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Harnessing the power behind each and every blog post

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How knowing when your audience accesses blogs and social media is paramount in ensuring that your blog posts have the maximum reach and impact. Do you know the best time to post?

An effective company blog

For many years now, companies from small and medium sized enterprises, local companies to massive global concerns have been blogging. Posting a variety of interesting, fun and informative articles on their website on a frequent and consistent basis can see a website crawl from the bottom slot to the top spot. With the right content, it can maintain this position.

However, to maintain an effective company blog is THE most time-intensive activity you can do. Which is why there is a thriving ‘sub’ sector ghost writers, bloggers and creators of content that post articles on websites of companies across the world.

The first part of the equation

If you ARE blogging, this is great news! Studies by the Content Marketing Institute show that 72% of business to customers (B2C) business are blogging, as are 76% of business who sell to other businesses (B2B). These studies also show that established and start-up business are using increasingly sophisticated websites and social media  to reach people, from webinars to podcasts, video to guest posting on other websites.

Research has shown, time and time again that customers love an informative blog post…

IF they can FIND it.

The Challenge

But, there seems to be other challenges that lurk in the shadows… which of these can you relate to?

  • Lack of time for creating and posting blogs or articles
  • Producing the right kind of content that engages customers and your audience
  • Producing and posting enough content
  • Finding the right person to create the content

And so, it is easy to see that from the starting point of any blog – the idea – to putting pen to paper, proof reading it and posting it, is a huge investment of time, effort, energy and in some cases, money.

But, there is one part of this equation that is missing – maximising the reach of your blog post.

Generating ideas, writing the posts, posting them etc. all takes valuable time and, as a result, many companies are honest enough to say that the quality quite often drops in the face of so many adverse conditions.

And when you have expended huge amounts of time and energy (and maybe a decent slice of your marketing budget too), you need these blog posts to work as hard as they possibly can for you. Simply creating a link and tweeting it, updating your status, pinning it etc. is not enough.

Get the statistics

www.trackmaven.com collect, analyse and number crunch all kinds of data that is useful for ‘digital marketers’. Before you think this is a separate section of society, they are basically referring to YOU! Any company, established or start up, large, small, micro or medium sized who posts content online for others to access, to inform them and to amuse them is a ‘digital marketer’.

So you have invested up-front.

The blogs are written.

They are posted on your website.

WHEN do you use social media to advertise them? WHEN is the optimum time to post them so that they work their socks off for your business? WHEN is the time that your customers or audience will engage with them?

Track Mavern generated some fabulous analysis that holds valuable lessons for us all.

Many business owners work odd, unsocial hours and our customers may not necessarily buy online from a company during the hours of 9 to 5. The internet may be slowly changing this but, overall, we still run our physical lives – the school run, the shopping, everything else in fact – on a 9 to 5 basis.

It is a routine, a habit that is ingrained in the majority of us from a very early age, from days that were pre-Internet and when there were 4 channels on mainstream TV, all of which stopped broadcasting on a daily basis at 10pm, that the majority of tasks needing to be accomplished in any given day happens between 9 and 5.

What their research found was that during the week, Monday to Friday, give or take a few exceptions in blogging and posting frequency, the majority of posts were made between the hours of 9 and 5… and yet, customers – that is, social media users – were accessing websites, social media platforms etc. in the evening.

In other words, what is happening is that businesses are posting articles and blogs at times that suit them, but they are ‘missing’ their audience as they are not searching online or ‘surfin’ the web’ until later in the evening.

5 minutes in Internet Land is a long time, just like they say a week is a long time in politics. Your delicious posts may be simply missing your key or intended audience as once it is published, by the time they log on 2 hours later, the online landscape is awash with posts and articles.

Social shares

The whole point of this articles is about showing you how – or at least, making you aware of how – social shares of your blog posts can be maximised.

