I used to use Facebook a lot to network and connect with others…some are writers like me, some are mothers like me, some are total lunatics who are into vampire bites and throwing slamdunks at people for no apparent reason. But I think I’ve outgrown Facebook. Furthermore, in my personal opinion, facebook is all about helping the advertisers and Facebook itself promote itself. It’s using a spiral marketing tactic that, personally, I find rather offensive and annoying.
And it really does nothing for business folks like us unless we join one of the millions of communities on Facebook, jammed with people. The likelihood of our words read or voice heard is literally close to nil.
But unfortunately, that’s where everyone else is so, I’m still using my Facebook but I have face-ing it out. I’ve just discovered another one, though. We all know what Buzzle is, right? If you don’t, visit it now. I just found out that they have a sister-arm reached out recently called MyBuzzle. I testdrove it around today and found it rather interesting. I don’t know how effective it is for business people like you and me but honestly speaking, I am willing to try anything that could replace Facebook. Darn tired of all those emails and annoying alerts, adverts and reminders, people messaging me from all corners of the earth and friends asking me to feed their pets/furnish their apartments/bite their friends/give them beer/give them hug….etc.
Networking, for me, has taken a more serious tone, so…..
MyBuzzle appears to be still new so, I am not sure how effective it’s going to be for now. But if all the people who are bored of Facebook join MyBuzzle, it should work out handsomely when they migrate, don’t you think?
by Cathy Perkins
<ed- We found this article to be extremely useful to Wordpress users. Many people, like us, use wordpress as their blogging platform. Yes, ContentMagician is run on wordpress and so far so good….>
***
To Follow, or Not to Follow? That’s the question. What does that even mean? What am I even talking about, follow and no follow? That’s something that Google dreamed up in their wisdom, in 2005 as a matter of fact. It seems like ages ago, but it’s not that long ago. Google thought that people were getting too much comment spam on their blogs, which was probably true.
If you’ve looked at your Akismet queue, or if you’ve looked at your comments queue when Akismet was down a few weeks ago, you saw a lot of comment spam. It’s here, and it’s here to stay and it will probably only get worse as it has over the past few years. People are getting smarter about this comment spam, they now will do it individually and will say things like, “Oh, nice post, come and look at my site,” and of course their site is embedded behind their name. So there’s some comment spam. It adds no value to your site, but it gives them a link back.
What does nofollow mean? It means that while the search engines will still follow links in your websites (with a few exceptions); they give no weight to those links. Now let’s think about what that means. If someone is kind enough to come and comment on your blog, and they put their URL in the comment section as they’re urged to do, its right there, then Google will count that as zero. (more…)
We all know that without the help of search engines, the chance of your new business blog or website having incredible, eye-popping traffic is close to nothing. So, if you want people to find your blog or new fabulous website, you’ll need to do something about it and the thing that you have to do is to pump it with some content. By saying content, what I am saying is that you need to put into your website or blog, some really kick-ass articles written by, either yourself or someone you hired.
Blog vs. Website
I remember someone asking me this question… ‘Is it better to have a website or a blog?’ and my answer it depends. That’s because with a business blog with good content written for it, you’ll have the slight edge over someone with a website. A business blog is interactive…it allows for people to pump their own words into the comments section….and interactivity is what the Internet is big on these days.
With a website, you’ll have all your portfolio and stuff in it and people just browse through it. If there’s no need for interactivity or feedback, a website is usually quite enough to get by.
Blogs are more interactive
But if you have a business blog, what happens is that people get the chance to speak up and say something about the topic that you’ve just posted. This makes them excited about your business blog and the chance of them coming back is good. As the Internet continues to grow, many people find themselves LIBERATED in a sense that they can now post their thoughts freely on the Internet for all to see and no one can actually make them say or write otherwise. Isn’t it exciting? Just for the record, my father just discovered the joy of having his own blog and posting comments in other blogs as well. “Why didn’t they invent such a thing like this before?” he laments, scratching his head and furiously tapping the keys to his keyboard.
It’s true….why didn’t anyone invent this kind of thing before? But it’s a good thing that we all have the chance to build our own blog these days. Suffice to say, a business blog is very different from a personal one. You’d have to take great care in the things that you chose to write about on your business blog, you see. One wrong thing and it’s bye bye customer.
Promote your business blog and bring in the bread
And with a business blog, you’d usually have to work a lot harder at promoting it. Granted, a business blog just isn’t as….you know, cool or fun as a personal one. But if you work hard at promoting your business blog to search engines and other bloggers, you might end up surprising yourself by a good Google ranking at the end of the day.
If Google thinks your business blog is cool, it usually brings in the bread.
The blog business is for real, I assure you. Listen, I reside in Malaysia and after years, no, more like decades of suffering in silence under a manipulative government, the Internet and access to blogs changed the way people think, hence, Malaysians started realizing that they have a voice through the Internet and they can say whatever they want through their own personal blogs.
And one fine day, the blogsphere became Malaysian’s platform or stage – and it changed the Government.
If it can change a whole country, it can change your business.
Listen, if you’re looking for ways to expand your wings, widen your coverage, strengthen your branding, building your own business blog is definitely the way to go. I am pretty sure most of you would have known how important it is to let your readers, your potential customers interact with you…now, this is something you can do with a business blog.
Furthermore, through the business blog, what you can do is to hire a blog content writer (or a bunch of them if you can afford that) to pump your business blog up for a bit and then start promoting the business blog to every single living thing that crosses your path. I am serious.
The blogging world have changed the world and if you run a business and still scratching your head over all this ‘blogging’ thing, you’d better get someone to come in and help you build a simple yet credible blog where fans of your products or services can come in for updates.
Don’t be left behind, start your blog and pump content into it now!
In order to succeed, business owners realize that they have to promote their business. Often times, they need to find creative ways to accomplish this. One way that is being used more and more is blogging. It is a wonderful way to get the word out about your business without spending thousands of dollars on advertising. One of the first things that you should do before you start to blog is determine who is going to be your target audience.
The next thing to remember is that there are certain guidelines that you should follow to be sure you target the audience that your business needs.
Be as clear as possible
What you include in your blog is critical to your business. Be as clear and concise as possible. Do not clutter it with useless facts or blurbs; it will only take away form the subject. You want your readers to focus on the products and services that you provide, not on anything else. (more…)