MackCollier.com

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How Much Does Social Media Cost Companies in 2012?

Social Media Marketing, Social Media Consulting, Social Media Marketing Fees, Twitter, Facebook, Blog, Google Plus, YouTube, Pinterest

Two years ago I wrote a post entitled So How Much Will a Social Media Strategy Cost, which was designed to give businesses and organizations an idea of how much they should expect to pay consultants and agencies for basic social media marketing services.  As you might expect, that post was insanely popular, so I followed it up with How Much Does Social Media Cost Companies in 2011 last year, and now this year those prices are being updated again with this post.  For all three, these prices are taken from published rates found online, as well as what other agencies and consultants have told me they charge for these services.

In general, both posts in 2010 and 2011 were designed to give companies basic price information around the most common services, such as setup and execution of a blog, Twitter and Facebook page, as well as basic Social Media Training.  In the comments of both posts, many of you mentioned that there were additional areas that you would like to see addressed in the future.

With that in mind, I reached out specifically to some friends and fellow consultants that offer Social Media Marketing services to their clients either as independents, or as part of an agency (their own, or someone else’s).  I would like to thank the following experts for helping me by giving me their rates for these services so I could have the most accurate price information(And on short-notice during the Holidays!):

Jason Falls, Tom Martin, Jay Baer, Tamar Weinberg, Nick Westergaard, Mitch Canter, Lisa Petrilli, David Griner, Drew McLellan, Bobby Rettew, DJ Waldow, Jennifer Kane and Kary Delaria.  If you have any questions about these services or need to hire a consultant or agency to help you with your Social Media Marketing efforts, please email me and I will be happy to work with you, or refer you to one or more of these fine people.  Also, please click their names to visit their blog/site and learn more about their services.

Before I get to the prices, I wanted to talk a bit about how the area of Social Media Consulting has changed over the last few years.  In 2008 and 2009, Social Media Consultants were in fairly high demand, especially the more well-known and established ones.  Companies were realizing that they needed to start using Social Media as a way to listen to and connect with their customers, yet they had little to no idea how to do so. Enter the Social Media Consultant.  A shift in marketing philosophy by many companies created a real demand for professionals that could create and execute social media strategies for companies.

By 2010 and 2011, most companies began to understand that Social Media wasn’t simply a fad, and it was a business necessity that they needed to address via hiring.  Many companies, especially larger brands, hired Social Media Managers, and then entire Social Media Marketing teams.  This shift had a profound impact on the area of Social Media Consulting in two ways:

1 – Many of these companies hired existing Social Media Consultants to be their Social Media Managers and fill their Social Media Marketing teams.  Companies like Radian 6 and Edelman PR aggressively hired independent consultants as well as professionals at other agencies to build and compliment their own Social Media Marketing teams.

2 – Many of these companies stopped (or slowed in) hiring Social Media Consultants for execution work, instead giving that to their in-house team.  The successful consultants and agencies today are usually the ones that adapted the quickest to this change.

As a result, the average Social Media Consultant today is doing less execution work, and is spending more time actually consulting with and training companies on how to use Social Media properly.  Diversification is a good thing.

Now, on with the prices.  As with last year’s post, for every service I am providing a range, as well as a Most Charge distinction.  In general, the fees associated with setup of basic social media tools like a company blog, Twitter or Facebook page have gone down.  On the other hand, rates for comprehensive Social Media Strategy auditing, creation and training services have generally increased.

In general, smaller businesses and non-profits can expect to pay prices that are closer to the low end of the price range, while large companies and organizations will probably see their quoted rates closer to the top end of the range.

Also, when looking at rates for monthly content curation and management of individual social media tools, remember that the more content the consultant/agency has to curate and create/edit for you, the higher the rates.  Likewise, if you can handle the content creation and just need training and some light editing, then your rates will usually be lower.

