Blogging is Marvelous, Do It!

In this blog post on my blog, I will be blogging about blogging. Tip numero uno, don’t get caught blagging when blogging, otherwise your blog will be boggling to blog fans. Unlike my opening two sentences, I think business blogs should be more clear and coherent in order for the end user to get what they want. People would probably be more interested in hard facts about the business more so than blogging about irrelevant information. So always have the customer’s interest in mind maybe blog about the latest offers or promote and encourage existing deals.

As important as it is to focus on the business when blogging, adding an element of fun will help to engage with your audience to keep them interested. So perhaps you could write the blog from a customer’s perspective allowing you to take a light hearted approach and make jokes where applicable. Being witty or amusing is always a winner when blogging as long as it is done in moderation. Here is a personal favourite quote of a notice my uncle has hanging up on the window of his business.

"If you noticed this notice you will notice, that this notice wasn’t worth noticing at all"

Every now and again, you could post some unrelated subjects such as a list of jokes, inspiring quotes or riddles. Doing this will help build a community and get people to associate your blog with being more homely and interesting and will automatically make the blog more memorable. Blogging is a low-cost alternative to having a huge web presence, this suits small businesses with little time to make a cyber-impact, as long as you keep the blog updated frequently.

Blogging also allows you to manage your reputation to an extent, it’s good for brand building and if you exploit the niches it can position you as an expert. You can outline and highlight to customers 'why they should choose you business' once you have properly established your blog. Everyone is on a level playing field when blogging, there’s no real big secrets, it's just a matter of building a relationship between you and your customers and keep them reading. So if you follow these basic steps I'm sure your company will soon reap the rewards of blogging and you might even find yourself developing a new hobby. So there's just one thing left to say,

ready, steady, BLOG!!

A few ways to compete with bigger companies ☆✮★

Competing against big name companies is intimidating even for the most experienced entrepreneurs. But just because a company is bigger doesn't mean its better. Small businesses can compete against bigger companies by playing to their strengths and using strategies that make them stand out from their larger competition.

1. Niches

Small businesses can compete against the big companies by focusing on niches within the larger market. These niches can be based a number of things. The most important thing is that making sure your profitable and that your company delivers better than anyone else. Large companies may have larger product line, but on a product by product basis they cannot compete with smaller businesses who have a market niche. Hence the saying quality over quantity.

2. Customer service.

Large companies frequently struggle to provide personalized attention to their customers. On the other hand, small businesses have earned a reputation for their ability to treat their customers with a personal touch. Leverage that ability in your advertising and customer referral programs to differentiate yourself from larger competitors.

3. Long-term customer relationships

Another small business advantage is their ability to create long term relationships with their customer base. Big companies sometimes find it difficult to develop long term relationships with their base simply because customers tend to relate to people rather than organizations. But small businesses are all about people. That makes it easy for customers to put a face on your business, thus facilitating the development of long term relationships.

4. Loss leaders

By taking a loss on a few select products you can increase customer traffic and expose new customers to the big advantages your small business has to offer. A common tactic you may also want to consider is selling a "loss product" with another more profitable product to minimize the overall loss.

5. Professional excellence

In large companies, the people at the top are often separated from the people who interact with customers by several levels of middle managers. But in smaller companies, the owners have the opportunity to regularly interact with all their employees and observe their employees interaction with their customers. This is a good advantage because your first level employees can hear directly from you what you expect from them. It also gives you the opportunity to encourage your employees to do the same.

6. Employees

Small businesses also have the advantage of being able to retain a much higher percentage of employees than their big company counterparts. The result is lower training costs, better service, and a healthier company overall. By taking time to develop relationships with your employees you will get loyalty in your employees and give your business the edge you need to compete in the marketplace.

Have a listen to this video for more tips

Advertising

Advertising is an important aspect for any business. The PR side of advertising i.e. press releases, photo calls and websites is vital, but if you’re not also advertising your company in other areas I think you’re selling yourself short. A very good website for all you need to know about placing an advert is medialive.com. It has all the listings for local and national media. So if for example you want to place an advertisement with a coupon in your local paper you can see how much it will cost you depending on the size and colour of print along with contact details. The sign up process is very straight forward making it a user friendly website.

If your company can afford it, sponsorship can be of benefit to your company. You can chose how much you want to spend whether it is a small event or a local sports team, sponsorship helps get your company name out there and strait away wins over some potential customers.

A modern tactic by many businesses these days is to reward their customers for their loyalty. So the best idea is to organise a deal with another company in a compromise that both companies prosper from. This could include a discount weekend away in a hotel or free meal in a certain restaurant.

These are just a few basic ideas that if a little more creativity were added could prove to be successful business ventures. I will arise and go now, and go to rag week.

