After a while thinking about this I have come to the conclusion that not only should consultants blog, but if they do not then they are missing a fantastic marketing opportunity!We are uniquely placed to generate traffic through blogging, particularly in areas of business and technology. We have deep subject matter experience, we are (should be) prolific networkers, we have to be ahead of the curve with relation to technological advances and business trends, and we have one final advantage...We know how to write!
Show me a consultant who doesn't regularly burn the midnight oil trying to get through (yet another) 75 page report for an impatient client (or clients) and I'll show you someone who thinks he's a client.
So in terms of the skills to do it, we are okay...But why should we bother?
Why Blog??
There are a lot of reasons why Consultants should look seriously at developing their own individual or company produced blog site. But chief among them is for marketing!!
Today we are all starting to get pretty savvy about marketing. We know that our potential clients have diverse interests, use diverse media sources, and use different networking techniques than they used to even two short years ago!
So if you are going to reach our targeted audience then marketing tools we use need to cover a lot of diverse areas. Print media, online ads, targeted online networking, letters of introduction, cold calling and free seminars all have their place. And so does blogging.
Being able to have an online, search-able base of content relevant to your target audience means that they are more likely to stumble on it when they search for information related to what they do. Not only that, but they can subscribe to the feed, having regular updates in their email of RSS Reader.
As well as prospecting for new clients, you can use your Blog to keep in touch with old clients, reach other levels of the organization within current clients. Once you have your attention you can use your blog to point out finer points of areas that you work in, detail new services and technologies your company is now offering, or even to provide a contrary point of view.
Have a look at some of the recognized names in our field; David Maister (The Trusted Adviser, Strategy and the Fat Smoker), or Alan Weiss (Million Dollar Consulting, Getting Started in Consulting) or a company like CapGemini.. all have supported their existing large scale online presence through actively communicating with prospects and clients through blogging.
There are some rules to blogging though... these are unwritten rules. The sorts of things that are decided quietly by the viewing masses of internet traffic. So we will look in a little more detail about how to start your blogging project, the "rules of engagement" in blogging, and some of the ways to drive it to new heights. (Some of which I am still learning)
Step: 1 - Get a Name
Work out what you are going to blog about and find a drop-dead GREAT name. Ten years ago this was not too difficult, but today you have to think not only about the name itself, but the domain also. There are some pretty good tools online to start playing around with words, one of these is Morewords, and there is another one called WordLab.
Another source is also to start scouring the internet and looking through the sites and blogs that are dedicated to what you are doing. (Inspiration WILL come to you on this)
I am still not sure where "Consulting Pulse" came from, but it really describes the intentions of what I am trying to do with this blog.
Step: 2 - Registering and Domains
With the title now decided you need to start building the Blog site.
I am not a WordPress fan. For me the Blogger site from Google is a great product. it allows you to build a good looking blog site
very easily using drag and drop functionality. So for beginning bloggers, as I was, this is my choice. register a name and get started almost instantly.Next stop is optional: Register a Domain.
I have used GoDaddy.com for a while now and they seem to be a pretty good, very reliable source of web hosting. I had cause to call their customer service one time and the young man who answered the telephone, in perfect American English, was extremely polite and helpful - for that reason alone GoDaddy.com gets my vote.
The argument goes like this; if you want anyone to take you seriously as a blogger, then having a website called Fantasticblog.blogspot.com just won't cut it.
It also helps to further deepen your brand recognition and get people to start entering your address by typing rather than searching.
Step 3: Does it look alright?
Blogger is very easy to use and will enable you to get going pretty quickly. The blog I write in my own consulting area (very dry engineering themes) is on a standard Blogger template and for now I am happy with that.
But for this Blog, I wanted to create something that looked great, drew people in, and gave me space for advertising, promotions and for cross linking. So I have created a modified template format, as well as putting a range of additional functions on there.
Things like hiding the blue blogger bar, the "Read More..." links at the bottom of each post, the
menu at the top of the page, the site logo, and I am still working on a few more little changes here and there.All of this I gleaned from the sire BloggerBuster.com The author, Amanda, has done a great job of building templates, posting tips and keeping up with trends in the world of blogging. Here site is my first port of call when I need to know how to do something that I have seen and is impressive.