We have talked in previous posts about social signals; there are conflicting views about how effective, if at all, these social signals are to a website but, if they are not that important, why does every company, from the smallest local, microbrewery to the largest global conglomerate covet these social shares, likes etc.?

If nothing else they are psychologically important; someone is liking your work. Like an artist who needs praise and critiquing of their work, your blog posts are your shop window on the web. And when people like your work, you radiate a soft, but radiant glow of success.

And so, in a nutshell, what are the findings…?

Avoid the highly competitive online sharing and posting times of mid-week and during the week day, 9 to 5 posting slot. Instead, look to post…

  • At the weekend – Saturday was the optimum day for shares across social media of all kinds of blog posts
  • Leisure time – in Greenwich Mean Time, it was found that social shares of posts increased steadily between 6pm and midnight
  • European time – it was also found that shares increased between 4 and 6am GMT, as is the time European businesses tend to be awake and functioning, clearly an important statistic if your company is looking for a global or European reach.

What the research did show was the Internet landscape is rarely quiet; even the early hours shows significant likes and shares across a range of platforms. Using an online scheduling app can also help hit these high spots for maximum reach and www.bufferapp.com have also published a range of statistics and data on when is the best time to post on Facebook and across Twitter.

(*SPOILER ALERT: according to their research, the optimum day to post on Facebook is Thursday – early afternoon, just after lunch if you really want to pin point the best time – followed by Sunday and then Friday…)

When is the best time for you to post your articles?

Creating trust with a blog

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What does your blog really say about you?

Wherever you turn on the wonderful world of the web, you will be told/encouraged/advised/bamboozled (*delete as appropriate) into including a blog on your website.

In terms of content generation, creating that all-important authority on the web, this is a great idea. Providing that you regularly create and publish high quality, relevant content with some delicious links to authoritative, relevant websites, you are on to a sure-fire winner (slap thigh, whistle a tune and sit back, basking in the delight of knowing you HAVE done something right…).

You can feel it coming, can’t you? The word that throws everything is to disarray, the word that dashes a thousand dreams and renders your blogs useless (that’s an over exaggeration for dramatic affect)…

BUT…

Does your blog build trust in your company?

Every blog should be written in a way that shows the customer that you can be trusted as a seller, an online retailer and that what you say is ‘right’.

NB This confirms something we have been talking about for years… and that is the fact that your blogs, for all the content marketing speak out there, MUST BE WRITTEN FOR YOUR CUSTOMER and not a search engine.

To help you out with your blogs, we have created a list of 10 words or phrases you could use to enhance your blogs, and make them a more trusted source. Blogs need to have

  • an authoritative tone
  • be consistent in the number of times blogs are published (if you haven’t blogged since November 2009, you may be in a spot of bother)
  • high quality
  • with social signals
  • and also have a good reputation.

A bit like the blog here at Locally… (blows own trumpet).

Are they worth it?

It seems the whole world is blogging and this should tell you something. Content experts often talk about how wonderful content needs to be and, as part of this argument, blogs add credibility to you, your website and business.

In fact, don’t just take our word for it. Jeff Bullas, a blogging master conducted a survey around what customers thought about blogs that they came across and how they informed their decision to buy, or not.

To the question “do blogs add credibility to a website?” an astounding 68% of respondents said yes, they did. That’s a BIG proportion of people who use the signals given off by a blog as a positive endorsement of the company, their products and services. It seems if you are not blogging regularly, keeping your online, local business website ‘alive’, then customers may be navigating away.

When Jeff Bullas looked in to this a little deeper, he found that the factors that added this all-important credibility to a blog were quality content, followed by regularly published content. There were other factor too, from a good social media presence to good design. So you see, blogs are important after all…

Good blogging words

If you are writing a blog that is part of your online marketing and selling strategy, then your blogs must have some delightful words sprinkled through them that sub-consciously send signals to your potential consumer…

Here is Locally’ 10 ‘sprinkle them through your blog’ words or phrases:

  1. Fair

Ah yes, being fair. We like that. We like to think that by being or playing fair, we have the moral high ground. We love it and your consumers love it. From sayings such as ‘one thing you can say about so-and-so, she is fair’ to ‘fair pricing policy’, by using this word and applying it to your online, local business, you are showing people just how lovely and fair your business is.

