Dude, Blog Your Business!

I have often talked about the power of video in promoting a business of whatever size. This is a great example. Tom Hinchey and I recently made this video for Christy Miller.  Her business, Desert Flower Does, provides  a service similar to those reality TV shows ‘Queer Eye‘ and ‘What Not to Wear‘ – except for the free $5000 credit card to spend of clothes of course!  Rather, Christy helps you to make the most of the wardrobe you already have. If you are trying to ‘power-dress’ on a budget and want to maximize the effectiveness of what you have, or want to add a few pieces that will increase your credibility with your clients or business partners, then Christy is certainly the person to call.  We wanted to create a video for her that would be entertaining while effectively getting across to prospective clients what it is she can do.  We are very pleased with the result. It is certainly much more effective than the text and photos she currently has on her website – and the video can be on her site and working for her 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.  The ‘Reality TV’ comparison is actually a very good one.  The easy and cheapness of video on the web effectively makes it possible for anyone to market themselves via their own online ‘Reality TV Show’.  Love them or hate them, and a lot of people love them – just check their ratings – they can make for compelling viewing, and what better way to attract potential customers to what you are offering than by people being able to see it? It can be effective for virtually any business, even if it is just to help prospective customers get to know you  better and make you more approachable.  Any Phoenix-based business should give either us, or Tom a call and see what video could do for your business.

A video not made by Tom Hinchey! That’s a first for this blog!  This is actually a video that appeared on Hubspot’s blog and I thought it so pertinent to a lot of what we have been doing with groups like The 3000 Club here locally in Phoenix, for instance, that I wanted to share it here as well for the benefit of our audience.

The video is an interview with a business owner, Lewis Weinstein, who built an online referral network on the back of his family’s accounting business, which relied on referrals.  The point being made by Hubspot is that although much of the technology, like blogging and search engine optimization*, associated with the new ‘inbound marketing’ trend may be new, inbound marketing, in the form of things like referrals, has been going on forever.
*(As a Brit I still have a problem with using a ‘z’ here!)

The important conclusion Weinstein offers in this interview is what we all, as small business owners – and non-profits (most of their goals are the same in terms of attracting interest) – need to understand. No spoiler alerts here though – check it out for yourselves!

 
Picture from bloggingfornoobs

One thing I hear time and again from experienced bloggers is that they all learned from their mistakes.  The advice they give to new bloggers is that you shouldn’t worry too much about getting everything perfect before posting on your blog, or even starting a blog.  The best think is to just get in there and do it.

A great way to get the feel of blogging before committing yourself to your own blog is to comment on other people’s blogs.  This will give you some valuable experience and will give you the chance to see whether you like it or not.  Blogging is something you have to do on a regular basis so you want to know before you start whether or not it is for you.

Just remember, even the expert bloggers didn’t always get it right when they started.  I saw this post on Social Median today and thought it worth sharing with you – “15 Things I Wish I Had Known When I Started My First Blog” by Neil Patel.  Neil talks about some of the major things that you need to know about blogging, including the importance of picking a niche, being passionate, blogger ‘burnout’, having a unique design, responding to commentators, picking the right platform and so on.

If you are a business or non-profit contemplating a move into blogs and social media then this article will give you some valuable insights into what you are getting yourself into! And hopefully, steering you away from some early blogging mistakes. Enjoy.

Technorati is a great site which ‘collects, highlights and distributes’ information put out into the blogosphere. It can help you as a blogger to get found and noticed and provides readers of your Technorati profile a list of the blogs that you are involved in.

Technorati is the leading blog search engine and indexes more than 1.5 million new blog posts in real time. Once a business or non-profit has been blogging for a while they can enhance their blogging profile through Technorati. It is another good tool to get yourself and your blog noticed. To see our profile, click on the following link BlogDudes Technorati Profile