MackCollier.com

by

Three Blogging Questions You Need to Ask (And Answer!) #Blogchat

Thanks to Natalia for suggesting tonight’s #Blogchat topic, how to create a blogging strategy.  Even though we have covered this topic before, its terribly important to have a strategy guiding your blogging efforts, so it deserves another look.  But, I also know that when you say ‘blogging strategy’ that a lot of people’s eyes glaze over.  So I wanted to take a different approach with the topic tonight and focus on Three Blogging Questions you should ask and answer:

1 – Why Are You Blogging?  It all starts here.  Do you want to blog to grow your business?  Or do you want to blog to share your life as a farmer in Kansas?  Whatever your reason, think about what you want to accomplish via blogging.

2 – Who Are You Trying to Reach?  Building on the first question, think about who you are trying to connect with.  Obviously, if you are blogging for your business, then your answer is ‘your customers’, but think about who these people are and why your blog would interest them.  And if you can’t answer this question yet, it’s not the end of the world, just think about it as you move forward with your blogging.

3 – What Will I Blog About?  Think about what you will post about, and how it will be presented.  Will you blog about your day-to-day life?  Will you blog about industry news?  Also note that as you are figuring out what to blog about, this will help you answer the first two questions, as you’ll have to think about who you are trying to reach, when you decide what to blog about.  So all three questions and your answers are really dependent on each other.

So if you can answer those three blogging questions, you’ll be well on your way to crafting a blogging strategy!  And if you need help, please check out #Blogchat tonight on Twitter, starting at 8pm Central!  If you’ve never joined #Blogchat, here’s what it’s all about.

by

The Balancing Act Between Writing For Yourself Versus Writing For Your Readers

content creation, blogging, writingI think a lot of us struggle with what to write about and WHO we are writing for.  I’m also glad that Gini touched on a similar topic today because it reminded me to write about it here.  Here’s what Gini said:

“When this blog gained a little bit of popularity, we began to have internal conversations about the type of content we should be writing. You see, what I consider the “smart” posts are never the ones that get shared a lot. Sure, people read them, but not as many comment nor share on their social networks.

The ones that do get a lot of comments and shares? The top 10 this or the such and such is dead.

It kind of makes me nuts. I won’t pretend it doesn’t.”

 

I am in the same boat.  A few years ago on The Viral Garden, I began to notice something.  Every post I wrote would get 5-15 comments like clockwork, UNLESS I wrote about music marketing, those posts always got 1-2 comments at best.  Most of them got none.  This drove me insane, because I really thought there was so much that marketers could learn from how music artists connect with their fans, but my readers never wanted to talk about that, it seemed.

So the next time I wrote about music marketing, I ended the post by pointing out how passionate I am about this topic, but that I noted that the readers never responded to it. I asked if this was really a topic they cared nothing about?  Several readers commented that they loved my music marketing posts, but had no idea what to add.  Some felt the topic was ‘over their heads’, which is why there really wasn’t much discussion happening around the posts.

And back to Gini’s comment, those Top 10 Reasons Why….posts ALWAYS get shared and linked.  I had a guy tell me once that writing list posts was ‘beneath’ me, and that he would never do it.  Well, if your readers want that content, and you are writing for your readers, then what choice do you have?  Sure, you can play the role of blogging hipster and look down your nose at list posts, but if your readers get value from that type of posts, why not write them?

But that also doesn’t mean that you should ONLY write for your readers, you as a blogger still have to have a passion for your blog, else you’ll lose interest.  Personally, I think there needs to be a balance when you are writing your blog.  If you decide that you are just writing for yourself, to hell with your readers, then you’d better have a voice that other people LOVE and seek out.  Few bloggers are this popular with their readers, IMO.  On the other side, if you only write for your readers, I think you’ll eventually lose interest because you won’t be addressing all of the core issues that are important to you.

