Blogs, Email Marketing and Social Networking

Blogs provide an information advantage

 

Blogs are have an advantage over websites in that the content is expected to be dynamic.  Therefore, a person will read a blog expecting to learn something new every time they revisit a site.  With the right tools, blogs are can also go viral, either locally or nationally.  Blogs have also been a source of information and news leads for reporters, which has been made possible by quick indexing by the search engines as well as the use of news aggregators such as Digg. 

 

Blogs employ a pull technology, where users will pull or search for information that they are looking for, or they will subscribe to blog emails or view stories in a RSS feed reader.  Because publishing a blog is instantaneous, there is no time delay between the time an article is published and the time a person can access the article online.

Email Marketing

Email marketing is a push tactic, which pushes your news, your product, service or business information via an email to your targeted audience.  Double-opt in email marketing by an email marketing provider should be used over your company's personal server to avoid being accidentally marked as spam.  This can cause problems where your company emails are later rejected as spam if your server by any spammer abuse lists.  The use of a double-opt in system will also increase the possibility that the people who are signing up for your emails are the people who actually want to read them.

 

Social Networking

Social networking sites such as Twitter can be useful for getting the news out about your products, deals, or new services, but require developing a good following.  Sending a Tweet out if no one is there to listen helps no one;  sending a Tweet out where your audience is actively interested in your company offerings, deals and services and new products can provide a re-Tweet or more, some of which can go a long way to helping your news to go viral.

 

Sites such as Facebook have been employed to create a sense of community within Facebook.  These can be useful tools if many of your customers and their friends are Face Book users. 

 

Forums

While this is not a new phenomena, internet forums have been in existence predating GUI.  A well moderated forum is an excellent place to identify new opportunities for your business, service and products, as well as to create a sense of community.