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Can article marketing actually help my business or is it a complete waste of my valuable time? This was the very question I asked myself only a few months back.

The reason why did me doubt about this strategy is because I found people say that article marketing is dead. Well, after four month of experience I can attest that article marketing is live because I’m using it successfully. People that say that article marketing is dead are person that have failed and want only attract their attention.

What Is Article Marketing?

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Article marketing is a powerful method that let you generate more traffic to your blog or website, subscribers and even sales.

It’s very simple to put it into practice. All you have to do is to writing a short 400-1000 word articles and submitting them to article directory such as Ezineraticle and Go Article, or sites like Squidoo or Hubpages.

While Hubpages is one of the top 1000 sites in the world, Squidoo and EzineArticles receive respectively 500K+ unique visitors per day and over one million unique visitors per day, which means lots of exposure for your blog, then your articles.

My Approach To Article Marketing

I like article marketing a lot, because once I post articles and submitted them into article directory, I receive free traffic too. Usually, I use article marketing to bring traffic to my affiliate niche sites. To find the right keywords I only use either Google Adwords Keyword Tool and Wordtracker. This method allowed me to create a monthly stream income enough for me to live on.

Why I Think Article Marketing Worth Your Time?

For instance, if you have a review on website or blog about Bluehost and you know that you make one sale for each 50 visitors you get. That means that more visitors you get into your article the more chance you have to making one daily sale.

The following are the 4 step necessary, that will take you to build traffic and make more money with article marketing.

Note: I didn’t begin doing this until just a few month ago. Better late than never.

1. Start writing - First off, I start writing an article around(400-1000 words). I’ve created a lot of article and submitted them into article directory such as Ezinearticle and Go articles, and site like Hubpage and Squidoo. Sure, this isn’t an overnight process. It take you time to get some result, but worth it. Also, if you write a lot you will learn to be very fast in this way.

2. Submit - I’ve tried submit my article to different article directory such as Ezinearticle and Go Article and site like Hubpage and Squidoo, but the most traffic I got is through Ezinearticle and Hubpages. So, I reccomend these two sites.

3. Traffic - Google loves both Ezinearticle and Hubpage. Once your article are submitted and approved, you will start lead free traffic to your website, blog, landing page, and so on. Of course, isn’t a huge amount of traffic, but if you write frequently, for instance each week, you can drive more traffic.

4. Convert - This is the most important part for your business online. No matter if you need to  convert your traffic to selling affiliate products, your own product, increase subscribers or even buying a course online, you need to create a strong landing page. Also, you need to figure if your visitors like and don’t like. You can find example of landing pages here.

I hope you found this article helpful and maybe a bit of inspiration for your next marketing campaign.

Every year, Fortune Magazine create a list of the largest US corporations based their size and wealth. In this report, Nora Ganim Barnes and Eric Mattson take Fortune 500 companies in order to analyze the use of blogs and Twitter inside the corporate world.

This new study offers valuable insights to understand how these companies using social media communication technologies. In particular in this report, these are their main points:

• Blogs In The 2009 Fortune 500
• Blogs By Industry
• Blogs By Rank
• Level of Interaction On The Blogs
• Comparison With The Inc. 500
• Corporate Twitter Accounts
• Twitter Accounts By Industry
• Twitter Accounts By Rank
• Level of Interaction On Twitter
• Use of Podcasting and Video Blogging

Blogs In The 2009 Fortune 500

One hundred-eight (22%) of the primary corporations listed on the 2009 Fortune 500 have a public-facing corporate blog with a post in the past 12 months. These include three of the top five corporations (Wal-Mart, Chevron and General Electric). The two remaining in the top five, Exxon / Mobil and Conoco Philips do not have public-facing blogs at this time.

In our 2008 study of Fortune 500 blogs, 81 companies (16%) met the criteria. At that time the top five included General Motors who was replaced in 2009 by General Electric (both have blogs). In both years Exxon Mobil and ConocoPhillips did not have a public-facing blog.

