Content Marketing Strategy: The Final Word on Quality Vs. Frequency

More than a month ago, I argued that quantity, or even better, the frequency, doesn’t determine quality. Since then, I’ve been struggling with this question.

As a brand editor, I make daily decisions about the quality and relevancy of an impressive array of texts, podcasts and videos by also considering the brand’s overall story, their prospects and customers, and channels the content is intended for.

Last month, I twisted Joe Pulizzi’s argument, “Everywhere I go, I find marketers who are challenged with creating more content. More blog posts, more eBooks, more videos, more podcasts … more, more, more. … I’m done with more.” I focused on the correlation between ‘more’ and ‘good’.

It didn’t end there. I’ve been bothered by this a lot. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. And then last week, I came to the same conclusion as Joe. Quality first, frequency second (depending on high quality content that is ready for publication).

It’s not like this is new, but many brand editors and content marketers are under pressure to post new content as many times per week as possible; research shows that even a modest increase in publishing increases leads.

But last week I made peace with myself; it was probably my d’oh moment: as editor you shouldn’t succumb to pressure to publish more. Your main concern should be the quality – not saying yes because there’s nothing else to post but you’re expected to post something.

I’m not saying I’ve been doing that; I just talked to many content marketers who are responsible for sourcing and even writing original content for their site and that’s exactly the pressure they’ve been feeling lately.

It’s like, damn if you do, damn if you don’t. I strongly believe that you should pay more attention to high quality and relevancy, taking all other factors into account. Great quality makes readers come back.

You may say, “D’oh, Nenad.” Well, it isn’t as obvious as you may think. Many are struggling with this. According to B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends Research Report, for example, producing enough content is the biggest challenge across B2B marketers.

Each one of you have to find what’s best for your case. It’s good to look around and see what worked and what didn’t for others. Just because Content Marketing Institute can publish seven quality posts a week (and they worked hard to get to this point), it doesn’t mean you should “copy” them. Every case is unique.

So, if a day or two or three or even more pass by without publishing new content, you shouldn’t panic, unless you promised too much. Rather post when you have something relevant to say. And say it well.

 

Guest Posting from A to Z: What to Look out for Before You Do It

I have two answers for them:

If done right, guest posting can bring so much traffic that it could freeze your web server and make you jump up and down like a kid in a candy store.

If done wrong, it can waste your time and may even lower your confidence in yourself. Next thing you know, you quit, and start looking for the next best thing.

The norm with guest posting works like this:

The profile of the average guest blogger is either a solo freelance writer, or someone hired by a company to write and submit content on their behalf.

Both ways, the approach is similar…

The writer lacks a system of researching for relevant sites. Most guest post authors are randomly selecting sites, looking to land guest posting opportunities for back-links – and because of that, they are caring less about the relevancy of the site.

The right way to guest post for back-links is to actually look up and research related posts and diversify your hyperlinks. Otherwise, Google will catch on to your method and will either penalize your rankings, or they might not even take into account the extra back-links.

This guy’s 6-month experiment proves how guest blogging for inbound links works better than generating direct (referral) traffic, and details the right way of doing it…

The result of the challenge was an increase of 100+ daily visitors from search just 10 days after the challenge, and a total increase of around 60,000 visitors from search just 6 months after the challenge. That works out to be around 2,000 visitors per guest post in 6 months from publication, when the highest I’ve ever gotten from any guest post on a big blog is 1,500 visitors; and these days, I get less than 10% of that from most big blogs.

 Bamidele Onibalusi

How to inspect the top sites, extensively, before writing for them…

It’s painful to have your guest post rejected, or bring little results from your efforts. That’s what happens when you lack a proper system of identifying the right sites.

In order to help YOU overcome these challenges and find relevant blogs to guest post on, I’ve created the largest online acronym you can read next.

Alexa Rank

Alexa ranking is a key factor (but not the most important, nor the only one) when determining if a top blog is worth guest posting for. Their proprietary system ranks sites on the number of visits and page view numbers. It doesn’t reflect the quality of the traffic though.

For example, Google, Facebook and YouTube are the top 3 ranked sites by Alexa.

