EvoBloggito

An Invitation to All New Mexico Business and Professional Bloggers

Author: Ray Gulick; Published: Dec 16, 2009; Category: Blogging, Business; Tags: Blogging for Business, LinkedIn, Networking; 2 Comments

I did something out of character a couple of days ago. I started a LinkedIn group: New Mexico Bloggers. For the most part, I’m not a group kind of guy (at least not in an active sort of way), but I want to encourage business and professional blogging in New Mexico, and this is one way of doing it. Ideally, such a group could provide both support and connections for New Mexico bloggers.

A lot of what happens with the group depends on me getting the ball rolling. So I have some work to do. LinkedIn is not quite the platform I had hoped it would be (a lot of spammers and blatant self-promoters), but it’s possible to have meaningful group interaction in a self-policing group.

The group will be platform-agnostic. We really don’t care whether your blog is on WordPress, Blogger, TypePad, Drupal, or any other platform. All bloggers have certain things in common, from the "blank screen" to strategic issues about how to grow your audience and how to utilize your blog to reach business and professional goals.

And then of course, there is the issue of blogging in New Mexico, a state that’s often behind the curve in technology and related trends. While I don’t see blogging as primarily a technological activity (the technology aspect is relatively trivial), most of the people I’ve talked to who don’t blog cite technology as one of the barriers for them ("I’m just not a computer person!"). To me that’s like refusing to drive to a restaurant because you’re "not a car person," but that’s another blog post.

So this is an invitation to all business and professional bloggers: meet me (and hopefully a lot of other New Mexico bloggers) on LinkedIn for discussions and other forms of group therapy. I’d like to create some in-person meetups as well, if the interest level supports them.

Blogging for Non-profit and Educational Organizations

Author: Ray Gulick; Published: Dec 6, 2009; Category: Blogging, Business, Communication, Marketing; Tags: Blogging, CMS, Education, Non-profit; 2 Comments

The other day I was aked, “Is blogging useful for non-profit or educational organizations?” My mom would be pleased to know I stifled my first thought about bears and what they do in the woods, and instead responded with something a bit more professional. Something along the lines of, “Uh, yeah, sure.” Brilliant. Thankfully, I have a blog and I’m not afraid to use it to say what I should have said:

Blogging for business is about reaching and connecting with prospective customers or clients. For non-profits, it’s about reaching and connecting with prospective donors or supporters. For educational organizations, it’s a bit of both. Bottom line, it’s about connecting with people who care about what you do and bringing them into your community, where they can participate and become part of “the solution.”

Non-profit organizations must assemble their communities

But more specifically, how does a blog help a non-profit organization? A blog can help raise the profile of a giving campaign, by posting about the beneficiaries of the organization. Also, if the organization has a blog-based website (e.g., WordPress as a CMS), it’s a fairly simple matter to create a landing page for a particular campaign—to which people come from an email or direct mail solicitation—that’s focused on moving people through the giving process.

Apart from a giving campaign, however, most non-profit organizations are issues based. They came into existence in response to a need their founders saw as going unfilled or inadequately addressed: homelessness, mental health issues, poverty, domestic violence, environmental issues, etc. People (at least some people) care about these issues, and some of them care enough to become part of a community they see as offering at least partial solutions, and in making donations to support the organization offering and implementing those solutions.

Because the motive is not “profit”, which has negative connotations for some folks, blogging has the potential to be far more effective in helping to build communities surrounding non-profits involved with compelling issues than for most businesses.

Communities are the key to solving educational issues

Educational organizations are generally non-profit as well (but not always). If we’re talking about public schools, they face many challenges which directly impact the quality of life in the communities they serve. Most of these challenges, such as high dropout rates, teen pregnancies, violence, etc., are really community issues that are acutely manifested in the schools and require community and parental involvement to address effectively.

It baffles me, frankly, why public school administrators and teachers have not jumped into blogging and other forms of social media in a big way as a means of creating the kinds of connections and community that could help resolve some of the issues. I believe it mostly has to do with inertia and not looking hard enough for solutions to problems with which we have attained a certain comfort level, but that’s another post.

I believe blogging and other community-building opportunities have great potential to start moving public education back on a more productive and effective path.

Do you know of any non-profit/educational blogs?

If you have any examples of educational organizations or non-profits that are using blogs and social media effectively, please share them here.

How to Restart Blogging After a Vacation or Long Layoff (or both)

Author: Ray Gulick; Published: Nov 16, 2009; Category: Blogging, Marketing; Tags: Blogging; No Comments

Just post it. Post anything. As long as it has to do with the focus of your blog. Doesn’t matter if it’s short; doesn’t matter if it’s good. Just write it and post it.

It’s like falling off your diet. Or your exercise program. The important thing is to restart as soon as possible. Come back in a day or two and do something better, maybe your best post ever. But for now, get something up there.

Is this post written for myself or to myself? You bet!