The end result is a 6% increase in public-facing blogs. Three of the top five ranking companies in both years have blogs.

Blogs By Industry

The 108 companies with blogs come from a cross section of industries. A partial list is presented above showing those industries with the greatest presence in the blogosphere.

Blogging varied by industry type. As might be expected, companies in the industry of computer software, peripherals and office equipment have the most blogs (11). This group was also the industry with the most blogs in the 2008 listings. Companies in this category include Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Microsoft, Apple, Oracle and Xerox.

The specialty retail industry saw an increase in blogging by companies such as Home Depot, Best Buy, Toys “R” Us and BJ’s Wholesale, from four companies on the 2008 list to seven from the 2009 list.

The telecommunications industry represented by companies like AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and Comcast had six of the blogs studied. Last year’s list had five.

Food-related companies like Safeway, McDonald’s, Tyson, General Mills, Whole Foods Market and Hershey also had six blogs, up from five on 2008 list.

Three industries had five blogs in 2009. These, with some company examples, include: Commercial banks (Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase), insurance (Progressive, NY Life), and semiconductors (Intel, Texas Instruments). All three had four blogs each last year. The information technology and motor vehicle industries both had four blogs in 2009.

Blogs By Rank

Rank continues to influence the adoption of blogging by the F500. The top 100 companies on the list represent 39% of the 108 blogs in the 2009 F500.

In 2008, 38% of the total number of blogs came from the top 100.

The group ranked 101-200 makes up 19% of the 2009 F500 with a corporate blog.

The top 200 companies in 2009 account for 58% of the F500 blogs, while the bottom 200 (those listed 301-500) account for 29% of the 2009 F500 blogs. The findings were consistent using the 2008 list with the top 200 having 63% of the F500’s blogs while the bottom 200 had 26%.

It is interesting to note however, that while adoption is lower among the bottom 200 in both years, the latest data shows a significant increase in adoption among the lower-ranked group.

Of the top five corporations on the list, three have blogs. These include Wal-Mart (#2), Chevron (#3) and General Electric (#5). Consistent with the 2008 list, Exxon Mobil (#1) and Conoco Phillips (#4) do not have blogs.

Level of Interaction On The Blogs

All 108 blogs were examined to determine the level of interactivity the blog allowed. This was done by looking at the blog to see if comments were accepted, if Rss feeds or email subscriptions were available and checking the date of the last post to determine how current it was.

Consistent with the findings on the 2008 Fortune 500, 90% percent of the Fortune 500 blogs take comments, have RSS feeds and take subscriptions. These blogs are kept current with frequent posts on a range of topics.

It appears that those companies that have made the decision to “blog” have utilized the tool well. There is frequent posting, on-going discussion and the ability to follow the conversation easily through RSS or subscriptions.

Of the 108 blogs located, 93 (86%) are linked directly to a corporate Twitter account, that is more than three times as many as members of the 2008 list. Many more corporations do have Twitter accounts, but at this time they do not link to those from their blog.

Comparison With The Inc. 500

The Fortune 500 companies are blogging at a lower rate than other business groups, specifically the Inc.500.

The Inc. 500 list is composed of the fastest-growing, private companies in the US, while the Fortune 500 is based on total revenue not growth and may include public and private companies.

Although blogging increased by 6% from 2008 for both Inc. 500 and Fortune 500 the later is still blogging at a much lower rate. It is possible that the difference is related to size of the company, internal structure or corporate philosophy regarding open communication with its stakeholders.

Regardless of the motivation, the Fortune 500 companies have been less likely to adopt social media tools than their smaller, fast-growing counterparts.

Corporate Twitter Accounts

For purposes of this research, the following definition was used to locate 2009 Fortune 500 companies with Twitter accounts.

A company was considered a user of Twitter if they had an official corporate account with posts (a.k.a. a “tweet“) made within the past 30 days.

One hundred and seventy-three (35%) of the primary corporations listed on the 2009 Fortune 500 has a Twitter account with a post within the past 30 days. Of these companies, four of the top five corporations (Wal-Mart, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and General Electric) consistently post on their Twitter accounts.

