A MarketingSherpa research found out that creating content is one of the most effective tactics for improving a website’s SEO.
User-Generated Content encountered for Organic search up to 10%, and lead conversion up 125%.
Companies who create content, operate a corporate blog and update it frequently have 55% more website visitors.
57% of companies which operate a corporate blog report to have acquired new customers through their blog.
Corporate Blogging
Blogging gets companies 55% more Traffic and up to 97% more Inbound Links. Companies who blog get 434% more indexed pages in search engines and up to 25x times more business leads.
Video Content Creation
Business who utilize video content creation, encounter up to 300% more monthly unique visitors, and 100% longer average time-on-site per visitor. The average time spent on pages with videos is 3-minutes. Generating video content increases search engine traffic by 157% and page views by 63% unique visitors by 100%.
User generated reviews on ecommerce sites
Content marketing ways like product ratings and reviews are proven to increase conversion rates on product pages.
Visitors of ecommerce pages should be able to include pictures and videos with their reviews. The way like sited as eBay and Amazon do to provide an overall rating are additional ways to increase website interaction.
The value of reviews increases as they are moderated within a short time period of about 24 hrs.
Also sharing these reviews to social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and other is a great way to distribute this user generated content.
Infographic: The Rise Of Conten Marketing
All above activities are visible to search engines and can lead to a massive growth in traffic.
Creating content takes time, money and expertise. When you need inspiration on which content your audience is interested in, just ask them and they will tell you.
Social Media has proven to be a source of targeted high quality leads for B2C and B2B. An increasing number of marketers see lead generation as their greatest online marketing challenge.
Marketers which experienced the business value of social media marketing know that social media is one of their most successful and cost effective marketing channels.
Studies show that companies which relying on online lead generation are two times more profitable than those who do not. Those companies achieve an up to 62% lower costs per lead.
In social media B2B marketers are focusing mostly on LinkedIn which is the most successful channel for B2B lead generation followed by corporate blogging.
A study from Wildfire Interactive shows that social media helps grow brand awareness, increase sales and partnerships and helped to reduce marketing costs.
How can you profit from this trend?
1. Start a social media presence. Complete your profile there
2. Research for industry related B2B groups and people. Become a member and invite those people to your network
3. Listen to their discussions. If you have something valuable to contribute than do it, otherwise go on listening
4. Start a corporate blog. Write about topics your B2B audience is interested in. Share your blog articles in social media and ask for feedback for your publication
5. Build landing pages and offer exclusive and valuable content for download. So you generate laser target high quality industry related B2B leads
“Worldwide social network ad revenues are still going strong and set to grow nearly 50% this year, according to eMarketer estimates.” by Emarketer.com
The revenue spending on social networks are increasing this is a fact. More and more businesses discover that social networks are a great communication tool to get in touch with their audience.
B2C and B2B have realized that the business decision makes are active in the social web and try to reach them by paid advertising.
It is a good approach to be visible where your audience is around. But the way how you are visible is more important than a big ad budget.
Moreover a big ad budget does not mean you will be successful with your lead generation campaign. The opposite is more likely the result.
Smart marketers use PPC only for short campaigns, and not as a substitute of a holistic strategy.
Why? Because PPC has no log term value for marketing, when you stop your PPC your lead flow also stops. Another point is that you do not earn any trust in the market with PPC. Anybody can bid for the highest keywords. You can’t buy trust and reputation by bidding the highest price per click!
When it comes to led generation than “nothing beats the inbound marketing strategy”!
Studies from the past five years revealed that a seriously executed inbound marketing strategy results in up to 62% lower cost per lead an in an up to 55% higher lead conversion rate.
Inbound marketing consists of content creation, content distribution, content marketing, Social Media communication, Lead generation, Lead Nurturing, Lead Conversion, and Closed-Loop Analysis to refine and improve the activities.
Furthermore companies who execute an inbound marketing seriously build trust, their brand and are recognized as a reputable source on the web. They get found on the web when future customers are looking, instead of pushing them with dump old fashioned sales pitches.
Infographic: Inbound Marketing on the rise
Companies who utilize inbound marketing simply leave their competition behind them in the dust. Inbound marketing is brain versus budget, and in the long term the brain always wins!
Inbound marketing is the marketing strategy that focuses on getting found by customers when they research online for products and services your business also has to offer.
