Microsoft has been seen by some in recent years, to have dragged their feet, when it came to embracing the internet. The handling of applications online has put pressure on the company’s traditional software business.

But Microsoft took a calculated bet that it could extend the life of its current, highly profitable business model without losing out on future opportunities online.

This is all part of the wide industry move towards “cloud computing” .  With the free, advertising supported version of Office, together with options that let companies buy some of its capabilities as online services, Microsoft has shown its full engagement with the cloud.

The aim of the company will now be to convert online users to paying customers. Only about 20% of Office revenues come from customers, and industry analysts expect only a small proportion to be lost as some users give up software to use the service.

Adoption of Google’s online applications have accelerated in the past year;  with new paying customers added at a rate three times faster than a year ago.

Many employees get disheartened as people don’t read their blog posts, and not enough companies actually realise how much money a blog can actually make you.

The biggest mistake people make with their company’s blog is getting the wrong person to write it. Think of a blog as you would a Formula One Car. You can have the best car on the grid, but if you get your Grandmother to drive it, the results will not be to your expectations.

People are anonymous on the internet, and if you put the company junior in charge of the blog, it will either be ignored or ripped to pieces.

And if you apply Game Theory to Social Media; which many of the leading voices in the field are; you are only as good as your last blog post in terms of building the networks you will need to generate business from this.

Your blogger needs to be able to talk about your business and your industry as good as anyone in the company. They are a spokesperson for your brand. The person needs to be paid well, since you are effectively turning them into a public figure; your brand ambassador if you like. Many companies make this mistake.

Always remember, that yours is not the only blog out there. You need to take several steps before you promote your blog. There is a hierarchy!

Step 1: Listen. Go to the leading blogs in your industry. See what is being said, and from there, you can work out what needs to be said. Find your place in the “blogosphere”

Step 2: You must follow first. You don’t lead first. Learn to follow first and people will start to trust you. Therefore, go to industry blogs and leave comments. Reference useful posts within your own posts. Add to the discussion and people will get to know your name.
Step 3: In time, then you can become a leader. But if you have not established yourself as a competent blogger, who can be relied upon for relevant and fresh information, you simply won’t cut the mustard!

Don’t just talk to yourself. Smart bloggers don’t invent something from scratch..they reference others’ posts and then add to them.

You need to be timely in your opinions. If they are not up-to-date, then why would someone bother reading it? You will simply get lapped by bloggers who actually have something relevant to say.

Make it visible as well. People need to be able to find it easily on your company website. Put it on your signature and reference it in newsletters.

Another and final word..keep it under 500 words..that is smart blogging!

Some links that you will find useful for additional reading are:

http://www.readwriteweb.com/reports/community-management/

http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/

Start now: Leave us a comment and then check out this blog..one of the leaders in the field..start participating to build trust and get new business! And please let us know how you fare of course.

On the subject of RSS, more and more people are no longer visiting the actual site where news is posted – they are viewing it in a reader and then going there if they want to. It is highly likely that any story is just one of many in a news reader so do try and write a catchy, attention gathering headline!

This post is really a link and also a plug for the people I am sending you to. Hubspot is a great company and it’s founders have also written a great book called Inbound Marketing. I would recommend you think about buying their book and you should also subscribe to their site – it has loads of excellent material.

The link to their article headlined above is http://bit.ly/bEMLwe

Let me know if you think it is worthwhile. We are always on the look out for new sources of info so do let us know if you have anything good we should be looking at too.

Companies must now tap into online conversations to find out who is talking about them and their brand, what really interests them, and where they are saying it.

The importance of social media is grossly underestimated. People think that by having a Twitter account, that they are one step ahead of their rivals. But they are missing a major opportunity to establish strong relationships with not only current and potential clients, but also internet users that can promote their brand for free!

Social media offers you the opportunity of doing in-depth research at a much lower cost than conventional advertising methods. And it is much easier to measure.

