During lesson 1 we defined the purpose of our blog as it relates to the wants and needs of our ideal audience.  Then, as part of lesson 2, we had to work on refining our blog’s unique value proposition.  These two steps guide us as we think of who we’re trying to write for and why in the world they’d ever want to read it anyway.  Good stuff.  Now it’s time to look outside ourselves, to the competition.  The best part is, one of the best tools to help you do the job is probably sitting on your desktop right now.  Enter Google!

So, just who is your competition? Who’s that guy doing exactly what you want to be doing at this moment?  Who do you admire?  Who’s tweets do you look out for, who’s in your RSS reader?

Reading other blogs is only the first step.  You should also be commenting on those blogs and learning why other people like them.  Then make sure you incorporate all those best practices into your own blog.   But you’re still not finished, because so far you’re only as good as your competition, you’re still not better.  To get ahead, you need to figure out how to be better.

The key to being better is to circumvent a head-to-head competition.  Find that one thing where you dominate, exploit the hell out of it, and in the process – blow your competition away.  Maybe you have more insider information, or you’re more entertaining, or you’re funnier… whatever.  Figure out your niche, and a group of readers will think your blog is just plain better.  Why?  Because yours has more of what they like – and so starts the domino effect.

Comb through the blogs of your “idols” and figure out how they could be better — then make those improvements on your own blog.  But be careful, this isn’t about adding features or functionality just for the sake of checking a box.  Invest resources and time in things that actually improve  the experience for your readers.  Think about what would make a potential reader prefer your competition’s blog over yours.  More importantly,  think about what you can do to persuade readers to stick around with you instead of  someone else.

Here are a few ideas to help guide your research.  Keep your audience in mind as you brainstorm about ways to make your blog stickier.

1. If the competition blog doesn’t allow comments, maybe you can offer a forum for your readers and encourage community.
2. Does the topic you cover lend itself to merchandise?  Could you / should you offer merchandise on your blog?
3. Can you incorporate design elements into your blog to make it more appealing to your audience?
4. How about usability, can you make improvements to navigation or your site search engine?
5. If the competition’s blog has a closed format, can you link out to other cool stuff where your competition doesn’t?
6. If your competition relies heavily on external sources, can you increase your blog’s value by beefing up your own writing?

Get the one-up on your competition by increasing the value of your blog in the minds of your readers.  I’d love to add to this list, so if you think of additional questions I can add to help guide others, let me know in the comments.

Related posts:

1. Starting a Business Blog – Lesson 2
2. Starting A Business Blog – Lesson 1

You have your news, but without getting it into the appropriate media channels, it’s not worth much.  You need to get it to journalists, editors, bloggers and websites to make a splash:

Traditional Media. Newspapers, magazines and journals are always in need of fodder to publish.  Sending a release to an editor or journalist is easy, but getting results can be difficult, especially the more popular the publication.  Editors at Fortune Magazine, for example, are inundated by press releases every day, so chances are slim they’ll actually be interested in yours.  If, however, you send it to the Dog Walker Association Journal (completely fictitious as far as I know), they probably don’t get nearly the number of releases, so your chance of getting coverage in your niche is much better.

Blogs. Bloggers are as much journalists as the folks working at a “real” publication these days.   You stand a good chance of a blogger being interested in your release than a busy magazine editor, if you do it right (see tips at the end).

For both traditional media and blogs, you need to research the appropriate contact (the editor or blogger who covers your industry) and reach out to them personally (email usually works nicely).  Be polite, introduce yourself and your product and explain how readers will benefit by using it.  Make this first contact (and every contact for that matter) about them, not you.

Websites. Press release distribution services like that of PRWeb.com are able to reach a network of websites within a niche to automatically publish your release to the industries you designate and news sites like Google and Yahoo! in an automated fashion.  The service can be costly with prices starting at $80 per press release.

Check out this video by PRWeb.com illustrating how their press release distribution works:

Which do I recommend?

All of the above. Work on developing a network of contacts both within traditional media channels (to benefit from their reach) and popular blogs in your category (to benefit from their influence).

A pleasant side effect of your PR efforts is the boost in search traffic.  Creating relevant backlinks to your website increases page rank and gets you on Google’s good side.  Track your website referrals through your analytics program to figure out what’s working.

Tips:

• Make sure you contact the editor or journalist that covers your topic – don’t bother with the general inbox.
• Please check your spelling – especially of their name!
• Make the introduction personable – No “Dear Sir”
• Read the publication (blog, magazine, or newspaper) you’re pitching to – make sure it’s a good fit.
• Proofread.  Proofread.  Proofread your press release.
• Include contact information including web address, phone and email.

