Ring…ring…

“Hello?” I answered.

“Tell me everything you know about Social Networking.”  the voice on the other end of the line said with excitement.

“Sally?”  I asked.

“Oops, yes.  Hi, this is Sally.  Can you tell me if Social Networking will help our current situation?”

Sally has been implementing a business blog for users of industrial shredders.  The concept was originally just for current clients, but we found that the blogging medium worked as a marketing tool too.

I answered Sally’s question, “You get from social marketing that which you put into it.  Why do you ask?”

“I saw on the news today the trend for using Facebook and Twitter were way up.  Should we be using these services?”

We had talked briefly about Facebook and MySpace when we first start working together, but today’s excitement in Sally’s voice suggested there were new enthusiasm for the subject.

“Short answer is yes, but like any other marketing activity it can be very time consuming.  The first thing you should know is because of the popularity, Facebook utilization opens you to predatory internet users.  The risk is manageable, but like with ANY internet risk, knowing the potential is an important factor in protecting yourself.”

“How do they work?”  Ask Sally.

In a recent blog posting on blog.wired.com, they wrote about Five Gadgets That Were Killed by the Cell Phone.  I think there are few other things cell phones have killed that going back a few years we all relied on for our daily lives.

First is the now never visible public pay phone.  Remember the days of landing at the airport and rushing the pay phones?  Or how about driving around the block looking for a phone booth?  Sure you can still find a few, but most have gone the way of the doe-doe bird.

How about the calculator?  Especially in school, I was never far from my TI-85.  Now my cell phone can do all the same formulas and send eMail!  Take that TI.

How about the bicycle?  My grandsons pick up the phone and IM their friends to see if they are home or if they want to get together and play video games.  In my youth, I had to get on my bike and ride over to my friends house and knock on the door.

Gone are the days of writing a letter to your girl friend.  Now we send encrypted text messages and sign with funny multi-character dohickies

Lets us not forget the handheld game device.  I use to have this really cool football game.  You maneuvered your quarterback (a read dot) by rapidly pressing one of the four arrow buttons.  You could run or pass.  For hail mary passes, the red dot would scroll along several screens before merging with a red dash (your wide receiver).  Oh, gone are the good ‘ole days.

Holding hands with your girl friend and talking.  Now kids sit with their regular friends and talk on the phone with their girl friends.  When I was Wesley’s age, you couldn’t pry me away from my girl friend.  You never would have caught me hanging with the boys and my girlfriend.

Cell phones have changed our lives.  Some of the changes have been for the good, many for the bad.  Keeping up with society means adopting new technologies.  While only 35% of people over the age of 65+ use the internet, 65% of the same age group have used a cell phone for an emergency situation.  Cell phones has become integrated into our lives.  While I miss my TI-85, my iPhone is much smaller, lighter and I can surf the internet.

Ed
BusinessBlogging.net

He said think positive, look to things you are passionate about to overcome writers block. That is easier to say than do. I have to lay off two employees today because business is slow.  How can I even think about business blogging today?  Wait….that is the self-talk Ed was talking about.  He said it would prevent me from doing the right things to grow my business.  I am trying to talk myself out of working on the business.  I am not going to let this business slow-down be the end of me.  I’ll write an article as soon as I get to the office and before I tell Paul and Jose that I have to let them go.

8:20 am – Arrival at the office.

Look at my desk.  My goodness, that receptionist has been busy.  I only took one day off.  Why didn’t anyone call me about Mr Rhodes?

8:45 am

I need to write the business blog article, but I wanted to talk to Paul and Jose before 9am.

9:15 am

“Everyone, gather around for a minute.  We all know times are tough, but I had to let Paul and Jose go.”

I hate losing good people.  Paul and Jose were both good workers, but someone had to go otherwise I would not have made payroll next week.  All I need to do is get three or four more new accounts and I can hire them back.  I am going to write that article and new customers are going to find me.

10:25 am

“What do you mean the copy machine broke down?  I am trying to write a business…never mind, I’m coming.”

