Do you automate the marketing of your blog posts? Here’s what I’ve done.

My blog posts are relevant to small business owners and entrepreneurs who want to market their business better. As such, I have them automatically posted to places that small business owners can find them such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and more. I have spent some time automating this process so I can focus on the creation of content and not the marketing of it. Here are the methods and tools I used to automate the updates of my blog posts.

Twitter

I have two twitter accounts; the first, @expertmktgcoach, I tweet each post once, and the second, @debzimmer, I use to repeat the tweets throughout the day.

I use Hootsuite to import the RSS feed from my blog to twitter. This sends out one tweet per account. With Hootsuite, I can also schedule tweets on that second account so that the tweet reoccurs throughout the day.

LinkedIn

My blog headline posts to my LinkedIn status using Hootsuite. Hootsuite also sends the status to Ping.fm which updates numerous other sites that I visit less often.

My blog is then imported into my LinkedIn Profile using the LinkedIn WordPress Application.

Facebook

I use Facebook Notes to import my RSS feed into my Facebook Page. This creates a duplicate copy of my blog on Facebook. I can also use Hootsuite to import the headlines into my wall on my personal Facebook profile or public page.

Social Bookmarking

Using the WordPress Plugin tool for OnlyWire, my posts are automatically bookmarked to numerous bookmarking sites with which I have accounts. It creates bookmarks at more bookmarking sites than I can reach through Ping.fm. Ping.fm reaches other social media sites that OnlyWire doesn’t, such as Plaxo.

RSS Reader

I use Feedburner for those who want to get my blog posts in an RSS reader format.

Kindle

If you are a Kindle user, you can read my blog by subscribing through the Amazon Kindle Store.

SEO

Each post I write is search engine optimized. I use a number of tools including WordPress plugins to assist me with search engine optimization.

Email

There’s one more automation tool I’m considering but haven’t yet implemented. I see that AWebber is now integrated with Feedburner and can send the RSS feeds in email to your subscriber base. I think that sounds way cool. I just wish the tools I currently use offered that service.

That’s all I’ve got on blog marketing automation. Do you have any tools or systems you use that you particularly like?

Anyone can write a blog. Some people write blogs for personal reasons, some write about their hobbies. I focus on how to use a blog as a tool to grow your business.  To be an effective blog writer and to get the most return on your investment of time and money spent blogging, you will need a blog strategy, personal discipline, an internal desire, and unique content.

Your blog strategy will determine why you are writing your blog and what your goals are. You need your plan to include how frequently you are updating it, what types of content it will include, and it needs to speak to your target customer.

Your blog needs to be updated regularly according to your plan. If it is not updated regularly it will get less traffic and be less effective in implementing your strategy. Not only do you have to update frequently, you also need to be persistent and keep at it. It will take time to develop a following. It doesn’t happen overnight. This requires discipline.

You need to have the desire to create the content on a regular basis, and to be persistent. You can’t stop once you start. I have found that once I got in the habit of writing, I about my daily routines and interactions with my blogger goggles on. For example, I was at church thinking “Oh, that would make a good blog post”.

Which brings me to content. You need a content plan that offers compelling content to attract your customers and keep them coming back. You can create a 3 month rolling calendar of what your content strategy, topics and types of articles will be. You can even write them in advance.

• Strategy
• Discipline
• Desire
• Content

These are the 4 key personal characteristics that are required to have a valuable and successful blog.

Blogs are easy to get for free. The easiest and most popular site for hosting your blog is Blogger. If you want advanced functionality, use WordPress.com. Both of these are free. There are actually a ton of free blog sites that add more social features as well.

Why would anyone pay for a blog when you can get one free?

The downside of the free sites is that they will not give you all the benefits of search engine optimization and thus will not optimize the amount of traffic to your site.