Here’s the prices:

Blog

Custom design and template creation – $1,000 – $5,000

Most Charge – $1,000-$3,000 

Writing/Editing Content for the blog plus ongoing training – $500-$4,000 a month (Assume 1-2 posts a week at this rate)

Most Charge – $1,000-$3,000

Ghostwriting blog posts – $50-$500 per

Most Charge – $75-$200 per

 

Twitter

Account Setup – $500-$2,000

Most Charge – $500-$1,000 

Ongoing Account Management and Training – $500-$3,000 a month (For this service, the more content you need provided for you, the higher the fees)

Most Charge – $500-$1,500 a month

 

Facebook

Initial Page Setup – $500-$2,500

Most Charge – $500-$1,500

Monthly Content Management and Curation – $500-$3,000 a month 

Most Charge – $1,000-$2,000 a month

Facebook Promotion Creation

Short-Term (1-3 months) Contest, including branding for the app, limited promotion on other channels such as Facebook and Twitter to promote the contest.  Fee doesn’t include prize and Facebook Ads to promote – $1,500-$20,000

Long-Term (3-6 months) Contest, including above, more elaborate promotion based on client’s needs – $25,000-$75,000

Note: These are the ‘Big Three’ tools when it comes to Social Media for business, and many consultants and agencies will offer companies a package deal on setting up and maintaining all three.  For other tools such as Google Plus, Pinterest, MySpace (yes many entertainment and music-related businesses especially still use it) and others, assume that rates in general will be consistent for what you could expect to pay for similar services with Facebook or Twitter.

 

Video

Total to shoot, produce and edit video – $500 – $30,000 (Note:  Obviously, the complexity and length of the video plays a huge role in the final cost.  If you want custom animation, several scenes and a 30-minute video, obviously that’s going to cost far more than a simple, 2-minute one-on-one video.  One expert told me that they charge $1,000 per minute of finished product.)

 

Social Media Strategy 

Social Media Monitoring (Note – Number of keywords/phrases tracked here has a big impact on fees.  More costs more.):

Setup – $500-$5,000

Most Charge – $1,000-$2,000

Ongoing Reports and Advisement – $500-$7,500 a month

Most Charge – $1,000-$2,000

Social Media Strategy Audit (Examine existing Social Media Strategy and give detailed recommendations on what strategy should look like moving forward, with instructions on how to measure results) – $2,000-$25,000

Most Charge – $5,000-$10,000

Social Media Strategy Creation and Integration with Existing Marketing Efforts (Note – Most consultants and agencies will require that this service be married to a Social Media Strategy Audit, as they will then create the strategy recommended in the audit) – $10,000-$30,000

Most Charge – $10,000-$15,000

 

Social Media Training and Consulting

Hourly Training/Consulting – $50-$500 an hour

Most Charge – $100-$250 an hour

Note: These rates are for 1 hour of work.  If you can commit to a certain number of hours a month, for example, consultants and agencies will almost always give you a discount.

Social Media Workshops(All fees exclude travel and are for ON-SITE Workshops, not online):

Half-Day (Up to 4 hours): $500-$7,500

Most Charge – $2,000-$3,500

Full-Day (6-8 hours): $1,000-$15,000

Most Charge – $4,000-$6,000

Note: Keep in mind that these rates represent a significant amount of training and content creation time.  So if you pay a consultant $5,000 for a day-long workshop, that consultant might have spent 20 or 30 hours creating that workshop.  So the prep time has to be considered in addition to the actual time delivering the workshop when looking at fees.

 

Rates to Hire a Social Media Speaker

Individual session (Up to 90 minutes, usually 1 hour): $1,000-$5,000

Most Charge: $2,000-$3,000

Keynote: $1,000-$15,000

Most Charge: $5,000-$10,000

All rates exclude travel.

