What is the purpose of your blog?

The purpose of a blog is not easily defined, and every business should  have its own set of documents describing the purpose, aims, objectives and intent of  their own company blog.

 

When documenting the purpose of your blog be sure to have your business plan handy, as the company purpose, aims, objectives and intent will be used to describe the purpose, aims objectives and intent of your blog.

 

Document your blog and change your attitude to blogging

Once you have taken the time to document the purpose, aims, objectives and intent of your blog, you will find it an awful lot easier to  write clear instructions for your content creators , and ensure that the content that they create and assemble is more suitable for your intended target market audience.

 

From a FUFISM based  marketing perspective the primary purpose of your blog is to act as a supplemental marketing strategy to your website, and support the purpose, aims, objectives and intent of your website.  Your blog will of course have many secondary purposes just as your website has many different secondary purposes.

Your blog should be viewed as an essential asset that acts as part of your online presence, and be treated as the second most important online communication channel that you own, remembering that your web site is the primary online communication channel that you own.

One of the more important purposes of your blog,  should be to act as a link building, and content marketing  channel for your web site. Your blog and your web site are owned by you, making them your digital assets, whereas your social media is just leased online space, where you have very little control over the activity that takes place there.  You have total control over your blog and your web site, so you can dictate the activity that is allowed to take place within these two digital assets that you mange and control.

Your blog should also complement your website and act as a content marketing platform for your web site, where you add extra value to the content and context  of your web site by expanding the conversation started in your web site, through posts and pages in your blog,  that attract comments and on going conversations around specific topics as listed and discussed in your web site.  These conversations should then be extend to the social media, so that the social media may then be used as an extension of your blog to market your online content within your web site further and in more detail,  to the search engines as well as  your intended target market audience.

Your blog should also be used to solve consumer issues with your products, services and related information flow patterns , by answering specific questions picked up through your social listening tools, or queries raised by your audience within the online environment.

 Your blog is not a sales house, and you should not be pushing sales within your blog, but rather sending viewers to your sales pages within your web site, from blog posts that form part of your sales funnel, or pages within your blog that are dedicated to sending visitors to specific landing pages within your web site.


You should have a blogging policy, and a set of documents describing the purpose, aims, objectives and intent of your blog.  This set of documents should also descibe where your blog fits into your totsal marketing plan, along with who is in charge of the SEO issues, and how these are integrated into your web sites SEO issues, as well as how your blog will be integrated into your social media marketing tactics along with the marketing roles played by
1) your web site
2) your blog
3) your social media tactics
4) your offline marketing tactics and staregies


Besides direct marketing, content marketing, link building and SEO (Search Engine Optimization)  issues your blog should also play a number of other important roles in many other areas of your business including but not limited to

• public relations issues
• after sales issues
• customer education issues
•  community building issues
• business networking issues

The power of your blog should not be underestimated, and you should review and update the documentation describing the purpose, sims, objectives and intent of your blog at least once every three months, but once a month would be best practice. 

What is the purpose of your web site?

The purpose of  web site explained

From a FUFISM based marketing perspective your web site is the primary hub of your online presence, and needs to be used as  the core element  of your customer  /  supplier / client communications network.

Every business needs to examine their business plan, and understand the purpose, aims and objectives of their business as laid out in their  business plan.   This purpose aims and objectives of your business or organisation  is then used as a basis to design a marketing strategy, where your online presence needs to be the central point of your marketing strategy.

Your website should be viewed as an essential asset that is used as a communications tool, and forms the core of  all your marketing, advertising and customer interaction platforms, both online and offline.

Online marketing has\many different components, and these all need to be considered when planning your marketing. The trick question is how will you integrate these into your website and your total marketing plan.  

YOUR ONLINE MARKETING SHOULD NOT BE SEPARATED FROM YOUR OFF LINE MARKETING 

Your online marketing and offline marketing should complement each other and work as a team to get your branding and related business  issues noticed by your intended target market audience in a manner that is not intrusive, objectionable or disruptive, but is pleasant, memorable and  sticky  so that your brand will be in the thinking patterns and thought processes of your intended target market audience when they are looking for your products, services or related information.

So keeping the above stuff in mind, what is the purpose of your web site?

