I recently asked the help of a few Twitter users to measure the impact that Twitter can have on promoting a blog post. Plenty of bloggers on Twitter will tweet about their own posts but I wanted to see the power of “retweeting“, when other Twitter users put out a link and suggest your blog post to their followers.

The outcome: Some simple Twitter promotion and retweeting DOUBLED my normal blog traffic for the day.

I’ve found myself referring to Twitter as broadcasting channels, no different than TV or radio. Each channel (person) has it’s own set of followers (audience). Some are shared and the sizes, interests and interaction of the audience vary.

The Blog Post To Be Retweeted
The first thing I did was create a post of solid value and interest. No, not all of my posts make this criteria. So I thought that sharing our email marketing campaign statistics would be a great post.

The Twitter Broadcast Channels
Next I hit up some folks I know on Twitter from various web and Internet marketing backgrounds, “Twitter styles” and number of followers. Accepting my request to help were Desarae Veit of Sniki, David Mihm a Portland Web Designer, Kirk Anderson a Wisconsin Web Designer and Mike Rynchek, a Minneapolis Online Marketer. I’ll break down their Twitter handles and followers at the end of this post, but these four broadcast channels and myself gave me exposure to over 2,300 followers.

The Retweeting Message
Here is a screenshot of a Twitter search of the TinyURL that was given to them to retweet my post. You can see how each of them suggested my post/link to their followers and audience.

The Blog Traffic Result
Retweeting and the Twitter broadcasting made my unique visitors double, my page views double and I gained 8 new subscribers that day. No doubt, it was a powerful promotion tool for my blog. I went into this little experiment hoping for a bit of a spike but was very pleased with what it offered up. A few of my retweeters even shared with me that their readers gave them feedback or thanked them for putting them onto my post. How cool is that?

Twitter is a great broadcast tool and traffic generator, not just a great networking tool.

The Twitter Info On Those Who Helped
Here again are those that helped me and how you can follow them on Twitter. They all put out some great tweets on web design, social media, online marketing, SEO and small business. I suggest you follow them.

• Desarae Veit (1400+ followers) http://twitter.com/desaraev
• Mike Rynchek (500+ followers) http://twitter.com/mikerynchek
• David Mihm (300+ followers) http://twitter.com/davidmihm
• Kirk Anderson (150+ followers) http://twitter.com/kirkaanderson

Of course you can always follow me as well at http://twitter.com/AaronWeiche .

Do you have a Twitter story to share on what it has done for your blogging traffic, web traffic or another aspect of your business? I would love to see your comments on this.

While many businesses are interested in the benefits a content management solution (CMS) or a blog can bring to their web presence, many are confused on the types of content to publish and use.  Fresh web content is a component of search engine optimization so it is important to brainstorm, plan and execute production of new web content to your site.

Here are just 5 ideas to add fresh content to your website with a CMS or blog:

1.   Write a short comparison article on your product or service versus the competition.

2.   Produce case studies on clients you have helped.  Describe the solution and how it benefits the client.

3.  Have some fun.  Put together a Dave Letterman type Top 10 list like “The Top 10 Reasons Our Web Geeks Are The Best”.  Humor can also educate.

4.  Spotlight on an employee.  Breakdown their job position, their interests and how what they do is of benefit to the customer / client.

5.  Recap a company event, a community event you participated in or a networking event.  Add a photo to the recap and show your involvement.

There are just five very basic ideas to add content to your website.  These angles not only produce fresh content but will likely contain keyword phrases that are important to your search engine optimization.  We often work with a client to develop ideas on building better content on their website and it can take only a few minutes of creativity to develop a list of 40 to 50 ideas.

The goal is to show both users and search engines your website is alive and well, not ignored and out of date.

Most small businesses have heard of blogging, some read a few blogs and others have jumped into business blogging already. You might be wondering if you should start a blog for your small business. Most small business owners or management I talk to have some misconceptions on blogging. These “blog fears” are often a combination of misinformation from uninformed sources and their own inexperience.

Lets address a few questions that should help you answer if you should start blogging and also squash some of those blog fears.