Finally, I wanted to close with some advice on choosing a Social Media Consultant.  First, before you begin the process of hiring a Social Media Consultant, you need to address a few areas:

  • Figure out what you want to accomplish via Social Media.  Do you want to generate sales?  Increase brand awareness?  Establish thought leadership for your CEO or company?  Connect with donors?  Giving some thought to what you want to accomplish via your social media efforts will make the rest of the process smoother.
  • What are your human resources?  How many people can work on your social media efforts?  If you have a team of 10 at the ready, then the amount of assistance you will need is far less than if you are the only person for your company that will be handling your social media efforts.  Know how many people can work on your social media efforts and how much time they can devote, because if you plan on executing a Social Media Strategy that will require a team of 5, and you only have 2, that shortcoming will have to be addressed either through hiring, or outsourcing to the agency/consultant.  Either way, it costs you money.
  • How long is your project going to be?  You probably can’t pin this down exactly without talking to the consultant first, but it helps to give some thought to this.

When you contact a consultant or agency, they should be asking you questions as well.  They should want to know why you want to use social media, what are you trying to accomplish.  If they try to give you prices or push you toward using a particular tool without asking you questions, that is a red flag.  They really can’t give you prices until they know more about your company, your resources, and what you are wanting to accomplish.  Even if you contact them and tell them you need prices on creating and launching a blog, they should still ask you some questions to determine if you do need a blog to reach your intended business goals for your social media strategy.

As always, I hope this helps you in creating your Social Media budgets for 2012.  If you have any questions, please feel free to leave a comment.

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A No-Nonsense Guide to SEO and Content Creation for Bloggers

SEO, Blogging, Content CreationTwo of the most common complaints I hear from bloggers, especially during #Blogchat is:

1 – I wish I could figure out how to post more often and create more content

2 – I wish I better understood SEO and how to optimize my posts for search

I’m going to show you a ‘trick’ that will hopefully help you with both of these issues.  First, we need to pick 3-5 Topic Buckets for your blog.  These are 3-5 key areas that you want to focus on with your blog content.  For example, my Topic Buckets for this blog are:

1 – How businesses and individuals can improve their blogging

2 – How businesses and individuals can better use Twitter

3 – How businesses can create and improve their Social Media Strategies

4 – How businesses can better embrace and empower their fans

5 – Catch-all (Facebook, Social Media Monitoring, everything I don’t want to blog about quite as much goes here)

Now the great thing about this approach is that notice since I have 5 Topic Buckets, if I just write one post a week from each bucket, I’ve got 5 posts for the week!  Or I could spread those 5 posts out over two weeks, so I have 3 posts for the 1st week, then 2 for the second week.  And if I wanted I could add a 3rd post in that second week, either from one of these buckets again, or maybe I want to let you know about a Live #Blogchat coming up, or an event I will be speaking at.

But once you’ve created your Topic Buckets, it makes it MUCH easier for you to organize the content you create on your blog!  And if you want to be super-organized, you could say pick 3 Topic Buckets for your blog, then write a new post for the 1st one every Monday, the 2nd bucket would be every Wednesday, and the 3rd Topic Bucket’s post would be every Friday!

So thanks to Topic Buckets, we’ve tackled the issue of how to create more content.  Really, the biggest issue you will have with this is deciding on what your Topic Buckets should be, and how many you should have.  I think 3 is the perfect number, if you get over 5, then you should probably consider spinning some of them off into a new blog, or eliminating some till you get back down to 5 or less.

Now, let’s talk about optimizing your posts for search and SEO.  Let me say up front I am NOT an SEO expert, the following is good old-fashioned ‘common sense’ advice that I learned by reading SEO experts, then experimenting with my own content here, and seeing what worked, and what didn’t.  This is 101-level stuff to get you started.  I would recommend that you try this, and then when you see the positive results, that will probably whet your appetite to want to learn more about SEO.

First, learn to write better post titles.  Seriously, this was the biggest improvement I made in my blogging this year.  But it goes beyond simply writing a ‘catchy’ headline, you need to seriously consider what words you use in your headline.  Because what you want to do is use certain search keywords and terms in your post’s title.

