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Archive for business blogging

Becoming a Blogger: Do You Have What it Takes?

March 15, 2013 / Michael Stelzner / No comments

Are you thinking of starting a blog or restarting your blog? Do you wonder if you have what it takes to attract a strong blog audience? To learn about what it takes to become a successful blogger, I interview Stanford Smith for this episode of the Social Media Marketing podcast. More About This Show The Social [...]

Category: blogger, blogging, born to blog, business blogging, Expert Interviews, michael stelzner, podcast, pushing social, social media marketing podcast, stanford smith, trait /

Business Blogging 101

February 21, 2013 / Monica Romeri / No comments

With social media in the limelight, many companies have lost focus on business blogging. Although social media is a potentially powerful medium to share and publicize your original content, you must first create excellent content that readers will be compelled to share.

Category: Best Practices, blogging, business blogging, Content, Engagement, Influence, Marketing, sharable content, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, social networks, strategy /

10 Content Marketing Tips You Can Employ Now

December 18, 2012 / Cindy King / No comments

Are you looking for content marketing ideas?

Need some actionable tips you can put to use today?

We asked 10 content marketing experts for their best content marketing tips.

Here they are:

#1: Leverage the Power of Interviews

Without a doubt, one of my hottest content marketing tips is to do interviews… especially video interviews. In fact, it isn’t just hot… it’s downright freakin’ sexy.

David Siteman Garland

Here is why you should add interviews to your content repertoire (big word!) in a fun numerical order:

If you can ask questions and like talking to people, you can interview someone. No need to come up with blog topics, just ask away.
Interviews are an incredible relationship-builder. Want to meet your favorite author? Connect with the influencers in your space? Nothing builds a relationship like a good ole interview (especially on video, as you will REALLY get to know someone).
Replicable, replicable, replicable. There are plenty of interesting people out there in your niche to interview. I doubt you will run out of content. Not running out of content? That’s a good thing!
Credibility by association. Ahhh, this is a good one. When people see you interviewing awesome people, they assume you are awesome. This is good. For example, people assume I’m probably pretty neat as I can be seen on-screen with Tim Ferriss, Seth Godin, Gary Vaynerchuk and more. You can be pretty neat too.
David being seen interviewing Tim Ferriss.
You get free consulting/coaching (*wink wink*). Call up someone you want to learn from and ask for 30 minutes of their time to pick their brain for free. Interviewing is the PERFECT excuse and handshake to meet key people in your industry and pick their brains. No bank account required.

Good luck and go get ‘em!

David Siteman Garland, author of Smarter, Faster, Cheaper and creator of the web show and resource The Rise To The Top.

#2: Embrace Content Curation

Ileane Smith

I’m seeing some real excitement starting to build around content curation platforms right now, and by far my favorite content curation tool is Scoop.it.

I love using Scoop.it because not only does it allow you to curate content and connect with other content marketers, you can also share what you find to an endless number of social media sites and accounts because of the integration with Buffer and HootSuite.

The presentation below is from Scoop.it co-founder and CEO, Guillaume Decugis, which sums up the benefits of human content curation over machine algorithms.

You can leverage a site like Scoop.it to spread your message to a brand-new audience. At the same time, you’re building authority and demonstrating your expertise on important topics related to your niche.

Track the popularity and activity of your Scoop.it topic pages with the summary emails they send out. In the image below, notice the growing number of followers and visits to my topic pages for Podcasts and YouTube Tips and Tutorials—not to mention Basic Blog Tips!

Track the popularity and activity of your Scoop.it topic pages with the summary emails they send out.

Of course you can’t completely leave search engines out of the content marketing equation.

For example, when I check Google Webmaster Tools, I find thousands of links coming from Scoop.it pointing back to my home base, which is my blog.

Use Google Webmaster Tools to track where your links are coming from.

Below, the screenshot from Google Analytics shows that during the second quarter of this year, Scoop.it was in the top 10 referrers of traffic to my blog, actually beating sites like LinkedIn and Famous Bloggers. It’s important to add that the average number of pages visited was 3.4 and the bounce rate was only 12%, so we’re talking high-quality, targeted traffic here.

Google Analytics shows that Scoop.it was in the top 10 referrers of traffic.

The added benefit of using a site like Scoop.it is the community aspect. Users get to know each others’ interests and content is “rescooped” and reshared across every social networking platform.

You might be using a different curation service like Storify or newcomer Spundge, and that’s great. Just be sure that you network and make connections with influencers just as you would on any other social site.

Ileane Smith, founder of Basic Blog Tips.

#3: Use Calls to Action

Heidi Cohen

Use a contextually relevant call to action to nudge your target audience to take the next step.

By its nature, content marketing—whether it’s integrated into your social media or not—is non-promotional, enabling it to get through the clutter. As a result, to get participants to do something without screaming “Buy, Buy, Buy!”, you must make it obvious and easy so they do it without thinking.

Actionable Marketing Tip: Don’t limit your calls to action only to sales. Include calls to action to get prospects to take steps all along the purchase process.

How calls to action are used on a blog post to get readers to take different actions to read deeper into the blog, share socially and enter the purchase process.

Heidi Cohen, president of Riverside Marketing Strategies.

#4: Create Verbal Tweets

Michael Stelzner

I recently had a crazy idea I call verbal tweets. It’s a way to make it effortless for people to tweet. It’s especially valuable to podcasters or anybody who is recording a video or audio.

If you want someone to tweet something about your show—for example, at the end of your podcast—give a shout out to say something like, “Hey, if you love this podcast, do me a favor and visit socialmediaexaminer.com/love”. This link repopulates a tweet directly into the Twitter feed.

Here is an example below. When you go to socialmediaexaminer.com/love, this will show up on your screen:

Social Media Marketing podcast’s verbal tweet.

To create a verbal tweet, go to clicktotweet, type in your tweet exactly as you want it to be, with the URL already shortened the way you want and then hit Generate Link. This link will get generated for you and then you can embed it into a blog post, for example.

Use clicktotweet to help generate a custom link.

But if you want to take it one step further and not make someone have to find it, you can use a cool WordPress plug-in called Pretty Link, which allows you to create a custom URL. Then paste in your pretty link.

Michael Stelzner, founder of Social Media Examiner, host of the Social Media Marketing podcast and author of Launch and Writing White Papers.

#5: Make Content Desirable to Your Customers

Pam Hendrickson

It’s not what you know, it’s how you say it. We’ve all heard that on Web 2.0, content is king. But face it: we’re drowning in content. Every minute, more than 24 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube and 270,000 words are written on Blogger.com. A Google search on even the most obscure topic pulls up hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of results.

You can use SEO, keywords and other strategies to improve your rankings and get people to find your stuff online—but how effective are you once you get their eyes and ears? How good is your content?

The amount of information available to us as human beings is almost incomprehensible. As a species, we make, store and increase our capacity for information by the second. With the creation and rapid growth of the Internet, almost any information we need or want is available at the click of a single button.

It’s not information by itself that people are coming to you for—or ultimately, that they’re paying you for. There are three things that will make your content and products desired by your customers:

Your perspective: How you use your unique background to shed new light on your customers’ problems, as well as how they can learn from it to get the same or better results faster, with fewer missteps.
Your ability to structure and package your content so they can use it: How well you’re able to explain, demonstrate and break down concepts for them and present the information to them so they can apply what they’re learning.
Your ability to humanize it: The level of empathy, compassion and connection you’re able to convey and bring out in them in the process.

Pam Hendrickson, producing, launching and marketing highly profitable products for many of the top names in the personal and professional development industry for over 20 years.

#6: Align Your Content Marketing Strategy With Your Email Strategy

Steve Sheinkopf

Although our business is primarily known for blogging and keyword capture, email may be the best part of our marketing.

Now most people blast away at a list once a week or month (or an astounding 14 times during Black Friday/CyberMonday), but they are missing the point.

If you are emailing to a general list, you will have seen diminishing returns over the last few years. It has nothing to do with the message of your email.

Email is about relevance. If you are relevant, people will open your email. Now slicing and dicing a list is good.

There is, however, a better way, which should be incorporated into your blogs and all of your social media. Create buying guides/white papers along different lines of your business. They only have to be four or five pages, but these buying guides will aid your lead generation and sales.

Lets take our induction example below.

Check out the click-through rates on these email campaigns.

About a year ago, I created the induction guide and placed it on all of our induction blog articles. If someone downloads an induction guide, common sense dictates they are interested in induction.

Now guess what I email to the people who downloaded the induction guide? Induction articles, induction promotions, induction cooking demos, etc. This increased click-through rates to over 45% on the best campaigns.

Blog, guides and email: Think about aligning the three.

Steve Sheinkopf, third-generation owner of Yale Appliance and Lighting, one of the most unique appliance stores in the country.

#7: Invest in Business Blogging

Gini Dietrich

My hottest content marketing tip for business is, without a doubt, blogging. That said, it’s also the most difficult and most time-consuming.

Here’s how I want you to think about it: How much time do you spend making cold calls that amount to nothing? What about meeting people for breakfast, coffee, lunch, drinks or dinner to no avail?

What if I told you blogging can be one of your top three drivers of new leads, and help nurture and convert them as well, but it will take 10-15 hours of your time each week?

Would you be willing to replace cold calls and meeting time with blogging for a better return?

In the past two weeks, we’ve generated three new clients from Spin Sucks. How do I know that? Easy! Each of them said when they called for the first time that they read the blog.

