Month: July 2013

One of the best ways to promote and cover an event is through a blog.  A blog can help spread awareness about an event as well as serve as a recap for those who missed the event.  However, many event bloggers fail to leverage some of the most important advantages that will make their promotion and coverage the most effective.

Here are three advantages that any event blogger should leverage when blogging about an event:

Incorporate Video Content from Speakers

What better than an actual video of the speaker?  For those who either missed the event, or those who simply want to see it again (because it was just that awesome), a quality video of the speaker is crucial to creating a post that will generate traffic and shares.  In order to make the most of the video, event bloggers should keep these two things in mind:

• Host the video from your own site.  If you host the video from your own site rather than uploading it to YouTube and then embedding the video on your site, Google will determine the original source of the video as your site, therefore ranking your site rather than YouTube.  If you upload to YouTube and then embed the video on your site, YouTube will be determined as the original source and this will do nothing for your own page’s rank.
• Make sure your video is optimized for the web.  It’s important to remember that many people watching your video will be viewing from a laptop or mobile device, so you want to make sure that the video will be optimized for these devices.  If you’re filming with a wide-angle lens, the speaker will hardly be visible on a smartphone.

 

Utilize Guest Posts from Speakers

Guest posts are huge for event bloggers.  If your site isn’t getting a lot of traffic, having the speaker of an event guest post on your blog before or after the event can do wonders.  Guest posts provide blogs with:

• Credibility.   If your guest poster is well known and has been featured on well-known sites before, you will seem more credible in your field than somebody who has never utilized guest posting before.  As your blog post shows up in a Google search, people will see the name of the guest poster and automatically be more drawn to your article than many of the others around it.
• Inbound Links.  A guest post will usually include the writer’s bio and their social media URLs at the end of the post.  These inbound links are extremely important in boosting organic search rankings, which result in better search visibility for the author’s website.
• Networking.  Networking that results from guest blogging can result in some valuable industry contacts.  Every time somebody guest posts on your blog, you now have them as a contact.  In addition, some people may begin to ask you to guest post on their blogs as well because of the networking you have been doing.

 

Determine the Popularity of Your Event

Do some research and find out if anybody is talking about your event.  You can track online conversations with social monitoring tools to see what others are saying about your event.  This research is extremely important in determining how successful an event will be, and here’s why:

• It tells you what people are saying.  If you know what people are saying about your event in advance, you are at a serious advantage.  You can now make adjustments catered to any positive or negative feedback, which can totally change the outcome of your event.  You can also see what people have to say after the event, and based off of that feedback you can make adjustments for future events.
• It allows you to acknowledge those voicing their opinions.  When people take the time to voice their opinions, its usually because they want to be acknowledged.  Giving thoughtful feedback to people can help build your reputation and relationship with potential audience members.  If somebody has a problem with your event, a response from you can change their opinion and possibly result in one more audience member.

 

When promoting or covering an event a blog is one of the best tools at your disposal, and when utilized properly, it can help you pull in a lot of traffic. These three strategies are just some of the ways that you can use your blog to boost your event’s overall impact.

Are there any other tips you would suggest for event bloggers?

For a startup or a small business, having the image of a big business can do wonders for your company.  Just because your business is small doesn’t mean it has to look small.  Image is an important factor when it comes to earning the trust of customers, and that’s why people tend to trust big name brands or companies.  Here are some really great ways to make your business look bigger:

Give Your Website a Makeover

Having a killer website is essential for making your business look bigger because your website is usually the first impression people get of your company.  You don’t want your site to look like it was built by an average Joe with basic coding skills.  An easy-to-navigate design combined with compelling content and visuals will give your website a professional image and make your business look bigger.

Build a Social Presence

Get your company name all over the major social networks like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Pintrest, etc., and be active with them.  Social Networking allows you build a strong customer-company relationship through daily interaction.  You can post polls, ask questions, answer questions, and address concerns.  By keeping up with your social networking you will build your company’s visibility on the web as well as foster a healthy relationship between you and your customers.

Get Your Name in the Press

Media coverage is a great way to boost your company’s image.  If people are seeing your company or product featured in magazines or articles, you gain credibility instantly.  You can’t go into a pitch with your eyes closed and guns blazing.  The pitch is very important and you’ll need to be prepared to make your company seem worth writing about.  Here are some things you should know before you contact an editor or a writer:

• Why should anyone care about your startup?  Are you fixing any problems?
• Does your startup align with any current trends that people would want to read about?
• Be able to answer the who, what, when, where, and why about your company.

Any sort of publication with a decent following, whether it be a magazine, article, blog post, etc., will help make your business look bigger.  If people see other people talking about you, it will make your brand one that people can start to trust.

Setup a Virtual Office Package

If you are working from home and customers see a home address as your headquarters on your Contact page, they’re probably going to question how legit your business is.  Signing up for a virtual office package that gives you a dedicated business address will quickly make your business look bigger and more trustworthy.  Instead of seeing a mailing address in a local residence, you can use a professional business address for a surprisingly affordable price.

Many virtual office packages also include mail and phone handling, so your provider can handle and forward your mail as well as provide you with somebody to answer your calls for you.  A combination of the professional business address and phone number will make your business look bigger to anybody that comes across it.

Whether you are a startup or a small business, it isn’t too hard to make your business look bigger.  If you make the necessary image adjustments, your company will look way more professional and appealing to current and potential customers.

More and more companies are beginning to explore the idea of coworking – creating work environments with no walls that promote face-to-face collaboration.  Some argue that coworking environments can be more distracting because of all the extra noise, but shared workspaces are actually increasing the bottom line for businesses.

Here’s why:

Shared workspaces are cheap

They help save on the costs of setup, as well as the costs of adding employees.  A shared workspace provides plenty of floor space for extra workstations, and therefore fitting more employees into the same space.  They’re efficient.  As Will Ferrell’s eccentric character, Brennan Huff, from the movie Step Brothers would say when he and his brother convert their beds into bunk beds, “There’s so much more room for activities!”  And he’s right.  The open floor space creates much more room for employees, and it helps foster conversation, which is key to generating ideas and innovation.

Face-to-Face Interaction Increases Productivity

While a lot of companies are moving towards remote working and conferencing, they are losing out on that face-to-face interaction, which allows workers to brainstorm and bounce new ideas back and forth.  It’s harder to create an environment that focuses heavily on collaboration and communication with remote conferencing.  If walls are getting in the way, then so are the miles between workers when they are working from outside of the office.

ThreeFortyNine and Kap Design have put together this infographic which shows an increase in shared workspaces and a direct correlation to an increase in productivity.

Increased Resources

Home offices aren’t necessarily designed to cater to the needs of a startup.  If your company involves more people than just you, a shared workspace provides you with a place for your team to gather, meet, and discuss outside of your living room or a coffee shop.

Shared workspaces also provide you with more resources than you probably would have access to in your home office.  With your membership you will have access to high-speed Wifi, better printing capabilities, conference rooms, whiteboards for notes and planning, and a dedicated desk and chair in a professional setting.

 

Fan of coworking, or not, at the end of the day shared workspaces can actually increase the bottom line for companies because they save on the costs of office setup, and the costs of adding employees.  A key thing to take away is that shared workspaces spaces not only help save on costs, but they create an environment where employees are more likely to collaborate and be more innovative, and you can’t put a value on that.

What are your thoughts on shared workspaces?