1. To Blog or Not to Blog: Blogging from Various Points of View Bethany Foyt The Partner Marketing Group Bethany@ThePartnerMarketingGroup.com

2. Introducing Our 2012 Blogging Panel! Julie Stankey – Marketing Communications Specialist at Socius Steve Dwyer – Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Appolis, Inc. Anya Ciecierski – Director of Marketing at CAL Business Solutions Andree Dolan – Marketing Manager, ERP & CRM For the Sikich Technology division

3. Do YOU Blog?

4. Is blogging on the way out? Video Social Media Forums “For business purposes, active and substantive participation at Focus.com and at certain LinkedIn groups gives one's content much wider distribution, immediately and as pass-along. Focus.com I expect it's only a matter of time before Google or Bing include forums like this in their search algorithms.” Michael A Brown President, BtoBEngage www.BtoBEngage.com

5. Why Do You Blog? Proof of Expertise Brand Recognition Relationship Builder Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Lead Generation “All successful businesses that need to communicate with their employees or customers blog. Blogging is essential for any medium and small businesses as it gives the business more legitimacy and makes it look more accessible. You can easily introduce or market new products through a blog (or even better, recruit existing bloggers to do the work for you).” Melinda Cline Representative of SkillGalaxy, BitSoft Int.

6. Why Don’t You Blog? Christine Page, Business Development and Marketing Manager at InterDyn LANAC Technology says… “I would say that some people don't blog due to these reasons: 1.It's hard to come up with topics 2.It's next to impossible to get others in the organization to participate - especially if they are billable - and it's not supported and mandatory. 3.It's time consuming with little results. If you have no way to measure, you may not realize where people are coming from. John Stulak, President and co-founder of EthoTech, Inc. says… “To date, my company has not committed to developing and maintaining a blog. Two main reasons for not blogging - time and content. Content is the biggest reason though. Coming up with interesting content consistently so people return to your blog has been the biggest challenge for us. The biggest question we ask ourselves is this - how will this activity generate revenue?”

7. How Do You Respond to These Excuses? There’s Not Enough TIME There’s Not Enough CONTENT There’s No Team and/or Executive SUPPORT There’s No LEADS There’s No MEASUREMENT

8. Are There Actual Benefits of Blogging? Marcia Doran, Marketing Director, Altico Advisors says… “I conducted an experiment back in February and went from blogging twice a month to blogging daily. Within 3 days (that's not a typo, it actually took THREE days) Google had indexed the blog page on our Web site and our Web traffic went from an average of 1200 hits/mo to 1800 hits/mo.” Christine Page, Business Development and Marketing Manager at InterDyn LANAC Technology says… “I actually think blogging is VERY important - it is the 3 rd top contributor to our website just after Google/Organic and Direct Traffic - that is why we host our own blog on our website.. http://info.lanactech.com/blog/.”http://info.lanactech.com/blog/

9. Q&A Have more questions? Contact me at Bethany@ThePartnerMarketingGroup.com Bethany@ThePartnerMarketingGroup.com Let’s continue the conversation on LinkedIn! Search for The Partner Marketing Group to share and learn more.

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