Social Media and Blogging
Social Media and Blogging
Blogging and social media both allow
people to share their opinions and
thoughts with the people who listen.
Promote the link you wanted to promote,
share that news status, and more.
Difference Between Blogging And Social Media
Blogging allows you to develop a strong community and social
media allows you to build a large community. It’s quality against
quantity.
Blogging creates content that lives on your website. Social media
engages with people about content.
In-depth blog post can help potential clients solve their problems
which cannot be achieved through social media posts that tend to
be shorter and less descriptive.
However, if you can mix the two together, you will have a big
presence on the web.
Benefits of blogging
The best blogs answer common questions
that their customer have. If these
questions are constantly answered through
blog, it will increase the credibility of the
organization.
This is very handy for marketing agencies
offering a service.
Benefits of Social media
Social network popularity is growing. The likes
of Facebook and Twitter are free to start a
company page,with Facebook being the most
popular social media platform.
Social media allows messages to be targeted to
specific groups which is not as achievable with
blogging.
Blogging can be very time consuming.
What do u mean by Blogging?
Blogging refers to writing, photography,
and other media that's self-published
online.
Blogging started as an opportunity for
individuals to write diary-style entries.
What is the purpose of a blog?
Blogging for business, projects, or anything else that might bring you money
has a very straightforward purpose – to rank your website higher in Google.
As a business, you rely on consumers to keep buying your products and
services. As a new business, you rely on blogging to help you get to potential
consumers and grab their attention. Without blogging, your website would
remain invisible
So,the main purpose of a blog is to connect you to the relevant audience.
Another one is to boost your traffic and send quality leads to your website.
The more frequent and better your blog posts are, the higher the chances for
your website to get discovered and visited by your target audience. This
means that a blog is an effective lead generation tool. Add a great call to
action (CTA) to your content, and it will convert your website traffic into
high-quality leads.
A blog also allows you to showcase your niche and build a brand.
Blogging history
It's
generally recognized that the first blog was
Links.net, created by Justin Hall, while he was
a Swarthmore College student in 1994.
Of course, at that time they weren't
called blogs, and he just referred to it as his
personal homepage.
Itwasn't until 1997 that the term “weblog” was
coined.
The Early Years
1998 marks the first known instance of a blog on a
traditional news site, when Jonathan Dube
blogged.
“Weblog”was shortened to “blog” in 1999 by
programmer Peter Merholz.
During these early years, a few different
“blogging” platforms cropped up. LiveJournal is
probably the most recognizable of the early sites.
The Growth Period
In1999, according to a list compiled by Jesse James, there were
23 blogs on the internet. By the middle of 2006, there were 50
million blogs according to Blogosphere report.
Political blogs were some of the most popular early blogs. Some
political candidates started using blogs during this time period.
WordPress was started in 2003, though parts of its development
date back to 2001.
Thefirst video blogs started in 2004, more than a year before
YouTube was founded.
Blogs Reach the Mainstream
InJanuary of 2005, a study was released saying that 32
million Americans read blogs. At the time, it’s more than ten
percent of the entire population.
By 2004, political consultants and mainstream news
organizations all began using blogs more prominently. They
provided the perfect vehicle for broadcasting editorial
opinion and reaching out to readers and viewers.
During this time, the number of blogs grew even more, with
more than 152 million blogs active by the end of 2010.
Virtually every mainstream news source now has at least one
blog, as do many corporations and individuals.
Blogging Platforms
Blogging platforms are broadcast-style
communications systems that enable
authors to publish articles, opinions or
product reviews (known as posts), which
can be delivered through stand-alone
websites, email and social networks.
The Best Blogging Platforms
1. Wix – Best for people who haven’t built a
website before
2. WordPress – Best for building a brand
3. Strikingly – Best blogging platform for
creative's
4. Tumblr – Best for starting conversations and
being part of a community
5. Ghost – Best for turning your passion into an
online business
6. Blogger – Best free blogging platform
Content Strategies for blogging
1. Define your goals.
2. Perform some target market research.
3. Come up with topic ideas and keywords
to target.
4. Create a content calendar.
5. Build amazing content.
Step 1: Define your goals.
Having a clearly defined goal will set you up to push through all the
other steps.
Your goal is your why, and the stronger it is the more success
you’ll have.
So,how do you define your why… your blog goal? Answer these
questions. Do you want to…
◦ drive foot traffic to your shop or office?
◦ increase sales or generate leads?
◦ educate prospects and customers on what you do?
◦ update your customers on what’s going on with your business?
◦ attract prospects from outside of your local area, such as clients from
overseas?
◦ build a brand?
Step 2: Perform some target market research.