I think there needs to be a balance, and like it or not, there probably needs to be room for an occasional ‘Top 5 Ways To’ post.  What do you think?

by

How Much Should Your Company Pay For Social Media?

cost of social media

I am obsessed with the Real-Time feature that Google Analytics added a few months ago, and am constantly checking it throughout the day.  It shows you how many visitors are active on your site at any moment, as well as what page they are viewing, and how they arrived at your blog.

At almost any time during the day when I check who is currently on this blog, the odds are at least one person is here because they were sent here from Google after searching for something related to the cost of social media.  These three posts I wrote on How Much Social Media Costs Companies in 2010, 2011 and 2012 are by far the 3 most popular posts on this blog.

What’s been interesting to me is that I’ve received two main forms of feedback on these posts, and the prices quoted:

1 – Small business owners and those that are self-employed think the prices are way too high.

2 – People that work for large companies think the prices are way too low.

So this feedback, coupled with the fact that many people are searching for information on pricing, tells me that many companies and business owners are in the dark as to how much basic social media marketing services will cost them.  And as much as we would like to believe that most companies in 2012 ‘get’ the importance of Social Media, from what I’m seeing, there’s no shortage of companies that are just now starting to investigate if social media marketing is for them.

So if your company is trying to decide how much it will cost to begin using social media, here’s what to consider:

1 – Think about WHAT you want to accomplish with social media.  Here’s a post I wrote on Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Creating a Social Media Strategy (But Were Afraid to Ask!).  No, you don’t have to create an elaborate 50-page document on how your family-owned seafood restaurant should be using social media, but the point here is to have you put some thought into why you want to use social media.  The quickest way to waste money on social media is to invest in using tools that won’t help you accomplish your goals.  Otherwise, most companies could simply launch a blog, and start accounts on Twitter and Facebook and be done with it.

2 – Start small, grow as you better understand the tools.  Let’s be honest, doing social media effectively takes a serious time commitment.  The companies that we today laud as wonderful social media case studies are frequently large companies that have had a dedicated social media team in place for years.  So if your company’s social media team is comprised of YOU, and you are new to social media, suddenly diving in and trying to launch 5 different social media accounts for your business is probably the fastest way to go no where.

Instead, as you begin to flesh out why you want to start using social media, think about the goals you have, and then prioritize the tools that will help you reach those goals.  For example, if your tech company wants to build awareness and you believe that a blog, presence on Google Plus and Twitter will best help you, the prioritize those tools in order of importance.  So instead of launching all three presences at once, maybe it makes more sense to first start on creating and growing your blog.  Then after a few weeks, you can begin to spend more time with Google Plus, using it first as a tool to get better research, then as a way to promote your new posts.  You may start interacting with some customers there, and you can follow them to Twitter and do the same there.  Just remember this, it is far easier to build and audience and move it to a new location than it is to try to build two new audiences at the same time.

3 – Avoid the shiny, follow the value.  Invariably, the social media space creates a new ‘darling’ tool every 6-12 months.  This time last year, everyone was in love with Quora.  Earlier this year, everyone was on the Pinterest bandwagon, and even now that’s starting to die down.  For whatever reason, this space loves to overhype newish tools, and you’ll suddenly see all manner of posts and articles devoted to why every business MUST now be on Quora/Plus/Pinterest.

Don’t believe the hype.  You shouldn’t ignore these new tools, but you should research them to make a thoughtful decision on whether or not your business should adopt its usage.  Let value created determine if you jump on the Flavor of the Month, not hype.

4 – Don’t start using Social Media due to fear of being left behind.  This ties in with the above point, but you need to adopt social media based on sound business value, not on fear that ‘everyone’s doing it and we’ll be left behind if we don’t start’.  I had a company contact me once and say that they were ready to start using social media ‘the sooner, the better!’.  I started asking some questions, and it turns out that they hadn’t even considered using social media until an industry newsletter they were subscribed to came out with its latest issue proclaiming that every business owner in that space had to start using social media right now!

