Archive for the 'Small Business Blog' Category

Facebook for Business part 1

BlogKing March 3rd, 2008

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With all the growth is social media sites I have been thinking about setting up a page on Facebook. I already use StumbleUpon a lot and have been very pleased with the traffic boost it provides. I have been hesitant about Facebook because you can’t see what is really like without opening an account, but that is a catch-22. How do I know if it makes sense. Perhaps you have been wondering the same question.

Luckily Brian Brown has written a good Facebook primer over at Work.com, Guide to Facebook Basics for Your Business.

The whole point of Facebook is to interact with a network of friends. A “friend” on Facebook can be an actual friend you grew up with, went to school with, etc., or it can be someone you meet online, like through a Facebook group.

Browse Facebook’s groups. Groups are made of Facebook members that have a common interest. When you find a group you like, join that group. This will give you the chance to market to the group and invite group members as “friends.

Facebook makes soft-selling easy. All you have to do is post a link to a sales page on your website (with the “Posted Items” application) and Facebook lets everyone in your friends list know you have posted the link by displaying it on their home page. Friends will also know when you’ve uploaded photos, or videos, or changed your profile.

Add your RSS feed to your Facebook profile. If you have a blog, or any website that produces an RSS feed, it can be added to your blog through various RSS applications. This makes your blog immediately accessible to your Facebook friends.

Tomorrow I’d take a deeper look.

Avoid These Mistakes During Your First Year in Blogging

BlogKing September 3rd, 2007

There has been a lot of posts written about the optimal way to blog. One of the most important tips in my opinion is establishing your self in the greater blogosphere that already exists around your topic.

Kristie T at the Home Business Blog writes that her biggest first-year mistake was “not reaching out to other bloggers soon enough.” She adds that she has worked on this, and “Now I have a sense of community with other bloggers.” I would add that it might feel really weird at first to leave comments and write an email or two. But most bloggers are really cool and happy to help and almost always write back! (Guy Kawasaki probably won’t write back. Unless you’re Arianna Huffington.)

So it’s not all about your own blog. Get out there and contribute to the community. You might get some good link love in return (its good to make the Google algorithm happy). [When available use a trackback for instant reciprocal link goodness.]

The second most important tip is write often.[I am working on that one myself]

Maybe you don’t feel inspired. Liz Strauss has 10 Reasons to Write and Publish Every Day.

We write to record our thoughts . . . and by recording them we think them through, rearrange, and re-organize them. We make our ideas clearer. We make our thinking stronger and more easily understood. We carve a path that a reader, a listener, another person can follow from our minds to their minds, from our hearts to their hearts. Writing is a connection waiting to happen.

That is great motivation right there. Writing will clear you head and bring better understanding. If you are writing a business blog isn’t that the value added; the hard won insights that distinguish you from the average practitioner. Sometime those insights come in the act of putting your thought into words for public consumption. So write and become wiser.

My favorite from her list is #3

Writing every day helps us develop a voice that is natural and consistent, strong and confident, and attuned to readers. Everything we write has an audience. Even when we write for ourselves, we go back to read, listening to what we wrote. We question. We consider. We critique our choices.

Have you any thoughts about developing your blogging voice? Trials, tribulations, false starts. You are not alone. Share your ideas here.