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Tag Archive: other social media

The use of blogging within social media campaigns

Written on Monday 5 September 2011 by Alice

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I’ve said it many times before that your blog should be the hub of your social media marketing strategy. It is the alpha and omega of marketing online, from it your social networking exploits can issue forth to their audiences and be there to collect the finished results.

Of course blogging should take centre stage. Many companies overlook or brush aside blogs, as they think they are used purely for self-expression. They fail to understand the importance for communication to get the overall marketing message across. An archive of easy accessible material aimed at education, entertainment and information-based articles specifically written for the audience in mind.

Using social media within integrated marketing campaigns can only work if there is a realistic objective. If this is understood, there are various methods which can put in place to guide the campaign towards the ultimate goal. Blindly participating on social media without a proper aim may be enjoyable in the short term, but it can be also be viewed as a waste of time because nothing is seemed to be achieved. Only by aiming towards a proper outcome will social media become useful and powerful within the overall marketing campaign.

Blogging and social media used in combination will enable companies to learn all they need to know about their customers. Social networking isn’t about selling, the focus should be on communication, conversations, observation, following and understanding trends, catching breaking-news early and taking action before the competition. Used properly, companies can almost ‘merge’ with their target market: comprehending, empathising, educating, gently changing the general shift towards their products or services without actually using direct selling tactics.

The power of integration should be two-way, through the encouragement of responses from the readership and inviting followers to subscribe so they are constantly kept up to date with the latest posts. And, of course, blogs can be easily and effectively integrated within all social networking profiles through RSS, thus extending the audience and exposing the marketing campaign over a wider area within the web. And by participating in sharing and referral tactics within social bookmarking sites will also prompt further expansion of the messages involved, as well as a larger awareness of the blog and its authors.

You need to share to get more traffic

Written on Wednesday 31 August 2011 by Alice

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I’ve had a lot of questions recently about how to get lots of traffic to a blog and whether it is worth participating in social media to do this.

Unfortunately, if you want to promote your blog successfully, you need to think in the long-term. As with all marketing methods, nothing can be done properly overnight, and that does include using social networking sites.

You need to use social media to build up your reputation and your readers’ understanding about you. We all can’t be blessed with instant recognition and a truly magnetic personality that instantly attracts thousands of followers – those that appear to have these qualities have worked really hard behind the scenes before unleashing themselves on their public. Even those that seem to ‘pop out of the woodwork’ really have been slaving away at their promotional tactics and business presentation.

So to go back to the original concept, yes, you do need to use social media to increase your blog’s traffic. The cold, hard reality is that you need to work at gaining followers. This can be accomplished by becoming the best in your field, your niche, or whatever area your blog’s subject is about.

The 80/20 rule also applies here. Give away 80% of what you know and retain the truly best bits within the 20% you charge for. Win followers on your side by sharing your knowledge; help people, let them get to know you and trust in you, gain from the added value you have given them to improve their lives, and make them believe there is much more to have if they maintain their connection with you.

And while you are succeeding in collecting a huge number of followers, friends and subscribers, you’ll be feeding your new posts regularly into your social networking profiles and Twitter stream. It is there you will have a potential audience to read your wonderful new content, which will allow your blog traffic stats to go up and up.

To make these stats even better, participate in some sharing activities of your own. Nobody tolerates a one-sided relationship, so start reading other people’s blogs, comment on their posts, retweet them on Twitter, share them on Facebook, recommend them on social bookmarking sites, refer readers to them, offer to write guest posts and interview them for your own blog.

And after a while you’ll start to enjoy this social networking lark that so frightened you in the beginning – and as well as making lots of friends, associates, contacts and business prospects, your blog’s traffic will be improving all the time!

Which service would you use to start a blog?

Written on Tuesday 26 July 2011 by Alice

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This was a question that was asked on LinkedIn. I took a look and blanched at the number of answers that were already there (which would normally mean my response would be lost in the wilderness), but then having read them I realised the question hadn’t been properly answered.

This is because there isn’t a straight answer to this kind of question. Of course I would recommend WordPress, but there are, of course, two kinds of WordPress, each with their own characteristics and special features.

The questioner needs to work out which one is right for him. Here are three questions he needs to consider:

Are you technically-minded?
Do you have access to a web-developer?
Do you want to use your blog to sell products or make money?

