Conversational Media Marketing

Today, I want to share a few secrets I've learned along the way that may help you to become a more successful business blogger.

(OK, so they're not really "secrets." In fact, they've become pretty well-established business blogging best practices. Of course, if you don't already know them, then perhaps secrets they are. Now that I've cleared that up, uh-hum, on to our program.)

1. Define your community - Determining the audience you're attempting to reach is Marketing 101. In social media terms I think the word "community" is a better representation, for we no longer "target audiences" but "participate in communities."

Defining who it is you want to reach has bearing on everything you do, and it's no different where blogging is concerned. I believe it's helpful to even go so far as creating a persona, someone who is a representative of the community in question. For me, that persona is, in fact a real person, Ines Hegedus-Garcia, a Realtor in Miami.

A year or so ago I had the privilege of tutoring Ines in a contest called Project Blogger held by Active Rain. It gave me the opportunity to share everything I'd learned to that point and Ines would tell you that she benefited as well.

2. Write with that community in mind  - When I blog, I try to do so with Ines and those of her ilk in mind. I work under the assumption that if the content is beneficial to her, it will be beneficial to others as well.

As you participate in the community you'll learn what their needs are and can address those. If you scratch where they itch, you're sure to get their attention.

Someone who keeps this principle at the forefront is Chris Brogan. Everything he writes is for the benefit of his readers, and the community has rewarded him with a huge following and credited him with a high degree of influence.

I can tell you this, if Chris links to you via his blog or Twitter, it will mean a wealth of traffic and a number of Twitter follows. I've been the grateful recipient of his kindness in that regard a couple of times and that's been my experience.

3. Write with Google in mind - Face it, you have two audiences who read your blog. One is human and the other is made up of machines. We call them "spiders," little creatures who index the content on your site with a view toward understanding its proposition and ranking you accordingly.

Make sure your posts are: Keyword-optimized, frequently updated and thematically-relevant.

As to keywords, once in the post title and twice in the body content.

Take this post for example. I used the term "business blogging" in the title and in the post itself (or variations on it). It's best to front load the keyword in the title when possible too,  as I did in this case. The title would have read better had I said "Seven simple secrets to successful business blogging," but that would have put the keyword at the end, so I opted to shift the phrases.

As to frequency, posting three to five times per week is minimal, at least until you gain a greater degree of authority where Google is concerned.

As to topical or thematic relevance, if you're writing a blog about cats, then don't write about dogs, hamsters, giraffes, kangaroos and koala bears too. Make it about cats, cats, and more cats!

Chris says to keep at least a 10:1 ratio of on-topic to off-topic posts. That's sound advice.

There's much more detail I could go into regarding blogging with search engines in mind, but will save that for a later post.

4. Find, follow and communicate with influential bloggers in your niche - That practice will garner a number of benefits. If you subscribe to their feeds, read and comment on their stuff, write your own posts in response and trackback when possible, the will take notice and may return the favor. As a result, you're likely to become the beneficiary of some of their readership and traffic.

I made this a common practice early on in my business blogging (see, there's that keyword again) career and it paid off. Though the playing field is much more crowded nown, it's still a good practice.

5. Write "Top 10" posts on occasion - My friend Rick Bruner, the founder of Business Blog Consulting and a man I credit as being one of pioneers of business blogging made that suggestion and it's also sound advice which I'm trying to take. This post is one such example. 

6. Write link-bait posts on occasion - I am reluctant to even include this on the list as the term, for me, carries a negative connotation. (It's a completely acceptable practice in SEO circles however.)

Link-bait, in case you're not familiar with it, means creating content that generates back-links. Brian Bille, my marketing partner-in-crime here at Bizzuka, lends this definition:

Link bait is a piece of content (blog post, site content or an application) created intentionally or unintentionally to obtain incoming links. Some link bait is purposely created to stir up controversy or mentions high profile individuals in hopes to recognize the content with a link from a quality site.  Other link bait is simply well-written, informative content that does the same.

It's the latter I'm talking about. I never write posts strictly for the purpose of link-baiting. But, I do write posts that, based on past experience, I assume will become link-bait. My Savvy Women in Social Media post is one example. While I knew it had the potential, my motive was to recognize the achievements of this select group of women, women I admire and respect. The back-links and traffic that may have accrued were lagniappe.

So, let me rephrase this point and put it this way: Write high quality, informative editorial content.

Last but not least...

7. Establish a presence in the social mediasphere - Used to be blogs were pretty much the Alpha & Omega of conversational media. Everything hinged around them. No longer.

