blogging

#35 – Blogging for Business

Maggie Patterson is the chief marketing officer at Scoop Industries. She works with female entrepreneurs and online businesses helping them grow their business. She’s passionate about women taking control of their economic reality. Maggie believes blogging is a great place for business owners to market themselves and support their business goals.

Why should a business owner have a blog?

Business owners need a blog to speak to the people who want to do business with them. A business blog is a business owner’s opportunity to speak to the pain points of their customers.

Do you have to blog every day?

You can blog every day, but writing and posting a blog post is about 70% of the puzzle – the other part is getting it seen and shared. You want your great content to be read (and not just about your mom), so you need to not only publish it, but also promote it!

What’s a common business blog mistake?

A common mistake business owners make is starting to blog way too late in the process. If you’re going to blog there should be a strategy behind it that is supporting your business goals. So, if you have a goal to grow your product revenue in your shop by 10%, then your blog should support that goal with relevant content.

If you aimlessly write blog posts, chances are you will end up frustrated and unsure of whom you are talking to. Get clear on your goals and your audience before you start writing content for your website - this betters your chances of creating content that resonates with readers.

What are the steps to starting a business blog?

Before getting into content, you:

1)   Know who you are writing for! Who are your target audience? Who is your ideal client? Find out what they are motivated by, what is going on and what are they thinking about? You can find this out by talking to current clients and finding out more about them.

2)   Plan to be consistent with your content. You have a better chance of being memorable if you have a steady set of values that shines through your blog posts. Why are people seeking out the information they are? Remember what you’re selling and write about that and explain to your reader how you can help them.

You can even start with the questions your clients commonly have for you or the obstacles you regularly face in your business. This also makes sure your content has longevity and continually sharable.

3)   Establish your goal. Before you start writing ask yourself: why are you blogging? What are your goals for your blog and your business? And then keep this mind when producing content for your website.

What is a common blogging roadblock for business owners?

Business owners worry they don’t have anything worthy to say. They question their authority on subjects, but you know more than you think you know. Have confidence!

Don’t think of your blog as just a written form. Think of it visually as well, use headings, subheadings and engaging signature images. These extra touches will make your blog post stand out that much more.

Remember that people need text to be broken up and easy to skim. The more condensed text you have, the less likely people are to read it.

Most people are not writers, but unless you are in a super technical field or super professional you do not need to have highbrow writing. While you should always proof read and spell check, feel free to use simple language. People do no have time to look up word definitions.

You don’t have to find your voice – you just have to turn it on!

You can also outsource your writing or editing – even if it is just a second set of eyes to read what you have written to avoid mistakes (but they happen – no one is perfect!).

#25 - Simple Digital Marketing Tips with Rebecca Stanisic

Planning, blogging, email marketing, Facebook, Instagram and content creation –these are topics familiar to myself and this week’s guest, Rebecca Stanisic from A Little Bit of Momsense. You may remember Becky from episode 19 where we discussed how to create engaging online content for your community. It was through this discussion as well as many coffee dates that Becky and I decided to put together a one day live Digital Content Framework Planning Day on May 5th in Ottawa, Ontario.

Create Digital Content: A Framework Planning Day

The Framework Planning Day will focus on blogging, Facebook, Instagram and content creation – with the idea that attendees will leave with the ability to create a digital content plan and with content ideas and a plan they can put into action right away.

Here is some of what we will be discussing:

Planning Tips

One of Becky’s biggest planning tips is to utilize any common planning tools available – for her it is a Google calendar and physical planner. She uses her Google Calendar to input and keep track of deadlines. She also inputs fake deadlines that act as a reminder i.e., if she has not started a project by such-and-such a date, she is reminded by a pop-up reminder on her smartphone, computer or tablet that she needs to start now. This allows her to effectively plan her work days.

Another planning tool Becky uses is a physical planner in which she also inputs daily deadlines and events in a way that shows her what her week looks like. This allows her to easily say yes or no to last minute opportunities as they arise.

I use goals – and not just the goal to make more money. I write out specific goals in my planners and calendars. Think about what your specific goals are. These goals could be growing your mailing list by a certain number by a specific date or getting a certain number of likes on your Facebook page by a specific date. By writing these specific goals out or inputting them in a digital calendar, it will keep you accountable. These goals can then help with what content you want to share and create online.

Blogging Tips

Becky built her business around her blog. One of her blogging tips is to write in drafts. This helps get content out there even on days when your creative inspiration is at a minimum. Write out your ideas in drafts and then they will always be there for you when you need them.

My blogging tip has to do with format. Make sure your blog posts can be easily skimmed. Readers are often overwhelmed at the amount of online content available to them, so sometimes a quick read is what they are looking for. You can make your blog 'skimmable' by adding an image, and using headings and subheadings. The use of headings gives readers the outline of your blog and they can then decide whether or not they want to read further. Images and headings also increase your search engine optimization (SEO).

Email Newsletter Tips

As an avid newsletter reader, Becky prefers nuggets of information with links and images she can click that redirects her if she wants more information. Doing this drives traffic back to your website, which is your ultimate goal.

Many businesses and bloggers have a tendency to think they don’t need to send newsletters frequently and then when they do send them, their newsletter is jam packed with too many articles, images and news. Newsletters should be as brief, therefore instead of sending your newsletter quarterly, try sending bits of information once a week or even bi-weekly; send less information more frequently versus sending a lengthy email every three months.

Social Media Tips

According to Becky, businesses and bloggers need to pay attention to Facebook and Instagram for sales conversions. Curate your content based on your followers or who you follow. Constantly paying attention to your followers and those who follow people similar to you, helps you find potential new relationships and find new people you may be interested in learning more about. Doing this creates a rich feed that will tie into quality content that you can then share with your readers. 

Facebook, and soon Instagram, rely on engagement in order to show more people what you post. A common question I get is how to get people to engage with content. My main piece of advice is to ask simple questions. Keep your questions simple so that people can answer without thinking. Your goal is to get people talking and simple questions are the most effective way to do that. Once people get used to engaging with your content they may be more inclined to consistently engage.

Content Curation Tips

Finding good content does not mean finding and sharing viral content because there is no guarantee that it will do well on your page. Instead find content that is equally or more interesting and share that – become a leader in sharing things that are new and different.

Look for content by looking at your stats; where are people coming from? Are there certain social media posts that were popular and drove people to your website? Find similar content to those posts and share them.

Think about what you want people to know. Keep your content in line with what you want people to know about you and your business.

 

Becky and I will be digging deeper into these tips and sharing much more in our live one day Content Planning Framework Day on May 5th. If you’re in the Ottawa area we hope to see you there!