How often should I blog?

What’s in a blog?
 
Blogs come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. Individuals can blog their thoughts and advice; companies can use it as a diary, introducing new products, clients or events or start discussions with their readers. Some, like mine is a way to share information and knowledge.

Blogs are less formal than a website, and the personality of an individual and the culture of a company can shine through. After all, whether buying face-to-face or over the internet, people still buy from people so blogs are an ideal way to build rapport and start conversations with your target markets.

How often shall I blog?
How often you blog really depends what you want to get out of it and the resources you have to write it and keep it updated.

 Individual Blogs 
 If your blog just to share your personal thoughts, then there are no hard and fast rules – in other words, blog as and when you feel the urge!

Business BlogsCompany blogs however, do need consistency and regular entries. In effect, your blogs are like another website, and an additional opportunity for their keywords are picked up by the search engine spiders, helping prospective clients and current customers to find you and click-through to your website.

Keeping up the momentum
I decided that my company's marketing mix needed at least 1 blog posts per month, to tie in with our newsletter and the regular talks I give at different events, exhibitions etc.

Now, at this point you are probably glancing at my blog history and thinking, "Hmm, good intentions, but you had rather a gap until earlier this year!"

Well, here is where I hold my hands up – I’d unconsciously slipped into the 'I'll do it tomorrow' habit as so many people do when things get really busy... clients come first and our own marketing has taken a bit of a back seat.

Whilst the odd blip short term is OK, longer term, our lack of focus on this part of our marketing means that we have been missed by potential clients who looking for the type of information I can give them.

I still believe that my blogs, and sharing my knowledge and information through them is a major part of Sookias Media's marketing. So having slipped for a while, I have reminded myself to follow the Top 5 Tips for successful blogging that I give to our digital PR clients.

5 Top Tips for Successful Blogging

1. Decide your strategy. In other words, how are you going to use your blog? Is it for personal thoughts, as a promotional diary, for sharing thoughts and knowledge, etc?
2. Decide how often you will blog. Be realistic here. It is better to decided on 1 blog per month and achieve that, than trying to blog once a day and losing momentum after the first week.
3. Keep a list of blog ideas. I have inspiration at the most unusual times and places. By writing them down means you will remember them – it is so much easier to write a blog when you don’t need to think about what to write first. Also, ask clients and prospects what subjects they would like to read about and incorporate them as part of your sales process.
4. Set time aside to work on your blog. Write several posts in one sitting. Then, publish one and set the others to be automatically posted at later dates and times.
5. Let people know when you have posted a new blog – add a comment on your website, send a tweet, publish a message on Facebook and include it in your LinkedIn status. Make sure your blog allows people to subscribe to an RSS feed so they can choose to be informed of your updates automatically.

Happy blogging!

For more information on how blogs can work for your business, contact us today on +44 1283 808460 or email hello@sookiasmedia.com. www.sookiasmedia.com

The Unwritten Rules of Social Media - part 1

So you want to use social media, but like any community, there are unwritten rules. In this series we unravel what these are and how to use them to your advantage.

Unwritten Rule #1 - Use the Right Profile Picture

Profile pictures or avatars are important on social media sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Myspace as they show others who you are. Mine is shown here.

Admitedly there aren't many other people called Hannah Sookias in the world, but a profile picture is important even when there is little chance of mistaken identity.

Ultimately, people like people. Your pages will seem much more personable to the reader and encourage them to connect and interact with you.

A nice, close-up photo is best and if you are using the profile for business, avoid ones that involve you partying!

Top Tip!

I am often asked whether to use logos or people photos on sites such as Twitter and Facebook business pages.

If the business page is for a large organisation, or several people maintain its updates, then I suggest you use the company logo. However, if it is your own company or a smaller enterprise, I'd still recommend a photograph.

Next time: Unwritten Rule #2 - How to write updates

How can social networking help my business?

Let's start with another question:

What do most people do first when they are looking for information?