But sometimes it’s not that easy. Sometimes you have to dig into Google Analytics and other data to figure out where people are coming from and whether they’re converting to a customer.

Of course, it’s easier when you sell something online. We’re a professional services firm, so in the beginning, to monetize the time we spent on the blog, we created products out of content. Things such as ebooks, webinars and white papers. These things allowed us to track who was clicking on the links we provided in blog posts and on the sidebar of the blog and who bought the products.

Track the performance of your content in Google Analytics.

We used in-page analytics and our ecommerce platform to give us those numbers. For instance, in a blog post last summer, we linked to a webinar we sell for $50. You can see by our in-page analytics 2% of the visitors—or 47 people—clicked on the link. When we compared that to our ecommerce, we saw 43 people bought the webinar.

Measure engagement with in-page analytics.

A pretty good ROI for one blog post, which took less than an hour to write, optimize and distribute.

If you don’t sell online, you have to track a little bit differently. The easiest way, of course, is to ask how people found you. Do surveys, hire someone who understands analytics and data, and pay attention to the content on your blog that is most popular. That’s how you’ll determine how well it works for your business.

Gini Dietrich, co-author of Marketing In the Round and the founder and CEO of Arment Dietrich.

#8: Make Content Marketing Part of Your Business Culture

Krista Kotrla

Imagine the impact if you started to utilize every person in your company to create content. Why not have an army of people helping build your digital brand? Want a hot content marketing tip? Make content marketing part of your business culture.

Here’s the deal: Your employees are already content machines… They answer customer questions all day long.

They talk about price/cost. They compare products. They solve problems. They have an opinion about current industry topics. Imagine all of the content trapped in hundreds of thousands of emails, phone calls and conversations over the years that get a one-time shot at return on time invested.

Utilize every person in your company to create content.

Now imagine putting all of that collective knowledge and information to work for you online, helping you get found by more people and building buyer trust 24/7 for years to come!

While every other company is dipping their toes into “going social,” now is the time for you to go all in and utilize the strengths of your entire team. Get ahead of the competition. Give your team a better platform that brings about better long-term results.

Make content marketing part of your culture and you’ll benefit by having an army of great listeners developing strategic content with a more effective platform bringing about significant results for years to come. Unleash the brilliance of an inspired team accomplishing something that matters.

Krista Kotrla, vice president of marketing for Block Imaging International.

#9: Master Integrated Content Marketing

Stan Smith

Content marketing is a giant killer.

In 2013, your challenge will be to combine content publishing with smart planning and marketing automation.

Here are three steps on how to create a powerful integrated content marketing program for your business.

1. Create a Content Editorial Calendar

Usually editorial calendars are simple blog planning tools. The problem is that your business story needs to be told on multiple platforms through a variety of content types.

Instead I suggest creating a Content Editorial Calendar. This calendar’s objective is to surround your visitors with an immersive multi-content experience. This calendar lets you align content to customer needs and schedule a steady drumbeat of diverse content that will give your customers something to see, hear, watch and experience.

A Content Editorial Calendar helps you surround visitors with an immersive multi-content experience.

2. Use Content to Segment Your Prospects

Integrated content marketing forces you to design content based on what your customers need versus talking points. Customer-focused content allows you to segment your readers and uncover insights about how to engage and accelerate them through the sales process.

For example, a productivity app developer can create a video series around daily goal-setting and offer a special report on the same topic. Opt-in subscribers for the report can be put on a “goal-setting” contact sublist that gets content focused on their interest.

3. Ramp Up Content-Focused Relationship-Building

Email is still a powerful relationship-building tool. Smart companies use email marketing to engage customers and accelerate their decision-making process.

In 2013, actively tie each piece of content to a robust email campaign. Make Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest work harder by offering high-quality opt-in content that puts subscribers into custom email campaigns. Track these email campaigns to gain customer behavior insights based on platform and content.

These steps create an effective 1-2-3 punch that will leverage your business story, target customer needs and convert reader interest into revenue—a powerful way to market in 2013 and beyond.

Stan Smith, founder of Pushing Social and co-author of the forthcoming book Born to Blog.

#10: Develop Your Content Marketing Mission Statement

Joe Pulizzi

According to the Content Marketing Institute/MarketingProfs research, over 90% of all marketers use content marketing in some way. Yes, almost none of those marketers have a documented content marketing plan or strategy.

This is a major problem. Without a clear content marketing plan, we are planning to fail.

According to the Content Marketing Institute/MarketingProfs research, over 90% of all marketers use content marketing in some way.

A good start is to develop a content marketing mission statement.

For example, Inc. magazine has its mission statement in the first line of its About Us page.

“Welcome to Inc.com, the place where entrepreneurs and business owners can find useful information, advice, insights, resources and inspiration for running and growing their businesses.”

Let’s dissect this a bit. Inc.’s mission statement includes:

The core audience target: entrepreneurs and business owners
What will be delivered to the audience: useful information, advice, insights, resources and inspiration
The outcome for the audience: growing their businesses

Remember, content marketing is not about “what you sell,” it’s about “what you stand for.” The informational needs of your customers and prospects come first. Although there must be clear marketing objectives behind the mission statement, those should not be outlined here.

The Inc. mission statement doesn’t say anything about selling more advertising or paid events. To work, your mission statement has to be all about the pain points of your readers and followers or it simply won’t work.

Joe Pulizzi, founder of the Content Marketing Institute and co-author of Managing Content Marketing and Get Content, Get Customers.

Who are these content marketing pros?

The content marketing pros who contributed to this article are all speaking at Content Success Summit 2013.

It’s a live, virtual conference that starts February 5, 2013 (spread over four weeks to improve learning and accommodate your schedule). Plus you’ll get recordings and transcripts of all live sessions.

Social Media Examiner recruited the biggest and best names in the world of content marketing for this conference. Only the best for you!

All of the experts you’ve come to respect and admire will be in one place. Be sure to check it out.

Why should you attend Content Success Summit?

This conference will reveal everything from strategy to content creation techniques you can put to use immediately.

You’ll discover all of the newest strategies, practical tips and real-world examples for using blogs, podcasts, video, webinars, email and online courses to establish marketplace credibility, build a loyal following and explode your growth.

Twenty-two experts will reveal all of the latest business-building tactics you need to know to benefit from content marketing.

Consider this: more than 16,000 people have attended our online summits and on average, 95% of attendees say they’d recommend our events to friends and attend again. This year we have an all-new professional development summit fully focused on content marketing.

Want to save some money? Reserve your spot now, before prices go up! Click here for details.

What do you think? What’s your favorite content marketing tip? Please share it in the comment section below.

Category: business blogging, call to action, cindy king, content curation, content marketing, content marketing mission statement, content marketing strategy, content marketing tip, editorial calendar, email strategy, How To, interview, verbal tweets /

21 Business Blogging Tips From the Pros

October 30, 2012 / Cindy King / No comments

Do you blog for your business?

Are you looking for exciting tips to streamline your blogging experience?

If so, keep reading.

We spoke with 21 top experts to find the hottest business blogging tips you need to know today.

Here they are…

#1: Treat Each of Your Articles as a Product

Leo Widrich

Here is a tip that completely changed my blogging game recently. A friend sent me an email, stating that the quality of the posts on our Buffer blog was declining—and yes, she was right!

Since then, the whole team sat down and rethought our blogging strategy from scratch. What we came up with is something very simple, yet extremely powerful: Treat each of your articles as a product.

Since we started to do this, our traffic and our comments are going through the roof, and our overall feeling of happiness is too. Here are some of the points we derived from this:

A product is only useful if you know others want it. Validate an idea for a blog post in the same way. For example, before posting an article, we tweeted a question about whether anyone was interested in learning more about multitasking. The outcome? They sure were, and the post was a big hit.
A product is something that people would potentially pay for. Would they also pay for your articles? Simply starting to think, “Would anyone pay for reading this?“, immediately changed the quality. We started to add research on topics instead of just opinions, many more examples and in-depth coverage. That’s the only way we could provide value that someone might pay for (even though we don’t charge for it).
A product needs continual iteration. So does a blog post. Hit Publish, even if you have grammar mistakes, formatting errors and so forth. You can correct these things along the way. We had also neglected to reply to comments, which triggered less overall engagement such as tweets and shares. The simple solution—don’t!

Treat each of your articles as a product. Image source: iStockphoto

Leo Widrich, co-founder of BufferApp.com.

#2: Crowdsource Unconventionally

Jason Miller

Your audience isn’t just interested in one topic, so push the boundaries of what you write about and tie it back to what matters most. The best bloggers in the world take cues from everyday life and turn them into inspiration for blog ideas.

It’s not enough anymore to just have an RSS feed of other industry blogs as your arsenal of fresh content ideas. Increased competition and decreased attention spans make it vital to differentiate yourself with new approaches to overdone ideas.

My favorite sources for content ideas come from places I would least expect. For example, want a lesson in writing headlines? Go to the magazine rack at the supermarket and take a look at the covers of Cosmo or Men’s Health. These folks are pros at grabbing attention and are experts in writing compelling headlines that pull the reader in.

Combining that approach with ideas culled from online industry aggregators such as LinkedIn Today and offline magazines such as The Week can be a powerful way to develop fresh blog ideas.

Use a note-taking app such as Evernote to keep track of these ideas the moment they strike.

