Chapter 6:Acquiring Customers Through Blogs and Twitter
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Chapter 6:Acquiring customers through Blogs and Twitter In this chapter, we have discussed about how to acquire customers through Blogs and Twitter. A blog is a discussion or informational site published on the World Wide Web and consisting of discrete entries typically displayed in reverse chronological order (the most recent post appears first). Until 2009 blogs were usually the work of a single individual, occasionally of a small group, and often covered a single subject. More recently "multi-author blogs" (MABs) have developed, with posts written by large numbers of authors and professionally edited. MABs from newspapers, other media outlets, universities, think tanks, advocacy groups and similar institutions account for an increasing quantity of blog traffic. The rise of Twitter and other "microblogging" systems helps integrate MABs and single-author blogs into societal new streams. Blog can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog. The emergence and growth of blogs in the late 1990s coincided with the advent of web publishing tools that facilitated the posting of content by non-technical users. The term "weblog" was coined by Jorn Barger on 17 December 1997. The short form, "blog", was coined by Peter Merholz, who jokingly broke the word weblog into the phrase we blog in the sidebar of his blog Peterme.com in April or May 1999. Shortly thereafter, Evan Williams at Pyra Labs used "blog" as both a noun and verb ("to blog", meaning "to edit one's weblog or to post to one's weblog") and devised the term "blogger" in connection with Pyra Labs' Blogger product, leading to the popularization of the terms. Early blogs were simply manually updated components of common Web sites. However, the evolution of tools to facilitate the production and maintenance of Web articles posted in reverse chronological order made the publishing process feasible to a much larger, less technical, population. Ultimately, this resulted in the distinct class of online publishing that produces blogs we recognize today. Microblogging is the practice of posting small pieces of digital content—which could be text, pictures, links, short videos, or other media—on the Internet. Microblogging offers a portable communication mode that feels organic and spontaneous to many and has captured the public imagination. Friends use it to keep in touch, business associates use it to coordinate meetings or share useful resources, and celebrities and politicians (or their publicists) microblog about concert dates, lectures, book releases, or tour schedules. A wide and growing range of add-on tools enables sophisticated updates and interaction with other applications, and the resulting profusion of functionality is helping to define new possibilities for this type of communication. Examples of these include Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr. Since 2006 inbound marketing has been the most effective marketing method for doing business online. Instead of the old outbound marketing methods of buying ads, buying email lists, and praying for leads, inbound marketing focuses on creating quality content that pulls people toward your company and product, where they naturally want to be. By aligning the content you publish with your customer’s interests, you naturally attract inbound traffic that you can then convert, close, and delight over time. There are four essential actions such as Attract, Convert, Close, and Delight inbound companies must take in order to obtain visitors, leads, and customers. Provided at the bottom are the tools companies use to accomplish these actions. Many organizations have faced in recent years as they consider whether their own blog content will be of value to their bottom line. While it depends on your organization and what specifically you focus on and hope to achieve, blogging can be a great opportunity for some organizations to enter the social media world, present their company as people rather than marketing or P.R. and create a unique opportunity to get their name out there. Micro-blogging is defined in Wikipedia as “a form of blogging that allows users to write brief text updates (usually 140 characters) and publish them, either to be viewed by anyone or by a restricted group which can be chosen by the user. These messages can be submitted by a variety of means, including text messaging, instant messaging, email, MP3 or the Web”. Popular examples of micro-blogging services include Twitter and FriendFeed. In additional the status feature of social networking services such as Facebook provides another example of micro-blogging. A superficial look at Twitter might lead to the conclusions that micro-blogging services such as Twitter provides nothing more than trivial content and has no relevance to the information professional. However many Twitter users who have chosen to spend time in exploring its potential benefits. Twitter, like blogs, can be used for a variety of purposes although it also has the potential to be used as a communications medium, with Twitter users asking questions and discussing issues. In this respect Twitter has some parallels with chat rooms. But as with chat rooms, instant messaging, email and Web sites such tools can be counter-productive if used for inappropriate uses and if used excessively or to the detriment of other work activities. Twitter is a short message communication tool that allows you to send out messages (tweets) up to 140 characters long to people who subscribe to you (followers). Your tweets can include a link to any web content (blog post, website page, PDF document, etc.) or a photograph or video. If a picture is worth a thousand words, adding an image to a tweet greatly expands what you can share to beyond the 140-character limit for tweets. People follow (subscribe) to your Twitter account, and you follow other people. This allows you to read, reply to and easily share their tweets with your followers. We have also discussed about the steps for how Twitter can be used for business, and those steps are: Step 1: Present Your Brand Step 2: Build a Strong Foundation Step 3: Start Following People Step 4: Start Talking Step 5: Talk Smarter Step 6: Drive Traffic to Your Website and Blog Step 7: Connect Your Online Presence Step 8: Get Mobile With Twitter Step 9: Share Photographs in Your Tweets Step 10: Add Video to Your Twitter Timeline Step 11: Organize Your Followers Into Conversation Lists Step 12: Expand Your Audience With Hashtags Step 13: Pinpoint Potential Local Customers .