Successful Blog

4 Ways To Make Your Blog More Newsworthy

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By Kelly Gregorio

Business blogs are great; they can connect you with your audience, provide you with an outlet to interact and help in your ever-lasting effort to develop a positive brand image.

But as the popularity of business blogging has increased, so has its blandness. Hundreds upon hundreds of business blogs are out there, making it difficult for audience members to know which quality blogs are worth following.

One deciding factor is a blog’s newsworthiness. Now, no one is asking you to break hard news, but there are some steps you can take to position your blog as relevant and timely. Read on to discover 4 additions you can make to your blog while providing content that is relevant, relatable and on-trend.

1. Host an Interview

Even if you aren’t well-versed in the latest news within your industry, there other experts out there who have that expertise. Consider inviting a newsworthy person onto your blog’s pages in the form of an interview. Audience members will enjoy a fresh perspective and a twist in your normal content delivery.

Once more, even though it’s not you who is providing the “newsworthy” commentary, your effort to connect your audience with this type of information will still position you as a leader in your field. When prompting someone for an interview, point out ways in which you could cross-promote (perhaps they have an upcoming book or service they’re offering); your best bet for landing an awesome interview is to craft a win-win.

2. Comment on Current Events

When big news hits it seems like every news outlet is reporting on it (and based on the same passed-around press release, the same story easily gets recycled.) However, just because a hot story has been reported on doesn’t mean you can’t provide your own unique twist and angle, i.e., your own perspective.

Add in some commentary on relevant current events; see if you can get people sharing and debating certain ideas. Add a twist to a popular subject by posing “what if” scenarios to your audience. Use your imagination to spice up the contemplation of black and white facts.

3. Report on Personal Trends

While it may not be the top trending topic, within your own small business you break news and witness the emergence of new trends all of the time. Consider ways in which you could turn your own entrepreneurial experiences into relevant story lines. Not only will audience members get use out of your action-oriented advice, but by sharing your personal stories and situations, you are likely to increase loyalty and engagement by opening up and letting followers in.

4. Set Up “Google Alerts”

Based on your industry there are certain key words that float around your immediate atmosphere. Setting up a free and simple Google alert is one way to get a jump on new developments and reports.

Whether you end up reporting on the information your alerts deliver or not, an act like this is just good measure as it allows you to stay on top of what’s trending within your industry. In one way or another that engaged education will be reflected either in your blog or other areas of your business. Staying current and educated is everything – especially for the busy entrepreneur.

How newsworthy is your blog?

Author’s Bio: Kelly Gregorio writes about small business topics while working at Advantage Capital Funds, a provider of merchant cash advances. You can read her daily business blog here http://www.advantagecapitalfunds.com/blog/.

Can My Business Survive Negative Press?

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A negative news story or bad review — in print or online — is almost inevitably a cause for alarm in a business owner’s life. Bad PR, whether justified or not, can cut into a company’s sales volume and ultimately tip the balance from profit to loss.

Although it’s hard not to panic when confronted with bad press, business owners should guard against that reaction at all costs.

Panic will do nothing to address the matter and could keep the company from taking timely steps to reverse or undo the damage from the negative publicity.

So, what are the steps to undertake when this situation occurs? Among them:

Evaluate Report

The first step must be a careful evaluation of the news story or online posting that is the cause for concern.

Is the report accurate? Does it make valid points about a product’s failings? A restaurant’s service?

Or is it a malicious — and unfounded — attack on the business? No matter what the report’s origins, steps can be taken to undo the damage. It may take time, however.

Although lashing out in anger may very well be the business owner’s knee-jerk reaction to bad press, this is almost certain to appear defensive and may only exacerbate the public relations nightmare that bad press can cause.

Although it’s essential to cool down before responding to bad press, a timely response is essential. It’s unwise to let too much time elapse before making a reasoned response, preferably in the same medium in which the negative report first appeared.

Own Up to It

Hopefully, a careful analysis of the negative report has determined whether it is justified or not.

If the criticism implicit in the report is valid, then the business owner must take responsibility for the product’s flaw and pledge to correct the problem before the product returns to the market. Owning up to a company’s failings and pledging to make things right tends to humanize the business and create a more favorable impression on the public.

In the event, however, the report is inaccurate, the business’s response should contain a calm and rational defense of the product or service in question.

If a news story is the source of the bad press, an attack on the reporter is senseless and, once again, comes off as uncomfortably defensive.

Reporters are human too and sometimes make mistakes, including failing to solicit comments from the subject of a negative story before the article is printed.

Gray Areas Exist

Not every instance of bad press can be subjected to a definitive analysis of right or wrong.

A restaurant review that suggests bad service or under-cooked food on the night the restaurant critic visited is virtually impossible to refute.