Well this is a very loaded question, and your website has a multitude of purposes, but  it is our view that the primary purpose of your web site  is to serve as a communications hub, that is customer focused and services the information flow needs of   your intended target market audience as well as but not limited to :

• your marketing  department
• your Public relations management team 
• enhance your sales team and  sales related administrative staff
• enhance your customer care and  related Public relations needs
• solve  after sales queries and offer  product  information updates
• interface between your various social media marketing teams and administrative staff
• act as an online brochure 
• act as a cold calling business rep.
• act as a lead generation source
• So many more purposes that are at first hidden and not very obvious at first glance.

The HOA (Hangout On Air) embedded below where +Ammon Johns  and +Vincent Messina  discuss QUALITIES OF AN EFFECTIVE BUSINESS WEBSITE  is  very helpful  in expanding the issues that you need to consider when determining the purpose of your web site. Take note that the purpose of having an online presence and a website will vary  considerably from company to company.

This HOA helps explain the PURPOSE of your web site!!!   Watch and enjoy.

Remember to document what you think is the purpose, aims and objectives of your web site, and be sure to share this with your marketing team.   Then ask that other departments in your business read over this document and ask them to comment where they think their department fits into this document, and what they feel that you need to add to this document,  discussing the purpose, aims and objectives of your web site.

Do not ignore this input, but act on it and take this feed back to your design team asking how this new perspective can be integrated into your existing website in ways that enhance your customer experience.

Be sure that your social media team are aware of this document discussing the purpose, aims and objectives of your website. Also ensure  that your social media marketing team makes good well balanced use of this information when doing their stuff within the social media environment.

It is vital that your SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) team  are aware of this document and make use of this when working with other departments  as well as your various different  marketing teams.  This will help to ensure that your SEO is better integrated into your total marketing plan.

Your document discussing the purpose, aims and objectives of your web site needs to be reviewed and updated at least once every month, then the revised document should be discussed with all your marketing teams, asking how these changes impact on their work.  If there ARE NO CHANGES  ask your entire marketing team WHY ARE THERE NO CHANGES because things are constantly in flux, and many of your aims and objectives should have been accomplished within one month.  You may also have thought of a new purpose that is not listed, but not added it.  Be sure to add all new purposes identified, as this will have an impact on the content of your web site, and may give your content marketing team new perspectives that they can exploit..

Do you have a web site policy document for your business?

If not then make a plan and develop a website policy document as part and parcel of your business policy documentation that is part of your business plan.

Your web site should be updated regularly and maintained  property by the same team who designed your web site.  Your web site is your primary online asset, and needs to be treated with the same respect that you treat your office space, taking into account that this is the digital entrance to your business, so your web pages should display the appropriate style and branding that your customers would expect to find when they walked into your offices.

Your website serves a multitude of purposes, and each of these purposes needs to be listed in your business plan, and then also listed in your marketing plan, as well as in your business policy documentation.

Comments in the social media and their marketing value

Comments in the social media  have an awful lot more influence than most marketers realise, and so you should think about developing a social media strategy which includes a section on commenting within the social media, and how this should be handled by your marketing team as a whole.

The other day I came across a post by +Guy Kawasaki discussing  some of the the many different issues around comments and commenting titled "the art of Google + comments"

The art of commenting is a very important part of FUFISM or functional User Friendly Integrated Social Media that really needs attention from your marketing management structures and Search Engine Consultants. Search engines are increasingly using so called social signals in their algorithms to evaluate the aboutness of  social media   posts, web sites, blogs and other online content.

A single post with  a single link to a web page / blog post or other online content in any social media profile that receives a large volume of social signals can put  that specific online content right at the top of the SERP's (Search Engine Results Pages) in a very short time frame.  Marketing people thus need to understand the concept of social signals, and then work out how best they can generate large volumes of search engine friendly social signals for specific posts, and how to mange these issues in a sustainable manner, to keep their content as close to the top of the SERP's as they can.

The grip that the social media has on our SERP's (Search Engine Results pages) is not permanent, but wanes drastically over a relatively short time period, then settles down as the age factor becomes less influential, and so fresh comments and follow-up replies that induce conversation around the topic are essential in keeping fresh social signals to your post. How to achieve this is not discussed in many places, but Guy's post helps put the spotlight on this rather difficult topic in a very interesting way. Guy Kawasaki does not go into to much detail, from an SEO perspective but does give the basics as well as some essential etiquette tips.

This post by +Guy Kawasaki is a must read post for all social media optimisation and search engine optimisation practitioners.

