I have been blogging for the past 5 years. Wow, even I can’t believe it’s been that long! This blog started from my passion for social media and eventually it grew into my business. SocialNicole was first a twitter handle, then a blog. Finally, it became the name of my company. Over the years, the blog has improved as the business has grown. Once I engaged my employees to write for the blog, we went from weekly posts to posting 3 times per week. Our website traffic was incredible, but you know what? It wasn’t exciting for me and my own posts became a drag to write. The content was good, as it’s filled with useful tips and advice. However, it wasn’t great because it wasn’t backed by my excitement. This year, I decided to take drastic action. I needed to get back to loving my blog and creating great content that motivates me to write. And guess what? This change has made a huge difference. I can’t wait to write my posts and our overall social engagement is now through the roof. My blog went from good to great content and I am going to tell you how I did it.
Golden Rule #1 – Have a clearly identified target customer in mind
The big secret to digital marketing success is simple: Target just one person to talk to. You heard me, one person. In marketing we call this a persona. Now, you may have multiple audience segments and feel that it’s hard to narrow this down to one exact person. If this is the case, determine one person to focus on within each segment. If you have never done this before, I suggest you focus only on your biggest, most important segment and create a persona of someone in that segment. We recently went through this process during our social media strategy revamp and it has helped tremendously. It has brought a new, focused light to everything we post online. My motivation to write great content has skyrocketed and I love it!
Golden Rule #2 Create content that inspires
If you are going to connect with customers through blogging, you should be looking to inspire your audience. If they are spending precious time reading your content, it needs to be special and worthwhile. If you want people to go a step further and share your content, it also has to inspire people. You might be thinking How? The widgets I sell are kind of dull. How do I create content to inspire people when I’m talking about boring widgets? That’s the challenge! I have written about social media for so long that I am not always as excited as I once was. But you know what? When I reinvested myself in the process and spent quality time looking at my audience, I opened a new door. I created a customer persona and now I strive to inspire her. If you have a boring product, think about the following questions: What purpose does my product serve? Why did I start selling it? What issues does my target market face and how can I help solve these issues? Sometimes you have to think outside the box! For example, my friend and client Ray Devine washes windows. When I met him, I was challenged with helping him develop content for his Pristine Services social channels. We came up with a photo essay concept called #WindowLife, in which Ray shares beautiful, inspiring photos of windows. This is fun and easy to share content. His audience loves #WindowLife and this strategy keeps his business in their prevue. Based on this example, I challenge you to brainstorm a campaign that highlights your business and inspires your audience!
Golden Rule #3 Challenge your readers
Write for your business’s blog with the goal of challenging your readers to think differently about your industry or topic. This way, you will have fun writing the post and it will be more useful. Use language that connects with your audience and makes them feel at ease. Consider how you can bring them information that will be useful and inspiring to them. In this post, my challenge to my reader is to start creating better content. I am presenting my own issues and sharing action-orientated tips to help the reader make this change.
Golden Rule #4 Use a Calendar
Using a calendar seems so simple, but it can be difficult if you are not used to doing it. For our clients, we create editorial calendars where we map out events and activities for an entire year. We post writing assignments into a Google calendar that feeds into each client’s regular calendar. The final step is to make sure that posts are turned in by the deadline and scheduled on the blog accordingly. These steps have breathed new life into my blogging and my business. The difference I’ve seen with such small adjustments is amazing. Now that I have more time, I have more blog ideas and more enthusiasm to write. It’s crazy but it’s true. What does that mean for my business? Now, I am creating great content that I’m passionate about and my audience is excited too. This has boosted both comments and shares, which means more of the right people are seeing our blog posts. Looking to boost your passion and engage customers? Contact SocialNicole today for a consultation! Photo Credit
