Business Blogging Excellence

Why does every blogger need a Virtual Buzz Assistant?

Blogging is hard work.  The technology is not hard, but the daily commitment to creating quality content is hard work.

And it does not stop there.  If you produce great content but do not get your Blog linked to, talked about and visible, your excellent content will probably still go unnoticed.

Virtual Buzz Assistants are people that are certified in online buzz marketing and can help create buzz for a blog.

Virtual Buzz Assistants work just like other virtual assistants, but they have chosen to specialize in Internet marketing.  They work at building great relationships and they become experts in the tools that you can use to create more buzz and visibility.

Bloggers that want to be successful have to have a great niche, interesting content and they have to either spend a lot of time promoting the blog, or hire a Virtual Buzz Assistant to help them.  The assistant could be hired to keep fresh content on the blog, and this is especially important for businesses that may get busy and let their blog effort slip.  The assistant can also promote your blog by using the many tools available online to grow your audience.

Here are 5 ways a Virtual Buzz Assistant can help you on a monthly basis.

1. email people about your article - By emailing people to point out an interesting article on your blog to people that run similar blogs, you can generate links and more traffic.
2. Upload blog information into Blog Catalog and other blog directories, and link to people there.
3. Use micro-blogging solutions like Twitter or Tumblr to highlight your blog posts each week.
4. Social Bookmarks - Virtual Buzz Assistants can bookmark your blog posts to get them more inbound links and traffic.
5. Interview opportunities - Your Virtual Buzz Assistant can look for opportunities for you to be interviewed on other blogs or podcasts, and they can conduct interviews to add more interesting content for your blog.

These are just some of the areas that a Virtual Buzz Assistant can help you be a more successful blogger with less of your time going towards promotion.  To request a Virtual Buzz Assistant, click here.

Posted in Blog Traffic, Internet Marketing, Marketing, Small Business | No Comments »

Giving Good Commenters Their Dues

I was reading Ron McDaniel’s post on the Buzzoodle blog and found a great tool for showing appreciation to commentors. The DoFollow plugin for Wordpress allows comments to be followed by Google, helping a site increase its ranking.

The plugin is now installed on this site so that if someone posts a good comment, it will be followed by Google. Just another way of spreading some love in the blogosphere. If you are a Wordpress blogger and want to help others, too, check it out!

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Why Blog?

There is great new meme project by on the top 5 reasons you Blog making its way around the web. Mike Sansone of Converstations recently wrote his top five, and then some. Here are my top 5 reasons I blog:

1. Learning - This works many ways. First, I learn more as I write, about what I know and don’t. You find out quickly what you do and don’t know when you try to put your thoughts into words. It is a true test of your own knowledge. Also, I learn more by reading other blogger’s posts and ideas, which leads to my next point…
2. Community - Meeting other fellow bloggers and extending my network. Nothing like meeting new people to gain more ideas and get to know interesting people. Blogs are a great way of generating good contacts. You never know who you’ll meet.
3. Visibility - As a marketer, I want to increase awareness of both myself and our company. Blogging gives me the opportunity to introduce myself to the public and extend my reach throughout the web rather than just having one site. The ability to mingle with other bloggers strengthens my visibility ten fold while also working on point 2.
4. Ease of Use - Blogs make it easy to quickly update information. It only takes a moment to add new content to your page. Updating a webpage has never been easier.
5. Use those tools! - Most of what I do for a living is on the web, and what better way to learn more about it than to work with something like blogging? This is only one of many tools I use to communicate with others and increase visibility on the web. I’m a self professed tech geek, so I love making use of what is out there.

What’s your top 5? Send your comments and trackbacks here. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

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Reach Out and Touch Someone

I was reading through some Blogs yesterday and was trying to contact one fellow Blogger directly. There was one problem, though: No contact information was listed! I searched high and low, checking for what I thought were obvious locations for contact information. After searching for quite a while, I gave up. I didn’t contact them, and I left disappointed.

If you are trying to generate some buzz and make new contacts having your contact information is vital. The most obvious place to put it is on your About page or even your footer. If you have a profile listed on your sidebar then definitely take advantage of the space to give people a way to connect to you. The easier you make it for them, the more likely they are to say hi.

Just one simple sentence can make a difference from meeting an interesting person, to no one at all. Ron McDaniel told his story of how it worked for him with Buzzoodle. The question is, then, are you making it easy for your readers to reach out to you?

[tags]buzz, contact[/tags]

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WOMMA’s 10 Principles of Ethical Contact by Marketers

WOMMA (Word of Mouth marketing Association) has recently made a draft of their 10 Principles of Ethical Contact by Marketers public for comment. You can take a look at them at WOMMA’s website. Just click on the guidelines link below for the full list. There are some interesting guidelines listed here, most seem like common ethical practice, although another regarding disclosing your full identity online, may make some reluctant due to its departure from confidentiality. If you are truly trying to create buzz online, though, making yourself publicly known on other blogs is a good thing. Keep in mind that WOMMA did not set these as an authoritative rule, only principles they hope others will follow. Also, this is not a how to blog guide, mearly just guidelines to follow when communicating with other bloggers. Check it out and leave a comment. Feedback is most definitely welcome.

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Blogging Helps

Last night I went to a Jump Start Event locally and ran into the CMO of Jump Start, Thom Ruhe.  When he found out who I was, he said he reads my Buzzoodle Blog all the time. It is wonderful to meet people who read your blog before they ever meet you in person, and this happens all the time to me.

I suppose it happens to book authors every day.  But how often does it happen to business owners?  Frequently if you blog and do a good job.

When you are writing a blog post, you frequently do it out of habit, and you do not think about the readers.  You should, because they are reading what you write and deciding on the level of relationship they will have with you.

What are your readers options?

• Read one article and leave
• Read and explore the blog for useful stuff that appeals to them
• Subcribe to your RSS feed
• Subscribe to an email newsletter or updates
• Link to you for their website or blog
• Contact you
• Bookmark you - (see bar at end of post)
• Refer to your work in an article, publication, etc.
• Comment or trackback to your post

The more you blog and the higher the quality of your posts, the more this will happen.  It is also important for generating more traffic, which is more people to make these kinds of decisions.

Posted in Blog Traffic, Small Business | No Comments »