In a case such as that, the restaurant owner is probably best served by acknowledging that lapses in service and quality occasionally occur and by promising to do everything possible to avoid them in the future. Getting into a war of words with a restaurant critic only tends to call greater attention to the original negative review.

To help bolster a business’s ability to withstand negative publicity, business owners should work tirelessly to strengthen the power of their brands.

If the brand of a product or service strikes a strong positive vibe in the minds of consumers, it is better able to survive an instance — or prolonged assault — of bad press.

Solid Brands Weather Storms

Toyota, Ford, Tylenol, and countless others have been subjected to long-running struggles with negative publicity, some of it justified and some not, but so powerful were those brands that they emerged pretty much intact, if a bit battered.

It is, of course, unrealistic to expect small business owners that operate locally or regionally to attain a brand recognition comparable to these multinational giants. But consistent product and service excellence can establish a strong brand, if only in a somewhat smaller marketplace.

And a strong brand helps a company to survive negative publicity with little, if any, lasting damage.

Photo credit: zdnet.com

About the Author: Jay Fremont is a freelance author who has written extensively about personal finance, corporate strategy, and Amerisave.

Customers and the Internet Can Be Deadly Combo for Businesses

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With all the good the Internet has brought to both businesses and customers, it also has opened a can of worms that is not too easy to close.

Take the following example:

A customer comes to your restaurant with their significant other for a special evening of fine dining and relaxation. Their waiter/waitress is running behind and is late getting them their orders. When the food does arrive, it is not what they ordered and/or is cold. The restaurant is real noisy and the couple, the ones that were planning on a peaceful dining experience, ends up feeling like they just spent an hour or two at a food court in a busy airport. When all is said and done, they leave your restaurant and haven’t even left a decent tip. Think you will never hear from them again?

In all likelihood, while you may never see them in person again, there is a very good chance you will hear from them, as will countless others.

Internet Has Changed the Ways We Do Business

You see, the ‘old days’ likely meant that you may get a letter in the mail regarding the service, but not much more than that. Okay, while it is never good business to lose a customer or two, losing a few here and there is to be expected.

But wait, what if you now lose hundreds of potential customers because of this one bad experience the couple had? Don’t think it can happen? Well, think again.

After that couple left your eatery the other night, one or both of them took to the Internet and told anyone who would listen about what a bad experience they had at your restaurant. Now, instead of maybe just their family and friends knowing about it, potentially hundreds and even thousands will hear their complaints.

Negative publicity regarding your business is certainly not a positive thing, but do you automatically have to react or does doing so actually open you up to more trouble?

First and foremost determine why the negative publicity originated:

  • Was the customer’s bad experience something that could have been prevented or were you not even aware of it until the fallout?
  • Is it a constructive comment or something that seems personal from a customer you’ve had issues with in the past?
  • Has this customer’s bad experience been something new to your business or is this becoming an unwanted trend (other customers too) as of late?
  • If you have dealt with a similar issue before, what was the outcome?

When it comes to dealing with bad publicity, the advent of the Internet years back has meant business owners now can be dealt a major blow with just a few sentences being banged out on a keyboard.

What once used to be bad publicity spread through word of mouth from one upset customer to maybe a handful of people can now be passed around like a viral wildfire by one click of a mouse. In just minutes, thousands of people can read a bad review of your business and form negative views of it in the process.

If your business believes that bad publicity is better than no publicity at all, then by all means stand back and take your chances. Chances are, however, that many companies don’t feel that way and will take a stand to deal with the matter.

If negative publicity links regarding your business seem to be spreading like wildfire, the best way to eliminate them is by using the correct SEO techniques.

Do You Know and Understand Your Online Reputation?

A positive step is hiring an expert who handles online reputation rebuilding so they can start the cleansing process of removing bad publicity links.

The individual/company you hire to rebuild your company’s reputation can simply demote bad post ranking sites from search engines such as Google, promoting positive posts for the rankings instead. The information is likely still to be on the Internet, but those researching will have a major dig on their hands.

In the event comments are left on your site via a forum or on your company’s Facebook page, it is important that you have already have in place a reader comments policy so customers know the rules up front. Not only does this protect you legally, but it also keeps your reputation in tact that you can take the heat and address the issues at heart. For those customers who leave constructive comments (not involving vulgarity, etc.), by all means leave them up, as censoring them is going to draw the ire of not only the original poster, but likely others.

Business owners can ignore the remarks and let them hopefully die or take them on and deal with those consequences.

The bottom line is trying to determine the potential impact from the comment or comments and how they can impact your wallet.

So, has your business been saddled with negative online comments in the past? If so, what did you do about them?

Photo credit: neighborhoods.redeyechicago.com

Dave Thomas writes extensively for Business.com, an online resource destination for businesses of all sizes to research, find, and compare the products and services they need to run their businesses.