Marketing With Blogs - Part 1
Copyright © 2005 Priya Shah
Marketers have found that blogs are excellent
tools for communicating with their audience. Anyone who has
something to sell or an idea to promote can benefit from using
blogs.
Corporates like Nike are using blogs to build
branding. Microsoft and Sun are using them to communicate with
the developer community.
Blogs have a number of advantages that make
them excellent tools for communication.
They are cheap to install and require little
or no technical expertise. So the entry point for blogging is
very low when compared to the expense of hiring a website designer.
While building a website is often out of the
reach of most solo entrepreneurs, anyone can start a blog. If
you can’t write or hate to write, you can start an audio
or video blog. The possibilities are endless.
Blogs also help you create content that search
engines love, and encourage linking from a number of other bloggers
who write on similar topics. This makes them excellent tools
for getting high search engine rankings and boosting your visibility.
They also encourage immediate responses from
your readers and customers, so you can get feedback, tweak your
campaigns and respond better to the market’s demands.
Blogs, and the RSS feeds they come with, help
you syndicate your content online, boost your reach and influence
and allow readers to control their communications with your
company.
Your blog can be your selling point and help
your prospects opt for you and your services over those of others.
Whether you’re an individual, entrepreneur,
small business, consultant, coach, book author, independent
filmmaker, actor, model, travel guide, work-at-home mom - someone
who wants to promote their individual skills and talents or
interests – there is immense potential in using blogs
to promote your business.
In part
2 of this article series I cover some tips that will help
you ensure your blog is a good marketing vehicle.
Priya Shah is CEO of the blog
publishing firm, Connect10. Subscribe to her free Marketing
With Blogs email course. Request the whitepaper Boost
Your Search Engine Visibility With Blogs And RSS here.
This article may be reprinted as long as the
resource box is left intact and all links are hyperlinked.