A site with Alexa ranking of 100 is more popular (and better for you to post on) than one with a 5,000 rank. Major blogs (in most industries) have an Alexa ranking under 25,000.

CopyBlogger for example ranks at 3,580.

ProBlogger, 3,906.

FourHourWorkWeek, 6,831.

FreelanceFolder, 24,879.

Big audience

Major exposure is what all guest authors crave for.

All the large sites out there have their Facebook, Twitter, and RSS numbers show up, publicly. This gives you an estimate of the average audience. Check them out, and make notes.

Comments

What’s the average number of comments per post? This will give you an idea of how active the blog community is, and their particular needs, wants and issues.

Distinct voice

Is the blog you aim for an authority in the field? Does it offer unique views and talk on a specific topic or subject? Not all blogs are niche oriented. Some might blog on freelance writing, SEO or affiliate marketing. Others are more general, and write on all these topics combined.

If you want to stand out, find your niche, and guest post on general sites to attract a wider audience interested in your sub-niche topic.

Ever-green content

Some large and bigger sites are news centered. That means your content needs to cover current topics and seasoned events. If your objective is to create content that gets recurring, long-term traffic, then stick with sites accepting ever-green posts.

Focus on the audience

It’s not easy to understand your audience when it’s not yours. It takes time to read past blog posts and grasp the (recurring and unique) needs, wants and challenges of the people you aim to write for. You have to feel the readers you’re publishing for, otherwise all the other aspects I’ll cover next will not help much.

Guidelines

The guidelines page is the first thing you should be looking at after checking Alexa, comments and audience numbers. Read that page with close attention. Stick to their rules, and you’ll increase your chance to have your post approved and published.

Most bloggers don’t get their post accepted on large sites because they don’t read or overlook the guidelines.

Headline

Before writing your guest post, even before pitching your content ideas, you need to research past articles, and make note of the most appealing headlines. Why do they attract your attention? Which ones make you click? Which ones don’t? Copy-cat the winning model and form your headline writing style. The headline is the actual title for your guest post.

Interlinking

By reading the guidelines page you can see if the publisher allows links pointing to other pages or posts on your web site. This will help strengthening your overall page rank and Google rankings. If not, inspect previous guest posts and notice if the author has embed self-serving links. That’s a sign the site could accept your links, if they’re relevant, useful and complementary to your post.

Jargon

Pay close attention to how the audience of the blog you aim to write for is talking. Inspect past approved guest posts.

Is the language clean and common? Is the author using any industry specific lingo? Give thought to these little details, otherwise your content might not sound right, or it might not express the right meaning.

Example: if you want to write on blogging related topics, then you have to understand and master the specific terminology (e.g. WP dashboard, plugins, php code, widgets, etc.)

Keywords

Keyword research is the oxygen of your guest post. Target the right, relevant key terms and you stand a chance of getting more traffic from your guest posts. Inspect previous guest posts, and notice if the authors bold and italicize their keywords. That’s a sign of “on-page” optimization. It plays a significant role in search engine ranking, along with other factors like back-links, and co-occurrence.

Luv

You’ve probably already noticed some big sites managing their comments using a plugin called CommentLuv. This is an advantage for both the publisher and its readers, as more people will want to comment if they’re given the “keyword insertion” and “latest post featuring” benefits.

Metrics

Open Site Explorer is a useful tool I use to compare the number and quality of any blog’s backlinks and top pages. It helps analyze the web site you want to write for, and find their top popular content.

Other similar tools I like: Topsy and Tweetreach. They provide you with Twitter insights (referrals, tweets, re-tweets, etc.) into your posts as well as into other people’s content.

All these tools will help you identify the high “authority” sites worth guest posting to. This doesn’t mean you have to base your selection criteria on such metrics alone.

Numbers

Without a concrete strategy, guest posting would be another method of getting traffic that may or not work. Your mission is to estimate the average number of monthly sites you need to guest post for in order to reach your goals (Google rankings, traffic numbers, leads, sales, etc.)

Nobody knows this better than you. You know your numbers, if you reverse engineer your marketing and funnel system. Tracking conversions with Google Analytics or Clicky plays a key role here.

Objective

What’s your monthly quota?

