Digital Work Without Boss Blog

Archive for November 18th, 2009

The rise in Twitter users has been nothing short of remarkable. It has captured world-wide media attention and consequently sparked an explosion of users — from approximately 2 million monthly visits a year ago to 27 million today.

In our exploration of social media, we have draw several parallels to our pop culture trends. We’ve found Twitter is in-line with our Creative Geek trend. The Creative Geek trend is about creating tech geeks by infusing creativity into technology. In Twitter’s case, the microblogging site was discovered by and for techies, and is extending to appeal to non-techies. Twitter is riding this new trend in pop culture by offering an accessible, manageable platform that allows users to express themselves:

Accessible
To cross the chasm from early adopters to early majority, it’s essential to develop a product that is accessible. Twitter is a highly accessible web service. The premise revolves around one key element: short, 140 character messages. What you do with those messages is completely up to you.

Apple was built on a similar premise: cut the fat. A cell phone doesn’t need dozens of buttons. No, five would do. Overcomplicating a product can create a barrier-to-entry for many users.

Self-Expression

Self-expression puts the creative in the creative geek. Just as Apple apps or Wii Mii’s allow for personal expression, hashtag games, other platforms that use the Twitter API and tweets follow a similar concept. #HesNotThatIntoYou is an example of a Twitter-type game. He’s not into you because… Twitter games allow for users to get creative and show an edgy side.

Twitter is also a platform to share opinions, favorite links and industry insights to shape your personal or company brand. Mypict.me is the #1 most visited site by Twitter users, according to Quantcast.com. The photo sharing site illustrates the creative personality of Twitter users.

Manageable
Though Twitter is not inherently complicated — it’s very stripped down in fact — it can be re-purposed and customized based on your objective. As Twitter is an API, it can be re-purposed into many different formats to create a unique user experience. HooteSuite, TweetDeck, TwitPic, WeFollow and TweetPhoto are several uses of the Twitter API. The latter websites are the top sites Twitter users follow according to Quantcast.

Twitter is riding the crest of a very large wave. Part of that wave is comprised of creative geeks that might…

To read more about Twitter and the Creative Geek Trend, go to Sparxoo, a digital marketing, branding and business development blog.

Sparxoo is a business blog that inspires breakthrough by tomorrow’s leaders. We are a strategy consulting firm with a pulse on marketing, branding, and development.

Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/blogging-articles/connecting-to-the-creative-geek-1473020.html

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Blogging has made it possible for any individual to publish his/her ideas on the internet easily and freely. For businesses, this marks a truly innovative change in the way that products and services can be promoted to a large audience and at a considerably reduced cost compared with traditional advertising methods. With blogs, average business people can write about what they know and are passionate about, as well as what they can offer to others. When this is done properly and is updated regularly to keep the content fresh, it can be a very powerful marketing tool that naturally draws the customers to your business instead of forcing yourself upon them, as in traditional advertising.

Three Ways That Blogs Improve Your Business
Well-crafted blogs can significantly impact your business in 3 distinct ways.

1) Advertising.  A good blog containing the right keywords and key phrases can give you higher ranking in the organic search engine result pages, which increases the liklihood that visitors will find you and be interested in your business or products/services.

2) Public Relations. Since a blog offers a more personal touch as an information resource, it may cultivate greater brand reinforcement and more interest and trust in potential customers researching what you have to offer.

3) Direct Subscription. Really Simple Syndication (RSS) capability gives rise to a kind of modern day direct marketing technique that will enable you to be easily found by your prospective customers.

The Value of Blogging on a Regular Basis
Blogging can increase the visibility of your business because search engines favor content-rich blogs over websites. Blogs include timely information on various topics, which is an important complement to other marketing tools; however, it must be done on a regular basis to create the necessary interactive dynamic between your prospective customers and you. It is a discipline that you must adhere to in order to get results. If you can’t do it yourself, you should consider paying someone to blog for you based on the things that you want to showcase.

Free Blogs Are Frequently Not the Best Choice
For those business people with the interest and inclination to create and maintain their own blogs, a lot more is involved in the whole business-blogging process than one may realize. Some of the issues include the exact brand design, security, ownership, and search optimization needs of the business. It may pay to bring in outside help. When maintaining your blog, there will inevitably be maintenance challenges. If well managed blog solutions, service, and a reduced learning curve are available in a cost-effective manner, it is probably worth a great deal to a business. In truth, there are good free blog technologies available; however, what appears free is never really so. 

Due to the availability of WordPress and other open source software, it is possible to set up a very attractive looking blog in a very short time.  But what is often overlooked is that creating an effective site involves much more. Getting traffic to your site means nothing if you don’t engage visitors with a compelling story that entices them to click deeper and make a purchase or respond to your other calls to action.  It is the combination of good development, superior design, effective SEO, and persuasive writing that will make your blog capture customers and sales in the end.

The Advantages of Customized Blogs
We use a customized version of WordPress, which is the number one blogging software. It is user-friendly software that can be easily optimized for search engine indexing. We monitor and deploy core WordPress updates and the most important features coming out of the open source community, carefully evaluating and testing them. You should be less concerned about blog technology than you should be about blog content. Let us worry about the technology.  

The best blogs are those that are customized to enhance the special features of your business and increase the power of exposure in search engine results.  All of the following must be considered to maximize the effectiveness of your blog:

The customized blog:

• Should be an integral part of the business website and have the same look and feel
• Should be optimized for search engine optimization (SEO)
• Should have the necessary add-ins for either automatic or semi-automatic syndication of the content to the popular social media networks
• Should have the necessary add-ins for automatic syndication to blog directories
• Should have additional add-ins per customer requirements

The Bottom Line on Business Blogs
The true competitive advantage in blogging comes not through a concern with blog technology but rather through a focus on blog content and its syndication and the ways in which it gains attention for your business by posting interesting and enticing blogs, which the main search engines single out.

All in all, blogs are powerful advertising tools when used to their full potential. They increase your advertising visibility for a potentially unlimited number of topic keywords and phrases, while reducing traditional advertising costs.

We are pleased to provide you the insightful comments contained herein. Please contact us at CompuKol Communications for further discussion on how we might be able to assist you and your team.

Michael Cohn is the founder and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of CompuKol Communications, a consulting company specializing in developing communication strategies for small businesses that require expertise in promoting a unique business voice and vision on the Internet.

Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/blogging-articles/what-blogging-can-do-for-your-business-1470345.html