Telegram- the secure messaging platform, now allows you to publish stories online without you having to register for an account. This lightweight blogging platform is easy to access and all one needs to do is visit telegra.ph, add a title, and start blogging. Formatting, editing, and other tasks can easily be managed with Markdown. #cms
There is a lot of noise out there, with blogs becoming the norm for every company to reach their target audience, and also to boost traffic to the website. There is also a lot of noise originating on social media, with every company making claims and with people talking about these companies too, without much basis or evidence. Some rate certain products and services highly and some, poorly. Yet, one can never tell if these reviews, blogs, or social conversations are unbiased or if they come with certain shady intentions. Nevertheless, if you are selling genuine products and services, there is a way to reach new customers amidst all this online noise. The main modus operandi is to persist. Persistence pays off very well, especially when it comes to remaining online, and remaining relevant. Companies that are looking at making a quick buck will usually lose interest in blogging or in social media campaigns, which need to be ongoing and relevant throughout. These companies often tend to be erratic and sometimes even dramatic, when it comes to posting online. Much of online noise is from companies like this. On the other hand, genuine companies that really want to inform their target audience and still reach new customers tend to be persistent with their content marketing efforts. This is because; they truly have something lasting to contribute. To reach new customers online despite the noise, here is what you should be doing: [php snippet=1] Slow and steady wins the race When it comes to content marketing, you need to be slow and steady. What does this mean? Should you post 4 blogs a month or 8? Or should you post 20 blogs a week? The answer really depends on your ability and also, what you can provide to the community. If you run out of topics or information related to your product or service, you will not have much useful content to write after a while. So, probably, it is a good idea to remain slow and steady, and publish as much content is required. This could be anywhere between 4 and whatever number you would like to publish. Just ensure that you can blog for years, and not weeks or months. Be patient and persistent Rome wasn’t built in a day. Likewise, your content marketing strategy cannot be solidified within a month or two. It takes time to get the strategy going, and it takes even longer to see the results. However, when you start seeing organic traffic coming your way, you will realize that your efforts are well worth it. However, you need to be patient and persistent in your approach. With patience, you will research better, publish more often without feeling pressurized and you will be able to publish regularly, instead of going on an overdrive and then not publishing at all. Do your research Before publishing any blog or post, you need to research your topic well. Most blogs published today are not well researched, and they are simply published to generate traffic. You should not publish anything with traffic in mind. You should consider every content piece of yours to be a sales document, which will last for a long time. This requires a lot of research. Put together resources, studies, numbers etc before you publish a post. Develop a content niche You cannot possibly publish blogs on all topics related to your field. You should not be doing that anyway, as that will likely seem like noise to your readers. The more general your topics are, the more chances of your message getting diluted. You need to find that sweet spot where you do not come across as a person with an obsession for topic specificity, and at the same time, you do not become so vague that your message is lost. Be genuine in your communication There is nothing worse than inauthentic messages and blogs. You need to develop your own voice and provide content that is engaging. Engage with your readers in a manner that is authentic and honest. Do not communicate in a manner that does not come across as genuine. Being genuine helps you to connect with readers, and they will be more amenable to receiving your sales message. After all, you need to be making those sales happen at the end of a content marketing campaign. And, content marketing campaigns do not end. They go on. The take home message As you can see, online noise can be a very annoying problem to handle. There are a number of companies out there, all trying to create a buzz about their own products and services. With so much of noise online, it becomes difficult for you to stand out, yet, all is not lost. Most of the companies tend to be either creating noise for the sake of attention or for the sake of grabbing as many customers as possible. The good news is, content marketing is not something that will pay off dividends overnight. It needs a slow and steady approach. If you have a genuine product or service, you can be persistent with your content marketing strategy and remain relevant for a long time. The take home message is that you should be slow and steady with content marketing efforts and that you should not look for quick results. You must be patient and persistent, and always look towards creating content assets that will last for years and that which will remain relevant even after a long time. Before publishing anything online, do your research. Ensure that all your content is backed or supported by research. Do not create content that is only remotely connected with your actual product or service. Find your niche and develop content that is relevant. In other words, develop a niche. Most importantly, be as honest and genuine as you can be, when you communicate with readers and followers. This will help you to stand out from the rest of the noise online.
