These days blogs are spreading like wildfire across cyberspace. Finding a way to make your blog stand out from the masses takes some work. When launching a new blog to promote your company, it’s crucial to develop a positive, trusting relationship with your readers. The following are a few simple guidelines that can help you use your blog to build a trustworthy reputation.
Do:
1. Maintain a professional voice in your writing to establish credibility.
2. Determine a target audience and write specifically for your readers. If you consistently relate to your audience, then you’re providing a sense of reliability.
3. Create traffic to boost your searchability and increase your blog’s perceived validity.
4. Adhere to advertising rules and terms of service if you subscribe to a blog provider.
5. Research background information for every post you write to add credibility to your blog’s content.
6. Cite trustworthy that can lead readers to other legitimate online information that relates to your industry.
7. Make your blog as interactive as possible by encouraging participation from your readers and nurturing a relationship with your audience. [Read more…]
April Fools: Nonsense Or Good Fun?
April 1st. You know what that means: You can’t trust the news. Not online, and not in print. Everyone and his mother tries to trick you into believing some preposterous story. All in good fun.
It’s also utter nonsense.
I’ve pulled a few April Fools pranks myself, on both a personal level, and as a publisher. Some was so good that they reached trade magazines, reported as real news. That was a lot of fun, especially since anyone buying it would, in one particular case, visit a website which clearly showed what kind of a joke it was. [Read more…]
Determining Media Values for Blogs
Have you ever wondered how a PR or marketing agency computes for media values within blogs? This is very different from advertising value – as there’s always a dollar price slapped on to a specific ad slot. But media value is different – as it takes into consideration other things such as how the message was communicated.
Media value is nothing more than a quantitative way to express the PR generated from your product through TV, radio, print and other below the line events. If you’re an Internet marketer or PR firm, have you developed a way to determine media values for your client? [Read more…]
The Power of a Blog Post: Payment Issue Resolved
Just a quick follow-up to my editorial yesterday regarding advertisers and clients that don’t pay their bills. I used ProToolerBlog’s dispute with BBE Sound as an example, and it proved a good one. The issue’s been resolved, read more about that here. This further proves my point, and question in the title for that matter: How dare they? Neglect to pay that is, a lot of bad press there…
Non-Paying Advertisers and Customers: How Dare They?
Most blogs rely on ads to make money, in one way or another. If you really want to rake in, direct sales is usually the key, but most are settling for Adsense or similar ad networks. There is no doubt that you need to find a way that works for you, but chances are, direct sales is your best bet, if you can manage them.
That brings another problem: The advertiser neglects to pay.
You would think that today, with blogs and everything related to you online is a potential reference someone will read in the future, that advertisers and clients would be cautious not to risk the bad press. You really would think that, but sometimes you get amazed, and a little bit depressed. [Read more…]
BBC Mumbai Twitter Debacle
BBC learned the hard way that Twitter is not always reliable. I doubt they thought so from the start, but the fact that they screwed up their Mumbai terror reporting running rumors floating on Twitter not only looks bad for the publisher, it also hurts the credibility of user generated content online. Steve Herrmann writes extensively on this on The Editors blog. [Read more…]
