Blog Marketing

Blog Marketing Tools and Strategies for Business

Tools, tips and learning resources to use your blog as an online business, marketing and communications platform.
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Mass Blog Commenting Services by a Singapore SEO Company

Today when I checked my mail in the morning I was surprised to see more than the usual number in my inbox, only to realise that a huge bunch of the mails are due to spam comments on this blog.

Blog Comment Spamming

All these comments came in within 2 minutes last night. And they all went into the spam folder. SEO effect? Zero – at least for my blog. Of course, they have probably spammed a thousand other blogs in the same fifteen minutes, and been lucky enough to have hit one or two that didn’t have their spam filter on.

Another surprise came when I realized that many of these spammy comments had URLs pointing to Singapore related domains or .sg domains. A couple of them were horrid looking “made for Adsense” splogs (they still exist!), and some were legitimate company websites.

What was common was that all these sites pointed to one SEO company in Singapore – one that sold packages of “5000 Facebook Invites for USD$39.90″ and “100 Facebook Fans for $49.90″!

Frankly, I feel sorry for the legitimate companies who probably paid good money to this SEO consultant to market their website. On the other hand, I think there is a need to educate some business owners and marketing professionals on how to choose a proper SEO company – what do you think?

Blog Commenting for SEO

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that blog commenting does not work for SEO. In fact, from my own observations and experience, these blog comments still work very well, despite the fact that most blogs still have the rel=”nofollow” attribute for their comment links.

However, for the comments to go through and SEO to really take effect, the comments need to be insightful and valuable to the blog owner, not random phrases submitted by a piece of software. Like many things in life, its not what you do, but how you do it that matters.

Posted on Friday, 4 Mar 2011 by Kian Ann in Blog Marketing Tips
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IT Show 2011 at Suntec Singapore

The Singapore IT Show 2011 is just a few days away, from 10th – 13th March (Next Thursday to Sunday)! Like many other computer shows in Singapore like the PC Show (June) and Comex Show (September), this IT show is held at the Suntec Exhibition Halls in Singapore.

IT Show Singapore 2011

These IT shows are getting bigger with each exhibition – this time, there is over 350,000 square feet of exhibit space, taking up 5 entire show floors in Suntec! I guess I will be visiting this the exhibition this year early – first to find out about my much needed home broadband Internet connection plans (I heard from a friend that they will be giving out MacBook Airs for 2 year contract broadband plans!), as well as to get myself updated with the latest gadgets!

During the previous SITEX show in 2010 which was held in Expo, I bought a Canon MG5270 Multifunction Printer for $299 – it was not cheaper than what you could find at the retail stores, but at the IT fair, they give out more freebies like a pack of 4″x6″ photo paper. Maybe its time for me to head back and check out the price of the ink tanks.

Challenger Matches IT Show 2011 Pricing

As a member of Challenger member, I receive their regular emailing – and this year they are really going all out to grab the market share!

Exclusively for Challenger members only, they will match any show pricing for the products they have, as long as you present a valid IT show flyer! Of course, like everything else in the world, there are “terms and conditions”, but I think this would be a good alternative location for shopping for people who don’t like to shop in the sardine packed Suntec city mall or wait hours in the traffic jam.

Challenger Matches IT Show 2011 Pricing

So, what are the deals you are waiting to get at the IT Show 2011? Or are you going hold your horses (and wallets!) and wait for the next IT trade show in Singapore – PC Show Singapore 2011, from 9 to 12 June 2011?

Posted on Thursday, 3 Mar 2011 by Kian Ann in Internet Related Ramblings
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Is the Global Economy Still in Crisis?

Come 13th January 2011, the Asia-Europe Foundation (ASEF) will be inviting Dr Jacques Attali – a French economist, professor, author of over 50 books, and Honorary Member of the Council of State, to share his thoughts on the recovery of the Global Economy.

Dr Jacques Attali is the founder and the first President of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and named by the US Foreign Policy magazine as one of the top 100 public intellectuals in the World.

This topic is near and dear to many of us, whether you own a business, or you are employed – even though the the Asian countries were less affected by the international crisis.

So, what of the future, in a world where there is little prospect of growth in the large economies of the US and major European countries? Can Europe provide economic leadership for the future?

Come pose your questions and get them answered by Dr Jacques Attali, at this public talk organised by ASEF! Registration details can be found on the ASEF website.

Posted on Thursday, 16 Dec 2010 by Kian Ann in Internet Related Ramblings
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4

Choosing a Social Media Marketing Workshop

About a month back, I have had the opportunity to attend Finggle’s first Social Media Marketing Workshop.

The one day workshop opens the doors and takes you into the world of social media, and how your business can leverage on it for marketing and outreach.

What I really loved about the course is that is a good balance between the platform specific techniques and the strategic concepts. Some of the concepts are potentially very powerful, like changing your “instructions” to “conversations”, identifying to leading social tribes, learning the 6 keys to writing content for social media, and the 3 key phases (and what activity to focus on in each phase) when marketing on any social platform.

Afterall, while Facebook and Twitter are now the hottest platforms where everybody is clamoring to put their business on, it is hard to say if this will stay the same 2 years from now. The social media and web community scene, in just the past decade, has seen many usurpations – since the good old days where we were still forming eCircles and the Friendster logo was still blue.

If you are reading the inside stories, you will know that many of these huge communities died or got bought over not because people didn’t like them, but because they didn’t make enough profit to sustain! So the platforms are always going to change, whether you like it or not!

Having a good social media marketing master plan is essential.

You need to go where your target audience is, and learn the technical stuff quickly so you can focus on building your tribe, rather than spend time beautifying your profile.

So if you are looking to get your business started on social media, you need to choose a social media workshop that gets you to think about your master plan and has enough material on the strategic concepts, rather and one that just teaches you how to set up a Facebook account and fan page.

Makes sense?

Posted on Thursday, 28 Oct 2010 by Kian Ann in Social Media Marketing
4 Comments
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Email Marketing

Email MarketingYesterday, I decided to work late into the night and use the time to focus on “marketing my business”. I looked at what resources I had, and I decided to do “email marketing”.

Not with Aweber, Constant Contact, Vertical Response, or Intellicontact.

I didn’t blast out 7000 emails.

I sent 7 personally hand-crafted emails just from my Gmail account, asking for referrals from existing contacts and clients.

Guess what? Within 24 hours, now I have at least 5 potential deals lined up and I’ll be meeting up with some of these business owners tomorrow and on Friday to discuss their web design and SEO requirements… and that is not taking into the “broadcast” which one friend offered to help me do when he gets back from his holiday – to his colleagues, over on the other side of the world in Austin, Texas.

I was very surprised with the response and I’m so glad I have so wonderful clients and associates. I really appreciate their help!

The Money is in the List?

In the Internet Marketing arena, they always say that “the money is in the list”.

While that is true to an extent, I feel that what is more important is for you to have a good relationship with the people in your “list”. Many small businesses read too much into the idea of building a massive list, and really fail to focus on building those relationships.

Then we end up with “lists” that are so void of relationships that when we email out we need to track “open rates”.

I’ve certainly fell into this trap myself, and the short marketing exercise yesterday was a good wake up call for me to focus back on relationships. This will not be easy for me, since I can really be a total woodblock when it comes to socializing.

But I think it will be worth it.

How about you? When was the last time you sent a really personalized email?

Posted on Wednesday, 22 Sep 2010 by Kian Ann in Internet Marketing
6 Comments
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