Now, we have , Facebook, MySpace (cringe), Bebo, niche online communities -- an entire universe of social networking sites and applications where we need to have a presence if we're serious about using social media to communicate our message.

Our blog should be the base of operations, but we should have outposts in many of these places and become active participants. It's just how things are done these days.

I hope at least some of these "secrets" have been helpful. If so, let me know by leaving a comment or Twittering me. Perhaps you have some secrets of your own you'd like to share. I welcome those, plus any questions, comments or critique.

I've noticed a thread that seems to run through the social web -- an emphasis on the use of personal branding as a way to build the associated company brand.

There are a number of examples:

• Paul Dunay, Director of Global Field Marketing at BearingPoint (see conversation I had with Paul below)
• Chris Brogan, VP of Strategy and Technology at CrossTech Media
• Jason Falls, Director of Social Media at Doe-Anderson, a leading Louisville, KY advertising agency
• Jeremiah Owyang, Peter Kim, Charlene Li of Forrester fame (Peter and Charlene are no longer associated with Forrester, but you get my point)

Perhaps the way to think of these people is as spokespersons for their company.

Back in the day (circa 2004-2005), most of my blog traffic came from one of two sources: a) blogrolls and b) other blogger's posts. Nowadays, a lot of it comes from Twitter, Plurk, Friendfeed, Facebook and, yes, Google (thankfully).

What does that indicate?

1. The conversation is much more distributed than it used to be. Mack Collier thinks so too.
2. Blogrolls are less important that they used to be.

As to why I'm not seeing traffic from other's blog could mean that:

1. The value of my content is less than it used to be.
2. There are more of us talking now so less attention is paid to any one blogger. The competition for attention is higher to be sure.
3. I'm not spending enough time commenting on or referencing other's blog posts myself.

Something my boss said recently in regard to a weekly Internet radio show we started for Bizzuka got me thinking. "What you're doing (in terms of the show) will not just help us create greater awareness among prospects, but among those considering coming to work for us," he said.

It caused me to realize that marketing, especially social media marketing, is not just about building a prospect list. Sometimes, whether intentional or not, it's also about attracting quality talent and/or wealthy investors.

Less than one-quarter of US Internet users ages 40 and over use social networking Web sites, so says a JWT BOOM/ThirdAge study conducted last month called "Boomers, Healthcare and Interactive Media."

This, at the same time a study by Interpublic's Universal McCann unit indicated "text messaging, blogging and social networking have reached critical mass with more than half of adults now relying on at least one of these Web 2.0 platforms for communicating with friends, family, or colleagues on a regular basis."

Why the disparity? Oldsters indicate privacy issues, lack of time and just not seeing the point as contributing factors.

My son just graduated from college. Like many of his peers, he's a native. As you are well aware, until last year, Facebook was a walled garden devoted to college students, many of whom are now entering the workforce.

My company, Bizzuka, is growing and we need to staff that growth. We're looking to university grads as a source for a number of entry level positions. 

I've been a for sometime now and have been trying to evaluate its relevance to Bizzuka and SMBs in general, particularly those that serve the B2B marketplace. I even went to the trouble of setting up a .

Today, those three thoughts converged and I had an "aha" moment.

The folks at Six Apart have created what I believe is their first Facebook application, BlogIT.

Basically, the app allows you to post to all your blogs, including mini-blogs like Pownce and Twitter from one posting interface inside Facebook. Plus, you can update your status on Facebook, Pownce and Twitter from the same interface.

Reading Chris Brogan's blog is always time well spent, but his post about aspiring classical pianist Grace Nikae really caught my attention.

The post outlines her use of conversational media as a marketing tool and includes such things as a blog called Stretching Intervals, where she gives a behind-the-scenes look at life as a concert pianist. Chris also discusses her participation on social network sites like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter, and the fact that she posts content to YouTube and Flickr as well.

With all that content, the piano keyboard is not the only one Grace spends a quantity of time on.

In reviewing her site, I noticed some things Chris failed to mention.

It's always nice when a serendipity comes one's way, and such happened today when I was informed my trouble with Facebook groups post was included in the WOMMA blog. It's very much appreciated.

Checked Facebook today, something I'm doing less and less (usually only when I get a friend invite), and saw this video...

There is truth to it. We social media types flit around like butterflies in a flower garden searching for nectar. We stick our proboscis down into the app du jour, take a nice, long drink, then wing our way over to the next.

It appears Facebook is the latest to litter the trail. We're currently enraptured with Twitter...or is it ? I forget. What's the app we're all excited about today?