Take a look at magazine covers to see how the pros are grabbing attention. Image source: iStockphoto

Jason Miller, social media manager at Marketo.

#3: Produce Your Own Media Content

Jim Belosic

Producing your own media content is by far the best blogging tip I could give.

When you use your own images and video in your blog, the payoff is enhanced SEO because others might link to your original article and you could get more exposure if your images are linked to and embedded elsewhere. You also receive enhanced SEO if your image is more relevant than a typical stock image.

You always want to incorporate your own data and graphs specific to the topic, versus a stock photo inserted just for the purpose of having a photo. You can also use watermarks with your business name or URL on your images. If they do get embedded or the names changed, your brand will still be there.

The easiest way to optimize your media and increase your blog’s SEO is to integrate keywords into captions, descriptions and save images under keyword-rich names.

For example, instead of saving an image under screenshot42.jpg, change the name to customfbapp.jpg. Doing this will help your content rank better when people are searching through image directories, which in turn can provide more visibility to your blog.

Jim Belosic, CEO and co-founder of ShortStack.

#4: Publish Only Your BEST Content

Emeric Ernoult

My hottest business blogging tip is that your content should be the kind you could sell to your clients for $2,000! In other words, don’t be afraid of giving away the know-how you would otherwise sell for a living.

That advice comes from experience. A long time ago, I was a lawyer and I started blogging content that my colleagues would sell for a fee. They looked at me like I was nuts.

Three years later, they were still fighting hard to get a couple of new clients, whereas I was getting many more incoming calls than I could handle, thanks to my blog!

They thought giving away content and advice you would otherwise sell was taking away your business. But in reality, people don’t “steal” your content, they just use it to make sure you’re the expert they’re looking for!

Customers use your content to make sure you're the expert they're looking for. Image source: iStockphoto

Emeric Ernoult, founder of AgoraPulse.

#5: Give Your Whole Story

Paul Colligan

The essence of social media means that our content will never just reside in a single location. We may have videos on YouTube, dialogue and interaction on Facebook, our favorites on Pinterest and articles on websites like this one.

The totality of your content tells a “whole” story that you should, at the very least, consider presenting on your blog. Not everything at your site has to be a “complete” post. In some cases, automation can make this content timeline approach possible. In other cases, it will require a bit of a specific production process.

Either way, your audience is at your blog to learn more about you. Make sure you give them the whole story.

Paul Colligan, expert in content creation and podcasting.

#6: Target Your Market With Useful Content

Michael Delgado

Stop pimping your business with every blog post. Instead, focus on equipping your target market with useful content. That’s how you build a relevant following—and it’s key to creating a community of new customers.

Invite employees to interact with you in your blog comments. Encourage employees to read your blog posts and to interact with you there. It’s a great way to increase your blog engagement and also helps empower employees to share ideas that they might not have otherwise.

Survey your customers to find out what blog content they will find useful. Stop thinking you know what to blog about and ask your readers/customers to tell you. You’ll not only gain valuable insight into what your target market finds useful, but also promote your blog in the process.

Michael Delgado, author of circled.us and the social media community manager at Experian.

#7: Do Interviews/Webinars

Casey Zeman

A great blogging tip that I have found very useful is to interview someone awesome who can provide a ton of value and who will then share the article with his or her community.

Two things happen: 1. The person you interview is excited to share, as long as he or she is depicted in a good light to the community. 2. You get super-solid content for your existing readers and subscribers.

Another tip is webinars. I suppose it depends on what your intention is for your blog. But you should always be looking to increase your subscriber base, so what I have been doing recently is offering webinars/webinar signup boxes on my blog to filter traffic to super high-quality content for nurturing purposes! They choose the time and date of the webinar and it filters them through.

Casey Zeman, creator of YouTube Revealed and Easy Webinar Plugin.

#8: Invite Guest Bloggers

Stephanie Gehman

If you find yourself pressed for time and content, consider seeking out a guest blogger. Don’t be afraid to invite other industry professionals, people on your staff and in your company who have a penchant for writing and good grammatical command to help you build the content for your blog.

Sharing the content of guest bloggers helps you out, offers your audience a fresh perspective, possibly provides you with future guest blogging opportunities and may bring new eyes to your blog if the guest blogger has a following of his or her own.

Invite guest bloggers to help build your content. Image source: iStockphoto

Stephanie Gehman, marketing manager at Harrisburg International Airport.

#9: Guest Post Often

Brian Honigman

When it comes to blogging, the best tip I always share is to guest blog often. Guest blogging, no matter the industry, has tremendous benefits in terms of SEO, branding and most of all, giving you a voice within your industry.

Take a hard look at your field of work and make a list of the top 20 publications that cover this vertical online. These are the websites you should eventually write for to drive traffic and notoriety to your blog.

If you’re new to blogging, write a few articles on your industry for your own blog. Over time, you’ll have a portfolio of pieces to work from that you can pitch to a website on your list as proof of your understanding of this particular professional space.

After this guest post or posts, you’ll be able to share them as further proof of your expertise when pitching other websites on your list. From here, continue to garner a varied portfolio of guest blogs in your industry and allow guest posts on your own blog as well.

If done right, guest blogging can have many positive short- and long-term benefits to your company’s continued online success.

Brian Honigman, digital marketing manager at Marc Ecko Enterprises.

#10: Use Information Architecture

Ben Pickering

Take a step back from content and think about information architecture. Use clear navigation, visible headers, categories and tags to organize your content.

Consider what your audience would expect from your blog and make it easy for visitors to find what they’re looking for. I think Mint does a great job on their blog.

Mint is a great example of how to use clear navigation, visible headers, categories and tags to organize content.

Ben Pickering, CEO of Strutta.

#11: Focus on People First

Chris Garrett

Too many people prioritize the technical aspects of blogging, when I think it’s the PEOPLE side that makes the most profound difference.

The most successful bloggers listen to their audience, they get to understand their drives and needs, they answer their questions and solve their problems. It’s people who read, share, link and comment.

If there was one thing I think bloggers should look to improve in order to be more successful, it’s people skills.

People are your priority. Image source: iStockphoto

Chris Garrett, founder of Authority Blogger, VP of Educational Content at Copyblogger Media.

#12: Skip the Promotion on Business Blogs

Heidi Cohen

Understand prospects, customers and the public are on your blog to get answers to their questions and accomplish their goals, not yours. Therefore, you must publish content they find useful and interesting that helps them solve their problems.

A great example of how to accomplish this is ePromos, a B2B company selling promotional items. Its blog is called Everyone Loves Free Stuff, an Ad Age Top 150 blog. ePromos promotes its products by showing marketers how to promote their business.

ePromos sells its product by showing others how to promote their products and services.

Heidi Cohen, president of Riverside Marketing and Strategies.

#13: Stop Talking Only About Yourself

Eugen Oprea

I am noticing this on almost every business blog I visit: everyone writes only about their product, service, features, news or product releases.

Instead, I would encourage you to start writing articles that are not directly related to your product, that provide real value for your readers and help them take action.

This will help you be seen as an expert in your industry and it’s a really simple way to attract traffic through social media and SEO. If your content is valuable, your readers will share it and Google will rank it at the top of their search results.

If you can’t spend a lot of time writing, try to attract guest bloggers who will also promote the articles they write.

Provide real value for your readers and help them take action. Image source: iStockphoto

Eugen Oprea, blogs about web analytics, SEO and WordPress.

#14: Answer Consumer Questions

Marcus Sheridan

I think most companies that are serious about blogging are finally realizing that it’s called a “blog,” not a “brag.”

This deeper understanding of the need to educate and inform vs. strictly “sell” has led to more and more companies adopting a common-sense content strategy with their blog, beginning with answering the most common questions they get from customers and consumers every day.

If companies will simply turn themselves into great listeners, and truly hear the questions they’re getting from their customer base, their blogging ideas will never cease and there is also a great chance their overall blog traffic and loyalty will explode.

The bottom line is this: If a consumer is asking the question, your company needs to be answering it.

Many businesses and organizations are finally starting to see the light on this simple yet incredibly important blogging strategy.

Give your customers answers to their questions. Image source: iStockphoto

Marcus Sheridan, thought leader, social media speaker.

#15: Brand Journalism

Tim Gray

Brand journalism will be the biggest thing in blogging over the next few years. The basic idea is simple: A percentage of your blog content should be created with an eye toward being reusable and repurposed across multiple media platforms.

In other words, don’t create a campaign—content created based primarily on your products or services—on your blog. Nobody goes for that any more.

The future belongs to businesses that become media, which means covering your industry like a reporter covers a beat. Listen to what people are saying about your industry (and business) and create interesting content around those subjects.

You’ll be surprised how much traffic you get when you start treating your subject like a reporter.

Tim Gray, social media strategist with Blue Mountain Media.

#16: Be Yourself

Stephanie Sammons

There is so much canned content out there and it’s only getting worse. If you want to have any chance of standing out from the crowd, you need to create your own content!

Work to develop a blogging style that is unique to you. What’s your angle? What’s your view? How can you differentiate yourself from others who are blogging in your niche?

Do your best to weave personal stories, experiences, opinions and lessons learned into your blog posts. This can be incredibly effective for connecting with your readers and growing your following. Also, showcase your personality, passions and interests!

We connect with others and build relationships around our passions and interests. Your personality is something that no one else can duplicate!

