social media

Back to Blog Basics

Earlier this year I told you I was going to write my blog only twice a month. For the past year, I had published at least once a week but I wanted to carve more time to write my books and develop my business. However, I quickly discovered that not only was I not writing, but I wasn’t researching, commenting on other blogs or even tweeting about my blog. I needed to do something different.

I decided to watch a video by Michael Hyatt in which he shared 10 ways to boost blog traffic. I’d read articles or viewed videos on just this topic several times since starting my blog so I wasn’t sure what to expect.

His first tip was to write content that is worth sharing and his second was to adhere to a consistent schedule. I was struggling with both of those tips because with my new schedule I quickly realized that I would not be able to write content that was worth sharing if I only published twice a month. I wasn’t staying focused on the researching and writing with only publishing twice a month.

So, I am going to compromise and post three times each month — around the 10th, 20th and 30th. This will help me to continually seek out ideas and research, and to always be working to write fresh and — I hope — relevant content.

Another tip he shared was to make it easy to subscribe to the blog. Since I started, I’ve had a subscribe button on my page. However, I’d been making some enhancements to the blog and adding pages, and I couldn’t recall seeing the subscription button of late. When I checked it was gone. Yikes! I quickly added it, and for this reason alone it was worth it to watch the video.

Sometimes it’s good to return to the basics.

Using social media to further your passions

Author with dog

David Jensen and Layla (Photo by Cynthia Price)

David Jensen has a passion for dogs (whom he calls animal companions) and photography.

To further these passions, he turned to social media because he wanted to publish a book of dog photography but did not have the funds to do so. At the time, he wasn’t even on Facebook.

He began by setting his one, five and 10-year plans, which included raising funds to publish the book.

He knew he couldn’t just jump on Kickstarter to crowdsource funding so he began with Facebook. He quickly realized he had made a mistake when he created a personal page on Facebook instead of a business page. He has since corrected that.

Once he had the business page in place, he found it growing faster than he could have imagined. Part of that was due to the adorable images of dogs. He would post a new photo every day.

He also spends considerable time engaging with his followers. “You have to connect with your people,” Jensen said. “You need to keep it real.”

He also offers contests about three times a year. He continues to boost his Facebook page by purchasing ads, also about three times a year, which, Jensen said, is necessary to expand one’s reach.

Before long, he was ready to launch his Kickstarter campaign to raise $30,000 to print his first book. “I had to do that. I didn’t have the money.”

He used Facebook to try to focus his audience to transition to Kickstarter, where he had 60 days to complete his campaign. He knew his audience, and he had a specific goal. He found it helpful to create pledge levels with each level receiving a gift such as a signed copy of the book or a photography session.

Jensen said updating at least once a week on Kickstarter kept donors engaged. As he drew closer to the end of the campaign he tapped into social media more frequently. With Kickstarter he had to reach his full goal, or he would receive nothing.

“It all ties into people believing in you,” Jensen said. His donors believed in him because his business page on Facebook enabled them to know him.

Future of blogging

Capture2014Most people find my blog not by visiting it, but by reading it on a variety of social media sites. That’s part of the future of blogging, which is really the here and now.

Other things to consider with a blog include:

Video and image focused Visuals are powerful when used to communicate an appropriate message. According to MDGAdvertising articles with images get 94 percent more total views.

Mobile focused This is one I don’t have to worry about because my blog is hosted by WordPress, which is mobile optimized. However, if you built your own site, you need to be sure you are mobile optimized. Global Web Index found that 80 percent of internet users own a smartphone. And The Radicati Group, a technology market research firm, found that mobile devices in use, including phones and tables, will grow from more than 9.5 billion in 2015 to more than 14.8 billion by 2019

Varied content Variety is the spice of life, and that maxim holds true with blogging. I switch up my content. Sometimes I’ll summarize a workshop I attended and share key take-aways. Other times, I’ll offer a how-to guide. Sometimes, I try to be a bit more creative while still sharing communications or leadership tips.

Attention grabbing headlines I recently won a first-place award for headline writing so I must be doing something right. I try to write headlines that let you know what the topic will truly be about. Sometimes, though, my uber-creative side comes out and wants to make the reader guess as to the real subject matter. When that happens, I usually rewrite the headline. After all, the blog is for you the reader; not for me.

