Archive for June, 2010


Why A Blog Won’t Help Your Business

Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010

This blog post originally appeared at FastCompany.com where Rich Brooks is an Expert Blogger.

A blog won’t help your business. Just like that StairMaster gathering dust in your basement won’t make you thin. Or a hammer won’t help you build those shelves if you don’t pick it up.

A blog is just a tool, and it can’t help you build your business. Seems obvious, right? And yet we see so many businesses that set up a blog but don’t commit the resources to make it work for them.

Blogging–actually using your blog–can help your business, and blogging effectively will absolutely help your business by:

  • increasing your online visibility,
  • improving your search engine ranking,
  • establishing your expertise and
  • warming online lead generation.

To start blogging, you need to commit resources. I would recommend 2 – 3 posts per week for 6 months. You can keep posts short–we’re addicted to “short form content.” A few hundred words is great. As far as blogging goes, you can blog yourself, delegate it to someone else in the office, hire a copywriter, or some combination of the three.

When you start blogging it can be difficult, but you need to keep with it, and strengthen those “blogging muscles.” After a while, knocking out another keyword-rich blog post will be second nature, something you can do while watching the ball game, or after the kids are asleep, or taken care of during the work day.

To start blogging effectively, you need to blog to answer the questions your customers have, and address the pain points of your prospects. Ideas for blog posts can include:

  • FAQs, often in the form of Dear Abby questions. Remember, if one prospect or client had that question, probably hundreds or thousands of other people had the same question and asked it of Google. Your blog posts that address these questions can rank well for these specific questions.
  • Top 10 lists. People love numbered lists; it speaks to our overly complicated lives and our need for you to cut to the chase. I may not have time to understand the nuances of saving for retirement, but if you have the top 10 (or 101) tips for saving for retirement, well, I’ve got time for that.
  • News items. If a news item affects your target audience, grab a paragraph or two of the article, put it in your blog (with attribution and a link) alone with your own .02. In ten minutes you’ve got your blog done for the day.
  • Creative process. If you have a creative product, whether it’s furniture, jewelry or flower arrangement, share the creative process with your audience. People will pay a premium if they can tell a story about your product, whether they’re giving a gift to their spouse or showing off their new dining room set.

There are of course dozens of other blog post types, and if you have one that works for you, please share it here.

Now dust off that blog and start working those blogging muscles!

Rich Brooks
Blogger, Entrepreneur, International Spy

Photo credit: Justin Baeder.

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Posted in Business Blogs and Blog Marketing, Web Marketing | 11 Comments »


The Heritage of Alaska on WordPress: Goldbelt Heritage

Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010

Last week flyte launched a WordPress web site for the Goldbelt Heritage Foundation, the 3rd web site we’ve completed for Goldbelt Corporation, all done on WordPress so that the company can update and manage their own web presence.

Visitors to the site can learn more about the Tlinglit language preservation project, learn about upcoming cultural events, and even see and hear examples of the Tlinglit language being spoken.

Previous work for Goldbelt included the Goldbelt Tours web site and the Goldbelt Corporate site.

Rich Brooks
Web Design from Maine to Alaska

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Posted in Web Site Launches | 2 Comments »


Web Marketing & Social Media Classes in Maine

Monday, June 21st, 2010

If you’re looking for help with your Web marketing or social media marketing for your business, I have not one but two courses I’ll be teaching at the University of Southern Maine this fall.

The first one is Web Marketing for Small Business, a course that I’ve now taught four or five times before. However, just like web marketing, the course changes every time I give it. Over the four weeks we’ll talk about:

  • Search engine optimization (SEO)
  • Blogging
  • Social Media
  • Email marketing
  • Web design
  • E-commerce

and anything else that will help small businesses increase their online visibility, drive more qualified leads to their site, and convert that traffic into business.

The classes will be Thursdays, 9/30, 10/7, 10/21 & 10/28. To learn more and register visit the USM web site.

The second course, Social Media Marketing for Small Business, is all new. We’ll be delving into social media specifically, and how businesses and non-profits can leverage social media to grow, to engage, and to reach new audiences. Some of the topics covered will include:

  • Social networking (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn)
  • Blogging & podcasting
  • Online video & photo sharing web sites
  • Social news and bookmarking sites
  • Location-based apps (Foursquare, Gowalla)

and whatever else appears between now and then.

This course is two Wednesdays, 11/10 & 11/17. To learn more and register visit the USM web site.

Rich Brooks
Maine Web Marketing

Photo credit: James Sarmiento

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Posted in Analytics, Business Blogs and Blog Marketing, Email Marketing, Entrepreneur & Small Business, flyte news, Search Engine Marketing, Social Media, Web Design & Development, Web Marketing | 6 Comments »


How Do My Prospects Find My Blog?