  1. Fair treatment

This is listed as a separate phrase as, according to research, ‘fair treatment’ is very ‘user-centred’. This has an important psychological impact. If people think that you will treat them fairly as consumers, they are more likely to gravitate to your business.

  1. Care/caring

Yup, an online purchase still needs to have the ability to show consumers you care about them and their purchase. And so, weaving this word into a blog can go a long way in showing the human face to your business. All too often, when things go wrong with a purchase, we find that the company we are trying to contact has an outsourced helpline to foreign climes and it is impossible to make any form of meaningful contact. Dispel these fears with a blog that tells people how much you care… anything from their purchase to the environment is perfectly acceptable.

  1. Trust

A bit obvious? You would have thought so but apparently being told that they can trust you as an online retailer WILL create the feeling of trust, so use it! Little word, big impact.

  1. Quality

A great buzzword but one that works. We all like to think that the product we are buying is the highest quality but this is about creating the feeling of quality with a blog, not just saying the word. For example, is it error-free? Does it say what it needs to, clearly? Is it enjoyable? Does the design of the website also ooze quality…? (If not, call us… everything we do is QUALITY driven).

  1. Competent/competency

A longer word but one that spells out just how much your business can be trusted as you know what you are doing and you do it well, all the time.

  1. Change/changing

Now, on one hand you would think that this would set alarm bells ringing but, according to various studies, when a company tells its customers it is changing (for the better) – and why – people like it. It shows that you care and want their custom, as well as their experience of buying from you, to be the best that it possibly can be.

  1. Always

Ah yes, another great word that shows you are committed as a company to do the best for your customers, from always offering the best price to always producing great blogs.

  1. Never

We would always counsel caution when it comes to using negative words and ‘never’ is one of those words BUT, you can turn this word around to give it a positive connotation. Why not try ‘never being beaten on price’ or ‘never compromising on quality’?

  1. Privacy/private

People’s information is sensitive. They like to know that their data is kept safe, guarded and private. Sometimes, telling people this is a good way forward.

And so…

The next time you blog, think about what it is your blog is ‘saying’ in both an obvious and sub-conscious way. Is it oozing trust? Is it inviting customers to trust you, your business and the content they are reading…?

When was the last time you blogged?

Hands up – do you have a social media strategy?

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(look away, embarrassed, fiddles with phone to see if anyone has text…)

It seems that our online, local businesses is swamped in paperwork and strategies, when all you really want to do is earn a living BUT, as part of that essential daily activity, you also need to keep one eye on future work – a portion of your day, week or month does really need to be given over to finding new customers, new products, new services and improving the ones you have.

Do local, online businesses need one?

The clue to the answer is in the question… ‘online’. If you are online and you canvass the majority of your new customers (and keep welcoming the ‘old’ ones back) by online means then, yes it really does make sense to have a social media strategy.

Don’t forget those social signals too; exactly how Google does work out how it ranks pages on the web is still a slight mystery with only really the top few people at Google really understanding, but it seems that the more ‘authority’ your site appears to have, the more people will trust it (* see bottom of page) – or so Google thinks.

So getting plenty of likes, pins, shares, G+s, tweets and the like, the better placed your website could be placed in the increasingly crowded world of the web.

A social media strategy: how does it look? What’s in it?

The first point to note is that is isn’t just about updating your status on a daily basis; this is, of course, not necessarily a bad thing although this can mean you spend more time tweeting etc. than doing any actual work.

A social media strategy is about sharing content on your website; this could your blog, new product and additions to your online ‘shop’ as well as any news items regarding your business. It is a way of connecting your website to the outside world and the outside world to your website.