I’ll say again, from my experience and in my opinion, most businesses are NOT using social media, and most of the ones that are, aren’t doing so very effectively.  So the idea that all your competitors are using social media and doing exceptionally well with it, is most likely a myth.  Granted, you shouldn’t ignore social media, but you have plenty of time to do some research and decide if social media is right for you.  Again, let your decision to adopt social media be dictated by the value it can create for you, not the fear of being left behind.

 

Now, I raised these points because time is the most common currency companies will spend when it comes to social media.  These points were mentioned to help keep you from spending more time on your social media efforts than is necessary.

But let’s talk more specifically about costs.  Let’s start with an example of a mid-sized company that has one person in charge of social media, and one person that helps her on a part-time basis.  Both of these people are eager to learn, but have limited knowledge of social media.  This company has decided to launch a blog.  There’s three ways they can go about this:

1 – Do it themselves.  The advantage to this approach is that obviously, they won’t have to directly pay for the blog.  But since the two employees will be literally learning as they go, there will be a big time commitment involved, and when you consider their salaries, that’s a real expense.

2 – Hire an agency to ghost-write the blog for them.  This will be the most expensive option, but it also frees up the two employees to not worry about the content creation process.  Still, if the employees aren’t actively monitoring the blog and responding to issues raised by customers on (and off) the blog, it can cause more trouble than its worth.

3 – Do the blog themselves, but hire a consultant or agency to train/mentor them.  Unless I am extremely confident in the company’s ability to handle the blog themselves, I typically encourage them to go this route.  And yes, I offer Social Media and Blog Training.  A big reason why I like this option for the company is because you can customize the level of training you think you need or can afford.  For example, if you hire an agency to create and write your blog for you, you will incur setup fees as well as likely several thousand dollars a month in ongoing costs.  But by doing the blog yourself with ongoing training, you can spend less plus typically tier the training costs so they decrease as you become better at developing your blog.

 

So if you want to spend as little as possible on social media marketing, remember these tips:

1 – Do your research and build a plan.  Figure out exactly what you want to accomplish with social media.  This will save you a ton of time down the road.  And for smaller companies especially, time is money.

2 – Start small, then grow.  Unless you have a 10-person social media team and a 6-figure budget, it’s probably best to start with one or two social media tools, then build others out as you can.

3 – Comparison shop.  Get quotes from multiple consultants/agencies for the services you think you will need.

 

If your company is using social media, what pricing advice would you give other companies?  Did you do it yourself, or pay someone to help?

by

5 Reasons Why You Need to Stop Marketing and Start Teaching

Another gem from Kathy Sierra, click image for post

I think many companies are completely misusing Social Media as a marketing channel. These content-creation tools are the perfect outlet for companies to create content that teaches their customers how to solve their own problems, how to be better at something they love, how to kick-ass.  Teaching and empowering your customers creates a level of loyalty that regular marketing could never hope for.  Here’s 5 reasons why your company should stop marketing to your customers, and start teaching them:

1 – Teaching gives you a competitive edge.  Let’s be honest, most of us in the business world are operating in a crowded marketplace.  There’s no shortage of competition, and many of your peers may have deeper marketing budgets than you do.  But the funny thing is, a lot of businesses don’t like to pull back the curtain and actually teach their customers about their products and how to properly use them.

Years ago I spent a Summer selling pesticides and lawn care products at Lowes throughout Northwest Alabama.  I had never sold before in a retail environment, and being an introvert, the idea of stopping people and selling to them as they walked up and down the isles at Lowes scared the hell out of me.  Luckily, I had a great mentor that was also a professional landscaper.  As such, he understood all the products we were selling as well as the competitors’.  So I learned about all the products so that I wasn’t selling the products, I was selling solutions to problems.

So when a customer walked up and started looking at the pesticides, I didn’t try to push them toward a particular product, I asked them what problems they were having.  Once they told me what problems they were having, I explained to them what was causing the problem, and how to fix it.  Then I showed them which products would work best for them.  And sometimes (and this is key) the product I was selling wasn’t the best option.  If that’s the case, I told the customer and pointed them toward the competitor.