Fear of Blogging, and the Opportunity it Creates for People Who Aren’t Like Most People

Author: Ray Gulick; Published: Oct 20, 2009; Category: Blogging, Business, Search/SEO, Zeitgeist; Tags: Blogging for Business, Change, Zeitgeist; One Comment

According to Seth Godin, there are two reasons people don’t buy (or do) things:

1. They don’t know about it.

2. They’re afraid of it.

If you don’t know about blogging and the substantial benefits it can bring to your business, that’s at least partly my fault. My business, and my mission, is to help businesses understand how and why to use blogging and blog platforms to grow their business. I’ll work harder at that: I promise.

The Psychology of Fear

I can detail all the advantages, show you examples of other businesses that have made blogging pay off, explain how much less money you will spend for the same or better results than you’re getting with your newspaper and radio ads, even plead with you (if I suddenly misplace my dignity); everything short of promising success. But at some point, you have to find the courage to do something different from what you’ve been doing, and different from what most people have been doing.

As the economy changed from orange alert (mild fear and wariness) to red alert (duck-and-cover NOW!), I had imagined that small and medium-sized business owners would be actively looking for something that would give them an edge. But I read an article (now long-misplaced) that suggested that the psychology of an economic downturn for most people is to hunker down and either do whatever they were already doing (but harder, with desperation), or to stop doing even what they were doing, while waiting for economic winds to blow more favorably. I can testify from the difficulty I’ve had convincing some businesses that blogging is at least part of the answer to their marketing dilemma in a down economy that this is the case.

Fear, apparently, is exaggerated in economic difficulties, and most people are even less likely to try something new, even if it holds the potential to overcome or mitigate the problem that’s the cause of their fear.

Now for the Opportunity

Here’s the good news for you if you’re even a little bit courageous: while your competitors are hunkered down waiting for the sun to warm their backsides again, you can get a jump on them. I’ve never talked to a business blogger who didn’t tell me they wished they’d started sooner. While you can’t start sooner than you start, you can start sooner than your competitors. Like most people, your competitors will wait until almost everyone is already on the bandwagon. By the time they’re figuring out "Step 1," you can be doing business with their ex-customers. Yup, it’s the law of the jungle. Survival of the fittest.

If I can help you with the issues you will face as you boldly go where few have gone before, please let me know. I can almost guarantee, those issues all have reasonably simple, easy-to-implement solutions.

ALL Small Business Websites Should be on a Blog Platform

Author: Ray Gulick; Published: Oct 19, 2009; Category: Blogging, Business, Content Management System, Marketing, Search/SEO; Tags: Blogsites, SEO, Small Business; 4 Comments

OK, there are probably a few exceptions to that statement. But for the most part, small businesses—say, 98%—that have either static websites or websites that are separate from their blogs are missing out on two huge advantages:

1. search engine traffic
2. an inexpensive, easy-to-use content management system

Search Engine Traffic and SEO

Attracting search engine traffic is the difference between a website that’s an asset and one that’s nothing more than an expense. If your website is not a search destination for your prospective customers, it’s not helping you very much. Oh sure, if you have a website people can go to when they see the URL on your business card or your Yellow Pages ad, that has some value. But the old idea of a website being a sign alongside the information superhighway pointing to your business is outdated and not very effective.

The key to a website that helps you build your business is search engine traffic, even if your business is exclusively local. I wish I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard a local business person say they don’t need to be found in online searches, because their business is all local. Yet, they spend (lots and lots of) money on local newspaper ads and local radio ads. I guess they think local people don’t have an internet connection and don’t use it to look for local businesses? Think again!

The number one way people look for places to buy goods and services is by internet search, overtaking the Yellow Pages more than a year ago and widening the gap on a daily basis. And that includes checking out local businesses that people intend to drive to and do business with after they’ve determined online that the business offers what they’re looking for and appears to know what it’s doing (the quality of your site and blog posts have some influence on that one).

Blogs are search engine magnets, IF they contain focused, frequently updated content that your potential customers search for. Google’s algorithms favor focused, frequently updated content, the kind of knowledge and information you already have your head. Put it into some blog posts (frequently, and focused) and watch your business benefit from additional traffic from online searches.

Having your blog integrated with your website (what we often refer to as a blogsite) gives the non-blog portion of your website a higher pagerank than if the blog is completely separate from the website, moving it higher in search results.

Inexpensive, Easy-to-use Content Management

Secondly, a blogsite makes it easy for small businesses to update any part of their website using the same backend used to publish blog posts. The days of calling the "webguy" for simple content updates will be over. You may still need the webguy to add certain kinds of functionality or to make fundamental changes in the structure of your blogsite if and when that becomes necessary, but you will have full day-to-day control over the information it displays. And that’s important, because if people are finding your site, the last thing you want them to see is outdated information.

But beyond that, the information on your site can reflect what’s happening currently and can make your website an integral part of your sales and promotion strategy. Suppose you offered a daily special to the first person each day to say the word of the day that they could only get on your website? Suppose you gathered email addresses on your website from people who wanted to be made aware when there was a sale? You could email these opt-in, prequalified customers and save yourself the expense of a radio ad or newspaper ad announcing the sale.

These are just a couple of examples of how having greater control over the content on your website can lead to more business. There are other strategies, likely some that would fit your business perfectly.