Closely evaluate your blog today. Can people get to know you as a human being as soon as they land on your site? Humanize your blog to the point where visitors can truly feel connected to you.

Above all else, if you are true to yourself in the content you create, you will have a much greater opportunity to build a loyal audience!

To stand out from the crowd, create your own content. Image source: iStockphoto

Stephanie Sammons, founder and CEO of Wired Advisor.

#17: Show Your Personality

Louise Julig

Let your personality come out in your posts. Don’t be afraid to give an opinion or let your true colors show.

This is something I sometimes struggle with because in much journalistic writing, you’re not supposed to inject your personality into the story. But people want to know the person behind the business these days, and as long as you can still keep it professional, it helps to write in a way that lets people know there’s a living, breathing human being behind the blog.

Louise Julig, Social Media Examiner’s case study writer, freelance writer.

#18: Deal With Negativity in a Positive Way

Sara Hawkins

I don’t think you can overstate the importance of dealing with negativity in an open and authentic way. Rather than deleting the negative comments, view them as an opportunity to win over a customer, offer help or guidance or even recognize if something went wrong.

Life isn’t 100% positive, and neither is business. Even the most universally loved businesses have naysayers. Allow the business to have a personality and let it shine through when dealing with negativity and adversity. Don’t be afraid to apologize or offer help.

Sara Hawkins, founder Saving For Someday, lawyer, blogger.

#19: Own Your Own Domain Name

Rich Brooks

While this may seem basic, owning your own domain name for your blog is a critical step many businesses still aren’t taking.

Perhaps because they are just testing the waters when they started or they didn’t realize the importance of this step, they have a domaine like mybusiness.blogger.com or mybusiness.wordpress.com. You need to own your own domain!

Whether you run it at blog.mywebsite.com or mywebsite.com/blog, or even if you have to buy another domain name for your blog, you don’t want to rely on someone else’s platform.

When you’re working on someone else’s domain, you’re working for someone else. What if they go out of business? What if you decide to change platforms? Unless you have been posting content on a domain you control, you’ll lose all of the trust and inbound links you’ve built up over the years.

Rich Brooks, president of Flyte New Media.

#20: Immediately Claim Authorship of Your Articles

Don Power

The best business blogging tip I have is to immediately claim authorship of your articles through the official ”rel=author” process recommended by Google. By linking your published articles to your Google+ profile and vice-versa, your Google+ profile picture will begin to appear next to your articles in Google’s search results.

While Google officially says this may not affect your position in search engine results, it says its own statistics confirm that search results containing Google+ profile pictures receive higher click-through rates than those without.

I have personally seen my articles receive much higher ranking in search engine results (and more traffic coming to my blog) after making this small change to the markup of my articles.

Statistics confirm that search results containing Google+ profile pictures receive higher click-through rates than those without.

Michael Stelzner

Don Power, managing editor of Sprout Social Insights.

#21: Stop Calling Your Blog a Blog

Michael Stelzner

You’re not a blogger, you’re a publisher.

When I started Social Media Examiner back in October 2009, I made the decision not to call our site a blog. Instead, I opted for the phrase online magazine.

Why? Because every business owner and marketer in the world knows what a magazine is. That word brings to mind rich, thoughtful articles that are designed to educate and inform. There’s no question that a magazine is a publication.

When you start thinking of your blog as a publication, then you can start calling yourself a publisher. When you’re a publisher, your business and editorial decisions become more clear.

Start thinking of your blog as a publication. Image source: iStockphoto

Michael Stelzner, founder and CEO of Social Media Examiner.

What do you think? Are there any blogging tips you would like to share? Leave your questions and comments in the box below.

Images from iStockPhoto.

Category: blog authorship, blog domain, blog post, blog promotion, blog seo, blog style, blog topic, blogging, blogging tips, brand journalism, business blogging, cindy king, Content Creation, content strategy, guest blogger, How To, online magazine /

Blogging for Business: How Content Can Improve Your Sales

September 21, 2012 / Michael Stelzner / No comments

Are you wondering how a blog can help your business?

Are you trying to figure out how content can improve your sales?

To learn more about the connection of blogging and content marketing, I interview Marcus Sheridan for this episode of the Social Media Marketing podcast.

More About This Show

The Social Media Marketing podcast is a show from Social Media Examiner.

It’s designed to help busy marketers and business owners discover what works with social media marketing.

The show format is on-demand talk radio (also known as podcasting).

In this episode, I interview Marcus Sheridan, founder of The Sales Lion and author of the ebook Inbound and Content Marketing Made Easy.

Marcus shares insights into the struggles marketers have to get results from business blogging. You’ll learn what to focus your efforts on and a few simple tactics that will work.

Share your feedback, read the show notes and get the links mentioned in this episode below!

Listen Now

You can also subscribe via iTunes, RSS, Zune, Stitcher or Blackberry.

Here are some of the things you’ll discover in this show:

Content Marketing for Business

What blogging is today

Marcus explains why blogging is essentially about teaching the people in your industry. He shares why it’s important for your business to be better at teaching than anyone else in the world.

Think of blogging as teaching. Image: iStockphoto

You’ll hear why social media is not in your control and why you need to have your content on your own blog. Marcus shares how your blog helps you to communicate with your prospects and existing customers and the different ways you can use your content for your business.

Listen to the show to find out the power of producing your own content.

How to use content marketing for your blog

The expression content marketing has exploded in popularity over the last 18 months and Marcus thinks that it’s going to become a more common marketing approach within the next 12-18 months.

Marcus shares how content marketing helped River Pools & Spas become #1 on Google and how a single article made his company $1.2 million in sales. Learn why content is the greatest sales tool in the world when used properly and how it can shorten the sales cycle.

Marcus uses his pool business blog to answer the questions his customers are asking.

Listen to the show to find out the rewards behind the principle of communication and great teaching.

How to produce great content

You’ll learn why it’s important to talk to the reader in your voice and how to deepen their trust in you and your business. You’ll also pick up some useful tips to create great content:

Speak in your own voice.
Eliminate the marketing message from your content.
Make your blog your education center to answer all of the questions your prospects and clients ask.
Offer more articles for readers to look at examples.
Add a call to action to help your readers learn more.

Listen to the show to discover the benefits of using your own voice and keeping it real.

How to connect blogging to business results

Marcus shares why it’s so important for your business to be aware of how your content performs in communicating with your prospects. You’ll discover why he believes every salesperson should participate in the company blog.

And Marcus shares his hottest blogging and content marketing tips for businesses today:

Approach content marketing as a teacher.
Discover your content marketing tipping points that impact your business results.

He says, “If you hang around the barbershop long enough, you’re going to get your hair cut.” If people spend enough time on your site, they will become customers. You have got to put the content out there and make it valuable, and you’ve got to be a teacher. When you do, you’ll start to see amazing benefits.

Listen to the show to hear how your business can benefit from blogging and content marketing.

Survival Tip: Social Sharing

The secret to getting the results you want from the content you create is to embed social share triggers in key strategic locations within your content.

The result is that you make it effortless for your readers to share your content. This is critical to getting the most out of the content you create and growing your business.

Check out how we do this in our annual Social Media Marketing Industry Report.

Embed social sharing buttons in key locations.

Listen to the show to learn more and let us know how this works for you.

Other Show Mentions

We’re two weeks away from our virtual summit—Facebook Success Summit 2012. This is our third-annual conference designed for Facebook marketers who want to master everything there is to know about Facebook marketing.

Be sure to check it out.

Key takeaways mentioned in this episode:

Connect with Marcus on The Sales Lion.
Check out Marcus’ ebook: Inbound and Content Marketing Made Easy.
Try HubSpot to track your ROI.
See how River Pools & Spas uses content marketing.
Note the social sharing buttons on our Social Media Marketing Industry Report 2012.
Read the Block Imaging business blogging case study.
Learn more about Facebook Success Summit 2012.

Help Us Spread the Word!

Please let your Twitter followers know about this podcast. Simply click here now to post a tweet on Twitter.

If you enjoyed this episode of the Social Media Marketing podcast, please head over to iTunes, leave a rating, write a review and subscribe.

Ways to subscribe to the Social Media Marketing podcast:

Click here to subscribe via iTunes.
Click here to subscribe via RSS (non-iTunes feed).
You can also subscribe via Zune, Stitcher and Blackberry.

What do you think? What are your thoughts on content marketing? Please leave your comments below.

Images from iStockPhoto.

Category: blogging, blogging for business, business blogging, Content, content marketing, Expert Interviews, Marcus Sheridan, michael stelzner, podcast, social share button, Social Sharing /

3 Ways to Create Highly Valuable Blog Content

September 11, 2012 / Rich Brooks / One comment

Do you struggle coming up with content ideas for your blog?

Or maybe you create plenty of blog posts, but they get few views and even less engagement?

If you find that creating engaging content is challenging, keep reading.

This article will identify some of the best tips, tools and tactics for creating blog content that helps grow your business.

#1: Be the resource your customers really need

What’s your ideal customer’s biggest problem? Your blog is not about your business, it’s about your customers.

If you want to attract and engage your prospects and lead them down the sales funnel, you need to focus on them and their problems.

The more you create content that helps your prospects succeed, the more engaged they’ll become with your blog.

So how do you know what your audience is struggling with?

Ask.

If you’ve been in business for a while, chances are you already know a lot of what your customers are struggling with.