For example, lets say we want to write a post on how businesses can use Twitter.  Before you start writing the post or even the title, ask yourself ‘what would someone type into Google in order to find this post?’  Put yourself in the shoes of the marketing manager at a mid-sized company that’s trying to decide if her business should start a Twitter account.  Some of the things she might put into Google could be:

  • ‘How do businesses use Twitter?’
  • ‘How can Twitter help my business?’
  • ‘Does my business need to be on Twitter?’
  • ‘How do you get started using Twitter?’

You get the idea.  But notice she is Googling QUESTIONS that she wants the answers to!  Think about it, isn’t this how we usually use Google?  We have a question we want answered.  So taking the marketing manager’s questions in mind, here’s some possible post titles we could go with

1 – Four Innovative Ways Businesses Are Using Twitter

2 – Should Your Business Be on Twitter? Here’s How You Can Decide

3 – How to Start a Twitter Account For Your Business in 5 Minutes!

See how those post titles closely resemble what the marketing manager was Googling?  If you can use the same or similar keywords and phrases in your post title as what others are searching for in search engines, you will greatly increase your post’s chances of ranking high in search results for those words and terms.

Another tip:  Use your keywords as close to the start of the post title as possible.  This helps, but isn’t an absolute.  For example, the first post title of ‘Four Innovative Ways Businesses Are Using Twitter’ could be changed to ‘How Are Businesses Using Twitter? Here’s Four Innovative Ways’.  You may want to make this change because the term ‘How Are Businesses Using Twitter’ will be what more people are searching for.  Personally, I think the 1st version of the post title flows better.

Finally, use the same keyword/phrases in your post title, in the post itself.  Ideally, you want to use the keyword phrase, such as ‘How are businesses using Twitter’ up to 3 times in the post.  Or at least once at the start of the post.  You want to do this because this helps Google and other search engines correctly identify what the post is about.  Google will scan the post and if it sees the same or similar words and phrases repeating in the post, then it assumes that’s what the post is about, then when someone searches for those same or similar phrases, your post will rank higher in search results!

So that’s enough to get you started.  Start creating Topic Buckets for your blog, then start beefing up your post titles with the proper keywords and phrases.  I think you’ll be pleasantly pleased with the results you see!

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How I Increased My Blog’s Monthly Search Traffic By Over 100% in 2011

As you know, I am always experimenting with my blog, especially when it comes to traffic and traffic sources, and I always like to report back to y’all what I learn.  One of the areas I wanted to focus on this year with my blogging was increasing my search traffic.  At the start of the year, search traffic had accounted for roughly 14% of the traffic over the life of this blog, at the time.  I wanted to see that percentage get up to at least 33%, preferrably 40% or higher.

So in January I took the advice of my friend Amy, and started posting more, to see what impact it would have on the volume of search traffic here.  From January through July, I averaged 3-5 posts a week here, where before I was posting here once or twice a week.  And not only did I post more often, I tried to focus more of my writing efforts on targeting specific search keywords and phrases, especially in post titles.

The results have been pretty successful.  Up till Jan 1st of this year, search traffic accounted for 14% of total traffic here.  So far this year, search has accounted for 30% of total traffic here, and is up to 35% for the lifetime of the blog.  This is significant, because overall traffic has doubled this year, with the increase in content creation.

Here’s the monthly results for my search traffic for the lifetime of this blog, through November:

As you can see, up until the 1st red X on the graph, there is slow and steady growth in search traffic volume.  That first red X was search traffic for January of this year, when I ramped up my posting schedule to start posting 3-5 times a week, on average.  Note that immediately, the angle of the growth of search traffic volume increases.  This suggests that more content but also content that was better optimized for search engines was increasing search traffic volume.

