Small Business Blogging And Social Media Memes


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Blogging and social media are the backbone of small business online marketing today. Here are some nuggets of wisdom to pass on about the best use of these tools including how they can boost your brand and transform your SMB. Enjoy!

Blogging

5 reasons your business needs a blog. You’ve heard it all before in a dozen different places, but maybe never as succinctly. Here are the basic reasons a blog solves all of your major online marketing needs in one simple, compact package. If you want to know why a blog must literally be the beginning and end of your basic online marketing approach, look no further! Small Business Bliss

The new voice of entrepreneurship? Besides simply being a marketing tool, have blogs become the new voice of small business too, replacing the voices of traditional journalism once most trusted for business news, information and opinion? While the U.S. Administration fawned over small businesses in recent days as small business week came and went, bloggers like Susan Solovic were still telling it like it is? Fast Company

Social Media

How Facebook/Twitter will boost your sales. Social media isn’t just for brand recognition anymore. In this post, consider how the major social media platforms can create sales leads for you too. From Facebook to Twitter to LinkedIn, huge social media networks can help grow your small business not just in visibility but in sales. Here is how social media can work for you. GrowthUniversity

Is your content worth sharing? Tough talk from blogger Jeremiah Staes about the real reason your social media campaign may not be working. And it’s got nothing to do with the loyalty of your content management team. A key part of social media success involves creating content people want to share. If they don’t, they don’t! It’s time to take a long hard look at why.  Portage Digital Media

Tips

Four more ways to improve a business blog. Jason Kienbaum shares these additional thoughts about what makes a business blog really click. Jason says this is about using a blog more effectively…and he’s right. Nothing could be more boring or a bigger turnoff than post after post of sales come-ons. Resist the urge! Your blog could be so much more. Take a look! Business Done Now

13 templates for your business blog. Blogging maestro Michael Martine lays out 13 different templates to keep variety going on your business blog and then describes each in meticulous detail in a series of posts. Here’s the first, but we’d advise you check ’em all out and see whether some of these templates might work for your business blog. What do you think? Remarkablogger

Strategy

Building a business with social tools. Many different kinds of businesses have effectively used social media to build a customer base. In this interview with our sister site BizSugar.com, we talk with Annelies Zijderveld of Attune Foods. The company has effectively used social media to market a product line emphasizing healthy living and continues to build on this success. BizSugar

What is your plan for marketing online? Here are some awesome suggestions for mapping the ways you can use social media to market your product, service or small business. Remember how many ways you can engage your audience including asking people to check out your product, asking them to tell their friends, looking for people who need the product or service etc. What does your social media map look like and how does it impact your business? Chris Brogan

Self-improvement

The rules of the revolution. New online marketing tools, particularly social media, carry with them great powers to influence and connect. But beware of the potential dangers when using these tools to gain new customers and connections. The relationship potential is great but so is the potential to go terribly and publicly wrong. Some simple advice on the brave new world ahead. Be careful! Bloomberg BusinessWeek

The self-centered approach to promotion? Let’s just say this is a bad idea. A REALLY bad idea. It is especially horrible in the social media world where sharing information useful to others is the name of the game, NOT sharing information about how great you are. If you want to know what your social media persona (and every other aspect of your small business marketing) should be and what it shouldn’t, read on. Chris Brogan

6 Comments ▼
6 Reactions
  1. Good article. I think one of your key points is to be informative and helpful instead of producing a sales pitch. There is a fine line there, but a blog and to some extent social media should be there to help customers understand how your business can help them.

  2. Martin Lindeskog

    As I said before, the wrap-up post is a great view of getting a bunch of interesting links to explore. Have you done a blogrolling post on how you could use social media activities when you are doing business to business?

  3. Would you recommend, or find the rationale given in general to small businesses to blog, to be the same for one that provides a professional service? (consulting)

  4. Nathan Marcarelli

    Social media especially has become the main focus on marketing your business. The author is completely right about social media not just being brand recognition, but sales leads and networking. Setting up blogs or marketing your business is key and you really should check into your local web design firms and see if they offer any services.

    Thanks,
    Nathan Marcarelli

  5. It’s no brainer to see that social media is here to stay for good. Given vast variety of the existing channels to choose and stick with, it’s time for such a hot space to enter into a new category. There is a need for a portal to provide a quick and intelligent decision for both the consumer and the enterprise about their online connections.

    A Platform to Help us to Distinguish Our Quality vs. Quantity Friends, Fans, Followers, and Companies

    Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Youtube, Flickr and others have been doing a decent job of providing additional marketing exposure and even in some cases, additional revenue. However, as more and more social networking sites pop up, how do you manage your brand across all these channels? Maybe more importantly, which one of these sites should you select as the one that will help you best reach your target audience?

    This glut of information reminds me of the early 90’s when WWW was adopted broadly by the general public. Every company rushed to have a presence, to the point it became literally impossible to find the right information on the Web. That’s when a better generation of search engines – at first the Yahoo! and then Google – entered the market and helped us find the most relevant information by just typing simple keywords in their search box.

    Then came Web 1.0 & 2.0 – Youtube, Flickr, myspace, Facebook, Twitter and countless others have turned everyday people into content producers, influencers and experts. We basically tripled down on the information overload How do you know which channels to select for deploying your social media strategy? How do you know which one is the right channel to let your fans and followers to find you, your products, and services? Most importantly, who is Joe Smith that is recommending that person, that company, that product?

    I hope my awesomize.me can accomplish such a mission. The site is not another social networking platform. Yet the portal to all your existing social media channels. The platform helps you, your fans, your potential clients to make an intelligent decision as to which company to connect to or follow via which social media channels and why? It’s free!

    Elias
    CEO & Founder
    http://awesomize.me

  6. Michael Martine, Blog Alchemist

    Thanks so much for including me in this list, I’m honored!

    @ckstevenson – Yes, absolutely. In fact consulting is what I do. Because consulting is so reliant on information, expertise and authority, that makes blogging the best online marketing possible for consultants.