Blogging, Micro Blogging and Social Signals – The Positive Impact on Your Business

Marketing budgets are notoriously hard to justify due to the return on investment being difficult to measure. Running Facebook pages, Twitter feeds and blogs all come in the firing line when trying to justify a budget; the main problem is they don’t appear to drive a large number of sales. Or do they?

I am currently developing a new digital marketing strategy for Ilex Press Ltd as part of my final year study at the University of Brighton. While developing this strategy I investigated the benefits of blogging and micro blogging and the affects it can have on your business and marketing campaign.

Lee et al, (2006) conducted a study on the fortune 500’s corporate blogging and micro blogging strategies and concluded that it is an ‘effective communication tool over the internet’.

While researching this topic I came a across a book called ‘Understanding Digital Marketing: Strategies for Engaging the Digital Generation’ by D, Ryan & C. Jones, (2012) these authors highlight four distinct benefits of blogging and micro blogging which your business could benefit from, they are;

v  Increased Exposure

The use of a blog and twitter feed can enhance the brands profile. Using these platforms as promotional devices is a good way of driving interest in your brand or advertising campaign; this will in turn drive people towards your website or stores creating sales opportunities.

v  High Reach

The reach of the campaign or brand can be greatly extended by using these platforms. Significant increases in awareness can come from authoritative sources which have thousands of followers. Smaller but not insignificant increases can come from customers retweeting or sharing your blog content.

v  Integrated Marketing Communications

Blogging and micro blogging can also offer a great medium for integrated marketing communications. I.e. The content can work side by side with other communication and promotional material.

v  Consumer Engagement

These channels also give the business the opportunity to engage with its customers, creating a two way conversation between customer and business can help create long term relationships. This also greatly improves customer retention.

Creating a Blog

Harnessing these benefits is an incredibly exciting proposition for any business as it may help drive sales revenue and profitability. You may think that you don’t have the skills within your organisation to set up and manage a blog. However, there are many comprehensive guides on the internet to direct you through the process of creating and writing blogs. Two which I have found helpful are below;

1.       Blogger Getting Started Guide - https://support.google.com/blogger/answer/1623800?hl=en

2.       12 Simple Steps to Business Blogging - https://www.simplybusiness.co.uk/microsites/guide-business-blogging/

Blogging and Micro Blogging - Social Signals Improving your Online Visibility

Blogging and Micro Blogging can eventually positively impact your businesses online presence via search engine ranking. Search engines like Google and Bing are using social signals like retweets and blog shares to assess how highly your business should be ranked on specific keywords.

Click here to read a Q&A session with Google and Bing on what social signals count towards your search engine ranking - http://searchengineland.com/what-social-signals-do-google-bing-really-count-55389

An example of social signals effecting a websites Google rank is moz.com; moz.com had just 166 page views until they published a blog called ‘the beginners guide to SEO’ which was then tweeted by smashing magazine who had 779,000 followers. The repercussions where incredible; their page ‘beginners guide to SEO’ popped up on the first page for the keyword ‘beginners guide’ and their search engine traffic increased in line with this.

This is a perfect example why your company should leverage social sites to increase your online presence. After all higher online visibility can be translated into generating a higher number of sales opportunities which will have a direct impact on sales and revenue.

To read more examples on how social signals impact search engine rankings click here - http://www.quicksprout.com/2014/01/31/how-social-signals-impact-search-engine-rankings/

References

D, Ryan & C. Jones, (2012), ‘Understanding Digital Marketing: Strategies for Engaging the Digital Generation’, Kogan Page Ltd, Great Britain

Lee et al, (2006), ‘Corporate blogging strategies of the fortune 500 companies’, Management Decisions, Journal of Management History, Volume 44, Issue 3