11:15 am

Darn, the article.  A little after eleven.  I’ll never finish before lunch.  I’ll wait and get a fresh start immediately after lunch.

12:42 pm

Ring, ring.  “Hello?  Yes Michael.  No I’m eating.  What?  Where are you?  I’ll be right there.”

2:55 pm

Ring, ring.  It’s the office.  “Hello?”

“Hi Bill.  Mr Rhodes called for you again.  He said nobody came by to fix the sprinkler system again today.”
“Call him back for me please and tell him I am on my way.  Thanks.”

4:30 pm

I am exhausted.  I would have sent Paul and Jose to fix the sprinklers, but tough economy means I’ve got to pick up the slack.  Oh, darn…  the article.  4:30… I’ve got the kids’ soccer game this afternoon.  I’ll outline my article at the game and slam it out tomorrow.

9:45 pm – conversation with Bill’s wife

“Ed said I would have very good reasons why I didn’t write an article.  All I did today was lay two people off and put out fires.”

“Well Bill,”  said Bill’s wife Mary, “How long did Ed say it would take to write an article?”

“He said at first it would take upwards of an hour, but over time I will get faster.  I’m just worried that if today is an example of how motivated I am, I may never get this business blogging thing off the ground.”

“Honey, you can only do what you can do.  Eventually marketing your business will be the most important thing on your plate and then you’ll take the necessary time.”

“You’re right!  The problem is me.  I’m not prioritizing writing high enough.  I’m letting all the distractions of work creep into my life because I don’t really want to write in the first place.  I would rather dig up a broken sprinkler pipe than market and build my business.  Maybe that is why I had to let Paul and Jose go.”

Ed Bejarana
BusinessBlogging.net
a division of Zenith Exhibits, Inc.

Over the past ten months I’ve been working on a new internet marketing approach that uses blog technology.  The concept is to build a coordinated series of postings are written for different audiences and all link back to the same websites (BusinessBlogging.net and ZenithExhibits.com).

I had a choice between a half a dozen different blogging platforms, but I settled with WordPress.  I believe WordPress is the future of blogging, plus they have a very large user base and development team.  Here is a link to the October stats published by WordPress.

Counting hosted and non-hosted WordPress blog sites, there were over 1.8 BILLION page views in the month of October 2008.  WordPress has gained popularity by using free hosting with massive amounts of power to spare.  Here is a link to the features page, describing the offering.

I use WordPress for my customer sites because I am able to create a multi-user environment where I can perform administrative tasks without having to log in using my clients user account.  Internet security is very important.

If you are looking to get into the world of blogging, check out WordPress.com.

Happy Blogging!

Ed Bejarana
BusinessBlogging.net
a division of Zenith Exhibits, Inc.

On Monday morning my phone rang, I answered and heard Simple Sally’s voice.

“Hi Ed, I have some concerns about blog site performance.  Can we meet?”

I said, “Sure, can you tell me the particulars of your concerns so I can do my research in advance of our meeting?”

“We are getting a good number of visitors to our blog site, but more than half are coming from my company website, we were expecting to get more traffic from the search engines.  We’d like your opinion as to what is happening.”

We set up a meeting time and I started my research.

Looking at the Google Analytics for the blog, sixty percent of the blog traffic was originating from Sally’s company website.  On the surface it would seem the blog site wasn’t performing, but when I looked at the company website’s Analytics account I found the answer.  I made a few notes, printed a few charts and got ready for my meeting with Sally the next day.

“Sally, I am very happy to report that your blog site is performing great.  At this point in time I would suggest we keep the same blog strategy.”

“But we are not gaining high search engine visibility for our blogsite.”  Sally replied.  “Less the 30% of our blog traffic is coming from the search engines, isn’t there something more we can do to capture traffic?”

“Because of the customer focused emphasis, search engine visibility for the blog site will take some time.  You have, however, experienced a significant increase in web traffic and search engine visibility for your main web site.”