If the answer is yes to the above, then he obviously needs to use WordPress.org. This is an excellent platform to create a monetized blog or a blogsite to act as a CMS website, and the facilities it provides are second to none.

But if you are starting a blog on your own, without external help or a desire to monetize it, purely as somewhere to write or to promote your business more effectively on the web, then I would recommend WordPress.com.

Now I expect all the other blogging experts that answered this question will be be thinking that I’m crazy. Well, not really. You see, it’s usually wise not to run before you can walk. You can use WordPress.com to master the art of blogging properly and effectively before seeking out a web-developer to move onto WordPress.org. And don’t forget it’s very easy to transfer your posts and pages from one to the other, so all is not lost.

Meanwhile, while you are learning the ropes with WordPress.com, you’ll still receive excellent SEO, search engine coverage, access to social media, and an excellent and easy to use environment to learn all about blogs and how they work. Here you can build up your readership and following in safety, because WordPress is doing a lot of the work for you behind the scenes.

Once you’ve moved onto WordPress.org you’re out on your own, which means you’ll have to start working that much harder. But that won’t be a problem, because you will have gained a good grounding beforehand, allowing you to develop and grow, rather than floundering like a non-swimmer diving straight into the deep end.

Blogging help, blogs and blogging, Free Wordpress blogs - Tags: answers, blogging platform, characteristics, CMS, following, LinkedIn, master the art of blogging, monetize, other social media, question, readership, SEO, Wordpress - 0 Comments - Why not leave a comment?

How to humanise your business through social media

Written on Friday 22 July 2011 by Alice

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One of the changes that digital marketing is making on businesses in the second decade of the 21st century is enabling them to emphasise their human element. After all, at the end of the day, it’s important to remember that people buy from people, and not necessarily from corporations or even brands.

Therefore businesses should not lose sight of the people who are an integral part of the organisation, eg the stakeholders (in the broadest sense), which includes the owners, staff, customers, suppliers, media and maybe more, depending on the size and nature of the business.

By promoting this ‘people power’ through social media, which includes blogging, it’s important to remember the communication factors that have created this social revolution. Social media is ‘social’, it thrives in conversations, comments, feedback, real-time responses, immediate interaction with the people who matter: past, present and prospective customers.

Therefore it’s imperative that customers realise there is a human element behind the scenes. Real twitterers who respond to tweets about their business, ask a question or present a statement that is relevant to the organisation. Real bloggers who respond to comments and feedback as soon as they are posted, or write a relevant and value added post to answer a scenario brought up yesterday, or even hours ago.

We live in a world of ‘now’, real-time slipping through out fingers, yesterday’s news that actually happened only minutes ago, culturing a mentality of immediate responses, lack of patience and prompt reactions. It requires real people to adapt to these stimulae, react and respond to the matter at hand – and most important of all, to provide the ‘human’ side that determines them from robots and technology.

Only humans can gossip, taunt, laugh, joke, ask pertinent questions, quip, create puns, offer on the spot advice, commiserate, empathise, understand, comprehend, respond effectively to difficult questions, see a point of view, make us laugh, go out of their way to find the answer – and much more.

So don’t be embarrassed to be ‘human’ when you write your posts, send your tweets and respond to a Facebook tag. This doesn’t mean losing your cool or revealing anything unsuitable about yourself (unless it’s relevant), but it does mean talking about your mistakes as much as your successes, facing your foibles as much as promoting your expertise, telling a story as well as relating a case study, expressing happiness as well as reporting business news.

And the more your customers sense how ordinary your business is, not just a faceless corporation with oversea call centres and uninterested managers who only tow the party line, the more likely they feel they could get real value, good customer service and a real feel of ‘completeness’ when buying from you.

marketing methods, online marketing, Social Media - Tags: bloggers, blogging, businesses, communication, customer service, digital marketing, Facebook, human element, interaction, other social media, people, responses, stakeholders, Twitter, value - 0 Comments - Why not leave a comment?

When is the best time to blog?

Written on Friday 22 April 2011 by Alice

Fairy Blog Mother

Everybody has different body clocks, so they choose their own time to write their posts. Some people get their inspiration first thing in the morning, others late at night once they’ve been suitably stimulated by various happenings during the day. Of course you can write your post whenever suits you, only to save it in draft for later editing or, if you’re sure it is ready, schedule it to go out at a more appropriate time.

