitter account or Facebook profile; but compared to the non-bloggers out there you have a good chance of having some content on the web that demonstrates you’re thoughtful, analytical and a communicator. Not bad, really!

Takeaways for Personal Bloggers

• a blog gives a more coherent impression of who you are than social media lifestreams
• Google still tends to ranks them very highly in the SERPs so you can at the very least they can help you manage some simple personal brand management
• blog posts show a more rounded side of who you are and tell a better story about you than 140 characters, links and retweets in a lifestream

Scenario #2: The Small Business Blogger
Don’t abandon your business blog for a lifestream. Your blog is a great way of generating traffic to your website and showing people who you are and what you do. At it’s best, a blog can show personality, skills and help you connect better with customers and potential customers.

By regularly updating your blog, providing readers with valuable insights, resources, news and suggestions, you are helping to show what you have to offer as a business. This isn’t just about pitching sales but making customers aware of how you work.

Your blog is your base, a place which you can control and grow. It isn’t a cacophony of noise like Twitter.

If businesses abandon blogs for social media (or lifestreams), trying to muscle in on the myriad conversations raging over there, chances are they’ll get lost in a sea of noise. In contrast, businesses that consistently provide meaningful content via a blog will standout. Not just because Google (and visitors) will find you but because a blog gives you the space to develop meaningful content.

On Twitter I might link to 5 Ways to Communicate Better at Work; however, just linking to valuable info isn’t going to help me establish my credibility or skills as much as actually writing something important such as, How Not to Pitch for Work.

Check out Six Must-Haves for Business Bloggers

Final Thoughts

I’m not saying you shouldn’t be on Twitter (or FriendFeed or whatever social media network you fancy); it’s a very different and valuable communication channel in its own right. But don’t forget that blogging gives you time and space to share something truly valuable. Bottom line, great content on a blog will benefit you and your business.

Image:FlickrCC

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Communicating what you do and how much you charge is imperative, especially if you’re just starting out as a freelancer. Here’s a word of warning post that I might also have entitled: How Not to Give Away Your Skills for Free.

If you’re starting out as a freelance consultant be wary of people looking to hire you. Seriously.

Many successful business people are adept at getting things for nothing and if you’re new to pitching for consulting work you could find yourself dishing out valuable skills and information – for free!

Be Wary of “Come and have coffee”

Let’s say you meet an prospective client at a social gathering. You tell them what you do and you feel that buzz of excitement when they mention “My company is actually just looking for some of that as a matter of fact!” You hit them with your elevator pitch, a stylish business card and a smile and low and behold a few days later they get back to you.

“Why don’t you come into the office for coffee? Let’s have a chat about what you can do?” they might say.

To the eager novice consultant this might sound like potential business.

“What a fabulous opportunity to pitch my skills and services, and grow my business. Right?”

Wrong!

Well, only possibly.

Don’t Be Too Eager

The risk is that when you get there, all dressed up in your glad rags, seated in a leather chair and supping a frothy cappuccino, you’ll fall for one of the oldest tricks in the book. Giving away your skills for free.

“So we’re thinking about improving our SEO?” the charming, friendly CEO says. “What are the problems with our site? Do you think you could help?”

Having researched Potential Significant Customer’s site dot com before your get-together because you want to know something about them, want to impress them a little, you spill a few of the beans.

“I can see there’s stuff you need to improve: the title tags across the site don’t work and you’re not making the most of title tags. You should definitely reduce your duplicate content. Google treats www.yourdomain.com and yourdomain.com as separate sites.”

“Really?” wonders the CEO, encouraging you to take a couple of M&Ms from the candy jar on the table, still smiling, still friendly. “Is that easy to fix?”

“Oh, sure you just need to tweak your htaccess file.”

Before you know it the CEO is enthusing about your skills, the easy way you communicate your ideas and how you’re just what they’re looking for. Add a touch of mild sexual tension to the mix, maybe the CEO is flirting with you, and your ego’s glowing. You’d be only too happy to help.

“I think we really need to use you,” the CEO says, before hitting you with the sucker punch. “Could you just put together a brief outline on paper about what we’ve talked about and give me a quote for the work?”

So then off you go, type it all up and wait eagerly for their response, dreaming of that big fat deal you’re about to sign.

The Brush Off

And here’s when the brush off will come. Only trouble is you won’t see it as such at first.

Dear (Naive Consultant, they’re thinking),
We really like your ideas and skills. You’re obviously just what we’re looking for.
Unfortunately, right now we have to budget carefully as we’re hiring new staff/purchasing new equipment/behing hit with the recession, etc, etc.

I would still like to use your services but what we’d like to do is carry out some of the work in-house and then call you in to give us an outside view.

Best wishes,
Successful Business CEO

Maybe if you’re super naive you’ll write back gushing that: “You look forward to working with them” but later, on reflection, when your Inbox remains empty and full of crushing silence, and you take a cursory glance at their site and see they’ve actually changed the things you mentioned, you’ll realise that you’ve been had. You gave away an hour’s free consultation in person, plus the time it took to prepare, get there and put together a written proposal that by the way took you a couple of hours to really get right because you wanted to really earn this job and impress the client with your skills – and especially because they seemed so nice !

Battle Strategy

Don’t get burnt. Think through this kind of scenario before it happens. Essentially, if you’re just starting out as a freelance consultant (whatever your field) plan how to handle Mr Tricky CEO, Ms Flirtatious Can-You-Just-Explain-To-Me, et al.

