The Social Expert Blog

Why Blogs Fail

So you have been writing a blog because you are passionate about what you have to say and you have built a loyal following and great connections on other social media platforms but you have not found that same success on your blog.

Some reasons why you may not be seeing the results you want:

1.  Your not creating content that is relevant to your audience.  As they say, content is always king.  Make sure you appeal to all your audiences in how you approach the content.

2.  Your blog is all about you and your company products and services.  Make sure you give the reader content that will help them that doesn’t necessarily have to do with your products or services.

3.  Your not posting content on a consistent or regular basis.  If you want to attract an audience you need to give them something to look forward to.  Our day seems to get away from us so plan a couple postings out and do an outline so that it only takes you a half hour to type your post.

4.  You haven’t included other bloggers or writers content as a way to prove your point or expand on the topics.  Now, we are not suggesting that you steal someone else’s content but what we are suggesting to collaborate with other writers when you can to get a different perspective and show that you are not one dimensional.  Another opportunity is to write for someone else’s blog.

5.  You are not asking for feedback. It is helpful when you ask for feedback or comments.  This helps in getting more exposure to your content and will be shared with others that come to your blog.

6.  Are you choosing the right topics?  Have you surveyed your audience to see if what you are saying is of interest? Sometimes it makes sense to change it up.

7.  Are you tagging your content appropriately?  It is critical if you want your posts to be found.  It makes a huge difference when you use all the words that someone might use to find the content you deliver on.

8.  Last but not least, are you being real and yourself?  The reader can tell if you are not being yourself and it shows in the way your write.

These are just a few things to think about if you are not having the success you had hoped with your blog.  Let me know if these help in getting your blog back on track.

Innovative Campaigns on Social Media

So you have created email marketing campaigns and print campaigns over the years.  Are they still giving you the results you expect or have gotten prior to 5 years ago?  Up until now we have blogged only about how to leverage social media and about foundational information around  social media. Now I think it is time to kick it up a notch. Just like web sites overtime social media is allowing for more and more capabilities and something we should be taking advantage of.

There are some great campaigns going on with the large well known brands and they are using the same tools that the small and medium size businesses can use. Facebook and YouTube can really be leveraged in creating a campaign and drawing attention to your brand.

YouTube is a great tool as we are all aware of from all the great opportunities it has provided for talented people.  It has also been a great way for any size business to get a message out there, at an affordable cost, depending on how professional they want the video to be. YouTube has also been leveraged to broadcast presentations.   But has anyone really thought about using YouTube to create your own campaign or commercial?  Using all the other mediums to drive the audience to those campaigns then once capturing their attention allowing them to take an action.  As we know YouTube can be embedded into a Facebook page, a PowerPoint slide, a website and/or Blog.

With Facebook we now have applications that make it easy to create pages.  These pages are iFrames that can be created to look like a website on Facebook.  But what is even better is these can be branded pages like something you might see in a magazine or brochure.  This branded page can also incorporate links so that you can click on a link to take the user to a page to again take an action.  That could be, to get something, like a free e-book, a coupon, take a survey, and/or get a discount towards a purchase in the future. Another opportunity is to send them to your website where they will learn more about the products and/or services,  sign up for more information or fill out a form to have someone contact them.

Using social media to create campaigns is really getting the greatest value helping gain new audiences or get your current audience to get engaged again. Print magazines and papers were the only way to go for so long but brands like Ford, Johnson & Johnson, Coke and others are finding that leveraging the environments where their audience is now makes sense.  Not just banner ads or Facebook or Google ads but well thought out branded pages and YouTube videos that grab the attention and get their name out there again.

If you are not sure how to get started talk to someone who can help you put a strategy together and determine what you want to do on what platforms and then hire the right people to create it.

You Have Likes & Followers, Now What?

1. Accepted a “Like” now what: A Facebook “Like” is the start of a new relationship and where you begin to grow that relationship.

