Better Biz Blogging Wrap-Up
July is coming to an end, and so is the month of Better Biz Blogging posts. Throughout the month I gave you some strategies and tactics that I hope you found useful for starting or rejuvenating your small business blog. We started with planning, moved to the look and mechanics of your blog, followed with ideas for organizing and generating content and finished up this week with promotion and measurement.
I put a lot of my own advice to work this month and can confirm that it does work. My personal focus for the month was on the content organization and creation aspects that I discussed. By using the tips and tools that I covered in week 3, it was much easier to publish one post each weekday of July. I was even able to enjoy vacation the past 2 weeks while still posting content. I also learned that vlogging is more fun that I thought it would be, so you may be seeing more of those in the future.
Next I want to put a lot of the things I covered in week 2 into practice. I have a lot of things I want to change this blog in regards to the design and some functionality. If all goes well, you should see some of those changes throughout August. I will also be building “commenting on other blogs” into my routine as there are so many great blog communities to get involved in and learn from, with the added benefit of some possible traffic.
I am focused on posting on a more regular basis from now on, and am open to suggestions of what else I can help you learn more about. To finish up, I ask you two things:
1. What, if anything, did you learn from reading Better Biz Blogging?
2. What other information can I provide you to make your job easier?
Is This Thing On?
You have done all your planning, have your blog looking good, producing quality content on a regular basis and have been diligent about promoting it every chance you have, but is anyone reading it? Let’s look at some ways to determine how things are going with your blog.
Most people think that comments are a sign of how well your blog is doing. I say this totally depends on your audience. I would say that a large percentage of blog readers (I would venture 90% in my case, and sometimes 100%) don’t leave comments on blog posts. There are many more consumers of content out there than creators and contributors. I truly believe you don’t realize the value of a comment until you begin to blog. Then you quickly learn how the feedback and interaction can help foster ideas and conversation.
Well, if no one is commenting on my blog, how do I know people are reading it? Easy, I installed Google Analytics on my blog when it was built. Just generate a new code and insert it in the footer template of your blog theme. Some themes even give you a place within their configuration panel to make it even easier. I can see the traffic spikes on my blog the days that I have posts, so I know people are at least going to the page. I like to review the referring sites area of my analytics to see which spokes are driving the most traffic.
In addition to analytics, I have people that come up to me and talk to me about a post. They aren’t comfortable posting a comment, but they have ideas or thoughts on something I said. It’s pretty cool when this happens and makes a great conversation starter if you know you are going to meet someone new. Take a look at their blog and bring it up in discussion.
You set up your subscriptions with a tool that can track your subscribers, right? We talked about this earlier this month. This allows you to track how many people have subscribed to your blog and the reach gives you an idea of reach which is the number of people that read your blog via their reader or clicked through to read it.
These tools give you some idea of what posts are most popular and your overall readership. What have I missed?
Commenting On Other Blogs
This post gets filed under the heading: “The cobbler’s children have no shoes”. This is something I KNOW I should be doing, but don’t do enough. I could give you at least 10 reasons why I fail at this, but you don’t want to hear about my issues… Seriously, leaving comments on other people’s blog is serious business and can be very easily abused.
When you leave a comment on someone’s blog, you also leave a link to your blog as part of your comment. This allows other people to check out your blog if they feel you have left an insightful comment and want to learn more about you. Also as an author of a blog, I like to check out the blogs of my readers and add them to my reading list.
My word of caution here is to not treat other people’s blogs as a billboard to promote yourself or your blog. Think of it as online networking. You are engaging in conversation with the author and other people that comment on that blog. Through regular conversation, you enhance relationships and thus readers, and those that may promote your through their spokes.
So you are reading this and saying “Great Beth, where am I suppose to find these blogs?”. You may find them by seeing what blogs people are talking about on Twitter. You can also use search tools such as Technorati and Google’s Blog Search. Look for blogs that have the same kind of audience you want to attract to your site, in addition to those that you learn from and interact with peers.
Just like everything else, this needs to be built into your routine and that is where I fall short miserably. Reading through my RSS Reader, and therefore commenting, always gets pushed aside when I am busy, but I am vowing to change that right here and now. I know you will hold me to it too. Who’s with me? You can start by leaving a comment here 
Promotion Beyond Social Media Tools
Yesterday I talked about using both your social media spokes and those of your readers to promote your blog, and today I’m going to talk about other marketing tools you should be using to let people know about your blog. Let’s step back and talk about how this really is not a new problem. When I started VillageWorks in 1999 (wow, am I old) the problem used to be how to let people know you had a website. What worked then, still works now.
