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How and Why a Social Media Manager is Essential for Your Business

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In today’s cutthroat business world, it is not easy to stand yourself. Getting success in business is highly competitive today but the new social media applications are making it simpler to get in touch with the potential clientele and to expand the local business globally. In this editorial we will discuss about the ways to maximize the business opportunities using the social media.

Social media is growing exponentially and has almost revolutionized the mode or promotion and advertising. It has now become the most wonderful mode of expression between business to costumers as well as business to business. The very popular social media sites such as twitter, facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and Digg have engaged more than 300 million business people. However, not all of these know how to exactly use the social media to promote the business worldwide through these amazing social networking websites. On the other hand some are doing really a fantastic job at using social media and have taken their business to a new horizon. [Read more…] about How and Why a Social Media Manager is Essential for Your Business

Choosing Between Facebook Profiles vs. Pages vs. Groups for Your Business

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Back in the olden days, there was a saying that goes like “if you want to spread news fast- tell a woman”, fast forward to the age of Internet, and the saying can be rephrased to “if you want to spread news fast – share it at Facebook”. This online social giant has sprawled into much more than just a place where friends wander around, checking and commenting on each others’ profiles- Facebook of today is a massive network with more than 500 million users (and remember that it’s not even one percent of the entire internet population, so there’s some huge potential of further growth). For businesses, especially ones who are looking to blog, Facebook is a great place to find and reach out to your targeted customers. You can do so by creating, either a Facebook profile, fan page, or a group (or using all three of them in tandem). However, as it is the case, with all social networks, you need to lay down your goals and a clear cut strategy before embarking on your journey of cyber success, or you will end up getting overwhelmed by so many options. [Read more…] about Choosing Between Facebook Profiles vs. Pages vs. Groups for Your Business

5 Solid Reasons You Should Never Quit Blogging

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Blogging has become the most popular and Never Give Up Blogging
easiest form of expression online which has also helped many to achieve financial success for themselves and their families. Although we all have various reasons for blogging, a vast majority is driven solely by the idea of making millions online and living the internet lifestyle in the shortest time possible.

Unfortunately, the get rich quick mindset is like a house built on sand and easily gets washed away in disappointment when the reality hits that its going to take some really hard work. At this point, one may experience blogger burnout or just feel like giving up but I say, don’t give up, reassess your strategies, redefine your goals and look at all that can be gained through this fulfilling endeavor.

Whatever your reasons may be for quitting, here are 5 solid reasons for sticking to it and never give up on your blog. [Read more…] about 5 Solid Reasons You Should Never Quit Blogging

The Most Important & Effective Strategy When Business Blogging

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Incorporating a blog within any small to large Corporate Blogging
organization’s website can be one of the most important decisions that could be made. Blogs are extremely effective for driving sales, web traffic, building brand awareness and strengthening relationships with customers. However, corporate blogging can be somewhat different from a regular personal blog due to differences in goals and audience but at the same time there are techniques that are guaranteed to produce results whatever the goals may be.

Let’s discuss what readers of corporate blogs are looking for and what elements will keep them coming back for more and even make a purchase. [Read more…] about The Most Important & Effective Strategy When Business Blogging

Does Your Business Need a Blog?

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There’s a growing segment of bloggers who fall into the “business” category, who blog for the purpose of promoting a business, and you might be or become one of them. Businesses are realizing the value of blogging, especially if they’re hoping to establish an online presence.

Does your business need a blog? The short answer is “maybe.” Not every business needs a blog, just like not every business needs a website. However, if you are building any sort of presence online, then a blog is a very good idea.

Why? A website on its own simply isn’t enough to establish an online presence, unless your domain is “aged,” has tons of high-ranking content (from a search engine perspective) that other high-ranking sites have linked back to, and has consistent new content. Many search engines favor sites with regular fresh content — which means the likelihood of more Web traffic.

While you CAN publish lots of regular content on a non-blog site, the tools for managing non-blog content — e.g., a CMS (Content Management System) — are often far too complex and expensive for the needs of smaller businesses. Blogging systems (a lesser form of CMS) may have their limitations, but as most of the best are free and have supportive communities, they can be a benefit when you’re on a tight budget. A few such as WordPress can even be used as a low-end CMS in incredibly versatile ways.

Simply put, your business website needs a blog because if it’s leveraged properly, your site benefits in terms of Web traffic. Readers also benefit, and if they become regular readers due to regular content, their trust grows and they’re more likely to convert to customers. It’s a win-win situation.

