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Secrets to Success
Deborah Cole Micek
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The benefits of business blogging
Blogs have moved beyond being a tool for publishing digital journals. Now, hundreds of millions of people are using blogs, some without even realizing it.
What this means for business owners and savvy politicians is that your markets are organizing themselves into tribes engaged in digital conversations. Consumers are more in control than ever before, and they are controlling the conversations on the Internet. Blatant advertising and marketing messages are being shunned.
Consumers want a more personal business experience that allows them to ask questions, offer feedback and have more facts before purchasing (or voting). Consumers and voters alike want control. And now, thanks to blogs and other new-media tools, they have it.
Blogs allow you to build relationships around your brand, your business, your products and your services. Relationships are the key. The rules of engagement have changed. Your markets are faster, smarter, and more organized. Business blogging now positions you and your business like no Web-marketing 1.0 method ever did.
Blogs are search-engine magnets whose viral link-sharing capabilities allow ideas and traffic to be shared quickly and broadly. To get the benefits I've shared here, you must be business blogging as opposed to following the example of personal bloggers or your average political blogger.
You can use a business blog to:
» Increase traffic to your site.
» Reliably boost your search-engine rankings.
» Build rapport and trust for more sales.
» Multiply the lifetime value of your existing clients.
» Prove your expertise as an authority in your niche.
» Transform your clients into fans and evangelists.
» Replace or complement your e-mail newsletter for 100-percent delivery.
» Generate offline media coverage.
Here are seven ways that a business blog can boost performance in your business:
» Enhance collaboration among team members across the hall or across the world.
» Centralize company information and distribution.
» Introduce a nearly instantaneous feedback engine that allows companies to nip consumer issues in the bud.
» Cut e-mail overhead and improve general team management by answering questions once -- and only once.
» Engage a low-cost, instantaneous update system that distributes "must have" information to clients.
» Organize and coordinate your in-house and outsource agent teams
» Develop a think tank where company teams or industry peers can brainstorm.
There are more business-boosting blogging applications, but they are limited only by one's imagination
Deborah Micek is a business coach at RPM Success Group Inc. She can be reached via
Deb@RPMsuccess.com.