But notice the 2nd red X on the graph.  That’s search traffic for June.  I wanted to mark that, because starting in July, my posting frequency slipped a bit, from an average of 3-5 posts a week before, to 1-3 posts a week.  For the last 4-5 months I’ve been traveling a lot more and have had to spend more time on client work, so I had to scale back my posting schedule a bit.  But as you can tell from the graph, even though I was posting less, search traffic volume continues to grow.  In fact, it seems to be growing at about the same rate now, as it did earlier this year when I was posting about twice as often.

Now look at this graph for the year’s monthly traffic:

blog traffic, search traffic, increasing search traffic

The red X is June, and that’s the point at which I started posting less here.  Note that from that point forward, overall traffic starts tapering off slightly each month.  But now let’s do something really interesting: Let’s take this same graph, but add in referral traffic and search traffic.  Here’s what we get:

referral traffic, increasing search traffic, strategies for building blog traffic

This is overall monthly traffic here for 2011.  The red X is June.  The green bar is referral traffic, and note that it more or less mirrors overall traffic: When overall traffic goes up, it follows, same thing happens when overall traffic goes down.

But note the orange bar; That’s Search Traffic.  Also note that in June, Search and Referral Traffic were almost the same, there was slightly more referral traffic.  That’s when my posting frequency began to slip, and referral traffic from June through November, continued to fall.  But search traffic continued to grow.  Now if I start posting more often here, referral traffic will go back up, but that extra content will also increase my volume of search traffic as well.

So that’s what I did this year to increase my volume of search traffic by over 100%.  The main thing is I posted more often, and I paid special attention to focusing on at least one keyword or phrase in every post, especially in the post title.  Another thing I did with my posts was think about what someone would search for.  A lot of times when we use search engines, we are looking for the answers to problems or questions.  That’s why ‘How To’ posts work well.  For example, I could see someone searching for ‘How to increase search traffic’ and finding this post (in fact I just greatly increased the chance that will happen by adding that exact phrase ;)).

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Learn how to improve your blogging and SEO with Topic Buckets

Two of  the biggest issues that most bloggers face is how to come up with ideas for posts, and how to optimize their blog for search engines.  I think most bloggers can solve both these problems (as well as tightening your blog’s focus) with Topic Buckets.

Here’s the way Topic Buckets work: Take your blog, and find 3-5 main topic areas, or Buckets that you like to write about.  For example, on here I have three main Topic Buckets:

1 – How individuals/companies can improve their blogging efforts

2 – How companies can use social media in general

3 – How companies can better understand and connect with its brand advocates.

Occasionally I post something that doesn’t go into those buckets, but most of my posts fit into one of those categories.  Now note that if I only write one post a week for each bucket, I’m up to 3 posts a week!  This helps me structure my blog and its posts.  For example, if I look and see that last week I only wrote posts that would go into Buckets 2 and 3, it tells me that this week I need to write a post from Bucket 1.

So once you create your list of Topic Buckets, your posting schedule can naturally evolve from that.  This is also a way to help you bring clarity to your blog’s focus.  If you write down all of your blog’s Topic Buckets and you have 15, that’s a good hint that you are covering too much ground.  Try trimming the fat down to 5 buckets or less.

For example, note that yesterday’s post on Advocates would obviously go in the #3 Topic Bucket for me, and this post will go in the #1 Topic Bucket.  So if I want to get a post up tomorrow or on Friday, I know that it would be best if it came from the #2 Topic Bucket (How companies can use social media in general).

Now as for SEO; When you create your Topic Buckets, you need to also make a list of the keywords and phrases that would be associated with those Topic Buckets, and you can use those in your title and post.  Look at the title of this post, ‘Learn how to improve your blogging and SEO with Topic Buckets’.  Keywords like ‘Learn’ and ‘Improve’ associated with ‘blogging and SEO’ were chosen on purpose because I want this post to do well in search engines.

I could have just have easily made the title ‘A cool trick I learned that might help you’, but that doesn’t really give you (or search engines) any real idea of the type of content in the post.  Remember that keywords and phrases help  search engines decide what type of content is in your post, and if it will be useful to people that are searching.