Related posts:

1. Tools For An Optimized Media Relations Strategy
2. Public Relations 101 – Learn the Basics

Alright, moving on to the next step in the process:  Once we’ve figured out what topics our blog should cover by first looking at what our intended readers want and need, we have to figure out our Unique Value Proposition so we can properly market the blog.

We need to be able to answer the question in every potential readers’ mind: “Why should I pay attention to you and what you have to say on your blog instead of some other person/company?”  Yes, it’s true, our readers are looking out for #1. And it’s our job to convince them that our blog is of value to them.  They want to know what’s in it for them, what they’re getting and how that makes their life better.

“On our blog, we cover the latest news in our industry.” Awesome. Really. But still not a UVP, so try again. That tells the reader what they’ll will find there, and if in your industry, they will surely understand how that would be important.  However, it still doesn’t explain why they should read YOUR blog rather than some OTHER industry news blog.

There are about a bajillion blogs out there. And let’s face it, everybody’s strapped for time. Justifying the time investment (no matter how small) you’d like your readers to make is critical to the success of your blog. This is the unique part of your UVP. What makes you, and therefore your blog, unique?

Once you’ve figured out what makes you and your blog one of a kind, you have to figure out if it’s sales-worthy.   You need readers, enough of them to make it worth your while. A sizeable audience interested in reading your posts is the other key to success.

So to sum up: The 2 keys of a winning UVP:

1. It must be clear about what makes your blog a standout in the crowd.
2. It has to be something people actually want.

If you don’t have a UVP, or your current value prop needs some work, take time to develop this concept.  To help guide your thinking, we’ve provided a few questions you can ask yourself.

• Do you talk about topics as they relate to a particular segment of the population? demographic?  industry?  entity?
• Do you blog about a niche topic?
• Do you have a unique perspective on a common topic?
• What kind of tone do you take in your blog? funny? casual? educational?
• How will readers participate in your blog? will comments be turned on?  will there be a forum? surveys?
• Are you going to track comments and respond frequently to your readers?
• Are you going to let readers and commentators interact with minimal involvement?
• How are you going to interact with other websites and blogs? links to external content?  guest posts?

Good luck with this – let us know if the task was difficult or easy for you in the comments.

Related posts:

1. Starting A Business Blog – Lesson 1
2. Starting a Business Blog – Lesson 3

Forrester’s 2009 report about sponsored conversations defended pay-per-posts as a valid approach to drive buzz for companies.  The analysts define  sponsored conversations as:

A marketing technique in which marketers provide financial or material compensation to bloggers in exchange for their posting blog content about a brand.

Each blogger has an audience, the members of which implicitly trust the opinions of said blogger.  Put simply, if the blogger endorses a product or company, their audience will be more inclined to buy it.

Sponsored conversations accomplish a couple of things for your company:

1. They get to show the hands-on experience of using your product, which can’t be otherwise seen through advertising or in-store sales.
2. They widen your exposure for a relatively low investment.

The key to making the arrangement work for all parties is disclosure and authenticity on the part of the blogger and sponsoring company.  Bloggers should be allowed express their honest opinion, so there are some obvious risks.  For one, your whole plan could backfire if you get a negative review.  To be honest though, bloggers, by nature, tend to be genuine types of people, so they probably wouldn’t accept the assignment if they didn’t already have at least a neutral opinion about your brand or product.  The risk is there and it’s real so it’s good to plan ahead in the event such a scenario actually plays out.

I personally have reviewed everything from my delectable (no, really) Epson Workforce 600 to books. I find it’s a great way to engage with a brand and understand how it can help my audience.

So what do you think? Is your company embracing this new form of promotion? Will you start?  Let me know in the comments.

Related posts:

1. Public Relations 101 – Learn the Basics
2. Social Media Monitoring Checklist
3. How Smart Businesses Join Social Networks

Social media monitoring can be used to inform loss prevention, corporate communications, employee relations, and public relations teams as well.  With this in mind, we’ve put together a list of categories you should consider creating monitoring terms for.  You should adapt this list to your particular business.

1. Company name
2. Company URL
3. Product names
4. Product URLs
5. Employee online activity
6. Employee professional and personal blogs
7. Public facing figures
8. Competitors
9. Industry websites/blogs
10. Relevant Wikipedia Entries
11. Third Party Influencers
12. Key Stakeholders

We don’t think this list is nearly complete, so if you have suggestions for adding to it, let us know in the comments.

Related posts:

1. Social Media Excuses: Twitter’s Not For Kids
2. How Smart Businesses Join Social Networks
3. Public Relations 101 – Learn the Basics