Tag Archives: blogging

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B2B Blogging – Does Social Media’s Rise Doom Blogging’s Future

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Popular Today, But is Blogging A Flash-in-The-Pan?

As Facebook and Twitter gain momentum, it's been questioned whether blogs will become obsolete? 

b2b blogging

To answer that question, let's look at what the facts tell us.

Neither Twitter nor Facebook can match the presence of a blog. Blogs are feature-rich, versatile and permit long form content.

Twitter is text-based and extremely limited. It's considered a microblog that allows microposts of no more than 140 characters. This makes meaningful conversation impossible.

Facebook has more features than Twitter, but it focuses on individuals and their personal lives. However, as Facebook evolves, big-name consumer brands are building a presence.

Even so, because of its consumer-centric focus, it's not a haven for B2B companies. And it's unlikely to be one in the future. Regardless, you can employ Twitter and Facebook creating a synergy that directs traffic to your blog where prospects can find more substantive content. Social media complements rather than replaces blogging.

Blogging is both efficient and effective.

Inbound marketing beats traditional marketing on lead generation costs. A study by Social Examiner corroborates this in documenting a 62% reduction in costs less per lead than traditional outbound marketing.

As long as blogging remains cost-efficient, it's extremely unlikely B2B marketers will abandon it. But cost-efficiency isn't the only consideration.

According to HubSpot's VP of Marketing, Mike Volpe, "blogs generate 55% more website traffic than companies that don't… and they get 97% more links coming in to their sites."

Blogging is effective, in part, because it's an absolute workhorse. Specifically, blogging addresses 6 out of 9 customer buying phases.

  • Recognize need
  • Establish urgency
  • Create company awareness
  • Maintain visibility
  • Continue relationship

As B2B marketers become more resourceful in exploiting the benefits of blogging, its adoption and use will continue to grow. Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah, authors of Inbound Marketing, say blogs can turn your website into a living and breathing marketplace.

The Future of B2B Blogs

Today, B2B blogs are popular, and they promise to be a force in the future.

They're robust, versatile, and dispense with the hard sell. As long as blogs generate buzz- delivering compelling and engaging content when the buyer needs it – blogs will be a powerful force in the B2B world.

Most importantly, B2B blogging helps to increase your traffic, sales and profits.

The facts dispel the view that blogging's days are numbered. You might see personal blogging decline and give way to social media. But that doesn't apply to business blogging.

To paraphrase Mark Twain, I'd say the rumors of blogging's demise are greatly exaggerated.

Although B2B blogging has gained a solid following, B2B marketers haven't optimized its use. In that sense, B2B blogging hasn't reached a tipping point.

How's your business blog doing? Are you engaging prospects and customers? Are you doing it effectively and efficiently? Blogging done right can serve as the hub of your content marketing program helping you increase sales and profits. It can give you the edge you're looking for.

If you believe that my message is worth spreading, please use the share buttons if they show at the top of the page.

Stephen Hodgkiss
Chief Engineer at MarketHive
markethive.com

Alan Zibluk – Markethive Founding Member

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Article Content For Your Blog

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blog secretArticle Content For Your Blog

Original and Fresh Content is not as easy as it sounds. We are talking about unique information that will move people to your site. See, the problem with many companies showing up on the top page today is that their pages are optimized for Google with a combination of nonsense sentences and keywords. So, my approach is, why not build a website that actually is optimized for humans?

When you do this, you are automatically taking care of the optimization for Google. Come on people, we all know that Google has game and they’re increasing their technology every day finding ways to get rid of this “optimization” deal. Google is always on the side of the users and never the advertisers keep that in mind.

Guess what, once you have original and fresh content, people are going to want to visit your site and link to your site. Hey, we just took care of Popularity as well. I’m not saying you do not have to work on the link exchange thing but promise me that it will be minimal. Also you want to stay away from link farms, link exchange offers and paying for links.

So I hear that question, how else am I going to bring links to my site? The answer is content. Write articles, submit it to article sites. Prepare a PR, submit it to Prweb.com. Believe me; all these will bring links to your site. All you have to do is, mention your website at the end of these articles and make sure you link to your site with your advertised link text.