With inbound marketing businesses earn their way to the customer, by publishing helpful information on a blog, in social media and forums.
Inbound marketing includes Blogging, Social Media, Lead Conversion, Lead Nurturing and Closed-Loop Analysis.
Most business has not the resources and the knowledge to execute a powerful and result driven inbound marketing strategy.
They have not good writers on their staff to produce buyer persona oriented remarkable content like blog articles, whitepapers, how-to’s and eBooks on a regular basis.
Also they do not have in-house SEO experts to help them to choose the most relevant keywords to better get found in the search engines.
Moreover the knowledge about social media communication and an effective community management is not in place as well.
But the most important fact is the time to get all the required things done.
Studies show that business who try to do inbound marketing without professional help fail within three months.
What did they win when the do not hire a professional inbound marketing agency? Simply nothing! They waste time resources and money for no revenue results.
If you want to profit from inbound marketing than you should think about to hire professionals who can do the job.
What do you get by executing a professional inbound marketing strategy?
A. S ave up to 62% of your marketing budget.
B. Stand out of your competition.
C. Generate a massive amount of leads.
D. Get up to 55% higher lead conversion rates.
E. Increase your customers and sales.
How much does it cost to hire a professional inbound marketing agency?
This is a god question. The same one like how much is a car? What kind of car do you want? Do you want an old car or a brand new Ferrari?
Inbound marketing hourly rates start with $100 per hour, depends what to do.
You can calculate to spend between $2,000/m – $3,000/m for about minimum of six months, depending on the services delivered. Because any serious inbound marketing agency will need this time frame to set your marketing on the right track to help you to reach your revenue goals.
On the end of the day is inbound marketing the most efficient and the most cost effective marketing you can get for your buck.
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Free report: Get found and get leads the smart way.
socialmediaexaminer.com has picked under over 570 nominations 20 Social Media Blogs for the Final Winner Selection.
One of those blogs is inBlurbs blog. In our blog we write about Inbound Internet Marketing – SEO, Blogging, Social Media, Landing Pages, Lead Generation and Analytics.
“Social Media Examiner, the world’s largest online social media magazine, is designed to help businesses discover how to best use social media tools like Facebook, Google+, Twitter and LinkedIn to connect with customers, generate more brand awareness and increase sales. More than 450,000 people read Social Media Examiner each month.
Technorati and AdAge rank Social Media Examiner as one of the world’s Top 10 business blogs. Our more than 120,000 email subscribers look forward to our daily original content.”
We are very proud to be nominated between those great blogs. Many thanks to all of our supporters.
An increasing number of companies like Intuit, Sysco, Cisco, GE Healthcare and AT&T are using social media for effective business lead generation.
A recent study from Sagefrog Marketing Group shows how companies have learned to leverage social media. Leveraging social media for branding and building awareness helps B2B companies.
4 Ways how companies can leverage social media:
• Increase brand awareness
• Humanize B2B companies
• Establish as thought leader
• Connecting with customers and prospects
What sites, tactics and strategies are B2B marketers including in their social media outreach?
To do their social media outreach B2B marketers include professional networking sites like LinkedIn which have proven to be an effective way to generate business leads. Furthermore they utilize social networks like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube also which are helping them to reach customers in new ways.
“67% of B2C and 47% of B2B companies report to have acquired new customers through Facebook.” “47% of companies who use Twitter report to have acquired new customer through it.”
Online Marketing strategies like banner ads have been replaced through proven buyer persona oriented content creation which also brings better ROI than pay per click marketing (PPC).
A corporate blog has become the number one content marketing tool for companies. The importance of blogging is growing and people are adding nearly 3 million blogs per month. [Technorati 2011 State of the Blogosphere Report]
In this report, Technorati shows that 8% of the corporate bloggers which responded to blog full-time as part of their job or are contracted to blog full-time for a company and that 13% of entrepreneurs responded to blog for a company or organization they own.
Studies show that companies who operate and update a corporate blog frequently have 55% more website visitors. From those companies 57% which operate a corporate blog report to have acquired new customers through their blog.
There is no question content marketing, corporate blogging, is definitely a revenue driver for B2B companies.
Every business wants to succeed. But not every business is doing what it needs to succeed. As for the past years corporate blogging and social media has increasingly earned popularity because auf its successful use, there are still a majority of businesses which still do not engage in these said marketing opportunities.