There are other resources around the web. Widgets for recommendations, comments, tracking and so forth. Some are okay, some are garbage, and some are traffic scams.. so take care with it.
Step: 4 - Traffic
This is what its all about. To get traffic you need three things. a) A good site, b) great content and c) social marketing.
A good site!!
We have talked about design and naming, so what you really need now is a way to draw in subscribers. (Not just readers!)
So to set yourself up to attract people who will take your blog and put it on their Google Home Page or in their RSS reader, you need to be able to offer them ways of getting updates to your content.
I use Feedburner, but I am told that FeedBlitz is also a very good tool for this. It allows me to provide readers with a two click option for subscribing to the feed, easy stuff. it will also allow me to place an email subscription box on my blog so that readers can receive the items in their email newsletter style.
Feedburner gives you all sorts of options to be able to customize your feed, make it compatible with all sorts of platforms, tools and widgets to promote it, and a whole range of other functions. It will also enable you to add Feedflares. (Great stuff)
These are links at the bottom of the post that will enable your readers to share it with others on one of the many bookmarking and social networking sites. (More about that later)
As you go on you can also add your own Feedflares. I have two additional ones. One for the Jobs Board associated with the site and one for readers to rate each post. (Which is probably going to have to change unfortunately.)
Good Content
Okay, harder. You, as the consultant, should already have a bit to write about as well as the skills to do so. BUT, if you don't or if you get writers block or whatever, then there are numerous sources to help you to develop ideas.
Set up a reader, iGoogle is an easy one to get moving with quickly, and then subscribe to regular feeds that contain issues related to what you want to write about. Also, set up a number of Google news Alerts to do the same. If you want to go to extremes and be on top of information a little bit further then you can also use Businesswire.com or one of the other press release distribution websites.
There are also lots of posts out there on how to write a blog post. Mine tend to be a bit long I think, but you can decide for yourself. One thing I try to do is make it personal, and to involve as many people as I can in the conversation.
Another thing you could try to do is interview industry leaders, pioneers and long time operators in specific fields of endeavor. This adds to the flavor of the blog and stops it being just your opinion. I find a lot of these on LinkedIn, and most of them are keen to help often.
Traffic
Again harder and not something I have totally mastered yet. At the base of my posts you will notice a lot of links for Digg, StumbleUpon and Newsvine. These sites allow readers to bookmark items that interest them so that others can find them and read them. So it allows readers to promote your site without your involvement.
It takes some doing, and to be honest I am struggling with it at present. But it seems to be going the right direction. other sites include Technorati which lists the 100 most popular blogs. So register your blog there also so that others can look through it and check out what you are writing about.
What you need here is your Gmail account, or other free account Gmail is best in my view) and start registering on all of these sites so that you can also see whats going on, as well as promoting your own stuff (ethically) where possible. (Also post to your Facebook page, good one for you if you have a lot of Facebook types in your industry)
All this is about traffic. If you get to the top 100 then you are drawing a lot of internet views on a regular basis. And you do so, in part, through gaining "fans" in these communities. There are also a lot of people out there who talk a lot about S.E.O, which is Search Engine Optimization.
I am not very knowledgeable in this area, but I can't see the logic of it all really. For me, if you have good content which is relevant to what your readers will be looking for, then it will show up on the search engines. I draw a lot of "search" visitors now and I have done absolutely nothing in this area.
Traffic-(2)
There has been a lot written about the death of the e-newsletter business and I for one don't buy it. As well as everything else I publish a regular newsletter for this site and the ConsultingHub network we are building. We get a good response too, a lot of open and clicks so people will still take the time to read information that is useful and of interest to them.
So thats it for this subject, there is as lot more and I will probably revisit this again in the future. One area where we could probably talk a lot more about is monetizing your blog, analyzing traffic flows and optimizing them, as well a whole range of options for you in the fields of affiliate marketing.
But let me insist with you, if you are a consultant - you need to blog. PERIOD!
But theres another reason why you, or anyone, should get involved in the blogging thing. Regardless of what else you do - Blogging is a lot of fun. Road testing theories, the interaction with others, watching as you site or post gets a lot of hits and so on. Great stuff and I really do enjoy it!