Wednesday, June 16th, 2010

Dear Rich,

If I start a blog and post something for the first time–say on paint safety and wood–how do people interested in paint safety and wood find what is posted on the blog?

–Blogging in Bethel

Dear Blogging,

Blogging can be a powerful method to increase your online visibility, but a single post is the proverbial needle in the haystack. If that haystack was 20 stories tall. And hiding behind a bigger haystack.

I often tell people not to even publicly announce a blog until they have a critical mass of posts…anywhere from 5 to 25 posts. The more posts you have at your blog, the richer the blog becomes, the more intra-site links the blog has, and the more opportunity people have to find it through a search engine.

One big question I would have is how many people are searching for “paint safety and wood?” Is this a common concern of your audience? Or are they searching for “tips on painting wood” or “how to paint a wood chair” or “indoor painting tips and advice?” If these were more common searches, then creating blog posts around these topics and including information on safety might be a better approach.

I’m not saying “paint safety and wood” isn’t a popular search; I haven’t done a keyword analysis so I don’t know. One of the biggest mistakes business bloggers make is skipping over a keyword analysis to just start blogging. If online visibility is one of the goals of your blog, then you need to blog on the keywords that your audience is searching for.

Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn are all places where businesses promote recent blog posts. At flyte, we highlight some of our favorite blog posts in our monthly email newsletter for cross-promotion.

For a more detailed list of how you can market your blog to drive more traffic to it, be sure to check out my earlier post, 25 Ways to Promote and Market Your Blog.

Rich Brooks
Business Blog Marketing

Photo Credit: Horia Varlan

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Posted in Business Blogs and Blog Marketing, Search Engine Marketing, Social Media, Web Marketing | No Comments »


PR & Social Media Slides [Handouts]

Monday, June 14th, 2010

Last week I had the pleasure of speaking to the Yankee Chapter of the PRSA on the topic of How to Be a PR Rock Star in a Social Media World.

We talked about the importance of not limiting media coverage to traditional media, how to use social media tools achieve PR goals, how social media affects crisis management, how to keep social media from being a time suck, and what my favorite weapons are for destroying zombies. (It always comes back to zombies, doesn’t it?)

I put the slides up to SlideShare.net with the not surprising title of How to Be a PR Rock Star in a Social Media World, although you can view them below.

How to Be a PR Rock Star in a Social Media World

View more presentations from Rich Brooks.
I’m not sure if the slides tell the story on their own, so feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions.
Rich Brooks
Social Media Marketing Presentations

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Posted in flyte news, Social Media | No Comments »


Social Media for Non-Profits: The Alex Steed Interview

Sunday, June 13th, 2010

Below is the full transcript of my interview with Alex Steed, where we discuss the opportunities non-profits have with using social media. The highlights are at Six Ways Non-Profits Can Use Social Media, a recent post at my blog at FastCompany.com.

Rich: I’m here with Alex Steed today. Alex works with Opportunity Maine, a group that tries to promote education for Maine’s future. He’s also an independent candidate for Maine’s House of Representatives.

Alex has a long and robust history in social media marketing. He also works with a lot of non-profits, so today we decided to talk to him a little bit about how not-for-profits can use social media.

Thanks for being here, Alex.

Alex: My pleasure, Rich. Thanks for having me.

Rich: There are obviously a number of ways in which non-profits can use social media. Can you talk a bit about how they could use social media as a tool for community engagement, both for funders and sponsors?

Alex: One thing that is not different at all from the pre-social media era—and this is a bit different from how businesses have come along—is that the non-profit has always been about establishing deep-rooted relationships with its supporters, its supporters being people who are offering funding, or folks who are on the receiving end of what the non-profit is offering, or board members.

Before, the way that we would handle all of that was often through telephone calls or sending cards or emails about what we were up to with regard to what the non-profit was accomplishing. That would be something that would happen and still happens by way of the newsletter every month or so, if even.

As everyone is, especially those who are in the emerging social marketing and social media space, we’re now trying to be in touch with our supporters far more often than that. We’re trying to remind supporters of all levels that we exist on a regular basis, thus in a very rudimentary way we’re competing with Facebook feed space along with every other business and individual who’s trying to get attention there.

Also, we’re using these newer and emerging technologies, such as Foursquare, in the case of, for example, a volunteer opportunity with a non-profit. If we’re doing something here on this day in Portland, where we’re clearing a trail, it might be interesting to use a location-based technology to let people know what sort of opportunities exist within the non-profit or charity.

Rich: Are there certain tools you see that non-profits are looking to more readily than others? Are there some missed opportunities perhaps?

