Businesses that blog get 55% more visitors

From FurlongPR

Based on a survey in August of 1500 businesses by Hubspot, those that blogged had 55% more visitors, 97% more inbound links and 434% more indexed pages.

Most businesses accept, even if they don’t anticipate these sort of figures, that a blog will revolutionise their static corporate website, but trying to get momentum for that internally can be a trying business. Who’s going to write it, what will it look like, who’s going to build it.

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Internet history and future the focus in special anniversary edition of the LINX magazine, HotLINX

HotLINX20 - 15th Anniversary Issue

The London Internet Exchange (LINX) has announced the publication of its Internet magazine, HotLINX, which is available for download now from the LINX website.

HotLINX20: https://www.linx.net/files/hotlinx/hotlinx-20.pdf

In this special LINX 15th Anniversary issue we take a comprehensive look at the history of LINX and how it came to be the organisation it is today. LINX CEO John Souter gives his take on the milestone and this is backed by archive content and interviews with those who has seen LINX develop from the very beginning.

Elsewhere there’s a special report on LINX’s work to meet increase bandwidth demands plus a round up of all the latest public affairs information. In the membership section we have three new member stories plus all the latest member news and stats.

In a comprehensive industry events section we look back at the fourth European Peering Forum in Copenhagen while previewing the upcoming LINX member meeting in London.

You can download a PDF copy of HotLINX20 today at www.linx.net/files/hotlinx/hotlinx-20.pdf. Printed copies can be ordered by emailing: hotlinx@linx.net

Twitter and Facebook aid small firms

From www.bbc.co.uk

By Claire Prentice
New York

It is the 21st century equivalent of word of mouth.

From mom and pop diners to cupcake shops to technology start-ups, small business owners across America have been thrown an unexpected lifeline in the midst of the recession by social networking sites.

Companies that have jumped on the Twitter and Facebook bandwagon are reporting a surge in customers while others struggle. With minimal marketing budgets available to many small businesses, social networking sites offer a quick and, more importantly, free means of promoting their wares to a global audience. In the face of stiff competition and a global economic downturn, it is a route more and more companies are going down.

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Promoting your business for free

If you or your organisation has something to say getting your message across is very important but in financially difficult times many are taking the decision that the cost of distributing that message is too great. This is understandable if you stick only to traditional methods of promotion such as PR agencies but more and more ways of promoting a business are available now than ever before for little or no cost.

Twitter can breathe life into older content

Yesterday afternoon I made four Twitter posts which listed all the external organisations featured in each of the last four issues of the LINX magazine, HotLINX. Each one included a link to the respective PDF they featured in. The result of this communication went well thanks largely to users interested in Extreme Networks.

Extreme featured in HotLINX17 which was published back in February and one of my followers saw my Tweet and decided then to re-Tweet it for their followers. This in turn was re-Tweeted again by further users. In total it was posted nine times resulting in 50 additional downloads inside an hour. This has led to me gaining new followers and our magazine gaining a wider readership.

The message is clear – there are people out there who are interested in what we are saying in the LINX magazine but if they don’t know about it, they can’t do anything about that information. If they are given the choice they can at least decide how to react to it.

Presentation Skills

This presentation is focused on making presentations as a marketing manager but it contains so much good information, you will find something of benefit whoever you make a business presentation to.

Presentation Skills For MARKETING Managers

View more presentations from Yodhia Antariksa.

10 strategies for making the most of trade shows

Internet World trade show

Trade shows don’t have the importance they once did in the business world primarily due to the development of the Internet and on-line services but they are still a great way to take your product to the wider world.

If you’ve had mixed results from exhibiting at shows in the past, you probably need to look at how you can make a better impact at these events.You may have seen the foot-fall at your stand but did you get the right type of visitor to convert them into sales. Ultimately, did you see a return on your investment for participating?

Graphical Resumé Gives Michael the Edge

Graphical resumé

I came across a link to a graphical resumé yesterday which I found interesting on so many levels. First of all it appealed to my design sensibilities and also my interest in innovation.

While the graphs don’t feature real data, I still found myself studying the peaks and troughs for hidden messages and noted every little nuance in the timeline. I particularly liked the daily coffee intake, energy expendature and the humour output at 2:00am. Also of interest was the curious gap at the beginning of 2006 – if we ever met that would be the first question I’d ask him.

What do you think of this style of CV? Obviouly it wouldn’t be appropriate for every career but it does tell us that by doing something different will gain you extra recognition. I’ve already sent this stranger’s resumé to two people and now I’m blogging about it. I’d say he’d have a fair chance of getting someone approaching him to offer him work.

Get the Most From Your Written Testimonials

By Ivan Misner

Original article: www.entrepreneur.com

Make it standard practice to ask clients and contacts for testimonials and you’ll build your credibility and your business.

Written testimonials influence our actions and choices in myriad ways, sometimes without our even thinking about them. For example: You and a friend decide to catch a movie, but your tastes don’t always coincide. So you open the local paper and check out the film reviews. You decide you want to go to dinner first, but there are so many restaurants in your area that you don’t know which one to pick. So you open up a local magazine and scan the recommendations of the magazine’s food critic.

Even more powerful than these “professional” testimonials, however, are those that come from trusted personal contacts. If you have enough time, you might call or e-mail a couple of other friends to get their movie and restaurant suggestions. You’re likely to follow their advice, too, because you know that they know your likes and dislikes pretty well.

So it is in business. Before people come to your firm for a particular product or service, they often want the comfort of knowing what others have said about you.

Read complete article: www.entrepreneur.com

The word ’solution’ is not the solution

There is a marketing and advertising word that has always irked me though maybe not enough to really annoy me. You could argue that ‘irk’ and ‘annoy’ are the same thing but they’re not really. Irk is a roll of the eyes word while annoy is on page one of the book of anger.

The marketing and advertising word to which I am referring is ’solution’. One definition to the word reads: “The act or process of explaining or proposing an approach to solving a problem”.

Why does it bother me so? Well, it’s such a darn cliché – if a company is offering a service that solves a problem then that’s a solution I agree but surely the same tired old word doesn’t have to be used every time. I recently read that the English language has welcomed it’s one millionth word to the dictionary so I would like to think that there are at least two or three alternatives for the half-decent marketer or copywriter.