Week 9: Blogging for Business

How personal you think you can be on your blog. When does it make sense to add personality to a post, and when does it not?

A blog always reflects the personality of the blogger; it could be the company’s key person or some third party who is blogging on their behalf. I feel blogging should be very creative to attract readers but at the same time stay focused about the business goal. In my jewelry business blogs I think I can go a little bit personal about sharing my stories in India, and talking about some festivals that I used to take part and then post some photos and videos of those festivals along with the women wearing typical unique ornaments for those occasions. It will help my buyers to associate them with the culture of India and its jewelry trends.

Whether to be personal or not it entirely depends upon the marketing strategy of a business. A business blog will have a purpose to create revenue, engage its readers and sometimes encourage them to buy the membership. But being too personal may lose the seriousness of the blog. Be very careful about your content. In business blogs it is advised not to comment anything on any controversial topic (for e.g. politics, religion, culture etc).

Sometimes business bloggers may benefit from discussing past and current struggles and this way they can connect emotionally with readers, at the end they can share how did they overcome all the obstacles and solved their problems.This would definitely create a positive impact on the readers mind.

Once we know our audience for whom we are writing, what they want and what they need it will be easy for us to decide how personal we should go. Always stay within the boundary, do not hurt others feelings and always create an inspiring content. Do not scare or bore our readers by providing too much personal information. Finally I feel that as you go personal, keep the goals of your business in mind, and tell those stories that consumers can’t help but share.

Week 8 - Sunday

Business that are similar to mine!

There is a lot of competition in Artificial Jewelry business so I decided to be a little different than others. Most of the Jewelry selling sites (from India) look like they are only selling for Indian community, who already know about the style, culture and uniqueness of the products. But I want to sell them in USA, so I thought I first need to tell about them before selling. So my plan is to sell the story first, then the item, so in my business each item will have its unique story.

While searching online I found www.Ebay.com could be my competitor (though they are not talking much about the history, uniqueness and the cultural value of them) as people who love Indian Jewelry can go and search for those items. EBay is using Instagram and Pinterest to share their photos.

For e.g. http://www.pinterest.com/ebay/

But I do not know how effective it is, in eBay I could not find any icon linked to Pinterest, when I selected an earring (Jhumka) then I can see the Pinterest button, but most of them are not working. So I do not see the bridge between eBay and Pinterest, but they have developed the Pinterest gallery for all the items.

The other online business I found is http://www.utsavfashion.com/

They are using Pinterest and YouTube and I think they are using them very effectively and all the images are great and easy to locate.

Pinterest link is http://www.pinterest.com/utsavfashion/

YouTube http://www.youtube.com/user/utsavsarees 

Both of them are really good.

It is always good to take a close look at competitor's websites, social media, forums, and even shopping sites, I think by exploring Utsavfashion site I can discover the words and language I need to use in my content and marketing.

Currently am using Pinterest to showcase some of our jewelries. I have added it to my Facebook page as well 

http://www.pinterest.com/glamHindjewelry/boards/

Currently I do not have any video to showcase my business, but in future I will create some and open a YouTube account for business.

I also like Tumblr a lot so I created a blog in Tumblr (http://www.tumblr.com/blog/glamhindjewelry)

and trying to link it with my Facebook business page.  

Week 8 (Get Visual)

 Let a Picture Tell the Story

The visual networks - are they right for you and your brand?

My business is selling artificial jewelries which I will get from India. It is all about looks (design, shape/size, craftsmanship and color) so I have to use some visual platforms. People would like to view it from different angles, then they may want to see how it looks if someone else is wearing it and also since these patterns are Indian so they would like to view on what occasions they can be used.

