Time: 15 minutes, 56 seconds. Click to listen below!

Featured Expert: Kevin Skarritt, Chief Nut, Acorn Creative

Summary: Here’s how social networking opens up new and more effective worlds of marketing and PR for businesses.

Teaser Quip: “The point is, getting your stuff out there, so that people can experience you directly, and to do this by creating great content.”

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 6th, 2007 at 12:24 pm and is filed under ADD Info Summits. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

From the feedback we’ve heard from clients over the last month or so, the idea of blogging as a way to build your business isn’t yet hitting home with all the VIPs of small business.

So let’s bring it home.

First, go to Google. In the search bar, type the name of your industry and then add the word “blog” to it. Chances are, there are people already blogging in your market space. They could be competitors, industry analysts, consultants, media pundits, self-styled consumer watchdogs – anyone who has an opinion and a burning desire to share it.

We just did this with one of our corporate clients in the Voice-Over-IP world, and found no less than 20 blogs in the first page of search results. (That’s because a few sites had multiple blogs running!)

To this, you may say, “So what?”

Imagine you’re at a big event for your industry. Imagine you have no presence there. Imagine all the people who report on your industry – from trade groups to investors to the media – talking to each other, and you’re not part of the conversation. You’re entirely left out of it, because it appears you have nothing to say.

Is this good for your business? Of course not.

A blog, then, is a seat at your industry table. And when you’re at the table, you can join the conversation. Heck, you can even change the direction of it.

The point of blogging is to create a space for dialogue, and you do that by writing something that gives people a reason to respond.

You’re reading news and doing business within your industry. You have opinions about what’s going on in your industry. Your blog is the place to air your opinions, share your sources, and invite feedback.

And here’s what happens as a result:

• More clients and prospects come to your site to see what you’re talking about.
• More analysts come to your site to do their research – and they have more reasons to get involved with you than the competition that isn’t blogging.
• More industry reporters and media folks come to your site, use your comments as fodder for their own material, and reach out to you for more information.
• More industry bloggers add you to their blogs and blogrolls, creating inbound links to boost your natural search engine rankings and a bigger buzz about you in your industry.
• More visibility in your industry means more customers, clients, opportunities, and ultimately, more revenue.

To sum up, blogging can be as simple as:

1. Reading an industry news story
2. Having an opinion on it
3. Typing up your opinion and supporting it with your unique set of knowledge

Could you, and the rest of your team if you have one, do this in 15-30 minutes or so, once or twice a week? Or even a month?

If so, you’ve earned your seat at your industry table.

Now, make the most of the opportunity.

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Lani & Allen Voivod, aka ‘The Content Lovers,’ help budding entrepreneurs and small biz dynamos ‘A-Ha Themselves!’ in fun, innovative, and profitable ways. For FREE articles, tips, and strategies designed to catapult your content and electrify your business, sign up for their ezine, ‘The Inciter,’ at EpiphaniesInc.com!

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 6th, 2007 at 7:44 am and is filed under Blog Bits, Inciter Articles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

The power of effective search engine placement due to rich, relevant, entertaining, information-driven content strikes again.

This time, though, it’s not by way of a popular cartoon character or movie merchandise. No loud corporate sponsors thrusting their wares, no pop-up ads or manipulative agendas catapulted by million-dollar marketing initiatives.

No. This time, the sole purpose appears so pure, genuine, and laudable, it makes this mother of one (with another cooking inside my belly as I type) dizzy with delight.

Say hello to www.BrainPOP.com.

Even the simplicity of the domain name is enough to make a Content Lover clap like wild.

According to the site: “BrainPOP is an educational program that provides curriculum-based content spanning seven main subjects including: Science, Math, English, Social Studies, Health, Arts & Music, and Technology.“

The site boasts a library of more than 600 short, easily digestible, Flash-animated learning clips, and an audience of more than 3.5 million smarties looking to get smarter.

Geared for grades 3-8 and the saintly educators who teach them, BrainPOP’s mini-movies cover everything from: Louis Armstrong to the Electromagnetic Spectrum; Terrorism to Carbon Dating; Acne to the Fibonacci Sequence; Etymology to Maya Angelou.

Best of all, hey’re all hosted by the friendly stylings of regular guy Tim, and Moby, his robot buddy.

The writing is laid back and engaging. Somehow, they’ve wrapped even the most complex information around simple storylines and impressive animations. With graphs, diagrams, and examples weaved throughout, the explanations deliver a lot of bang in the three or so minutes they hold your attention.

As for the design and usability? A feat in and of itself. BrainPOP is simply a remarkable example of how to offer a TON of valuable, thoughtful, purpose-driven information without overwhelming the audience for which it’s intended.

(Thoroughly, wonderfully, beautifully branded, too. They’ve definitely got some serious talent behind them!)

Founded in 1999 and backed up by some big names in education and media (including McGraw Hill, National Geographic, Time Warner, Yahoo, and Popular Science), BrainPOP now offers BrainPOP, Jr. (for K-3), and even BrainPOP Espanol.

Not surprisingly, they’ve earned a bunch of fancy media and education awards, and they’re bound to get a lot more. With quizzes, lesson plans, activity pages, and lots of help for both teachers and students (and all created with state and national education standards in mind), BrainPOP is a constantly growing marvel of ideas, education, and our every-expanding online culture.

Although it’s a subscription-based site (reasonably priced, by the way), they even exercise the Pink Spoon approach effectively - giving visitors a tasty sample of what they’ve got to offer, while letting us see how much more we could have if we pay the toll. I haven’t signed up yet, but after watching my 4 1/2-year-old son mesmerized by movies about Computer Viruses, Kinetic Energy, and Basic Probability, I think we’ll be subscribing soon enough.

Rock on, BrainPOP! You’ve got me addicted to learning in glorious, bite-sized chunks. Thanks for giving so much in so little time. That means a lot to a short-attention-spanned mom like me.

For FREE articles, tips, and strategies designed to catapult your content and electrify your business, sign up for our ezine, “The Inciter,” at EpiphaniesInc.com!

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 5th, 2007 at 2:11 pm and is filed under All About Content. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.