If you haven’t heard of kadigans, you probably do know their cousins the "thingamagigs". I used the word thingamagig myself the other day in the hardware store.  I was after a… well, you know, that thingamagig that hangs over the shower nozzle and holds the shampoo and hair rinse? Luckily, the store clerk quickly realized that what I needed was a shower caddy.  What I’d done, not knowing the correct term for the item, was use a kadigan or placeholder name.

Placeholders are words referring to objects or people whose names are unknown, irrelevant, or just temporarily forgotten. "Whatsherface" would be one example of a placeholder. Back in high school, our class performed Gilbert & Sullivan’s operetta Mikado.  The Lord High Executioner sings about his "little list";

 ….apologetic statesmen of a compromising kind
Such as What-d’ye-call him, Thing-’em-bob and likewise Never mind.
And St-st-st and What’s-his-name, and also You-know-who
The task of filling up the blanks I’d rather leave to you.

Anyway, after the shower caddy incident in the hardware store, I realized that I’d learned a lesson about business blogging and about online search.  Even though I hadn’t known the correct term for the item I wanted, only the result I wanted (a neat shower stall), Ace Hardware was able to make a sale and I got my need filled.

As a professional ghost blogger helping my business clients "win search" through business blogs, I realized online searchers are often in the same boat as I was that day at Ace.  Searchers may not know the correct terminology for the product or the specialized service they need, so they may just describe the desired result, or they may resort to kadigans.

So, in order to capture those searches, you’ve got to be able to match up your blog content with kadigans.  Content that describes the end result from using your product or service can snag kadigan-driven traffic. Content that describes how your product is used can capture attention from searchers   Remember, that day in the hardware store, I wasn’t looking for a thingamagig or a whatchamacallit – what I wanted was  a neat and organized shower stall!

Not only is it smart to assume your potential customers don’t know the name of your business, assume they don’t know the "name" of the solution to their problem!  The reader, by using placeholder words, is saying to you, the business blogger, what W.S. Gilbert was saying: "The task of filling up the blanks I’d rather leave to you!.

 

As the popularity of social networking grows, so does the importance it plays as part of your overall online marketing strategy. DRIVE’s social networking specialists can help you:

• Understand the different markets that are available on the various social networking sites.
   
• Understand the varieties of tactics that can be employed to best communicate with your target audience on those social sites.
   
• Create content to publish on the social sites.
   
• Set up and develop your blogging strategy. We can even write expert content for you as ghost bloggers.
   
• Establish an email marketing campaign as part of your social networking.

This last item is vitally important because social networking is beginning to replace email newsletters due to email in-boxes getting inundated with messages and newsletters we don’t really care about.

• While existing newsletter strategies already in place for existing customers is still important to a degree, the ability to develop new social networking strategies is equally important.
   
• Don’t forget, the percentage of the population that regularly visits Facebook is the same as the percentage of your customers that are on Facebook, as well.
   
• If your customers are on Facebook, you need to reach them there.

The Statistics Speak for Themselves; Social Networking is a Growth Market – Just Ask Facebook

The appearance of icons for popular sites like YouTube, Facebook, MySpace and Twitter (click on icons to open social networking sites in a new window) on traditional offline advertising venues highlight the importance businesses place on social networking to reach their target market.

To illustrate this, according to a Nielsen Company report, in December 2009 the average U.S. Internet user spent an estimated 68 hours online (both at home and at work).

In that time, on average:

• Nearly 2700 websites were viewed, with an average visit of 57 seconds per site.
   
• One hour and 53 minutes is spent on Google
   
• Two hours and 40 minutes on AOL (which could be considered the first social networking venue)
   
• Three hours and 8 minutes on Yahoo (including their popular email service)
   
• And a whopping five hours and 25 minutes on Facebook, an 82% increase over the same time a year earlier. And their popularity just keeps growing.
  • As of February 2010, the average time spent on Facebook was up to more than seven hours per month.
  • The average user spent more time on Facebook than on Google, Yahoo, YouTube, Microsoft, Wikipedia and Amazon combined.
     

Contending with the Future of Social Networking

Many internet users spend more time logged into social network sites than watching TV, and are much more receptive to that environment because the user chooses where to receive information, as opposed to having information forced upon them.

It is also important to remember that while they might be on Facebook this year, they could be into something else "new" by next year.

• You need to stay abreast of the ever-changing landscape of the segmented target markets that are using, or not using any longer, particular social networking sites.
   
• You should include your social networking site information on your offline marketing materials, including TV, radio, and especially print advertising. The mere presence of those Facebook and Twitter logos on your website says something about you to your audience.
   
• Create content to publish on the social sites.
   
• Set up and develop your blogging strategy. We can even write expert content for you as ghost bloggers.
   
• Establish an email marketing campaign as part of your social networking.

If that is something that you think is important to your target market, then it is very important that you have those programs in place or you won’t meet your audience’s expectations and will get beaten by your competitors who do meet their target market in the places they expect to see you.