Category: blogging
There is an art to creating brilliant blog content and video, but the real mastery lies in ensuring that content goes viral.
These insights from Jon Steinberg over at Buzzfeed offer a great starting point, so we decided to share the love.
1. Keep it short
To create viral video – think 30 seconds good, 90 seconds bad. Any longer than that and people won’t reach the end, let alone share.
2. Offer an interpersonal, human angle
People only share what they know and feel a connection with.
3. Create rough content that feels authentic
Avoid over-produced content – people prefer a behind-the-scenes feel to a slick, edited product.
4. Make it something that people can engage with
People want to engage with content, not passively consume it. Include options to upload images, create quizzes or games.
5. Offer a platform for reactions/comments
The best business blogs offer a comment system, which you should aim to build into a community with viral potential.
6. Use lists and images
Why? Simple: people love them. Try creating blog posts that are lists and make it clear in your headline (it works for us!). Images are also highly shareable. More »
Get it right, and a business blog can be the cornerstone of an effective online PR strategy, driving back traffic from social media channels such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn through calls-to-action and landing pages.
“A blog has the flexibility to produce content easily, syndicate that content through any medium using RSS, and convert that audience into customers,” adds Douglas Karr, the author of Corporate Blogging for Dummies.
Implemented incorrectly, however, a corporate blog has the potential to damage brand reputation.
In order to avoid alienating customers, bear in mind the five top mistakes to avoid when blogging:
1. Starting Without a Strategy
Don’t even think about creating a business blog without a clear plan and objective. In fact, before you get even that far, consider whether a corporate blog is the right choice for your company. Can you be transparent? Can you respond well to negativity? Can you supply a consistent flow of valuable content?
Setting up and maintaining a quality blog takes time and resources and shouldn’t be entered into lightly.
2. Making it all About Me
A business blog is not a press section – keep promotional posts to a minimum. Readers want to be offered something of value. Think of your blog as an engagement platform, rather than an advertising medium.
3. Failure to Link
Don’t be afraid to link out to external sources, and remember to always cite your sources. This is both ethical and a good way to get other blogs to link to you. And of course, maximise blog SEO by linking back to your main website wherever relevant. More »
New research has revealed the most commonly used social media marketing tactics implemented by B2B marketers.
According to a new report from MarketingSherpa, B2B marketers are responding to a rapidly changing landscape where increased expectations on marketing departments point to a marketing mix more complex than ever before.
The findings from the 2011 B2B Marketing Benchmark Report indicate that 87% of respondents say they use a branded social network (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter). The report suggests that the popularity of this tactic may be due to the ease of setting up a profile on a social network site, but warns that this tactic requires a strategy and consistent execution for good results.
Maintaining a corporate blog and microblogging were the next two most popular social media marketing tactics, with both tactics executed by 64% of B2B marketers.
Although corporate blog management was regarded as heavy on resources with the pressure of consistently creating and publishing blog posts being an issue, corporate blogging was regarded as a highly effective tactic. More »
A new survey has provided insight from CMOs on the key indicators for a successful corporate blog.
According to Fortune 1,000 companies surveyed by blog printing firm Blog2Print, and featured in eMarketer this week, nearly a quarter had a corporate blog.
When asked what made a blog great, 46% of respondents cited an ‘engaged community’ as critical – nearly double that of any other attribute.
For the survey, ‘engagement’ was represented in terms of blog posts that receive comments; therefore this suggests that the CMOs polled considered blogs most effective when they generated a lively debate rather than purely pushing content.
The second characteristic cited was daily posting with 26% of respondents regarding it important to keep the blog constantly fresh. More »
With the launch of the LinkedIn ‘Share’ button this week, corporate blog content and website articles can now be easily shared with professional networks on LinkedIn.
If you click a LinkedIn Share button on a website or blog, you will be asked to login with your LinkedIn account, and then you’ll be able to share a URL (with the network’s shortener) in your status update box.
According to Techcrunch the option to share content via a universal Share button makes sense for the network, since users already tend to share business content such as news, whitepapers and presentations with their contacts. Significantly, the button will show how many shares have been made for a particular piece of content – data which will be of particular use to publishers on the type of content that readers are sharing with their contacts.