As for the future of this blog, I’m continuing with it. I’m also pulling together previously published posts for a book. I’ve developed a plan, and now I just need to work the plan.

Driving traffic to your blog

Field of Dreams“If you build it, they will come” works in the movie Field of Dreams, but it doesn’t work when you write a blog.

That was the advice Jeff Wilson of PadillaCRT shared with a group of PR practitioners recently.

He’s right. You can’t write a blog, post it and expect that people will find it, let alone visit it.  Recent studies show that more than 60 percent of companies have a blog. A study by IBM notes that 80 percent of companies with blogs have five posts or less. Five posts do not make a blog, nor does it entice one to come back.

I’ve written about the care and feeding of a blog. Today, I wanted to share how I go about driving traffic to my blog so that people will come to it. Heck, maybe Kevin Costner will visit my blog!

Post regularly. I’ve been writing my blog for six years, consistently posting each week. I achieve this by creating a content calendar. I go through the calendar and identify possible topics and upcoming workshops I will attend, which could provide fodder. I also schedule time to research, write and edit. I also spend time finding artwork – usually by taking photos – to illustrate the blog.

Share automatically. I have my blog set up to automatically post to my Facebook and LinkedIn accounts. If anyone comments on the blog on one of those sites, I respond. I am able to do this quickly because I have notifications turned on. Forbes reported that social media is now the number one driver of all website referral traffic based on a study by Shareaholic.

Tweet often. One advice I was given was to write five to 10 tweets for each blog post I write. My blogs are intentionally short. If I followed this advice my tweets could conceivably be longer than the original post! I do try to write three to five tweets for each post. It’s part of the writing process, and I schedule the tweets for the immediate weeks after the post has published. These tweets help me reach others who currently are not reading my blog.

Feature your blog on your website You want your readers to easily find your blog. If you are a company, the blog should feed into the main website. For me, my blog is my website, so I have enhanced the blog with additional pages that I want to share with my readers. This is important as I continue to build my coaching business.

You Can Tweet

I confess: I have had my Twitter account for five years with only an occasional tweet. I recently become more active, in part because I now help manage a Twitter account through work and also because more of my friends and colleagues are using the platform. You can follow me @PriceCynthia.

I figured a steep learning curve would await me so I signed up for an online class to learn more and quickly. If you are thinking of using Twitter or have an account – and like me – haven’t done much with it, here are a few things I’ve learned.

Twitter birdThe first thing you need to do is claim your Twitter handle. You can use your name, your company name or create something clever. Keep in mind that your handle is part of how you will brand yourself. Once you have done that, you should fill out your profile and upload an image. You should also create a Twitter background, which, if appropriate, should resemble the colors, format and logo from your personal or corporate website.

Like any communications platform, you shouldn’t use Twitter as a one-way megaphone. Instead, retweet (when you share another person’s tweet) and tweet relevant information with your followers. My friends were pleased when I shared “@Starbucks made #PSL available early.”

For those who are just learning, that line might not make sense. The @sign tags or identifies the handle of a person on Twitter. In this case, @Starbucks references the company based in Seattle. A pound sign is used to aggregate messages of a similar nature, and is known as a hashtag. My tweet with #PSL was about pumpkin spice latte. I already knew that the drink had a hashtag associated with it.

While there is a dictionary with some hashtags. You can make up your own, too. At a recent conference I attended we used the hashtag #NFPW14SC. Anyone attending the 2014 NFPW conference in South Carolina used this tag and anyone who wanted to know what was being said about the conference could search for this hashtag.

One word of caution about hashtags: Don’t overuse them as they can fragment the conversation.

Another tool to use on Twitter are lists, which are a great way to organize others into groups. You can make your lists private or public, and you can follow lists that others have already created. For example, I created a list for several publications whose content I fine useful. However, when I was following them, they were filling my Twitter feed and it was challenging to find content from others. I stopped following them and created a list. Now when I want to peruse the latest from these magazines, I check my magazine list and can find all the relevant stories.

Because tweets disappear quickly from a screen and because I don’t scroll through my feed frequently, lists are helpful for finding those who only tweet occasionally. I created a list that includes members of one of the professional groups with which I belong. This way, I don’t miss relevant posts.

I hope to see you on Twitter! If you are, feel free to post a comment with your Twitter handle.