Blogging 101 – Should it be a blog post? |  |
- Blogging 101 – Should it be a blog post?
- How to run a blog schedule
- Instagram ads: How this new commercial opportunity can inspire marketing efforts
| Blogging 101 – Should it be a blog post? Posted: 13 Aug 2015 01:00 AM PDT After conducting a fair number of content audits in my time, I feel that the time has come to speak out about company blogs at their very best and worst. Over the next few months I'll be taking you through some blogging basics, starting today with the question: "should it be a blog post?" Introduction to blogging for businessThere are so many resources online about why your business should be publishing content on a blog, like this one from Hubspot. Generally the advice is that blogging helps you to do one (but hopefully more than one) of the following:
Yay! I love all of these things and I'm sure you do too. Why wouldn't you want more traffic and conversions? Unfortunately it's very much a case of "easier said than done". The concept of a having a blog is simple, but actually carrying out the work can be quite difficult. Where do you even begin when it comes to creating a blog? A question that clients often ask me is "what should we write about?" something which should never be an easy question to answer; a blog needs a content strategy just as much as any other area of a company website. Not only that but a blog also needs governance in terms of who will be responsible for writing, editing and keeping it up to date. Running a blog isn't something to be taken lightly as there is plenty of investment time needed. It's when these considerations aren't taken into account that issues start to occur with company blogs. So let's work together to try and improve things for you, starting with which kind of content you want to publish. Writing text based contentThe company news updateWe all love to shout about the awesome things we're doing as businesses, but think about how relevant this is going to be for your audience. Some sites do an excellent job of sharing their news, but others fail due to the lack of relevancy and depth. Put it this way, do you spend your time reading mundane posts online that make little difference to your life? It's doubtful. But you might read a post about a company news update if you find out your favourite shop will soon be opening in your town, or if you hear about a new product launch. Where they really belong: you might want to consider that this type of post might be better placed in a press release or media centre area on your website. Charity work updateIt's wonderful to do charity work as a business, and of course you'll want to share the positive stories with your customers and wider audience. The only thing with this is that you can end up having a lot of posts saying much of the same. I recently audited a company blog and found a lot of charity work posts amongst their really insightful industry news. The main issue was that the content on the pages was really thin, often under 100 words in length, and the URLs were also virtually identical if a charity event took place annually. Where they really belong: social media platforms are perfect for this type of content as you can share your news and updates in a more informal setting, and also engage with people who have helped your charitable work. Adding media based contentImages of team activitiesCompany team building days, nights out and Christmas parties – all of these are events where it's likely that many photos will be taken. Despite the protests of some team members, it's also likely that these photos will end up on the internet in some way or form.
The question is where should they go? It's true that pictures of the team away from their desks brings a sense of personality to the business, but it's important to remember tone in the grand scheme of things. Where they really belong: with Flickr and Instagram around, there are plenty of great social networks specifically designed for sharing images online. VideosThe same goes for videos. Usually any corporate videos would work their way onto a resource or “about us” page on the main website and not the blog. This might be different if the blog post is a little more informal and the video is catered to this – perhaps it could demonstrate users interacting with the product, or perhaps one of your team has presented at a seminar or conference and you want to show people that you are a source of authority. However if you’re going ultra-casual and you’re thinking about posting a video of someone spinning around on their office chair or something else less relevant to your audience, try a tailored social media platform instead. Where they really belong: Vine, Instagram, and YouTube all have potential here depending on the length of your videos. YouTube can be a good starter home for your content that you could embed into a blog post if it ends up being something of great interest to your audience. Hopefully you now have a better idea of what type of content to avoid on your company blog. Of course that’s not to say you shouldn’t include anything that gives you personality, just think about where the best home is for the type of content you have at hand. By doing this you might just find that you start building communities in other areas of the web, and you will also help to keep your website free of bloat. After all, who wants to find a load of old image URLs causing a mass of 404 response code errors in Google Search Console? Not me! The post Blogging 101 – Should it be a blog post? appeared first on White.net. |
