Give Customers More Ways to Find Your Business

The Value Of Blogging For Your BusinessDo you still regard blogs as a means of expression only for teens to talk about their favorite bands, or citizen journalists to support the political party of their choice? While it's true that these types of pages exist by the thousands, a blog can also be a powerful business tool for a company looking to increase search engine exposure and to connect with clients. At Promise Productions Marketing Communications, we focus on blogging in a strategic way to build your business.

Having a Website is Not Enough
Company blogs are a rapidly expanding area of the Internet, and businesses that are currently communicating this way have established a significant advantage over their competition.

Chances are you already have a website, but blogs provide an effective means to expand your online presence, to connect with more clients, and to build traffic to your website. In fact, it might be easier to get your blog on the first page of Google, than your website! Let us show you how.

It Internet is now the main way your customers and prospects find out information about your company, your product or your service. The easier it is for them to find you, and the more information you can provide when they do, the better your chance to earn their business.

Four Steps to Effective Business Blogging

1. Write about something you know.
The hardest part about blogging for some company executives is finding subjects to write about. But these are the same people that have built a successful business - in part based on their industry knowledge and ability to serve their customers. These are the subjects that should comprise the majority of your blog entries.

What new products or solutions have come into your industry? What are the questions and concerns that are foremost on your customers’ minds? In what areas could your industry be doing a better job serving its clientele? All of these are ideal subjects for a blog.

2. Focus on helpful information, not promotion
While a blog can help to sell your product, you do not want your readers to presume that this is your only purpose for its creation. When written effectively, a blog should communicate information that is helpful to the reader, while subtly communicating how your company is suited to serve their needs.

Think of a company profile article in a business magazine. The article will contain information about that company’s history, employees and achievements. By doing so, the reader will learn more about the company and hopefully want to do business with them, without being hit with an overt sales pitch.

That same strategy should be utilized when writing a blog. And by toning down the marketing aspect, you may find your blog entries will be quoted on other business websites that are also looking to inform their readership without endorsing a particular product or company. The more places online in which your company’s name and capabilities are mentioned, the more traffic you can drive to your website.

3. Proofread, proofread, proofread
Although a blog can be written in a more casual tone than a press release or a marketing document, spelling and grammar are no less important. It doesn’t matter how interesting or informative your message if it is expressed in a way that questions your professionalism.

4. Get the word out
Don’t just post your blog on your website. Cross-post each entry to social networking sites such as Facebook, and promote the appearance of a new entry on Twitter. We are experts at maximizing your blog's effectiveness this way. So contact Promise Productions for strategic blogging at 972-822-3587.

Using Social Media for Positive PR

Refer to our previous post for an overview of how Social Media has changed the face of Public Relations. Because what the public sees on the Internet often makes up most of what they know about your business, managing your online image is very important.

An unhappy customer has access to the same Internet as your business does. And these days a happy customer tells 3 people, but an unhappy one can now use the Internet to tell 30,000 people! In addition to the need to maintain high customer service standards, you want to get the positive PR on your company our there on the world wide web.

As Lee Iacocca said "you can have brilliant ideas, but if you can't get them across, your ideas won't get you anywhere." Social Media is a great tool for getting your ideas "out there" to be responded to. Instead of just being at the mercy of what everyone else is saying online, our Social Media optimization services advocate using Social Media to your advantage is about creative persuasion (aka marketing) and getting across why your prospects should WANT to do business with your company. We call that "Marketing Communications" and it is how you attract the business success you want.

Here are the Top Five ways to use Social Media for beneficial PR.

1 • Instead of the happy customer just telling 3 other people, put them on your blog so the goodness can spread to all the areas your blog is broadcast to. Better yet, do a video feature on your website and blog (it does not have to be fancy, just real) so prospective customers can see and hear someone who appreciated the value of what your company offers.

2 • Blogs are great for positive PR for two basic reasons. First, you yourself write them so you control the content. (Or hire professionals like Promise Productions to ghost write your blog entries in a marketing-savvy way). Second, you can moderate any comments that outsiders make -- filtering out those who would devalue your content.


3 • Put your Press Releases on Your blog. These newsworthy announcements deserve the extra boost in awareness that your blog's (when properly setup) RSS feed can give it.

4 • Be your own publicist. A publicist is there to accentuate the positive spin on whatever their client does. Don't distort the facts, but feel free to utilize Social Media to announce donations made, how your employees volunteer at other charitable organizations, community involvement, to explain the positive motivations and intentions behind company actions, changes and so forth.