Below are 8 steps that could form the outline of what your social media strategy could look like. In a table format, we think it makes a handy ‘cut out and keep guide’, a start as to how you can make the very best use of your social media strategy…

What is it?

Your notes…

Step 1:

the time, the place…

 Just like a first date, you need to give this some thought but bear with us before you flick to another website. This is a serious point; all too often we try and cram things into the shortest time possible, working on the back of a scrap piece of paper whilst driving the car and filing a tax return.Step 1 is to recognise the importance of this strategy. It might not break your business not using social media to its fullest, but it will as heck make a massive difference. Where can you work uninterrupted?

Step 2:

Target – WHO are you trying to reach through which social media?

 If you have a marketing plan, the information should be in there but it doesn’t cause any harm to take a specific look at this with your social media.There are now various studies that show which age groups use certain social media platforms, hence it pays to know where your potential customers are at…If you have a product that is visual, then the platform that share photos are a great starting point; those with non-visual products or services may be better looking at sharing platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.It pays to do your homework.

 

 Jot down demographics, such as gender and age… where are these people hanging out on social media?

Step 3:

Content – WHAT do you have to offer them?

 Social media is not just about selling – in fact, go down this road and you may find that you actually drive customers away.Social media is about conversation, but what it is that your customers want to know?What information will they value?Once you have an idea, post this information vis your social media and then invite potential customers or partners to your website.

 

  You can share blogs and news, both current and already published work, especially if it coincides with something current.

Step 4:

Be proactive

 Customers will not come to you; this is the bit where you need to be pro-active and you need to start building your following audience.Great content is fabulous (we go on about all the time at Locally!) but, it is not a case of someone will stumble upon it and away you go.Do apart from tweeting what you had for breakfast, or pining a photo on another platform of your new delivery van, you also need to be creating great content (like this blog!) and then share it; tell people about it.And then tell them again in a few weeks’ time…

 

 Create a blog calendar schedule and stick to it.

Step 5:

Contact – be easy to get in touch with

 

 This is part a. of two small micro steps. The whole ethos behind social media is that people share things, share data, share information…So, on your website have the icons for the social media platforms you use See your web design company for help…

Step 6:

TALK!

 The second mini step from above is once people have contacted you, liked or shared any of your tweets, statuses, pleas for help, you need to converse back. A bit like being at a party and making small talk.Thank people for liking something; ask questions; engage! Make it part of your day to check social media platforms, just like you do your email…

Step 7:

Keep it going…

 And this is the hardest step.Keeping your social media stuff happening can be a full time job in itself and so unless you have the financial resources to buy in a social media manager (they do exist!), you either see your social media presence fail OR, you load it on to someone else in the office… either way, the results can be disastrous OR you can realise that your strategy can include times and dates when items are sent out etc.Have you seen www.bufferapp.com? You can schedule tweets, status updates and the like so that the app automatically do it for you. Takes the pressure off but still needs managing; message need responding to etc.

 

 Build in a monthly review; get your staff team on on board. If not, maybe outsourcing is a cost-effective idea?

Step 8:

Looking for new opportunities – constantly review and adapt it

 Social media, like the rest of the web, never stands still. So keeping an eye on any new social media platforms that seem to be gathering pace and favour is a great way of staying where your customers are at.Current platforms also look set to change in the future; Twitter for example, with its acquisition of CardSpring not so long ago, is hotly tipped to start offering ‘buy through Twitter’ in 2015. Keep an eye on current trends, as well as making sure you are using your current social media platforms to their fullest…

Need any more persuading?

Social media has had proven results but it took courage and commitment, as well as conversation but there are success stories out there!

*upcoming blog in November talks about trust and how a blog may be the all-important signal that your website IS trustworthy… but is it that simple?

Shall we blog?

