Blogs and Syndicated Content: Keep them engaged

Engaging consumers and making meaningful connections can’t be done without meaningful content. It just won’t happen. Consumers are hungry – for information, for connection, and for a chance to be heard and to talk back. Blogs along with syndicated content have become a significant tool in offering meaningful content to consumers and in establishing a dialogue.

Fifty-eight Fortune 500 companies now have blogs. From Dell to Walmart and from American Airlines to McDonalds, these companies (only a mere 12% of the Fortune 500) have taken the courageous step to open up the conversation. The benefits are significant.

It provides a way to get feedback from those who know a company’s products and services best – their customers. This includes criticism, providing a chance to improve both customer service and product development with a real-time lab. It also gives a chance for companies to share important information, not only about their products and services, but additional relevant information that can be meaningful to their customers, demonstrating the importance of the brand in their lives. Blogs can also help companies do damage control when facing negative circumstances. Swift response and dialogue is critical during such times. And unlike a company’s website, blogs allow for instantaneous publishing, keeping the dialogue always current, always meaningful.

One of the biggest challenges to the success of a blog is generating buzz and getting visitors to come back. RSS can do this quickly and easily by pushing your posts out to other sites, and to newsreader software automatically. RSS functions in a number of ways including:

• Having content from your blog picked up by web sites that syndicate blog content
• Having your content pulled in by other Weblogs or other Web site
• Displayed by newsreader software
  

The key here is seeding, germination, sharing. In each of these cases, blog content is dissemtninated around the Internet, increasing the chances that people find and read your blog content.

Alongside RSS is having your blog posts shared by readers who can send it to aggregate sites such as Digg, Reddit, Del.icio.us. and Yahoo!Buzz.

As said earlier in this particular blog, if something is worth anything, it’s worth sharing. Providing instant links to these sites will provide the viral component essential to social media marketing. It will also help create the long tail that gives currency to things long past the time they first appeared.