Social Media Marketing Begins with Your BLOG - WHY?

How does a BLOG fit into your overall marketing plan?

Yes, the title of this is Social Media Marketing, but in the end, what we're really concerned about is business - no matter what kind of marketing brings it in, right? So let's back up and look at how your BLOG fits into your overall marketing mix.

I'm finishing a brief workbook for my upcoming workshop, BLOGs and Micro-BLOGs for Business and want to include a visual showing how a BLOG fits into a small business marketing strategy. It isn't that easy because companies can use a BLOG in different ways. Here are just three of them:

To brand yourself / your company as an "Expert":
This is the key for independent professionals, those of us for whom our knowledge is our business.  The BLOG is (should be) a critical component of our marketing strategy.

You say you write for your industry's newsletters, participate in professional conferences, and write white papers on your topic of expertise to brand yourself as an expert. Well, you're in a new world. The BLOG is fast becoming an important go-to resource for information. Even in more traditional industries, BLOGging provides yet another way for you  to position yourself as a thought leader in your area of expertise.

Develop Better Customer Relationships and Attract New Clients
Jeremy Wright says it best in his book, BLOG Marketing:  “You may not have millions, or even thousands, of customers, but in the world of blogging, everyone has an equal voice. No matter how big or small your business, or how many people are interested in your products, blogging provides a unique opportunity for you to talk to your potential customers—at least those who happen to be online and reading—and for them to talk to you.”

Improve the Traffic to Your Website
Your clients and prospects can find your website one of three ways:

1. Direct - They enter your URL / web address into the browser bar themselves
2. Referred - They click on a link while on another site and are 'referred' to your site
3. Organic Search - They enter a keyword in the Google Search bar / Yahoo Search, etc. and select the Search result which brings them to you.

If your BLOG is not part of your website but a separate site on its own, you will have links from your BLOG to your website. Those who visit your BLOG are likely to link over to your site to check you out. (BTW, if your BLOG is not part of your website, have this as a key objective on your next revision / redesign. See #3 above.)

If website traffic is important to you (and why wouldn't it be?) your BLOG should be part of your website for the increased Search rankings your site will get. Content, ACTIVE content is a key factor in increasing your search rankings. If you do not change the content on your website often - and we typically don't on the basic website information - your search rankings will suffer.

If you're updating your BLOG frequently (as you should be) that active content will be ranked higher in the search engines and therefore, so will your site.  Higher rankings = More traffic = More business.

So there you have three ways a BLOG can help you market / promote your business.

Visually I'd like to find (or design myself if I could put my finger on it) a graphic to show how the Website is the foundation of your overall marketing effort. The BLOG is the foundation of your online marketing effort.

Then showing the rest of your marketing efforts / tactics, both offline and online; i.e. LinkedIn, Facebook, traditional advertising, physical networking, Podcasting, Videos, Direct Mail... confusing, right? It can be, but it all has to fit together.

Everything you do is all working toward the same end. Your Business.