Social Media Shout Outs and Sharing Your Blog Posts
If you’ve made it to Part 4 of “Transforming Your Marketing in 4 Steps,” congratulations! At this point you’ve made the investment to further the success of your business by: 1) Identifying your buyer persona; 2) Understanding branding; 3) Writing effective e-newsletters; and now, 4) Boosting your business: start blogging online. Similar to crafting effective e-newsletters, blogging is a way to engage your target audience by delivering relevant, interesting information directly related to your business…but that’s only the beginning.
Since its inception in the early 2000’s, blogging has evolved from an information-sharing platform to a viable business generator. Today, almost two decades later, effective blogging can offer valuable information about your business, track analytical data directly related to your target audience and create an interconnective and strong social media presence. Here’s how.
Your Business has a Voice and Purpose–Share it: Start Blogging Online
By now you have a better and stronger sense of what you have to offer to your target audience. The question is, are you ready and able to translate it to your target audience? At first glance, writing a blog may appear to be a simple task, and it certainly can be. However, it may be beneficial to compare business-blog writing to baking an apple pie. Some people may inherently know how to bake an apple pie from scratch, but people generally find it beneficial and have better, more consistent results if they follow a recipe.
To share information about your business in a blog, consider the following guidelines before you start blogging online. Think of this as your business-blog recipe: How to’s, Headlines and Here you go.
- How to’s: Offer your target audience information by tying your product into a “how to” (a blog that tells them how to do, create or fix something). Ex: “How to Heal a Bug Bite using Lizzy’s Lavender,” in which readers see how lavender reduces bug-bite inflammation better than a synthetic substitute
- Headlines: It’s the first thing your reader will see, so don’t be afraid to get clever to grab a reader’s attention. Ex: “Lavender Bites,” “Living La Vida Lavender” and “Can Lavender Calm Cats?” The first two examples include alliteration and wordplay to engage the reader, while the third asks the target audience a question in which they too, will be curious about the answer (which you, of course, and your business are qualified experts in answering).
- Here you go: Lists are likeable for being concise and easily read. Share information about a product or service by utilizing a list format. Ex. “5 Easy Lavender Remedies for the Common Cold,” “Top 3 Ways Lizzy’s Lavender Reduces Stress” and “7 Uses for Lavender in the Kitchen.”
Metrics, Analytics, SEO’s and Giving Them What They Came For
When you start blogging online for your business, blog metrics is an important component of ensuring that you’re giving customers what they came for. Analytics tracking ensures that.
Analytic blog tools like Google Analytics, Clicky and Blog Tracker can measure how much traffic a particular blog is generating, how many clicks it has received, whether or not the blog post has been shared and much more. Some blog metrics are free and others may require a small fee, depending on how complex the data functionality offerings are.
SEO’s or Search Engine Optimization also relates to data analytics, but in a different way. SEO’s are like the “dangling carrot” of the internet, and are meant to drive target-audience members to your blog. SEO’s are mostly translated through words and phrases that Google recognizes as keywords or phrases relevant to highly searched subject criteria. Use them frequently, but try to make them sound as natural as possible:
- Ex: SEO Phrase “Lavender Heals”; Lizzy’s Lavender heals, while also calming!
Social Media Shout Outs and Sharing Your Blog Posts
Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Google Plus and LinkedIn are all ways to share your blog posts. So when you start blogging online, in addition to creating dynamic content and catchy headlines, include a captivating image. As society becomes increasingly image oriented, it’s important to use unique and impressive images to accompany your blog posts, particularly on social media.
Blogging for Business Recap
Now that you have the building blocks for crafting creative and intentional blog content, as well as an introduction to the importance of analytics and social media sharing, it’s time to start blogging online. Crafting intelligent, focused blogs does take time, but, done with the correct components, is well worth the investment.
If time is something you are short on, and your business would benefit from the help of professional blogging services, consider partnering with Farotech. We have a team of seasoned business-blogging experts ready to help take your business to the next level.
