Marketing brands is a complex process , however a highly effective and cost effective method to make their presence felt online, the brands have devised a innovative strategy- by inviting bloggers and the twitterati to attend the events and tweet about the brands.

The new age marketing tool is by blogging and tweeting, as television commercials and print ads are impacting the budgets of the companies launching new brands and the object of making their presence felt is achieved by tweets and blogging.

The objective of blogging and tweet is to create a buzz about a particular product and a brand by getting influence-rs to talk about their off line event online.

Research proves that organizing  a tweet up is definitely a better return on investments rather than getting an newspaper advertisement as tweet and blogging has the power to influence minds and you only follow people you get value from. This gives the strength to the medium, because you know that an influence is a perceived as a trendsetter.

Tweets and blogging helps the marketing of the brands through a digitally connected community, at a lower cost than a television commercial.

Tweet ups are more closely organized events where the focus is on the marketing of the brands rather than concentrating on the celebrity who is endorsing the product and the invitees to these tweet ups are like minded people who with tweeting or blogging can impact the sales of the brand.

For some reason or another, bloggers will only target a broad audience, scattered precariously throughout the web. Why? You have a whole treasure trove of readers’ right in your local area. Don’t get me wrong, a blog would be nothing without a bigger picture; but that very same ideal can be increased, sometimes by a great deal, simply by including local readers in your marketing mix.

If you are like most bloggers, you put a lot of pride into your blog. You have probably spent the last several months making it look good for the search engines, as well as incoming traffic from around the world. While I am sure the less-than-local readers enjoy the content you are placing on your blog, I can bet that you would probably have a good crowd of local residents in your hometown who would like reading it as well.

How do you reach an audience that is so close, perhaps even your neighbor, yet so far? You can’t possibly walk door-to-door and personally invite every single soul in your town to read your blog. If that were the case, you probably would never have time to even update your blog. No, no, there has to be a better way. What about through more primitive, traditional methods of advertising, such as with promotional products or newspaper ads?

You have probably been in a restaurant or department store and seen a bulletin board overcrowded with business cards, or perhaps a random coffee table with personalised pens and pencils lying on it. They’re not there for no reason. Their purpose is simply to market a business to passing people such as you. Chances are that you have even pocketed one of the pens for later use and disregarded to colorful logo brandished upon it.

With that being said though, just because it may not have had an effect of you, does not mean that it didn’t have a profound effect on anyone else. Doctors, lawyers, department stores, and other members of the local workforce are increasing their exposure to the local community simply by “accidentally” leaving their branded products in seemingly random places.

Of course the doctors and lawyers in your town most likely have an office locally, but that does not mean that the same concept cannot apply to your blog. In fact, one concept that has proven quite effective lately is mobile advertising. By mobile, I do not mean on a cell phone. Instead, I mean on vehicles through the use of magnets and stickers, or maybe even window chalk (of course, I would hate to be the one having to clean it off the windows). Even girl scouts are employing the use of mobile advertising to sell their famed cookies and other treats.

Regardless of how you reach them, just don’t forget about your local community as viable traffic to your blog. Whether you use promotional products, a television commercial, mobile advertising, or some other method, one more visitor to your blog will always prove to be beneficial.

Right now, WordPress is the most versatile blogging platform out there and you get tons of options for customization. You not only get to change the look and feel of the blog but you can also change the way your users interact with the content that you have put. Maybe this is the reason why WordPress is used very widely. However, you might be tempted to use a lot of options and this might make your blog look bloated. I am blogging about a few simple steps to make your blog look better –

Overall design of the blog

This is the most obvious thing in a blog. If the content that you put is going to make your blog grow and if you are attempting to attract a lot of people then the design of your blog must complement all the time. Simple design too might do the trick and there is no need for high end eye candy everywhere. Also, it is really important that your WordPress Blog theme highlights your content first. If you do this, your readers will get what they came for in the first place.

Comments

For me, the comment section is one of the only place to interact with your readers and I don’t understand why people put a lot of different plugins or features which crowd the comments place. For instance, there are some blogs who have messy comment fields and you don’t know where to begin. It can get very confusing.

Social sharing

Social media and social networking is seen everywhere these days; it is simply unavoidable and in one way, it is a good thing. You’d want people to engage with the content but you would also want to make people share it with others. Here too simplicity is the key. I go through a few blogs everyday and see a lot of mess in social sharing etiquette. There are sharing icons cloase to the blog, on a single post layer and also close to the comments! You need to choose wisely and you will be rewarded well.

For me, blogging is fun and at most of the times, it doesn’t even feel like work. It is like having fun because I am doing what I love. The thing that I like the most about blogging is that one can be casual and there are no strict rules to follow. I have tried a lot of things over the yeas in my blogging careers and thus I know what works and what doesn’t. For people who want to be a successful blogger, here are my few bits

Stick to your true voice and passion – A lot of people strain away from this particulary when they realize the opportunity to make more money. Money may come in the short term but you will regret it in the long term.

Offer authenticity and transparency – Blogging is more like a journal that other read because your readers know all your skills or talents that is related to what you are blogging about.

Start experimenting and have fun – You might suffer from writer’s block but this doesn’t mean that blogging is tiresome. Be careful with what you experiment because no one likes a messy laboratory.

Give your readers a feel of your style and voice – Reveal more about yourself to your community. Are you a calm writer? Or are you the kind who writes deep through the posts?

You are responsible for your creations – There is a code of conduct where in you are responsible for what you write and what comments you allow on the blog. You also have the power for accepting or declining.

Connect well with your audience – If you are not going to respond to some comments then make your people aware of that. Also, try to connect with people who have content that is similar to what you are writing.

Always learn and keep improving – The best phrase here is ‘Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish’. There is a lot to learn in the blogosphere and you will certainly improve as you assimilate all the concepts.

Know the basics – Some times we get carried away and forget the basics. The basics here include getting a good design for the blog, good quality, commenting that is not spam and getting gravatar.

Have something more? Let me know through the comments section below.