{"id":1089,"date":"2007-07-25T15:04:48","date_gmt":"2007-07-25T20:04:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2007\/07\/missing-the-boat-on-blogging\/"},"modified":"2007-07-25T15:04:49","modified_gmt":"2007-07-25T20:04:49","slug":"missing-the-boat-on-blogging","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2007\/07\/missing-the-boat-on-blogging\/","title":{"rendered":"Missing The Boat On Blogging"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Inc.com&#8217;s article <a href=\"http:\/\/www.inc.com\/news\/articles\/200707\/Internet.html?partner=rss\" target=\"_blank\">Business Owners Rank Internet as Most Important Marketing Tool<\/a> speaks to the marketing efforts of small companies.&nbsp; The poll only involved 250 business owners so it is a small sample size, but let me unpack the article this way:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>While e-mail may top the list of Internet-related activities, many small businesses have begun implementing&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.inc.com\/resources\/marketing\/articles\/20040801\/search.html\">online advertising<\/a>&nbsp;strategies. Of survey respondents, <strong>59 percent use online ads and 68 percent utilize search engine optimization &#8220;sometimes&#8221; or &#8220;often<\/strong>.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Business owners are making efforts to increase their Internet presence. <strong>Forty-four percent say they plan on spending more on Internet tools this year compared to 2006<\/strong>, while 27 percent plan to spend the same amount as last year. The amount small businesses will shell out for their Web activities varies, with the largest group (45 percent) spending less than $2,500.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Seems like these owners are driven to invest in their company&#8217;s Internet presence.&nbsp; But then there is this:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Online social tools like&nbsp;blogs&nbsp;and message boards, however, are not as popular an option for business marketing. Almost <strong>half of small business owners never use a blog<\/strong>, 37 percent never visit message boards or chat rooms, and 59 percent have never tried the virtual world of Second Life.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Grouping blogs, chat rooms and Second Life together is quite a stretch.&nbsp; But half of the owners <em>never<\/em> use a blog?&nbsp; That is remarkable to me.&nbsp; These owners are missing out on volumes of information that could benefit their company.<\/p>\n<p>Also, investing in a blog for their own company would seem to be an investment with a tremendous return &#8211; especially if 44% are planning to spend more on Internet tools this year.&nbsp; Personally, I can say that this blog has dramatically changed our business in ways we never imagined when we first started it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Inc.com&#8217;s article Business Owners Rank Internet as Most Important Marketing Tool speaks to the marketing efforts of small companies.&nbsp; The poll only involved 250 business owners so it is a small sample size, but let me unpack the article this way: While e-mail may top the list of Internet-related activities, many small businesses have begun implementing&nbsp;online advertising&nbsp;strategies. Of survey respondents, 59 percent use online ads and 68 percent utilize search engine optimization &#8220;sometimes&#8221; or &#8220;often.&#8221; Business owners are making efforts to increase their Internet presence. Forty-four percent say they plan on spending more on Internet tools this year compared to 2006, while 27 percent plan to spend the same amount&hellip; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2007\/07\/missing-the-boat-on-blogging\/\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"bgseo_title":"","bgseo_description":"","bgseo_robots_index":"","bgseo_robots_follow":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[17,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1089","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marketing","category-trends"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5Oho-hz","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":498,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2006\/12\/benefits-are-a-benefit\/","url_meta":{"origin":1089,"position":0},"title":"Benefits Are A Benefit","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"December 12, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Allow me to indulge myself for this is a pet peeve of mine. Inc.com offers up this article - Majority of Small-Business Owners Do Not Offer Retirement Benefits. Only 14 percent of the nation's small-business owners offer a 401(k) plan to their employees, and 63 percent do not offer any\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Compensation&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Compensation","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/compensation\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":364,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2006\/10\/activist-shareholders\/","url_meta":{"origin":1089,"position":1},"title":"Activist Shareholders&#8230;","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"October 13, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"are two words you don't want to hear if you are CEO of a publicly-traded company. From Inc.com: At public companies, this [turnover] is reflected in the rise of activist shareholders, Jacovitz said, seen most recently in the public ousting of top executives at Hewlett-Packard. I think there may be\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Hiring&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Hiring","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/hiring\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1129,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2007\/08\/hiring-via-gut-feeling\/","url_meta":{"origin":1089,"position":2},"title":"Hiring Via &quot;Gut Feeling&quot;","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"August 14, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"If ever you wondered why hiring is such a gamble, feast your eyes on these 4 paragraphs from Inc.com's Survey: Hiring Often Based on \"Gut Feeling\": Most small-business owners hire employees based on likeability, rather than qualifications, according to a recent survey. In a survey of 500 small businesses nationwide\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Assessing&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Assessing","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/hiring\/assessing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1084,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2007\/07\/recruiting-process-affects-your-marketing-efforts\/","url_meta":{"origin":1089,"position":3},"title":"Recruiting Process Affects Your Marketing Efforts?","author":"Lee Fratzke","date":"July 23, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Yes according to a recent study by Capital Consulting in London. I came across this short little article from Workforce Management in a newsletter. It is a short artice so I will reproduce it in it's entirety (emphasis is mine): At Least Say Thank You: Shoddy recruiting does more than\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Communication&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Communication","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/communication\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1435,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/02\/the-cost-of-underperforming-salespeople\/","url_meta":{"origin":1089,"position":4},"title":"The Cost Of Underperforming Salespeople","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"February 25, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Here's an interesting little article I stumbled across this morning from Seacoastonline.com titled Get the most out of your sales team.\u00a0 The premise is simple and accurate - nonproductive salespeople are the bane of any small (or large) business. A nonproductive sales team is among the top common dangers that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Assessing&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Assessing","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/hiring\/assessing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":986,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2007\/06\/small-business-retention-strategy\/","url_meta":{"origin":1089,"position":5},"title":"Small Business Retention Strategy","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"June 7, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Inc.com offers a short article titled Employers Focus on Worker Retention. The takeaway graphs (emphasis mine): Small businesses are focusing more resources on employee-retention plans, rather than recruiting efforts or new benefits policies, a recent survey found. Of 241 small-business executives surveyed nationwide, 21 percent said they have expanded training\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Hiring Salespeople&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Hiring Salespeople","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/hiring\/hiring-salespeople\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1089","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1089"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1089\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<!-- WP Super Cache is installed but broken. 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