During the past years inbound marketing, which consists of strategic and buyer persona oriented content creation and content distribution like corporate blogging, engagement in social media, lead generation and lead conversion through lead nurturing and measurement through closed-loop analysis has grown in popularity.
The increase of inbound marketing popularity is no fad but the outcome of measurable and proven results which studies like the MIT study certifies.
Some examples why inbound marketing is so successful:
Content creation
Companies who operate a corporate blog and update it frequently have 55% more website visitors. 57% of companies which operate a corporate blog report to have acquired new customers through their blog.
Social media
67% of B2C and 47% of B2B companies report to have acquired new customers through Facebook. 47% of companies who use Twitter report to have acquired new customer through it.
Lead generation
Inbound marketing has a 62% lower cost per lead than traditional marketing strategies. Inbound marketing way generated leads have an 55% higher lead conversion rate than lead generated through traditional marketing strategies.
As inbound marketing strategy consists of buyer persona oriented content creation, social media engagement, lead generation, lead nurturing and closed-loop analysis; it covers the necessary areas for a successfully operable strategy.
Some suggestions to jumpstart your inbound marketing:
2. Produce remarkable content (blog articles, whitepapers, eBooks, photos, video, press releases and FAQs) for your buyer personas.
3. Distribute your content online through your corporate blog and in social media.
4. The more you publish and share the better. As you increase the amount of pages of your website and blog articles you get increasingly more digital outpost to get found better online.
5. The more articles you publish the more opportunities appear to get Backlinks from other websites and blog who also like your publications and you will be recognizes as a trusted source.
6. Build relevant landing pages and clear call to action to generate leads.
7. Nurture those leads with important information and not with sales pitches.
8. Measure what you do, optimize and repeat.
Infographic: Inbound Marketing vs. Outbound Marketing
—What do you think about inbound marketing?
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Content Marketing has become a significant part of online marketing strategy. Content Marketing has proven to be the best and most cost effective way to drive traffic to a company website and convert this traffic to leads and customers.
The most popular ways of Content Marketing are blogging, social media and video. Studies show that 57% of companies which operate a corporate blog get customers through their blogging effort!
4 Reasons to start a corporate blog:
1. Blogging companies get up to 55% more Traffic
2. Blogging companies get up to 97% more Inbound Links
3. Blogging companies get up to 434% more indexed pages in search engines
4. Blogging companies get up to 25x times more business leads
Social Media Marketing has become a powerful tool to spread remarkable content to reach a wide audience.
For companies who engage in social media and show presence in these channels can open wide opportunities to get in touch with their audience. This leads to an increase of credibility and unfiltered feedback of the target audience and can lead to an improvement of products and services.
New studies show that up to 65 percent of today’s consumers expect a brand to listen and to respond on questions, comments and complaints in social media. Studies also show that companies which use social media actively to communicate with their audience are more successful than companies who do not.
7 Reasons to start your social media marketing:
1. Increase customer perception in the marketplace
2. Build long term relationship with customers and partners
3. Can respond to customers in real-time
4. Taylor products and marketing campaigns based on customer preferences
5. React and resolve on negative buzz in real-time
6. Decrease costs of marketing
7. Improved time to market for products and services
Most people think they need to be Steven Spielberg to make a video to put it online to get a positive impact for their business. But this is not true.
You do not need fancy equipment. The only thing you need is a video camera and for the beginning it can be the one from your smart phone.
The most successful video examples come from ordinary people who could not even be considered amateurs. To become successful with your video marketing, with video content, there is only one secret: Just go and do it, do as many video as you can. Publish it and let your audience judge.
6 Reasons to start your video marketing:
1. 200% to 300% more monthly unique visitors
2. 100% longer average time-on-site per visitor
3. 3-minute average time spent on pages with videos
4. 157% increase in search engine traffic
5. 100% increase in unique visitors
6. 63% increase in page views
Infographic: Content Marketing
—What do you think about content marketing? Are you doing one or all three or other content marketing strategies?
Companies engage increasingly in social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other forums and platforms. They go to step into conversation with their audience to offer better service and support and to strengthen the band between actual and future customers.