So try out Topic Buckets and see if that helps your blogging efforts.  I think you’ll find that it definitely makes getting on a posting schedule easier, and should help you improve your SEO as well.

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#Blogchat LIVE video plus info on my Social Media and Blog Strategy Audits

One of the ‘problems’ I am running into when I talk to event organizers and potential sponsors about doing a LIVE #Blogchat is that it’s sometimes difficult for them to understand what a LIVE version of a Twitter chat would look like.  I try telling them that a buncha smart people get in a room and talk to each other, but somehow that still doesn’t get the point across very well 😉  Thankfully, Chris and his team from Huddle Productions created a short video with footage from the LIVE #Blogchat that Dell sponsored last week prior to the start of its #DellCAP event.  This should give you a better idea of what a LIVE #Blogchat is like (Hint: Smartitude galore!):

If you are interested in learning more information about adding a live #Blogchat to your existing event, or in sponsoring one, click here.

The second area I wanted to point your attention to is an update I am making to my consulting services.  For a couple of years now, I have been offering Social Media Strategy Audits to clients.  This service has proven to be very popular so I’ve decided to begin offering Blog Strategy Audits to clients as well.  For many companies, a blog is the only social media tool they are using, so for these companies, a Blog Strategy Audit makes more sense.  Both of these audits will analyze what the company’s competition is doing, as well as assess how the client is currently using blogging/social media, and give them a blueprint and recommendations on what they should do moving forward.  And perhaps most importantly, both audits will include a section on how to measure the results of your strategy.  So I’m not only going to tell you exactly what your strategy should look like, but I’m also going to show you exactly how to measure your efforts.  This is a key area that’s often missing from most blogging/social media strategies.

Both the Social Media Strategy Audit and the Blog Strategy Audit are two-month projects.  For each, you’ll make three payments: You will be billed for the first payment when you agree to purchase the audit, and I must have this payment before I can begin work on your audit.  At the end of the first month, you will be billed for the second payment, and I must have this payment before I can deliver the finished audit.  At the end of the second month, the finished audit will be delivered, along with a bill for the third and final payment.

The price and billing schedule for each audit is:

Social Media Strategy Audit – Price is $7,500.00.  You will be billed in three equal payments of $2,500.00.

Blog Strategy Audit – Price is $5,000.00.  You will be billed in three payments of $1,600.00, $1,700.00 and $1,700.00.

Now, the big change I am making to these services is that as of now, I am adding a guarantee to both of these audits.  Note that above it states that you will be billed for three payments, and that for each audit, you will receive the finished audit, along with a bill for the final payment.  When you receive the finished audit and if you are not satisfied with the audit, then you do not have to make the third and final payment.  I *only* want you to make that third and final payment if you are thrilled with the audit.

I often ask my close friends to give me advice on my work, and to be honest, when I told them that I was thinking of adding this guarantee to these audits, most of them did not think it was a good idea.  As they correctly pointed out, if the client is under no obligation to make the final payment, then why would they?  But I am ok with that.  Because I want companies to understand that I am willing to take that risk because I believe in the quality of the work I will produce for them.

So if your company is interested in either service, please click here for more information on the Social Media Strategy Audit, and click here for more information on the Blog Strategy Audit.  And if you have any additional questions about either audit, or about Live #Blogchat, please do email me.

PS: If you want your blog to be considered for one of the three review slots for this Sunday’s #Blogchat, please leave a comment on this post!

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The Importance of Creating Your Own Blogging Path

It seems that a lot of people are wanting to copy the efforts of popular bloggers.  They want to figure out how to be the next Chris Brogan or Mashable or Jessica Northey.  I wanted to talk about why I think that’s wrong, but first I wanted to tell you about a couple of my favorite bloggers (and people).

