What’s the Point?
Writing blogs may come across as one of those things you’d ask yourself ‘what’s the point’? There’s certainly more than one valid reason to write a social media blog. We often get the response of: ‘we don’t have time to write that many blogs’. But, have you ever tried to write one new, on theme, high quality and keyword focused blog once every few days? If the answer is no, then you’re missing out on the potential traffic to your website and other opportunities.
To put it into context of how we feel at Essential Marketer about regularly updating your website’s content or blog, is that we’re currently undergoing a live case study in which we’re writing 200 blogs in 50 days. Now that may seem slightly over the top, and we’re not saying to you as a business owner, you must write 4 brand new amazing blogs a day, we’re just trying to prove a point to people that if you put a little focus into this area, the increase in activity can be phenomenal.
Content
The whole point in writing blogs is to document your opinion within your expertise and to encourage responses and feedback from your readers – this is where your interaction comes from. There’s a bit more to it than just writing a blog. In order for the search engines to register what you’re writing about you must include focused SEO keywords. Use your keyword as a starting point because it can definitely help and give off ideas. You can bounce ideas of this keyword by creating an absolute killer of a headline, which must include your keyword. Vision something that has a punchy, powerful and persuasive heading but at the same time not being too pushy. Lots of companies we speak to write blogs where the titles are just too news and stats focused. In order to engage your reader you must prompt knowledge, excitement and credibility within your title. ‘Are you…’, ‘Top 5 most…’, ‘Easy mistakes in…’, ‘…all explained’. First impressions are the most important and it’s the same with your blog. The importance of your blog title is because it’s your selling point, it determines whether someone is going to read or click off it. Be aware that when you decide to post your blog out onto your social platforms, the likelihood is that the preview that will appear (if applicable) will just be of your title.
The content itself is the easy part. You know what keyword you’re focusing on, all you need to do is express your expertise but keeping it informative, engaging and helpful. The way to see if whether your blog is going to be successful or not is to make sure you can share it, solve a problem and not to sound like you’re selling something. If you follow these guidelines, you’re on the right path for customer/reader engagement. We recommend that you need to write anywhere between 500-1000 words.
The use of bullet points is great sometimes when writing blogs:
- People like to see short and snappy words
- It’s easier on the brain
- The reader is more likely to remember what they’ve read
Don’t be afraid to use images either. If you’re surfing the net and think, ‘wow, I could actually use that in my blog’, screen shot it and include it within the text. However be aware who owns the rights of the imagery you use.
Distribution
In another article we spoke about social media share buttons and the importance of keeping it simple for your reader. Make sure your reader doesn’t have to travel too far to find the relevant link to share it! Writing blogs for social media is great, it’s part of the balance between Social Media and SEO. As we said at the beginning of our ‘live’ Case Study: ‘The lines between social and SEO have become increasingly blurred and, with the introduction of content marketing, they’re now firmly placed under one heading’.
Content Married with Conversation
Like many others, we think that content is without a doubt king. Well if content is king, then surely conversation is queen? Social Media is about talking, expressing, opinions and expert advice. Without it, you wouldn’t be able to show off and engage with your audience using your content. What we tend to find when speaking to clients is that they want to use their social media to promote their blogs, yet they’re going about it the wrong way. For example, they are trying to increase traffic and engagement levels by creating a blog, posting it out to Twitter with a message and hope that people will continue to look through their website after reading the blog. The problem we find is that the message they’re sharing along with the link to the blog isn’t engaging enough. The message needs to obviously be on theme to your blog and engaging. Try asking a question or giving a tip within the message or try to solve a common frustration.
What we like to encourage is to share out other credible company’s blogs. If there is a company you know of who is within the same industry as you, you might want to think about sharing their blogs out which is relevant to you. You might be asking why? The answer is simple, in the world of social, it’s not just about you and your company, you have to be prepared to share your knowledge as it shows that you appreciate other peoples’ opinions, even if it’s a competitor.
