 | About The Company |
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It has been said that blogs are the gateway drug to a social media addiction-- indeed that is the case with me. The story of Driving In Traffic is all about an experiment conducted at the urging of friends that unexpectedly turned into a new passion and a chance to do several things that I love best--- strategize, create, collaborate, and serve others.
In December 2005, I launched one of the first healthcare business blogs for Promedica Research Center, the nursing continuing education company where I was a VP and principal. The goals of the blog at that time were simple-- to drive up our search engine rankings to make our patient education material products more easily found and to provide pertinent research tidbits to our subscriber base while we waited for grants to be funded and materials to be developed. To my delight, the advice and prodding from my friend was a resounding success. While hesitant to actually comment on the blog, our timid subscribers innundatedus with complimentary emails and lots of clinical questions. Increased customer engagement was thrilling, but within a few months we were really excited to see a significant increase in sales.
From there, I became facinated with the blog and social media technologies and decided that I wanted to experiment on my own to see what these things were about and the creative ways they can be used to improve business relationships and customer service. So I started my own personal blog-- Driving In Traffic-- to play with wordpress and hopefully make myself learn more about web publishing and the basics of web development.
The title of my blog and it's subtitle "Touring the Blogosphere at Rush Hour" were definitely a play on words that I thought encompassed my thoughts on my new hobby.
- As a hostile victim of the horrible traffic in Atlanta, I spend about 2 to 2 1/2 hours in the car a day. Subsquently, I use that quiet time to myself gives to noodle around on things while "Driving in Traffic" on the trip home. Much of this shows up in my blog posts.
- The success of the company blog surprised and delighted me. I was just simply elated to see how much traffic was coming through and turning into sales. It was this one simple success that convinced me that blogs really can help you your stuff out there in the right places and the ability to use the technology to build strong customer relationships is what grows sales. Thus- just like a "Sale" sign in the window of a storefront, blogs are good at 'driving in traffic.'
- Lastly, I pride myself in being a loyal customer and an active community member. My experience with my business helped me to see that I could use this technology to promote and send out good words for organizations and businesses I like.
What is really surprising to me is that it is these very lessons from my own experience are what continues to keep me excited and engaged in being an advocate and evangelist for using the media for business and nonprofit purposes.
Thus I have decided to promote a simple blog title to the name of my consulting business. Because honestly, Driving In Traffic still encompasses what I perceive to be the real power of social media tools when passionate, innovative, creative, and customer-oriented organizations strategically employ them to grow their business or give voice to their cause.
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