Until recently LinkedIn has lagged behind other social networks in building connections to external sites – Facebook has its ‘Like’ button and Twitter its retweet one. The move will build on other strategies implemented by the social network this year (improved groups functionality, integration with Twitter) The Share button is part of LinkedIn’s broader strategy of bringing LinkedIn to platforms that people may use in their professional life, including Twitter and corporate blogs. More »
A recent article from eMarketer has highlighted that corporate blogs are now a key tactic in corporate marketing strategy.
Now fully integrated into the marketing mix, blogging has grown into a vital marketing tool for all types of companies. In fact eMarketer estimates that 34% of US companies will use a corporate blog for marketing purposes in 2010, a proportion that will increase to 43% by 2012.
“Businesses are increasingly using the blogosphere to further a variety of corporate functions, such as communications, lead generation, customer service and brand marketing,” said Paul Verna, eMarketer senior analyst and author of the new report “Corporate Blogging: Media and Marketing Firms Drive Growth.”
Advantages for firms implementing a blog include full control over branding and advertising and integration with all corporate websites. Studies have indicated blogging’s usefulness for lead generation. More »
Figures from the 2010 ABA Technology Survey Report show that there has been substantial growth in corporate blogging by law firms.
The US survey reveals that 30% of large law firms had blogs, compared to 18% in the 2009 survey, indicating a clear shift in attitudes towards the value in social networks. In fact 10% of respondents “had a client retain their legal services as a result of use of online communities/social networking”.
Overall 14% of law firms of all sizes reported having blogs compared to 9% in 2009. However, the Above The Law blog notes “this data seems a little skewed downwards for small firms”, due to the probability that a large law firm with many staff is more likely to have staff members involved in maintaining a blog than a small practice. More »
Figures from Forrester show that while social media demand continues to grow, the content supplying it is on the wane.
Forrester has identified several types of social media users and found that while the numbers of ‘joiners’ and ‘spectators’ are increasing, ‘creators’ are declining.
Figures for the US show that while “Joiners” (users who maintain a profile on a social networking site and visit social networking sites at least once a month) increased 8% to 59% of online consumers, “Creators” (users who publish a blog, update Web pages, upload user-generated video, or write and post content) fell 1% to 23% of online consumers in 2010.
Significantly, the percentage of “critics” (those who post ratings and reviews, comment on various blogs, and contribute to online forums) also fell, declining to 33%, from 37% over the past year.
The findings indicate a trend worldwide showing the number of “Joiners” increasing overall, with Europe, metropolitan China, and Australia registering double-digit point growth. In Europe and metropolitan China, the numbers of “Critics” remained flat or declined. Most regional markets registered increases in “Spectators”. More »
Captain’s blog, stardate 23.9.10
While the Johnny-come-latelys of online marketing -Twitter, Facebook, FourSquare have got all the attention in recent years, the blogs which often supply them – online content ‘motherships’ if you will, have quietly moved into the publishing mainstream.
A new report from eMarketer shows that 60% of the US online population will be reading blogs by 2014, a rise of 15% since 2008.
By way of contrast, over the same period, the number of bloggers has only increased by 2% to 13.3%.
This seems strange in a way, if the medium is growing in influence, why aren’t bloggers rushing to grab the opportunity to have their voice heard? The answer is probably just that is is hard to maintain a good quality blog, even for those who like writing them.
When I speak to companies about blog management, their comments often echo this – they know blogs are important but they just can’t see where the content will come from and rather than have a rubbish blog, they’d prefer to have no blog at all. More »
While growth of social media use by consumers has outstripped blogging in recent years, in the corporate world, it’s a different story, with the corporate blogging showing strong growth, according to a report in Emarketer.
“Companies are finding that blogs fill a specific niche that other forms of social media do not,” says eMarketer senior analyst Paul Verna.
Emarketer estimates that in 2010 one in three companies are using a public-facing blog for marketing purposes, forecasting a rise to 43% by 2012.
“Studies have shown that marketers perceive blogs to have the highest value of any social media in driving site traffic, brand awareness, lead generation and sales—as well as improving customer service,” said Verna.
There’s also evidence that smaller companies are faster adopters of corporate blogs than large companies.