Now you are thinking, “That’s it; I have the content and the links, I’m the king of Google”. That would be wrong. Always remember that while you are doing content and popularity, there are a million competitors doing that and more. So you want to Maintain your content. You want to update it every week so every time Google spiders come to visit your site, they find new useful information. Keep up with daily life and updated news.

For example, if you sell farming supplies and the price of grain goes up, you should write an article and put it in your site. Also publish those articles on other articles sites. You can find these sites easily with a “article submit” search on Google.

Connecting Your Posts To The Markethive Social Network Ecosystem.





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Alan Zibluk – Markethive Founding Member


	

	
	




	
	

				

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Essentials of Marketing

		

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Essentials of Marketing


Many people are puzzled when it comes to marketing, what is it you need to do. Marketing involves getting your message across to you potential customers, usually in the form of words, audio, pictures or video or combinations of the foregoing.


The tools you use can be in the form of email, circulars, advertisements, recorded messages, blogs, social media and radio or television. The changes in technology combined with the rise of social media, puts more emphasis on videos and shorter blogs due to screen sizes of mobile devices, however email and blogs remain important when it comes to the written word.


Not everyone has access recording studios to produce videos, however anyone with a bit of practice can produce a blog. The written word has been around for thousands of years and has stood the test of time, so if you are a marketer it is an essential skill you need to develop.


Where do you start you might ask. The first step is to gather information on the subject you plan to write about. Quite often this can be a challenge, if you for example,have just joined an existing online business, because you are also learning yourself. One way would be to write a kind of online diary of your experience to share with others. Another way is to read other members blogs and then rewrite them in your own words to reflect your opinion. One thing to avoid is cutting and pasting large sections of text and claiming them as your own. If you do copy text verbatim always acknowledge the source.


The first few blog posts are the most difficult and you should aim to write at least 200-300 words. About a year ago I carried out some research that blogs containing 600- 1000 words were the most effective, and whilst this might be true I am beginning to have some doubts, because it can depend on the screen sizes of your potential customers devices. I for one do not like reading emails on an I-phone in portrait mode.


David Ogden

Helping People Help Themselves

Http://markethive.com/david-ogden


 




Alan Zibluk – Markethive Founding Member


	

	
	




	
	

				

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Using The Markethive Plugin ( version 1.7 Update}

		

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News:


Hello to all my subscribers.


WordPress released ver.4.4 recently and It is mobile friendly. Please updagrade the Markethive Plugin to Version 1.7 when using WordPress 4.4 otherwise the postings will stop both manually and automatically


This pdf can help with using the Markethive plugin with your Domain.


http://brian-walters-online.com/flyers/WP-and-Blogging.pdf


 


Here is a timely post about the importance of creating your own Blog for your Business.


Blogging could be the fastest way to build one way permanent backlinks for better rankings and massive traffic! Listed below are some reasons why your business is important.


Anyway about the business you are in. The very first question that you must ask yourself before anything else. You got to demand yourself to an answer to this. Why the heck on earth would anybody pay for what you're selling?


1. Why should there be anyone would do business with you?

This could be the very first question that you must ask yourself before anything else. You got to demand yourself to an answer to this. Why the heck on earth would anybody pay for this "Junk" you're selling? Yup, "Junk", as I phrased it. It doesn't matter how good your product is to be, to the eye of others, it's just another piece of product in a sea pool of other similar products. So, still be very proud of your product or service? Truly you're 100% proud of it? You truthfully and deeply believe people would be dumb by NOT buying from you?


Well…you passed the first barrier! You're ready to start go to next stage.


2. The basic business needs 3 things:

Lawyer, CPA, and Creative or crazy fellow, which could very well be you.

Almost every business gets themselves for the first two. It's understandably so. Good creative people are really hard to find, hard to manage, and you'll never sure of what you're paying for.


Every established and sizeable business knows the creative side plays a heavier weight than the lawyer and CPA. CPA's and lawyers can help you when you are up there. But at the early stage when your business is still an infant, your business live or die depending on it's business branding activities in areas like business identities, logos, marketing campaign, advertising copy and business slogans.


Have people been calling you NUTS?  Now, are you NUTS enough?

