How Blogging Affects Mainstream Marketing

There has been a lot of buzz around blogging lately, and for good reason. Weblogs, or blogs for short, are changing the way people market themselves and their businesses.

If you aren’t familiar with blogging, the concept is relatively easy to grasp. Blogs first began as a shared online journal. A blogger posted diary-like entries about his or her daily life for others to read.

Recently though, blogging has evolved into a new form of business writing and advertising. Many business owners now use blogs to promote their goods and services. Others use blogs to promote their website and get higher search engine rankings. Some politicians even use blogs to reach voters.

The typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, web pages, and other media that is somehow related to the blog topic. Though most blogs focus on textual contant, a blogger may include videos, pictures, and even audio in blog posts. A blog comprised of videos is called a vlog and a blog that uses pictures is called a photoblog.

The Benefits of Blogging
By adding blogging to their marketing campaigns, business owners are able to market their product with virtually no out of pocket expense. In some cases, bloggers may even be able to make large sums of money with their published blog. For example, a blogger who employs the Google Ad Sense program can make money from blog readers. The more readers a blogger has, the more money can be made from the Google ad.

A blogger can also be a guide for shoppers who are looking for specific products and services. This makes blogging an excellent tool for retailers or affiliate marketers. Blogs can also be a source of valuable information and niche industry news.

Because there are virtually limitless possibilities provided by blogging, it is easy to see why blogs have begun to have a significant impact on mainstream marketing practices. Many companies have noticed this and have chosen to hire a blogger to write and post up to date information for customers, shareholders, and employees.

Some blogs now get millions of readers every single day. There are so many blog readers out there, that experts speculate that the world of blogging is rivaling the mainstream media. New blog search engines are also being created to make searching for a blog easier than ever before.

If you have not yet established a blog for your business, you may want to consider doing so as soon as possible. Keep in mind though that it will take work to attract readers to your blog. It must be interesting or valuable to them in some way. A blogger must also concentrate on creating informative pieces that are as honest and up to date as possible. Blogging is serious business and if you make a mistake, it will not go unnoticed by your readership.

If you need help developing your blog, there are many different browser-based software programs on the market that can help you get a start. Blogs can also be hosted by dedicated blogging services or regular web hosting services.

Last, but not least, a blogger must remember to optimize blog writing for search engines. Blogging is an Internet medium and needs to be approached with Internet principles in mind.

Blogging Example
A typical blog entry includes a title or headline, a body of text, a permalink or URL for another web page, and a post date, which indicates the date and time that the post was published. A blogger may also choose to include a link at the bottom to allow readers to post comments on the blog.

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The very truth about social blogging

A blog is a portal towards a virtual community. It represents a way for you to express yourself, see what other people have to say about the same subject and hear their comments. Blogs are not just online diaries; they represent a virtually social environment, in which people talk about food, politics, weather and news. They put their personal thoughts and feelings, allowing for other people to point out the obvious. Social blogging has developed to the extent that true blogger communities have formed, providing postings on a regular basis, no matter if they are about personal experiences, interests or just chit-chat.

Recent estimated have shown that there are over 50 million blogs on the Internet, encompassing a wide variety of countries, cultures and races. On a blog, you can encounter people of various ages and discuss with them on the same level. Social blogging is a very interesting concept to look at when we think about the cultural and racial interactions. People have the ability to talk about anything they want, the interactive format being one of the most attractive things about blogs. It can easily get to a point when more serious problems are considered and this is why social blogging is widely received.

On a smaller level, social blogging is all about providing constant update for your friends and family. By using the Internet technology, you can let them know how you’ve been, how your life is and even what made you laugh. That is the point, actually. You can tell them anything, anything at all as long as you make it interesting and fresh. If you want to take part in the social blogging revolution, you have to be able to provide invigorating content. Make sure that if you want to inform people of your whereabouts and other stuff you write in a funny, yet interesting manner. Polish your conversational skills a little and you will see how quickly they will be to add their own postings.

If you decide to join one of these social blogging virtual centers, be sure that you are passionate about online communication. Be an active member, post content on a regular basis and always keep it brisk. Comment on anything you like, even if it is about the rain or you want to share deep, personal experiences. No one is telling you what to write but you might want to make it stimulating to read. Focus on expressing personal thoughts and feelings, be a part of the online social network and encourage other’s people comments. Also, keep in mind that with the help of RSS feeds to other blogs or websites, you postings may be read by the entire world.

Social networks and blogs in particular define what we really are, communicative beings. We need to interact and share opinions with others; we need to present ourselves and let them know who we really are.
Micro blogging has been used by a wide variety of Internet users to post short text updates, displayed on their profile’s page and usually containing personal information. This particular type of service, called micro blogging has been successfully implemented with other services included in social networking. A micro blog is short because it represents an update of other blogs entries, having the information as succinct as possible.

