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There are 600+ corporate bloggers at Microsoft. They use blogging as one of their greatest marketing assets, generating an astonishing amount of online and offline word of mouth interaction. Microsoft takes blogging seriously and these blogs are all linked to the corporate site. They help put a human face on the corporation by injecting individuals passion for the company. What they are really involved in is building relationships on behalf of Microsoft.

A blogs or 'weblog is a regularly updated internet journal of organized personal thoughts made usually by an individual. In the business world this may be either as an official corporate blog or in an unofficial capacity. Business blogs usually incorporate news, issues, and ideas and speak to customers, vendors and employees. What makes blogs unique is that they link with other blogs and websites and solicit comments making them the ideal platform for an ongoing dialogue. Blogs are inexpensive, easy to set up and use, and require no technical skills such as HTML. The collective term for blogs is the blogosphere.

The blogosphere continues to grow. Technorati the leading web search engine is currently tracking 19.6 million blogs. About 70,000 new blogs are tracked every day. The total number of blogs continues to double every 5 months or so. There are between 700,000 and 1.3 million blog posts made every day. Both Google and Yahoo are introducing blogs search engines. Yahoo is currently showing a beta version of blog search results alongside their news results.

News travels fast through the blogosphere. In times of disaster such as Hurricane Katrina or the London terrorist attacks, blogs were instrumental in getting news, photos and opinions out at a remarkably fast rate. They often beat journalists for the scoop on news or scandals. In fact you can be sure that these days journalists keep a close eye on blogs and use them as a source for stories.

What does this growth in blogging mean for your business? It means that you should give serious consideration to adding a blog to your business. However you should also consider whether a blog would fit in with your business objectives. Because of the different tactics that blogs can be used for you may want to weigh up the options as to what benefits it can offer you and your business.

Increase your Web Presence

If you have an established online business you can add another vehicle to communicate your message and pass information on to your clients. Because blogs continually have new content they are indexed regularly by the search engines. It is another way to get your name and your products out into the search engine space. You can also use your blog to target additional keyword phrases.

Interactions with Customers

Your blog can be used to build stronger ties with your customer base. The opportunity to exchange information and expertise is one of the main reasons that explain why corporate blogs have grown in popularity in recent years. Corporations have recognized their customers are using blogs to self publish their opinions about products and services. This has led to customers getting actively involved in business situations such as product development.

Branding Tool

Use your blog as a branding tool for your business. Its an effective way to get your brand message out there. Your brand represents an exchange of ideas between you and your audience. It is a relationship. Brands exist in the mind of your customer therefore brands that aren't in touch with their customers miss out on innovation opportunities.

Corporate Communications

You can use your blog to speak directly with the media. There has been an ongoing debate as to whether blogs should replace the press release as the main corporate communications vehicle. As far as I am concerned both will do a good job and each has their own unique value.

Business Marketing

Blogs are being utilized more and more as a business marketing tool. And this is creeping into more and more business areas. Word of mouth advertising and independent testimonials are two major benefits of running a marketing focused blog. This is a great alternative to advertising. Blogs can also attract and develop a regular audience for your message and foster an atmosphere of trust.

CEO Blogs

A CEO blog is a way to speak directly to customers and vendors. And it can be used to advance industry issues. There are pitfalls of course. Saying something controversial may be picked up and reproduced in many locations. However some controversy is good as it gets people engaged.

A blog does require a commitment from you. Remember that writing and maintaining a blog take time. You should really have an interest in writing and communicating with your readers. A blog also requires an injection of personality.

Blogs are a increasingly common way to communicate about your business. As Businessweek magazine said in their article on business blogs catch upor catch you later

Copyright James Peggie

James Peggie is the Director of Marketing for Elixir Systems a search engine marketing agency located in Scottsdale, Arizona. Their website is located at http://www.elixirsystems.com and their blog is http://searchblog.elixirsystems.com

I am conducting my 1st customer appreciation webcast and asked my subscribers list what is their most pressing question they have about blogs and rss.

Here's one of the questions I have:

How can you use blogs to increase traffic?

Blogs can increase traffic through the following:

1. If your blog has valuable content, this will attract readers to your blog who will visit again

Most people who perform searches using search engines are actually looking for information, for solutions. The more helpful and relevant content you have, the easier it is for you to attract visitors and also to turn them into loyal readers and subscribers.

2. With a Blog, you can submit to the many Blog directories that exist online.

By submitting to the many blog directories in the proper category, you can expand your reach to targeted subscribers or readers who wants to read your posting on your area of specialisation.

3. Blogs promote relationship building and trust with your readers, as it allows you to interact with them. Your readers can refer a friend and imagine the traffic power that can be generated if each one of your reader make a referral.

For example, if you have 500 readers and each one makes a referral, that will be an additional 500 new subscribers, giving you a total of 1,000 subscribers/readers.

4. By attracting search engine 'bot's to visit the site more often

All search engines have a program known as a 'search engine bot' which basically 'spiders' or searches web sites and bring back the results they have to the search engines.

And 'search engine bots' love content, especially pages with related keywords.

The more frequent you update your pages, the more frequent that search engines

A Blog is actually a content management system. If that sounds too technical, a Blog is a push-button publishing system.

There is no uploading of pages to web host accounts, unlike web pages

For example, with Blogger, you just set up a free account, write what you want, and press "publish".

Your Blog posting will be instantly published and is automatically hosted for you. The hosting is also free by the way.

5. Blogs can be easily turned into an RSS Feed, for syndication.

With RSS Feeds, your Blog contents can be published by other websites that pulls RSS Feeds based on targeted keywords or content automatically.

By turning your Blog into an RSS Feed, you can also submit to the many RSS directories out there, again expanding your reach you otherwise will not have with a normal web site

6. You can add "podcasts" or "videocasts" to your Blog, and reach out to even more people, Audio learners especially "Ipodders", people who own Apple Ipod and likes to download audio from the Internet and listen; as well as Visual learners.

Brandon
brandon(at)brandon-hong.com

http://www.marketing-rampage-with-blogs-and-rss.com

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Brandon is author of video e-book, "Marketing Rampage with Blogs and RSS", that teaches online businesses strategies of getting more free targeted traffic and more sales without additional advertising costs, as well as increasing search engine rankings and obtaining free listings in Google, Yahoo and MSN, by using Blogs and RSS.

http://www.marketing-rampage-with-blogs-and-rss.com

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