Welcome - this is my first blog entry EVER. I’ve started a blog because everything I seem to read about business these days talks about how important social media is to growing a business. I thought I should learn about it and experience it so that I can help my non-techie clients understand its value. So, if you’re one or two steps behind me, I invite you to learn along with me. If you’re ahead of me on the learning curve, sit back and have a good laugh - maybe even clue me in if I’m really missing the boat.
Ever heard of Google analytics? A few months ago one of my technology clients tipped me off to this service provided by Google. It provides statistics on your website traffic so I’ve been monitoring my traffic for a few months now. It’s dismally low - I’m talking about 67 - 140 hits a month. So this got me asking the question, “how can I get more hits on my website?”
My mission these days is to learn how all of these separate social media puzzle pieces fit together. I’m curious to understand whether all small-medium sized businesses can benefit from a social media strategy or whether just certain sectors stand to really benefit.
I’m off to an ‘unconference’ this weekend…a podcamp. I’m predicting that I might just be the oldest person there. What the heck! I’ll keep you posted.
Great to see you blogging Kathy! I’m a firm believer that social media and the tools surrounding it provide a conduit for customers to echo (with a much larger audience) the good or bad things a company is doing.
It’s important to connect with customers in places they exist online but strategy or not, doing great things, listening to your audience, and providing top-notch customer service remain critical building blocks - social media is just a powerful amplifier.
Looking forward to future insight on the subject.
It’s taken me quite a while and a whole lot of work to get my traffic up to where it is. Part of that was the subject matter that I concentrate on (municipal politics), and so I started to solicit submissions from other people and expanded the range of things that I was blogging about. If traffic is all that interests you, there are some subjects that draw people like flies. Like cats. Go figure
But if there’s one thing that I’ve figured out that’s true in my case, it’s that the more I blog the more traffic I get. Even when nobody’s leaving any comments. And try not to have too many days in which you don’t post anything. Even if it’s just one post, it makes a big difference. When somebody takes the trouble to visit your site they like to find something different. Anything. If it’s the same as what was there the last time they visited, they feel like their effort was wasted. And they’re a bit less inclined to come back the next time.
If it’s a business site then naturally you’re going to talk a lot about business things. But don’t think that it has to be exclusively business. In fact, I’d suggest that it’s imperative that you toss in some non-business posts from time to time. Posts that will connect with your readers on a personal level. I like to feel that the businesses that I frequent see me as a person, a unique individual, and not just a ‘customer.’ When I walk into a coffee shop and it’s made before I can even get to the counter because they remember exactly how I like it, I feel valued.
Last quick thought. Unless you can count on the fingers of one hand the number of years before you can start to collect your Old Age Pension, you weren’t the oldest one there. LOL.
Hi Greg,
Thank you so much for your comments. I really appreciate the knowledge you shared about the importance of frequency, variety and human-ness when it comes to blogging. I’ll be checking out your blog from here on in.