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7 ideas for developing your business blog content plan
March 15th, 2010 by Krishna De / Print This Article / Email This Article / / 2 comments

How do I get inspiration for my business blog so that I know what kind of articles, videos or podcasts to post is a question I am often asked.

One of the great ways is to read other peoples business blogs – and not always blogs in your own business niche as you can be inspired to develop content learning from others.

So here are seven ideas that might help you develop a content strategy for your business blog:

1. Get ideas from your RSS feeds – remember to model not copy articles respecting the copyright of the original site where the content is posted and always give attribution and a link to the source article

2. Explore the blogs listed in the Technorati blog directory HERE or in other niche directories

3. Review the list of business blogs that are listed in other peoples blog rolls – the list that many bloggers have on the side bar of their business blog

4. Do a search within Google using the Google Blog search engine to find other business blogs for inspiration

5. Review your email, your Facebook Page or Tweets that you receive for questions that your people ask you and turn those answers into blog articles

6. Think about the questions your clients and customers have asked you over the last 3 months and turn those questions into articles – but make sure that you don’t disclose confidential information about your clients

7. Look at award winners of business blogging competitions – for example the short list of the Digital Marketing Awards which was announced recently and hosted by Ashville Media – you will find the shortlist HERE or the list of blogs nominated for a blogging award for Best Business Blog with the Irish Blog Awards

Note: If you already have a business blog and are in Ireland you might be interested in being nominated for the IIA Net Visionary Awards 2010 – nominations for best business blog and best business podcast are open along side many other categories through until 26 arch 2010.

What other ways do you get inspiration for content for your business blog articles and content plan?



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  • John Demartini in Dublin: 5 Free Tickets for 10 March 2010 Event
    March 10th, 2010 by Krishna De / Print This Article / Email This Article / / 1 comment

    Yikes I almost forgot to let you know that I have kindly been offered 5 free tickets for an event with author and star of The Secret John Demartini.

    His event is called ‘Bringing Balance to Life and Purpose to Work’.

    This is short notice so please leave a message for me over on my Facebook Page and I’ll be delighted to give the first 5 people who respond the ticket. Please make sure that you let me know your email address so I can connect you to the event organisers.

    The Event takes place in the D4 Ballsbridge Inn (Former Jurys Hotel, Ballsbridge) on Wednesday 10 March at 7:30 pm until 9:30 pm.  Individual tickets to the seminar are €37.00 and 2 for €50.00 – however I have 5 free tickets thanks to Ria Lawlor of Horizon Speakers.

    Full details of the event are at the event website for John Demartini in Dublin.

    This is not an affiliate link or programme – just a kind gift from Horizon Speakers.

    So the first 5 people who respond to this on my Facebook Page will be allocated the tickets. Please note I will be at a conference today so it will be early afternoon before I confirm your details have been registered.



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  • Lottery.ie iPhone App Review: In conversation with Deirdre Waldon of Agency.com
    February 24th, 2010 by Krishna De / Print This Article / Email This Article / / Leave a comment

    Today I was at a conference hosted by The Brain Food Store where there were some great speakers – check the Twitter hash tag for the conversations and insights shared by people at the conference – #bfs10.

    As usual however, one of the great things about attending conferences is the opportunity to meet interesting people and one of the people I connected with today was Deirdre Waldon of Agency.com.

    In our conversation I discovered that their agency had developed the iPhone App for the National Lottery in Ireland and I also learned that they had had a significant numbers of downloads of their first version of the Lottery.ie iPhone app without any advertising or significant launch programme.

    So I invited Deirdre to share a few thoughts on my AudioBoo podcast series that I have been recording where I’ve been in conversation with people about their favourite iPhone apps. You can listen to the short interview where we cover:

    - ideas for why you might consider an iPhone app for your business

    - tips for leveraging the facilities of the iPhone when developing your app

    - how the iPhone app for Lottery.ie is part of the 360 engagement plan and the mobile strategy for their business

    - how they achieved the number of downloads without a main launch.

    What ideas does this give you for developing your iPhone application for your business as part of your 360 marketing and communications programme?

    If you haven’t listened to the rest of the series of podcasts I have recorded with people in my network sharing their favourite iPhone apps, you can do so HERE.



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  • Forum on Public Procurement Promoting Recovery Through Public Procurement: Attend the conference at no cost
    February 23rd, 2010 by Krishna De / Print This Article / Email This Article / / 4 comments

    I have just received an invitation to a conference that might be of interest to you if you want to tender to the public sector in Ireland. I can not attend the conference but read on if you want to know how you could receive my ticket to attend at no cost – the value of the ticket is €375 plus vat.

    The Forum on Public Procurement, which represents many Irish public sector buyers and suppliers, proposes to open a debate on how small but significant changes in the public procurement process can assist in restoring economic confidence, generate economic activity and offer innovative solutions benefitting the procurement professionals, Irish suppliers and ultimately the taxpayer.

    Public Procurement is worth in the region of €15 billion annually and supports some 250,000 jobs in Ireland.

    I have personally found that many Irish companies are experiencing difficulties in accessing public contracts due to increased competition and changing market conditions.

    A one day conference is taking place this week and will be chaired by David McWilliams, and will examine the potential opportunities that public procurement can offer in contributing to the stabilisation of Irish business and the creation of new jobs, while at the same time delivering vital public services of high quality.

    The conference details cam be found HERE and is being organised by the Forum on Public Procurement, a not for profit voluntary organisation, established in 1996 and which represents organisations and individuals concerned with purchasing within the public sector in Ireland.

