Even after you’ve found these blogs through search, you’re facing the daunting challenge of scanning them all, every day. It’s not unusual to have identified a dozen or more blogs. How do you keep moving quickly from one to the next, so your life isn’t consumed with navigating from one to the next?

My favorite tool is Netvibes. It’s a free, online application that’s like a massively souped up version of browser tabs. You add every blog you wish to follow (along with favorite Web sites and other frequently-accessed tools), drag-and-drop organize them on your own Netvibes page that you can make public or keep private. My public Netvibes page is here. There, you’ll see all the blogs I follow. Click on a headline to see how simple and convenient it is to use. I’ve chosen the layout, the organization, the tabs and tab order, the colors—everything. I can scan the headlines, click to see the entire post, link to the actual blog or Web site, and write myself notes. It’s a gem of a time saver and an amazingly efficient research tool to help you keep up with trends, conversation, and build your business.

Bottom line: you can quickly make your comments, including a link back to your own blog where you’ve expanded on your comment, and attract visitors and links to your site. This critical component on Inbound Marketing needs to be managed and made efficient.

My question to you: What’s your favorite blog management tool?

Back in the “old days” of the Internet, we all put up brochure-ware, and felt a mistaken sense of accomplishment, thinking something along the lines of “build it, and they will come.” Today, as evidenced by this research, we can’t afford to fall into that old trap with our new blogs. We must reach out, find the gathering places our customers frequent, engage in the conversation with relevant, insightful, non-promotional comments, in order to build a trust and curiosity among those people to want to hear more from you. That drives them to your blog and, more importantly, might just get them to post a link to your blog on their blogs. Voila! You’ve generated exposure to your offering through the highly trusted “Recommendation by friends” media.

The five past and future eras of social networks they identified are:

1. Social Relationships. This began in the mid-90s, with simple profiles and “friending” features.
2. Social Functionality. Where we are today. More meaning and utility, but identities and relationships are locked within each site.
3. Social Colonization. Later this year, new technologies, such as OpenID and Facebook Connect will allow users to bring their IDs along with them, so every Web site can be a social experience.
4. Social Context. Sites will begin to recognize users’ personal identities and relationships, and customize the experience based on their preferences and behaviors. This will shift the base of people’s online operations from individual Web sites to social networks.
5. Social Commerce. In about two years, social networks will eclipse corporate Web sites online. Communities will dictate innovation, so brands will be forced to respond and cater to them. The connected consumer—not the corporate e-commerce entities—will have the power.

Companies can begin to plan for these shifts in how they reach customers.

• Consumers trust their peers, so we must focus on our most vocal advocates for acceptance.
• Direct email promotions will be shared from peer to peer, rather than from outbound broadcasts.
• Opt-in rates will be key, so we must be more wiling to exchange our premium content, discounts, etc. for users’ contact information.
• We must participate in the social networks ourselves, in order to stay abreast of these sweeping changes.

What we know for sure is that there is nothing static about this world of Inbound Marketing and social media. Staying on top of it, and working it to your benefit cannot be an afterthought, or you’ll be mired in the past in the time it takes to type a Tweet.

In this fluid world of Inbound Marketing, navigating it without measurement, analysis, and refinement is an exercise in frustration and a waste of precious time and effort.

We all have the ability, through the use of freely-available online tools, to not only measure how we’re doing, but how Web sites of our successful competitors are doing. If they’re more popular ours, we can analyze their strategies and tactics, plucking the best for our own use and selectively overlay them onto our initiatives.

If key word and key phrase popularity varies by demographic criteria (gender, age, location, economic level) or over time, we need to learn that, adapt to it, and optimize our content and sites to maximize our exposure to those looking for what we’re offering.

But, even all this isn’t really enough. Over time it will become outdated and less useful. If you employ what I call the feedback cycle of inbound marketing life, you’ll not only leverage your exposure to those looking for what you’re offering, but also in the future.