2. Developing a plan: Just like with any other business, marketing or social media activity; you need to develop a plan. Social media is not a silver bullet for a broken business, nor is Facebook. Facebook will not magically help you become popular overnight. The best way to produce a positive return on your investment is to set realistic goals and objectives with a plan to get there. As the old saying goes, “plan your work and work your plan”, and avoid random acts of marketing (RAMs) and social media.

3. Developing an editorial calendar: If you’re a beginner to social media, keep it short and simple. What are you going to talk about and to whom? Again, avoid random acts of Facebook, if possible. At minimum create a calendar each week with key topic ideas. This will help you stay organized. Leverage a variety of different types of content to engage your audience. The editorial calendar and content should obviously support your plan inclusive of goals and objectives.

4. Knowing your audience: This is pretty straight forward. Know who you are targeting and why. The more you know and understand your community the better. Leverage Google analytics and on WordPress use the stats page if you already have a blog to see what content is most popular. Check out the Facebook Insights on your Facebook page regularly. Use that data to better understand how you can connect and engage your audience.

5. Focusing on value: What can you offer your community that is unique, relevant and will help them professionally and/or personally? Focus on being different but in a good way. What can you offer them that nobody else can offer them? How can you connect with them?

6. Respecting your “Liker’s”: Just because someone clicks the “Like” button, it doesn’t give you authority to spam them. It doesn’t mean they are in love with your brand or anything you have to say for that matter. If you are promoting 100% of the time and you send out self promoting information on their first visit, I recommend to my clients to “unlike” you and never return.

7. You have only one chance to make a first impression: Do not launch your Facebook page and announce to everyone unless you have done your due diligence through a planned strategy. It’s best to wait until you have a plan and a foundation for which to build your community. If you invite everyone you know and you have no plan ready to execute for engagement and community building then you have wasted that opportunity.

8. Engaging early and often: You need to engage your audience right away! Have readily available educational content, email opt-ins, videos, links to relevant content and sites etc. Don’t be shy in asking for engagement via appropriate invitations via polls, contests, video, graphics, and/or RSS feeds. Respond to people who comment daily if and when possible. (try to check daily, and if possible twice a day)

9. Branding yourself and your page: Be bold. Be different. Integrate your brand into the badge photo on the left hand side, into the FB pages and anywhere you can. If you don’t have graphic and design skills in-house then hire an agency to create a custom Facebook page for you. They are not expensive and you will see positive return in short order if executed by a team with experience.

10. Create a custom Facebook Welcome Page: With Facebook official pages you can select a Link on the left as a default landing link for people who have never been to your page and clicked “Like” before. You can maximize this if you include a video, information on who you are and what you can do for your audience or include an email opt-in.

11. Creating an experience: You want the visitor to be “wow’d, sure to come back and find information that is helpful.

12. One size isn’t a “one size fits all”: A “Like” is going to mean different things to different people. You probably have some “Followers” who truly like or love you. You’ll have some who are on the border line of decision and some who aren’t quite sure yet. They will be visiting at all different times of the day, in different moods and seeking different content and connection. Include a variety of different content and information. Do more than post links. Some people may need inspired. Others may be attracted to video, contests or polls. Most of your visitors will want to be educated so don’t forget to include real business info that educate and help people grow professionally and personally. By varying the types of content you post, you will increase your chances of engagement, trust and action by your audience.

13. Making it interesting: Bottom line, your audience wants to be educated, supported and find compatibility with you and your services. Give them something they will remember. Keep it relevant but make sure you share your personality in your posts.

14. Always be professional: Try to remember; although you may have a good connection with a majority of your audience don’t forget you are still conducting business. If you wouldn’t say it front of a client do not post it on your Facebook business page wall.

15. Do not put the page on auto pilot: The worst thing you could do is put the page on auto pilot filled with nothing more than RSS feeds, auto Twitter tweets and Networked blog posts. Keep involved with the tools you integrate and setup for auto posting to your page. It’s easy to get ahead of yourself and wind up with a page filled with nothing but auto posts that often times begin to look like the human factor is not present. Another thing to avoid is posting the same message to all platforms.  Each platform has a different audience and plus your audience maybe following you on more than one of those different platforms.  Multiple postings of the same message comes across as redundant and irritating.