Companies have objectives which invariably impact every aspect of their blog. A business blog has different goals to fulfil. These may include building the brand, expanding business reach or supporting sales. However, to accomplish such goals, it is imperative to ensure that the blog is in line with your company/brand. But how do you initiate it? The foremost important thing is to measure its effectiveness on your business and audience engagement. This is referred as Marketing Performance Measurement. The metrics include indicators of the efficiency of your content supply chain. Although there are enough tools to measure your blog’s effort, it is more important to know –  What to measure?  How to measure?  What to do with the data once they’re uncovered? Before you start analyzing your metrics, here are the four most important grounds to measure first: Production of Content   This metrics will help you to manage the –  Number of blog posts planned, in the process and ready to be published  Frequency of blog posts posting  Average time to and from the idea to the publication of a blog post  Total costs involved in the production, promotion and distribution Outlining Creative Elements You tasks include-  Determine who will write the post  Ensure the blog has one consistent voice  Verify whether the content tells a story, be contextually relevant, have a point of view and sound like a real person  Check there isn’t any grammatical error  Test the color scheme, typography, post length and use of other media  Develop an editorial calendar Performance of the Content The metrics should cover  Social media link shares, likes and tweets  Unique visitors, number of page views and average time on site  Page depth and session duration  Number of visits, bounce rate, percentage of return visitors, page per visit Marketing Pipeline  You need to monitor  New leads generated and existing leads touched  Percent and money value opportunity generated, touched and won  Return on investment Here are the blogging metrics you should measure every month to best gauge the success of your blog Clicks – How Often and How Much If lead generation and how much revenue gained are your top priority, you need people to find and engage with your content. Measuring clicks provide directions to a marketer. They are the greatest indicator of who is clicking, from where they’re clicking, whether your topics are resonating with your audience and how well your post is performing in the search engines. For instance, HubSpot, marketing automation software can give you a better understanding of who is clicking and where specific clicks are coming from. Similarly, clicks on and around a publish date give you an insight into how well your posts are resonating with the target audience. You may also include a Call-To-Action button in your blog content. You can use it as a means to promote your other blog post offers and track how effective your blog is at generating leads. However, put something valuable within the CTA to inspire readers to click on it. Inbound links –  More Inbound Links Indicate Higher Rank in Search Engines If you make it a point to link other’s valuable content in your own blog post, they would also reciprocate the same in their content. It helps with your ranking on search engines. This is an indication that others have found your content helpful enough to link to it on their own website. You can use Google Analytics, Open Site Explorer, Backlink Watch or SEO profiler to measure inbound links in content. Blog Search Performance The foremost ways to measure the performance of your blog is to find out How many visitors your blog is attracting? The number will indicate how successful you are at attracting visitors to your website. You get measurements of total visitors, new visitors, return visitors and direct visitors. Google Analytics will take you a step further. This Analytical tool will show you the types of visitors viewing your blog. What is the number of subscribers to your blog? People subscribe to high-quality content. Subscribers will promote your brand and also lead to product purchases and event participation. Tools like Spring Metrics or Google Analytics helps you to measure the total number of feed subscribers. How do the visitors behave? Tool like CrazyEgg measures the user behaviour and interactions.  You get detail data about how visitors interact with the information on your page, what they actually do, how far do they scroll and at what place they stop viewing or deciding to leave comment, make a purchase or subscribe. Social Shares Take the time to discover what factors cause readers to share your post. Indeed, social media buttons on your blog post pages are a direct indicator of the level in which people find your content helpful. Research and studies show that readers share content that-  Induces happiness  They found quite valuable  Are helpful to others Social analytics tools like Open Site Explorer is effective in measuring the volume of social shares any blog post on your website is generating. With each click of the social media button, you’ll receive confirmation that readers enjoyed your content and was engaged with it. A successful content strategy is aligned with measuring the revenue generated from it. This is simple if your blog posts are aligned with the premium content like eBooks that are confirmed ways to bring in business. You may also find several free analytical tools that will help you measure the impact of your blog on the business.
