Presentation to Commerce Lexington, Business Blogging Made Easy, November 2012.

1. Business Blogging Made Easy
Emily Sandford

2. Business Blog Stats
• US Internet users spend 3X more time on
blogs and social media than on email
• Companies that blog :
– 55% more website visitors
– 434% more pages indexed in search engines
– 97% more inbound links
• 61% of daily internet users read blogs
• There are 31% more bloggers today than 3
years ago

3. Blogging: Not a strategy
• How does blogging support the existing
strategy?
• What objectives or portions of other
marketing elements can blogging
– Enhance
– Reinforce
– Replace
– Support

4. Step 1: Define Goals
• How will the blog fill/supplement a
marketing need?
• What do you hope to gain by adding a blog
to the mix?
– Lead generation
– Driving traffic
– SEO
– Education
• Define the audience
• Set timeline and metrics

5. Step 2: Establish framework
• Technology: WordPress, ExpressionEngine,
Drupal, etc.
• Frequency – Editorial Calendar
• Authors: #, seniority, etc.
• Voice
• Policies

6. About Voice
• Companies don’t blog, humans do.
• Conversational
• Passion and authority
• Transparency
• Frequency (don’t be the one who
disappears)

7. About policies
Fear of policy enforcement is the #1 factor
that stops business blogs before they start!
Items to assess and outline:
• Transparency
• Confidentiality guidelines
• Copyright
• Competitors
• Advice
• Content ownership/accountability

8. Intel 3 Rules of Engagement

9. Step 3: Content creation
• Intention
• Customer education (without selling)
• Skip the marketing fluff
• Product/Service applications
• Any real-time news
• FAQs
• No ideas? Ask employees
and customers

10. 10 tips for blog writing
1. Choose the right topic
2. Find your voice
3. Invite a conversation
4. Package it (10 tips, 4 rules, etc)
5. Always link
6. Write for web readers
7. Write for Google searchers
8. Publish regularly
9. Take risks
10. Have fun.

11. Beginner Blog Writer Template
• Title of post
• Goal of the blog post
• Author and tone
• MDA/Most desired action
• Top points to communicate
• Any possible linking opportunities
• Second reviewer assignment

12. Example: Zappos
New
product
introduc.ons
.ed
with
trends

13. Example: The Crushed Violet
Educa.on

14. Example: Airbnb.com
Contests/social
interac.on
campaigns

15. Example: Stonyfield

16. Example: ExecuTrain

17. Example: Royal Caribbean

18. Step 4: Promotion
• If you build it, will they come?
• Refer to target audience
to set promotion strategy
• Get employees involved
• Make content visible on
existing channels

19. Step 5: Monitoring
• Standard web metrics – overall
• Web metrics – blog content
• Content analysis
• Social mentions
• Feed subscribers
• Lead tracking
• Comments

21. Resources
• Download this presentation
• View and download list of recommended
blogs
• Books for recommended reading
• Editorial calendar worksheet download
> authenticallysocial.com/commercelex <

22. Questions?
Emily Sandford
authenticallysocial.com/blog
Personal blog: skinnyemmie.com
emily@authenticallysocial.com
859.652.3616