Does your website have a business blog? Business blogging gives your company a powerful way to communicate to prospects, customers or people who want to learn more information about your company’s products and services. Anyone from the CEO to the Marketing Department to Research and Development can share their expertise, analysis or forecasts with a very large audience on the internet (visualize anyone in the world with a computer and internet access). An RSS feed can be added to your business blog so that someone can subscribe and get current information delivered to their RSS Feed Reader as soon as a new post is added to the blog. See our previous blog posting - What is an RSS Feed, and How Can You Use One to Your Advantage?

Whatever you decide to do, there are numerous ways to “dress up” your blog. Blogging is a great way to build your brand, share your expertise and drive traffic to your website. If you are already business blogging, kudos to you!! What I want to share with you today is to how to put a little “BLING” in your blog.

Let’s start with the design of the template or CSS stylesheet. Make sure your colors are aesthetically pleasing. There are many websites and blog services that have stock templates and CSS stylesheets to choose from for your business blog. If your budget allows, you may consider having a professional graphic designer help with the design. This is very important!! 

 Don’t forget to smile! – adding a smiley face can put a little fun into your blog posting. There are many styles to choose from. Just do a search and use them as you deem necessary. Graphics such as colorful images can be added to give some added effect to your blog. Make sure they are consistent with the content of the blog posting. Edge effects can be added but make sure the placement of the graphic flows with the verbiage. Be cognizant of image’s size and width.

Another technique is using enlarged and colored fonts. Using bold letters will draw people’s eyes immediately as well as writing in Italics. Using different colored fonts is a way of accessorizing your words.

Adding icons, badges and buttons are a good way to show respect for different organizations or groups that your company supports.

Adding a short video into or even a link to a video, can “jazz up” your blog posting by giving it some movement and aesthetic appeal.

Some bloggers have even been known to add a podcast or “audio file” to a blog posting. It’s one thing to read what someone has to write, but listening to the blogger’s voice may be an appealing change of pace from reading a blog post.

Do you want to get a little more mileage for your blog? Add a social bookmarking website link. Consider using this option (occasionally) to only your best blog posts so that anyone who is impressed by the posting can immediately post it to one of the many social bookmarking sites.

There are many to choose from and the link would look something similar to this: you are having trouble coming up with something to blog about, consider using your blog to:

Communicate a new product/service announcement (make sure you are not doing a sales

Mix in a press release about your company

Write about positive feedback from a customer/client

Talk about Charities and Non-Profits that you are passionate about

People overwhelmingly prefer to do business with others they know and like. Keep your business blog professional and avoid topics that may be controversial or ones you wouldn’t discuss at church in a mixed crowd. A business blog will not solve your business problems, make you a millionaire or get you a date with a famous Hollywood actor (unless you are REALLY lucky). However, it will add a new feature to your website, strengthen your overall business strategy and create new relationships with your readers as well as reinforce existing relationships.

So, back to my original point; what is your blog wearing? Does it look like casual, business casual or professional (Think blue jeans, khakis or Italian suit)? Put a little “bling” into whichever type of business blog you have and you may notice increased readership, more comments and even more sales of your products/services. Well, what are you waiting on?

Let the Bling begin!!

The allure and attractiveness of social media rage continues maintain its build up. At a recent meeting of the New York chapter of the Business Marketing Association, the talk was all about extending brand reputation. However, according to our research, only about 20% of marketers and agencies are able to calculate an ROI on the social media investment. Clearly some companies have been able to leverage social media to make significant and dramatic success in selling their products, Best Buys comes to mind. However, for many companies, the jump into Social Media can end-up taking quite a bit of time and investment from a company – and the ROI may not be easily discern able. But, that does not mean that social media activities are not working or beneficial.

While social media should Social Media - Facebook Photo considered as part of the promotional mix, an overall evaluation of a company’s objectives, target audience, staffing and budget needs careful consideration. Interestingly, we recently read that traditional business-to-business ad spending is expected to decline by about 8% in the coming year, but that online ad spending is expected to increase by 5.5% in 2019. In contrast, in 20 online spending had actually dropped 4.6 percent versus the previous year. Bottom line - good research and evaluation of the right “e-business” marketing mix is a must.