Social media is a great way to grow brand awareness for the business and to expand the reach to get more customers. But social media can also be a trap for those who are not familiar with managing their reputation online.
Everything a company is communicating on the web and in social media can travel a far way and have an impact on the reputation of the brand.
On social media people are talking about your last blog article, your service, products, about you and your brand. With or without your involvement.
As content which is published on social media also can be indexed by the major search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing the chances are great that also the content you have distributed will appear in the search engines search results too.
For you it is important to know where you or your brand name has been mentioned so you can respond. Therefore your best strategy to keep a good reputation is also to be active where your target audience is talking about you. So you can respond professionally and show your opinion.
You should care about your online reputation as the web has a wider reach than small town gossip. Future business and future contacts will be influenced by what the people find about you on the web.
Your behavior on the web and what other say about you will affect your future for sure.
To keep a good reputation you need to take care of the WHAT, WHERE and the HOW.
WHAT do you publish on the web and in social media?
You should avoid do praise your products too much. Do not make the mistake to use social media as a distribution channel and overload your audience with dump sales pitches.
WHERE do you publish your content?
Publish content topics where they belong and where they are appreciated. Therefore you need to listen carefully to your audience and give them the information they demand.
HOW do you communicate?
Always communicate in a professional and friendly way. Try to be helpful and show expertise and avoid sounding like schoolmasterly.
How you present yourself on the web can win you business and respect. To achieve this you should take the time to establish a good digital branding and biography.
Infographic: Reputation Management
–How do you protect your reputation on the web? Let me know what you think. I am looking forward to your comment.
A recent IBM study shows that 82% of CMOs worldwide are planning increase their technology investment in social media within the next three to five years.
These are interesting data. As social media evolves and more businesses jumping o this bandwagon it looks for me that three to five years are not an appropriate time frame to step into conversation with existing and future customers.
The more companies engage in social media two way communications the thinner the air becomes for those who start later. Those who come late will experience a massive uphill battle to gain positions which their competitors already have secured.
Companies which like to position their business to gain a competitive advantage need to act now, and not to wait three to five years.
Moreover companies who decide to take action within the next five years will be under risk to vanish from the customer radar and sink.
As social media is evolving at a very quick pace businesses also need to evolve to stay on track.
Content creation is the key to get found on the web. Your audience is researching o the web fist. If your audience can’t find you when they research for products or services which you also have to offer than you will lose potential business.
The three big search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing are indexing content form social media. So if you are in social media your chances increase to get found on the web.
What can you do to position your business today?
If you want to do business in the next five years and beyond you should take the opportunity to jump into social media as a valuable communication channel.
A. Register the most important social media networks for your brand as they are Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Flickr, Slideshare and any other sites or forums where your target audience is around.
B. Complete and customize your profiles there to have a social media branding to get recognized by your audience.
C. Listen to the social media conversation and contribute if you feel you have something valuable and helpful to say.
D. Start a corporate blog where you write about topics which your audience is interested in. Share your articles in your social media channels and ask your audience about their opinion.
E. Train you staff to become your brand ambassadors on the web and I social media and give them the freedom to decide how to communicate by establishing clear social media policy.
F. Measure your doings and check out what is working and what is not working. The things which work for your business you should intensify and the thing which do not work the way you have expected you should cut back.
G. Set realistic goals! Be realistic with your social media engagement. Rome wasn’t built in a day as well. Be patient as any strategy needs time to breathe to show up results and social media marketing a blogging are no exceptions.
Infographic: The ROI of Social Media
–How about you? What are your experiences with sociel media? I am looking forward to your comment below.
Today as I went through LinkedIn a group got my attention. It was the group about Online Lead Generation which I am a member of and where I contribute if there is a topic where I can help?
But today I went through the posts and I thought OMG, they are talking about buying leads. The word “Business Suicide” went through my brain.
Especially one provider caught my attention and I went to look into his background. This provider claimed to „generate thousands of real time leads in just about every vertical”!
Puhh I thought, this is a tough proposition and let’s see what’s behind them! I checked his website and guess what?