Maybe try something like this:

“Thanks for the coffee,” you’ll say. “It’s delicious.”

But when the CEO asks you what you think of their site / communications strategy / marketing / logo (or whatever it is you consult on!), you hit them with a very polite:

“I think there are a number of key issues we need to look at. But I’m more than happy to discuss the previous work I’ve done and give you an insight into my portfolio of skills. But if you’d like me to discuss your whatever in detail, I charge a XXX fee.”

As they shift uncomfortably in their leather seat, maybe looking a little hurt that you’re playing hardball, you can soften them up a little.

“Of course,” you say, giving them your best smile, “if this meeting leads to a confirmed project I wave that initial consultation fee.”

Similarly, if you’re asked to write up “those valuable comments” you dished out as part of a potential bid for a job, remind the CEO that you bill a cursory flat fee for this service that you wave if it leads to a major job.

A Few Take Aways for Newbie Freelance Consultants:

Be careful. Some business folks are supremely skilled at getting something for nothing.

Don’t give away your skills or valuable insights for free – even if you’re starting out. Have a strategy to avoid this.

Politely inform prospective clients that you charge for your time and skills above and beyond any pleasant chit-chat.

Be clear upfront about waving your initial fee should prospective clients agree to hire you – it softens the “blow” of having to pay for an initial consultation

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1. Does Your Business Card Work For or Against You?

Form, Function & Story wrapped by Apple

Once the new iPhone had grabbed all the headlines (and stocks had gone up), the company felt it was okay to leak news of Steve’s operation. At least, that’s how I read it.

Who needs social media?

You get the distinct impression Apple doesn’t give a damn about social media. Or rather not participating themselves in it. They’re not jabbering away on Twitter or giving us an insight into every move they make via some corporate Steve Jobs blog. No, they leave that up to their fan-base of brand ambassadors who generate masses of daily content that ultimately help to market Apple computers, iPods and iPhones.

To read a lot of the social media commentary that’s emerging at present you’d be forgiven for thinking that you’ve got to be out there, talking and communicating all the time. But Apple knows you don’t have to do that.
They rely on their loyal community to do that for them.

A lot of this comes from the fact Apple have carved out a distinctive brand identity as the favourite electronics manufacturer of design-conscious, hip consumers in all demographics. Kids, moms and business types all glow with pride at their MacBooks or iPhones.

Form, Function & Story

Apple’s formula for achieving and maintaining this has a lot to do with they way their products (and marketing) is built around a combination of form, function and story. Form, in that their products are easy to use and beautiful. Function, because Apple products just work. And Story, the story of how Apple products add value to a customer’s life.

The iPod is a perfect example of how these elements come together.

When it first came out the iPod wasn’t the best product in terms of sound quality or durability (remember those battery problems”). But the marketing message of “a thousand songs in your pocket” instantly told the story of what the iPod would bring to your life.

Added to the mix was its unique look: a pure white “pod” with white bud earphones that made it stand out against all the other black metalic Mp3 players on the market.

So the entire package was a product that said: “I’m exclusive, different, desirable and will make you stand out from the rest AND let you carry around your music collection.”

Just wandering around with those white bud earphones was a statement of affluence and cool hip style. No wonder it did so well.

What About Your Business?

Instead of tweeting away, or flooding the market with content and copy today, why not take a moment to think about what you business could learn from Apple’s approach.

Do you provide beautiful, functional products? Products that tell a meaningful message ? – a story as effective as: “a thousand songs in your pocket”?

What story can your business or products offer your customers?

And how can you get other people to do the talking for you? How is your business creating a community?

Related posts:

1. A Very Hot iPhone Story
2. Is it the Coffee or the Story that Sells?
3. Be Ubiquitous, says Steve Rubel

Looking for a corporate angle?

One of the central things a corporate journalist requires is a good sense of diplomacy. It’s essential to maintain client goodwill and to reassure people that you interview that you are not setting out to “dish the dirty” on them.

What can a corporate journalist do for your business?

As the newspaper industry is changing under the weight of the Internet, more and more journalists find themselves looking for new outlets for their writing skills. Rather than seeing them as people likely to attack or question what you do, you will find them very adept at helping you develop and spread your corporate story. This will help your marketing and PR.

The clearer you get your message out to people and the more interesting it is, the better it will be received.

Hiring a freelance corporate journalist?

It goes without saying that a journalist should have excellent and demonstrable writing skills. Above and beyond that, look for someone who:

• has experience working with business clients
• has written in your particular field or sector
• has worked with managers and other senior staff
• knows how to be diplomatic
• understands what you’re trying to achieve
• can work to deadline

With businesses increasingly under pressure to talk to customers in news ways through the generation of content, corporate journalists who understand your business can help you make the most of channels like:

• weblogs
• newsletters
• in-house magazines
• company websites

I have a lot of experience as a corporate journalist. Just this week, for example, I’ve had a couple of examples of corporate journalism published by Stockholm University. On the surface these pieces might look like research news but they work to promote the university internationally.

Work Samples

• Stockholm social scientists participating in important climate debate
• Stockholm professor speaks in public about the “Illusion of lie detection”
• Pirates leading legal establishment into new waters

Contact Jon Buscall

If you need a corporate journalist, why not get in touch.

Image:FlickrCC

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1. Corporate Blogs – Failing with the copy
2. Scribbling for Stockholm University
3. Journalism and Blogging are Colliding