5 • Put positive PR out there on other blogs. Find complimentary blogs with common interests and leave a positive footprint there. Comments and testimonials, when done in a win-win fashion and not a self-serving, opportunistic style, can let readers of other blogs know what worked for you. Pay it forward. Think of this as a place to share your positive comments and testimonials.

For Strategic Blogging and Social Media Optimization services call Promise Productions at 972-822-3587.

Social Media Strategy For Positive Public Relations

Today, everyone gets their information online and does a reality-check against advertising hype by seeing what "the people" have to say through social media (Blogging, Facebook, Myspace, etc.)

Your customers and prospects are getting information about your company online before doing business with you. The days where there were just 12 channels on TV, a dozen radio stations in town, one newspaper per city and died with the 60s.

So isn't it time you managed your company's Image and Public Relations where your customers are -- Online and in Social Media. That is why businesses must replace their old PR approaches with ones that impact social media networks.

Public Relations is about creating a POSITIVE link between the company and the public. Public relations is all about creating and maintaining relationships. Relationships can be between an organization and the public, management and employees or business to business. Distrust of the polished News-anchor is at an all-time high. The public is now thoroughly into Social Media for trustworthy reports about your products and services.

Social media and SEO are constantly evolving, but thankfully, our team knows the latest features, strategies and networks that help distribute information, increase visibility and monitor results.

The days of constructing intricate press kits and snail mailing to editors at publications are gone. In fact, those very publication’s days are numbered. The ones that have survived are the ones that successfully transitioned their information where there readers are -- online.

With all the social media options out there, where do you start? The three main social media outlets to manage are — Bloggers, Facebook and Twitter.

Bloggers now have just about as much clout as the seasoned newspaper columnist. You cannot afford to dismiss blogging's ability to sway public opinion. As we know, customers feel better about a brand and will be more loyal if they believe the company cares about them.

NEGATIVE PR
There is a fly in Social Media's ointment: it is easier than ever to attract negative PR! It used to be that you had to have some credentials in the industry to launch a complaint that would stick.

But today there are a dozen major sites that readily accept any complaint against your company without verifying it. (RipOffReport, for example, along with a host of others) Sadly, these complaint sites make money by charging the business to "undo" the negative PR.

So while the little guy now has a voice (as he should) on the one hand, there is a scam going on and some honest businesses are getting hurt more than they should. Were this in the traditional days of PR and the mud slinging was being done in the newspaper, you could have protested under Libel, but as it is cast as "a customer's opinion" such hearsay is much harder to remove.

POSITIVE PR
This is all the more reason why now is the time for business to protect their well-earned reputation with positive PR. Stay tuned for our next blog post on utilizing Social Media for Positive PR and Optimum Search Engine Visibility.

Call the professionals at Promise Productions at 972-822-3587 for effective Internet Marketing, Web Site Visibility and Social Media Optimization.

Strategic Blogging & Social Media for Business Profits

Social Media is all the buzz today because nearly everyone online today uses it in some form or other. It is growing and developing rapidly and the excitement is warranted. Did you ever wonder if you could harness this giant wave to some degree to benefit your business? This blog post is about just that!

Social Media Grows Up
To start with, blogging and social media was not originally created as a means to advertising. (but it can be used for that purpose.... keep reading) Social Media originated as a place where the average Joe could share what he was passionate about and inasmuch as that included a product, service or company, he gave his personal "thumbs up" as it were.

The enormous mass of individuals now doing this daily, has given rise to serious attention by Web Site Developers, Search Engine Marketers, Search Engine Optimization and Social Media Optimizers.

In fact, more progressive Marketing Communication firms such as Covenant Designs, now include Social Media and Strategic Blogging in their skillsets.

In short, Social Media means that word-of-mouth has firmly moved online. Individuals now consult the "community wisdom" of other people who have already experienced a product, company or service before they commit to action. Studies prove again and again that the opinions and messages on the Internet are the decisive determining factor over friends, coworkers and traditional authority figures. The idea is that this is a pool of unbiased individuals, and that many people "can't be wrong."

Although unassuming in concept, Social Media does something tremendous and priceless -- it bridges the TRUST GAP, thereby paving the way for prospects to sample YOUR product or service.

(for more about successfully bridging the confidence gap in your marketing, click here)

Businesses have an increasingly vested interest in promoting themselves in a cost-effective manner in this lean economy. Businesses should all be very aware and very concerned about managing their image -- their PR on the web.

You see, your official company web site is a formal presentation of your company. Your company blog, on the other hand, is where you get down on your customer's level to interact, share, and listen to THEM. Customers like that and will reward you with business for being EXTRA responsive to their needs. And we all know that no business will survive long without serving their customers where THEY live.

