Top 5 Ways to Promote Your Blog
After successfully writing and publishing an article on your site, it becomes time to promote what you wrote. Truly, the worst strategy any person or company can implement is to write an article and post it on their site, hoping that people will find it organically. Very rarely does this sort of strategy work. So how can you and I promote our blog post(s)? The answer is simple: There are five ways to promote your blog and increase traffic. First, however let’s talk about step number one: Link your blog to all social media sites One of the best ways to promote your blog is to link your blog to all of your Social Media profiles. Doing so increases the chances that one of the over 1.7 billion people social media users will click on the link to your site. Quick tip: If unsure which social media sites will be the most effective to use, check out Nick Patel’s article on Quicksprout.com. Repost content on social sites A social media site is all about adding value to your community. With that said, many people and companies make a crucial error. They only post their article once on all their social media sites. This is a big mistake and one that should be avoided. Instead, strategically repost content on your social media channels in order to generate more traffic to your article. Re-posting does not mean posting on all of your channels at the same time, as this will come off as spam to your readers. Instead, structure the headline and description according to the social platform you are using. Quick tip: In Guy Kawasaki’s newest book, The Art of Social Media Kawasaki illustrates that re-posting allows you the opportunity to figure out which strategies work and do not work. Guest Blog In Kissmetric’s post on guest blogging, they discuss how guest writing for another blog will increase links back to your site. In addition, guest blogging for another person’s website increases your value as an expert, brings you in touch with more people in your niche market, and allows you to subtly promote your own site. Utilize LinkedIn LinkedIn is a free online platform dedicated to professionals. They hold over one million groups that are relevant to almost every industry. By joining a relevant group, you can begin uploading your post onto LinkedIn. Doing so will allow you to connect your article with readers who will find it interesting. Be social Finally, the overall best way to promote your post is to be social. By social, I mean interacting with those in your social network on a continuing basis. This also means participating in the comment section of other blogs, and talking to as many people as possible both virtually and in person. The larger your social network is, the better you’ll be at promoting your future blog posts. The main focus is that once you meet someone new, you want to exchange emails. Building up your email list will allow you to reach out to a wide variety of people every time you post a new blog article. How to Promote Your Blog Overall, there are many ways to successfully promote your blog. A quick search on Google will yield millions of results, but the key to focus on is quality instead of quantity. This means to really focus on ways to connect with relevant readers, as it’s one thing to connect with a million readers who “bounce” from your website in the first five-seconds, but it’s another to reach a million readers who genuinely enjoy what you’re writing. In all, by following the five essential steps above, you’ll be able to reach a larger cluster of people and connect with a more relevant target audience. Additional resources for learning how to promote your blog: Hubspot’s Article Google Help
6 Reasons Why Social Media is Important
Is social media really that important to businesses? According to a recent survey, 86% of marketers answered this with an astounding, “Yes!” As we venture further into the digital era, people are engaged with social media now more than ever before. In fact, the average consumer spends 37 minutes a day on various networking sites. For Companies neglecting social media, they’re missing a window of opportunity to create brand awareness, and are quickly falling behind their competitors. Be social, no matter what industry you’re in No matter the industry you’re operating in, utilizing social media is important. Now, the key is to focus on a single platform that you feel will best utilize your time and represent your product. In addition to this, when selecting a social media site, your industry determines what social network to focus on. Now, if you’re still on the fence about whether social media is right for you, consider these five benefits of social media: 1. Brand loyalty Consumers love their brand named items. We’re all willing to pay a little extra for the same product with just a different name attached to it. The brands we love are easily accessible and attainable. One study in particular, showed when companies engage in social media, they have higher brand loyalty. Being active on social media makes your product accessible and allows your consumers to keep up with their favorite brands by following your company’s updates. 2. Customer experience Social media is not a tool to push more sales. Essentially social media is a channel that allows consumers to know that behind the brand, there’s a true and honest human who cares about them. Consumers want to know their needs and problems matter. Social media allows businesses to respond to complaints, issues, or concerns right away. With Sixty-three percent of purchasing decisions influenced by Amazon reviews, it’s important to create a strong connection with your consumers who rely on reviews left by other consumers. 3. Recruiting The only way to grow a business is to hire high quality talent. The problem, however, is making the wrong hiring decision. On average, a bad hire cost companies $50,000. Social media provides a cheap and affordable way to find high-quality candidates. Websites such as LinkedIn are free to use (unless you purchase their premium package) and allow you to quickly zone in on top talent. This not only saves money in the long run, but saves you time from having to skim through hundreds of resumes. 