So how do you decide whether to have a business blog or not? Here are a few questions you can ask yourself.

  1. Do you have a bricks and mortar ‘local’ business that would benefit from a broader market?
  2. Do you already have a website that brings you customers or leads?
  3. Do you want your customer base to be more knowledgeable about your product or industry?
  4. Do you want to establish an online presence?
  5. Do you want to sell your business’ products or services online?
  6. Do you know about social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook and want to leverage them for your businesss?

There are other questions you can ask yourself, but this is a starting point. If you’ve answered yes to any of these, then having a blog might benefit your business. If this is something you’d like to explore further, search our article archives for other helpful content relating to writing, creativity, productivity and other aspects of blogging. If you have decided to build a business blog and need some help, feel free to contact Performancing Services.

Book Review of Rework, a New Bestselling Business Book

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Rework is the new business book by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson, the executive team of 37signals.

I’m a big fan of their blog and Backpack, one of their products, so when I found out they were releasing a business book, I had to check it out.

The release date was yesterday so I went to my local Barnes & Noble, found the book, and read the whole thing there in two hours. Yes, the book is short compared to other business books but I liked it so much that I bought it for reference sake.

Even though the book is not a book about blogging, I think the book has many great tips for probloggers.

Basically, it’s a manifesto for doing work differently. Written from their experience, Jason and David blow up many of the workplace norms you find today in most companies, big and small. For example, here’s a look at some of their chapter titles: Learning from mistakes is overrated, Planning is guessing, Meetings are toxic, and Underdo your competition. Also, they claim that workaholism is a bad idea.

As you can tell, Rework is not the typical business book that reminds people of boring college classes and stuffy professors.

Jason and David have figured out how to run a wildly successful business in the new media, internet-based world we live in without the negative aspects that people normally think of like long hours, ineffective bureaucracy, and cutthroat tactics. Their company, 37signals, has only 16 employees. But even though the company is not big, they have a big impact with over 3 million people using their products.

The employees are very autonomous. They can work at their own schedule and can choose to work at home. In fact, half of their employees don’t even live in the same city as the company office.

Here’s a telling quote from Jason in Inc. Magazine:

Employees come to the office if and when they feel like it, or else they work from home. I don’t believe in the 40-hour workweek, so we cut all that BS about being somewhere for a certain number of hours. I have no idea how many hours my employees work — I just know they get the work done.

Therefore, I think Jason and David’s experience of running a business is great for the average problogger. You don’t need the typical business book that caters to offline businesses and big corporations.

Also, 37signals understands the power of blogging. As a small business, they don’t have a sales team or a marketing department. In fact, most of their business comes from their blog. That’s how I found out about them. Their blog, Signal vs. Noise, is very popular with over 100k RSS subscribers.

The book can help you get into the business mindset, which is the mindset you need to be in to really make money – not the blogging mindset.  A blog is a great marketing channel but you need a strong business as a foundation to have the best chance of quitting your day job.

There will be sections in the book that may not apply to your situation right now. For example, it has some essays about hiring employees but most bloggers I know are not in a position to hire. Still, the other sections are well worth the price of the book and who knows, in the future, you may want to hire employees or freelancers for your blog.

Learn more about Rework.

Performancing offers blog management services.

Brands need to adopt social media to prosper

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Roll back a few years and the main piece of advice for companies seemed to be “get a website”.

We we told that any company that couldn’t be found online would go out of business. That’s not strictly true, of course — it depends a lot on the business — but what is happening is that the stakes are being raised.

Now, it’s not enough to have a website. You need a social media presence and a strategy to drive it.

With Google and Bing incorporating social network data into their search results, there’s an even more compelling argument for brands to capitalise on the power of social, according to Reality Digital.

With the rise in social media comes the need for reputation management — seeing what people are saying about a company or brand and communicating positively with both fans and detractors.

Robert Proctor at Reality Digital said, “Those brands that employ brand focused social networking applications will stand to benefit from these deals hugely, as through this they not only have the benefit of heightened consumer interactivity, but they may also start to see some of the great content from their networks appearing within search engine results.”

Do You Separate Your Personal and Professional Twitter Lives?

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On Freelance Switch, Will Kenny ponders whether online professionals are turning off prospective clients with personal tweeting. Freelancers have found blogs, social networks and microblogging services to be effective means to market one’s services virally. But the question here is whether one is effectively distinguishing between the social and professional aspect of having an online presence. [Read more…] about Do You Separate Your Personal and Professional Twitter Lives?