And it would be even more fun if we, the company I worked with, were to launch a company blog. That way a group of us could be free to post at regular intervals, we could each share the workload associated with keeping the blog going, and we would reap the benefits of contributing to thought in our chosen area of expertise.
We have talked about design and naming, so what you really need now is a way to draw in subscribers. (Not just readers!)
So to set yourself up to attract people who will take your blog and put it on their Google Home Page or in their RSS reader, you need to be able to offer them ways of getting updates to your content.
I use Feedburner, but I am told that FeedBlitz is also a very good tool for this. It allows me to provide readers with a two click option for subscribing to the feed, easy stuff. it will also allow me to place an email subscription box on my blog so that readers can receive the items in their email newsletter style.
Feedburner gives you all sorts of options to be able to customize your feed, make it compatible with all sorts of platforms, tools and widgets to promote it, and a whole range of other functions. It will also enable you to add Feedflares. (Great stuff)
These are links at the bottom of the post that will enable your readers to share it with others on one of the many bookmarking and social networking sites. (More about that later)
As you go on you can also add your own Feedflares. I have two additional ones. One for the Jobs Board associated with the site and one for readers to rate each post. (Which is probably going to have to change unfortunately.)
Good Content
Okay, harder. You, as the consultant, should already have a bit to write about as well as the skills to do so. BUT, if you don't or if you get writers block or whatever, then there are numerous sources to help you to develop ideas.
Set up a reader, iGoogle is an easy one to get moving with quickly, and then subscribe to regular feeds that contain issues related to what you want to write about. Also, set up a number of Google news Alerts to do the same. If you want to go to extremes and be on top of information a little bit further then you can also use Businesswire.com or one of the other press release distribution websites.
There are also lots of posts out there on how to write a blog post. Mine tend to be a bit long I think, but you can decide for yourself. One thing I try to do is make it personal, and to involve as many people as I can in the conversation.
Another thing you could try to do is interview industry leaders, pioneers and long time operators in specific fields of endeavor. This adds to the flavor of the blog and stops it being just your opinion. I find a lot of these on LinkedIn, and most of them are keen to help often.
Traffic
Again harder and not something I have totally mastered yet. At the base of my posts you will notice a lot of links for Digg, StumbleUpon and Newsvine. These sites allow readers to bookmark items that interest them so that others can find them and read them. So it allows readers to promote your site without your involvement.
It takes some doing, and to be honest I am struggling with it at present. But it seems to be going the right direction. other sites include Technorati which lists the 100 most popular blogs. So register your blog there also so that others can look through it and check out what you are writing about.
What you need here is your Gmail account, or other free account Gmail is best in my view) and start registering on all of these sites so that you can also see whats going on, as well as promoting your own stuff (ethically) where possible. (Also post to your Facebook page, good one for you if you have a lot of Facebook types in your industry)
All this is about traffic. If you get to the top 100 then you are drawing a lot of internet views on a regular basis. And you do so, in part, through gaining "fans" in these communities. There are also a lot of people out there who talk a lot about S.E.O, which is Search Engine Optimization.
I am not very knowledgeable in this area, but I can't see the logic of it all really. For me, if you have good content which is relevant to what your readers will be looking for, then it will show up on the search engines. I draw a lot of "search" visitors now and I have done absolutely nothing in this area.
Traffic-(2)
There has been a lot written about the death of the e-newsletter business and I for one don't buy it. As well as everything else I publish a regular newsletter for this site and the ConsultingHub network we are building. We get a good response too, a lot of open and clicks so people will still take the time to read information that is useful and of interest to them.
So thats it for this subject, there is as lot more and I will probably revisit this again in the future. One area where we could probably talk a lot more about is monetizing your blog, analyzing traffic flows and optimizing them, as well a whole range of options for you in the fields of affiliate marketing.But let me insist with you, if you are a consultant - you need to blog. PERIOD!
But theres another reason why you, or anyone, should get involved in the blogging thing. Regardless of what else you do - Blogging is a lot of fun. Road testing theories, the interaction with others, watching as you site or post gets a lot of hits and so on. Great stuff and I really do enjoy it!
And it would be even more fun if we, the company I worked with, were to launch a company blog. That way a group of us could be free to post at regular intervals, we could each share the workload associated with keeping the blog going, and we would reap the benefits of contributing to thought in our chosen area of expertise.
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