By now, most business people understand the benefits of social media and especially blogging. A blog can help turn you into an authority on your given subject, it provides useful information to your customers that will keep them coming back to your site, it provides a way to interact with your customers, etc. When you are developing a blog for business, rather than just a hobby project, there are some things that you need to keep in mind. The folks at Problogger.net have compiled a list of the 9 (really 10) things you need to do before launching your small business blog. Here are my thoughts on this list…

1. Define your customer: I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Rule #1 of marketing is to segment the market (aka define your customer).

2. Determine if you’re going to create a blog within your business website or on its own: It depends on the situation / company, but in general my thought is that you should keep your blog separate from your business site. This way you have multiple ways for your customer to find you, and also so that you aren’t seen as someone just trying to sell something, but as someone that is offering value. This is definitely not a one size fits all decision though so what do I know?

3. Keyword research for domain name: I’ll be honest with you, I didn’t do this before setting my domain. I just thought that Evil Marketer was a cool name. But just like your parents used to always tell you, do what I say not what I do. The Google keywords tool (this can be accessed by signing up for Adwords, which you should do even if you don’t use the ads) is your friend. Use it.

4. Choose a blogging platform and select a design or theme: We’ve talked about choosing the right platform before. Obviously I like Tumblr (especially for a beginner), but do some research and find out what will work best for you.

5. Register your social media accounts: Social media is a great way to promote your blog. Use it. Sign up for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and whatever else you’re going to use (then come back here and use that share button at the bottom of my posts). In the immortal words of Arnold Schwarzenegger “Do it! Do it now!!”

6. Measuring ROI, listening, and your blog’s feed: There are tons of tools you can use to keep track of your success. I’ll probably talk about this in more detail in the future.

7. Draft at least ten posts in advance and have them loaded with preset publish dates:  I don’t really agree with this, but I guess it’s sound advise. In my opinion, if you already have 10 posts ready to go, then you may get lazy and skip days that you know you should be writing. I would say, instead of this tip, that you should come up with topics to discuss, and come into blogging with a commitment to continue for some period of time.

8. Spend some time in forums: This is great advice. Whatever your subject is, go out and find the online communities and forums that relate to what you’re doing. Don’t just spam them with links to your site. Instead you should interact with the community and participate. 

9. Reach out to key influencers: I totally didn’t do this, but perhaps I should have. Who knows, try it out, and let me know how it worked for you.

10. Draft a web optimized press release:  I thought there were only 9 tasks. I guess this one was a bonus. Anyway, if you’re running a business get in the habit of writing press releases. It doesn’t hurt and can only help.

Well there are my thoughts. What do you guys think?

Everyone’s got to start somewhere, and no one becomes an expert overnight. Attending an excellent business school is a great place to start, but as they say, there’s no substitute for experience. In my career as a marketer so far I’ve had tons of experience both good and bad, so let me share what I’ve learned with you…

1. Be patient: I’ve talked about this before. Patience is a trait that every marketer needs to develop in order to be successful. Marketing is all about controlling variables, and sometimes it takes time to see the effects of your work. You need to have the patience (and the guts) to “stay the course”, and see if you’ve made a good decision or a bad one.

2. Begin with mutual respect: Treat everyone with respect. Not just the people ahead of you on the food chain, not just your co-workers, or your customers. You need to treat everyone you meet with respect.  Besides, if they fail to live up to that respect, you can always change your mind later ;-D.

3. Cover your a**: If you don’t know what I mean, you will soon enough. Always make copies of your work, and keep track of everything you work on. Don’t be anyone’s fall guy.

4. Understand your target market: Don’t assume that everyone is like you. Just because you feel that a product or an approach won’t work, doesn’t mean that it will fail. First, you need to understand your target market, and approach your decisions from their point of view. Yes, you should trust your instincts, but you need to also take your personal feelings out of a situation.

5. Learn, not just from your mistakes, but from others as well: You’re a smart person (you are visiting my site afterall), and smart people learn from their mistakes. Everyone knows this already. You need to also focus on mistakes made by other people / companies, and make sure that you do not repeat them. This is why you should always stay on top of the latest developments in your industry, and in business in general.

6. Always get paid: This doesn’t mean that you should only work for money. Sometimes (like a good internship) the payment is experience, or good connections. The point is, you need to make sure you get something out of any effort you put in.

7. Don’t think you know everything: Pick up a marketing textbook from the 1980’s, and you’ll see that business has evolved. Don’t think that just because you have a diploma that you know all the current trends. You need to continue to learn and evolve. If you don’t you’re dead. We’ve talked about this before, and you know better.

8. Create value: Whatever you do, work hard. You may have just gotten a nice job, but if you don’t work hard at it, you’ll be refreshing your resume real quick. If you don’t have a job right now (hey join the club my friend) work hard at getting one, and create your own project (like I’ve done with this blog) to keep your tools sharp while you’re at it.

9. Don’t gossip: Be carefull what you say and who you say it to. You don’t know who’s listening, and talking behind someone’s back completely violates point number 2. If someone starts gossiping with you, just stay neutral and focus on your job.

10. Don’t panic: Everyone makes mistakes. When you’re just starting out, many times you’ll feel the urge to panic when a mistake has been made and will either throw your hands up and run to the boss, or will try to hide the problem. Don’t do this. Be honest with your boss, and come up with options to correct the problem. If they have a better idea, great, but don’t come up to them with a mess that you created, and expect to be bailed out.

Hey, I don’t know everything. You marketing vets out there post some more tips in the comments.