The end result was that I made more on commissions from sales than I did on my actual salary as a vendor.  In fact the area I serviced led the nation in sales for multiple product lines.  I think a big reason why was because we were focused on trying to teach our customers how to solve their lawn-care problems versus trying to simply sell them our products.

2 – Teaching creates value.  If I’m in the market for a digital camera, what I’m really looking to buy is a way to take better pictures.  So if you are trying to get my business, don’t throw a lot of techno-babble at me that I won’t understand anyway, teach me how to take better pictures.  By teaching me how to take better pictures with a digital camera, you’ve already solved my core problem.  So by creating that value for me, I feel on some level like I ‘owe’ you my business when it comes time for me to buy a digital camera.  I want to reward you for the value you gave me, free of charge.  Now granted, the product still has to do the job, but creating value for me via teaching makes me feel much better about committing to the purchase.

3 – If you teach me, that helps earn my trust, and loyalty.  I am used to marketing.  I am used to companies trying to ‘trick’ me into buying their product.  I’m not used to companies teaching me how to be better at something.  That’s unexpected, and that gets my attention.  If your company can create value for me without asking for anything in return, that makes it far more likely that I will listen to your message, and share it with others.  Plus, it greatly increases the chance that I will trust you, and buy from you.

And don’t be afraid to spotlight the competition, if they have a better product.  Recall in the first step how I mentioned selling lawn-care products in Lowes.  Often, I would encourage a customer to buy a competitor’s product if I really thought it was the best solution for their particular problem.  You wouldn’t believe how many times I had a customer come back a week or two later and tell me that I was right about the competitor’s product working on their ant problem, now did I have a suggestion for getting rid of wasps?  I sure did and this time, my company’s product was better.  Since my first suggestion had worked for them, they trusted that this one would as well.

4 – Valuable content get shared.  During this week’s #Blogchat a few of us were discussing how Twitter has become our source for information.  We know that the people we are following will be sharing valuable information, so they send it our way, and then we pass it on.  Why?  Because we want to create value for others.  If someone sends me a really useful article, the first thing I want to do is RT it so others can get value from the article as well.  If your content teaches, that creates value, and greatly increases the chance that it will be shared.

5 – Sharing what you know means sharing your passion, and that inspires people.  Don’t we all love hearing someone talk that truly loves what they are doing?  Because they aren’t talking from a script, they are sharing what’s in their heart.  Teach what you know and share with us why you love what it is you do, and who knows, you may convince us to love it just as much.

 

So when you are trying to sell your products, again think about selling solutions to problems instead.  Think about how you can teach your customers to solve the problems they are encountering, or simply how to kick-ass at whatever it is they love doing.  Oh and BTW, blogs are excellent tools for this 😉

Besides, helping someone kick-ass at something is often the best marketing you can create for your products.  Here’s a bonus video from Jason Fried on the value of teaching as marketing: (HT @Copyblogger) –

by

The Two Keys to Building an Online Community That You Need to Remember

community building, online communityReward the type of behavior you want to encourage and model the type of behavior you want to encourage.

Reward the type of behavior you want to encourage.

Think about what behavior you want from your members.  Maybe you want more comments on your blog or forum?  Then think about how you can reward people that leave comments.  Find ways to put the spotlight on them and make them feel (and look!) special for leaving a comment.  That way, others will look at how you are treating the people that leave comments, and it will encourage them to do the same thing!

One way I do this sometimes is by ‘spotlighting’ a great comment.  What I’ll do is edit the end of the post, and add something like: “UPDATE: Jim made an amazing point in the comments, and I wanted to make sure everyone saw it….”  Then I would add Jim’s comment, plus add a link to Jim’s blog on his name.  This is a great way to thank Jim for leaving an awesome comment, but it also alerts everyone to the fact that there’s a great conversation happening in the comments!  Which only further increases the chance that there will be MORE comments!