A paid blog with your own domain will give you better search engine traffic and thus be better at increasing your customer base and your income. This blog site is written using the open source WordPress.org blog software and self-hosted at Godaddy.com. I chose this because I liked the blog philosophy of WordPress. It is easy to use, is extensible and there are thousands of free plug-ins to support it. I have over 15 active plug-ins at the time of this post. They help with everything from search engine optimization to blog monetization. And, it only costs $5 per month.

Blogging is an easy and inexpensive way to create a web presence, and a blog is easy to keep fresh and up-to-date without the expense of a web developer. If you want to make money at blogging, use a hosted solution where you own the domain name and the content resides on a server you can control.

Blogs can be a free or low cost way to gain more visibility for your business. It can establish credibility in your field. It helps you to be recognized as an expert and thus people will turn to you for advice in your field. This also helps you to build your brand and communicate with your customer. It creates a face to the customer and builds the personality of your brand.

Your customer can subscribe to your blog which enables them to stay in contact with you and strengthen your relationship.  Blogs make it easier for your customer to give you feedback. They simply need to leave a comment after a post.

Blogs can be monetized to increase your sales and add supplementary income to your bottom line. A blog is also a useful tool to increase traffic to your site because the blog format is naturally search engine friendly. It is optimized for search engines. Blogs make it easy for you and customers to get links back to your blog or website which enhances search engine optimization and traffic.

Let’s say you are a crafts-person. A photo blog would be a practical and very effective means of sharing your custom work. A photo blog would do many things for your business, such as:

1) Create a portfolio of projects for your customers to review before making a purchase decision. For example, a painter, you can post before and after photos of her work.

2) A crafts-person could post photos of their booth and customers at the latest event they attended.

3) Allow your existing clients to post comments about the success of the project or event, thereby improving trust and probably conversion of potential clients and increasing the connection and relationship you have with your existing customers.

4) Your clients could link back to your blog post, increasing your search engine rankings and improving traffic to your site

5) When you add comments about the event/project/etc. in your post you can include keywords and increase your traffic and SEO.

6) It gives you more pages to be indexed by an search engine.

Just something to think about. There are many different types of blogs and many different reasons for creating them. One way to think of a blog is that if your business is involved in something informal, dynamic, changing, or current, perhaps it belongs in a blog. A blog is a great way to create an informal portfolio and to market your business or service.

Business Blogging Strategy

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You can get a Free Blog from one of these resources:

• Blogger – A team in Google focusing on helping people have their own voice on the web and organizing the world’s information from the personal perspective.
• WordPress – WordPress is a state-of-the-art publishing platform with a focus on aesthetics, web standards, and usability. WordPress is both free and priceless at the same time. More simply, WordPress is what you use when you want to work with your blogging software, not fight it.
• TypePad – TypePad is the premier blogging service for professionals and small businesses. TypePad hosts many popular blogs and small business websites.
• LiveJournal – LiveJournal is on the forefront of personal publishing, community involvement, and individual expression. One of the world’s most respected blogging platforms.
• Blog.com – Blog.com is the choice for almost two million bloggers. Blog.com provides a fully-featured publishing platform for free. Blog by yourself or establish a writing community, all under an address that looks like: you.blog.com
• Windows Live Spaces – Make your own space on Windows Live. It’s your place on the web to express yourself.
• Facebook – Leading Social networking site.
• MySpace – Second largest social networking site.
• HubPages – HubPages has easy-to-use publishing tools, a vibrant author community and underlying revenue-maximizing infrastructure. Hubbers (HubPages authors) earn money by publishing their Hubs (content-rich Internet pages) on topics they know and love, and earn recognition among fellow Hubbers through the community-wide HubScore ranking system. The HubPages ecosystem provides a search-friendly infrastructure which drives traffic to Hubs from search engines such as Google and Yahoo, and enables Hubbers to earn revenue from industry-standard advertising vehicles such as Google AdSense, Kontera, and the eBay and Amazon Affiliates program. All of this is provided free to Hubbers in an open online community.

Note: To get more marketing lists such as this, go to the sidebar and download our Free Report: “187 FREE Ways to Explode Your Business!”