... or, how could you benefit from blogging?

If the premise of this blog is that that the only way to win in the world of marketing is to create value for your customers, and then stay true to that value, than blogging is the ultimate exercise.

Nobody HAS to read your blog. Nobody has to agree with what you say. Everybody can take you on if you don't deliver on what you promise. The lack of dialog with the consumer can sometimes entice us to be smug, and eventually complacent about our success. We forget our real place in the market: that of continuous learning, continuous probing the ever evolving desires and views of those we serve.

Secondly, blogging is a conversation with yourself as much as your audience. It focuses you to examine your opinion and formulate it in a clear and precise way. It makes us more conscious of our thought process and that alone can be a major step ahead of others in the field. (why do people often believe what they perceive as reality anyway? Test your believes, every day.)
And if you are relevant enough to attract a large audience, blogging brings dialog that stimulates cross-pollination of ideas with an audience dedicated to your field.

Soon, you will no longer be anonymous. At least, everything points in that direction. Technology has forever changed the potential for privacy, and signs are that the younger generation is already adapting to this.

The technology to take a picture of someone and now all information that is available about them is already out there (Polar Rose and TAT offer it). This has already changed the dating behavior of some of the most tech savvy users: take a picture of a girl, find out her name, her friends, and if they don't manage their online identity carefully, you can even find out where they live. Creepy for sure, but a technological reality nevertheless.

Just look at the demo:

She takes a photo of him. The system recognizes him via a search on the Internet and tells her who he is.

The aforementioned companies are not the only corps currently developing this. Face.com already have identified 52 million people on Facebook after scanning 9 billion user pictures. Comverse has put this application in practice:

This month, Face.com will open its doors to developers, offering it an API to tap into its data. More applications are sure to follow.

It would seem that the outdoor shopping fragment in Minority Report will soon be a reality.

If Facebook was a country it would be the third biggest in the world. Because of Facebook's large membership, our clients at Online Design Bureau often ask if it still makes sense to build a website. Wouldn't it be better to focus on Facebook instead: they've got such a massive audience?

In the interest of full disclosure, I must add that we are a company that creates websites. We also engage in Facebook marketing and if Facebook was the holy grail, boy would we ditch web design and switch to a full service Facebook marketing company.

But why do we still make websites?

Well, stating that Facebook has such a large audience and therefore should be the main focus of a company is a bit of a reverse logic. While it is true that there are many people on Facebook, there are still a far lager amount of people on the web in general. And just because you have a Facebook Fan Page or group doesn't mean that you'll suddenly amass a lot of friends or fans - or even that your Facebook pages will get that many visitors. You can build it, but they won't come by some sort of bizarre magic.

Driving visitors to your Facebook page will differ greatly from driving traffic to a regular website, and it is true that social networks have traffic building mechanisms built in to them (e.g. the "like" button). But it is also true that you can integrate all these tools into your own website. Notice the social media bar at the bottom of this website, where you can interact between this page and the main social networks on the web.

But both marketing a website and promoting a Facebook page will cost you time, energy and money (they are sometimes interchangeable).

Social networks like Facebook however have an instability built-in that your website simply has not. Right now, Facebook is the hottest club in town. Everyone wants to get in, even though some are talking about leaving Facebook all together on Memorial Day. And that shows you how the web works, soon something else will come along and a new club becomes 'the place to be'. When that happens, all the time and effort that you've spent on building your Facebook presence will have been wasted. You might think that this is extremely unlikely, but it happens all the time. Three years ago, MySpace was the biggest, hippest club in town, today, it is a declining property.

It remains a strategic risk to put all your eggs in one basket and to put your entire online business presence on just one social network - a social network who's existence, popularity or even its functionality is not under your control.

That does not mean that you the power and attraction of social networks should be ignored.

We propose that you build your own Web site as a central hub and use other online resources like social networks, e-mail marketing campaigns and mini-websites as drivers of sustainable traffic.

The power of social networks like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn is is that it enables your clients and readers to share information over their network.

It is therefore important to do three things:

1. Have a presence on the most popular social networks
2. Integrate these networks into your website
3. Remain flexible enough to switch integration of networks with your website when the social networking landscape changes

Promoting yourself on social networks and building a website aren't mutually exclusive propositions. You build a website, than raise awareness of your website through profiles on various social networks. Make sure that everything in your profiles is linking to your website, because that is the place people can keep coming back to long after the social network has been reduced to an ancient city of ruins. Make sure that you actively engage the public on the most important networks (which currently are likely to be Facebook and LinkedIn) and feed the less important networks automated content from your RSS feeds and broadcasting applications (e.g. Ping.fm). Because social networks are more often visited than your website, it is also important to integrate them in your website and make it easy for your website visitors to connect with your social networking accounts. This creates a feedback loop between your website and the rest of the internet.