4. Understanding your consumer Would you like to know how many users are visiting your site, who’s viewed your page, or which links produce the most traffic to your site? If so, then social media is the tool you need! Various social media websites illustrate the number of comments and buzz that your site is obtaining. This, in turn, will help with deciding what type of content yields your best results. 5. Lower marketing costs Social media levels the playing field in terms of how well a small company can compete with a large company. Products like Orabrush can essentially become an overnight hit with a small budget. Sites like YouTube make it easy for small startups to create digital videos and reach a niche market. Consider this before you spend money on that television commercial you’re thinking about: Average cost of a television advertisement: $50,000 – $750,000. Average cost of a YouTube video: free With YouTube free of charge, now is a great time to begin creating digital content, as 13 – 24 years olds watch YouTube more than TV. In addition, over the past few years, YouTube has begun to surpass television in viewers. 6. More sales Finally, and most importantly to the health of your business, social media increases sales. Social commerce is expected to hit $14 billion in sales by the end of 2015. Before making purchasing decisions, consumers begin their search on social media sites. This is especially true for the housing industry where 94-percent of homebuyers start their search online. Even though more men are beginning to use social media, women still outnumber men on social sites. This should come as good news for any business, as women make the bulk of the purchasing decisions. What better way to reach the strongest purchaser of goods that on social media! Final thoughts So is social media worth it? Yes, and it should be utilized by all businesses. As we venture further into the 21st century, the old methods of marketing are becoming outdated. Social media is also an important ranking signal for Google’s ranking algorithm, particularly when it comes to engagement and social reach. If you’re making great strides in your social media effort, your search engine optimization efforts will benefit as well. Studies show SEO leads have a 14.6-percent closing rate compared to a 1.7-percent close rate to print or direct mail advertising illustrates the change in consumer behavior. With this change in consumer mindsets comes a need for you to adapt your business and rethink the ways you market your products.
Social Media: Is it worth YOUR effort?
Oh, social media! When it comes to online marketing, nary a day goes by when it isn’t part of my conversations with clients and internet professionals. Here’s an interesting scenario for you to ponder: You’re spending 10 hours per week curating, posting, managing, planning and engaging your community members. From your social metrics tools such as Adobe Social or Google Analytics, you see that there are people from your social media community signing up for your newsletters, asking questions via your website’s contact page, and some are even buying your products from your e-commerce store. Your social media strategy looks like it’s working, but are all your social media efforts contributing enough to your business’ bottom line to justify the time commitment? Perhaps these reasons should give you an added inspiration for staying on top of your social media game: Social media signals are a part of Google’s myriad ranking factors; Having a social media element in your traffic acquisition strategy makes your website’s traffic and inbound marketing efforts more defensible; Social media provides a captive audience, making your content syndication and customer acquisition efforts easier; In addition to customer acquisition, social media also provides an alternative way for you to answer potential customers’ questions, clarify misconceptions or dispel misinformation, and thank customers for their reviews. The first point is reason enough to keep engaging and accumulating social media followers and fans. Assuming all things are equal, your efforts in social media can equate to better rankings for your target keywords in the long run especially if you put your efforts in engagement and social shares. The second point is obviously also important. If, for whatever reason, your rankings drop for your top performing keywords, it’s good to know that you still have some sort of a traffic fall-back system through your inbound marketing efforts which, ideally speaking, includes your social media strategy. The third is where you entice new and repeat-customer business. Sales events, new product introductions, and showing your expertise in your industry are part of what makes point number 3 important. Online reputation monitoring is perhaps the highlight of the fourth point. The better you are at listening to what people are saying about your brand and your products online, the more chances for engagement you’ll get. And as with everything social media, engagement and shares are what you should be after. Of course, there are other considerations that you should be aware of, such as your social media reach and paid sponsorship options. Our resident social media expert Kassie shared something with me last Friday that should be of interest: Studies show that your content will only be seen by as much as 2% on Facebook and about 5% on Twitter. As more content noise is generated on social media, you’ll eventually see a decline in reach and along with that, engagement and social shares as well. The only way to combat this is to a) produce great content and b) extend your reach via paid post sponsorships, which obviously adds another layer of complexity and requires more time. But fret not. Next week, we’ll talk about content ignition and how to maximize your social media reach in today’s crowded social media environment. Stay tuned!