The more workshops I do the more I realise that no one is explaining what happens out there in cyberspace to make social media so relevant these days.
Last year Google slipped us all a Mickey Finn and decided to alter the way in which they search through online content before ranking it on the web. Instead of searching through layers of content they have started taking snapshots of information online and ranking it against it’s relevancy and quality of content. Not just that but Google now wants ever changing content i.e. dynamic content.
This is where blogs come into their own. Now you’ll find that many websites are blogs or that static sites have supportive blogsites to provide that dynamic content for them. What isn’t being explained well is why it could help you to have both the static site and the blog.
Imagine you spent quite a large sum on your website in 2008 and your webmaster wants to charge you a packet for upgrading it and providing a CMS package so you can alter content. Wouldn’t it be easier just to develop a FREE blog? Also, when you consider the whole cyberspace thing, don’t you think that your ‘footprint’ out there in cyberspace would appear just that much bigger if you had both?
Leaders in consumerism are fast realising that global cyberspace footprint (for want of a better phrase) is fast becoming the way forward and so they niche market their niche and then they do it again. Why? To create more footprints.
If each blog you create helps to define your niche or creates new niches for your brand you are optimising your brand and spreading your message further than you could in a single blog or website. If each of those blogs have the relevant social media tools orbiting them then you are creating more ‘noise’ out there and you increase your chances to be ‘heard’.
Try thinking out of the box when you set up your social media strategy.
Take for example a company I was talking to earlier this week. They have a large number of offices in the UK so one would think that the best thing to do would be to set up a blog for each office. They can’t because the holding group won’t allow it as they believe it will detract from their overall social media marketing approach.
But what they can do is blog as individuals i.e. about their own hobbies/thoughts etc.
So imagine if they got one person in each office to blog about what they love most in life – be it baking, golf or cycling. Imagine if they then put photos of those people on their main blog and linked each of those ‘personal’ blogs to that main blog. Each person could then contribute traffic in two ways:
1. As a main blog participant or author writing relevant posts about the business
2. As a real person showing potential customers to the company that it is made up of ‘real’ people.
The other thing this company could do is offer one representative from each branch/office an iPhone in return for which they must send at least 5 relevant tweets every day about the company as a whole.
What power! Makes you think doesn’t it?
What problems does your company face applying social media? Perhaps we can help you overcome them too.
