Virtual Impax

One of the most common “objections” I hear from prospective clients about launching a blog is the concern over the perceived time investment required.  For many business people, the term “blogging” brings visions of hours spent preparing daily blog posts.   This leads to the  most common battle cry uttered by small business owners, “I don’t have time to blog.”

There are two ways to look at “blogging”.  One view – the most popular one – is that in order to become a ” business blogger” one must post an article each day – or more.

It’s true – if you want your blog to BE your business – then posting daily – even hourly – is almost a requirement for success.  If however, you want to use your blog as a marketing tool for your business instead of becoming your sole source of income – it’s possible to build a successful business blog in as little as an hour each week.  Of course the next question you must answer is to define how you’ll measure blog success.

Unfortunately, this perceived time poverty by small business owners can lead to a number of missed opportunities in the future.

It’s almost a cliche to say that time is money.  Not only does time equal money but  time also affects the value of money. The time value of money  states that the value of money is affected by time.  For example, if you’re a rational person and you’re offered the choice between receiving $100 today or $100 one year from today, you’ll probably choose to receive your $100 today.  That $100 is worth more today because it can be put to work to be worth MORE  in one year than it is today.

You may think that the same “rule”  holds true of the time available to you as well.  Perhaps you think that the time you have available today  or even this week  is more valuable than time available in the future.   After all, time is the ultimate perishable commodity.

It might surprise you to learn that – when it comes to the web – your time today isn’t worth as much as the time you invested last year.

When it comes to building a web presence – older content is ALWAYS better than new content.  The only exception to this rule is blog posts – which momentarily get a “pass” when it comes to the “older is better” rule.

Do a search for any competitive term and then look at the AGE of the content returned naturally and you’ll see that older content is more respected content when it comes to the web.  Of course, there are literally a hundred or so other variables at play when it comes to determining SERPS – but it’s an established fact that older content seems to have an advantage when it comes to winning the search game.

This preference for older content by the search engines means…

Business blogging is one of the few pursuits where the time you invest today can earn interest tomorrow.

In my blog post, “Measuring Blog Success” post – I tell my own personal story of how a single blog post created measurable results… results that literally required YEARS of preparation to achieve.  Unscrupulous marketing gurus might try to package the experience as “Buy my report where you’ll learn how 30 minutes spent preparing a blog post resulted in a five figure payday for me.”

However – I’m well aware that the 30 minutes I spent preparing that initial post was preceded by literally hundreds of blog posts and years of preparation and I’m not about to try to sell you on anything less than the unvarnished truth.

The unvarnished truth is the “overnight success” stories are – 99 times out of 100 – anything BUT overnight.  Many overnight success stories have taken literally DECADES of preparation.

I recently heard from a client who began blogging for his business two years ago.  He recently landed a new client who told him the reason she chose him over dozens of his competitors was his blog.    Even if this is the ONLY client he ever lands from his blog – his time investment in blogging has already been a measurable success.

My client writes infrequently about problems he solves for his clients on his blog.  Truth be told, he probably doesn’t spend a full hour a week on blogging – but by sharing his insights via his blog – he has created a way to  build the trust needed to convert prospective clients into paying clients.

Did I mention that two years ago – this client also claimed he didn’t have time to blog?

However, over the past two years – he’s build a blog filled with success stories.  He also has a “traditional” set it and forget it style web site for his business – one that has 10 pages of static content.  Over the past two years – he’s published over 100 blog posts which means, from a search engine point of view – he has over 100 “pages” of content.

Not only does he now have 100 more opportunities to be found via the web – he also has created an archive of client success stories – success stories which impacted one woman so powerfully that she felt compelled to tell him during their first meeting that his blog was the reason she chose to hire him.

This client’s business is growing – and as such his time is becoming much more “valuable” which means he’ll probably have LESS time to invest in “blogging” in the future.  But that’s ok – because the time he’s already invested creating blog posts was time well spent.  He’ll continue to reap the benefits of his blog for as long as he keeps his blog.