• Use “reverse look-up” tools and analytics to learn what key words and phrases your buyers use to find what you offer.
• Identify the gathering places of folks who have interest and/or need for your offering (including social media such as FaceBook, Twitter, LinkedIn, blogs, discussion boards).
• Post objective, relevant, insightful comments (always non-promotional) on those blogs and discussion boards your buyers are frequenting.
• Refer them back to your own prolific blog postings that go more into depth and are populated with the key words and phrases you’ve identified.
• Build their trust in your expertise and insights, and their desire to “follow” you and learn more of what you have to say.
• Compel them to add their comments, and repost your thoughts on their other gathering places, building links to your information.
• Raise your position in the page rankings of the search engines, for the purpose of being found by others to engage in this same process above.
• Expose them to your specific services at the moment they’re engaged in learning your insights on the topic.
• Invite them to request your promotional offer in exchange for their contact information.
• Follow up with permission-based reach-out to the most qualified leads, ultimately converting them to buyers.
• Rinse and repeat, over and over again. Be sure you’re on top of the evolving search terms, and respond accordingly.

This is not a static world any more, and we can no longer expect static strategies to provide for us in the long term. Read the blogs, jump in, thrash around at first, and you’ll find your way.

More encouraging to marketers is the expected expansion of blog readers. By 2013, 58% of all US Internet users are expected to be blog readers.

Those marketers who start to adopt and embrace these tools now will be well-positioned as the economy rises from its doldrums, and more readers use blogs as information sources.

Monitoring the blogs of your prospective customers and clients, and other providers of what you offer can give you insights about how to position your comments, your blog posts, and your product offerings.

Entering your blog content is quite easy. The window I’m typing in has all the tools of a typical Word Processing application, e.g., Bold, Italic, Bulleted or Numbered List, Justify, etc.

This is the toolbar of the post entry window.

There is a considerable distance between embracing the concept of blogging and getting all the nuts and bolts in place to make it work hard for you. Still much to learn, but I’m pleased with my progress, after just a day.

To be considered a thought leader, your content must be positioned from your buyers’ perspective. Publish content on the nature or use of what you’re selling, offer tips or insights they would find relevant. This garners trust. Resist the temptation to promote your company, brand, or specific products. Your content cannot come across as extracted from a product brochure. Once you’ve earned the trust of buyers through your content, they will seek you and your company out for specific information on which to base a buying decision.

• How the Web Has Changed the Rules of Marketing and PR
• Web-Based Communications to Reach Buyers Directly
• Action Plan for Harnessing the Power of the New Rules

Buy this book somewhere! It’s about 11 bucks on Amazon. Click this link to see it and read a few pages at Amazon.com. Then, if you order it, we rake in 44 cents!

We don’t have all the answers, but we feel we’re ahead of the curve—particularly for business execs in our baby-boomer demographic. We’re among them. We’ve had great success helping companies implement Outbound Marketing strategies for years. Now, we’re full speed ahead, integrating Inbound Marketing into our offering mix.

If you’re an Inbound Marketing expert, or just have enthusiasm for it, or are a baby-boomer business executive trying to make sense of it all, we’d be glad to have you chime in, here. Thanks in advance.

With my long-time business partner Gary Hennerberg, I’m redefining my business, which was acting as a marketing consultant for outbound marketing strategies. As markets change, so must the strategy. I’ve immersed myself and I’m embracing all that is Inbound Marketing. Conceptually, I’ve drunk the Kool-Aid. There’s plenty more to learn about implementation—both producing and distributing content, as well as nuts and bolts behind the scenes to leverage and optimize. Using Inbound Marketing techniques should enable me to be found by marketing execs and CEOs who are of baby-boomer age, and who need to rethink their strategies.

One purpose of this blog is to tell the story of how this plan is evolving for me and my business. Soon, I’d like it to be a recounting of the successes I’ve had. Time will tell.

I’m putting together a new Website: BeFoundInbound.com. It’s still under construction, but should be up in a few days. It’s all very invigorating.