Social media is the movement for conversing with each other through many channels on the internet. It could be from an RSS feed from your blog, interacting with many members from a particular social media site like Facebook, even exchanging referrals of products and services to buy through simple emails in your inbox. Whatever we think of social media, always remember the purpose is to connect with other people.

As mentioned before, social media is not a platform to sell on, rather, a platform to meet other people and start a two way conversation about likes, dislikes, philosophies, common interests, favorite sports, fashion, celebrities, etc.

When a group is formed or joined for the purpose of sharing like interests, you are experiencing social media at its best.

Your blog is a social media source as well. Blogs may be the only social media channel that will outlast many of the other forms of social media sites for years to come. Why is that? Blogs are a great source of content in all forms. Text articles, video, pictures, audio, profiles, calendars, events, it all seems to converge nicely with blogs. No other social media site can be used as a total content management system while serving as a hub for social media at the same time. And the best part of it all is that anyone can master the art of publishing a blog within a matter of hours.

Blogging will last for years to come so plan out and implement your plan on the content you want your blog to have and align it with your personality. You can’t go wrong because someone out there will want to partake in consuming what you have to offer on a regular basis!

First of all, it is natural for all of us to be very enthusiastic when starting a blog. You have many ideas and you can’t wait to get your various content out to your readers. As a matter of fact, you may even stuff too much content all at once when starting. It is better if you plan how to manage your content by “dripping” your content on a regular schedule. In a “perfect” world, you should be submitting one blog post per day. Now think about it. You don’t want to run out of ideas for blog posts because that is your main life blood of keeping the search engines coming back to your blog site again and again.

Rule #1 – Plan out and have ready your blog content in advance. This means have at least 2 to  3 weeks of blog content ready to insert in your blog.

Rule #2 – Brainstorm content ideas going forward. Take notice of which keywords are attracting your target audience. Why is the visitor coming to your blog in the first place? Take the keywords that have attracted visitors and concentrate more content towards those topics.

Rule #3 – Vary your content within your blog to make it interesting. Insert pictures, video and sound to liven up your blog so that it is pleasing to the eye and ears.

Remember that you can never run out of content to present. It is only a matter of taking a look at the trends within your industry and start talking about that as well as new products and current products you offer your customers.

Here are some of the things you will need to focus on in order to maximize your blog.

1. daily posting of content
2. announcement of special discounts
3. monthly contests
4. new videos
5. new audio/podcasts
6. insertion of digital pictures
7. linking to other related websites
8. social media tie in (Facebook/Twitter)

Of course there are many more things to do with your blog but these are the most common items you should be concentrating on.

I highly recommend that you list out all the items you implement on your blog and think about how you can delegate some or all of these tasks to an assistant or staff member or even hire someone. You will find that even if you can outsource or delegate just a small amount of these tasks, you will get your blog to work for you by higher page rank with the search engines and result in higher visitor count, and therefore more sales from customers.

Blogs are definitely here to stay. They will outlast the latest social media sites and even bookmarking sites. Blogs have already replaced most conventional HTML and flash sites.

Blogs are very important going into the future because along with the attraction of new customers it gives you, but it also strengthens your brand. We don’t have to tell you how important it is to brand your business out in the “brick and mortar” world. You definitely know it is necessary for getting customers to purchase from you again and again.

To manage a blog can be information overload because of the many things that is capable of doing, but only with your hard work into it. If you haven’t already, start planning how you manage your time with your blog.

To avoid being overwhelmed, we suggest you put up a large whiteboard in your office and split up the tasks needed to maintain your blog. Assign the necessary people to do each task. Give a timeline of the items to be done and who is responsible to complete them. Always get feedback from your staff if there are “roadblocks” that prevent them from getting done. And lastly, get rid of tasks that are not productive. There are things such as checking your email 8 times a day, which is counter productive. If you check your email once in the morning and once in the afternoon would better serve your valuable time!

Lately, you’ve heard about the video of the homeless man, Ted Williams that went “viral” within a matter of hours and exceeded over a million views. Hypothetically, if your business could achieve that with a video, you would be practially rolling in the “dough!”

Of course that is an exeception to the rule. Ted Williams video was definitely a fluke. But the same idea remains…get your business video online so that people will discovered it and in turn, discover your business.

Blogs enable any business to gain customers through “showtime” methods. This involves presenting your business with some attention grabbing method while being so compelling that people “pass around” the video to others and they will pass it on to still others.

Yes, it’s the “showtime” theme now that makes a video go completely viral. With all the reality TV shows out there, everything is entertainment. You need to tap into this entertainment mentality in order to further promote your business online.

Search engines want you to be more “active” with your site. If you have not thought about assigning a person or department to managing your business blog, you will be lagging behind your competitors.

The key for blogging in 2011 is to keep activity on your blog at a high level. For those of you who are “one man” businesses, you will need to make more time for our blog. Write more posts more often and time release them over the course of the next several months. If you have to hire a writer, then do it. If you have to hire someone to insert the posts in your blog, then do it. If you don’t have time at all to manage your blog, then hire someone to do it.

If anything, plan to hire someone or some company to insert your posts.

Blog marketing should be a regular addition to your complete business marketing plan. With a blog, you can utilize the same content you used to advertise your business from the other media and present it to your online audience.

Blog marketing has only begun to develop as a meaningful way of getting the word out on your business.

Here are some of the ways that blog marketing can get the word out:

1. valuable article content
2. pictures showing your place of business and your products
3. video that, again, shows what you have at your business
4. audio recordings that narrate your business offerings
5. optin box that captures prospects that visit your blog
6. passing out flyers and sending out postcards with backlinks to your business blog

By implementing both online and offline methods of marketing, you gain an advantage of using as many marketing channels as you can in the most efficient manner.

Putting audio on a website was pretty popular in 2006 through 2008. The new thing was making “podcasts” and sticking them on blogs or websites. These were audio files that had the voice of the business owner or a professional narrator describing the fine points of the products or services of the business. Audio is still one effective way of getting attention of a new audience who may never had heard of you and your business before.

When using audio for your website, it makes your site come “alive” with adding to the pictures or videos you already have. Think about it for a moment, some people like to read about a business, others like to see a video, still others like to hear a description of a business in order to pay attention to what is offered.

For an example, listen to the audio below.

The search engines want consistency from your blog so it can turn it into an authority site. An authority site earns its reputation from constantly giving daily news and new content on a daily basis. It is like a virtual newspaper that is delivered to your door each and everyday.

Quite often blogs with consistently fed content will out rank a very large corporate static page site. How many times have you seen a blog come up on top of the search engines because of the upated content it has? Would you like your business site or blog to be on top of the rankings on a consistent basis? Fill it with all kinds of content!

Adding audio can make your blog come alive as it can help communicate with your visitors on why they should use your product or service. It has the power of bringing in more customers to your brick and mortar business.

It also positions you as the expert or authority in your industry. Consequently, it makes more people trust you and like you. People are more likely to buy from someone who they know, like and trust.

Just several years ago, “podcasting” was all the rage on the internet with blogs. Podcasting defined is a pre-recorded audio that often included music, and narration of a niche topic and was inserted into a blog. People were podcasting about anything. Whether your taste is politics, sports, job hunting, car racing, religion, online gaming, movies, you name it, there is a podcast for it.

One of the most famous podcasters is Adam Curry. He started a podcast which was a “virtual radio show” called Daily Source Code. He is the sole pioneer in starting the podcast craze back in 2004. With the current popularity of video now there are more videos presented on his site as opposed as audio clips and MP3 files.

Click the “triangle” below for an example of using an audio player on your blog.

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