It is possible to set goals and get ROI, but you have to know where
you’re going and what you want to achieve. Tap into the online conversations
to find out:
• who is talking about you
• what they are saying
• is it positive or negative
• where are the conversations taking place
• what communities talk about you
• what are your competitors doing in social media
• what’s the buzz about them
• what content resonates with your audience
• are there subjects of interest you could provide content for
• what social sites have the most conversation
• who are the “fire-starters” you need to connect with
• who are the influencers in these blogs or communities
• where are the opportunities and threats
Once you have this information you can allocate your resources wisely. You’ll know where to start and what social sites you should be concentrating on. When you know the lay of the land it’s much easier to plot a path to your
destination. A social media marketing strategy is your roadmap.

So think about your audience. Who buys your product or service..what are their interests/what’s important to them? Google Alerts, Google BlogSearch, Twitter search, BlogPulse, Yahoo Groups, are good places for you to make a start. These will tell you what blogs, message boards, and forums, are relevant for your business, once you have analysed your target market thoroughly.  It’s not rocket science, but it takes time! It is well worth the effort!

For those of you who have no idea what I am talking about, whilst all the Web 2.0 stuff is great for consumer comments, those comments can be both good and bad. When you look at Tripadvisor, it is highly unlikely that all the comments are 100% positive … if there is a negative comment though, how have the hotel dealt with it – did they just ignore it, or comment back and explain the issues?

How did you react in that scenario – personally, if the hotel ignores the bad comment I would consider that a bad comment on the hotel itself – if it can’t be bothered to reply then how will they be at looking after me?!!

These days of course, there are multiple routes available for people to praise your service, or slag you off too. Either way you should be checking what people are saying about you.

This all came to the fore yesterday when a client of mine showed me his own experience. I think it would be safe to say that when this chap became a client he was less than convinced by my evangelism on the benefits of social media! How he has changed! Not only is he now blogging and tweeting away like a good un, he is now going to add Facebook, Linkedin and YouTube to the mix too … and part of the sources for his articles etc will come from what he reads via the alerts he has set up in Google Reader (personally I use Feedly as I think it is more user friendly).

One of his alerts is his company name of course, so when a particular client started something of a rant in a forum, he was alerted to the comments and was able to go back and respond. He may not be able to stop her saying things, but at least he can balance the view.

I would therefore suggest you go do three things right now if you have not done so already.

• Set up Google Reader
• Set up Google Alerts
• Set up Feedly

Of course you may want to add your competitors to your alert list so you can see what they are up to aswell!!

If you have had any experiences yourself, please let me know, or if you use any other tools I’d like to hear about them too please.

I can now update our blog, send tweets and update fb and Linkedin – all from my phone!

Modern smartphones are pretty much a small computer these days and will only get more powerful in my opinion.

Make sure your site is visible on a phone!

This is a really good article and we would recommend you give it the once over … http://bit.ly/100gn

I don’t know about you, but there is so much information out there at present that it almost becomes overwhelming, so this course should add a degree of structure – at least I hope so as it is a three year commitment on a part time basis.

I fully expect it to directly translate into helping our clients take advantage of all that Digital Marketing can offer.

I quite like my newspaper! Reading The Sunday Times over breakfast and through a lazy Sunday is one of life’s true pleasures in my opinion, but through the working week it is harder to achieve this due to lack of time – in my case I also live in the middle of nowhere so can’t have it delivered to read over breakfast anyway!

What to do?

I am a bit of a news addict – I listen to it on the radio, watch the TV news and also still read the papers. What I am doing now however is using technology to improve my news gathering and better satisfy my craving. I am doing this without any effort and also for free. I am focussing on the topics that interest me and can scan stories related to those subjects from a number of sources quickly and easily.

How?

I use Feedly which in my opinion is the best way to aggregate your news and any other data that you want to follow. It essentially provides me with my own personalised newspaper and it is free – rather than paying for The Times, Financial Times and Telegraph I now get all their stories, or at least the ones that interest me, in one place. I think it is great and would strongly recommend it!

In a business sense, as part of our research setting up social media campaigns and any online marketing campaigns we will research not only what our client is up to but what their competitors are doing. We do this through Google Alerts, which then feeds into Feedly. We obviously use this to see what our competitors are up to aswell! If you don’t have a Google account this is one good reason to have one for sure! Every time your competitor is mentioned in a new article or post you will know about it – which has got to be of some value, even if you are just a nosey parker!

Try out Feedly!