I pulled out a chart to highlight landing page visits on Sally’s main website.  “You see here Sally, this chart shows your blog organization page on the main company website is receiving the third highest number of visits.  You organized the blog page on your main site to reference specific articles on your blog site that are helpful to your customers.  Article titles are keyword rich search phrases and because of the reciprocal link, your website has received a much higher relevancy rating.”

I continued, “We want people to find your company blog site on the search engines, but we also want your main website to become more popular because of the extra links.  We have accomplished part two of our goal.”

Sally smiled.  “I was so focused on the blog site performance and justifying the expense to my bosses that I forgot to look at the main website performance.  I see here that web traffic has increased significantly.  Should we be concerned that visitors are leaving our main website to go to the blog site?”

“We need to keep track of the “Bounce Rate“, “Pages Views“, and “Pages/Visit”.  These numbers help us see if visitors are arriving on the blog site and reading more than one article.  A high bounce rate means visitors are immediately leaving the site.  That would be bad, considering most of the traffic originated from the main company website.”

“What is considered a high bounce rate?”

“There is no hard and fast rule.  A bounce rate lower than 50% would be preferable, but for blogs, it is not uncommon to see 70% bounce rate.  Visitors browsing the internet often leave sites with lots of text just because they don’t feel like reading.”

Ed Bejarana
BusinessBlogging.net
a division of Zenith Exhibits, Inc.

To learn more about how we can help you get started business blogging, please call (503) 709-1454.

Bashful Bill initially struggled with blogging because he felt uncomfortable sharing his inner thoughts with the internet.  Bill’s new challenge, economically induced writers block, would require a new approach.  Business owners struggle with bills, sales, and employees; these mental processes eat away at one’s ability to engage, enlighten and/or encourage others.  Bill’s shyness added an extra level of stress which took him further away from business blogging.

Bill and I were meeting at a local Sushi restaurant, I figured meeting over lunch would help prepare Bill for what I would tell him.  After several rolls and some small talk, I launched into the problem at hand.

“Bill, tell me something new you’ve learned about your business this past year?”

My question caught Bill off guard, Bill replied, “I thought we were going to talk about my blog article?”

“We will Bill, but first, tell me something new about your industry or the way you are doing business.”

“Not much to say about the landscaping business, except business is down all over.  People are canceling contracts and I’m forced to layoff workers.  I guess I don’t understand your question.”

“Did you attend any trade shows this year Bill?”

“Uh…No.”

“Did you attend any seminars?”

“No.”

“Did you take any classes at the community college or the local Small Business Development Center?”

“No, what are you getting at?”

I ignored Bill’s question for now.  “Do you subscribe to any landscaping magazines?”

“Yes, I read Landscape Architecture, but I thought we were going to meet and discuss my article about cutting home landscaping costs?  I’ve spent a lot of time on this article and feel I just need your help getting started.”

“Bill, sometimes we, as business owners, must see our problems with different eyes in order to understand a way through the situation.  Continuing education is one way to gain a new perspective on business life.  Recessions are a natural part of business and if we fail to seek mental stimulation to keep our thoughts moving in a positive direction, we’ll only have business struggles to ponder.  Our worries will keep us from doing that which builds our business and so begins a downward business spiral.”

I continued, “With that in mind, can you tell me about one of the articles from a past issue of Landscape Architecture that peeked your interest?”

Bill proceeded to tell me about Treeconomics and while the details were mostly a blur, I could hear Bill’s passion for the topic.  When Bill concluded I said, “Now put yourself in the shoes of your readers.  Which story would you rather read, one dripping with worry or one with passion and positive feelings?”

The look on Bill’s face told me he understood.  “You mean my troubles writing are because the tone is negative?”

“Yes.  Negative thought be gets negative results.  When you are faced with an economically induced writers block, the solution is to turn to your passion.  That which you are passionate about will always get you writing again.  You can come back to your current story, but don’t get so focused on one subject that you avoid publication all together.  Your readers are taking a break from life to read your thoughts, reward them with your passion for your profession.”

Ed Bejarana

For more information about how business blogging can help you and your business, please visit our companion website BusinessBlogging.net or call us at (503) 709-1454.