16. Don’t be afraid to invite them into your community: Invite them to subscribe to the RSS feed for your blog. Do not hesitate to make it easy for them to join you on Twitter, LinkedIn and any other social networks where you actively engage for business. Give them a reason to join you on another platform. For example start a discussion on Facebook, continue it on LinkedIn question and answer section.

17. Facebook is certainly not the only social network: Do your research and determine what other social networks will provide a positive return on your time invested . Focus on one or two others such as Twitter and LinkedIn. Leverage the relationships you build on Facebook to grow them further or connect in different ways on other platforms. Every social network offers a different tone, and different ways that people engage. Some people are more comfortable commenting on a post on your blog or on LinkedIn, while others may prefer to use Tweeter and/or communicate via Facebook.

18. If at first you don’t succeed, try again, or maybe it is time to get help: If the going gets tough in the beginning, don’t give up. Many people struggle with gaining momentum with a new Facebook page. Communicate with your audience. Ask them what they want and need. Try new and different content, strategies and tactics to obtain their interest and engagement. If you are consistent, you’ll eventually figure it out. If you see early on, it’s simply not working then don’t hesitate to hire an outside social media expert, agency or consultant. Make sure you are hiring someone that can help you drive engagement and real action aligned with your business goals. Check out our free e-doc on “How to Hire Out Your Social Media Tasks to an Expert”.  If they can’t get their own audience to engage how are they going to help you?

19. Social Media Networks Terms and Conditions: Facebook, Twitter and other social networks have the right and have been known to delete accounts. Follow the policies.  Each one has their own set of policies.

20. Always Be real: Don’t pretend to be something that you aren’t.

Hiring Out Your Social Media Tasks

When determining an online strategy and understanding that a small business needs to include social media, most feel overwhelmed by what that means.

There are several primary obstacles that small business owners face in deciding how to move forward with social media:

• Which social media platforms
• Understanding how to use it to build business
• Time management issues
• What resources internally can be used if any
• Knowing which tasks are safe to delegate

Which Social Media Platform

When working with a consultant they will understand which platforms best work for your industry and audience.  They will work with you and your staff to determine the best strategy for using those platforms.

Understanding How to Use it to Build Business

The consultant will incorporate your business goals into your social media strategy.  This should align with what you are doing currently through other channels.  But inbound marketing and social media do take time in realizing real time results, but the stats you can draw from once the social media is in place and working is 100 times better than what you experience with other marketing channels.

Time Management Issues

As small business owners, you wear many hats and then to consider one more thing on your plate to have to manage and monitor is too much.  The consultant can work with you on how best to leverage an outside resource to help you still get your message out there with out feeling like you have to do it all.  A social media expert will have a content person, put a publishing calendar in place, put a topics and content approval processes in place while managing and monitoring your results online.

What Resources Internally Can be Used, if any

Your internal staff can be a great resource but who has time to make sure that happens in the appropriate way and that your staff are representing you in the best light and staying on message.  A consultant can work closely with your staff to create great content that will resonate well with your audience while making sure to keep your overall message on track. 

Knowing Which Tasks Are Safe to Delegate

Any task that is taking you away from doing what you do best and/or what you do to grow your business revenue is a social media task you should consider resourcing out.  Examples of some tasks are: setup of any of the current platforms out there, content topic calendars, managing and monitoring the different platforms, postings and/or reporting to just name a few.

Why is this important to consider

Partnering with the right social expert will help you grow your awareness and extend your brand.   Next, the consultant can train you and/or your staff down the road as you grow.  This consultant also can be your go to person because they will stay up on the latest trends, changes in the social media platforms and help you tweak your strategy over time to fit your business goals. 

To learn more about this check out our e-book on How to Hire Out Your Social Media Tasks to an Expert.