Effective Writing for Your Small Business Blog

Write for your audience and tell them the main point first. 
You have 7 seconds to attract their attention, well written content can keep them reading.

What to Write About?

Do you have a hard time thinking of anything to write about? Or are you like me? I always have something I  want to say, the problem is picking the right topic / issue to write about. The most useful tip I have heard is, " When writing keep your audience in mind." You are writing for them not yourself.

Right -  Being suitable or appropriate (from merriam-webster.com)

How to know if something is right? That can be a problem. You don't need the absolute best topic possible. (If you can figure out what that is and how to regularly find it please let me know.) You just want to find something better than good enough.

Right for your Audience:

One way to do this figure out what is right for your audience is to go through an exercise described in Janice Redish's book, Letting Go of Words. Picture the different people whom you want to read your content. Create a persona for them. What do you know about them? What are their characteristics? What are their experiences, demographics, values? What are their goals and tasks? What did they come looking for when they found your site and how is it going to help them with a goal or task? Hint: They are usually looking to fix something or learn something.

Pick a topic for a persona that solves a problem or helps them learn something useful.

Use Inverted Pyramid not Narrative Style.

Schools are most likely to teach people to write in narrative style, telling the story in chronological order and building to the main point. Web readers scan, they look at the top line of a page and scan across. If they find what is written relevant they read more down the page. (Check out www.useit.com/eyetracking for heatmaps showing the "F Pattern" of typical web page readers.) So you need to grab their attention by starting with the main point, then offering the details. Journalists write stories using this inverted pyramid style. That is the reason an opening paragraph and headline of a story tells the: who, what and why. After that the journalist gets to the details of the article. Journalists often use a "hook" in the headline or opening paragraph, to entice readers to continue reading. You can try and do the same in your blog posts.

Good luck and happy writing.

Getting Started Part 2 - Social Media for Small Business

Social Media for Small Business - Part Two

Part One dealt with planning your social media strategy, now comes the actual doing. What should you blog, tweet or share with your friends / customers? For this entry I will concentrate on blogging.

What to Write About?

You need to figure that out for yourself - unless you are willing to hire someone to figure that out for you. Hopefully you have done your homework (from part one) and found out what other people are writing about in your industry. It is better to be unique? Many marketing people suggest contrary marketing - zig when others zag. While that may get you noticed, sometimes everyone is taking the same point of view because they are correct.

Customers want useful information.That seems obvious but keep it in mind when generating content. Whatever you choose to write about, make it useful to your audience.

How Often to Write?

Some people suggest daily posts if you want to get your blog noticed. As a small business owner I find that is not possible. Tweeting daily, about relevant and interesting news items you find is possible. But, writing a blog should be commitment, and many small businesses do not have the time or resources to do so daily. IMHO weekly is fine, and so is bi-monthly.

The more often you can write content the better, but quality is better than quantity. Especially when it comes to attracting return visitors.

When I started out, I tried for twice a month and found out that it was hard to do. I'd get busy and put it off for a couple of days. Before I knew it the month was almost over. Weekly is now the goal for this blog (wish me luck).

Allow Comments

Some people ask if they should allow comments on their blog. I always say yes, although there is nothing wring with moderating them. You do not want profanity or link spam on your blog.

Tracking Traffic

You can use Google Analytics if you have an account with Google to track visitors to your site.Being familiar with HTML will help you get this done, or try and find a friend to help with this. If you are using Blogger, all it takes is adding a verification code into your site's template.

Promote Your Blog

Now that you are blogging don't forget to promote your blog. Include your blog and most recent article in your email signature, ask friends and associates to read and comment on your blog. Try getting it posted to blog indexes, and also link to it in social news sites, such as Digg, Stumbledupon, or Reddit. Remember not to spam.

Good luck.

The differences between blogs, websites and twitter

It is not the questions that are important but that they remind me to keep my audience in mind.

Why this subject?

What is the difference between a blog and twitter? What about a blog and a website are they the same?

The answer to these questions seems obvious, and maybe it is to you. But last month, they were serious questions by attendees at a social media and internet trends presentation, for small businesses in Lorain County. This reminded me of blog post from last year. Who's point was to investigate why a client is asking for some feature. Because, what the client says they want might not be the best solution to their problem.Or taken one step further, don't assume you know what the client is thinking or knows.

Get a Frame of Reference

It helps me work with others to understand their concerns and frame of reference.

These questions drove that home. Before the presentation, I tried to get a feel for the attendees experience level by asking questions. "Who's company had a web site?  Is anyone was on Facebook?  Do you have a blog?" Everyone knew something about the topic, I thought, until five minutes into my presentation those questions about twitter, blogs and websites were asked. After answering those questions,I adjusted my assumptions. The result, hopefully, was a better presentation and  learning experience for the people who attended this talk.