So when is it a good time to publish? I find this varies quite considerably, according to which particular media I have ‘fed’ my blog post to, so it can be read by the audience that populates it.

It all depends when my readership is more likely to be participating on social media. With Twitter the pace is so fast your post could easily be superseded by other news as soon as it hits the Twitter-stream – unless your followers have set up their own streams which includes you in it. That’s how I keep abreast of the worthwhile Twitters so I can interact with them and follow their blog posts whenever they are published.

You need to work out when is the most favourable time your fellow social networking friends are going to be around to read your posts. Do you catch the early birds, the mid-morning browsers, the lunchtime feeders, the afternoon skivers, or the evening perusers. Ideally you need to schedule your post’s feed so it either catches the most popular time, or multiple entries to get a better chance of being read at another part of the day.

Feeds to other social networking sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn will allow your post to be visible for longer before it is usurped by its successor, and subscription posts that are sent to email inboxes or search engine reader pages will languish there quite happily until they are read.

And a post’s journey is not finished with the subscriber – the practice of sharing posts, through Twitter, social bookmarking sites and natural referral techniques will prolong the life of a post so it can reach another form of readership.

So the answer is to find that ‘optimum’ time that will spark off the chain reaction to send your post on its merry way, as it transverses across the world wide web in pursuit of both new and tried and trusted audiences.

What should be your true reason for blogging?

Written on Thursday 14 April 2011 by Alice

Fairy Blog Mother

Notice I put in ‘should be’ – because I can’t dictate what you created your blog for. But I can advise you on your blogging style, and how it will relate to your readers.

There are plenty of blogs and their posts out in the blogosphere yabbering away about how to make money. And that is one of the reasons why people create blogs – to make a fast buck. Some do succeed, but you’ll find there are plenty of different ways to do this, and some find it easier than others.

I could include affiliate and sponsored advertising, but then I feel this blog would become too commercial and my readers would be turned off. If you want to make money fast, then by all means go down this route, but it does depend on the kind of readership you may want to attract, on the subject matter you’re blogging about, and how much you post every day. The idea is to create traffic to supply the advertising, and sometimes the quality of the posts do suffer as a result.

But when you come across a blog like that, isn’t it really unwelcoming, distracting, annoying and disturbing? I hate the fact you have to glean the posted material somewhere amongst all that hype and irrelevant material – and let’s face it, much of the advertising doesn’t relate to the post’s subject.

So without these interfering interruptions, you need to be more canny about why you are blogging and how you go about it. Without the advertising you won’t make your immediate fortune, so you’ll have to rely on good content, a scintillating and entertaining style, relevant and required subject matter with excellent, pertinent headlines to compensate.

And another thing, don’t try and sell in your content if you’ve decided not to include advertising. Having established that your blog won’t be commercially cluttered, don’t spoil your posts with hard-sell tactics, as that is not the true nature of blogging.

Blogs are a medium for expression, education, entertaining and example. They are an integral part of social networking, and you don’t sell on this kind of media as it isn’t tolerated. Your blog is a place to explain your ideas to your audience for free, as a gesture of goodwill and an altruistic attitude towards helping other people succeed or have a better life. It is somewhere to expose your expertise, show off your knowledge and spread the word, a resource that highlights the all important answers and provides the solutions for nothing – except for a following, subscriptions, sharing on social media and recommendations to others to come and read your posts.

And of course you reciprocate by thanking them, commenting on their blogs and acknowledging them on social networking and bookmarking sites – once they’ve scratched your back it’s definitely time to scratch theirs!

What is RSS and what does it do?

Written on Wednesday 13 April 2011 by Alice

Fairy Blog Mother

One of the things I mentioned in my last post was RSS, or Really Simple Syndication.

Some people ‘get’ RSS, and there are others that don’t. It took me a while, partly because of the word ‘syndication’. Myriam Webster’s Learning Dictionary’s definition is: “to sell (something, such as a piece of writing, comic strip, or photograph) to many different newspapers or magazines for publication at the same time”.