If so, you are ready for the next stage! Do give yourself a "Cheer"!


3. Singing for Your Own? You Got To Promote Yourself In Every Possible Way.

Do all of them. Yes, do whatever possible to get your business name to be up there! Get your Business Brand being noticed by others. There more the merrier!


Businesses can just come and goes so fast before anybody could hears of them. People are busy, what do they care? They don't care about you and your business. Why should they care? Get serious. Do everything you can possibly and reasonably afford to do. But beware; you must not mislead others because it'll backfire quickly enough to wipe your business off.

Do you "Sing for your own self"? Then you've passed! Move on to next stage.


4. Big Decision: Could You Win The Competition.

It's very likely that you're entering a crowded business market when you first started. Take a hard and closer look at what other fellows are doing; what your competitors are doing right now could affect your business greatly.

At this stage, you got to decide: Are you going for "Head to Head" fight? Competing on better quality? Crazier pricing strategy? Extra Mile Service Level? Better Marketing Campaign? or what else? Or you would avoid all that, and create your own niche, where you are the leader?


If you decided to be offering the same or very much similar product at the same price, but your marketing materials doesn't look half as good as your competitors…hey, you're in deep trouble! If you're charging half compare to others, then it's still alright to "Look" cheap, simply because you are the "Cheaper" alternative where people are looking for.


5. Do Love Your Business, just like you love yourself.

Without visitors to your website acquiring Leads is nearly impossible. Here I am talking about Internet Leads and not the people you used to get leads by cold calling on the phone. Increasing traffic brings extra visitors to your website which in turn creates leads.


The Importance Of Visitors

Without visitors to your website acquiring Leads is nearly impossible. Here I am talking about Internet Leads and not the people you used to get leads by cold calling on the phone. Increasing traffic brings extra visitors to your website which in turn creates leads.


So without website traffic the business you do on the Internet will be zero. Sure you may get people buying from your website because you handed out a few hundred business cards at a Home Show or a Convention but huge volumes of traffic; well you need to make other arrangements. Anyone can sell just about anything with enough traffic. Although one thousand hits maybe sound like a good number but in advertising as in life you have to maintain the interest of the visitor. Some campaigns require many thousands of ongoing hits to achieve reasonable results. Remember once the leads have arrived, the information must be captured. This can only happen if the form is filled out and unless there is a benefit in this activity (a tangible gift of some description) why would a person type in personal information on the form to you.


It is essential when creating your Online presence that both the online and offline advertising activities you design are supported when the visitor arrives at your website. The numbers game here also plays a critical part in retaining visitors and getting new ones. The more your different forms of advertising are seen the greater potential for results. And if you are building an Internet business, ongoing daily traffic is essential.


After all a potential customer is the person who originally responded to your web site lead generation page, flyer, mailing, newspaper advertisement or some other means you employed to capture this original information. The important thing here is, has enough interest has been sparked in the lead to respond back to you.


In other words, did the information you supplied in your ads bring the appropriate response from the client, was it relevant to your business or are you getting leads from people who misunderstood your message.


The average Internet user that enters your keyword may see your advertisement multiple times in different places before landing on your Website. This branding and consistency in advertising is important as the information being supplied is a consistent message both in the ad and is again supported when they arrive at your Website. Only at this time are they ready to get more info, signup, and/or make a purchase.

 


Enjoy


Article by:

Brian Walters SEO


Skype: tuneup_bj


Brian Walters MarketHive

http://brian-walters-online.com/


http://briansmarketing.net/




Alan Zibluk – Markethive Founding Member


	

	
	




	
	

				

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Markethive Inbound Marketing Tools

		

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Market Hive marketing toolsMy Markethive Site combines many tools all connected together.


This is what makes it such a great inbound marketing strategy. If you join my site for free and begin using these inbound marketing tools it will help rocket your site into the top Google rankings for your business keywords.


On joining you can immediately begin to promote your website. By using our inbound marketing strategy to boost both your Internet ranking and your business presence in your sphere of influence, you can also consider the Markethive site a form of advertising that promotes your services, your business name and your brand name through the use of methods that boost your website’s visibility and reputation.