You might need 10 back-links, if you solely guest post for search engine rankings. You might need 100 leads if you are into the mortgage industry. Or, you might need to drive 50 sales if you have your own product, (or add 20 members to your monthly recurring program.) Based on your needs, you’ll be able to define a clear objective, and then work your way up to achieving the numbers and conversions.

Once again, analytics tools are essential. You’ll know precisely which blog brings the most traffic compared with the best visitors that generate sales, leads or whatever. It also gives you the keywords people type in to find you on the search engines, and other insightful data. True gold nuggets!

Page Rank

I prefer to look up for blogs with a page rank of minimum 3. This doesn’t mean I’ll completely neglect the rest. However, when you’re starting to guest post for top sites, it’s good to aim for page rank 3+ sites, and at the same time, take into account all the other metrics and issues covered herein.

NOTE: a high PR blog doesn’t necessarily mean that the site receives high traffic, unless their Alexa ranking is low at the same time.

Quantcast

Quantcast is a comprehensive analytics service, giving you free access into other people’s site metrics including visitor, traffic stats, and demographics.

Armed with this info, you will know how to better write for a particular site and its audience. Never skip this site when writing for top blogs.

Relevancy

Look out for the relation between the audience (their wants, needs, and challenges) and your expertise. Your content should fill in the gap between the two.

Leo, co-founder of BufferApp knew what their Twitter tool was capable of, and how its features and advantages can benefit a wide range of audiences, not just Twitter users, or Twitter related blogs. No wonder his guest posting efforts brought the company 100k customers within a year.

Always look out for the “relevancy” factor when guest posting for big blogs. You’ll be able to find sites which are not related to your niche, but quite relevant to your ideas, products, services or tools.

With this approach, you can see correlations between sites that have nothing to do with each other altogether. Like, fitness and business, Yoga and blogging, or technology and dog training.

Skills

How skilled and knowledgeable is the audience you’ll be talking to?

Based on your previous research, you’ll be able to determine the average skills and knowledge level: beginner, intermediary or advanced. And you’ll be writing accordingly.

Example: if you wanted to write for MenWithPens, you will not share basic insights with an advanced audience, understand?

Time

By reading each blog’s (guest posting) guidelines page and noticing the average guest post length, you’ll be able to estimate the average time it’ll take you to research and write your guest post. Doing so, you can prepare in advance, and not get caught on stressful deadlines or juggle with multiple posts a day.

I prefer to write one post a day, maximum two, in order to produce quality, and meaty content.

Updates

How often is the blog publishing new content? Big blogs usually come up with at least one post a week, if not two. Some larger blogs publish daily. There are pro and cons to both models. You could also target those big blogs that haven’t posted in weeks (for various reasons) and propose some content ideas.

Visuals

Are the top blogs you aim writing for embedding infographics, illustrations, cartoons or videos within their content? You’ll have a higher chance to get your guest post accepted if you can produce or obtain the rights of such within your own content.

I’m not talking about the “standard” type of graphics such as photos and snapshots. Most, if not all major blogs are already using these elements to add the extra touch to their content. The visuals I referred to are the next element that most blogs are missing.

Wow

The best guest authors are individuals who are always on the look out for not just sharing information, but inspiring and arousing an audience through their content. Did you ever think to use comics and cartoons within your posts? The advantages are multiple: you’ll stand out, motivate readers and stir audiences.

What we can do is check out TheOatMeal and other similar sites for inspiration. Then work with an artist to create custom cartoons and comics that features your link. You’ll also benefit from additional traffic and brand exposure. Using “ready-made” cartoons or comics won’t have this advantage.

Xerox

Even the top blogs in the industry will sometimes cover the same subjects or copy what their competitors are writing about. You’ll stand a higher chance to have your guest post more than welcomed when coming up with new angles and unexpected ideas.

Find the “relevancy” factor!

For example you could inject (relevant) stories and anecdotes within your guest post, and add that personal flavor. Or, make (viable) connections with two unrelated topics.

Yin-Yang

Chinese philosophy teaches us the interconnection and interdependence of contrary forces like female and male, dark and light, cold and hot, etc.

Look out for the Yin-Yang elements on the blogs which you’re targeting. Read the latest guest posts.

