5 Reasons Why Companies Should Blog More
As a company blogger, one lays the foundations for the brand’s social reach, builds a strong reader base and delivers the company’s core message. But blogging calls for a lot of time, thought and commitment. Today, Twitter has been accepted as the most popular micro-blogging platform. While the term micro-blogging evolved from original blogging, it has grown more popular today. But blogging has advantages of its own. Companies who blog receive 55% more website visitors as compared to companies which dont blog. Good and regular blogging can help a business grow rapidly. A company should use a blog as a medium of expression and a Twitter account should be used like an outpost. Here are 5 top reasons why a company is better off blogging than tweeting:
- A blog reflects a company’s love and passion for the industry. With a wider spectrum of expression, blogs help companies get their core ideas across in a better way. Regular blogging will last long term only for companies who are committed to the cause of bringing about a change in their industry. In other words, sincere blogging cannot be faked in the long run as a blog is constructed with genuine thought and intent.
- As tweets get older, they get lost and forgotten in a huge pile of other old tweets. Furthermore, Tweets are considered as ‘one time reads’ whereas blogs can be read multiple times because of their informational nature. Older blogs are considered as archives of valuable information and they become more worthy with time.
- Twitter, also known as the ‘SMS of the Internet’, is limited to 140 characters. This limitation is enough to get a thought or a link across but not enough to express an idea. A blog provides you with a wider range of expression and more options to exhibit your ideas. It also opens up options of featuring pictures, videos and audio files on your blog making it a more interesting read.
- Likes and comments on a blog add value to a blog contributing the opinions and facts of other perple from the industry about the topic. This attribute is absent on Twitter. Although retweets and mentions are interactions of the micro-blogging world, they dont quite add any value to the post. So a blog works two ways for both the reader and the writer.
- It is easy to keep track of a blog as new posts add up to the larger body of the blog which is the embodiment of a concept. With every new post, the core idea of the company grows reflecting the belief of the company. This helps the company reaches out to a wider base of readers and also helps it to evolve and realize different aspects of the industry.
Social media and the role of word of mouth
In the competitive online realm, smaller business entities tend to draw a major chunk of their loyal customer base largely through word of mouth. They rely on the buzz generated by any dynamic form of interaction on popular networking platforms. Based on a constant interaction with the prospects, and by seeking their inputs as well as feedback, marketers can grasp the sentiment prevailing within the target community. Here are some important factors that further emphasize the link between social media and the role of word of mouth:
Google Drive replaces Google Docs, so what about Dropbox?
Activate new and Google Docs will be no relevance as a standalone destination, to say the least. Just click on any old shortcut and you are going to get re-directed to drive.google.com. Henceforth, a ‘Documents’ folder will be existing there as a ‘My Drive’ subset, and clicking a ‘Create’ button will lead to a new spreadsheet/ presentation.
Turning Tweets to Transactions
Twitter was always known as a rich source for instantly updated information, but now there’s more to the micro-blogging site. Twitter introduces ‘Chirpify’ which is a new commerce platform that enables a user to buy, sell, donate and transact using tweets. Brands can now directly sell using tweets instead of directing potential buyers to their sales page. With a funding of $1.3 million from Voyager Capital, a financial firm, Twitter’s T-commerce is the future of transactions and it is here to stay.
How to go about it:
All you need to do is sign up for Twitter and open a Paypal account and start tweeting your transactions. Be it for purchasing products or for raising funds, users can now simply ‘chirpify’ their actions. Using the amount, the username and key words like ‘buy’, ‘donate’ or ‘sell’, a transaction can be carried out. When selling something, Chirpify allows a user to set a price, shipping period, schedule and picture of your product in your tweets to showcase your product. One tweet and one reply can now monetize your transaction making the process of buying or selling as easy as ever.
Buy, sell or donate:
A wide array of products and services are sold and bought on Chirpify. These include music, tickets, writing, videos and physical goods. However, the maximum amount that can be spent on a transaction is $2000. It does not have to be only purchases and sales though. Users can simply donate a desired amount to help raise funds for a cause with the ‘donate’ options. Although ‘Chirpify’ is looking to set up other payment options, anyone with a Paypal account can currently deal on the site.
And what’s more! If you’re just there to chill, you can also buy a beer via Twitter. Chirpify powers that too! Click here to check out Tweet-A-Beer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-Uza1MPPow
Read MoreTwesume your way to your next job!
Although one might be tempted to think that if you can fit your resume in 140 characters, you probably haven’t achieved enough to get a job. Quite contrary to it, Twitter’s new trend ‘#twesume’ has now positively grown its roots into the corporate world. Analyzing and grading thousands of pages of academic accomplishments is now passe. The little blue birdie now acts as a medium to reach potential employers by sending across your resume squeezed into 140 crisp characters. Now, doodling on your favorite micro blogging site just might fetch you your next job.
Who’s doin it:
After communications consultant Richard Skaare came up with the idea of ‘The 140 Character Resume’ in December 2008, writer Matthew Wayne Selznick took up the challenge to write his resume in early 2009 and introduced the hashtag #twesume to make it easier for people to search on Twitter. Since then recruiters have increasingly been turning to social media for recruitments. As a matter of fact, in 2011, 89% of companies used social networks for recruiting. Now, 2012 is speculated to be the year of the twesume.
The edge:
A twesume manages to do the work of a traditional resume and cover letter in less time and space. You can now make a micro resume with all the powerful keywords you ever needed and tweet it across. It works both ways for a job seeker as well as a recruiter. A job seeker can take a leap of creativity to catch the eye of potential employers. On the other hand, an employer can manage to have a ‘feel’ for the aspirant’s personality which was previously unachievable with generic cover letters.
How to do your own twesume:
To begin with, make sure your Twitter account is complete with a profile pic and a brief description of yourself. Then all you have to do is put your goals, accomplishments and skills in minimum number of characters and tweet it across. Don’t forget to put out specific hashtags like #twesume with it to make it easier to search for. And you can always link your tweet to your complete profile. Here is what a twesume looks like:
Keeping a tab on Twitter talk, including Retweets
Social data sifting service Gnip has announced the unveiling of two new operators to its Power Track filtering suite, namely Retweet Operator and Sampling Operator that will let a user a user make sure only Retweets matching a rule get delivered/excluded, and a random Tweets sample matching a rule rather than the whole set of Tweets are received, respectively.