Making your site easily accessible for those who call for accurate information and appropriate products is not that hard if you have an inbound marketer on your side. Here are several tactics that the Markethive expert site can do for you.


Now you have an abstract of what to work with and what scale looks like. Inbound marketing is a rapidly growing segment in the marketing industry. The result of your inbound marketing can only increase your inbound calls, calls that could be converted into lead generation for your company, an important factor these days.


By standardizing and streamlining the methods and procedures of lead generation through inbound market and the resulting inbound calls, companies like yours could enjoy higher sales.


Inbound marketing for all types of businesses face the need to minimise costs but they also have big needs to run their business.


That being said, the Inbound system Markethive has developed is based on 20 years of Marketing experience and  was written with the intention of sharing not only the why of inbound marketing, but also the how. Markethive has trainings outlining the many things required by your marketing Department


For example Markethive has written its own WordPress Plugin which allows articles posted into you Blog in Markethive to also be posted onto your own domain.


By and large, Markethive is broken up into 6 integrated parts –


Part One: Setting up your Markethive Profile page,


Part Two: writing some content in your autoresponder system,


 


Article by:


Brian Walters – Board of Directors and Alpha Founder.


Market Promotion Site


Brian Walters MarketHive 




Alan Zibluk – Markethive Founding Member


	

	
	




	
	

				

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Why is blogging an important tool for Internet Marketers?

		

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Those who are new to Internet Marketing, may wonder, "Do I need to blog?" or "If I need to blog, how often should I post?" The reasons may vary greatly from person to person, as well as the frequency of blog posts.


It could be a simple desire to sell stuff online, or maybe just a need to express yourself and communicate with others. For me, I think it is much more than that. I would have to call on a Latin phrase to describe why I write, and why I blog. I have a condition called cacoethes scribendi. It is not medical, but loosely translated it means "an insatiable desire to write."


I have done technical writing for nearly 20 years. I love to describe technical subjects in layman's terms that anyone can understand. For an example, see an article I wrote quite a while ago here, VoIP Demystified. I have been a regular blogger since 2007, and I have been using WordPress for much of that time.


To see the first blog I set-up see NJ Writer's Group on blogger. When I look back over the past 8 years, it is really quite amazing how the Internet and especially content writing for the web has changed over that time. It is equally amazing that despite massive changes in Internet technology, some things remain the same.  


My desire to write and to blog have only increased with each passing year. I love to write about Internet Marketing subjects, and if I can simplify or make someone's journey on that path a little easier, I am very happy to do that.


I am a founding member of MarketHive, a one-of-a-kind social network for entrepreneurs.


I have experience in digital publishing, and can help authors to self-publish.


I run a local Internet marketing agency called Goldfinch Digital Publishing.  I help local businesses take advantage of online marketing methods to increase sales by effectively finding and converting prospects into customers.  Services include everything from website design, to local SEO, social media, branding, and reputation management.


I can also create an entire automated marketing system similar those used by big businesses for a fraction of the cost of large-scale automation systems.


It is really not even an issue anymore that most all businesses need some sort of website.  Even if it just a one-page basic informational site, it is a given that even very small businesses should have a web presence.  If you are marketing any kind of product or service on the Internet, a website is a practical necessity.


I would recommend a WordPress blog that is hosted on a hosting service independent from WordPress, in other words, a website called a "self-hosted" website, that uses an independent hosting provider, separate from your domain name registrar.


There are probably hundreds of hosting providers to count on the Internet.  Prices and options vary widely.  I personally use a hosting company that offers a Virtual Private Server, but that is kind of an advanced web hosting system that beginning marketers would not need.  If you are interested in a VPS, visit this link.  Advantages of a VPS


Perhaps one of the strongest reasons to post on a blog on a regular basis is so that your website can be found on Google.  Regular posts on your blog help your blog to rank on Google and the other search engines.  This is too big a topic to cover here, but fresh content on your blog not only can satisfy the needs of readers, and subscribers to your blog, but it is an important factor in SEO, or Search Engine Optimization.  


For more information on these and other related topics, visit Goldfinch Digital Publishing.


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Alan Zibluk – Markethive Founding Member