Blogging and the new social media
Thursday, July 3rd 2008 @ 2:59 PM (not yet rated)
The importance of creating a blog in today's web environment cannot be underestimated. Social Networking is taking the web by storm and could even spell the end of Google's PageRank.
If you want to get your message out there you need to find a way to express yourself, make it very easy to update and very easy to share. My own experience in web development is that simply getting a website won't get you very far anymore -- the web has evolved too much for that.
For someone in a small business, getting up to speed with the Internet as well as continuing with the day-to-day running of a business can be perceived as an overwhelming experience. However, it is becoming more and more crucial to the Internet success of a small business.
The thing is, the web 2.0 revolution is totally geared toward the cottage industry, artisans, healers, artists etc and with a little time spent on learning the latest social networking tools and implementing the knowledge gained, it's possible to reap massive benefits in the long term.
By providing the end user with interesting and informative content it's very easy to have your information shared on the Internet super highway and have your products and/or services in front of hundreds or thousands of eyeballs in a very short space of time.
This isn't about selling, leading with your heart has to be the way to go. A wise man once said “When you speak from the heart, everyone listens, because that’s when God is talking”.
People are smart, they know when they're being scammed (or spammed) and they know how easy it is to spread the word now. They say that a happy customer tells three people and an unhappy customer tells ten, well you can multiply that a thousand fold via social media.
How easy is it to forward an email that you find interesting?
Well it’s even easier to share a webpage, a blog, a news article or a video via the various social networking outlets that have become so prominent. Thing is, it can be spread much further and much faster than via your own personal email list.
Email is becoming increasingly unpopular due to the amount of SPAM and people are choosing not to give out their email addresses to receive newsletters unless they absolutely have to.
I’ve begun unsubscribing to newsletters via email and (if available) am now getting them through an RSS feed into Google Reader, a tip that has not only increased the amount of subscriptions that I have and given me greater awareness, it's dramatically reduced the amount of emails that I never ended up getting to read, the amount of SPAM, and given me my own filter that is extremely efficient and has saved me time.
I have to thank Ed Dale from the Thirty Day Challenge for these tips, I was already using Google Reader but not to it’s fullest by any means.
Speaking of the Thirty Day Challenge, if you are wanting to upskill your web skills then I highly recommend you signing up for the challenge. Apart from the ThirtyDayChallenge.tv videos (which you can watch live and are about 45-50 mins), they are mostly around 10-12 minutes long and there are about two per week. Not too much time out of your day to learn such valuable information.
Here's a 12 minute video on YouTube about Google Reader to whet your appetite.
All of the Thirty Day Challenge videos are on YouTube, so you don’t have to join the challenge to get the benefits of the pre-season training. If you know how to subscribe to them via Google Reader (or any reader for that matter) you can watch them at your leisure as and when they are uploaded without any challenges at all.
You can sign up for the Thirty Day Challenge here.
So where do you get a blog from?
There are many, many places to create a blog and there are different ways to do it. Do you have web programming skills? Are you wanting someone to set it up for you?
Tools like Blogger or Wordpress are free, and with Wordpress you have the option to create and host your blog on your own server, although this will require some technical skills. You will need to take into consideration the hosting fees, the assortment of plug-ins that are available, the graphics or logo that you will need and the template that you will use.
Geoff and I at WebMechanics have setup several Wordpress blogs and can give you a quote on the complete setup.
It really comes down to how much time, energy and money you want to input into it.
If you are in the natural health and wellness field, are eco-minded, a conscious consumer, LOHAS or cultural creative and spend most of your time in New Zealand, you can create your blog right here on Holistic Living.
We have the tools to get you setup straight away and you can even include audio and/or video to create your blog as a Podcast.
Tim from GreenplanetFM has taken his radio show from a once-a-week broadcast to a downloadable mp3 Podcast on Holistic Living and in the not-too-distant future we will be adding the show to iTunes to gain even greater exposure.
We can even do ‘live broadcasts’ now and have listener feedback online in real-time as we record the podcast, before publishing to the various media outlets that gather and share the information with the world. This is great for having a questions and answers section of a broadcast.
I'm looking at doing the Holistic Living Show as a live broadcast and already have a queue of special guests that have put their hands up for the show. This is an excellent way to really put a small business and a great idea on the world map.
If I can do a blog or a podcast, anyone can do it, believe me.
PS. Here is a link to the Top 10 Ways to Kill a Blog