Model the type of behavior you want to encourage.

When I started #Blogchat, I wanted to make sure that the community was helpful and friendly to everyone.  But most importantly, I wanted to make sure we were welcoming to newbies, or people that were just joining for the first time.  Because the chat moves SO fast, it’s easy to become overwhelmed.  So whenever I see someone tweet that they are joining for the first time, I always respond to them and welcome them, and encourage them to ask any questions they have!  I also make a point to constantly remind everyone that if they are new to #Blogchat, that they should feel free to ask any questions they like, because the group will be glad to help them.  By being helpful to others, especially newbies, I am modeling the type of behavior I want to encourage with other #Blogchat members.  And to their credit, the #Blogchat community always steps up and helps out other members!

Hey, all the cool kids are doing it!

The great thing about rewarding and modeling the type of behavior you want is that if you do your job, you’ll begin to see that several members of your community are engaging in the type of behavior you want to see.  This helps encourage even more members to engage in the same type of behavior, because they see that everyone else is!

Now the one problem this can create for you is laziness.  Just because your blog is now getting comments on every post doesn’t mean you can now afford to not respond to readers that are leaving comments.  At some point if you stop rewarding and modeling the type of behavior you want to encourage, your members will pick up on this, and they will also stop engaging in that type of behavior.  This also forces you to prioritize your time and really consider which activities are best for the long-term growth of your community, and how you can encourage that.

So are you rewarding and modeling the type of behavior you want from your readers, on your blog?

by

Subscribe to My Social Media Marketing Newsletter!

Social Media Marketing Newsletter

Starting next Wednesday, I’ll be running a weekly newsletter in addition to (almost) daily posts here.  The content focus will be slightly different, however.

Here, I cover Social Media primarily, but a blend of content that can benefit the individual, as well as those that are using Social Media for their company.  But this newsletter will be aimed solely at marketers and anyone using Social Media within their company or organization.  Each week the newsletter will feature original content that’s designed to do 3 things:

1 – Help you solve an existing Social Media Marketing issue you are having.  One week we might talk about building a better blogger outreach program, the next look at getting a better handle on our blog’s analytics to increase leads.  A case study here and there will be examined.

2 – Give you tips and advice for improving your day-to-day tasks and routines as well as managing your workflow.

3 – Keep you up-to-date on where I will be speaking/appearing, and giving you information on how we can work together.

I cannot stress this enough, the content in this newsletter will be original content.  Some of it may eventually make its way here to the blog, but it won’t be that often.

So if you’re working for a company or organization that wants to learn more about how to better use Social Media to connect with your customers and/or activate your brand advocates, please do subscribe to my newletter by filling out the quick form below.  You’ll input your email address then be sent an email to confirm your subscription.

Thank you so much, see you next Wednesday!


by

Suck it Up, Buttercup: The World Does Not Owe You a Like or a ReTweet

“I won’t write those types of posts, they are beneath me”

“I don’t have all day to spend on Twitter, I have a real job”

“There’s no way he writes his own posts, can’t be”

“Did you hear what she charges to keynote? No way she deserves that much!”

“Yeah if I didn’t have any work to do I could probably spend all day on Facebook too”

 

The last four months of 2011 were my busiest ever since I started consulting on social media marketing in 2006.  I spoke at several major events, and did three Live #Blogchats in September alone.  In addition, I had regular consulting work for my clients plus a few other projects that were ongoing.

I was hella busy, but it was also the happiest I’ve been in years.  But around August of last year I made a choice which I now regret greatly.  I knew the last few months of the year were going to be insanely busy, so I decided to spend more time on my work and presentations, and less time on my blog and Twitter.

Big mistake.  While my work and speaking was very well received, not posting as often here or on Twitter meant my visibility suffered.  Referrals shrank, as did speaking and other opportunities.