This does not mean that any old blog will do. It all revolves around smart strategy to setup, produce content and distribute your blog around cyberspace. That is where Promise Productions Strategic Blogging Services come in.

Social Media Strategy Tip:
Social Media can cut both ways -- customers can complain or endorse you -- fairly or unfairly, and now their opinion has a forum and a life of its own that spreads its influence. Just think, a rant on RipOffReport will hang around for 10 years even if you ended up making that customer happy later on.

It has become danerously easy for an individual to sling mud at your company for any reason and you not to even know it is hurting your sales! Obviously it pays more than ever to provide great customer service.

What a smart business does is implement a social media strategy for all kinds of GOOD PR to be spread around the Internet, and have that overwhelm any NEGATIVE PR that threatens to soil your company's image.

We market your business to make our best prospects like doing business with you and give you their thumbs up! Want to know more? Contact Promise Productions at 972-822-3587.

Social Media & Strategic Blogging Business Campaign Management

More Profit Through Smarter Marketing Strategy

Word-of-mouth has long been one of the most powerful forms of advertising. Approval from someone that you know and respect can be stronger than all the celebrity endorsements, clever ads, catchy jingles and promotions combined. Now you can tap into that same persuasion power through social media management. Why? Because word-of-mouth has moved online.

Enter Social Media
50% of adults use social media -- a growing online dialogue regarding any topic that people are passionate about. Anyone with an internet connection, an opinion and a few moments of free time can engage in social media via blogs, message boards, forums and social networks. Through these channels, people exchange thoughts and feelings, recommend products and services and spread online content to their ever-widening fabric of friends, family, acquaintances and coworkers.

Social Media Powers Business
85% of 18-34 year olds use social media networks to communicate. Social Media allows you to get involved in your customers’ lives and let them feel that their voice is heard. Monitoring the social media landscape lets you tap into conversations about your brand—encouraging positive comments and addressing any negative ones before it’s too late. Businesses that listen and act on these voices experience growing customer satisfaction and increased market share, and benefit from an invaluable competitive edge.

How can your Business benefit from Social Media?
By claiming your spot in the social circle. When you develop unique pages and/or applications within social communities, such as Facebook, MySpace and Twitter, you can speak to customers on their level and take advantage of their friend networks.

Social Media Management
Business need to approach Social Media in a strategic way. That’s why we develop and manage custom social media optimization (SMO) plans that complement your unique business model, marketing messages and campaign goals. Whether it’s optimizing and distributing videos, creating official pages on social networks or simply monitoring and enhancing online brand buzz, we have a social media marketing campaign for you.

Social Media Optimization is the quickest way to gain brand recognition in a familiar environment for your customers. Social media marketing and Blogging takes SEO (Search Engine Optimization) one step further—in addition to increased visibility and traffic, you also increase the scope of your campaign by gaining access to massive and maturing networks of friends and family.

Whereas your web site "stays put" as it were attracting visitors to it, our Strategic Blogging service actively broadcasts your messages out to prospects, not just referring business back to your company's web site, but proactively suggesting your services to prospects who would never have known about your company otherwise.

Learn more about our social media management programs. Call us at 972-822-3587 today for a free consultation.

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.

Learn About Covenant Designs Marketing Communications:
> Our Commitment To You
> Our Creative Process
> Our Marketing Communications Approach

Professional Blog Outsourcing

You are a busy professional. You have heard that blogging is important to the health of your PR or your web site, but who has the time?

On top of that, it is always hardest to write about yourself.

We understand.

We understand that your focus needs to stay on running your business. Now you can keep that focus and not worry that your marketing communications are getting stale.

We can work with your existing blog or create a new one from a marketing-savvy approach that forwards your business growth goals. Here's how our Blog-For-You service works:

• Our Blog Professional will contact you weekly with a simple phone call for a briefing of "new news" -- services you want to promote, answers to frequently asked questions, industry news, accomplishments, and so forth.

• Our Blog Professional will compose a well-written blog entry -- including your chosen keywords and primary links back to your website content. You can rest assured that your products and services are put in their best light. If you have any accompanying photos or visuals, simply email them to us to include.

• The Blog Professional will also broadcast your SEO-smart blog entry where other directories, blogs, and prospects can find it and discover your business.

• Every Blog Outsourcing account receives a free tracking account to use to track visitors and visitor analytics

Imagine: your own blog feed with 50 different blog entries each year, filling the blog world with your headlines and summaries that point back to your web site and blog.