It’s the words “at the same time” that is the crux. By using RSS, you are able to publish your posts not only in your blog, but in many different places simultaneously. Everyone who has subscribed to your blog (sort of like a magazine) will have requested to receive a copy of your latest post delivered to their inboxes or their search engine readers.

It doesn’t have to be your subscribing readership, you can use RSS to deliver your post to other media where it will be read by new, different, uninvolved, exciting people. This is a brilliant way of exposing your post to a myriad of potential subscribers, if not followers, even if it is in passing.

This is where your headline comes into play – that is why I’ve been stressing it needs to be catchy, informative, intriguing, educational, pertinent, inviting – it must strike a chord with its potential audience immediately or the opportunity will be lost, especially in social media where the pace is so fast.

You can get a RSS URL (special domain name for your blog’s RSS feed) from Google Feedburner, but most blogs provide a simple version automatically. It depends what you want to do with it.

The simple version opens the facility for you to bookmark the post – something I find unsatisfactory because you have to make the effort to click on the link to find out the latest contribution.

The RSS URL not only sets up the subscription service, but allows you to activate posting applications throughout social media so you can ‘syndicate’ (publish immediately in several places at once) your latest post automatically to an alternative audience who wouldn’t get the chance to see it otherwise.

It also means you don’t have to actively go around all the social media sites you are connected to, pasting up your post’s URL manually every time you publish, saving you time, inconvenience and not forgetting their access details.

And if you schedule your posts to publish to a more appropriate or convenient time, they will automatically appear when you’re busy doing something else more profitable. (I have a scheduling your posts e-course for that too!)

Of course this blog is meant to be a resource, so you can find out more by using the search facility, or by clicking on the following links: RSS Simply Explained, Setting up a RSS feed, and How to use Feedburner to feed into Twitter – enjoy!

I’ve written a post – now what?

Written on Friday 8 April 2011 by Alice

Fairy Blog Mother

Well done for writing a post – after all, that’s what your blog is for. Now you’ve got to let people know so they can see and read it. This can either be done manually or through automated systems.

Here is a list of what can be done to spread the exposure of your post:

Set up a RSS feed: RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication, which means automating a procedure for something to happen simultaneously in several places at once!

This means your subscribers will receive your latest post in their email inboxes, or view the latest feed in their search engine reader pages, immediately without you having to send it to them, or they remembering to visit your blog to find out your latest post.

Update your status: You can also use RSS to automatically feed your posts into Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn and any other social media you’ve joined up with.

After you’ve published, your posts will automatically appear in your profiles via the special applications available, either with the headline, first paragraph and connecting link, or in Twitter as the headline accompanied with a tinyurl linking back to your post.

Allow readers to share: You can add applications to your blog to encourage people to share your post once they’ve read it, for example, there are the three boxes at the top of this post to encourage my readers to retweet in Twitter or share via Facebook and LinkedIn.

At the bottom of the post there is another button to encourage my more technical audience to share and save in any of the myriad of social bookmarking sites, which will boost the post’s exposure considerably.

Contribute your content: Sometimes it’s worth spending a bit of time manually promoting your post, especially if it’s performed with a personal touch, as that can set it apart from automated feeds. Start slowly with one or two locations, and build it up gradually.

If you’ve joined any relevant LinkedIn Groups, contribute to the discussion by posing a provactive question or statement, backed up with a link to your latest post, and do the same for LinkedIn Answers if you post qualifies and contributes to your answer.

Join in on other discussion groups and forums, either with helpful and relevant responses or by starting another thread with a link to your post. Comment on other blogs within your niche or industry, as that will automatically link back to your blog, as well as drawing attention to yourself, and some blogs will automatically show the last post you’ve written too.

Update your email signature: If you send out a lot of emails, you could be missing an excellent publicity slot if you don’t include your blog’s URL in your signature. You could even type in the latest post’s permalink for direct access.

That will do as a start. Automation will make your life easier, but don’t ignore manual contributions which can differentiate your post from others, and ensure its relevance to the environment it is posted into.

Worried about blogging? Start slowly with WordPress.com

Written on Tuesday 1 March 2011 by Alice

Fairy Blog Mother

I regularly read blogs that praise WordPress and say what a fantastic blogging platform it is. But generally it is WordPress.org they are talking about, the sophisticated version that is independently hosted, and can perform in total synchrony with your website, or even become your whole website!

refers to .com blog

Unfortunately you need to pay to host it, it needs someone who understands how to build it and it can take a long time to set up. Even so, once completed, the results are totally professional, it collaborates extremely successfully with search engines, and is very much worthwhile the expenditure.