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Eddi_the_Jack_Russell_Terrier_puppyLike an over-excited puppy, you created a blog on your website because that is what brings traffic in (all the research said so…) and you started with gusto, creating blogs that you faithfully published every week and then…

(whistles, looks at watch)

(carries on whistling, admires hair in mirror)

…nothing.

(Disappointed sigh)

Why as a local, online business, you should be blogging

It’s all about content. It’s all about thriving and surviving in a competitive market place and even though you think that your local customers are just fab, you all need to sharing your eggs around your basket. Relying on one market for business, local or otherwise, is the ‘putting your eggs in one basket’ thing, hence where there are fluctuations in the market place they hit you hard, their impact magnified. Being in business is all about looking for the next thing, improving, creating and selling whether that is a local butchers with award winning sausages or a local foot clinic.

Your customers’ tastes change as they influenced by marketing, opinion shifts and budget constraints; they are busy people too so booking online for a foot treatment is great – unless they don’t find your website. We live in a 24 hour world, where we spend the majority of our time in front of different screens, from our smartphone to our tablet, then mooching around on the laptop for the next big thing.

But, people search the web differently too. They may think they have an ingrowing toe nail but how do you know? They hop on the web and do some research and guess what? Google (or any search engine) will note their location and you, wrote a blog or two on the perils on ingrowing toe nails. Google likes the look of your blog, as people have been reading it and liking it or sharing and guess what? Your website bobs up in front of their very eyes and, better still, they can book online and you have a new customers booked in for a consultation on Wednesday afternoon at 4.30pm.

Imagined if that happened once or twice a week; that’s 8 customers a month that you may not have had before…

“So I’m blogging for survival then?”

Sounds a bit melodramatic but yes and, well… er, no.

There are, the last time someone counted 164 million blogs – but that number has probably fluctuated up and down several zillion times since the man in the back room started his tally chart.

The vast majority of these blogs will have less than a 1,000 visitors a month and represent a disaster zone. Why?

You blog for months and months, seemingly for little reward and it is human nature that if you slog your guts out for months and months on something you find stressful and difficult, another tiny little thing to add to your already busy day, you will stop doing it. Fact.

How to avoiding failing at blogging…

Creating content it is GREAT! But do you market it?

If you don’t, you are not promoting yourself or your business hence you will not extend your readership passed you mum and your sister. Their ‘liking’ or sharing it on Twitter or Facebook is great, but you need more likes and shares and comments and readers…. So promote it!

And don’t forget it is not just promoting new blogs; promote older ones too. If there is an article in the news on the importance of cutting your toenails properly and you wrote a piece on it a few months, promote your blog with some well-placed hashtags.

You have permission to jump on the bandwagon.

You will then find, possibly, that people will read some of your other podiatry diatribes on the ingrowing toenails, bunions and athlete’s foot and learn something; people like being informed, hence your blog starts to gain authority with an increased following.

The next step is to start linking your blog with other authoritative sites; the ‘you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours approach’. Again, this is all about building a reader base so why not try your hand submitting a ‘guest post’ to another site, with a lovely link to your own blog? And then, ask someone to do the same for you – they write a post for your site, and your share links and readers back and forth.

Avoid: plagiarism and replicas

What does not go down well is nicking stuff from other people or simply writing a blog that says the same as everyone else’s. This can be a bit stuff as there is only so many ways and times you can take about a subject and, if it is current and in the news headlines then a blog on it simply adds you voice to many others.

Nicking someone’s stuff that they have possibly spent hours crafting is not only morally slightly-dodgy, but can earn you a penalty point from Google and other search engines. Before you know, your blog and website has disappeared without a trace and it is very hard to get it back in Google’s good books again.

The lesson is thus…

  • Creating content and posting it regular is great – once a week is fab
  • Promoting it via your social media platforms is also great
  • Keep promoting older blogs too
  • Advanced bloggers also look to guests posts and links with like-minded blogs and websites
  • Keep doing it!