- An Alexa Rank of only 2,170,186 (means about 5 -10 unique visitors daily)
- 13 Google Indexed Pages (lesser pages means, lesser chances to get indexed and found on the search engines)
- Only 92 Backlinks (Qualified back links are one of the SEO strategies to get found, the more the better)
- No Corporate Blog (content marketing through blogging is the key to get found and to get leads)
- No presence in social media: no Facebook Business Page and no Twitter (43 percent of all online consumers are social media fans or followers, if you are not there you are missing them)
No Web DNA…. (maybe a ghost )
I asked him two question, I am curious if I will get any educated answer.
Q: How did you establish a business relationship to those leads?
Q: Why should those leads do business with the people who buy those leads from you?
Disussion Update
If you like to follow this discussion on LinkedIn, you can find it here.
Why did I done this you might ask?
Simple answer: I was shocked by that proposition made there and more shocked me that businesses believe this kind of fairytales and put their business on risk without to know what they are doing!
To buy leads is a waste of time and money and WILL harm the reputation of your business FOR SURE!
When you buy leads it is the same like you open the yellow pages and start cold calling from A-Z.
The people you reach do not know YOU, they did not requested to be contacted from YOU and they did not explained an interest in YOUR products and services previously!
By buying those leads – their addresses and bother those people you only show one thing, that your business has no USP and your products and services have no value for them.
You ask why?
If it would be the opposite you wouldn’t be dependent on paid leads! Instead of you would generate leads and customers automatically!
Boooom. You don’t like what I say!
So before you think about to pay for addresses, you should ask yourself why do you need to buy them and why do you not generate enough recommendations and leads from your existing customers actually?
To purchase leads is only a drip onto the hot stone. This will not solve your long-term issue and will not bring you closer to your business goals.
The opposite is the fact: The longer you depend on bought leads the more your chances will decrease to gain a competitive advantage!
Believe it or not you will loose business in the long term!
Stop buying leads and start build relationships. Build trust and credibility through content publishing (blogging) and two way conversations in social media. This is where you can generate highly valuable target leads with an PROVEN up to 55% conversion rate.
Start inbound marketing strategy by starting your own corporate blog ASAP!
Inbound marketing is the marketing strategy that focuses on getting found by customers when they research online for products and services your business also has to offer.
With inbound marketing businesses earn their way to the customer, by publishing helpful information on a blog, in social media and forums.
Inbound marketing includes Blogging, Social Media, Lead Conversion, Lead Nurturing and Closed-Loop Analysis.
Inbound marketing can help you to:
A. Save up to 62% of your marketing budget.
B. Stand out of your competition.
C. Generate a massive amount of leads.
D. Get up to 55% higher lead conversion rates.
E. Increase your customers and sales.
“Get seen and you get visited! “
— How about you? How are your experiences with bought leads?
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Most people who are interested to market their business on the web and especially in social media become overwhelmed of the necessary tasks which need to be done to achieve any serious results.
They feel that they need to handle an avalanche of information and requirements to get the necessary steps done.
And I fully agree with this. Inbound marketing which also includes, content creation as blogging and marketing this content through social media channels is a very time consuming business!
As any other marketing activity you cannot expect to do all the necessary tasks at once. You also need a strategic plan where you set timeframes to do your necessary inbound marketing tasks and which you can stick to. Discipline is a key factor!
Above in the title I ask how to eat an elephant? This is very simple, bit by bit!
As any other work you need to split your inbound marketing in daily tasks. You have five working days you can use. You need to determine how much time you can invest daily and from this point you can start.
Inbound marketing includes Blogging, Social Media, Lead Conversion, Lead Nurturing and Closed-Loop Analysis.
Content creation – blogging
As blogging is a key factor for lead generation we suggest to blog no matter which kind of other content you have or want to publish!
Which kind of content is the best fit for your target audience, your buyer personas?
Can you reach your audience with video, eBooks, reports, whitepapers, and pictures, blog commenting or any other piece of content?
Find out which kind of content has the best opportunities in your industry, and this does not mean it must be the same old way like your competitors do it! Be creative. When you competitor does eBook, than you can do video! When they do video than you can do eBooks! To get ideas and inspiration just look through other industries how and what kind of other content thy produce.
Social Media / Forums
Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and industry related forums are great place to get seen from your future clients. These places are also great to improve your of page SEO. When you are active there, means when you get into the conversation and share your content there than you increase your chances to found in the search engines!
Lead Generation / Conversion
Content creation and social media marketing are great tools to drive interested visitors to SEO optimized landing pages (lead capture pages) to get them into you database to follow up and to make them paying customers through the time.