But if you’re starting from scratch or you want to uncover more opportunities where you can help your customers, consider creating a survey using a free tool like Survey Monkey or Google Docs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEhD0m1fhAQ

Extract the “keywords” that drive the questions.

Once you have a list of the problems your customers face, you’ll start to notice some recurring phrases.

Maybe it’s “public speaking,” or “college admissions” or “dating advice.” (If it’s all three, you may want to narrow your focus.)

Grab one of those phrases, brainstorm a few alternatives and head on over to Google’s Adword Keyword Tool.

Plug your phrases into the box, choose “exact match” and hit “search.”

Google will return your keyword phrases plus a number of related phrases. It will also show you how many people have searched for each phrase in the last 30 days, and how competitive those phrases are (at least in the pay-per-click arena; a good indicator of how difficult it may be to rank well for these phrases).

The Global and Local Monthly Searches columns will give you insight into how much interest there is in a specific keyword. Focus on phrases that have high search volume for your blog posts.

Start creating posts around the history of videogames, game reviews, free games and cheap games.

Once you’ve identified your most promising keywords, go to Google Insights for Search. While there are some amazing reports you can generate from Insights, scroll right down to the bottom and look at Top Searches and Rising Searches.

Top Searches will give you a sense of what people are searching for now, while Rising Searches will give you a sense of what the next big search terms will be.

Creating valuable content before it becomes mainstream can give an incredible boost to your blog traffic. Other bloggers will tend to cite your work when they post related content (creating inbound links to your blog), and search engines will often reward your post because of its longevity.

Rising Searches helps keep you ahead of the competition.

I’ve seen this on my blog and website when I’ve written on a topic before it’s really caught on. An article I wrote back in 2008 entitled How to Use Twitter for Business still attracts over 250 new prospects per month to our site more than four years after I wrote it!

Would your business benefit from getting in front of 3,000 new prospects a year who had never heard of your company before?

You should also plug your best keywords into Google Alerts (that’s the last Google plug, I promise!).

Every day, Google will deliver news stories, blog posts and even tweets to your inbox about your best keywords. Those are all the seeds of great content posts your ideal customer is interested in.

Get blog post ideas delivered to your inbox daily.

#2: Answer the unanswered questions

People often come to the web to seek answers and advice. Your audience is no different.

Answering their questions in your blog is a great way to attract and engage them.

Email

It’s likely that you get emails from your current customer base looking for advice.

Stop answering them!

OK, that’s not exactly what I mean. But don’t answer them right away.

Instead, when someone asks you a question that you feel others are likely struggling with, that’s a perfect opportunity to create a “Dear Abby”–style post.

Why help one when you can help one thousand?

Whether it’s “Why can’t I post to my Facebook page as myself?” or “How can a B2B company use Pinterest?“, you can create content that will help attract your ideal customer.

Think about it: If one person is asking you that question, how many other hundreds or thousands who don’t have a resource to turn to are using Google or Bing? And Google (usually) won’t answer the question, they’ll just refer the searcher to an authoritative source… like your blog.

Unless it was a question about bedwetting and you used their name, chances are they’ll be proud they asked such an intelligent question. Bonus: you’re (re)introducing them to your blog.

#3: Find the questions your customers are asking

Next, you need to figure out what your customers want to know now. Do some research to find the questions they’re asking.

Quora, Yahoo Answers and LinkedIn Answers.

These are just a few of the popular Q&A sites on the web today. People pose questions at these sites in all types of categories, from parenting to management, home repair to manufacturing.

But just because a question is asked (and even answered) doesn’t mean that the topic is closed. Chances are you have a better, more nuanced or just different answer to the question.

Take the question and make it your own on your blog.

Find a category that would interest your audience and plunder it for ideas.

Keyword Questions

This is one of my favorite tools for filling a blog with engaging questions, whether you’re a long-time blogger or just starting out.

Keyword Questions queries WordTracker’s search engine partners to find questions that have been posed with your keywords in them.

I’ve found that using broad terms for this tool provides the best results. In other words, use “golf” rather than “golf tips.”

Each one of these results represents another blog post.

Competitors’ FAQs

You remember FAQs, right? Those pages on a website that are covered in dust bunnies, having not been updated since 1997?

Your competition has left some great questions up on their site with out-of-date answers on them. Your job is to find those musty old questions, shake them off and breathe new life into them.

In no way am I suggesting stealing from your competitors! Frequently asked questions are by definition frequently asked. Tweak the question and answer it from your own perspective, based on your experience, in your own voice.

Comment Sections

Comments on a blog post often ask follow-up questions to the original post. Unfortunately, many of these questions go unanswered. Even when they do garner a response, that answer is buried in the comments, difficult to find and share with others.

If someone asks a good follow-up question in the comment section of your own blog, consider creating a new blog post as a response and linking to it in your reply.

Also, popular industry blogs will often generate more comments than the blogger can keep up with. Check out the comment section on popular blog posts and see if there are some great questions being asked that you can answer on your own blog.

Popular blogs' comment sections are often filled with great unanswered questions.

Whether you’re pulling questions from emails, Q&A sites, Keyword Questions, competitors’ FAQs or a comments section, you’re providing a service to your audience as long as you’re creating a fresh perspective on their challenges.

Plus, your blog posts will make the answers easier to find, read and share than if they were buried in a Q&A site or hidden in an email exchange.

Takeaways

If you want to attract and engage a loyal audience to your blog, you need to be continually creating content that is of interest to them, not necessarily of interest to you.

By researching your keywords, digging a little deeper and uncovering the questions your ideal customer is asking, you can build a blog that builds your business.

Your Turn

What do you think?

What tips, tactics or techniques have you used to create content that engages your audience? Let us know in the comments box below. Who knows? Maybe it will inspire you or another reader to create even more compelling content for a future blog post!

Category: blog content, blogging, blogging tips, business blogging, Content, content marketing, content strategy, create content, engage audience, How To, rich brooks /

4 Tips to Better Manage Multi-Author Blogs

September 5, 2012 / Don Power / No comments

Do you have more than one person writing for your blog?

There are a number of unique challenges when it comes to writing content for multi-author blogs.

For example, you may be in a position where you need to give feedback to your contributors, or you may be wondering how to leverage the audiences of your individual writers to drive more overall traffic to your blog.

Here are 4 power tips you can implement on your blog to make sure your writers get the feedback they need and provide your blog maximum exposure at the same time.

#1: Use a Screenshot Utility to Provide Feedback to Writers

On a typical WordPress blog, you can see a revision history for any given article. That’s a list of versions of the article being written, based on incremental changes that are made from one version to the next.

Revision history for a WordPress blog article.

The trouble is, although these versions give you the time and date that changes were made, they don’t tell you the actual changes that were made.

For example, from the image above, it’s clear that the article being written was modified eight times between 19:20 and 19:27 but there’s no way to tell what changes were actually made to the copy.

Trying to figure out what changes were made between revisions is next to impossible. Instead, you can use a very powerful, yet simple to use, browser extension called Markup.io to take a screenshot of the article before and after you make the final edits.

You can use Markup.io’s built-in markup tools, such as lines, arrows, shapes and even text to graphically highlight all of the edits you made on the contributor’s article.

Highlight edits using Markup.io's markup tools.

In the example above, the editor has highlighted the specific edits that were made to the contributor’s post. The editor can then publish the marked-up screenshot to Markup.io’s cloud-based platform, and send the contributor a link to the marked-up screenshot.

The contributor can even respond, add comments and editing marks to the screenshot and send it back to the editor if necessary. This results in a very effective and efficient way to provide detailed feedback between writers and editors of multi-author blogs.

#2: Create a Tag List to Keep Meta Tags Consistent

When you allow individual contributors to tag their own blog posts with relevant meta tags this can save you time as an editor. After all, you won’t need to comb the post mining the copy for keywords to include as meta tags for the article—your writers will do this for you.

However, without some kind of naming convention, you run the risk of similar tags being created for the same topic, such as “blog” and “blogging” for example.

Inconsistent tagging of your articles can impact not only the search engine optimization of your blog, it can also have a negative impact on searches for content or linking to similar articles within your own site.

To combat this, create a tag master list that’s accessible to all of your contributors. It can be something as simple as a Google Doc with an alphabetical list of tags. Or if you’d like to include real-time feedback capabilities, you can look at a more robust application like Campfire from 37signals.

Create a tag list for consistency.

Whatever application you use, make sure that you and your editorial staff regularly maintain the tag list. Get rid of duplicate tags and come up with standards for things like singular vs. plural tags (“blog” or “blogs”) and how and when new tags are added to the list.

Spend some time developing a tag list and formalizing some basic policies around how it’s used. You’ll be better prepared for future growth of your blog when you’re maintaining contributions from a variety of different writers.

#3: Ask Writers to Post Your Blog’s RSS Feed to Their Social Networks

Each of your writers is likely to have well-established social networks of his or her own. In order to facilitate writers promoting not only their own posts, but also posts from other writers, encourage your contributors to publish your blog’s RSS feed to their various social networks.

Your blog’s RSS feed will contain a link to every article that gets published on the site. By posting article links from your RSS feed, your writers will automatically be promoting every article from your blog, not just their own.

There are a number of third-party applications like Twitterfeed and Sprout Social that you can use to automatically post links generated by your blog’s RSS feed into your Twitter stream. This article shows you how to post links from your blog’s RSS feed to your Facebook account.