But it was my choice.  Even if it was the wrong one, I have to own it and learn from it.  So after things calmed down a bit after Blog World last November, I began to realize that things were calming down TOO much.  That was when I decided that I needed to rededicate myself to my blogging efforts and time spent on Twitter in 2012.

So I got back in the swing of things in January then really kicked it up a notch last month.  Now, traffic is up, and I’m getting more referrals and work requests, even interviews.

The truth is, if I had my way I wouldn’t blog here everyday.  I’d write maybe a post a week, if that.  It wouldn’t be ‘5 Steps to….’ or ‘3 Reasons why…’, it would likely be ‘here’s what I think’.

But I don’t do that because I know that this blog is a tool I am using to build my business.  We are all responsible for our own actions.  This blog was in a bit of a tailspin in late 2011, and I own that, just as I am responsible for why it’s now doing better.

My point is that there comes a time when we all need to stop worrying about what everyone else is doing or saying, and accept that we are the masters of our own path.  ‘I don’t have time for that…’ is an excuse.  You have the same 24 hours in this day that I do.  We both decide WHAT we will spend our time on, and we both own the results.  Whether they be good or bad.

“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.” – Thomas Edison

If you don’t have as many blog readers or Twitter followers or BUSINESS as you want, you can either find a scapegoat, or you can roll up your sleeves and do something about it.

UPDATE: I had some fun with my pal Chris Brogan in the picture above, so I wanted to include one of his videos which really ties into the theme of this post:

by

Two Critical Components of Successful Social Media Marketing That We Often Overlook

Successful Social Media MarketingBuilding and Sustaining Momentum.

Monday was the biggest traffic day for this blog in over a month with almost 1,000 visitors.  I really wanted to write a killer post yesterday that would build off the momentum created on Monday, and maybe even result in a bigger day on Tuesday.

But I couldn’t do it.  I hit a bit of a writer’s block, and instead wrote a bit of a ranty post based around the rumors that CNN might by Mashable.  While that’s a topic that was interesting to me, I knew it wasn’t going to be an incredibly successful post, and it wasn’t.

Yet the interesting part is this: Traffic on Tuesday was up about 33% over the previous Tuesday.  Why?  Because of the momentum I had built here on Saturday, Sunday and Monday.

Here’s the Top 10 posts here yesterday, ranked by pageviews:

Building blog traffic, social media marketing

Note that Monday’s post accounted for 21.6% of the pageviews here on Tuesday.  Also note that the TWO posts I wrote here yesterday didn’t have a third of the pageviews of Monday’s post.

Thankfully, Monday’s post on optimizing your blog posts for search engines AND social media sites was still popular yesterday, so much so that it was the most popular post here for the 2nd day in a row.  And it might make it 3 days in a row today.  But the point is that the momentum created by the popularity of Monday’s post was able to carry this blog yesterday, when neither of the posts I published were very popular, based on pageviews.

There is something to be said for building and sustaining momentum with your social media efforts.  I think this is probably more evident on our blogs than anywhere else.  Most of us know what it’s like to go a few days, or maybe even a few weeks without posting regularly.  Life gets in the way, business gets in the way.  We lose interest and inspiration.

Then we get to a point where we are ready to ‘get back in the saddle’.  The problem is, we’ve lost our momentum.  3 months ago when we were blogging 3 times a week like clockwork, we were getting comments on every post and traffic was steady or increasing every day.

Now, our audience has left us.  We’ve lost the momentum our blog had, and it really is like starting all over.  But that’s ok, because we’ll get it back.  For the next two weeks we’ll again post 3 new posts a week, on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

Heading into that 3rd week, our traffic will be up sharply, and our commenters will be back.  We’re starting to get several emails a day about our products again, whereas for the past few weeks they had fallen to 1 or 2 a week.  Hmmmm….

My problem in the past has always been that I build momentum here, and then I reach a point where I tell myself ‘Ok, now the blog is humming along, I need to turn my attention to something else…’  And that’s when the wheels fall off.  Race your winners, and rest your losers.

