Establish a Good Content Foundation – Invest in Your Blog

According to a January article by eMarketer, research from the social marketing software firm Awareness, Inc. shows that businesses are thinking about getting back into blogging for 2012, and it’s about time. The survey also indicated that businesses are looking at expanding their social footprint to new platforms, but I think the “getting back to basics” with blogging is a particularly good strategy.

While I truly love the relationship-building of social media, it’s often a moving target responsible for a lot of “shiny new toy” syndrome. After a while, we begin to feel like jugglers spinning plates—sooner or later something’s got to give. However, that something shouldn’t be your blog. A blog is quite simply one of the best ways to enlighten prospects about why they should do business with you, and it should be at the core of your content marketing efforts.

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I won’t over think. I will get something wrong. And I will REWORK

That is my way of doing things now. Thinking it through. Thinking of some ways to go about accomplishing my goals (strategies) and then deciding to do it.

I have been reading REWORK, by Jason Fried and David Hansson. With each chapter I feel as though I’m sitting in a church pew and listening to the preacher tell me things that are happening; things that have already happened and now that I know and have been told, some things that just shouldn’t happen at all.

I’ve read so many books on PR, Marketing, Networking and more. Now with starting a new business. I needed honesty. And I like Jason and David’s honesty in REWORK. They did it. They made mistakes. They thought it through. They decided on it. And REWORK and it is working beautifully!

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Beyond Connections, to Building Relationships

It is news to no one that when it comes to marketing, relationships trump everything.

A challenge in the pursuit of this asset is to recognize the difference between connections and relationships. (Or, for that matter, the difference between followers or fans and relationships.)

At the risk of oversimplifying, establishing connections is relatively easy. Building and nurturing relationships is not.

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