Use third-party tools to tweet RSS feeds.

It’s a sign of the times—we’re all busy. Sometimes it can be a bit much to ask your writers to find and tweet links to posts from other contributors. By helping all of your writers share each other’s articles, it will not only help each writer promote his or her articles to a wider audience, it will drive more traffic to your blog as well!

#4: Have Writers Claim Their Posts for Higher Click-Throughs to Your Blog

There’s a lot of great content out there. In an attempt to improve relevancy in its search results, Google has adopted a standard whereby writers can claim authorship of their content.

The idea is that when you see search results containing proof of authorship (in the form of an author’s thumbnail picture next to the search result), you may place a higher relevancy on that content—particularly if you recognize that author or are connected with him or her on Google+.

We recently published step-by-step instructions on how to implement this new rel=”author” attribute on your blog. Once you’ve employed this tagging standard for all of your writers on your blog, their Google+ profile images will begin appearing next to search engine results for their articles.multi

The result is often a higher ranking in the search engine results for that particular article. Even if your writers’ articles are not in the #1 position in the search results, Google’s own statistics show that more people are likely to click through the search engine results that contain an author’s picture than those without.

Get better search engine results when your writers claim authorship of their articles.

In the image above, the independent book review of Chris Brogan’s Google+ book ranked higher in the search engine results, and has a much higher profile than the article from Chris Brogan’s own website! This impressive search engine result is due, in large part, to the writer claiming authorship of his article using the rel=”author” tagging standard.

The benefit to your writers is clear—their content is assigned a higher relevancy in the eyes of Google and also in the eyes of the people searching for their articles. Your multi-author blog also benefits by generating more click-throughs to your website whenever your writers’ images appear in the search results.

What do you think? Do you know of any more tips or power tools to optimize multi-author blogs? Please feel free to list your best suggestions in the comments box below.

Category: authorship, blog, blog contributor, blogging, business blogging, don power, How To, Meta Tags, multi author blog, multiple author, multiple writer, rel author, tag, tag list /

22 Top Blogging Tools Loved by the Pros

July 31, 2012 / Cindy King / No comments

Do you blog?

Looking for exciting new tools to simplify the blogging experience? If so, keep reading.

We decided to get the scoop on today’s hottest blogging tools.

We asked 22 pros to share their favorite new finds. Here they are…

#1: InboxQ

Mitt Ray @MittRay

A great blogging tool I discovered a few months ago is InboxQ. I like it because it helps me come up with better blog topics. This tool helps you find questions people are asking on Twitter.

InboxQ lets you create campaigns with different keywords. Usually the best thing to do is to create campaigns with keywords from topics you specialize in. So when someone asks a question with those keywords, you will be updated about it and you can answer the question.

You can work on these questions and come up with better blog topics in your area of specialty. For example, I have two campaigns: one on white papers with keywords like white paper, whitepaper, etc., and the other on social media with keywords like social media, Twitter, Pinterest, Facebook, etc.

When people type in questions with these keywords, I get an update. If I find them interesting and I think my audience will like them too, I write blog posts based on those questions.

Use InboxQ to find the questions people are asking on Twitter.

Mitt Ray, founder of Social Marketing Writing, author.

#2: Content Idea Generator

Rich Brooks @TheRichBrooks

The Content Idea Generator (v2) is a Google Doc that will automatically find news and related stories for your blog from a variety of sources… everything from Google News to Reddit, from tweets to public Facebook updates and more.

While this tool works just as well for podcasts, email newsletters and YouTube videos, I’ve been using it for generating new ideas for blog content.

You can get started here.

Use the Content Idea Generator to get ideas for your blog posts.

Rich Brooks, president of Flyte New Media.

#3: Diigo

Michael Stelzner @Mike_Stelzner

For the blogger who is seeking a cool way to keep track of interesting articles for later blog posts, check out Diigo.

This cool tool allows you to highlight and store interesting content for quick retrieval down the road. You can even embed notes to your saved content. It supports mobile devices like the iPhone, iPad and Android.

Michael Stelzner, founder and CEO of Social Media Examiner.

#4: Disqus

Leo Widrich @LeoWid

The most powerful blogging tool I have discovered recently is Disqus 2012. It is the new version of Disqus and I am absolutely blown away.

It helps me to really create an awesome community around our blog. You can up-vote and down-vote comments, see recurring commenters and have much better threading than in the old version.

Plus, everything is in real time and it feels as if the post and comments are much better connected with each other. One last point I love is that you can show related articles at the bottom of the post and see top commenters at a glance.

Use the latest version of Disqus to grow your community.

Leo Widrich, co-founder of BufferApp.com.

#5: Flickr

Heidi Cohen @HeidiCohen

Photographs are eye-candy that helps attract attention and lures readers into your content to find out more. While incorporating your own photographs into your blog posts is optimal, you don’t always have an appropriate image available.

Flickr, the granddaddy of photo-sharing sites is highly effective for this purpose.

Unlike other options such as Google Images, Flickr’s advanced search enables bloggers to find images with creative commons that allow commercial use. It’s recommended that you check the rights before selecting an image, and some can be altered and some can’t.

Also, always respect other people’s intellectual property by including a photo credit with a link to their Flickr page or whatever they’ve requested.

Use Flickr to find the right photo to attract attention in blog posts.

Flickr’s Advanced Search closeup of creative commons. Here’s what you need to check off!

Heidi Cohen, actionable marketing expert, president of Riverside Marketing Strategies.

#6: Focus Booster

Jason Miller @JasonMillerCA

Focus Booster is a tool that many bloggers use to increase writing productivity.

I’m the first to admit that I have an incredibly short attention span. My creativity thrives in short spurts of activity with frequent breaks. With Focus Booster I can concentrate on writing and turning ideas into blogs.

The app is based on the Pomodoro technique, which recommends you break up your work time into 25-minute chunks separated by 5-minute breaks to improve mental agility.

The essential aim of the technique and this app is to reduce the impact of internal and external interruptions on focus and flow. The immediate benefit is to block out common distractions to productivity, such as constantly checking your email and social accounts.

Although the Pomodoro technique recommends 25-minute intervals, you may need to experiment to discover your optimal session length.

Use Focus Booster to improve your blogging productivity.

Jason Miller, social media manager at Marketo, regular contributor to the Modern B2B Marketing Blog.

#7: Google+ Circles

Mike Delgado @MikeDelgado

I use Google+ circles to brainstorm and store blog post ideas.

I have a circle called “Blog Ideas” that I use to store articles, media or blurbs for future blog posts. Nobody is in that circle, so I’m not bothering anyone with my random thoughts.

It’s just a way for me to easily store ideas and quickly find them later since all the content is indexed.

Create a Google+ circle to store blog post ideas.

Mike Delgado, author of circled.us, social media community manager at Experian.

#8: IFTTT

Paul Colligan @Colligan

On occasion, we post something on Twitter that I’d like replicated on my blog. Sure, one can post wherever he or she wants, but this is the Internet and automation is almost always awesome.

IFTTT is a (free) web service that lets you connect “Channels” (their terminology) together so that if something specific happens, IFTTT can produce another desired result on another connected Channel. As a result, I can tweet and blog at the same time if I want to.

In the video below, I demonstrate how IFTTT is set up so that if I tweet something with the hashtag “#CT” (an abbreviation for the term “content timeline”), IFTTT will automatically publish that tweet to my blog. This requires no special software, so I can effectively “blog via Twitter” using any Twitter client (including Siri).

It should be noted that you have to give IFTTT access to any Channel you want it to interact with and the security implications should be examined accordingly.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQQjrFLQnpI

Paul Colligan, expert in content creation and podcasting.

#9: Alltop

Jim Belosic @shortstackjim

Alltop collects headlines of the latest stories from the best sites and blogs.

We write about Facebook and this is a frequently evolving platform. Although big changes—like the recent implementation of the Timeline design—are easy to catch, it’s news of small feature upgrades and updated restrictions that can fly under the radar.

Using Alltop means we don’t have to jump from one social media news site to the next. This aggregated news site provides insight and inspiration on the topics we like to address on our blog. And ultimately, it keeps us and our readers in-the-know and current with important Facebook trends and practices.

Use Alltop to stay up-to-date on the news that matters most to your business.

Jim Belosic, CEO and co-founder of ShortStack.

#10: Digg Digg

Brian Honigman @BrianHonigman

My favorite blogging tool has to be Digg Digg. It’s a wonderful combination of robust sharing with simple implementation almost any blog owner can figure out how to install.

The plugin allows you to add the social sharing buttons for Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, StumbleUpon, LinkedIn and more, in any combination.

Now there’s no need to download a plugin for every social network’s sharing buttons, when you can download one plugin that has everything needed to make your blog content as shareable as possible.

My favorite feature of the tool is that it can be displayed however you want: horizontally, vertically, static or even move alongside the page with your readers. This gives your audience the option to share your content on their favorite social networks.

Did I mention it’s also free? It’s the best way to get your content seen by the masses with the least amount of overhead.

Use Digg Digg to share your content.

Brian Honigman, digital marketing manager at Marc Ecko Enterprises.

#11: Instagram

Chris Garrett @ChrisGarrett

Use Instagram pictures to draw readers into your blog posts.

I have been using Instagram a lot in combination with Flickr to provide images for my articles. Most people know that having an eye-catching picture helps draw people into your article, but it is difficult to have your pictures stand out and provide the appropriate impact.