| Posted: 10 Aug 2015 05:00 PM PDT I go on the internet quite a lot. I go on the internet everyday in fact. Whilst on the internet I use my skills of observation to look at what is out there. In an un-scientific study, I've concluded that 98% of the internet can be broken down into two broad categories: naughty websites and blogs. Sometimes the two categories merge, but let's ignore that for now. What this means is that if you want to launch (or revive) a blog (or a naughty website for that matter), you are going to need a plan. As the cliche goes, failing to plan is planning to fail. If the internet generated dust you'd probably find plenty of it hanging around on blogs. So, today I want you to decide to keep your blog dust free. Get your marigolds on, pull your socks up and get ready to sort your blog out. Take simple stepsBlogs can be written by a single person or a team of people; either way, you are going to need a schedule to keep things on track. The first thing I normally do is decide on a publishing schedule, so I suggest you do that too. Weekly, monthly, daily, whatever, I don't really mind, it's up to you. Decide now… OK, so you've made a decision, now you need to set some goals. Goals for publishing work best when they involve taking simple, easy to achieve steps. Think of it like this; if your only goal is to publish a blog post by a chosen date, you are left with a rather large end goal to aim for. If, instead you break the large goal down into smaller tasks with their own deadlines, you are more likely to hit the desired end goal (publishing the post). I recommend you break your schedule down into the following three milestones: 1. Submit an ideaYou can't publish a blog post until you have written it, and you can't start writing it until you've come up with an idea. I suggest you start here. Coming up with an idea is the most important part of the process and by separating it into its own deadline you are guiding your writers to focus on the idea instead of moving into the writing stage too quickly. Once a writer has submitted an idea there is a high chance that they have committed to the process early on, therefore reducing the chances of them giving up on writing the post. 2. Submit a draft version of your postAnother common issue I've seen when working on publishing schedules is that writers are often very keen to work on the final version of their post. Slow down there skippy. Don't run before you can walk. Accept the fact that you are going to make mistakes. That's fine, we all need to go through various iterations of things we are working on. Make sure your team of writers know that the work they submit to the editor for proof-reading/feedback should be considered a draft, and nothing more. It'll mean that changes will be seen as a positive, they will improve the post. It's also easier to relax into writing something when you know that it is a draft. If your writer is relaxed about the process they are less likely to miss the deadline. 3. Publish postThe post has been written (in draft form), the editor has read it and suggested some improvements, the writer has responded by submitting something even better. Guess what comes next? Publish the post. Bonus – Don't schedule too far into the futureI use a schedule like the one I've described above to keep this blog (white.net/blog/) moving. The three key deadlines are split by a week each: Week one – submit idea I schedule every writer's next deadline, which covers about five weeks. I don't go further than that. Things have a habit of changing, and if that change means that the schedule needs to move for multiple people that can cause problems. Before you know it writers are getting lost, things are going wrong, deadlines are being missed, there's smoke coming out of the building and a picket line has formed outside the car park. Don't let that happen. Make it visibleThe next challenge when developing a publishing schedule is to ensure that everyone involved in the process is able to see what is coming next. I've seen a number of publishing schedules which, although highly organised, completely fail to keep the entire team updated on who is writing what, and when. If you haven't got visibility, your process is hard to see and therefore hard to understand. If something is harder to understand than it needs to be, there's a high chance the people it affects will lose energy in trying to keep up with it. There are a couple of ways to remedy this: KanbanKanban is a system that can be used to improve visibility. It was developed by Toyota in Japan and is a key part in helping the car manufacturer to deliver vehicles 'just in time' (JIT). The idea behind kanban is that your system relies on cards, each one a representation of a writer's idea moving through the three stages of the publishing process. Below is an example of a kanban board where each card on the board represents a blog post moving through the stages to publication.
