So whats the big deal about using a blog in your marketing then?
I just wanted to write a quick post here for my readers who are blogging right now or thinking of using a blog in their marketing.
There is no doubt that a blog can assist your online business, but I find that most new people really don’t understand fully what a blog can do for you.
So to assist you in getting started, here is a bullet list of the type of things you can expect from blogging…
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Branding - As a blogger you will be respected more as a leader and an authority in your niche which goes a long way to branding you as a person who has the knowledge and value to help others (crucial)
Lead Generation - Having a blog is a great tool to help you with lead generation. You will be surprised at the amount of people who first visit my blog here and then click through to my capture page and optin
Show Case - Your blog is a great place to showcase your ability and knowledge in your niche. When someone is researching your opportunity or researching whether or not they would like to work with you, one of the first places they will look is on your blog to find out if you really have “the goods” or not
Hub – your blog becomes the central place in your marketing efforts were people are referred to and arrive from around the blogosphere and social media community
Content Syndication - Blogs will help you syndicate your content throughout the social media community. For example, the moment I click the button to publish this post on my blog the content is syndicated (duplicated automatically) on other blogs and sites around the internet
Comments & Interaction – A blog will help you to engage in dialogue (important) with those people who read and comment on your posts. This is a great way to “break the ice” with new people to your blog and begin a relationship (powerful for businesses)
Embedding Content - With a blog it is very easy to embed pictures & videos into your posts on the fly which gives your post more depth and appeal
Retweeting – A lot of people who visit my blog here actually click on the Retweet button at the top and bottom of each post which sends a link for my post out to their Twitters followers. Everyday I get several people doing this from my blog (powerful & viral)
Bookmarking – Your blog posts can easily be bookmarked by your visitors. At the bottom of most blog posts there are tiny graphic icons that visitors can click on that will take the details of your post and bookmark it on a bookmarking site like Digg & Stumbleupon for example
Your History – Visitors to your blog can easily see that you have a history of engaging the social community and can also look back into your history to find out what you have been writing about
RSS – Really Simple Syndication gives your followers the ability to follow your blog by using an RSS reader. An example of this is Google Reader, where you can add someone’s blog feed in there that you are following and the moment they update their blog with a new post the content is syndicated into your reader. This is great if you are following lots of people in your niche as it will save you have to regularly visit their blog to see if they have updated it or not
Product Sales – By including certain product banners on your blog that are relevant to your niche you can easily sell products that you create or affiliate products from your blog. This is great for generating extra income to fund your marketing efforts
Baclinking – having a blog gives you the ability to receive backlinks (links from other blogs) which count as a referral when it comes to search engine rankings. Backlinks also drive traffic to your blog from other blogs (cool)
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As you can see, having a blog is a very powerful tool to be using in your marketing arsenal that I recommend all online marketers to work with. And they great thing is that they are not hard to work build and work with.
Another great aspect to owning a blog is that you can participate in something called a blog meme.
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What Is A Blog Meme?
For a better explanation of what a blog meme can do please see Heather C. Stephens excellent blog called Clever Marketing and the post called A Clever Marketing Tip to Get Traffic to Your Blog with a Meme.
In short… blog meme’s are a great way of driving extra traffic back to your blog as well as creating extra exposure and branding for you as a marketer. It’s also very good for SEO and backlinking.
Who Started This Meme?
This meme was started by Ana Hoffman. You can read here post on Blogging here… How Blogging Can Increase Your Lead Generation by 67%
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Who Else Is Cool…
You might like to check out these cool bloggers for their contributions here…
Jim Yaghi – A very cool and inspiring Google PPC expert
Jonathan Budd – An inspiring guy, half my age, and an incredible online success story
Adam Holland – My mentor and coach
Dez Futak – Doing a great job for a pom 
George Fourie – Inspiring
Sonny Lanorias – Also inspiring
Thanks to these cool people for being there.
Comments & thoughts below…