Are you building momentum with your social media efforts? And if you are, how are you going to sustain that momentum?

by

How to Write Better Blog Posts That Both Google and Twitter Will Love

writing better blog posts, google, twitter, how to get more retweetsThere is a definite art form to writing blog posts that can give you both the short-term gain of being shareable on Social Media sites, and the long-term gain of ranking well with search engines.  Mainly, because you’re trying to reach two different audiences at the same time.  Content that’s shared on Social Media sites typically has a lifespan of a few minutes at best as it is quickly replaced on the person’s timeline/stream with additional items.  But with search engines, content is cataloged and then retrieved later when a relevant search is made.

So let’s think about the differences in those audiences, and how we reach each:

1 – Social Media sites – Blog post title needs to be catchy and attention-grabbing.  An interesting photo that grabs attention also helps for content shared on Facebook and Plus.  But the idea is, how can you grab the person’s attention for even a few seconds so you can convince them to click your link?

2 – Search Engine – Here, we need to write content that’s consistent with the search query.  You can already see a potential conflict with writing for Social Media sites in that we need that catchy, attention-grabbing title and blog post, but both also have to be CONSISTENT with the content of the blog post.  IOW, if we have a cute and sparkly title, but the blog post is crap/inconsistent with blog post title, it not only won’t be Liked, RTed and +1ed, it won’t rank well in search results either.

So we need to write a blog post that has both a catchy title that immediately grabs your attention PLUS one that will include content consistent with the blog post title that will also rank well in search engines.  Whew, glad we didn’t make it tough on ourselves 😉

Let’s tackle the blog post title first.  As I’ve blogged about before, when writing blog post titles the cardinal sin you can make is to simply summarize the post.  I think a lot of bloggers do that because they view the blog post title as an almost ‘throwaway’ item.  But the reality is, if your blog post title stinks, it kills the chance that anyone will click to read the post.

For example, let’s say you wanted to write a post about a recent study you had done on what type of tweets get retweeted on Twitter.  Let’s also say your research determined that there were 5 specific ways to increase the number of RTs you get.

So if we wanted to write a blog post title that simply summarized the blog post, we might go with ‘How to Get More Retweets’.  Because that’s a summary in the post in just a few words.

But Dan Zarrella actually did the study.  Look at the blog post title he chose: [Infographic]: 5 Scientifically Proven Ways to Get More ReTweets.  Isn’t that a great title?  Here’s what I like about the title:

1 – It makes a specific claim that the blog post backs up.  Dan’s research found 5 specific ways to get RTs, so that’s in the title.  Instantly makes it clickable.

2 – It solves a problem.  Want to know how to get more RTs?  Here’s 5 proven ways to do so.  This makes the blog post not only more clickable on social media sites, but also it helps with search engine results.  Now the one caveat to this approach is that by including an infographic, Dan isn’t including many words in the post, so that might hurt its ability to rank in search results versus a blog post someone else writes on how to get more retweets.

3 – It has the shiny word INFOGRAPHIC in the title!  This doesn’t really help with search engines, but does make the blog post do better when shared on social media sites.

 

Now I had to do a bit of revising to the title for this post.  Originally, I was going to go with ‘How to Write Posts That Google and Twitter Will Love’.  That’s ok, but then I realized that it wasn’t specific enough, and it was leaning a bit toward simply summarizing.  So I changed it to ‘How to Write BETTER BLOG Posts That Google and Twitter Will Love’.

Why the change?  Think about it, what are most people more likely to search for ‘how do I write better blog posts’ or ‘how do I write posts’?  So by adding ‘better’ and ‘blog’ to posts, I make the title more descriptive, and more search-friendly.

But I also need to make sure that the content of the post actually backs up the title, plus it helps if the same terms in the title, are in the post.  Note how many times the phrase ‘blog post’ is in this post?  Several times, and especially near the beginning of this blog post (see there it is again!).  That’s a cue to Google that the content of the blog post is consistent with the title.