Anyone who tells you that you can build a successful blog – or a successful business – overnight is simply doing their best to part you with your hard earned money without as much as kiss to go with it.   However, I can’t think of a better investment in time – or energy – than building your own business and the blog you use to promote it.

Unfortunately, when the gloves come off – the “I don’t have time to blog” is usually an excuse.  It’s an excuse used to cover up what may be literally a CANCEROUS TUMOR which may be growing within the belly of your business.    More on that next time.

How do you measure blog success? Is it determined by the number of RSS subscribers?  Is it determined by how many  blog comments?  Do you measure blog success by how much money you can make from your blog?

There are many different ways to define blog success and the list above doesn’t begin to exhaust the possible definitions of success. Because blogging is new, we’re still LEARNING about all the things blogs and other social media tools can (and can’t) do for a business.

We’re learning that blogs are a HORRIBLE “Minor Sale” facilitation tool.  If your business is making Minor Sales -sales which do not warrant an investment of time or energy into researching alternatives – then a blog will probably not be a profitable investment of your time and energy.

On the other hand, if your business is making Major Sales – then a blog is almost a “must have” tool in your marketing toolbox. (Read more about whether a Blog the Best Marketing Tool for Your Business)

Unexpected Blog Success

A couple of years ago – I converted this traditional HTML web site to a WordPress blog.  In making the conversion – I changed paths so to speak.  I went from a “set it and forget it – softer easier way” HTML based web site to a dynamic, constantly changing blog.

While the change from a static HTML web site to a blog has meant more time and energy being invested in the “care and feeding” of the blog -it’s also resulted in some outstanding “side” benefits – benefits above and beyond introducing prospective clients to me – my thinking – and my services.

For example, last week, I got a phone call from a client who had a turnkey online training business for sale.  She had contacted me and asked if I knew of anyone interested in buying her business.  This is traditional marketing  101.  If I hadn’t had a blog, I would have done as she had done and sent a “mass” email which outlined the opportunity to everyone in my address book.  However, because I had a blog – I was able to create a blog post and then send emails to  my contacts who might be interested.

For the next six weeks,  I received a steady stream of people expressing interest in the business.  Surprisingly – none of them were from my immediate sphere of contacts.  Without exception, all of the interest in the business came from virtual strangers.   Some left comments – which I did NOT approve to protect their privacy – while others contacted me via my contact page.  It wasn’t an overwhelming flood of response- but it was enough for my client to set up an auto responder to deal with the inquiries.

According to my client, the quality of the inquires was truly amazing.  Many were real prospects – which put her in the enviable position of being able to pick from the best offer. I’m not a business broker – nor do I play one on TV.  However, with a small investment of time and energy, I helped to connect my client with not just one, but several serious prospective buyers.

My willingness to turn from the softer, easier – “set it and forget it” style web presence has been one of the best investments of time and energy I’ve made.   However, I think it’s important to point out that when I launched this blog – becoming a business “pimp” was not part of my grand blogging plan.  This experience just provided a very POWERFUL illustration of the unexpected long term benefits one can expect from business blogging.

There are plenty of people out there who are definitely willing to sell you their system to the softer easier way to achieve blogging success – but I’m not one of them. My “blogging help” resource is called the 8 week Power Blog Launch – not the “overnight success blog launch.”  That’s probably because the one thing I’ve learned over the years is that seeking the “softer, easier way” ultimately leads to regular attendance at 12 step meetings of one kind or another!  🙂

However, if you’re looking for a reason to begin blogging for your business – the best reason I can give is you that you never can tell what future opportunity lies ahead.  I have yet to say to myself, “Darn!  I wish I hadn’t converted my html web site into a blog!”

With that said, I don’t recommend reckless business blogging – on the contrary.

Determining HOW you’ll measure the success of your blog is the first step to ACHIEVING blog success.