Are there any elements left out? Are there any explanations not fully covered?

Did an author talk only on the pros of a subject? Did the blog not cover all of them?

You can take charge, and bring new elements or explanations through a new guest post. That’s your advantage, go for it!

Zone

What happens when you get out of your comfort zone?

You feel anxious, and probably insecure, right?

You don’t feel confident when having to write on a topic which you’re not that knowledgeable about, right?

You don’t feel at ease when having to think about how to connect two unrelated topics and create new meanings.

You don’t feel good when you have to take an extra step and enhance your content.

We’re used to staying within our comfort zone. The same with everybody else! That’s why they’ll not get different or remarkable results.

Want to succeed with guest posting? Get out of your comfort zone. There’s no other option. You have to up your thinking, writing and research skills all together.

This is the most important yet hardest advice to implement. Start with this one first, I’d say.

No more excuses! These ideas will help you to identify the right blogs and guest post for results.

“Lack of direction, not lack of time, is the problem. We all have twenty-four hour days.”

Zig Ziglar

 

Great Content Needs Awesome Design and Vice Versa

Yes, we all come back to sites that have great content that is relevant to us; it is either helpful, interesting, funny or “all of the above”.

We’re also visual beings. Once someone told me that we’re actually going back to where we started. For a long time in human history, we were visual beings; in the 19th Century texts, especially in newspapers, became dominant. Today, with the new media, with the easier way to take pics, record videos, draw infographics etc., the images are again becoming more and more significant.

We’re charmed by beautiful things. That’s why we are attracted to beautiful design.

That’s why I think the quote: “People don’t come to your website to look at your logo or navigation, they are there for your content,” is partially right. Yes, content matters. A lot. Without valuable content, your site can be the most beautiful in the world, it still wouldn’t matter much. 

On the other hand, great content deserves and needs awesome design to highlight that great content.

Basically, content and design are like a happy, loving couple; you must not see them as separate entities, rather they complete each other.

Develop them together.

That’s why it’s so important that a designer and the editor/author are partners!

What is Zemanta Related Posts & Why You Need It On Your Site

We have been in the business of delivering semantically matched related posts for over five years now, and with a network of over 300,000 publishers, there is no denying that many find our tools useful and beneficial to their site. But first, why would anyone want to add related posts to their site? And more importantly, why should you choose us?

There are several reasons why it is beneficial to have related posts on your site. There is a reason why nearly every major publisher is using them. With the advent of content marketing and how important it has become in any digital marketing strategy, I would actually be impressed to find a blog that isn’t using it. After all, why wouldn’t a publisher do anything that they can to keep you reading?

Increased Engagement

One of the most frequently stated benefits of having related posts is the increased engagement and readership that you earn from having them on your site. This is important whether you are a publisher or a brand engaged in content marketing. Even a small boost engagement can go a long way.

Think of how much more likely a reader is to click through to one of your posts that he sees if every time he is on your site he reads two or three articles rather than just reading one and then bouncing. That site recognition goes a long way, especially if you are a beginner blogger battling major news sources, big brands, and tenured publishers.

Less Bounce, More Views

That brings me to two other frequently stated benefits of having related posts: a lower bounce rate and more pageviews.

If more engagement didn’t get your attention, then a boost in traffic most certainly will. I think it’s pretty safe to say that most, if not all, bloggers would love to have more traffic – the search term “how to increase traffic” is searched on Google over 60,000 times a month alone!

According to Search Engine Journal, “Many studies have shown that after a web visitor has finished reading your post, they are in action mode – they want to do something.” This makes sense.

Personally, I know that if I reach the end of a post while I am a visitor of another site and a related post catches my eye, I am very likely to click through. I can actually think of several occasions when I catch myself realizing that I just spent the last 20 minutes reading through posts on a site all because I kept on seeing related, interesting content. And if this happens, not only am I likely to trust the site and recognize it at a later date, but if I really liked the content, then I am likely to subscribe to it – either through social media, email, or RSS.

The Available Options

So now that I have convinced you that you need some kind of related posts on your site, you have two options: either manually insert and format your own related posts, or use an existing, established plugin.

