If you have been in business for any amount of time you undoubtedly had to answer questions about the products or services you deliver. Chances are you had to answer the same exact questions over and over again. This is the way search engines work for people who use the web as their information source…which means pretty much everyone on the web. People have questions, they type them into their favorite search engine the results should have the answers. In comes the blog.

Think of a business blog as your repository for information about your business, industry, products and services. When you are in business you gain an intimate relationship with whatever you offer. You know how it functions, it’s quirks and you probably have insight into its future. This information is valuable to current and future customers alike. It builds consumer confidence in your business and leverages you as an authority figure in your field. Incidentally, this is one of the “assets” I talked about in Part 1 of this study. If you use other social media for marketing your business, having a blog(if used correctly) gives your more relevance and clout.

Having a blog is not for everyone. An empty or seldom updated blog is akin to having an e-commerce store where you sometimes if ever process orders. It is useless unless you fulfill its function. The business blogs function is to inform, educate and feed those looking for ever changing information. If you are not comfortable doing research and writing information you have two options. One option is to not have a blog. The second option is to start with small frequent blog posts until you are comfortable delving deeper into subjects. We will touch on this more in Part 3.

Start that blog! If you choose to get your blog rolling…blogroll: list of recommended blogs listed on the sidebar of a blog…you will either need a little technical know-how or someone that possesses the technical know-how. If you have the technical know-how then you will need web hosting that supports the blog software you wish to use. WordPress is a very popular blogging software and is one I recommend. There are hundreds of “skins” for WordPress that can take you from the normal “blah” layout of a standard install to completely sheik in a few clicks. After that you just need to familiarize yourself with the amazing administration portion of the software and you are ready to blog.

If you are not technically inclined there are companies that can help you get your blog off the ground. Solid Cactus is a great company that helps business owners develop their online presence. They take care of everything from e-commerce to search marketing to blogs to a number of other services.

Once you get your blog up and running there are some key things you should be conscious of when writing your posts. We will go over that in the next part of this study.

Many small web business owners do not have the time nor resources to manage a social marketing presence in addition to their daily tasks within their business. This and future articles will touch on some of the key online social marketing tools and how to manage them without getting dizzy every time you look at your computer screen.

Take a deep breath in and let it all out (continue breathing throughout the article )

Twitter has been gaining a lot of momentum as a social marketing medium. I personally just started to grasp the power Twitter has as a marketing tool. Twitter allows you to make little statements or ‘Tweets’, 140 character max, that people who “follow” you can read, reply or ReTweet to their followers. Reread the previous sentence and think about it for a moment. Twitter is an easy way to develop ‘word of mouth’ advertising. To be successful with Twitter you need to do two things.

First you need assets that will make each Tweet you make a valuable resources to others. An informative blog that you frequently update is a great asset. After each post you can Tweet that there’s new information to read. Perhaps you have an “in” within your industry and you can Tweet about what is happening. If you do a lot of browsing and article reading you can Tweet links to those articles so others can also read the information. These are all assets to make your Tweets valuable. Using your Tweets to constantly advertise your products will quickly annoy and disconnect you from your followers. Certainly throw in plugs on occasion for specials or new things you add to your business but try to be more of a ‘friend’ to your followers. Be the friend that has helpful things to offer…hopefully this is natural for you.

Second you need ‘followers’. With Twitter it is easy to start developing a follower base. You can utilize Twitter’s Search to search for things in your industry that others may be Tweeting about or looking for. You can contact leaders in your industry to see if they have a Twitter presence and follow them. You can start following some of the top 1000 leading Twitter accounts on the web. If you have industry forums you participate in you can post your Twitter name requesting them to follow you. People will start following you.

Once you are up and running with Twitter there are some great add-ons and programs you can use to manage your Tweets and the Tweets of people you are following. I personally like TwitterFox. It is an add-on to Firefox which puts a little icon in your status bar so you can stay up to date on the Tweets you are following and have easy access for adding your own Tweets. TweetDeck is another great standalone application that you can use to put your Tweets and followers in groups plus a number of other great features.

Twitter can get very addicting. Try to limit the amount of time you spend reading and Tweeting. If you follow some seasoned vets of Twitter you will probably get an amazing amount of information to read. Set time aside to read the information and possibly ReTweet the info to your followers.

Look for the next installment where we’ll go over Blogs.

Additional resources/reads: Top 15 Twitter Acronyms, Twitter Applications, 50 Ideas on Using Twitter for Business (amazing amount of information), Twitter Drives Traffic to Blogs and Social Networks, But Not to Retail Sites