The technology of micro blogging has been considered as particularly interesting because the messages can also be sent by using your email and cellular phone. A joke posted on the Internet said: what do you get when you combine social networking, text messages and blogs? The answer was: micro blogging. Still, far from being a joke, micro blogging is one of the latest and advanced services provided by social networks. It has been used also for advertising purposes and who knows what the future may bring? For the time being, micro blogging keeps on gaining popularity points and every day we see more and more small pieces of fresh content posted on the web. Micro blogs are much more preferred for a wide variety of reasons: they are shorter, giving you the possibility to forget all about lengthy posts and thus enticing the reader to post his/her own short comment. Some might even say that in a world where the word blog is too much used, micro blogs come as a breath of fresh air and demonstrate how the service has grown.
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Your Blog Is Not Earning

If you have ever wanted to earn money through blogging but found hardly any success at it, then you probably should straighten up in your chair and read what I got to say. Now for starters you probably heard that you could just start a blog, write about something you know, slap some Adsense and some Affiliate links on it and you are off to earning some money. Come on, you and I both know that your earnings (if any) are not substantial. I am willing to bet that you have not even been paid your first Adsense check yet. Now before I come off sounding like a “rude” guy, let me explain to you something of importance to me. I was in the same boat as you once. I thought I could just go over to Blogger and create me a blog, write a few posts and expect people to stop by and click on my ads or buy from my affiliate links. Man, I was sadly mistaken. I found it to be one of the hardest things to accomplish with all of my online endeavors. Not only was I NOT getting clicks but I was not even getting that many visitors. I finally gave in and decided that I was not going to get anywhere using blogs this way. I was going to need a solid system that would allow my blogs to get traffic. That’s about the time “Blogging To The Bank” by Rob Benwell came. I am here to tell you that if it was not for the eBook then I would have gave up long ago. I am not going to go into what the book told or showed me, but I will tell you that it saved me tons of research on how to optimize my blogs for Search Engines and to research a profitable product to promote. If you have not read the book then I imagine you are not doing that well with your blog. If I am wrong I suggest you leave this article now. If I am right then I would STRONGLY suggest you stick around. I am primed to “spill the beans” right here, right now on how to make your blogs “money-makers”. First off, you need just quit listening to people who tell you that blogging is the next generation of making money on the Internet. While it may be the next “Big Thing”, how would they know? It’s a fact that 95% of people who blog are not earning “substantial” income from their efforts. Now the 5% that are earning and earning “good” are either blogs that have “staff” or a group of people that manage them. They are able to write up to a dozen articles or posts a day because they have more than one person dedicated to the blog. Well, I really do not want to hire someone else to help me. I’m “greedy” and expect to earn and keep everything I make. But, there is a select group of individuals “out there” that are earning the big bucks because they have that “die trying” attitude. The aggressive people are reaping big time rewards from search engine traffic and there is absolutely no reason why you are not or should not be allowed to know how they are doing it. Every big Adsense or Affiliate earner knows that it is a numbers game on the Net. The more sites, the more ads, the more affiliate programs and links equal more money. The same goes in respect to blogging. Obviously the more blogs, articles, and posts you have then the bigger chance you have at getting visitors. Now I see that you are still here reading and your expecting some kind of “kicker” or sales pitch. Well, again I am going to surprise you with not giving you one. All I am trying to tell you are that people are spreading the word that blogging is so easy to earn from. Well, since you decided to read this whole article I imagine that you are in that 95% that is not earning. I bet you though that I was going to give some information on how to earn more income from your blogs. Well, it is in my understanding that people who tell you how to earn are not really doing that well themselves. The people who are earning comfortably are not going to tell you their “secrets”. Like I said “it is a numbers game”. The more people that find out what we are doing to earn so easily off our blogs are just going to replicate the system and then it will not be so profitable.
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A writers’ guide to blogging in the online community

Not long ago, circulating your writing to a wide-spread reading circle took a great deal of effort, time and money. But now, thanks to the internet, you can easily do all the communication you want to do with minimal expense and a moderate amount of research. Even if you are leading a hectic life, time does not pose an issue especially if you have a flair for writing and communication. The quickest ways of moving ahead with your writing may be in the following route. All these are tried-and-tested ways to start, and every professional blogger or writer has adhered to at least two of these methods religiously, to reach their current position of popularity:

1. Leaving a comment on someone else’s blog or article.
2. Join in a discussion board or forum that grabs your interest.
3. Writing a book or film review at any popular marketing site is a must.
4. Starting your own blog or online community is a great idea.
5. Publishing an e-Zine or Newsletter if you have enough interest on something great or trivial.
6. Submitting articles to a blog carnival that reviews your field of interest.
7. Publishing an e-book can be good promotion.
8. Publishing a booklet or pamphlet that introduces others to your field of interest.
9. Developing your own website with regular upgrades.
10. Publishing a book in real when you have enough materials accrued.

