Do you know that business blogging is a proven tool that successful companies use to market, generate leads and increase sales conversions.. This Social Media Training article fills in a critical piece of the puzzle to any online marketing strategy. Your blog is the one place that you can deliver anything you want to bring your brand’s promise to life exactly as you want it to be revealed.

Social media networks like Facebook, Twitter or YouTube, among others, are invaluable when it comes to building your brand. But each of these social networks are owned and operated by someone else; meaning that they can change and enforce rules on how you are allowed to represent your brand and distribute your content whenever they like, and you must adhere to these rules if you want to use these platforms!

With a blog (simply just another website with some unique posting features), you can have 100% ownership and control over all content. This means that you can arrange and distribute content exactly as you want, including using strategies to maximize search engine optimization to improve the placement of your blog in the search engine rankings.

Having complete control and ownership over your brand’s message isn’t the only major perk to having a blog. Your blog will also serve as a central hub for all of your other social media marketing activities.

Blogs integrate perfectly with other forms of social media. When you create new content on your blog, you can automatically share that content on your social networks, driving in traffic by creating valuable links back to your blog. No matter where people first come in contact with you online, they should always have the opportunity to click a link and land on your blog!

The more content you create and distribute, the better the chance you have to move up in search engine rankings, giving even more potential clients the opportunity to find you and get to know you and your brand! Making the most of your blog’s content by distributing it across the social networks and into the search rankings is an important part of building your online reputation. This strategy, if done well, will lead to more relationships and a higher closing rate with prospects!

Regardless of what target niche you are focusing on, you can’t afford not to have a blog! The benefits are enormous.

An active blog will serve as the #1 place to refer prospects and existing customers when you are talking about your business. It is the one place where all of your best content and answers to top questions reside. The blog will contain listings of important events, your social network links, calls-to-action, reviews, success stories and so much more, all expressed exactly how you want them to be! Unlike a static website or the limited opportunity to tell your full story on the social networks (within their rules), your blog will display your ongoing support of your target market and give you the chance to create and maintain relationships like no where else. No matter where people first come in contact with you online or off, they should always be given the opportunity to visit your blog!

If you want to convert more prospects, increase sales, and keep existing customers and distributors more loyal, then creating a blog for your business is a great place to start! Unlike a static website that just tells viewers a little bit about you, your blog will display your ongoing support of your target market and give you the chance to create and maintain relationships with this audience on an ongoing basis.

The University can help your small business start using social media to become a online marketing rockstar! You will learn to start marketing effectively with Facebook, Twitter LinkedIn, Google Places, YouTube, Yelp, Scribd, and many others that you have never heard of before! The Practical Social Media University also goes beyond social media, and teaches you how to create a strong brand and a winning keyword strategy. In fact, it covers everything you need to know about marketing your small business online.

Here is one example of dozens of testimonials for the University written on Yelp, the world’s largest third party reviews and rating company for businesses. “So glad to have been given the opportunity to work with Practical Social Media. The training provided has been  invaluable. Having access to the articles and webinars make the learning at my own pace a breeze. With so much information available no powerful points are missed. The tips furnished for building online branding strategies are a priceless start to establishing your online reputation which is the pinnacle of building your business online. Thank you Steve Macdonald and Practical Social Media for presenting the tools I will use to take my business to the next level.” To see more reviews, video testimonials and social media raves for yourself on the university, please visit our reviews page at practicalsocialmedia.com/university-reviews/.

Steve MacDonald, Founder of the Practical Social Media University promises to provide a step-by-step, visual and non-technical social media university full of how-to articles and webinars sourced from our field of top social media marketing experts. The social media training resources not only make sense out of every important social media marketing subject, but have also been laid out in priority order for busy entrepreneurs. Don’t know where to start? Feel overwhelmed? Behind the curve? We’ll narrow the world of social media marketing down to just the important areas that you need to know to help you become a successful small business entrepreneur in a new digital world.