ERP Consultants: 4 Ways Blogs and Social Media Helps Part II

Why is Blogging and Social Media Important to ERP Consultants?

We have been hearing alot of buzz about social media from marketing people. The big question that stilll remains is WHY?? ERP consultants who blog often get business and they don’t even know where it came from - that's the power and the perplexing aspect of social media. One way to interact in social media is to blog. Since our first blog was so popular, Attention ERP Consultant: 3 Reasons Why You Must Blog: Part I, we are expanding on this topic with a series of blogs about blogs. 

The power of the blog is that it doesn't sit on your website waiting to be found – it circulates. When it’s shared by other in your field, it communicates with others that you currently have no association with, otherwise. This is accomplished, for instance, when another ERP consultant or customer shares your blog through a LinkedIn Group that they belong to but you don’t.  If your blog is about how Microsoft NAV helped one of your customers streamline their process manufacturing operations another process manufacturing ERP customer might share your blog in a process manufacturing LinkedIn group that they belong to.  Because you are LinkedIn with this customer, they will expose your blog to groups they belong to which you have never even heard about. This is an example of where social media can help you find and attract new business.  If process manufacturing is a target market for you, blogs are a great way to market to LinkedIn group with the process manufacturing group members. We have seen examples where sharing a blog in a LinkedIn Group has helped ERP consultants get new business or adopt existing customers for consulting work.

1. Social Media – Join the Party! Social media allows you to share your blog through several social circles like Twitter, LinkedIn contacts, LinkedIn Groups, ERP forums, Facebook and more. Your blog acts like a very busy person passing out business cards to dozens, hundreds and even thousands of people at trade show. The difference is that your blog leaves a bigger impression on the receiver that you have something interesting to say and that you should be followed or even contacted to learn more. For SEO purposes, your blog also leaves a stamp every time your blog is liked, shared or posted which is picked up and helps boosts your ranking in search engines.
2. Social Signals - Who gives a Tweet? A lot of what drives SEO ranking is social media signals that are tied to the blog. This is where someone else links to your bog, or likes and shares on sites like LinkedIn, Twitter, or Facebook, for instance. Increasing your SEO ranking for your keyword associated with a blog is much like a popularity contest. When others point to your blog, Goggle and other search engines look for these social signals and reward content with higher ranking that appears to be compelling and interesting to the readers. One way for Google to measure this is in how many times your article or webpage is linked, liked, or shared.  We will look further into these 3 ways ERP consultants can use blogs to boost their social media clout and SEP ranking. 
3. Gain a Following!  If your audience anticipates that more will be written about a subject they are interested in, then they may be more likely to subscribe to your blogs to stay connected with future content. It’s a great way to get subscribers and increase your following of your active audience and target audience for future marketing purposes.  
4. Liking and Sharing – Who Cares…Why Care?  When someone else likes your blog, it sends a social signal to SEO that your blog is relevant and popular.  Why would you want to share other ERP consultants or industry leaders blogs? If you aren’t pushing out content from your own websites on a regular basis, the next best thing is to get out and share other partners content so you are still getting in front of your audience.  Sure this helps the originator of the blog but it also gets your in front of your followers with useful information that may help them out.  This also increases the likelihood that others will share your blog which will help boost your SEO on the keyword of your content.

This blog is Part II of a series of our blog series. There are many more reason WHY you should consider blogging as an important part of helping to grow your ERP business. Stay tuned for more blogs on the blogging topic and please feel free to like, share and follow. We do not certainly have all the blogging answers or think that blogging is the silver bullet to solve all your marketing challenges, however we know a thing or two. We hear a lot of questions around the topic "WHY blog?" and hope this gets the blogging juices flowing.

At ERPVAR, we have a goal to blog every day. Most of our blogs come from other ERP consultants who are experts like you. Some ERP consultants are fortunate enough to have a marketing person to do most of the heaving blog lifting. However, many still do not and find the time to blog. We are happy to discuss with you WHY blogging might make sense for you in further detail. Please feel free to contact us online or give us a call:  888-253-6705.

About ERPVAR.com
Established in 2012 and headquartered in Orange County, CA, ERP VAR represents the collective expertise of Sage 50 (formerly Peachtree), Sage 100 ERP (formerly MAS90 and MAS 200), Sage 500 ERP (formerly MAS 500), Sage ERP X3, Epicor, Microsoft Dynamics GP, Microsoft Dynamics SL, Microsoft Dynamics AX, Microsoft Dynamics NAV, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, NetSuite, Intacct, Infor, Acumatica and QuickBooks Enterprise third party developers combined with the expertise of local implementation ERP consultants. These local ERP consultants provide end users with a thorough needs analysis to determine which ERP software functionality is required to address their unique needs. If a business process assessment is required, the local channel partner is enlisted to provide a comprehensive examination with end user company departments to insure the correct ERP software is selected implemented and the staff is properly trained. For more information, please visit http://www.erpvar.com.

by Kathy Graham at ERPVAR