Using Instagram on my phone allows me to quickly and easily take a nice-looking photograph, which I then upload to my Flickr library. This integration with Flickr and Facebook makes it easy to grab a photograph, with the added advantage that Instagram creates images with a square shape that works nicely in a blog post, and a small download size, perfect for use on the web.

A lot of people laugh at the more extreme use of the Instagram filters, but used lightly they can add even more pop to your pictures that really lift them from the norm.

Use Instagram pictures to add visual 'pop' to your blog posts.

Chris Garrett, founder of Authority Blogger, VP of educational content at Copyblogger Media.

#12: Markup.io

Don Power @DonPower

As the editor of a multi-author blog, I have to provide a lot of feedback to my writers. The browser extension Markup.io allows me to make a complete, static copy of an article before I make any edits to it. I then send a URL to my writers where they can see that unedited copy, and compare it to the edited version I save in WordPress.

It’s a great way for writers to see before-and-after versions of their articles so that they know exactly what I’ve changed. You can also include additional markup like highlights, arrows and text boxes for even more detailed feedback to your writers.

Use Markup.io to track edits to your articles.

Don Power, managing editor of Sprout Social Insights, professional speaker, social media consultant.

#13: MarsEdit

Stephanie Sammons @StephSammons

MarsEdit is a tool that is available as an application in the Mac app store. I learned about this tool in Michael Hyatt’s book Platform, which by the way is a must-read for any blogger out there.

MarsEdit is a desktop blog editor that you actually purchase and install on your Mac (the app costs $39.99). MarsEdit allows you to write your blog posts without touching your browser. This prevents you from being tempted to jump into email, Twitter or browsing the web. There are no distractions! You can simply FOCUS on completing a post.

Have you ever lost your post edits online when working inside of your blog dashboard? It has happened to me too many times to count and it won’t happen again with MarsEdit. Additionally I don’t have to deal with a clunky interface.

MarsEdit works with WordPress, Tumblr and more!

Use MarsEdit to focus on writing your blog post.

Stephanie Sammons, founder and CEO of Wired Advisor.

#14: OmmWriter

Jeff Korhan @JeffKorhan

OmmWriter is a text editor that combines a simple, yet artful, interface of attractive backgrounds and captivating audio with intentionally limited features that together encourage one thing—writing well.

There is a magnetic quality about OmmWriter that makes it easy to sustain the writing process until you find the shape of your article. After that, editing and inserting tags and media are a snap.

OmmWriter is a free application that is now available as an iPad app or in an upgraded version for a small fee.

OmmWriter is a powerful tool that I find invaluable for staying fully engaged within the writing process.

Jeff Korhan, professional speaker, consultant, columnist on new media and small business marketing.

#15: Optin Skin

Andrea Vahl @AndreaVahl

Optin Skin is a plugin that allows you to add an opt-in to your email list or a special offer to the bottom of every blog post. You can really customize it to have your own personal look and feel and they have a lot of premade templates. It only took me a few minutes to get this up and running.

When people get to the bottom of my article they get a little reminder to sign up for my free report and get blog updates via email.

Use Optin Skin to create an opt-in box like this at the end of your blog posts.

Many studies have shown that people ignore the sidebar, so when you are putting your opt-in right in line with your blog post, you can get people on your email list who may have missed the sidebar opt-in.

The other thing I like about the Optin Skin plugin is that you get stats on which posts are encouraging people to sign up, how many signups a day you get from the plugin and you can get even fancier and split-test your messages. Good stuff!

Optin Skin gives you stats to track the people opting in.

Andrea Vahl, community manager for Social Media Examiner, social media coach, speaker and strategist.

#16: Photo Pin

Debbie Hemley @dhemley

Photo Pin’s photos are free and come from creative commons. The tool makes it very simple to search creative commons photos, shows you a preview of the photo and then provides you with the option to download the image in multiple sizes.

One of the greatest features is that Photo Pin gives you the attribution link (in HTML) so that you can add it to the HTML editor of your blogging software.

For example, I recently used this photo of a woman at a computer.

Use Photo Pin to find pictures to use with a creative commons license like this one.

After downloading the image, I copied and pasted the following attribution code onto the HTML editor of my WordPress blog:

photo credit: <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/yourdon/2715583000/”>Ed Yourdon</a> via <a href=”http://photopin.com”>photo pin</a> <a href=”http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/”>cc</a>
Insert the HTML code into your blog post.

When the page is previewed, you can see what the formatting and links will look like:

photo credit: Ed Yourdon via photo pin cc
Photo Pin makes it easy to include photo credits.

Debbie Hemley, social media consultant, blogger.

#17: Podcasting

Marcus Sheridan @TheSalesLion

I recently discovered the power of podcasting to use in conjunction with my blog.

The beauty of podcasting is that it allows bloggers to form deeper relationships with many of their regular readers, as the process of listening to a podcast is very different than that of reading a blog article.

For example, I recently had a listener tell me, “Hey Marcus, I wanted to thank you for keeping me company on my way to work the other day, it made the drive go by so much faster.”

Now obviously I was not physically “with” this person on his way to work, but rather with him in the sense that he was listening to my voice from a podcast episode.

Hearing statements like this since starting the podcast has helped me realize that it’s an incredibly intimate tool to use in conjunction with regular textual blogging, and many of your readers will naturally want to “listen” to you if they already enjoy “reading” you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgU59-c2I9s

Marcus Sheridan, thought leader, social media speaker.

#18: PopSurvey

Tim Gray @tngray99

One of the most important aspects of successful blogging is engaging your audience and understanding their interests.

While creating original, relevant content is a great way to start, most business owners need help to figure out what their potential audience is talking about.

PopSurvey is a great tool that helps develop these insights while engendering a greater level of engagement for any blog. PopSurvey enables you to easily create and embed surveys into your blog to help you better understand your audience and customers. The tool also provides custom reports to evaluate your audience’s responses.

A free version allows you to conduct two surveys per month and collect up to 100 responses. The premium, unlimited version is $24 per month.

PopSurvey enables you to easily create and embed surveys into your blog.

Tim Gray, social media strategist with Blue Mountain Media.

#19: Storify

Ben Pickering @bpicks

Storify is a great way to curate articles and opinions on any given topic or capture reactions to an event in real time.

Storify can help illustrate a point with third-party content and comments or help bring to life an event by pulling in activity from the news stream or Twitterverse.

We used Storify on our blog at Strutta to share news and tweets during a conference.

Use Storify to curate real-time news like this example at a recent conference.

Ben Pickering, CEO of Strutta.

#20: Trello

AJ Kumar @ajkumar

Trello is a free project management alternative to Basecamp.

It’s intuitive to use, and it’s great for breaking down overarching client accounts and projects into smaller, actionable tasks.

It’s also a good option for bloggers working with remote employees, as the delegation features the program offers are simply outstanding.

Use Trello to manage your blogging tasks.

AJ Kumar, co-founder of Single Grain.

#21: WordPress

Eugen Oprea @EugenOprea

When I think of my favorite blogging tool, one word comes to my mind: WordPress. I consider WordPress the best investment a business can make to help promote its products and services.

WordPress is the best content foundation for your online marketing efforts.

It integrates well with all of the other tools you’ll need to promote your business.

Use WordPress as your blogging platform.

Eugen Oprea, online entrepreneur, blogger.

Louise Julig @ThoughtsHappen

My favorite blogging tool is the full-screen editing mode in WordPress.

It clears the screen so I can concentrate on just the creative part of writing without thinking about the formatting, categories, tags, etc. It’s like a clean slate for my ideas.

Louise Julig, Social Media Examiner’s case study writer, freelance writer.

#22: WordPress App for iPad

Sara Hawkins @saving4someday

WordPress app for iPad (and iPhone) allows me to use my time waiting in a productive way.

Even if it’s just getting down titles or adding to a post I have in draft, the WordPress app makes blogging on the go very easy.

It makes consistent blogging easier.

Use the WordPress app for iPad to use your time on the go.

Sara Hawkins, lawyer, blogger.

What is your favorite blogging tool today and why do you like it? Please share them in the comments section below.

Category: alltop, blogging, blogging productivity, blogging tool, blogging topic, business blogging, cindy king, content idea generator, digg digg, diigo, disqus, flickr, focus booster, google+ circle, ifttt, InboxQ, Instagram, markupio, marsedit, ommwriter, optin skin, photo pin, podcasting, popsurvey, Storify, Tools, trello, wordpress, wordpress app /

How to Build a Platform and Get Noticed in a Noisy World

July 6, 2012 / Michael Stelzner / No comments

In this video I interview Michael Hyatt, chairman of Thomas Nelson Publishers and author of the hot new book called Platform: Get Noticed in a Noisy World.

Michael shares how to grow your own platform. You’ll also discover insights behind his success and how to accelerate your business growth.

Be sure to check out the takeaways below after you watch the video.

Here are some of the things you’ll learn in this video:

Why it’s a great time to build your platform.
How businesses can control their platform and what that means to you.
How you should reframe your thinking.
Why you should create wow content and exceed readers’ expectations.
How to get more great ideas.
The benefits you gain when you give away your best content.
What to do to attract more new readers.
How to accelerate your growth and reach your inflection point.
The key to long-term blogging success.
Why podcasting can be a more intimate form of communication.

