Daily Archives: January 11, 2012

7 Don’ts for Small Business Blogging | Bedford Hills New York Real Estate

Leave a reply

This is a guest post by Sarah Haydu, Digital Marketing Associate for CityVoter. CityVoter runs “best of” contests across the country where people vote online for their favorite local businesses and tell what makes their city special. You can check out their contests on the CityVoter website and get tips for small businesses on the CityVoter blog.

Blogs are a great tool to help your business develop a brand and create added value for your customers, but when done wrong the effort you put in does not grant the output that you would like to see. With so many tips on how best to blog out there, sometimes it is easier to know what not to do, and what doesn’t work, to find out what is best for your business.

1. Don’t decide you’re creating a blog and jump in head first.

While it’s great that you might be excited about your new venture with a blog, it is important to come up with a strategy before you start posting. How often will you update your content? What kind of content will you create?  What objectives do you want to accomplish? What kind of tone will your blog have? These are all important aspects to consider before you start a blog, so be sure to have a clear strategy even before the first post.

2. Don’t plan to post in your spare time.

Running a small business is incredibly time consuming, so if you only plan to post when you’re “free”, the blog will most likely never get updated. Instead, set up a blogging schedule and stick with it! Create a calendar with blog topics and specific dates that you would like to create and post each entry. Use a Google doc if more than one employee manages the company blog and be sure to update it as changes arise.

3. Don’t forget to drive traffic to your blog.

Publish blog posts to your Facebook and Twitter accounts to increase awareness and traffic. Tell your friends and personal network about posts that they might find interesting and encourage them to share it. This will help increase traffic and comments. Also, be sure to link to other shareable content and to anything on your webpage that you reference in the blog.

4. Don’t ignore comments.

It is important to drive readers to engage with your blog through comments and sharing with their network. If someone takes the time to comment, it means they are interested in what you have to say. Show them that you care as well by answering their questions and joining in on the conversation. If they share your blog post on Twitter for all of their followers to see, be sure to thank them with a tweet.

5. Don’t blog just for the sake of blogging.

Don’t clutter your readers’ newsfeeds with garbage just in an attempt to post content frequently. Set a content strategy to ensure you always have interesting ideas to share, and post those ideas at a pace that is sustainable for your business.

6. Don’t abandon the blog.

Are you opening up a new store? Is it a busy month for your business? One of the worst things for your blog and its followers is to bail on the blog with no explanation. It’s not the end of the world if you skip your blog posts for a week or two, but be sure to fill your readers in on why you are busy and tell them you’ll be back soon!

7. Don’t give up.

Perhaps the biggest and most important takeaway is to stick with it! Don’t assume that having a company blog is easy, but trust me when I say it will be worth the effort. It may take a while for your blog to gain traction and build in audience, but don’t give up and have fun!

Do you have other blogging don’ts (or do’s)? Let us know in the comments!

______________________________________________________________

Get Shareaholic for Your Blog!

via blog.shareaholic.com

Bedford New York Real Estate | Oil price falls near $101 as supplies rise

Leave a reply
Oil price falls near $101 as supplies rise

Oil prices dropped Wednesday, as weak U.S. energy demand pushed petroleum supplies sharply higher.

Benchmark crude fell by $1.15 to $101.08 per barrel in New York. Brent crude, which is used to price foreign oil varieties that are imported by U.S. refineries, fell 80 cents to $112.48 per barrel in London.

The Energy Information Administration’s weekly report on petroleum supplies showed gasoline demand fell by 4.8 percent last week from a year ago, while demand for all petroleum products dropped by 6.5 percent.

As consumers and businesses cut back, producers put more into storage than analysts expected. Oil supplies rose by 5 million barrels last week while gasoline supplies grew by 3.6 million barrels. Distillate supplies — including diesel and heating oil — increased by 4 million barrels. Analysts had expected oil supplies to shrink by a million barrels last week, with gasoline and distillate supplies rising by 1.75 million and 1.35 million barrels, respectively.

Oil prices began falling early in the day after Germany said its economy contracted in the final three months of 2011.That raised concerns about the rest of Europe’s economy. Germany, the eurozone’s strongest member, is expected to prop up its neighbors as they work to overcome massive government debts. If the region slides into recession, oil demand will likely decline.

Natural gas prices plunged 5 percent as a mild winter in most of the U.S., combined with increased North American production, has kept supplies high. The futures contract, which on Wednesday lost 17 cents at $2.77 per 1,000 cubic feet, is at the lowest level in a decade for this time of year.

“There’s just too much gas out there, and there’s no evidence that people are shutting in gas production yet to compensate,” said Ron Denhart, an analyst with Strategic Energy & Economic Research.

Denhart said that the energy industry has been increasing natural gas production by about 5 percent per year, while U.S. consumption has been growing by just 1 to 2 percent per year.

In other energy trading, heating oil lost less than a penny at $3.10 per gallon and gasoline futures gave up 2 cents at $2.75 per gallon.

via google.com