Some people like to have a physical board in place to achieve this, but an online system can work just as well. Trello is built on this principle, other project management tools borrow from these ideas. Use whatever system you like, just make sure it is always visible to the team. UpdatesIn addition to maintaining an easily visible schedule, I've found that keeping the team updated regularly helps to stop the rot. Every Monday morning the team receives an email clarifying the schedule, and during a weekly huddle the key deadlines are covered. The update is just about short enough to avoid anyone crying, clocking in at around 30-seconds to be exact. It's not what you know, it's who knows whatHave you ever seen a publishing schedule run itself? Of course you haven't. Although it can be a labour intensive task, you're going to have to face facts; without an editorial team your blog is going to gather so much dust, even Kim and Aggie would have trouble cleaning it up. There are two key roles you'll need to recruit for. They are: Editor-in-chiefThis person essentially maintains editorial standards on the blog. They should decide what topics should be covered, who the audience is and who the writers are. The other key role this person will play is maintaining the schedule. Sometimes that means stepping in when a deadline has been missed. Sub-editor(s)The role of the sub-editor is to check the accuracy and style of each blog post. Their role is key during the 'draft' phase of the process. They are essentially the annoying people who send your blog post back with lots of 'improvements' marked on it. ConclusionThere you have it. A simple, practical process for keeping your blog schedule up to date and healthy. You can see how well it works by coming back to this blog (white.net/blog/) again and again and observing how impressively regular we all are! Further reading The Toyota Way – one of the best books to learn about the principles behind lean methods and JIT production A Content Strategy Template you can Build on – a great post explaining how to take your strategy a step further The post How to run a blog schedule appeared first on White.net. |
| Instagram ads: How this new commercial opportunity can inspire marketing efforts Posted: 10 Aug 2015 03:14 AM PDT After 5 years of its launch, Instagram, the photo and video sharing app owned by Facebook, has opened up its advertising opportunities to local and global businesses. By switching on its API, marketers and brands will for the first time be able to purchase ads without the need for contacting Instagram's sales representatives. While previously Instagram's advertising was limited to certain countries and required a serious budget of $50,000 minimum spend, this all is about to change. From now on ads will be easy to access as the release of the API will allow marketers to schedule campaigns through third-party tools as well as track their effectiveness from the data that is generated. Why has Instagram made a leap into ads?Instagram's ads are nothing new, they have been put to the test since 2013 by a very limited number of major brands such as Disney, Cadbury, Waitrose and The Gap. This extra time allowed the network to perfect its execution to please both brands and Instagram's users whilst turning itself into a shopping and marketing destination. As a repose to the growing demand to use Instagram more effectively, and to allow consumers asking ‘How do I buy this’ to take action, the app decided to take next step into the world of advertising. To keep the balance right, Instagram introduced a strict policy in order to manage the volume and frequency of its ads aimed at helping marketers create customised commercial content without disrupting the user experience too much. Why and how brands can use Instagram’s adsInstagram, which last year took overtook Twitter in number of monthly active users, has according to Forrester's analysis the highest engagement rate of 4.21%, delivering '58 times more engagement per follower than Facebook, and 120 times more engagement per follower than Twitter'.
You can just imagine how brands, who are struggling to generate engagement on Facebook and Twitter, can make content promotion more successful by merging Instagram's activities with its new paid advertising availability with: ● TARGETING: Amongst the first brands to sign up to Instagram's new advertising API is online retailer Net-a-Porter. The brand is using this advertising feature to target ads in real time to a very specific audience across Europe within 24 hours of their events. Marketers will be able to target consumers based on age, gender, demographic and most importantly, their interests. ● INTERACTIVE FORMATS: Brands will be able to drive direct sales, app installs and engagement not just with photo ads but also with adverts including a carousel of several images or interactive video ad formats. ● DATA MANAGEMENT: The spend and ad management tools will help marketers to monitor and evaluate their advertising efficiency. The commercial benefits of using Instagram ads can be very powerful especially for companies aiming to drive further brand awareness and engagement. Those who create branded content and are not short of visual collateral can use paid promotion to help their messages stand out while making them more playful resources. Anyone who is looking to reach a young demographic or Millennials could certainly give these ads serious thought too. Before you start investing in Instagram's adsAs ads will appear in user’s streams, it's important to make them feel as if they are part of a regular posting activity. More than ever before, keeping the balance right between organic and promoted updates will play a crucial role in helping brands avoid over spamming the audience with offer-based advertising. To take the full advantage of this new marketing opportunity you need to consider a few elements and focus on making your adverts: While the advertising news has been welcomed by us marketers, Instagram's creative community has been left slightly worried about the future of their feed. It's our responsibility to apply advertising solutions in the best possible way to 'fit' the vibe of Instagram's creative essence and reassure the audience that branded advertising is just a way of helping consumers and brands connect together through paid content which makes the discovery process a much faster and easier experience. What are your thoughts about Instagram ads? Is your business planning to use this advertising format? Let me know in the comments below how are you planing to use it and what are you hoping to achieve.
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