Chapter 2: The Art Of Blogging
It’s well known to us what a blog is and what it is for. However, in terms of social media marketing with the use of blogs, it’s a whole different story. There are quite a few things that you need to understand and apply before you’ll see some returns on your investment. When you blog, you need to think about a couple of things that can make your marketing strategies work. Check out these useful blogging tips below:
Day 1: Valuable Content
Any type of marketing over the internet requires a network or a series of people that would expand that network. Now, this is all done by your prospective customers. How? Social media is about good content. If people like something that they are reading they will then share it with everyone they know on the internet. It’s as simple as that. Write compelling content for your blog, cross your fingers and hope that people like it, and wait as your content spreads naturally.
That’s basically how easy it is to gain attention especially if you’re really good at creating content. If you’re not too keen on making attention-grabbing articles, you might need to take that lesson on article creation sooner than you expected. However, there are always alternatives. You could hire a writer to do the job for you which cuts off some slack on your part but then again it will cost you some money. Anyway, it does not matter which path you go as long as you have good content, you will always have a place in social media marketing.
Day 2: Consistency Is The Best Policy
When focusing on a blog for social media marketing, you need to have fresh content at least once a day. This will help you gain the attention of more potential customers and it also allows existing viewers to take another look at your blog.
Additionally, this will give your blog more chances of being spotted by Google’s crawlers and have you on a good spot on their search engine results page. Write fresh, creative, and attractive content. The necessity of posting blog content each day does not make it an excuse to just stick poor quality content on your blog. It has to be good and it has to be consistent.
After all, it’s you and your brand that’s at stake so you should always invest your time on some quality content that will reflect on your brand’s image as well.
Day 3: Cliffhanger Headlines
Most of the time, the problem with blogging is the audience itself. A lot of people see your headlines but do not go any further into your content. Why does this happen? While there’s a huge crowd eager to read, the problem
arises with the massive number of existing blogs and posts from other people which makes it hard to choose which headline to click on and read. The first thing that you should always do is to make headlines that stand out and which create an impression on people. This will make them want to read through the rest of your blog. A cliffhanger is your best choice when it comes to generating a higher click-through rate.
Day 4: The Numbers Game
When creating titles for your blog posts, try to come up with a few that contain numbers or lists. This often works well with catchy titles and interesting topics. Although this might be a bit of a cliché, it still works fine and can do a great deal for your blog. Bear in mind that social media marketing is all about attracting people. Some headlines or titles are often barren with no sense of creativity at all. This is one thing that you should avoid at all times.
Pick a title that’s never been used before. Most preferably, something that contains numbers or lists. Say, for instance, you’ve been asked to choose from two titles and decide which is better. The first title is “10 Social Media Hacks” while the other is “Tips for social media”. Which one would you pick? The majority would choose the first one. Why? It’s because you’re giving a definitive set of information right from the very beginning. The title says it all. Unlike the second title, you’re a bit unsure about what you’re going to read. Go ahead and give it a try. You’ll see the difference right away!
Day 5: Utilize Plugins
Social media marketing is all about spreading your brand and letting people notice you. As a matter of fact, you could even go viral overnight and all it takes is just a few buttons lined up to share your blog. Place some plugins like a “Share” or “Tweet” button at the top of your posts to make sharing it even easier.
The beauty of these plugins is that your viewers won’t have a hard time spreading the news about how cool your blog is or how useful it was. Unlike before, people had to manually visit a blog or get a link to that blog just to visit. Now, it’s just a single button that could give you overnight stardom. Don’t ever forget to place these plugins that will connect your blog to other social media platforms. The rest will all follow.
Day 6: Time To Get Social!
When you’re blogging, it’s no surprise that there’s a lot of you blogging in the same niche. What you need to do is be social. Visit other blogs that are within the same niche as you are and comment as often as you can. Socialize and make useful and positive comments.
This will enable you to gain attention which ultimately helps you in your social media marketing. Remember that you need to make the most out of the resources that you have. Anyhow, it’s quite easy to do. Creating comments on other blogs will increase your popularity and also establish credibility for you and your brand. Last but not least, commenting on other blogs will make it easier for your page ranking to go up. Traffic will then steadily grow as you go along with this process.
Day 7: Showing Credibility
As you move forward, your blog will earn a lot of traffic and a lot of followers. You can then utilize your follower count or like count. It’s not about flaunting or anything, it’s simply letting people know that your blog is credible. Telling people you’ve got this many likes and tweets will make them feel at ease each time they visit your blog. It’s the concept of “social proof” which brands your blog as one of the many that has established its own credibility. This is quite easy to perform especially if your blogging platform supports a lot of plugins that have this kind of functionality.
Day 8: E-mail Subscription
Although it’s a very old online marketing method, it still works. If you’re uncertain whether or not you should put up with making e-mails for your subscribers, don’t worry. E-mail marketing has been alive for as long as we know and it’s not dying anytime soon.
Investing your time in e-mail marketing isn’t as bad as you think. There are newer things to try out when it comes to social media marketing but e-mail subscription still works fine and does an excellent job at keeping your clients up-to-date. Other than that, you could also send out your newest blog updates through e-mail.
Now, if you’ve got some clients who’ve agreed or willingly subscribed to your e-mail feeds then they would be waiting to hear from you. These are the types of visitors who are highly likely to share your content and allow your social media profiles to grow. This makes e-mail subscriptions still feasible so long as the right approach is taken.
Day 9: Build Partnerships
When you start blogging from scratch, it’s not easy to gain credibility or popularity right then and there. It takes time and a whole lot of effort and strategy to keep the traffic flowing into your blog. Sometimes you need a helping hand to let people know who you are. Research those blog owners who are in the same niche as you and offer to guest post on their blog and in return you may place a link that goes back to your blog.
Of course, you need to choose blogs that are popular, or else it doesn’t work. It’s more of a negotiation thing from then on. It may be tough especially if you get a lot of declined requests but don’t lose hope. Just let them see what you’ve got and they’ll be glad to have you do a guest post in their blog. Let them know that it’s a win-win situation. Nobody loses in this kind of strategy as each party will benefit from it.
Day 10: Share Your Blog Posts
Once you publish your blog posts, don’t just stop there. Have a routine where you spread the word about your new posts. Share it on social media such as Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus.
In addition, make use of social bookmarking from sites like Reddit and StumbleUpon. You can gain a lot of exposure in a short period of time if your post gets shared.
Table of Contents
- Chapter 1: Introduction
- Chapter 2: The Art Of Blogging
- Chapter 3: Getting To Know Facebook
- Chapter 4: All About Twitter
- Chapter 5: Social Media Marketing via YouTube