So, how do you do target market research?
ask yourself a few good questions:
Where does my audience hang out online? (Certain
blogs, social media platforms, Facebook groups, etc.)
What sort of content or articles do they most enjoy
reading? (Look at your Google analytics for your blog, if
you have it. Which posts did the best? You can also
use BuzzSumo to see what your competitor’s most shared
articles are.)
Step 3: Come up with topic ideas and keywords to target.
Keywords are the bread and butter to an effective blog content
strategy. Without them, you’re going to be hard-pressed to rank
well on search engines. Without ranking on search engines, you’ll
have an even harder time getting a lot of consistent traffic.
Lets break it down in three simple steps:
Find some keywords you want to rank for that have high search
volume.
Write mind-blowingly good blog content that includes your main
keywords in the title, body, headers, and image alt text (don’t
overdo it)
Work on getting back links to that article with your main
keywords.
Step 4: Create a blog content calendar
A content calendar keeps you on track and
creates a system to ensure your content is
always top-notch and published on time.
You can also use a free tool
like Trello or Google Calendar to create your
blog content calendar, but if you’re looking
for a fully dedicated calendar with extra
features to help you grow your blog, a tool
like CoSchedule may be more helpful.
Step 5: Build amazing content.
You’ve got your keywords, you’ve created a content calendar, you
know who you’re writing for. Now it’s time to actually build your
content.
An amazing piece of content needs to be…
1. Well-written (meaning proper spelling and grammar, and doesn’t
use unnecessarily complex language or terminology.)
2. Researched (meaning uses stats, case studies, and examples to
show you’ve done your homework.)
3. Media rich (meaning plenty of high-quality and highly relevant
images.)
4. Formatted for skimming (use of headers, sub headers, bulleted
lists)
Building an Audience on Social Media
1. Hold contests
Contests can be a great way to get new people to Like and follow
your accounts, while also keeping your current fans engaged with
your Page.
It's worth experimenting with contests on every social network on
which you are active. Some examples of social media contests
include:
Comment to win – Participants leave a comment or answer a
question
Caption contest – Either the best caption (you choose) or the one
with the most likes wins
Fill-in-the-blank Contest – Ask participants to answer a question
Photo contest – Either the best photo (you choose) or the one with
the most likes wins
2. Include a visual with every post
Visuals are high-performers on social media, so be sure to
include an eye-catching, colorful image or graphic with
each post.
Content with relevant images rack up 94% more views
than content without images.
Compared to other types of content, visual content is more
than 40x more likely to get shared on social media.
Instagram photos showing faces get 38% more likes than
photos without faces.
3. Share more video
Video is the most engaging content type on every
social media platform, so if you can, it's a good
idea to create at least some form of video content
to maximize engagement.
Be sure to upload your video directly to your
platform of choice, rather than posting a link to an
outside website (like YouTube). This way, your
video will autoplay as people land on it while
scrolling through their feeds, grabbing more
attention.
4. Be proactive in listening to and responding to your online
community
Did you know that 83% of your Facebook fans, and
71% of your Twitter followers, now expect a
response from you on the same day that they pose a
question on each respective platform?
In fact, 32% of Twitter users now expect a response
within just 30 minutes.
Give your followers a fantastic user experience on
social by being exceptionally responsive. Listen to
their needs, and respond accordingly.
5. Change your Page profile photos and cover photos
Your profile photos and banners are some of your best
and most-viewed social profile elements. Use these
visual tools to showcase the impact of your work, and
the stories of those who benefit from your services.
On Facebook, consider changing up your cover photo
at least once per month, and remember to write a great
caption.
On Twitter, use your profile picture and banner photo
to highlight your great work.
6. Give people a reason to follow you
Give both prospective and current fans
reason to follow you on multiple platforms.
Tailor your content for each channel’s users.
For example, you should use Twitter to
share latest news and real-time alerts, while
you can use Facebook to tell more
compelling, longer stories about the people
who benefit from your work.
7. Encourage tagging
An effective strategy to engage your followers
is to encourage them to tag other people who
may benefit from, or enjoy a specific post.
If you post an inspiring quote, write “Tag a
friend who needs this today”; If you share a
video about Mother’s Day, encourage your
online community to tag a friend (or better,
friends) who means a lot to them, and with
whom they would like to share your message.
8. Be entertaining, and use humor to engage
Brands that show a bit of humanity and humor do well
on social media - but that said, you should always
ensure that any content that you do share makes sense
for your particular audience and your brand voice.
Animal adoption and
protection agency which often
shares entertaining
photos on their page.
9. Explore paid social
One of the best ways to grow your
audience and gain more exposure is to
invest a modest amount into paid social
advertisements. When done well, paid
social ads can promote your content,
increase conversions, and help you reach
new people.
Thank You