The number one ranked company, Exxon Mobil, does not have a Twitter account at this time.

Four of the companies (Boeing, Footlocker, FPL Group and Winn-Dixie Stores) had their Tweets protected and required a request to view their profile. Because we could not verify posts within the last 30 days, they were not included in our tally.

Nine of the companies (Baker Hughes, CIT Group, Computer Sciences, Delta Air Lines, Ecolab, Manitowoc, Mattel, MeadWestvaco and Union Pacific) with corporate Twitter accounts had not posted within the past 30 days, so they were excluded from our analysis since they did not meet our definition.

The entire list of 2009 Fortune 500 companies (173) that met our criteria and their Twitter accounts are listed at the end of this article.

Twitter Accounts By Industry

The 173 companies with Twitter accounts come from a cross section of industries. A partial list is presented above showing those industries with the greatest presence on Twitter.

Rank appears to influence the use of Twitter by the 2009 Fortune 500.

• Of the top 100 companies on the list, 47 have a Twitter account.
• Of the group listed 101-200, 35 have a Twitter account.
• Those listed 201-300 have 30, 301-400 have 28 and 401-500 have 33 Twitter accounts.

Of the 173 twitter accounts that fit the definition for this study, 47% of them belong to Fortune 500 companies listed in the top 200 while 35% come from those listed in the bottom 200 (201-500) on the 2009 list.

Level of Interaction On Twitter

All 173 companies with Twitter accounts were examined to determine the level of interactivity with readers by examining @replies or “retweets” and by checking the date of the last post to determine how current it was.

One hundred and twenty companies (69%) consistently responded with @replies or retweets within the past 30 days. These Twitter accounts are kept up-to-date with current news and information.

There is consistent interaction with other users and on-going discussions that are easy to follow.

Use of Podcasting and Video Blogging

The 2009 Fortune 500 blogs were also examined to determine usage of additional social media tools. Researchers looked for the use of podcasting (audio files available for download) and video to enhance the blog.

19% of the 2009 Fortune 500 is podcasting and 31% are using video on their blog sites. The data collected previously on the 2008 Fortune 500 showed less involvement with 16% of that group podcasting and 21% using video in their blogs.

Conclusions

The continued steady adoption of blogs and the explosive growth of Twitter among Fortune 500 companies demonstrate the growing importance of social media in the business world.

These large and leading companies drive the American economy and to a large extent the world economy. Surely a willingness to interact more transparently via these new technologies with their stakeholders is a good thing. Where it leads will be fascinating to watch!

Article written by Nora Ganim Barnes and Eric Mattson and published on March 1st, 2009 as The Fortune 500 and Social Media: A Longitudinal Study of Blogging and Twitter Usage By America’s Largest Companies

About Nora Ganim Barnes

Nora Ganim Barnes is a Chancellor Professor of Marketing and Director of the Center for Marketing Research at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth.

Nora has worked as a consultant for many national and international firms. Working closely with businesses in the Northeast US, Nora and her students have provided

marketing research assistance to hundreds of small businesses. She has published articles in academic and professional journals and proceedings, has contributed chapters to books, and has been awarded numerous research grants. Her work

has been covered online and in print by Business Week, the NY Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Fox News and Computer World among others. She has been named a Senior Research Fellow by the Society for New Communications Research. Nora can be reached at nbarnes@umassd.edu.

About Eric Mattson

Eric Mattson is the CEO of Financial Insite Inc., a Seattle-based boutique research firm focusing on technology innovation in finance and banking. He’s also an independent social media scholar whose research has been covered online and in print by BusinessWeek, Inc. Magazine, the NY Times and a number of other publications.

Prior to his current endeavors, Eric ran direct marketing, market research and marketing analytics for SanMar, one of the largest generic clothing wholesalers in the United States. Eric is a proud graduate of the University of Washington where he earned dual degrees in business administration and mathematics as a Washington Scholar. He can be reached at eric@ericmattson.com.