Guy's post does not discuss the FUFISM aspect nor the SEO or SMO aspects of commenting, so we will fill you in here and supply a few extra pointers that you may consider when using any social media platform as a marketing tool. Please note that our preferred social media platform is G+

FUFISM = Functional User Friendly Integrated Social Media

SEO = Search engine Optimisation

SMO = Social Media Optimization

You do need to remember that this is a business approach to using the social media as a marketing tool, so the many aspects of marketing need to be on the table and available for quick reference when commenting on a post that your co-worker made, or relying to a comment made on your post, or keeping tabs on a  post you have been assigned to monitor.

When dealing with all online marketing, once the product description is finalized the next step is to define the target market. This target market definition is a very important part of

• the Key word Selection process
• the copy writing process
• the IPSEO (In Page Search Engine Optimisation)  process
• the OPSEO (Off Page Search Engine Optimisation) process
• the SMO (Social Media Optimisation) process 
• the Content marketing process
• many other diverse online marketing aspects which have indirect influence on your SERP's

These process need to be tweaked and manipulated carefully as you create the original copy of your post, and captured into your system so that this is available to your social media team when they start promoting the post through other social media platforms as well as in you web site and your blog. Your web site may not hold the capability of keeping track on comments or have a commenting system in place, but your blog will and so will your social media pages, which include both personal profile pages and business or product pages.
The primary thing to keep in mind here is that all the social signals generated by a post are recorded and stored within the search engines database, and connected to many different areas where there will be some SEOVI (Search Engine Optimisation Value Indicators) that will be processed. These include but are not limited to

• the author of the post
• the content of the post (key words and topic as well as aboutness)
• links within the post to
• previous post
• other social media profiles
• Google maps
• Google local
• your blogs or others blogs
• your web sites or other web pages
• online forums or groups
• images with in the post  (remember to add XML info to your image)
• The total length of the post (very important that post exceeds 250 characters)
• comments
• who commented with their details
• replies with who replied and the content of the reply
• the time differences between posting and comments as well as replies
• the aboutness of each comment or reply as well as
• the aboutness of 
• linked pages 
• posts 
•  profiles
• Quality of comments and replies as related directly to the original post as well as to previous comments on the post and include links within the comments.

So there are an awful lot of things to consider when replying to a comment on your post when you evaluate the Search Engine Optimisation value and the Social Media Optimization
of your reply or comment.

• Bed sure to have target market description and related product / service info on hand.
• try to stay on topic
• try to stimulate further dialog and generate a conversation
• try to use relevant marketing approved key words as per target market instructions.
• have a plan in place before you make a post!!!!!   for future reference
•  always write at least one full sentence in you comment
• remember to tag the author or commenter who you are attempting to lure into a conversation by plussing them personally in your reply or comment.

Commenting  with the intent on generating a conversation is not as easy as it sounds, and requires considerable skill and knowledge of the topic, product, service and related issues. This means that the person who is handling your Social Media Optimisation (SMO) needs to be well informed as well as well read on your product, service and company related issues.

This job is essential to get good SERP's and should not be left to a junior marketer, but rather to a qualified member of your sales team or public relations team or be a dedicated social media optimisation specialists. This person should also attend your regular marketing meetings and be aware of the FUFISM principles, as well as have the authority to get others within your marketing infrastructure involved in the ongoing conversation building strategies which are essential to your social signal development.

Comments have immense value as social signal generating tools, and the more comments with responses from the original poster and others linked to him / her through  shared profile pages, and pages that have them listed as contributors to the same web site, blog or  post that the search engines picks up, the higher your information will appear in the SERP's (Search Engine Results Pages ).

Comments in the social media thus have an awful lot more influence than most marketers realise, and so you should think about developing a social media strategy which includes a section on commenting within the social media, and how this should be handled by your marketing team as a whole.

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Is FaceBook marketing successfull

Is marketing on faceBook worth your efforts?

Well the short answer is a very big MAYBE

Read this article   then come back and read further here

Well what does the success of your FaceBook marketing depend on?

the answer is simple, is your target market clearly defined, and have you used the correct product / service related terminology in your copy-writing?

The success of your FaceBook marketing  can further be boosted by doing some good old fashioned SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) in the back ground by supplementing your FaceBook stories with

• a twitter campaign with its own profile
• a blog or two with related posts
• a  website at its own domain that has 
• a facebook like button
• a tweet this button
• links to your related blogs
• been optimised for search engines
• making use of online forums and chat rooms
• active marketing profiles on other multi-media platforms

A multi-media campaign  with the following components will also help if you have the resources

• old fashioned flyers
• magazine adds
• newspaper adds
• radio adds
• TV adds

enjoy your multi-media and social media marketing, or else get specialist to do these things for you.