The New Language of Marketing 2.0

Why Your Business should utilize Social Media

Today's economy makes being up-to-date paramount. It makes responsiveness paramount. The companies that are failing today are doing so in part because they are too slow and bulky to adapt to what today's market and today's customer wants.

Whereas the company website tends to be more static, blogs are designed to be dynamic -- the latest scoop on what's new. Think of it like this:

• Your Web site makes a formal presentation of your product or service

• Your Blog is like they Q and A session after the presentation

Although the formal presentation is needed, it is not interactive in the way a blog can be. In reality, the Q and A portion is a vital way for your prospects learn more, get their questions and specific interests address and thereby -- get INVOLVED with your business.

Strategically used, a blog can promote your company's recent advancements, achievements, accomplishments and information in a way that is both less-formal and dynamic!

How Your Blog Can Make Marketing Proactive

(1) Blogs can receive immediate responses from your trade peers or prospects. Receiving both complaints and praise quickly can fine tune your sales cycle or your production cycle. Think of it like eavesdropping in on the water cooler discussion to know what people are really thinking.

Social Media is a new form of marketing communications to add to the mix.

In order to blog strategically, you need a marketing goal. Is your goal:
> to demonstrate customer responsiveness?
> to promote your website's page rank in Google and Yahoo?
> to inform on the latest and keep the company and your prospects aligned on the same page?

(2) Blogging allows you to be more personal. That creates a connectedness between any company and its clients. In a day of rare customer loyalty, blogging puts a more personal face on business for increased trust and repeat business. How important is that!

Marcus answers the top questions on utilizing Social Media for Marketing:

Q: What are the glaring No No's of a company blog?

(1) Not responding to comments. This undermines the very relatedness that your blog could have harnessed.

(2) Being inconsistent on posting. Blogs thrive on current information. Companies tend to get too wrapped up in the day-to-day and forget to blog, or worse, don't blog from a marketing context and the blog becomes aimless and haphazard.

Q: What is the easiest way to avoid those errors without investing a lot of precious time?

We encourage our clients to utilize a professional blogging service. After all, you want professional results don't you? Outsourcing your blog to Covenant Designs - a Marketing Communications firm - ensures that each blog entry serves your marketing goals. You get 4 blog entries per month, professionally written, like clockwork. (click here for more details on how this works)

You want your company blog to present your products and services in an interesting light. Take that one step further -- you want your blog to specifically revolve around the marketing terms and phrases that your customers are thinking about when they need products and services like yours. That way you are a natural fit to do business with.

Our marketing-savvy blog-for-you service does exactly that.

Q: What is the role of Social Media in The New Marketing?

Social Media (Blogging, Facebook, YouTube, MySpace, etc.) is here to stay. Selling is a conversation and blogs foster a no-pressure way to converse about products, services and the ideas behind them. I am glad you asked about Social Media's growing role because this gets to the heart of the matter:

Today the two keys to the steady inflow of new clients and profits to most any company are TRUST and AWARENESS.

Social Media, and blogging in particular, provides the keys to unlock these treasure chests. Regarding Trust: the public has been fooled too many times by an overly-slick presentation that is short on delivery. Just because some company pays an obscene amount of money to an advertising agency to make black look like white does not mean it is so.

Your prospects need to know you are real. When done the right way, blogging demonstrates authenticity. And that makes your information have the right impact.

Regarding Awareness: it is the nature of blogs to be shared. Blogs are like open letters; they allow you to promote what you are passionate about and stand for. Like any good marketing communication, they spread because they contain value. Blogs are built to spread -- they are easily shared by other blogs, they can be searched in blog directories, they are increasingly found in the Internet Search Engines.

Social Media is a vital tool today because of the awareness it can generate. Your blog can have an RSS feed that makes distributing your message all the easier. All this and more with a professional blog, without the massive expenses of traditional media. What's not to like!

These and other rapidly-growing ways to promote your company blog become ways to promote the company itself. In truth, this is the most expanding and exciting aspect of social media... and it is rapidly overtaking even word-of-mouth in its effectiveness.

CONCLUSION

Social Media is a powerful new sales channel. We don't blog for the sake of blogging. At Covenant Designs, we believe in blogging to serve your prospects, and thereby serve yourself. Effective blogging is about understanding your prospects and how you can immerse your company into their conversation.

We blog to foster trust and awareness in your company. Marketing is about communicating your features and benefits. Communication is about listening, expressing and understanding. Marketing Communications is about helping your ideal customer WANT to do business with you.

NEXT ACTION

Start A Business Relationship with Promise Productions: call 972-822-3587.

Outsource Your Blogging to Promise Productions: click here.

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