Benefits Summary:
• Saves Time
• Promotes a Positive and Dynamic image of your business to your prospects
• Ensures your blog stays fresh and interesting to keep readers (and the search engines) coming back for more
• Most important of all, it raises the visibility of your company's primary web site in Google and Yahoo by strategically building in multiple links each week so that prospects are more likely to find and use your services

Make your blog into a marketing tool that works for you -- call Promise Productions  at 972-822-3587 to get started.

10 Reasons Every Nonprofit Needs a Blog

You may not have realized the exciting advantages a blog can provide for a non-profit organization. Last year more than 10,500 blogs were tagged charity, 4,000 blogs nonprofit and 2,300 blogs philanthropy and this is only increasing.

Below are ten reasons your nonprofit should have a professionally-managed blog and harness its power today.

1. Search engine optimization - Keywords and website design are important to search engines when calculating a search result list. A focused, well-written blog on your website will contain several keywords which improve the site's search ranking. Additionally, if the blog has useful content, other sites will want to link to it, improving your website's level of importance. To keep search engines current with your blog, remember to ping them regularly using one of the many free tools such as pingomatic.

For more information on search engine optimization, click here.

2. Expertise in the Field - Nonprofit organizations have a wealth of information on their specific area of focus. This information is highly desired in online blogging communities. By posting regularly in blogs focused on similar issues, your organization will gain a reputation for being an expert. Bloggers want to read more postings by experts and will follow links to your organization's website.

Most bloggers find information by following links from other blogs. Technorati and BlogCatalog are good directories to find topically relevant blogs. Icerocket has also done an excellent job dissecting blogs and making them more search friendly.

3. Organization Credibility - It is more important today than ever before for nonprofit organizations to be trustworthy in the eyes of their contributors. One of the best ways to establish this relationship of trust is to make events and projects as visible as possible. By having weekly updates on projects and the projects' successes, users will know exactly what difference their donations have made (or will make if they donate).

Furthermore, project in development can be posted onto the blog keeping the organization's efforts current.

4. Awareness Of Your Cause - The beauty of the "blogosphere" is that almost all blogs are linked to one another. This creates a naturally useful network of information that bloggers have access to. Most of the estimated 75 million bloggers today are information-thirsty bloggers who desire the kind of content your nonprofit blog could provide. In addition, having a blog allows you to create your own media and bypass traditional media PR channels which are often expensive and limited in frequency.

5. Manage Negative Comments - People are talking and probably writing about your nonprofit already. Hopefully, the majority of what is said is positive, but almost inevitably there will be some negative commentary. A blog provides a median to field complaints or concerns and defend the decisions the organization has made. Be sure to keep the tone of the commentaries professional and respond promptly.

6. Events - A regularly maintained blog will attract loyal readers who can easily be informed about upcoming events. To incentivize new subscribers, or to increase the loyalty of existing subscribers, consider having special promotions on the blog before events. It is important to note, however, that a blog should serve to work in conjunction with the traditional channels of marketing already in place, not to replace them.

7. Annual Report - Many nonprofits are required to compile an annual or semiannual report. By working smarter and creating a blog, you will have most of the content for the report already completed before you even begin compiling it. Furthermore, many supporters feel that blogs are more honest and accurate than formal annual reports, so the effort required to create the content will be more cost effective.

8. Information - One of the most difficult aspects of any nonprofit is gaining an understanding of its supporters. A blog can help tap into this resource of information and more. Two major information-related benefits include:

Allowing users to create - A blog encourages involvement in the organization. For example, the AARP Issues Blog allows readers to create entries about what issues they feel are important and receive feedback from these entries.

Provide information to supporters - If a picture can convey a thousand words, then a blog on your website will have a lot to say. So much of the success of a fundraising campaign (whether you like it or not) comes from its emotional appeal. By having a blog that contains pictures and stories, viewers will become more emotionally involved with the cause or service.
9. Fundraising - By using charity badges on your blog, you can get your supporters to help with fundraising efforts. A charity badge can be set up quickly and allows people to share the small graphic image you create to make donations. ChipIn and Network for Good both have charity badges available for a small fee. There are countless examples of blogging communities that have worked together to raise money using charity badges.

10. The "Heart" of the Organization - A blog gives you the unique opportunity to show the organization in a totally new light. While blogs are beneficial for marketing and fundraising purposes, their most important function should always be to convey interesting and compelling stories about the organization.

Adapted From: Lance Trebesch & Taylor Robinson from TicketPrinting.com

As I review these 10 keys to non-profit blogging success, I honestly can say that each key could and should be adapted for any business blog. The key to a successful business blog is for the blog to be updated regularly so that it connects your KEYWORD association with your original business website.

Want to have a blog work for you rather than you have to work for a blog? Then review our professional blogging service and call Promise Productions  at 972-822-3587 for a free quote for getting you started.