So if you are wanting to optimize your blog posts for both search engines and social media, keep these tips in mind:

1 – Pick a catchy blog post title that’s also relevant to the blog post.  You want something that immediately grabs the attention of the reader because on social media sites, you’ll probably only have a few seconds to grab the reader’s attention before they move onto the next tweet.

2 – Focus on relevant keywords and phrases in the blog post title as well as the blog post itself.  Note that the term ‘blog post’ is in the title as well as the post, several times.  That’s a keyword phrase that I am focusing on because I want this blog post to rank well when someone searches for this term.

3 – Putting ‘Twitter’ in your blog post title gets you more retweets.  Dan proved this in his blog post linked above 😉

 

UPDATE: To prove the point that Social Media traffic (especially Twitter) can be fleeting, 20 mins ago Dan Zarrella RTed this post, and within 5 minutes there were 60 people online here, according to Google Analytics. That’s a record for this blog.  15 mins later, that number had fallen all the way to 8.

Traffic from Twitter is fleeting, if you are only optimizing your posts to grab traffic from Twitter, you can get a short-term bang, but you might miss the long-term views.  It’s best to optimize for both Search and Social.

NOTHER UPDATE: I just did a Google search for the exact phrase ‘How to Write Better Blog Posts’.  This post was published about 5 hours ago, and already it’s the #3 result on the internet for this term, out of over 50,000.  Not too shabby and with Dan’s RTing example above shows that this post is doing well for both Search and Social.

How to write better blog posts

by

Blogs or Twitter: Which Tool is Better For Building Awareness? #Blogchat

Blogs, Twitter, Building Awareness

Last Sunday Brian Solis joined us and led a fabulous discussion on using blogs as tools to build influence. His #Blogchat was extremely popular, and based on impressions, was the biggest #Blogchat ever at over 30 Million impressions generated last Sunday night alone.

One of the points Brian made during the conversation was that blogs were better tools to build influence than Twitter was.  The basis of his reasoning was simple: Blogs give you a place to catalog your thoughts and opinions that will remain, whereas the lifespan of your tweets is usually a few seconds at best.

At first I totally agreed with Brian.  I mean, if you want to google my thoughts on how companies should use Twitter, you’re going to find the blog posts I have written on the topic, not my tweets.

But, I think there is something to be said for how Twitter allows us to build influence and awareness on an individual level.  5 years ago, I discovered smart people via the blogosphere, but today I find them via Twitter.  I think it also depends on how we best convey our ideas.  Do we need 500 words in a blog post to give our thoughts justice, or can we break them up into 140 chars on Twitter?

I am on the fence when it comes to deciding which tool is better for building awareness.  I think there are a few factors at play:

1 – How do we best communicate?  Do we prefer ‘real-time’ interactions with multiple people, or do we prefer to have time to think about our thoughts and put them down all at once in long-form?

2 – Do we let input from others shape our ideas, or do we prefer to share our ideas with others?  For example, I think this is why Seth doesn’t use Twitter.  Because he doesn’t want to have to ‘explain’ his ideas and debate them with dozens of people at once.  He would rather put his ideas out there, then the rest of us can have a conversation about them.  Or not.  Personally, I find that interacting with others usually helps me bring clarity and strength to my ideas.  But not always.

3 – Are we talking about an individual trying to build awareness and draw attention to themselves, or a company?  I think Twitter can be a better tool for individuals to build attention for their ideas.  But if it’s a group, I think a blog can be more effective.

 

What do YOU think?  If you could only pick one tool to use to build awareness for yourself and/or your company, would it be blogs or Twitter?  What are the advantages and disadvantages to choosing one over the other?

That’s what I’d like to discuss with y’all tomorrow night during #Blogchat!  We’ll start at 8pm Central as we always do!  And as you are getting ready, please feel free to share your personal experiences and which tool you think works better for you!