4 Most widely used visual platforms:

www.youtube.com  is very popular; it is cheap and easy to upload. Anybody can post their personal or business videos and this way it helps to spread all over the world. Sometimes some video may get maximum personal attention and can go viral. It is easy to watch from cell phone, laptop any time. Sending message to the target market is much easier and productive through a video rather than through email.

http://instagram-business.tumblr.com/

Instagram is a photo app that is available for free from the iTunes App Store and from Google. It is a fun way to share photographs, follow the consumers and stay in tune with them. On Instagram, we can follow other users' photo streams as they post them and also we can be followed back by those users (or other users) as well. When we decide to follow a user, that user's Instagram photos will appear in my feed. Then we can like any photo so that the other person can know that we like their phographs. Also we can post some comments there. Using ‘#’ tags is a very effective way to follow the consumers.

http://www.tumblr.com

It is another visual platform which allows posting text, photos, quotes, links, music, and videos from your browser, phone, desktop, email anywhere in the web. Jason Keath wrote, “Not every brand works on Tumblr” and suggested that three categories of blogs may fare better than others: fashion, large websites and publishing/broadcast media. Like all other social media platforms, it can be linked with Facebook and Twitter. Instagram and Tumblr can be integrated easily with the help of ‘@’ sign and ‘#’ tags.

Coupons or deals can be sold here without any photograph; the linked texts can take to the purchase site directly. One interesting feature is a question can be asked and a space will be provided for the answer from the customers/followers, this way they are engaged in the conversation.

https://www.pinterest.com/

It is another wonderful site to share images. If the 10 rules of Pinterest can be followed then any business using it will be in an advantageous position. Some of the rules are: Proper planning, Copyright savvy, use great images which will really tell the story, allow users to post on competition or promotion brands, use SEO specific contents.

So we can see all of the above are great sites, YouTube is purely used for videos where as the others are using images/videos/posts etc. Instagram gives us a quick way to share the pictures we own or take in our everyday life whereas Tumblr is a micro blogging platform for a variety of media types. Having a Tumblr account is like having a Web page. Users can customize its appearance with themes and get their own URLs that anyone can access online.

Which would work the best for your product or service?

In my business website I am using a YouTube video showcasing a marriage ceremony in India where ladies are wearing the jewelries which my company will sell (the artificial jewelry only). Also I am using lots of images in my website. I have a plan to use Tumbler in future and connect it with my website, Facebook and Twitter accounts. 

This is the link to my website :

GlamHind Jewelries Website

Week 7 - Twitter List

Which search words you used to find your connections?

Before starting the search I thought about two lists I have created and accordingly started finding them, first I gave a jewelry writers lovers news  as any of these words and location US.

Later I used chamber of commerce, ocean side and Mira Costa College to fill up my other list.

 Did you have to play around with more than one key term to start seeing the right results? Who did you end up finding?

Using the first Key words I found the writer for Jewelry , and the news channel.

for the second list I changed it to the exact match as I thought of Chamber Of commerce and jewelry lovers already, this way the second provided me the exact match of Chamber Of Commerce,Oceanside.Already following Miracosta College site, so add it also as it may provide some great potential customers. Used jewelry lovers, and found one who has a fashion business but does not sell jewelry. 

What lists did you create and why? How does creating a list on Twitter help you stay organized or reach a goal?

I created two lists :

1.    Businessrelated   : thought of some site/user where I can meet many other businesses and can find some potential customers. Also who can provide me current information about daily events, for e.g a farmers market would be a great idea to market my items and attract more customers, I can get information from Oceanside, chamber Of Commerce about tis. Also I found Wet Seal ‏@wetseal who is a jewely lover (used this key word) and owns a business, she does not sell jewelry, so thought of a future collaboration with her, and added her as well.

2.    Writerexpertnews : I thought of someone who can provide some good feedback about my products and can spread the news. So found one jewelry writer and the local news magazine.

The list will help me to create a subset of followers. Once the follower list becomes huge then it becomes almost impossible to manage them, but if we can categorize them and put them under lists with meaningful names (without annoying them ) then the lists would be of great help.If I regularly follow them, post daily and contact some users who show interest towards my products, I think I can grow my business. Also these two lists would help me to stay organized, one will provide me information and the other will help my business to expand. 

Week 6 Post - Scheduled Posts

Week 6 post

 I have scheduled 3 posts for future ( Sunday, Monday and one on Wednesday). The first day I am talking about the uniqueness of my business that it is not only selling the jewelries but trying to portray the cultural background and how they are different in every region. Also will talk about it more in the future , this way creating an interest in my customers mind so that they visit my page again to read the next part of it.

Then next I am just showing 4 images of brides from different part of India , their wedding jewelries are way different than each other.....

And my last scheduled post talks about 4 broad regional divisions of India and describing their authentic jewelries along with some images.

I hope these blogs/posts will attract my customers to view my page, they may get engaged more if they are really interested!