Lead Nurturing
As you generate leads you should stay in touch with them. But avoid sales pitches. Instead of do the same which whom you have generated your leads. Inform them with interesting and share worthy content, solve problems, answer questions and simply stay in touch with them, stay visible!
Closed-Loop Analysis
Analyze your doings to determine where your lead and revenue coming from measure refine and improve your content creation, social media marketing, lead nurturing and analysis.
Repeat this process above!
Example: The daily inbound marketing tasks!
Monday
Facebook 15 minutes
Twitter 15 minutes
LinkedIn 15 minutes
Forums 15 minutes
Check email / Leads 30 minutes
Blog commenting 30 minutes
Draft blog article 30 minutes
Tuesday
Facebook 15 minutes
Twitter 15 minutes
LinkedIn 15 minutes
Forums 15 minutes
Check email / Leads 30 minutes
Blog commenting 30 minutes
Draft blog article 30 minutes
Publish blog article 30 minutes
Market blog article in social media
Wednesday
Facebook 15 minutes
Twitter 15 minutes
LinkedIn 15 minutes
Forums 15 minutes
Check email / Leads 30 minutes
Blog commenting 30 minutes
Draft blog article 30 minutes
Thursday
Facebook 15 minutes
Twitter 15 minutes
LinkedIn 15 minutes
Forums 15 minutes
Check email / Leads 30 minutes
Blog commenting 30 minutes
Draft blog article 30 minutes
Publish blog article 30 minutes
Market blog article in social media
Friday
Facebook 15 minutes
Twitter 15 minutes
LinkedIn 15 minutes
Forums 15 minutes
Check email / Leads 30 minutes
Blog commenting 30 minutes
Draft blog article 30 minutes
Check analytics 15 minutes
Refine tasks 30 minutes
———
To effectively profit from your web marketing efforts you should plan to invest about 2.5 hrs. daily and more, this depends on your business goals.
You also can split this work to different persons in your company.
– What do you think and how get you the daily web marketing tasks done?
We all know that a personal blog and professional blog are inherently different to the core. A professional blog is set up to drive traffic and conversions, but I feel strongly that running a successful corporate blog is less about running a “business” and more about simply grinding out quality content.
I’ve been in online marketing for a little more than a year, and one thing I’ve learned is that the majority of online marketers are “thinkers” and there are very little “doers.” People who will go out of their way to evaluate needs and fill them immediately themselves are doers.
Thinkers can understand needs but they make plans to do them.The inherent problem here, is that not everything is going to run like a well-oiled machine in blogging, so thinkers get caught trying to correct non critical problems when the doers are out engaging. In this post, I’ll explain how the motto “Just Do It” explains why the doers are successful in the blog world, and the thinkers are left thinking.
Blogging Is Raw, Organic
One of the most appealing aspects of blogging and reading blogs is the fact that it is real. Blogging is inherently a less corporate and more human way to communicate with your audience. Thinking too much about what you are saying strips the human, organic elements that make blog posts engaging. As we all know, successful blogs are shareable and engaging.
De-corporatizing your blog and encouraging informational, fun posts will improve your social influence and will help you build a community faster. Just think about the links you click on Twitter. Chances are you are clicking on “6 Things Bloggers Can Learn From Dr. Seuss” over an article called “6 Tips for New Bloggers.”
Don’t Plan…Write
Thinkers research keywords for titles to rank for and plan out posts based on targets. Doers write about content that is exciting to them. Forcing a blog post based on keyword opportunities and Google Trends is inhibiting your writing. I’m willing to bet 9 times out of 10, a blog post that is written from emotion and necessity will trump engagement over a post that is written from SEO opportunities.
What I’m ultimately trying to say is, blogging is simple. It doesn’t need to be a systematic process of checks and balances to be effective. It simply needs to make a reader want to share it with his/her friends.
Now this doesn’t mean that utilizing blogging “street smarts” won’t help you. Reaching out to contacts to help promote content and going the extra mile, sometimes pays off in big ways. For the most part, however, don’t sweat the small stuff. Keep a consistent tone and write consistent blog posts you take pride in, the readers will follow!
The Technorati Study: “State of the Blogosphere 2010” shows Corporate blogs have become a powerful business marketing tool for companies.