Start your blog with a plan.  The old “if you fail to plan then you’re planning to fail” cliche comes to mind.  However, with that said – you also shouldn’t try to “contain” the direction your business blog blog takes.

When you begin to blog for your business, it’s best to adopt an adventurer’s mindset.  Be ready to accept a possible “alternate” blog success scenario.  Maybe you don’t need 50 comments per post to achieve blog success.  Maybe you don’t need 10K RSS subscribers to call your blogging experiment successful.

Maybe – just maybe- you’ll find a whole new way to define blog success.

The first installment in the Social Media Mistakes series covered the “ignore it and hope it will go away” mistake.  The second mistake is usually the next misstep businesses make with social media… they try to manipulate it.

In the blog post, Social Media Marketing – what you don’t know CAN hurt you! I share the story of how Belkin – a manufacturer of electronics – got caught in an attempt to play the social media marketing game by gaming those results.

Rather than rely on customers to post real reviews of Belkin products- they decided to advertise and offered to pay for post positive reviews.  Their advertisement was seen by Arlen Parsa who happened to have a blog.  Even though he’s not a reporter, he broken the story like a pro in Exclusive: Belkin’s Development Rep is Hiring People to Write Fake Positive Amazon Reviews.  Other bloggers saw this post, picked up the story and carried it as well.  Suddenly, Belkin has a PR problem.

Fortunately for Belkin, they weren’t new to the web so this “scandal” didn’t eclipse their long established web presence.  It’s still there – but it’s never reached #1 on a search for just the business name.  The same wasn’t true of the Cash4Gold Social Media Meltdown.  Cash4Gold actually had to launch an AdWords campaign on their own brand because the scandal stirred up by social media eclipsed their measly online presence.

For many businesses their first foray into the wild and wonderful world of social media is when they discover a social media shit storm (links to a story about United Airline’s own social media PR disaster) has erupted and their beloved brand is at the epicenter.  They come face to face with a disgruntled customer’s blog post  and the first order of business is to get rid of it.

It’s human nature.  None of us wants a blog post lambasting our business out there for all to see.  It’s even worse when the blog posts has comments that say, “Glad I found this – I won’t be doing business with these guys.”  That has happened on my own bitchy blog post, “When the Pest Control Company is your most Annoying Pest!

As a business owner, you need to understand that social media users tend to feel a type of social media moral obligation to share their experiences with their online tribe. This is nothing new – people have always felt compelled to share their experiences with others – the difference now is that sharing is “etched” in the stone which is the most comprehensive directory mankind has ever created

Important take away for business owners and brand managers

Recognize that social media is giving customers a voice – their complaints can no longer be counted as “customer noise“.   With that in mind, remember that the web is usually not the FIRST step in an effort to resolve an ugly customer service situation.  In the case of United Airlines – it took SEVERAL disrespectful interactions before Dave Carroll composed his now famous ditty.  (Read What to do when Social Media creates a Shit Storm for more on this story.)

Had Dave Carroll’s experience been “unique” – had he been the only one who was treated with blatant disrespect by United Airlines – his attempts to share his story would have fallen on deaf ears.  Instead, there are hundreds – perhaps thousands – of people who have had similar experiences with United.  They connected with Dave’s authentic experience – thus the viral nature of Dave’s musical retort.

This is why most attempts at manipulating social media fail miserably.  There seems to be a built in “bullshit detector” in social media. Maybe it’s that you can’t fool all of the bloggers all of the time… but for whatever reason – I have yet to see an example of an inauthentic customer complaint getting any traction online.

If you’re a business owner or brand manager – and you see bad buzz in social media about your company – the absolute FIRST step is NOT to try to “manipulate” the situation. Your first job should be to assess and correct the situation internally.

Diagnose and correct the problem – then make your apologies.  You might be surprised how willing people are to forgive you and your employees when you authentically make amends.   You also might be surprised how an inauthentic response can actually make the situation worse in the long run.