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As a content writer and marketer (and don’t forget social media addict), I often advise my non-blogging clients to start a blog. A blog is after all, probably the easiest way to enter into a social media and content marketing strategy, as well as inform and engage customers in conversations in order to gain their trust and their business.
I don’t, however, advise everyone to start blogging – not unless a solid and sustainable blogging strategy can be put into place.
It’s easy to just say "let’s start a blog” and then blindly sign up for one at Typepad, Wordpress, or Blogger. But what do you plan to do with it after that? This is where your blogging strategy comes into place, and here are some tips to get you started:
Determine if blogging is right for your business. A blog doesn’t always work well with particular industries or audiences. Do some research to find other companies in your niche that have blogs and look at how they use them, the overall quality, and readership. You’ll gain some valuable insight into whether (or not) your company will benefit from starting a blog.
Determine your goals. Why do you want to start a blog? To bring in more traffic or get higher search rankings? To talk about your products or services and increase press coverage? To render opinions on industry-related news and inform readers? This will help you to determine what kind of content will be written, how it will be written, and what kind of channels will be used to promote blog posts (like niche blog directories, social media and networking platforms, PR sites, etc.).
Decide who will write posts. Depending on the type of content that will be posted, you’ll want to decide the best person (or people) to write posts. You don’t have to choose just one person – many blogging platforms allow for multiple authors. You can have one person who writes product and announcement posts (such as someone in a communications, marketing, or PR role), another who writes informative articles, another who writes editorial posts, etc. You can even seek out guest contributors to write posts on certain topics. Don’t forget that if one of your blogging goals is to bring in more search engine traffic, you’ll need someone who can optimize your blog posts.
Decide how often content will be posted. This is completely up to you; however, you’ll want to post at least three times a week for the most impact. New, fresh content posted at regular intervals will keep readers engaged and prevent your blog (and your brand) from looking stale.
Choose your blogging platform. There are a few out there to choose from, and you’ll want to have a discussion with your hosting provider and/or your webmaster to figure out the best solution for your needs. Make sure to look at factors such as security, integration and compatibility, design options, and support availability.
While blogging may be an easy way to engage customers and increase traffic to your website, it’s important to set your blogging strategy first before dive in head first. You may find that it’s not the best option.
I love StumbleUpon. In fact, I'm addicted to it. It’s easy to use (that Stumble button is right there in your browser bar), covers a variety of topics that appeal to a variety of users, and an excellent traffic driver (because it’s easy to use and appeals to a variety of users). StumbleUpon is easily the top source of traffic for this blog, and I highly recommend it if you’re starting your own blog or website, or if you’re looking to venture into social networking for the first time in order to promote your business.
Having stumbled my way through the ins and outs of using StumbleUpon, I’m going to let you in on what I’ve learned along the way so you can make effective use of StumbleUpon for your own site.
Knowing how to use StumbleUpon the right way can not only help you to drive traffic to your blog or website, but also build business relationships with potential customers and partners. It won’t happen overnight; but with careful cultivation, StumbleUpon can be an effective networking and marketing tool for you.
Most of my recent posts have focused on social media, and I’ve come to the realization that I haven’t been posting as much as I should about search marketing. After all, “SEM” is part of my tagline, and it’s the foundation of my online marketing experience (“Back in my day, we only had one search advertising platform, and it was called GoTo.com!”).
So, I’m going back to my roots. While I really love social media and networking, I have a passion for search marketing that I can’t deny. So, that being said, I’m going to talk about how you can integrate your search marketing efforts with social media.
There are a growing number of ways for you to do this, like through blog posts, social site profiles, and videos. And, as always, content needs to be the heart and soul of your strategy. With good, strong, original content, you’ll not only drive traffic from search engines; but also from social sites.
But, what if you don’t have a blog or website yet? Whether or not you do, you’re likely already (or starting to become) involved in social media, networking, and bookmarking sites. It’s a great way to build up a cache of followers who will then happily visit your website when you have one. So today, I’m going to give you some tips for optimizing your social site profiles to build your online reputation and a following.
Define your goals. Why are you participating in social media and networking sites? What do you hope to achieve for yourself by doing so? What kind of audience are you trying to target or network with? You need to be able to answer these questions before diving in head first, so you can determine which social media sites on which to build a profile and how you should build those profiles.
Choose your social sites. Depending on your goals, you’ll want to choose relevant social sites where you’ll be able to blend in and network easily, as well as find and share content that interests you and your network. Here are 5 business social sites to consider, as well as 5 more. You can also check out this big list here.
What will search engines crawl? By searching for my first and last name on Google, I’m able to find many of my social media and networking profiles and see what parts of those profiles the Google bots crawled.
Notice how Google doesn’t crawl any information other than my name from my LinkedIn profile; but crawls my bio information for Gooruze and SEOmoz. Sphinn doesn’t even offer the ability to write a full bio, so Google just crawls the available fields. This gives you a window into what information you should be putting into your profile, based on your pre-defined goals. You may want to do this after you've already built some profiles, so you can search for them and optimize accordingly.
Do some simple keyword research. Just like with SEO, you can do some keyword research to find one or two relevant keywords (not counting your name) to include in your profile bios. Just like with everything else, these should be based on your pre-defined goals. Then, after figuring out what parts of your profiles the search engines will crawl, integrate these keywords into your profiles by way of your bio, interests, headline, etc. – without overdoing it. It’s also best to integrate them within the first 50-60 characters so they show up in the actual search result.
Note: since you don't have as much control over your social profiles as you would, say, your own website (and you don't have nearly as much text to work with), don't expect that you'll be able to optimize your profile to rank #1 for the most searched keyword in your niche. However, a little bit of optimization works (I have found this out a few times myself).
Develop solid, original content. Some professional social sites (like Gooruze and Biznik) will allow you to post your own original articles. If you don’t have a blog, this gives you an excellent platform to develop good, authoritative content that will get crawled by search engines. Look for social sites that give you this opportunity, and then make sure that your content will get crawled by search engines.
Are there any tips I’m missing here? If you know of any tips specific to certain social sites that you want to share, please leave a comment!
As I navigate through the many, many (many) social networking and media sites out there, I look at
hundreds of profiles of people from all walks of life. But how do I decide who to befriend, follow, or add to my network? I look at two things:
These are the two biggest elements of a social profile - they are what make you, well, you in the social networking world. What comprises your social profiles is what visitors will use to determine if they want to befriend, follow, or network with you.
Now, many social networkers tend to go strictly professional or completely personal when building their social profiles. Which way you go depends on your goals for joining social media sites or networks. If you're all about connecting with friends and have no professional goals set for online socializing, then personal is the way to go. However, if you're on social networks for more professional reasons, then you may want to consider a more middle-of-the-road approach.
As I mentioned in a previous post, Why You Should KISS Your Customers, the key in using social media for business is to engage your customers on a social and personal level. So, to achieve this goal, wouldn't it be natural to mix a little bit of your personality and interests into your social networking and social media profiles?
Here are some tips for adding a personal aspect to your business social profiles:
Set your goals before setting out on a social marketing campaign. If your goal is to target an audience of C-levels or accountant, then a strictly professional social profile is likely the way to go. However, to target social media users on a more personal level in order to gain their business, adding a bit of your own personality to your profiles can make a huge difference.