The first is Gini Dietrich.  I’m sure most of you know and love Gini and her blog, Spin Sucks.  Gini is sharp as a tack, but what I love about her writing is that its business-oriented, but personal at the same time.  Even when she is talking business, she still writes in a way that makes you think you are listening to your best friend tell you how their weekend was.  Everyone loves her writing and her style, which is exactly why she has such a passionate community of readers.  She posts almost every day, usually TWICE a day if you count guest posts on Spin Sucks, and she averages dozens of comments on her posts.  Gini’s readers love her, and as she clarified in a post here, her readers are driving business to her.

The other person I wanted to point you toward is CK.  In contrast to Gini’s 2 days a day and dozens of comments a post, CK posts about twice a month, and gets about 1-2 comments per post.  But what CK also does is have a laser-sharp focus with the content she creates via her blog, and elsewhere.  Don’t believe me?  Google ‘B2B Mobile Marketing’ and see how many of the results on the 1st page are content that CK has created.

The point here is, both Gini and CK (and you both should know each other, BTW, consider this an introduction!) have created a content strategy that works for them.  Too many of us try to replicate what is already working for someone else.  That’s THEIR strategy.  We all need to come up with our own path and our own voice.  Look at Gini, she has created a wonderful community on her blog, and that community is helping to drive business for her.  On the flipside, CK is breaking one of the biggest ‘rules’ of successful business blogging: She’s only posting once or twice a month.  But it works for her because every post is optimized and helps her expand her online footprint in the B2B marketing space.

Think about this especially if you are a solopreneur.  You are completely responsible for your blogging strategy, so you have to consider what works for YOU more than what works for anyone else.  You can and SHOULD draw inspiration from other bloggers, and you should be aware of what’s working for them.  But you should NEVER attempt to copy someone else’s strategy and approach if it’s not right for you.

Here’s a personal example:  When I started blogging in 2005, everything I read about successful blogging said to blog like Seth Godin does.  Short, quick, to the point.  Write your post as if it’s an executive summary, because no one has the patience or attention span to read more than that.

I want to tell y’all, it took me FOUR DAYS to write my very first blog post.  Because I agonized over that post for 3 days and 23 hours and 30 mins because I had no idea how in the hell I was going to condense my first blog post down to 3 paragraphs.  Finally, I said ‘screw it!’ and wrote the post *I* wanted to write, in 30 mins.  As soon as I accepted that the ‘blogging rule’ about proper post length didn’t work for me, I wrote the post I wanted to write.

And that’s made all the difference.  The beauty of blogging is that it gives us all a way to share our voice.  I told my friends at the Live #Blogchat at the B2B Forum this, but I honestly believe that most people are smarter than they give themselves credit for.  I fear that too many bloggers feel that their posts will only be popular or ‘work’ if they mimic the way a particular blogger writes.  Five years ago when I started blogging there was no David Armano or Beth Harte or Shannon Paul that I could learn from.  And no doubt they were inspired by other bloggers, but they also found their own voice and their own blogging path.

If you are losing your passion and excitement for blogging, if could simply be because you are trying to walk someone else’s path, instead of your own.

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What impacts search traffic more, keywords in posts or post frequency?

So a couple of weeks ago I was blogging about how my search traffic seemed to be flat over the last few weeks.  I decided to do a 2-week experiment to try to see if posting frequency or posts with targeted keywords would have a bigger impact on increasing search traffic.  For the week 2 weeks ago, I posted 5 new posts during the week, but didn’t worry about targeting keywords in the post title or in the post itself.  Last week, I only posted 4 new posts, but I made more effort to target keywords and phrases in the post titles and the posts themselves.  Here’s a graph of search traffic over the life of this blog:

BTW, I promise my writing isn’t as terrible as it looks in this graph 😉  As you can see, there’s been a nice steady increase in traffic till the middle of April, and has been fairly flat since then.  The last two weeks at the end are with the red lines under the graph.