Let’s explore the first option. Sure, it sounds enticing at first, you have full control, you don’t have to rely on a third party service, you have the freedom to make it however you want. While all of these things may be true, there is also a lot of work there. You have to comb through your posts and posts around the web, you have to add them using the proper formatting and CSS, you will need to find, and possibly edit, the featured images that you will use as the thumbnails, and then you need to make sure that it displays correctly in all browsers. Of course, this is all on top of all the research, writing, image searching, and any other work you might do for the blog post itself!

Luckily, we have a solution to all of this, and that comes in a fancy new plugin called Zemanta Related Posts.

Why You Need Zemanta Related Posts

We would like to think that Zemanta Related Posts is the best related posts plugin you’ll find and of course, we have many reasons for that.

More Traffic

I’m going to start with the one that everyone wants to hear, more traffic. And we don’t just do that by keeping users on your site. Nope, we also bring in traffic from other sites that are also using our plugin. This is quality traffic too, because of our semantic technology, all posts to and from your site are going to be related to what you are writing about – increasing the likelihood of the visitor engaging with your post and finding other related articles on your site.

In fact, many users of our plugin experience an internal traffic increase of up to 10%. Not only does this increase your reach and readership of people who otherwise may have never seen your blog, but it places you in a network of similar bloggers that will appreciate the exchange of traffic just as much as you do. Oh, and if you want to check to see how many visitors Zemanta brought you, you can check that directly through the plugin dashboard.

Real-Time Analytics

One thing that many related posts plugins are lacking are analytics. Most people would like to see how many users who make it to the end of your post actually click through to a related post. For that reason, we decided to include real-time analytics directly in the plugin dashboard. Check out a screenshot of our statistics for the past 30 days.

Mobile Optimization

With the rapid adoption and use of mobile browsing, it is more important now than ever to optimize your site for both desktop and mobile use. Thankfully, Zemanta Related Posts are customizable and fully optimized for mobile use, and as you can see above, we even offer you mobile analytics.

Complete Customization

Another benefit of using Zemanta Related Posts is the complete customization that we offer you through the plugin dashboard. It is on your site so we believe that you should have full control of how it looks on your site. That is why we offer seven different designs and, if you really have something special in mind, an option to customize the plain design via CSS.

 

Check out all six of our awesome designs:

Complete Editorial Control

Last, and certainly not least, is the full editorial control that you get with Zemanta Related Posts. One of the biggest complaints about related posts plugins is that you do not have any control over which posts are actually displayed. We think that it is very important that you, the owner of the site, should have complete control over what is shown on your site. So we made it simple to add or remove any of the related posts that we suggested to you using our semantic engine.

Simply click “Edit Related Posts” in the right corner of the related posts and drag and drop whatever you want. And if you would also like to restrict the posts that we recommend to a certain date range (for example, only posts from the last 3 months), you can do that from the plugin dashboard.

So, what do you think?

By now, I hope I have convinced you that not only are related posts a necessity on your site, but Zemanta Related Posts are the best option. We offer you the ability to get more traffic from our network of over 300,000 bloggers with analytics to prove it, we offer you mobile optimization and full customization, and most importantly we offer you full control to truly make Zemanta yours.

Effective Content Strategy Guided by The SAVE Framework

Harvard Business Review magazine published an article on the SAVE framework. It is a shift from the traditional 4 P’s marketing model. The authors claim that in today’s B2B world, the classic model (emphasizing product, place, price, and promotion) isn’t necessarily irrelevant, they just “need to be  reinterpreted to serve B2B marketers.”

Publishing and content marketing are a perfect example of this framework. According to the authors, “the SAVE framework is the centerpiece of a new solution-selling strategy.”

The SAVE framework fits like a glove to your publishing strategy. To attract your prospects/customers, to retain them, to make your content valuable and sharable, you should follow the SAVE framework. Many of you already do it, though not calling it as such.

Many others are still looking for the model that would work best for you, for the model that would help you draw a successful, effective and long-term content strategy. I believe that the SAVE framework can help you tremendously.

What is the SAVE framework? The emphasis from the 4 P’s model is shifted from “products to Solutions, place to Access, price to Value, and promotion to Education”.  In short, SAVE.