The two major ways you can head-out on your dream projects in the written-word are by joining in on conversations and by starting your own as well. However, you must note that just focusing on starting your own conversation without joining in will not help. Contribute your ideas, comments, opinions and information to on-going discussions.

Initially, you will be viewed as an outsider but soon enough, with continued involvement, you will be soon a welcomed candidate. While on the other hand, if you just happen to dart in with loads of heavy stuff you might be side-tracked or belittled initially. Remember that it happens to every new contributor to any community, but surely this will never pose as a long-term problem assuming that your ideas are open, valid, related to the situations and of course there is no spoofing! As you begin to leave comments on other people’s blogs, you will soon become a familiar reader and contributor, and yes, do leave the impression that you have actually read the material. Forget old fashioned niceties and be honest to yourself, but that doesn’t mean you are allowed to be abusive no matter what! A balance of appreciation along with the feedback of what you truly feel is important.

Participating in online conversations is quite akin to our real-life scenarios. Hence we cannot just jump on a discussion. We have to know what is really going on. Your knowledge and passion on the existing topic would be beneficial, but you have to let your discussion evolve, and then go with the flow. But remember – going with the flow does not mean getting sucked up by the waves and with online discussions you have the opportunity to overcome many a social dilemmas that you will come across. The quicker you get to deal with them the better, so be open, but don’t forget the core meaning of your participation. And most importantly – whether you agree or disagree you must make comment respectfully, otherwise no one is going to welcome you to the online blogging community.
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Why Blog Marketing is so Effective?

There are many ways to advertise online. Most of them are very cost effective which makes them very appealing. However the most popular form of advertising now is blog marketing. There are a couple of reasons for this. One of the reasons blog marketing is so appealing to advertisers is the cost. Other forms of online marketing require payments to be made repeatedly, either on a per-insertion basis, per hit basis, or possibly monthly. That can begin to really add up. With blog marketing you only pay once and the link remains active for the life of the blog in most cases.

Blog marketing is very effective SEO. Search engine optimization is the primary objective of most internet advertising. Other types of marketing such as banner ads do nothing for SEO. They are only as effective as the number of people that see that particular banner. With a banner ad even on a very targeted site you only have a few seconds to impress the viewer and hope that they are interested enough at that particular moment to click on the banner and go to your site.

Adsense works much the same as banner ads and in fact are simply banners with a number of ads inside of it. While these methods have some effect they are to marketing what a drive by shooting is to a gang member hit or miss. What blog advertising does is two-fold. You still get the same viewer hits from the readers of the blogs in question so they are as effective as banner type advertising in that sense. Blog marketing has the added value of SEO however which makes it much more valuable as a marketing tool.

Search engines send out spiders constantly to crawl the internet for relevant links to sites. The more relevant links you have the higher your ranking on the search engine pages for the keyword results. When consumers look online for a specific product they typically use a search engine to find it. That is why being at the top of those lists is so important. Using targeted marketing is important but SEO not only gives you targeted market (the people actually looking for your product not just stumbling on it as they look around the internet) but they get you that market – and here’s the important part – when they are looking for it.

Even if you place a banner type ad on a very specific spot sure to get your target audience most of the time when it is seen those people aren’t looking right then for your product. Blog marketing works so well because it hits up both types of advertising situations. You get your ‘drive bys’ and you get the ‘want it now’ crowds visiting your site all the time.

Since you only pay once for that single blog post you are saving a considerable amount of money to get all of the benefits. You can also control your advertising budget easier with blog marketing. For other forms of advertising you can spend varying amounts over a long period of time that gets very expensive. With a blogging campaign you decide when you post the opportunity how much you want to spend, how many posts you wish to have created, and how long the opportunity should be available. That is a very precise way to judge how much the individual campaign will cost, and you do not have to worry about recurring expenses from that ad. It is paid for once and will continue forever.

You can develop several different campaigns for the same product at the same time and divide the money you wish to spend between them, or do several campaigns over a number of months. No matter how you choose to develop your marketing strategy you are completely in control of the costs.

Blog marketing is here to stay because it works so well for both parties involved and it is effective. Learning how to get started is easy. Most paid blogging companies have very simple to operate platforms where sign up is quick, easy and free. Once you have signed up you can upload the exact amount of money you wish to use for each campaign and choose the parameters of that campaign in just a few minutes. Your advertisements will begin quickly where many other forms of online marketing can take days, weeks, and even months to get started running your ads. Get started today and find out how quick, easy and effective blog marketing really is.

Robert Jensen is CEO at PayingPost blog advertising network where bloggers get paid to post and advertisers can promote their products.

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