So two weeks ago I posted 5 times and didn’t worry about targeting keywords or phrases. I had 767 visitors from search the week before, and it fell to 705 2 weeks ago.  Now since 2 weeks ago included Memorial Day, that affected the search traffic a bit, but didn’t account for all of the drop.

Last week, search traffic rebounded nicely, up to 804 visitors from search, which was the 4th best week here ever for search traffic. And that was with only 4 new posts, but I made an effort in each post to target keywords and phrases in the title and post.

So what can we learn from this incredibly unscientific experiment? It seems that targeted keywords and phrases do a better job of increasing search traffic than simply posting more does.  BTW in case you were wondering, overall traffic last week was up over 50% over the previous week.  So the fewer posts with targeted keywords and phrases resulted in more overall traffic as well.

Writing this from the Huntsville Airport, so I hope to see some of you at the B2B Forum this week!

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You need a company blog because the customer (thinks he) is always right

This morning I was making myself a Belgian waffle. I know from past experiences that if I put too much batter in the maker, that it will run out the sides, and when I open the maker, the batter will stick to both sides, and I’ll have a ruined waffle on my hands, and a mess to clean up.

Again, I know this.  But I went ahead this morning and added too much batter, it ran out the sides, and sure enough, I had a ruined waffle on my hands.  As I was cleaning up the mess, I caught myself thinking ‘This thing sucks’.

It wasn’t the waffle-maker’s fault that the waffle was ruined, it was my fault. But like a lot of people would do in a similar situation, I tried to pass the blame to the product, instead of admitting it was my fault.  Completely irrational, but who ever accused humans of being rational creatures? 🙂

I decided to check, and the waffle-maker (Black and Decker) does have a blog.  But the blog doesn’t allow comments. If your company decides to turn off comments then you have to realize that you are effectively limiting yourself to only being found via search engines.  And yes, I understand that many companies don’t want to allow comments because they don’t want to deal with negative feedback from customers. But as studies have proven, negative feedback is usually good for your company, if you handle it correctly.

Don’t view your blog as being a marketing tool, but more as being a customer service tool. A place where you can help me solve problems with your products, or get more information. A company blog is an especially wonderful place to help me with problems that *I* create, such as the above episode with my waffle maker.  Black and Decker could use its existing blog to write a post on 5 Steps to Creating the Perfect Belgian Waffle, and make one of those steps be ‘Don’t put too much batter in the maker!’  Then if the blog turned on comments, I could have left one saying that I used the blog’s tips, and created a perfect Belgian waffle, and am happy with my Black and Decker Belgian waffle maker!

So if your company has a blog, keep these content creation tips in mind:

1 – Don’t create product-centric content, create customer-centric content. Think about how your customers will use your products, and why. For example, a post from Black and Decker touting the production advantages and benefits of its waffle-maker is almost meaningless to me, since I already own it. But if B&D writes a post on how to create the perfect Belgian Waffle, that helps their existing AND potential customers, because the content is customer-centric.

2 – View your company blog as a customer service tool more than a marketing tool. The blog isn’t a place to sell your products, it’s a place to sell the products benefits, and connect with your customers. If you’ll open up comments and use the blog as a place to address customer concerns, you’ll find that your customers will not only become more loyal, they will promote you to others. Which, ironically, becomes far more effective marketing than anything you could do via a blog post!

3 – Your blog should supplement your existing content, not replace it. A big reason why you don’t want to include a lot of product-centric posts on your blog is because all that information should already be on your website. Your customers will come to the blog to get more specific information on how to use your products, or to get in touch with you about an issue they are having.  For example, if I had no idea why my waffle maker was ruining my waffles, I would have searched to see if Black and Decker had a blog, before I searched for the company’s website.  Because I know that I have a better chance of finding information that would solve my issue on the company blog versus the company website.  You need to understand this as well, and give your customers the information they are looking for, in the place where they are looking for it.

Just curious, but when you have a problem with a product, are you more likely to go to the company website or blog to look for help?