Here’s how the SAVE can guide your content strategy:

Instead of product, focus on Solution.
The SAVE framework says, “Define offerings by the needs they meet, not by their features, functions, or technological superiority”.

Therefore, your content strategy must be customer-centric. Ask yourself:

• Who are your prospects/customers?
• What are their main pain points?
• How can you help them live/work better?

Through helpful and relevant content help them learn the benefits of your products and services.

Instead of place, focus on Access.
The SAVE framework says, “Develop an integrated cross-channel presence that considers customers’ entire purchasing journey”.

I’ll twist this a bit and say this is about knowing where your prospects/customers hang out and what exactly they’re doing there. Your brand should be accessible there. This is basically a question of the content distribution.

Access is about the integration of all channels and tools available to you that are relevant to your prospects/customers. You should know what channels you’re present on (Facebook, blog, popup store, Twitter, Pinterest, printed magazine, email newsletter, etc.) and why. How is each channel used by your prospects/customers, at what point of their purchase journey they play a role and what that role is?

For example, what are you trying to accomplish by your presence on Facebook or with a blog, etc.? And what kind of content and engagement should you expect on each and every channel you use?

Instead of price, focus on Value.
The SAVE framework says, “Articulate the benefits relative to price, rather than stressing how price relates to production costs, profit margins, or competitor’s prices”.

Your prospects/customers need to sense that your content is valuable to them. According to Sharon Tanton, valuable content is:

• Helpful – It makes a difference, it answers a genuine question.
• Entertaining – Provokes a reaction. Smile, laugh, or think – people respond to it and want to share it.
• Authentic – Genuine and original. Written from the heart, it tells a story that people understand and respond to.
• Relevant–  It is rooted firmly in the client’s world, it makes perfect sense.
• Timely – it is sent out at the right time, it hits the audience when they are most receptive.

Instead of promotion, focus on Education.
The SAVE framework says, “Provide information relevant to customers’ specific needs at each point in the purchase cycle, rather than relying on advertising, PR…”

According to Marcus Sheridan, content marketing is about educating your prospects/customers, “We’re just teachers.”

Therefore, do just that. Answer your prospects/customers’ questions. As Marcus likes to say, if they ask, you answer. Ask everyone in your company who is in contact with your customers (in the calling center, the sales department, the lost & found department, etc.) to write down any questions your prospects/customers may have, no matter how insignificant they may be.

All in all, help them live/work better.

Content Marketing Strategy: You’re Asking Wrong Questions

Joe Pulizzi, Content Marketing Institute, argues that “more content is better” is a fallacy. He explains: “Everywhere I go, I find marketers who are challenged with creating more content. More blog posts, more eBooks, more videos, more podcasts … more, more, more. … I’m done with more.”

My first reaction was, “What?” According to HubSpot’s 2012 Marketing Benchmarks from 7,000+ Businesses research report:

• Companies that update their blog frequently generate 5 times the web traffic of companies that don’t blog. Small businesses tend to see the biggest gains when they increase the frequency of posts.
• Even a modest increase in blogging increases inbound leads. By increasing blog frequency from 3-5 posts/month to 6-8 posts/month, companies experience a 55% increase in lead generation. B2B companies that post only once or twice a month generate 70% more leads than companies that don’t blog at all.
• As companies increase their total blog posts from 11-20 to 21-50, web traffic typically grows by 45%. And companies with more than 200 articles generate five times the leads of companies with ten or fewer total blog posts.

But what about quality? Yes, the right question. Joe surprised me at first. I thought, “Why does he suddenly equate frequency with quality?” “More content is better” doesn’t necessarily mean “more content of whatever quality is better”. Moreover, more doesn’t necessarily equal bad quality.

Joe continues with a discussion of “epic” content. However, he doesn’t really explain what epic content means, save that is better than what others do. That’s not necessarily a good benchmark either, is it?

That’s why I really liked a post by Sharon Tanton (it was the most popular Zemanta post in January) What Is Valuable Content:

•     helpful
•     entertaining
•     authentic
•     relevant
•     timely

The most important part of her post is: “The key to producing valuable content is a deep understanding of your client and customer base.”