    Conference: THE FPP ANNUAL CONFERENCE 2010 – Promoting Recovery Through Public Procurement

    Date: Thursday 25 February 2010

    Venue: Westbury Hotel, Dublin 2

    Time: 9am-5pm

    The Panel of Experts includes Darragh O’Brien, T.D., Deputy Chair of the Dáil Public Accounts Committee Pat Delaney, Director, IBEC Billy Noone, Department of Finance Emmett Devlin, Procurement Officer, South Dublin County Council Tony Redmond, Procurement Manager, Railway Procurement Agency Cecil Ryan, Regional Managing Director – Europe, OCS Padraig Twomey, Group Procurement Manager, Bord Gáis Eireann.

    HOW TO WIN A TICKET TO THE CONFERENCE

    If you would like to win my TICKET here’s what to do – just tell me in 150 words or less the benefit to you of attending the conference and how you would be plan to share your insights with colleagues in your network so that one ticket benefits many.

    I do hope you will be interested in attending as I am not able to do so. Go ahead – over to you – just leave your comments below. Entries to be in by midnight Ireland/UK time on Tuesday 23 February 2010.



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  • Your Country Your Call and Ballygowan Pink: 360 integrated marketing programmes and blogger outreach in Ireland
    February 19th, 2010 by Krishna De / Print This Article / Email This Article / / 12 comments

    This last week there have been a a couple of notable business projects reaching out to connect with bloggers and using new media as part of an integrated campaign of 360 marketing that have caught my attention.

    REVIEW OF YOUR COUNTRY YOUR CALL

    Your Country Your Call ‘Your Country Your Call’ is a new project and is a countrywide competition to identify and reward two proposals that, when implemented, they can help to secure job creation and a prosperous future for Ireland. There will be two competition winners and the winning proposers will each receive a cash prize of €100,000. Both winning proposals will then be implemented with the support of an independent working group and with a development fund of up to €500,000 for each project.

    President Mary McAleese launched the programme on 17 February 2010 – opening up the Irish Times yesterday you would have seen an article and a full page spread to help build awareness of the programme.

    From a social media perspective, the organising team reached out to a number of people who are active in the area of social media including  Darragh Doyle, Brendan Hughes, Pat Phelan and myself for input ahead of the launch to share ideas and assist in gaining online visibility of the project – now that is forward thinking and I know that those of us invited to comment welcomed the opportunity to share ideas for the programme which has the potential to truly impact the future prosperity of Ireland.

    Take a look at their website and you will find there is a link to a Facebook page, a Twitter Profile, a YouTube channel, a LinkedIn group and a Flickr channel. There is also a facility to share the content to social networks and to book mark content.

    You will see on the YouTube channel a short video about the blogger outreach event that they held on the 15 February (unfortunately I was not able to attend).

    The project team have allocated resources to supporting the social media channels and it is great to see that there is a real commitment to this channel for communications.

    My three recommendations for the project in terms of helping their online visibility of their content online at the moment would be:

    1. to have a more complete profile and more effective descriptions, titles and tags on their YouTube channel videos

    2. adding a full profile, titles, descriptions and tags on their Flickr channel and allow some of the photo’s to be available to use under Creative Commons licence. That way bloggers who were not at their launch event can add images to their blog posts

    3. adding a full description and a URL to their Twitter channel so people can find their web page about the programme easily.

    You can read Brendan’s blog post about his experience of attending the blogger event for Your Country Your Call here.

    BALLYGOWAN BOTTLES GO PINK

    Ballygowan Pink campaign - Krishna De of BizGrowthNews.com I have to disclose that Ballygowan sparkling water is my bottled water of choice! On Sunday 14 February I was made aware that Ballygowan had changed it’s dress – it had gone pink.

    In a 360 marketing campaign which I first came across on TV, Ballygowan announced that it had launched a new campaign to raise awareness and funds for breast cancer in association with the Marie Keating Foundation in the Republic of Ireland and Action Cancer in Northern Ireland.

    Every bottle sold will raise funds for breast cancer awareness and contribute towards cancer support projects.

    Ballygowan Pink has a microsite and a Facebook page which already has almost 4000 fans.

    The campaign which was managed by McConnells Integrated encompasses TV and Radio, an is in consumer and trade press and on outdoor posters. My one observation on the TV launch was that as a consumer it did come across to me as being a bit too repetitive – I think every ad break I saw on Sunday featured Ballygowan Pink.

    From a PR perspective I was thrilled and surprised to find that a case of Ballygowan Pink bottles had been delivered to me – this being organised by the PR team of WHPR. I have had to confiscate the bottles from my three daughters or they would have all gone by now.

    You see what I thought I would do is take bottles of Ballygowan Pink with me to events and locations that I know I am meeting female colleagues or clients. Yes my household could drink the bottles of water ourselves – but instead as a blogger who also lives in the real world, what better way to spread the word than sharing a bottle with a friend! You see I want my friends to ‘be part of it’.

    In fact the campaign has had such an impact on me in terms of getting into my subconscious that when I attended a women’s networking event last night I found myself wondering why I could not see Ballygowan Pink bottles being served!

    What I did do is take a couple of bottles with me – one to pass to my friend and colleague Emma, and one to drink myself.

    So there we have it – one established brand and one new campaign both embracing 360 marketing here in Ireland.

    Both also engaging bloggers to help them share their message with the world.

    What other 360 marketing campaigns of note have caught your attention this month?



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