1. What can I blog about?
The easy answer is what you talk about. Many business owners and management can talk up a storm on their business, their services, products and how they are different. These same verbal exchanges work perfectly for a blog. I often can lay out at least 20 blog topics for a business within seconds. Writing about product features, industry news, service comparisons, new buzz terms, your process and the list goes on. The biggest takeaway here: Make a list of topics you would talk about (blog about). Share your experiences, your expertise and your niche knowledge.

2. How often must I blog?
Yes, frequency has it’s rewards. Consistency is even better in my mind. Even committing and fulfilling posting once a week is worthy of a blog for a small business. You are far better off to put out solid content once a week then to just throw up a few paragraphs daily. I know blogs that post daily without value, they end up with few comments and their content feels very light. I, myself post once or twice every week and I’ve been very pleased with the growth in audience and SEO in the past 6 months. The biggest takeaway here: Once a week posts are enough, but make them valuable. Check out Blue Tent Marketing’s post on Blog Food for valuable posts and content.

3. What about negative comments?
A common “blog fear” is negative comments, I smirk at this one as my first thought is lets get you enough readers to get people commenting. Many businesses fear the slightest bit of negative criticism, especially in a written form online.  Realize that the majority of comments are positive or neutral, probably even over 95%.  Even if you do get something negative or controversial, rise to the challenge.  The Paramount Granite Blog covering granite countertops had this happen, and owner/blogger Barb Rodgers handled it perfectly.  Barb’s blog is a fantastic small business blogging example. The biggest takeaway here:  You likely won’t get anything negative, but if you do … meet it head on, you’ll learn something for sure.

Hopefully I have helped you answer these three questions for your business or eliminated some blog fears.  I want the overall takeaway to be that you need to look into business blogging further or even get started.  I’m an obvious supporter of it and have seen it’s benefits many times over.  If you are a beginning or seasoned business blogger, I would love to hear your path to starting and the experience to date.  Thanks!

I felt like I had come across some great posts and interesting articles with Minnesota roots the past few days and I thought I would pass them along to you. Maybe it’s because we finally had a weekend of 75 degree days with plenty of sunshine to get our great MN minds going.

+ The StarTrib had an interesting article about the private community of North Oaks asking to be removed, and actually being removed from Google Maps.   Gets me thinking of other things people or groups would like removed from the G

+ Lee Odden posted a great summary of 5 reasons that business and corporate blogs fail.  I felt like I was listening to myself talk when reading the post as the items are all things I point out and discuss with clients that bring up an interest in busienss blogging.

+  Caroline Melberg reposted a list of 13 predictions for Internet Marketing that I found 6.5 to be accurate and 6.5 I don’t think will happen.  Caroline also provides her takes on the predictions.

+  Chris Dohman of North Rock Publishing has a great interview on the new media and marketing success for the St Paul Saints.  The Saints are a Northern League professional baseball team.  The post is on their recent Booblefoot promotion (you’ll have to see it) and Chris interviews Sean Aronson of the Saints.  It’s a fun and informative post.

+  Lastly for some food for thought, here is the link to Punch Pizza and their local blog on pizza.   The owners are using the blog as a great way to interact with customers but also their use of Facebook and especially Flickr for marketing / PR is awesome.  Check out the photo contest. They get it, great work.

Home you enjoy these huge posts and bits from Minny, the land of 10,000 great Internet minds.

Last week when I posted about online reviews being used as a marketing strategy, I didn’t grasp that my post would push one of our customers to take action.

Shortly after the blog post hit, which our client Sparkling Clean Window Washing subscribes to via email,  the owner headed off to one of our local pages and left us a great review.  It turns out that Ryan has been nudging clients to use online reviews for his business as well and in loving what Five did for his website wanted to shout out his happiness to others.  Thanks Ryan!

This also shows a nice little process that took place from blogging and interacting with our customers:

1.  Five blogs about online reviews, local search and the positive effect they can have on creating new business.

2.  A client is a blog reader / subscriber and reads this post.

3.  The client realizes they should give a review to help other users looking for a great Minnesota web design firm!

So even thought I didn’t consider this to be one of the outcomes of my post, it shows what business blogging can produce. It can produce reader action and further marketing for us.