The era where your website was an isolated island in the wilderness of the internet are gone forever. Thanks to the advancements in SEO, social networking and RSS syndication the membrane between your site and the internet is as transparent as ever.

But you shouldn't count on the internet remaining as it is. The landscape is ever changing, and the roads that lead to your website are here today but could be gone tomorrow. Not to worry though, as old roads disappear, new roads will emerge, and central at them is your website and no-one can take that away from you.

1. Create a blog about something you are passionate about.
2. Design it well. First impressions matter on the web.
3. Develop your personal brand e.g. ‘the marketeer who guarantees return on investment’, ‘the chef who tells you what really happens in kitchens’, ‘the merciless burger connoisseur of DFW’ (burger joint review site), etc.
4. Clearly profile your target audience
5. Try to blog in audio, video and of course, written word. Make sure you do it well. If one of these methods just isn’t you, drop it.
6. Create social media pages: Facebook Fan page, Twitter account, YouTube, etc. Update them in one sweep with Ping.fm and TubeMogul.
7. Create your call to actions for your blog: Facebook connect, Facebook Fan page, Follow on Twitter, Social bookmarking, email to friend option, contact us info, provide a RSS feed for your blog and publish a newsletter with subscription, etc. Capture leads and use every medium to keep your audience engaged with your brand
8. Post content to all these channels
9. Create community: use blogsearch.google.com and find relevant blogs, engage through valuable comments and blog post exchanges. Search for topics on Twitter and communicate. Join topically relevant forums and engage. Join Facebook Groups and fan pages and network with the audience you find there.
10. Keep doing this, day after day: write one blog post, network in social networking sites and forums, interact with bloggers, it will build awareness of your blog.
11. Once you have plenty of content and some following, offer yourself up for speaking engagements. Come up with an original theme, offer to speak for free to begin with until you are known in the circuit.
12. Approach magazines online and offline and offer to write articles.
13. Leverage all the attention you get: start creating seminars and teach people. A seminar of 10 people works for now. You’ll get big soon enough.
14. Now that you are building some worthwhile traffic, start adding affiliate programs to your blog: Commission Junction, Amazon, local businesses, etc. Now you’re making some money.
15. Write a book. This will get you more exposure, more speaking engagements, more seminars and some TV and radio gigs.

Now your website should be attracting lots of traffic. Start reaching out directly to advertisers who share your target audience and begin raking in the money.

Remember that as with everything in life, it is all about a combination of hard and smart work. Blogs and books about online marketing tap into the 80’s yuppie culture of making big bugs fast without much effort. For most of us, this is a dream. Some of us do win the lottery.

But you can slug it out for 18 months, creating a blog post every day, raising awareness of your blog daily using the methods we suggested in our 15 step program, and you will start seeing results. Make it easy for yourself and do work with offshore workers, virtual PA’s, etc. You’ll get more done and it doesn’t cost all that much.

Don’t get fooled, this isn’t about making astounding fortunes. Your blog, providing it has valuable content, you communicate with a carefully selected audience in the social networks they hang out in and treat them with respect, will provide you with a steady income. The ammount of income will be dictated by your negotion skills with advertisers and the amount of traffic your site gets.

Working alone at home can sometimes be hard. We all need the energy an office can bring us, but many start-ups simply don't have the budget to rent out an office and co-work with others.

Share clients

The trick to co-working is to find people who work in industries related to yours. We are web designers, and co-work with graphic designers, copywriters, bloggers with affiliate marketing deals, etc. Each of us has skills the other can use, and we often form partnerships on projects, complimenting each other with each other's skills. At other times, we hear about someone needing a job done that is perfect for some of our co-working partners.

Get a second brain and think outside the box

Many ideas are born out of conversation. You're stuck, can't quite figure out how to move on, so you take a break and discuss your ideas with others who have different skill sets. The combination of different experiences, approaches and temperament often spur on new ideas that you simply couldn't have come up with on your own.

Co-working is great for your budget

A co-working plan can get you an office space for $250 a month, perfectly affordable, and for that you get the gift of companionship. Get a Google Voice account, so people who call your telephone are directed to all the phones that are connected to this account. As a result, being outside of our home office doesn't mean missing any calls.

You don't always have to leave your home office to co-work

With modern technology such as Skype, Twitter and Facebook you can still co-work when you are not physically present at your co-working station. When at home, simply connect with partners who also work from home that day via Skype, and get to experience the feel of a virtual office.