With the increasing demand of finding new and creative ways to get the attention of future buyers and recent customers, corporate blogs are established as a trust and credibility building way to show expertise and to get in touch with target audience.
Companies like IBM use blogging to get seen online. Every person there who wants to write a blog gets the chance to write about the things they are interested in, not only about IBM related products.
As blogging is a clear way of communication a business should be authentic and communicate in a human way to become successful with their blogging, content and social media marketing.
Businesses that blog expand their blogging engagement with the help of strategic social media engagement to spread their content and to step into a two way conversation with their audience. Studies show that 57% of companies who blog get customers through their blogging effort!
Blogging used with the power of social media sharing brings blog posts to a wide audience. This audience is interested in this kind of content as it is their primary source to research for products and services on the web.
“Reach” is the key factor which decides the success or failure of a corporate blog.
These days buyers’ research proffered on blogs and in social media to find products and services.
4 reasons to start a corporate blog:
Blogging companies get up to 55% more Traffic.
Blogging companies get up to 97% more Inbound Links.
Blogging companies get up to 434% more indexed pages in search engines.
Blogging companies get up to 25x times more business leads.
These numbers are good reasons for a business to consider blogging for content marketing!
Blogging is the basic way of content marketing. Which means it is very easy to start with reasonable marketing investment.
There is clear context between the number of published articles, website traffic and generated business leads. The more articles are published the more outposts are there to get found from future customers on the web.
To be successful with corporate blogging, increase reach, web traffic and leads it takes these points:
— Publish high quality articles, which are interesting and share worthy.
— Participate in social media and in top rank forums to gain larger exposure.
— Submit your blogs to blog directories and to top ranked Blog Search Engines.
— Offer free reports to visitors to increase their interest in your website.
There is no question that businesses who utilize blogging gain a massive competitive advantage against those who do not blog.
The average internet user is watching 30 minutes of video online daily! These people mostly lookout for entertainment.
This opens wide opportunities for your business to get your products and services in front of potential future buyers when they are looking.
The use of online video is growing as people also increasingly watch videos from their mobile devices.
Videos made as product pitches are not a good bet to attract interested people. Also image videos do not work as a potential viral marketing tool.
Your business should use online video to inform and to entertain your audience. Take care to also optimize your video for mobile. As the smart phone use grows you should keep in mind that these users are also able to see your videos on their mobile devices. Here is an interesting article about video sizes.
Smartphone Trends Infographic:
For information / education: You can show your products in action or explain product features in a more understandable way through video. Let your satisfied customers talk about your products and publish and market those videos everywhere on the web.
Watch this video:
For communication: You can do a video blog, where you instead of to write articles can do videos. Steve Garfield’s video blog.
Steve Garfield is a videographer and video blogger based in Boston, Massachusetts. One of the Internet’s first video bloggers, Garfield began experimenting with the technique in 2002 and launched his own video blog on January 1, 2004.
For entertainment: Nobody says that a product video needs to be boring! You can be creative and do an entertaining product video which people like and share.
Watch this video:
If you have a lack of ideas just crowd source your video to your audience, for example to your Facebook friends and Twitter followers.
Do a contest for the best crowd sourced video! So you can create a buzz on the web, get a lot of attention from your target audience, a ton of creative videos online which mention your brand and can lead further interested people to your business.
Online Video Facts Infographic:
The easiest way for you to profit from online video for your business is to do videos by yourself and publish them in your corporate blog on Youtube, Facebook and other videos channels on the web.
You can simply start your video by using the camera you already have. This can be the cam from you smart phone or any other cam you have. Start doing videos of your company and your products. Ask your collages to explain one of your products in plain English and upload, add a descriptive title, tag and describe this video to help search engines to index it and your audience to find it.
Embed it to your website, write a blog post about the video topic and embed it in your corporate blog. Market it on your social media channels and ask for comments and opinions.
Than do the next video and so on.
Don’t try to do a perfect video. There is no such thing like a perfect video on the web!
With the time you will get a better routine and your videos will become better and better. But this will only happen if you start doing them.
— How do you use online video for business? I am looking forward to your comment below.
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inbound marketing - SEO, Blogging, Social Media, Landing
Pages, Lead Generation and Analytics.
A MarketingSherpa research found out that creating content is one of the most effective tactics for improving a website’s SEO. 
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