Whether it’s blogging about leaders or blogging about your favorite food joints, writing great stories and publishing them in your blog does not carry any value until they are exposed to the outer world. Do you know blogging can do a lot of your marketing effort? It can drive traffic to your website and help you capture leads. Provided you know the right ways, it can expand your reach to an extended network of individuals. Your blog can help you connect with people without spending any additional marketing dollars. All you need is a right strategy and not luck as many believe. Today’s blog post aims at focusing on your efforts to gain attention of people and help you to grow your blog. Quality is the King A blog post may contain 2,000 words or 4,000 words. Well, that’s quite a lot of text. To add to this, it should also have screenshots and images. However, only if the content has valuable information to impart, you’re bound to get traffic on a consistent basis. Most importantly, consider writing the hot topic of discussion in an extremely detailed manner so that no one dares to copy you. But of course, editing remains a crucial part. Conversational Tone of Writing By making your blog post sound like conversation, instead of an essay, you’re actually inviting more audience to read your content and encouraging them to comment naturally. The simple ways to bring in a conversational tone is by: Using ‘you’ and ‘I’ within your content Keeping the paragraphs short and to the point Using common words Asking questions in your blog post and solving readers’ problems Respond and Build a Fan Base If you’re thinking that why would anyone want to be your fan, you need to immediately stop thinking that way. Reciprocate and build your blog fan base. How often do you reply back to the comments on your blog? Comments are a great way to increase your readers’ loyalty. If people comment on your blog on a consistent basis, it means they’re reading your content and they’re more likely to share it via social platforms. Also when your readers email you, are you taking out the time to email them back? If not, it’s high time you start caring about your readers and help them as far as possible. They’ll certainly come back. Syndicate Your Content to Third Party Publications Third party sites are usually cited by a variety of people quite frequently. Therefore, syndicating your content to these sites will have a higher likelihood of getting more social shares. These sites can better expose your company, links, name and thought leadership to a wider spectrum of audience and turn steer more people back to your own site. However, you need to find sites that have high traffic and social sharing numbers and whose subject matter is relevant to your brand and content strategy. Promote Your Content The best way to grow your blog audience is to promote your content through different channels. Do not stick only to social media to share your post. You may email your list and reach out to influencers in your niche or pin the shares of your post either in your Facebook page or Twitter profile. You can also use social media advertising to promote shares of your blog post. Content Publication on a Consistent Basis Writing one or two content a month can never increase your fan base. It is important to write and publish content on a consistent basis. One blog post should get published at least once a week. If your readers are expecting a new article every week, don’t disappoint them. Give them the confidence that if they visit your blog, they’ll be greeted with a new content. Use Forums Forum like Quora is an effective way to drive relevant and targeted traffic to your blog. Search for questions and topics relevant to the subject matters you had covered and answer them with valuable information. If possible, add a link back to your appropriate blog post. Remember not to include a link forcefully. This helps establish you and your blog as a trustworthy and useful source of information. Link Other Relevant Sites to Your Own Post Readers, bloggers and even search engines appreciate valuable links. When your own material in-content are referred in such a way that is not manipulative, you automatically draw visitors to your content. Besides, it is always valuable to refer content of others, especially, the high quality sites and great content. When the site owners get to see that you’ve linked to their content, they’ll also reciprocate in the future. Guest Blogging Another best way to get your name or company’s name in front of a broader section of audience is through guest blogging. Make a list of relevant blogs who have the best crossover with the audience that you’d like to connect with. Now, start reaching out to the bloggers or editors who are most willing to accept high quality, free content on their site. Pitch in the specific blog topic ideas in your first inquiry email. Send a brief synopsis of what you’d write about. However, make sure you write all original content for any guest posting you do. Build a Strong Social Media Profile There are tons of social media networks that you could potentially use to market your blog. Most of the social media channels also have paid options that allow you to market to targeted individuals. Promote the best work through paid amplification including PPC, influencer outreach, social ads and different social networks. Community building is an art, what works for one community may not work for another one. Therefore keep engaging and optimizing your social efforts for the best outcomes. There is no rocket science behind growing your blog traffic. A few simple strategies should be able to get you visitors more than you expect in a month. So, why not give it a shot?