I suggest to clients to add your blog address to anything that currently has your website address. This includes, business cards, email signatures, marketing collateral, and your email newsletter. If you are adding it to printed materials, you may want to wait until you do run out of the item and do your next print job so you don’t incur a lot of extra expense. Of course don’t forget to promote your blog on the home page of your website and vice versa.
In addition to putting a link to your blog on your email newsletter, you may want to consider integrating the content into your newsletter. You may want to consider adding links to the most popular posts of the month to your newsletter. If people haven’t subscribed to your blog, they are still getting the content and may even consider adding it to their reading list.
Tomorrow I’m going to talk about commenting on other people’s blogs as a way to gain traffic. Now it is your turn. Give me some other ideas where you can promote your blog.
Using Your Spokes
When I kicked off this month dedicated to Better Biz Blogging, I talked about the concept of your blog being your social media hub. In order to gain readership your hub needs spokes that help to promote its existence. The spokes I’m going to discuss today are the other social media tools that you can use to promote your blog in addition to your other activities on those sites.
Twitter is a great way to let people know about your newest blog post in addition to your other activity there. I will caution that in order to build a true community on Twitter, you need to do more than tweet blog posts. Get in there and converse with people and share information from others. You can automate the process of sending your latest blog post to Twitter using a tool like TwitterFeed, which will also send to Facebook. Another caution is that this turns some people off since it is viewed as an auto post, but it does make it easier if you are the type that forgets to Tweet your posts.
Facebook is another spoke that is popular for both community building and promoting your blog posts. Facebook makes this easy by giving you the ability to import your blog’s feed into your Page’s Notes. When it imports into your notes it also shows up on your page’s wall. It’s quick and easy and that is why it’s the chosen method for me.
In addition to promoting your blog through your spokes, you can give your readers the ability to easily promote you through their spokes. Make it easy for your readers to share your content. The first way is when you Tweet. Be sure to leave enough room so it can be Retweeted easily and without edits. There are also several plug-in options to add sharing to your blog. The one that I use is called Socialble and is easy to install and configure. Facebook also provides you many ways that your audience can easily share your content on Facebook. These tools are great, but be careful not to add too many that it causes your site to load too slowly. That will turn people away for sure.
What is your favorite way to share your blog content?
Beyond Text
OK, chock chalk up another first here at Marketing Roadhouse. In the spirit of the subject of the post, I have created a video to talk about going beyond text for your blog posts. Be easy on me in the comments please…
Generating Ideas for Posts
I know that sometimes I struggle with coming up for content to blog about. So many times, I feel like it has all been said before and 100 different ways. In an effort to try and come up with some ideas for myself and to help my clients, I have some go-to resources and want to share them here. One thing I have learned from working with clients is that when you spend all day, every day, working in your business and industry you think that what you know is common knowledge, and therefore sharing that common knowledge is not interesting to other people outside of your specialty. This really isn’t true. You can almost always (I’m sure there is some topic that wouldn’t be appropriate to blog about) find someone that is interested in learning more about you, your company and your industry. So with that out of the way, let’s come up with some content ideas.
I did a post last month about using your inbox as inspiration, but it bears repeating here. Keep an eye on the questions that drop into your inbox, and see if you can compose a blog post to respond to the question. This provides you with two benefits, one you have a great blog post and two, in the future, you can point to this post when asked the question again. Let’s face it, you will be asked it again. It can testify that it works because it happened to me last week. I had a question pop up in my inbox and was able to respond with a link to a blog post.
A follow up to the idea of using your inbox to generate ideas is to also use discussion groups or LinkedIn questions in the same way. People are asking questions in many areas, so find one that matches your knowledge and get writing. You can always go back to where you found the question and respond with the link to drive a little more traffic and provide the answer. Once you start looking at what is on other people’s mind, you may find an overwhelming amount of potential blog posts.
Another great content generator is reading industry news and other people’s blog posts. While doing your regular reading, you may find an interesting article or point of view upon which you can comment. Write up some quick thoughts on it and post it to your blog with a link to the original. Often times someone else’s thoughts can really spur a flood of ideas. Use these ideas to share the information, expand on the idea with your own thoughts or even to disagree with the other person’s point of view.
There are a alot other ways to generate ideas. What are your favorite?
How Often Should I Post?
When meeting with clients about blogging, they often worry about how often they need to publish to be effective. I did a post regarding my thoughts on a survey that basically says the more posts a week the better conversion of customers. To recap, I firmly believe that you should concentrate on the quality of your posts versus the quantity.
At the very least, you should plan on one post a week or you just shouldn’t bother with a blog. There have been weeks that I have not had anything to post, and that is going to happen from time to time, but you really should have a goal of at least once a week. We’ve already talked about ways to help organize this content, namely an editorial calendar and chunking your writing time, so you should be able to produce, at the very least, one post a week.