How to optimize a PR company's assistance

It can be very useful to seek help from a PR practioner or firm here are some steps to make sure that you get the most from their guidence.

Business is becoming more tough in the digital age, hireing a PR agency can increase value, bring expertise and offer the best path for your company to take. For a small business who has yet to work with a PR company here is my advice in order to ensure you optimize their assistance.

1. Identify the objectives:

It's important to recognise and visualise an image of what you want your company to feel like when it's successful. It will most likely consist of various achievements and effects, certain goals should be determined for both. Establish a system that can display your short term progress to show that your goals are being met.

2. Inspect your finacial plan:

When engaging in new business ventures its always valuable to construct a finacial plan. How much is within finacial means for hireing a PR firm? What results will your business gain? Without any finacial plan it will be hard for the PR firm to operate efficiently.

Set aside time to review the past year and devise a finacial plan for the coming year. The company may have to update the budget for various reasons if there is a need to focus towards a different goal.

3. Know the company:

I believe that one of the more important factors when searching for a firm is the aptidude to know your company and give goals and clever concepts leading to your business being more profitable. It's difficult to end up with a profitable plan if your agency doesnt know the company well enough.

4. Approach:

Make sure to analyze your PR company's methods. Different PR companys have different methods, it may benefit you to do some research and find out which company that you think would work best for your business.

5. Develop believe in your PR company:

Remember that the agency you choose want to do the best they can for you, remember that they are experts in their field and you should trust them. It will work out in your favour if you challenge them to lead your business in to the best circumstances. It's important to use teamwork working towards realistic goals. If you follow these steps you should be getting more bang for your buck.

Blog post: Benefit's of social media

Greetings to all my readers, today I am going to discuss the advantages of social media and why small businesses should get involved.

The whole way in which business has traditionally operated is rapidly changing from physical to cyber. Slowly but surely the need for a workplace is deteriorating. Sales and awareness are becoming more prominent online. The importance of getting your business online should not be underestimated and failing to do so will lead to your company being left behind as its vital to change with the times.

I don’t know much about computers?

Don’t be frightened there are plenty of courses around to help people improve there IT skills, if a snot nosed ten year old can do it, then so can you.

Where do I start?

The best course of action is to immediately start up a company website, explaining the business and what it can off the public. Websites are not that difficult to set up and can be done for free on www.wix.com. I would advise paying the small annual fee of ten quid for a domain name however to get a more professional feel to the site and to ensure your site appears higher up on the search engine results page.

Every good business should get Facebook account. Facebook has over a billion users and is very easy to use, so it’s an obvious hub for potential customers. The most important aspect in order to maximize your Facebook account is updating frequently. Nobody is interested in old news, so making Facebook aware of your latest offers and activity is essential. Holding creative competitions or making jokes will go down a treat to ensure your Facebook experience is successful. Just like old school business, it’s all about building a relationship with your customers. Another social media website that could prove beneficial is twitter. Similar to Facebook, it’s important to constantly update and maintain a twitter account to achieve a good response.

If a business isn't online these days there not optimizing profits so basically to sum up get online, get tweeting and get involved otherwise you’re missing out!

Blog post: A haon.

Hi I’m Ciaran, Welcome to my new blog. I’m a second year PR student in IT Carlow where I’m receiving some of the finest education available, so there is an off chance that my blog will generate a worldwide cult following as I soar to the top of the PR consultant ladder. The core theme of my blog that I will be focusing on throughout the coming weeks will be ‘Public Relations within a small business’. I thought it might be an interesting topic as smaller companies have limited resources to spend on PR. So my intentions are to dispense my opinions and ideas for the public relations of the average small business, and you have the joy of reading them.

Small companies have to work hard to compete in today’s market, fighting a constant battle against recession; time and money are of the essence. Public relations may not always be on top of the priority list, but it ought to be. A company’s reputation is everything, and if the public develop a bad perception of a company, it may be curtains. Public relations could help you to have a good reputation with not only your clients, but also with stakeholders which could lead to more investment and offer the prospect of expansion or opening new ventures.

We can talk about building a presence, or creating a brand for your business, or any other aspect of public relations until we’re blue in the face. In the end, though the most important aspect of public relations in my opinion is getting people talking and keeping your company on people’s minds. This is part of the reason that some say “there’s no such thing as bad publicity.” I’m not sure if I agree with that phrase though as bad publicity mostly has a negative effect and could be detrimental to smaller companies.

I understand that the suspense may be a little overwhelming right now but that’s all I've got time for this week, I hope you have got an idea of what to expect from this introductory post. I hope to update this blog at least once a week so sit tight until next time (not literally).