Once I asked Michael Hoefflich, Forum Corporate Publishing, what custom magazine is a good magazine. He simply said, “The one that readers love to read.” That’s it.

So, when you are developing your content marketing strategy, instead of obsessing about frequency and the size, look for answers to the following questions first:

1. Who is going to produce content?

• How much can you leverage talents, skills and knowledge of your employees?
• Do you have any employees or is it just you?
• Is/are they working on other things?
• How much time can they allocate to producing “epic” content?
• What is each of them best at (writing, brainstorming, videotaping, talking, etc.)?
• Can you regularly produce valuable content alone or do you need external help?

2. How much money can you invest and what can you get for it?

3. How much content does your average prospect/buyer expect/need?

• How much great content can they absorb in a week/month?
• Is your average follower a web junkie?

4. And of course what kind of content do they want/need/expect?

The answers to the above questions are paramount, not how many times, how many channels or what is the best size for the post! Not that these don’t matter, they just depend on the answers to the questions above.

 

Related articles

• No Doubt: Blogging Is Good for Business
• A Letter by a Selfish Consumer: Why I Prefer Company Blogs (Vs. Websites)
• The Difference Between Content Marketing and Blogging
• 4 Common Misunderstandings About Content Marketing
• 50 Most Memorable Blogging Tips from Zemanta in 2012

How to Blog: Keep It Brief

How much of an article do you read? Do you read it all or just scan the title and bold items?

A friend of mine scans the Internet looking for news stories, but he only reads the titles. Yes, that’s all he reads.

For example, he’ll ask, “Have you heard about the recent state of the economy?”

I say, “No, I haven’t.”

He says, “Yeah, they’re saying that spending and tax cuts are to blame for the federal debt.”

I ask, “Really, how are they going to fix it?”

He says, “I don’t know, I just read the headline.”

Here are 5 ways how to write to attract readers who prefer shorter posts:

Micro information
Titles are micro information at its best, and it’s how most of us use the Internet today. Only the most eye-catching information gets by our filters. We are filtering information that we don’t see as important. It’s just too much information to process. We don’t have the time to read everything.

So, how do we make this work for us, bloggers? By cutting down our posts.

Edit out some sentences that seem to run on or don’t seem important to the post. Shave some conversation if it seems to ramble a bit.

Short paragraphs
Keeping information brief allows you to get to the point sooner. Keep your paragraphs down to a few sentences, and try to keep them short. This allows the reader to scan through the paragraph, but still get the “gist”. You want to keep their attention, not bore them to death. Although, if your copywriting skills are really good, you may be able to extend them a bit.

Bullet points
Do you know why list posts are so popular? Because when you have good bullet points, it allows the reader to scan to the points that are most important to them. We can’t stop a reader from scanning our posts. So, let’s make it easier for them. Readers are less likely to only scan your post if it’s short and valuable.

Shorter sentences
Use a conversational style of writing. If sentences seem to be long, try to find a way to say the same thing with fewer words. Don’t be afraid to be a bit relaxed with grammar to make things shorter. Each sentence should make a point and move on. Examine where you put commas – can you make it 2 short sentences?

Microblogging
Microblogging has become popular because it is a way of exchanging small elements of content. These posts are also called microposts, which can contain sentences, images, or video links. These small elements of content can be crafted to entice readers to want to know more, which can drive social media traffic to your site. Once there, the reader can then learn more about the topic.

An example would be a tweet. You are limited to 140 characters to say something, link something, and make it epic.

     

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5 Most Popular Zemanta Posts from January You Should Read Too

1. What is Valuable Content? The Key to Producing Valuable Content That Sticks.

The most popular post of the month discusses what exactly valuable content is. Sharon Tanton, Valuable Content, argues that “the key to producing valuable content is a deep understanding of your client and customer base”, and she gives a detailed explanation what this means.

2. How to Use Google Alerts for Content Marketing: Collect & Store Content Ideas

One of the most shared Zemanta posts on social media in January is an awesome step-by-step tutorial how to use Google Alerts for content marketing. Ann Smarty, Internet Marketing Ninjas, believes that Google Alerts “provides the most useful features you could hope for, and sets the hook for gathering data you can use to adapt your content”.