Next week when presenting to another group, they will be asked a few more questions, to see if they have a similar knowledge base as the last group.

To answer those two questions for those of you who want an answer.IMHO:

Twitter is a web site (or service) that lets you post 140 character long brief messages. While past  tweets (the message people post) can be retrieved and searched, doing so is not easy. Although it is getting easier and easier. Typically tweets are the current thoughts or brief pieces of information people want to share. One can sign up to follow a person's tweets and keep up with their thought as they are posted.  People can exchange their thoughts by tweeting back and forth to each other. For the most part the public does not see those "conversational" tweets unless they are on twitter.

Blogs are websites (or parts of websites) were people can share more detailed thought or information. Past blog entries can be easily retrieved and searched. Blog platforms allow the public (or registered) users to post comments, about blog entries, which can be visible to to anyone visiting the site. Most blogs let the owner control if anyone or who can comment on a post.

Websites a collection of interconnected webpages. A website can be blogs. And many websites are being run by blogging platforms. Having a blog for a website is an easy way to control your site's content. WordPress and other blog platforms have add ons (called plugins) which offer features such as calendars, polls, contact forms and more which make them a great choice for many sites. Complicated websites, or those with complex functions (such as e-commerce) are usually not blog sites.

Jordan is the owner of Zajon Inc. (a website design and marketing company) and speaks at local chambers and business groups promoting effective use of social media for corporations.

Getting Started Part 1 - Social Media for Small Business

Planning is the first step for businesses who want to enter the world of Social Media

Social Media for Small Business - Part One

I recently gave a talk at a Lorain County small business group, the discussion was centered on Social Media and small businesses. After talking to this group I realized that many small business owners, when it comes to social media, are unsure about  what to do, how to do it and where to get started. So these next few posts will be geared towards them. This advice should work for businesses thinking of blogging, tweeting, starting a facebook fan page or using social media in general.

Step One - Research

Check with your customers. If you are thinking of blogging or tweeting, is your customer base looking at blogs or tweets?  Ask them if they are on line and what they like doing. Try finding out what your potential customers are doing. Look at your competitors, or companies in related fields. Ask people at business networking groups what they do. People love to talk about them selves, especially if they think they are doing something right.

Find existing blogs, Facebook groups/fan pages, or people tweeting about your field/products. Monitor Twitter with products such as TweetDeck, to see what and who is tweeting about your market or field. Can you identify who are the industry leaders? Follow keywords related to your topic on Technorati and Google Blog Search. Set up Google Alerts on those keywords.

Step Two - Planning

 This is the boring part of running a business. You need to make sure you know what you are doing, why you are doing it, and what you expect from it before you start doing it. There are many cases were Ready Fire Aim works. In this case trust me, I have fired before aiming often, but in this instance you will be much happier if you aim first.

What resources are you going to commit to this effort? Who will generate content and how often? Are you going to purchase a design template or use a free one? Personally I feel professionally designed templates look better but as in my case time or money can dictate otherwise.

Step Three - Validate

This is the sanity check. Review your reasons for doing this?  Does the why make sense from a business stand point? What are the expected results? Are they realistic?

I've asked this of many people who tell me they are going to start blogging or tweeting. Most can not give be business reason why, other that everyone else is. In the back of my mind I hear my Mom's voice muttering something about jumping off the Brooklyn Bridge or empire state building.

There are lots of reasons for businesses to blog or get involved with social media. Some of them are: It is a way to share your expertise with current and potential customers. It can promote product/services, although I'd suggest that this is not a good reason to start blogging. You can build a community of people with a common interest. Blogging can engage your customers...

Step 4 - Preparation

Read and Comment
Hopefully you have identified blogs related to your field. I suggest that take some time reading what others are writing about, and then start commenting on posts. Personally I'd suggest commenting on a few blogs instead of spreading yourself thin over many blogs. If you have the time there is nothing wrong with keeping track of several blogs but concentrate on a select few.

Pick a Platform
There are several blogging platforms available:  Blogger, Wordpress and Typepad to name a few. Check them out,  read reviews or comparisons and pick one which meets your needs.

I Want to Do Something Now
You should be busy with steps 1 - 4.  But for those of you who want action and want to do something concrete now, I suggest Local Search is a place to start. Do you have a Google Local Business account? Is you business listed on Yahoo Local, City Search, Local.com or Yelp?

If you want to do something right now, create local business listings on these services. It is easy to do and is a good first step. Be warned that Google and Yelp will ask you for your business phone number and will call it within minutes (or seconds) after you submit your business listing to verify the information is accurate.

Read Social Media for Small Business - Part 2.