Connect with Michael on Twitter @michaelhyatt, on Facebook and check out Michael’s blog focused on intentional leadership.

What do you think? Do you give your best content away? What tips do you have to share about your experiences with building a platform? Please leave them below.

Category: business blogging, content strategy, Expert Interviews, intentional leadership, michael hyatt, michael stelzner, Platform, Social Media Platform, thomas nelson, Video Interview, Videos, wow content /

4 Ways to Create Content That Sells

June 13, 2012 / Marcus Sheridan / No comments

Let me just cut to the chase here: When it comes to business blogging, there is content, and then there is content that sells.

Ask any business owner or marketer which they’d prefer and the obvious answer would be the latter.

The fact is, all the business blogging in the world doesn’t help a bit if it’s not increasing sales. Make no mistake—a business is a business and it needs to make money.

In this article I’ll discuss 4 ways companies can create blog content to bring in more sales. Adapt the principles here to your industry or niche to get more business with your company’s blog.

Here goes…

#1: Teach With Story and Sell With Subtleness

Of all the things I’m going to discuss in this article, teaching with story and selling with subtleness is really the most important. It’s incredibly underutilized by businesses around the world.

Here’s how this works. When businesses share their success stories, they usually don’t adopt a “teach first” mentality. They explain what they did for the client, but they don’t give the lesson behind the experience.

But first, customers want an answer to “What’s in it for me?” If our content only talks about how great a job we did on a project but doesn’t teach, we’re not likely to get the best results.

Here’s an example of how to first teach with story and then sell with subtleness. I recently wrote an article, “What Does the Face of the Blogger of Tomorrow Truly Look Like?”

The teaching message was: Companies need to embrace the idea that the majority of their employees, especially those in sales, can be content producers and blog writers.

And I shared the story of a company doing just this. US Waterproofing, a Chicago basement waterproofing company, turned their sales guys into content producers, which led to a significant increase in traffic, leads and sales from their company website.

By showing your client success stories with a "teach first, sell second" mentality, you're likely to garner many more leads and sales.

That was the “teaching” segment of the article.

The “subtle selling” portion came into play when I mentioned, in a very subtle manner, that I had gone to this company and spoken to their staff. I gave them the initial vision, and after they bought in, they got the desired results.

In other words, there were two messages in that article, in their proper order:

Enable your employees to be content producers. (This answers the reader’s “What’s in it for me?” question.)
How businesses that want to enable their employees to be content producers could hire help.

See how this works? Although I spent very little time in that article talking about myself or the fact that US Waterproofing was a client of mine, I’ve received many inquiries since then from other companies looking to achieve the same success with their employees.

But remember, it all starts when you teach a principle first, and sell later.

#2: Teach With Video (and a personal touch)

Let’s look at a completely different example in another field I’m in—swimming pools. As some of you know, I own a swimming pool company that installs in-ground swimming pools throughout Virginia and Maryland.

One of the biggest issues my swimming pool sales department deals with from consumers is their concern that pools are too much work, too hard to clean and aren’t worth the hassle. With respect to the cleaning issue, for years customers kept telling me they heard it was very hard to vacuum an in-ground pool, and that it could only be done with two people.

Knowing this train of thought was completely wrong, I decided to do a video dispelling the myth, showing customers and viewers just how easy it was to vacuum a pool. This alone would not have been a very unique nor personal video, but I did it with a catch—my 6-year-old son was the star of the video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ok0Hv75AMMs

If you watch the video above, you’ll clearly see just how easy it is to vacuum an in-ground swimming pool. But beyond that, one other thing will happen—you’ll get to know my son, which means you’ll get to know me a little better as well.

When people know you and start to trust you, your chance of doing business with them is much, much greater.

Video is an amazing tool for this. It allows businesses to integrate the social power of YouTube with the personal power of real people, and the teaching power behind the content.

And because we send this video out to all of the leads who come into our system, they immediately get a different perspective—not only on swimming pool ownership, but also on the owner of the company they might be buying from.

In many ways, this is what creating personal content that sells is all about.

#3: Teach With Urgency (and a call to action)

Are you starting to pick up on a theme yet? Yep, everything always involves teaching first, then comes the selling.

In some cases, the services or products in your field may be time-sensitive, at which point you can take advantage of urgency and allow time, or the lack thereof, to be on your side.

Take for example the recent Facebook Timeline change for business. Because thousands and thousands of businesses were affected by this change, and because the timing of it made action urgent, it was the perfect opportunity for Facebook/social media consultants to create sales through content.

One perfect example of this was Social Media Examiner guest writer and Facebook guru extraordinaire Amy Porterfield, who wrote the following blog post:

This is a perfect example of teaching with urgency and then using a call to action from Amy Porterfield's blog.

As you can see from the screenshot, Amy informed her audience of Facebook’s impending changes, she discussed when and what those changes would be, and then finished off the article with a perfect call to action for a webinar.

When it comes to producing content that sells, this was a great example of how to do it the right way with the right progressions.

#4: Teach Through Comparison

In previous articles here on Social Media Examiner, I’ve discussed the “power of comparison” as a sales tool with content marketing.

As consumers, we love to compare. We love to line products and services up against each other and choose the one we feel is the best.

For example, let’s imagine you want to buy a sports car and your top two choices are the Ford Mustang and the Chevy Camaro. Once you narrow your choice down to these two vehicles, what are you likely going to do next? If you guessed “go to the Internet and compare the two models,” you’re right. In fact, you’d likely go to a search engine like Google and type something like:

Ford Mustang vs. Chevy Camaro
Ford Mustang compared to Chevy Camaro
Ford Mustang or Chevy Camaro: Which is better?
2012 Ford Mustang vs. 2012 Chevy Camaro

A good content marketer selling one of these vehicles would certainly create an article addressing these very questions.

For another real-life example of how comparative content works so well, I’ll refer you to Block Imaging‘s incredibly successful blog.

To give you a quick background on Block, they sell refurbished medical imaging equipment all over the world, with a focus on MRI machines. Because they offer so many different types and models, and because their clients are constantly comparing products, Block Imaging consistently writes these comparative articles like the one below to help clients choose the product that best suits their needs.

Not only do their readers love this, but the search engines are rewarding Block for addressing subjects that so few in their industry have ever discussed online.

By comparing some of the most common products in their industry, companies like Block Imaging are not only garnering trust from their customers, but great search engine results as well.

Now it’s Your Turn

So there you have it, friends—4 ways your company can produce content that sells. But the truth is, there are many other ways by which you can sell more with your content.

What do you think? Please share the effective strategies you’ve used with your business. What else would you add to the list? Jump in, folks. I’d love to hear your thoughts. Leave your questions and comments in the box below.

Category: blog content, blogging, business blogging, call to action, comparison, content strategy, How To, increase sales, Marcus Sheridan, marketing strategy, product comparison, sales, Sell, story /

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Archive for business blogging

#1: Leverage the Power of Interviews

#2: Embrace Content Curation

#3: Use Calls to Action

#4: Create Verbal Tweets

#5: Make Content Desirable to Your Customers

#6: Align Your Content Marketing Strategy With Your Email Strategy

#7: Invest in Business Blogging

#8: Make Content Marketing Part of Your Business Culture

#9: Master Integrated Content Marketing

#10: Develop Your Content Marketing Mission Statement

Who are these content marketing pros?

Why should you attend Content Success Summit?

#1: Treat Each of Your Articles as a Product

#2: Crowdsource Unconventionally

#3: Produce Your Own Media Content

#4: Publish Only Your BEST Content

#5: Give Your Whole Story

#6: Target Your Market With Useful Content

#7: Do Interviews/Webinars

#8: Invite Guest Bloggers

#9: Guest Post Often

#10: Use Information Architecture

#11: Focus on People First

#12: Skip the Promotion on Business Blogs

#13: Stop Talking Only About Yourself

#14: Answer Consumer Questions

#15: Brand Journalism

#16: Be Yourself

#17: Show Your Personality

#18: Deal With Negativity in a Positive Way

#19: Own Your Own Domain Name

#20: Immediately Claim Authorship of Your Articles

#21: Stop Calling Your Blog a Blog

Images from iStockPhoto.

More About This Show

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Content Marketing for Business

Survival Tip: Social Sharing

Other Show Mentions

Key takeaways mentioned in this episode:

Images from iStockPhoto.

#1: Be the resource your customers really need

#2: Answer the unanswered questions

#3: Find the questions your customers are asking

Takeaways

#1: Use a Screenshot Utility to Provide Feedback to Writers

#2: Create a Tag List to Keep Meta Tags Consistent

#3: Ask Writers to Post Your Blog’s RSS Feed to Their Social Networks

#4: Have Writers Claim Their Posts for Higher Click-Throughs to Your Blog

#1: InboxQ

#2: Content Idea Generator

#3: Diigo

#4: Disqus

#5: Flickr

#6: Focus Booster

#7: Google+ Circles

#8: IFTTT

#9: Alltop

#10: Digg Digg

#11: Instagram

#12: Markup.io

#13: MarsEdit

#14: OmmWriter

#15: Optin Skin

#16: Photo Pin

#17: Podcasting

#18: PopSurvey

#19: Storify

#20: Trello

#21: WordPress

#22: WordPress App for iPad

#1: Teach With Story and Sell With Subtleness

#2: Teach With Video (and a personal touch)

#3: Teach With Urgency (and a call to action)

#4: Teach Through Comparison

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