SOCIAL MEDIA: How to make a blog work for you
Google loves fresh content and it will help your website’s search engine optimisation (SEO) and make it easier for potential customers to find you.
Sometimes bloggers claim they have nothing to blog about, and it’s easy to fall prey to writer’s block, but the truth is you have a lot to write about. So here are a few suggestions to help.
Use blog posts to inform customers about your products and services
If you are promoting a product of your own – or someone else’s – or offering any type of service, you should be using your blog to inform your customers about your products and services.
Give them more detail on the different products or advice you can offer in your specialist subject.
ALWAYS BE MARKETING
Marketing is a process that is ongoing. You should always be marketing, even when you’re telling your audience a funny story about yourself and your children. It’s a fine line, but if you don’t blog about your products, services and ideas, who will? How will your audience know that these things exist to help them solve their problems? Your blog can be a very effective form of marketing.
BLOG TO INFORM
On your blog you will attract your audience and should then encourage them to sign up for your email list. You will introduce your audience to the experts that you surround yourself with. You will inform your audience of solutions to their problems. You will promote your own and other people’s products and services because they are needed by your audience. You are doing a service for your audience and, because you’ve spent time developing trust, your audience will believe you when you explain why any particular product or service will help them.
MAKE IT EASY
You don’t want your readers to have too many questions about how to buy. As soon as they want to buy you should ensure that they can. The link should say something like Buy Now. Purchase Now, Buy Now, Add to Cart are all words that make sense. You don’t want to force people who want to buy to give too much information. They want to buy right now, not in 20 minutes after filling out a long form.
TELL A STORY
You need to talk about your products in your blog posts. Use personal stories and examples, particularly real life examples, of how someone like them has used your product or service. You can write 10 reasons why this product is perfect for you. Three examples of how this product worked for so-and-so. You can even phrase it as a warning to your audience such as: “Warning: Read this before you xyz”.
You have to find a way to connect with your audience in a personal way in order to earn attention, build trust and make a profit. Tell the story of how and why you want to promote your product. Why is this product good for your audience? How is your product different from someone else’s?
Use your blog to explain and differentiate your products, services and ideas from your competition, and be clear in your calls to action. You’ll soon get the hang of it!
BREAKING NEWS
Facebook - Two more new features for Facebook were launched in the last two weeks as it moves further into targeting businesses and building advertising revenue.
The first was Product Ads, designed to help businesses promote multiple products or their entire product catalogue, across all the devices their customers use.
The second was an App to manage your ads. The Ads Manager App allows advertisers to:
- Track ad performance
- Edit existing ads
- Edit ad budgets and schedules
- Receive push notifications
- Create ads.
Twitter - Twitter is pushing its official plugin for WordPress to optimise your website for a Twitter audience through easy to use sharing buttons, embedded Tweets, and Follow buttons to help grow your Twitter audience.
Google -In the US only at the moment, Google introduced the YouTube Kids App. This is ‘a new family-friendly app’ that makes it easy for children to explore a vast selection of videos on any topic.