Every company needs to have a blog and perhaps if every individual had a blog of their own, things would be much better. A blog allows visitors to gain insight into a corporation’s or an individual’s mind and help visitors in accessing material that may otherwise be lost in time and space. However, both individuals and companies should avoid generic blogs that do not have a direction. Instead, by identifying niche categories and topics that are relevant to a corporation’s services and products, or an individual’s profession and business interests, one can set up niche blogs that help companies and individuals towards becoming thought leaders in their identified areas. To maintain a niche blog is not an easy task, and it requires an incredible amount of discipline, effort and expertise. Here are some tips that help businesses and individuals to achieve success with their niche blogs. Identify and Justify your Niche It is very important for companies and individuals to identify particular niche areas that interest them. These topics are subjects should always be related to one’s profession or products & services that they may offer. By choosing particular areas of interest, one can make sure that blog posts do not digress from the original niche. This helps readers to identify your blog with a particular niche area and visit umpteen times for information, updates and in-depth opinion. Niche blogs are driven by expert opinions and thus it is very important to choose topics in which you have considerable expertise. Once niche areas are identified, it is necessary to justify the choice of these topics with valid and reliable facts. These may come in the form of level of expertise, marketing plans, future professional development and business goals. Observational Learning, Modeling and Applying Bloggers need to observe other people’s writing and blog posts as well. In fact, psychological theories of observational learning are extremely important in the field of blogging. Only when a blogger observes other blogs will he know how to choose topics, work with the flow of a blog post and ultimately provide expert opinion to his readers. It is advisable to make a list of blogs and authors who write about the niche areas that you have chosen. Once you make a list, you could choose to actively observe them, by trying to communicate them with the help of social media or commenting on your model’s posts. Modeling must not be understood as copying. Modeling is again a psychological term that denotes the process of learning from those who we identify as worthy enough. Niche blogs and subject matter experts may be studied, observed, modeled and their qualities may be modified to suit the needs of your niche blog. Layout, content, style of writing, presentation of topics and frequency of posts may all be observed and modeled. By observing and modeling one may also break from existing norms and do something more radical. The more radical and controversial your niche blog will be, the more traffic it will attract. Research, Learn and Contribute In order to become a thought leader in the identified niche, you would need to read white papers, research documents, blogs, books or just about anything that would help you to know your topic well. Only when you know your niche topics well enough will you be able to write about it expertly. Only when you write with an expert’s knowledge will you be able to hold the interest of knowledgeable readers, who will help you sustain your blog in the long run. Moreover, if you do not have a keen interest in your chosen topic, you probably would not be able to blog in a sustained and long-term manner. Planning and Setting Attainable Goals A niche blog requires a lot of discipline, tenacity, perseverance and effort from your side. You would need to become clear about every nook and corner of your niche area and chart a plan for writing content accordingly. You must identify your target audience and stay tuned to the latest happenings in the area. Do not expect to write unrealistic number of blog posts. It is simply not possible. Instead, have a realistic goal of a few posts per week, depending on how much time you can devote. Surprise yourself and Your Readers Niche blogs have the capacity to go viral, solely because no one else is writing about those topics. It is in your interest to be unpredictable but relevant, random but structured, shocking yet informative, controversial but never offensive. Surprise yourself with occasional posts that may stir up a controversy. Controversial topics lead to comments, discussions and footfalls. Readers love to visit blogs that have an alternative view to existing beliefs and ideas. Finally, after following these 5 topics, you must never lose interest in your original goals and must continue to carve a niche for yourself in the identified niche topic. Originality, unconventional ideas and opinions, discipline and hard work will take you a long way in your quest to becoming a thought leader.