As you make blogging part of your routine, my hope is that you will be able to add more posts into your weekly schedule. It is true the more you can keep people engaged with you and your company, the better for your branding and positioning. The more you can produce quality content that your audience is looking for, the closer you get to achieving your blogging goals. Will it result in more sales? Honestly, results may vary and may take a little more experimenting on your part with topics, frequency, media type and time of day when you post.
Tomorrow I’m going to give you some ideas for coming up with content for your blog. I’m hoping that will give you more ideas to be able to post more often as you find your blogging voice and groove. In the last week of July, I will discuss some measurement techniques to track in order to know whether what you are doing is working or needs adjusting. I’ll leave you with this, be realistic about your time and what you can produce for content. As soon as you take on too much, you will begin to dislike the process and give up on your blog. Take your time, build a foundation, and then add on as you go.
My Routine for Better Biz Blogging
This month I have been publishing a new post every weekday which is something I have never done. I’m not going to lie, it’s been a challenge, but I am finding that creating a routine has made the process much easier. I’m going to give you an insider’s view into what I have been doing.
First, when I thought about this idea I wanted to make sure I had enough content to fill a whole month so I created my editorial calendar, which I discussed yesterday. Once I had the main topics for the month, I sat down and wrote out an outline for each post so I had a skeleton to work from. I did this because it takes a lot of stress off of myself to get everything on paper at once and then expand upon it later.
This brings me to another point, pen and paper. Well, at least that’s how I prefer to jot down notes and ideas. I hear good things about Evernote and there is a great post by Amber Naslund about how she uses Evernote for more than just blogging. Whatever your preferred method, you need a place where you can record ideas, thoughts, sketches, or whatever else you need to remember what you want to write about.
So my calendar and outline are complete, and now it is time to write. Because I cannot just write on the spot, I like to set aside some time to complete a chunk of writing at a time. The time of day can vary because of my dual role of being a business owner and a Mom, but I am finding I write better in the morning. My mother would never believe I am becoming a morning person I am finding that if I can have 2 hours of time set aside I can get anywhere from 2 to 4 posts written especially since I have the outline already complete. Chunking my time allows me to concentrate on the topics and really put my thoughts together more effectively than I would jumping from client work to writing.
After I have my first draft written, I usually let it sit for a day or more before I read it again. Once I have reread the post and made my many edits, I run down a checklist of things I try to include with each post: title, picture, tags and categories. I like to have these elements planned out so I’m not stuck last minute trying to be creative. You’ve probably noticed the trend that procrastination is a huge enemy to my creativity. The more I have things planned, the easier it is for me.
So there you go. Just a little look into the routine I have created to make this series possible. It is definitely a routine I will try to keep once August rolls around to keep things more consistent. What do you find works best for you?
Getting Organized: The Editorial Calendar
This week we are going to discuss content for your blog, from getting organized to actual ideas about what to write. I want to start the week talking about one of my favorite tools for staying organized, the editorial calendar. I briefly mentioned it here, but I want to go into a little more detail here. I have found this tool when working with clients to be very effective for keeping them on schedule and focused because it allows them to plan ahead.
If you aren’t a natural writer or are new to blogging, it’s often hard to come up with content ideas on the spot. I find this especially true when I am busy and focused on my client’s projects. The editorial calendar forces you to sit down and look at the upcoming month and begin to fill it in with ideas for your blog as well as other marketing tools. Remember we are integrating here. Look at your schedule for the upcoming month and see what may be going on that you can incorporate into your social media content. Are there upcoming trade shows, holidays, promotions? You get the idea, right?
In addition to the content, there are some other items I like to incorporate into the calendar especially when working with a team. First i like to add to the calendar what days we will be posting to the blog and include the content topic as well. This gives a bird’s eye view of your content for the month allowing you see if you have spread it out well or if you have too heavy with one topic. Of course if you are doing a series like this one, then it will be topic heavy. It all depends on your goals.
Along with the content, I like to include who is responsible for the content, again if it is a team blog. This allows each team member to look at the calendar, see what they are writing about and when so they can incorporate it into their own schedule. If there is an approval process in place, you will want to put due dates on the calendar as well just to keep things on track. Back things out from the post date to create the workflow for the calendar.
One idea for your editorial calendar is to look at what days you want to post and try to keep them consistent. This is something I have been trying to improve upon because it gives your readers a better idea of when to expect new information from you. It also helps to build content creation into your routine. Some blogs are very successful creating a certain topic of content on specific days, so that on Monday’s the readers can expect the same theme in the posts. I love this idea and have struggled to come up with a great idea. Any input would be greatly appreciated…
I would love to hear from you on this subject. Do you use a calendar to plan content? Any additional ideas we should include?