Yes, you guessed it – they search the internet using sites such as Google, Yahoo and AOL. Using blogs, social networking sites, digital PR and e-marketing in your business will give you:

• More opportunities to be found on-line by potential customers when using search engines


• Additional links and entry points into your website


• The ability to give useful information that can be used in their decision making process


• The opportunity for third party recommendations and reviews


• The ability to engage and converse with customers throughout their buying process and life as a customer.

Social networking (using sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube) allow you to converse with people interested in the products and services you offer and help you to answer their questions, increase your brand awareness and build their trust in your company.

They can also help to boost your search engine rankings as you will be piggy-backing on the social networking sites’ search engine optimisation (SEO) activities.

For example, uploading a video onto YouTube, then embedding it onto your own site helps people to see what you do as a company as well as giving them more opportunities to find you (because YouTube is checked more regularly by Google than your own site will be).

A mention of a new video on your blog, Facebook page and Twitter feed will also encourage people to take a look.

Best of all, you will be able to see which social media sites are best at attracting business, by looking at your website’s analytics to see how people are accessing your site.

It is important to remember that for digital PR to be effective, it must be planned into your marketing mix, just like any other form of promotion. That way, your messages will be consistent and more effective as the traditional and new media promotions will boost and build upon each other.

Want to know more? Please feel free to call me on +44 (0)1283 808460 or email me for a copy of our Beginners’ Guide to Social Media.

The Write Solution provides digital PR packages, social media consultancy and training to help you identify which sites to use, how to plan social media into your marketing and enable it to work for you.

I look forward to speaking with you,

Hannah

Hannah Sookias The Write Solution Tel: 01283 808460

http://www.copywritingandpr.com/

Digital PR - Blog Writing - Social Media Training - Articles - Features - Public Relations

A Beginner’s Guide to Social Media

What is Social Media?
Social media is the group name for websites that offer interaction between users.
They include blogs, message boards and sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube.

Why should I bother?
Social Media is a way for people to talk to each other in a way that has never been possible before.

Here are some facts:

• Over 100million videos are viewed every day on YouTube


• Facebook has over 250 million active users


• 3,000,000 messages are sent each day via Twitter


• Over 1,000,000,000 links to blog posts, web links, news stories, photos and notes are shared on Facebook each week.

Even if you think you’ve never used social networking, you probably have by reading a blog or watching a video from a Google search...

How Can Social Media Help My Business?
Social media gives you the opportunity to build your brand. It gives you interaction with your existing clients and potential customers. Most importantly, it gives you a way of talking with them, rather than at them.

It’s like networking, but on-line.

You’ll discover new ways to promote your business and the opportunity to increase your ranking on Google and other search engines. It can help you with PR, customer service, loyalty-building, collaboration, networking, thought-leadership and customer acquisition.

The Rules1. Listen
Just listen and observe. Research who is out there and who you want to reach. Join sites you are interested in but sit on your hands and resist the urge to start straight away. Good news travels fast... bad news (or comments) travel even faster!

2. Plan
Decide how you are going to use Social Media and work out the time and resources you will plough into it. If you need help, ask for it...

3. Engage
Think conversation not sales pitch. Even on the internet, people buy from people. Let your prospective clients get to know you and your thoughts and don’t start shouting your sales pitch as it just won’t work.

4. Measure & Review
Like all marketing, you need to know it is giving you a return on investment. Analyse website traffic, enquiries etc to see what works and don’t assume that social media will be the answer to everything!

Summary
Social media is here to stay, but without a plan of how we are trying to use it within our marketing mix, it is easy to waste our time and money. However, by putting together a clear plan of who we are trying to target, with which medium and defined messages can help you to interact with clients and potential customers to strengthen your brand and grow your business.

Many businesses I know have begun their social media experience by 'dipping a toe in the water'. And with training in how to plan their use of the different sites appropriate to their business (and in some cases, help writing blogs and posts) have grown its use so that it is now an integral part of their marketing.

If you would like any further advice, do give me a call for a no-obligation chat about using social media in your business - I look forward to hearing from you!

Hannah

Hannah Sookias
Sookias Media  Tel: 01283 808460 www.sookiasmedia.com
Digital PR - Blog Writing - Social Media Training - Articles - Features - Public Relations