(more…)

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Posted in Social Media | 2 Comments »


How Not to Advertise on Foursquare: A Lesson from Starbucks

Friday, June 11th, 2010

If you’re an active user of foursquare, the popular location based app, you may have noticed the “Special Nearby” tab when you check in somewhere. By clicking on that tab you’re taken to a “special” from a local vendor.

However, most of the foursquare offers I’ve seen aren’t all that special. Take this offer I just saw from our local Starbucks.

If you’re not a foursquare user, the one thing you need to know is that any location on foursquare can have one (and only one) mayor. The mayor is basically the person who checks in the most. If there’s more to the algorithm than that, foursquare isn’t telling.

This offer provides $1 off a frappuccino (normally $3.50 – $4.50) to the mayor of the Starbucks at 594 Congress St. in Portland, Maine. That’s not a bad deal, but it’s only for the mayor.

Since Starbucks is a popular spot, and has a lot of wired patrons, there’s a big difficulty in unseating the current mayor. In fact, the current mayor may be a daily customer, basically meaning you’ll never get your $1 discount, or you’ll spend a few hundred dollars getting it, and certainly you won’t get it by 6/28 when the offer expires.

What this Starbucks should do instead is offer $1 off to everyone who checks in and shows the barista that they’ve checked in. That way you’ll encourage a whole new group of caffeine-deprived foursquare users to come into your shop. In addition, since foursquare users often sync their foursquare profiles to their Twitter and Facebook accounts, that check in is promoted to all their friends and followers.

In fact, how about tweaking the offer to anyone who checks in and says they’re getting $1 off a frappuccino at the Congress St. Starbucks by checking in on foursquare will receive the discount. Now you’re getting people to do your promoting for you.

If you have a physical retail spot that requires foot traffic, advertising on foursquare can be a powerful tool. However, if you make it too difficult for your customers to earn that reward you’ll just be adding to their frustrations, and getting them to go over to Bard Coffee instead, a much cooler, locally owned coffee shop. ;)

Rich Brooks
Local is the New Organic

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Posted in Entrepreneur & Small Business, Social Media | 6 Comments »


Twitter for Business Webinar: How to Use Twitter for Your Business

Wednesday, June 9th, 2010

Lots of business and non-profits are using Twitter to engage their customers and prospects. Some are very successful and building their business or growing their membership, while many are failing miserably, not getting any kind of return on their investment of time and energy.

Why is Twitter successful for some companies but not others? How can you use Twitter to engage your audience, drive more qualified leads to your site and convert that traffic into business?

This coming Tuesday, June 15th, we’ll be putting on another How to Use Twitter for Business webinar. We’ll look at the right way to set up a Twitter account, how to follow and engage people, how to build your followers, and what type of 3rd party tools are right for you and your organization. We’ll also talk about Twitter time management and how to measure your Twitter return on investment (TROI).

The cost of the webinar is $50, but if you use “blocker” in the discount code you’ll save $20. The webinar is 90 minutes long, including up to 30 minutes of Q&A, so that works out to $3/min. Plus, attendees get a copy of the slides and the audio after the webinar, which you can listen to as often as you need, so the savings keep on piling up!

Title: How to Use Twitter for Business
Date: Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Time: 1pm – 2:30pm (Eastern US)
Place: Your desktop! (Call for directions.)
Learn more & register now! Seats are limited! (No, really they are.)

Rich Brooks
a.k.a @therichbrooks

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Posted in flyte news, Social Media, Web Marketing | No Comments »


Photographic Evidence That Focus Groups Don’t Work

Tuesday, June 8th, 2010

If you haven’t seen them yet, here’s what 18 months, 40 focus groups and God only knows how many millions of Euros will get you in terms of Olympic Mascots:

The Eyes Have It

I can’t tell which one is Wenlock and which one is Mandeville…is Wenlock the one with the angry eye or the one that appears to have bladder control problems?

Forget focus groups, forget design by committee. It’s time to trust your gut and come up with something remarkable, not remarkably lame or remarkably safe.

Rich Brooks
My Gut is My Co-Pilot

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Posted in Business Philosophy | 2 Comments »


Online Networking: Build Your Network Quickly & Ethically

Tuesday, June 8th, 2010

Networking at Social Media FTW 2009

If you’re just starting out with social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn, building your online network can be a daunting task. Fortunately, these three–along with most other social networks–allow you to jump start your networking activities by importing your current contacts and inviting them to connect with you.

In this month’s flyte log, our monthly email newsletter on web marketing, we walk you through how to import you current contacts into Twitter, Facebook & LinkedIn, as well as best practices for connecting with current customers online.

Be sure to check out How to Build Your Online Network Quickly and Ethically and start building your network today.

Rich Brooks
Insert Clever Tag Line Here

Photo Credit: Angela Coulombe

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Posted in Entrepreneur & Small Business, Social Media | 2 Comments »