But this doesn’t help the blogging sceptics. There are plenty out there that are uncomfortable about starting a blog, are not sure of the expense, their business may have only have a budget, or they would like to find out more about WordPress before making a commitment.

Enter WordPress.com, the ‘free’ version hosted by WordPress that can be set up in minutes. Its minimal expenses are to activate Akismet, the ‘spam eater’, and if you want to convert the URL WordPress gives you to one of your own.

Here is a blogging platform ideally suited to enable you to ‘practice’ blogging before embarking into this social networking world. By creating a WordPress.com blog you will be able to learn how to fully use the platform, discover all the tricks there are available, excel in the intricacies of blogging and enjoy producing a fully-operational blog with the minimum of fuss.

OK, there are some restrictions: you can’t advertise or sell from a WordPress.com blog, as the blog police will close you down. Only certain forms of HTML code are accepted (RSS, YouTube videos, podcasts, etc) so it is not a medium to make money. This kind of blog should be used only to education, entertain and publicise your business.

But if you want to create a blog to practice blogging or somewhere to dip your toe into the blogging world before expanding into more elaborate and profitable realms, then WordPress.com is the answer.

And remember, if you want to eventually create a WordPress.org blog in the future, it is extremely easy to transfer the contents of your WordPress.com blog over to it without losing a thing! After all, they are run by the same people!

If you want to know how to set up a WordPress.com blog, my visual e-courses are available free on this website. Just click here to make a blog or explore the links on my sidebar.

blogs and blogging, Free Wordpress blogs, increasing business visibility - Tags: Akismet, blog, blogging, blogging platform, blogging sceptics, other social media, practice blogging, publicise your business, search engines, synchrony, transfer the contents, website, Wordpress, Wordpress.com, Wordpress.org - 0 Comments - Why not leave a comment?

The difference between static and interactive websites

Written on Monday 1 November 2010 by Alice

Fairy Blog Mother

Websites are not the same throughout the world. Apparently in Europe they are mainly what we call ‘static’ websites, online business brochures, somewhere the visitor can confirm a business after a networking experience or a referral. They do not interact with their visitors, and many are on the way to becoming obsolete because they do not compete with the whizz-bang websites from the States.

America has taken on the interactive website by storm. There are so many different kinds of CMS (content management systems) that allow the owners to update the contents themselves without having to rely on a webmaster to do it for them, and also allow the visitors to contribute their comments and ideas to the website with immediate publishing effect.

Blogs are a form of CMS website. They are extremely easy to maintain, and positively encourage visitors to interact with them. Their programming is extremely enticing to search engine spiders, who crawl the internet looking for new material to feast on, and blogs are a plentiful supply of fresh content. They are designed to be updated on a regular basis (from several times a day to once a week), and even the visitors who comment on them are considered to be fresh spider meat.

This constant new content is exaggerated by the social sharing sites (Digg, Mixx, Reddit, StumbleUpon, etc) who rely on computer techies who have nothing better to do than to read tonnes of blogs and share them with their pals. The more interaction you get from these sites, the more visitors, comments, spider interaction and ultimately higher indexing by the search engines. And the sharing concept is continued on ordinary social networking sites (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn), with retweeting and feeding galore, all with a ready supply of new content to spread across the internet.

Static websites do absolutely nothing for the businesses they represent, apart from looking pretty with out-of-date material, and only visited when someone types in their URL and bothers to get past the first page. Blogs and other CMS websites are perfectly tuned towards getting passing search engine traffic, continuously being updated with new stuff that is worthwhile reading, interacting with their readers and social media – actually being a presence on the internet that surpasses their expenditure and actually gets in business without having to try really hard.

Now which one would you prefer to represent you business?

blogs and blogging, increasing business visibility, online marketing, social networking - Tags: blogs and blogging, CMS, content management systems, interact with visitors, online brochures, other social media, search engine spiders, search engine traffic, social networking sites, social sharing sites, websites - 2 Comments - Why not leave a comment?