3.Blogger Outreach: Free eBook

Based on Zach Eberhart’s popular blog series, here’s a free eBook you can download now. It gives detailed tips on how to find, contact and develop relationships with other bloggers to improve your brand/blog. Highly recommended.

4. 8 Proven Sources for Your Blog Post Ideas, So You’re Never Out of Ideas

The title says it all. I give you 8 suggestions how to find ideas for your future posts. It seems that a lot of us find ourselves in a situation when we have no clue what to write about. We should avoid such as much as possible.

5. 10 European Content Marketing Blogs You Should Read

A list of great European content marketing blogs in English that you should follow to further broaden your horizons no matter where you are.

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Multi-channel Content: Why You Need to Rise Quickly to the Challenge

The rapid pace of change within the consumer technology sector has left many marketers struggling to keep pace. With so many different devices and channels available, making sure you are sending out consistent messaging across all your channels and effectively managing information and associated rich media assets, such as photos and videos, for all of your products is one of the biggest challenges facing marketers today.

Now more than ever, brands and retailers, you need to think like publishers and explore your workflows, publishing tools and business models to deliver your content consistently to the right media channels at the right time… and for most these aren’t necessarily skills that come naturally.

Managing customer facing content has evolved into an extremely complex process, driven in no small part by the fact that consumer expectations have risen exponentially. We now all want to be able to see the same content and have the same level of experience and engagement whether we are viewing a website or webshop on a laptop, a tablet or a smart phone.

To be able to cope with this, retailers and brands need to have a fully integrated approach to their content marketing, which covers all the channels they operate in, and ensures their story is told not only in an interactive way, but also a consistent way.  Once an overall content strategy has been created – which will be very much determined by your business objectives – only then can you focus on individual platforms and look at distributing your content across all channels.

A key part of this process involves putting in place a detailed editorial plan to ensure that customers are taken on an engaging journey and that the right content is distributed across on the right channels. And, as stated above, you need to remember that this content isn’t just words, but also pictures, video, info graphics, content to share, competitions and even coupons.

So what’s all the fuss about?

Effectively managing multi-channel content is crucial to your business on two distinct levels:

• Done correctly, it is one of the most effective forms of marketing: firstly, because it is pull rather than push marketing; secondly, because it drives engagement and word of mouth; and, thirdly, because it takes customers on a real and seamless journey of discovery through your brand.
• On top of this, it is hugely cost and time efficient as it means you simply create the content once and then distribute it across all relevant channels rather than constantly being forced to re-invent the wheel. For example, a video shoot can also involve photography that can be used across digital, mobile and print, driving return on investment and ensuring you get the most value from your marketing activities.

So, how can marketers effectively handle multi-channel content?

Before you do anything, decide on your business objectives first, what is it that you want your content to achieve? Only then can you drill down to focus on the individual channels.

Furthermore, you need to remember that relevancy is critical; if your content isn’t relevant for any particular channel it will just get lost, or worse ignored.

Once you’ve made it that far, it’s about systems and people; making sure that your team understands how to manage, create and distribute content and that they have the technologies in place to manage this. Ultimately, effectively managing your content flow is also about process management.

For most businesses, the content they produce is for their customers, and the harsh reality is that if these people aren’t getting the information they need from your online systems, they will simply go somewhere else. As the competition for people’s attention becomes more fiercely contested online and people demand more of their online experience, so getting your content in order is becoming increasingly important to your business.

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Blogger Outreach: Free Ebook

A blogger outreach campaign is the process of developing relationships with bloggers to offer them something of value to their audience to improve your brand. As I showed in the Everything Blogger Outreach series, blogger outreach campaigns can be organized into a set of steps and processes.

Due to your feedback and inquiries, we made our very first eBook! Introducing: Blogger Outreach Campaign: A Guide – Developing relationship with other bloggers to improve your brand.

You’re welcome to download it, read it here or print it. And be sure to share with your friends, followers, and friends of followers. We’re positive it will help you develop great relationships with your peers and any bloggers you wish to reach out to.

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• Everything Blogger Outreach: Concluding Your Blogger Outreach Campaign